The Spook's Bestiary - By Joseph Delaney Page 0,32

stoned her, and threw her body into the fire.

Kernolde

WITCH POWERS

Animism Magic

This type of magic is also practiced by the category of mages known as shamans, but its strongest adherents are the Romanian witches. They feed upon the animus, the life essence of a creature. This is not its soul; it is the vitality or energy that animates body and mind. They do not take blood but draw the animus forth directly by use of willpower and incantations, sometimes over many weeks or months. The body of the victim becomes gray and wrinkled and withers until the skin is like dry parchment over the brittle bones. Sometimes, in the later stages, the victim appears dead but still walks. He breathes and his heart beats feebly, but his eyes are unseeing and he cannot speak. At that stage, death is very close.

Very occasionally, when seven or more witches are gathered together, the victim drops dead within seconds. Again, the feeding is accompanied by exertion of the group willpower and incantations. Romanian witches never write down any of their spells; they are passed through the generations and learned by heart.

Blood Magic

This is the most basic of the types of magic practiced by witches. They may progress to the higher levels of bone magic or familiar magic, but all start at this stage and continue to use it from time to time throughout their lives.

Blood features in rituals, especially at the time of the four main witches’ sabbaths (February, April, August, and October). Drinking copious amounts, especially the blood of children, increases the potency of dark magic. It enhances both scrying and cursing, the latter being used to bring about the death of an enemy from a great distance.

Bone Magic

This type of magic is one level higher than blood magic. The bones of animals can be used, but human bones, especially thumb bones, are the most valued. The thumb bones of a seventh son of a seventh son are the greatest prize of all.13

Using bones in rituals can achieve a variety of things. One of the most notorious uses is to create a bone yard, a deadly place to trap the unwary. After drinking blood squeezed from the thumbs of a still-living victim, the witch invokes the dark, using incantations, then cuts away the thumb bones and buries them at the center of the yard.

When someone wanders into the boneyard, their own bones become very heavy and they are bound to the spot; slow starvation is the result. At the center of such a trap, the pressure exerted is so great that the victim’s bones are broken and crushed. To reach that point is rare, however; it is a fate usually suffered by an animal such as a hare or deer that is moving very fast. Once the flesh has rotted and fallen away, the witch comes to claim her harvest.

When approaching the lair of a bone witch, always move with extreme caution. The first warning when entering a boneyard is a feeling of lethargy, soon followed by a sense that your whole body is becoming heavier. But it is important not to panic. To turn around can alert the witches that a victim is trying to escape and causes the pressure to intensify. So start to move backward very slowly, taking deep breaths. Once clear, find another route to the witch’s lair, but beware of further traps.

Witches can also use bone magic to enslave graveside lingerers, ghosts bound to the scene of a crime or confused spirits wandering in limbo.14 Once a spirit is summoned, a witch enslaves it and can make it do her bidding, often using it to spy on or terrorize enemies.

Sometimes bones are ground down to a fine powder and mixed with blood before being sipped from a human skull. Not only does this provide an easy way to get bone into the witch’s body, it adds an element of blood magic as well, thus heightening the power of the ritual.

Curses

In conjunction with blood or bone magic, witches routinely use curses to kill their enemies from afar.15 The accurate use of words is vital, and sometimes the curse is actually written down and sent to the intended victim. In rare cases it is written on skin rather than parchment or paper.

A number of years ago, the three main Pendle clans, the Malkins, the Deanes, and the Mouldheels, came together and cursed me. The parchment they sent had spots of blood on it from victims who were probably murdered as