The Nun's Story

The demon's spawn

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This story is part of a web of horror tales that begin with The Novice’s Story and The Knight’s End, (Both Free To Read) and will continue until it reaches The Invitation.

This story branches off from continuing the story of the novice and her demon Master which paid subscribers can read in The Novice’s Initiation.

Be warned: many of my supernatural stories are intensely erotic, but in these stories it is blood, not other bodily fluids, that flows.

The Nun’s Story

Screams echoed from the convent. The nun ran, out of the gate and across the dark fields, until she could no longer hear the sounds of the sisters in torment. She stopped at the edge of the wood, bent double, gasping for breath.

She looked back towards the convent. It appeared serene in the weak moonlight; there was no outward sign of the evil within its walls. The village nestled alongside it. She thought for a moment of seeking sanctuary there, but no. Tales of demons would probably earn her the same fate as the girl they had burned at the stake.

Turning away, she fled into the woods. She would rather face the wild animals there. Her feet were bloodied from the stones in the field and thorns pricked at them as she staggered along a faint trail.

Deep between the trees, the trail turned and followed the bank of a small stream. She paused at its edge and drank before washing her feet. She wanted to wash the smell of him from her, wash him out of her, but the water was cold and the stream no more than a trickle, so she walked on.

Night had turned into day and back to night. It was dark in the forest with no moonlight to illuminate the path. Weary, she curled up beneath a fallen tree and slept fitfully. Two more days passed before she reached the far edge of the trees. Ragged yellow heathland spread out before her.

In the distance, smoke curled lazily from the chimney of a single cottage. She plodded toward the squat building. Its roof was a mess of thatch and branches. Closer, she could make out the figure of an old woman sitting on a bench outside the door.

The woman looked up as she approached, her face was lined with age, her grey hair straggly and unwashed.

The nun fell to her knees in front of her. “Please help me. I have fled from the convent in Ashcott. There is evil there.”

The woman stared at her with dark eyes. “You are a nun?”

The nun reached up and felt that her cowl had almost slipped from her head, her scapular and habit were torn and filthy and she was barefoot. “Yes,” she murmured.

“What is your name?”

“Sister Edith.”

“Come,” the woman stood up and disappeared through the door of the cottage.

Inside it was dark. A straw mattress lay in one corner, there was a rough-hewn table with two chairs next to it and a pot simmered above the fire in the hearth at the end of the room.

The woman ladled food from the pot into a bowl. “Sit and eat,” she pointed to one of the chairs. She poured some water into a wooden cup.

Sister Edith sat and greedily spooned the food into her mouth. It tasted of rabbit and herbs.

“I am Hawise,” the woman said.

“A noble name,” Sister Edith looked at her.

Hawise shrugged. “Now tell me what happened.”

“Demons,” Sister Edith looked down at the tabletop. A beetle zig-zagged its way across the dark wood.

“Continue, girl,” Hawise’s voice was hard. For a moment, Edith was back in the convent in front of the Mother Superior.

“One was half beast, half human, as if he had risen from the depths of hell and…” she looked down at the earthen floor, “I am ashamed to say, he took me.” Her eyes widened as she looked up at the old woman as if a thought had just appeared in her mind. “And, the priest. He tried to save me, but they killed him.”

“How many?” the old woman asked.

“Two. The other,” she paused. “The other looked like a woman, well, more of a girl. For a moment, I thought she was the novice who was burned at the stake for witchcraft. The one who lured the knight into the lewd act in the chapel. But it couldn’t be her, could it?” She looked up at Hawise and gasped. “Unless she has returned from hell to seek vengeance.”

“The demon flung the priest to the ground before the girl straddled him and took him into her. In that moment, she changed. She ripped at his robe and then his body with enormous strength.”

“So the priest’s male organ was stiff, hard?”

Edith nodded.

“I wonder why.” Hawise stared at Edith. A priest and a nun alone in a chapel well after midnight. The priest with his member hard.” She smiled.

“I did not see more. The demon he… on the altar.”

“I will hide you here.” Hawise took her hand in hers. “You have consorted with a demon. Those in the village will not consider whether it was willingly or not; they will burn you as a witch.”

Days became months as the summer became autumn and then winter. The old woman always seemed to know where to find food in the land around them. When the berries were eaten and the roots frozen in the ground, the rabbits and other creatures seemed to throw themselves into her snares. The warders engaged by whoever was lord of this land never appeared to chide her for taking them.

Occasionally, Edith would look out of the cottage and see Hawise talking to a passing traveller. They seemed to listen to her earnestly, and then she would return with a sack of beans, some rye bread or even a brace of pigeons.

When winter turned to spring, Edith’s belly began to swell.

“I am growing fat,” she said to Hawise.

“You are with child, girl. Your bleeding stopped months ago. Did you not know what that meant?”

“Yes, but how. Oh, Lord, save me. Is it his?” Edith looked around the cottage frantically. “I must be rid of it.” She grabbed at Hawise’s hand. “You have potions - magic. Help me.”

“Magic,” Hawise said. “Your holy sisters would have condemned me as a witch, bound me to a stake and let the fire eat away at my flesh if they had thought that.” Her dark eyes seemed to burn into Edith. “ And you would have prayed earnestly beside them for my salvation, but now you seek my help.”

“Yes, forgive me,” Edith said, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I will help you bear and tend to the child.”

“I cannot give birth to the devil’s spawn,” Edith wailed.

“You can and you will,” Hawise growled. “Otherwise, I will send you back to your village, where I am sure they will let you warm yourself above their fire.”

Edith looked at Hawise through the blur of tears. Somehow, she looked younger; her hair appeared darker.

More than a month passed before Edith lay on the straw mattress screaming in pain. Hawise, now back to her true self, her skin no longer wrinkled and her hair jet black, watched as the child ripped himself from her. She scooped him up and held him in her arms.

“Welcome, Lord Goran,” she whispered as Edith lay bleeding and dying at her feet.

The story now jumps forward several hundred years. Lord Goran is grown and his lust need feeding. See all the stories in this series

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