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dangled as if dead. His other hand, however, tightened even further, the nails of his fingers this time gouging their way into the flesh. Dean was blubbering and screaming, and Virgil’s eyes were pleading, but otherwise his body seemed not to be his own. And then the hand tightened further and in a single, violent jerk ripped histhroat out, spattering his brother with blood. Virgil swayed there a moment, blood pulsing through the ragged hole in his neck, and he then pitched forward, falling limply into his brother’s arms.
    Dean cried out his brother’s name again and hugged the body to him. They had now lost one of their number. How many more would they lose before the nightmare was complete?
    Mather was staring at Morgan with hatred. “By the power of the holy ghost and the blessed savior, your skull shall be drained of Satan’s black blood!” he said.
    “Bring me the helmet!” Hawthorne cried.
    But Mather was already ahead of him. He had the wooden box there beside him, ready for use. He opened the lid and removed a roughly forged greased iron helmet made to cover the whole face. It was scattered with holes, two under the eyes and several spread in an arc across the forehead. The surface was stained with what looked to the untrained eye like rust but that Hawthorne knew to be the lifeblood of past witches.
    When Morgan spoke, it was again with the Devil’s voice. Blood now was running down the sides of chair, pooling on the ground. She laughed. “Take joy in my momentary pain,” she said. “For the blood of my death shall be the ocean by which we sail and you, my dear Reverend Hawthorne… your lineage shall be the vessel by which the Master completes his journey!”
    “I shall have nothing to do with you,” hissed Hawthorne. “Nor shall my heirs.”
    Morgan smiled in a disjointed, hideous way. “No, Hawthorne,” she said. “We shall be Salem’s everlasting plague.”
    These last words she repeated and then repeated again, Salem’s everlasting plague, Salem’s everlasting plague , the words said over and over again to become first a chant and then a kind of drone. Hawthorne struggled with the helmet. A wind rushed through the room again and the witches were suddenly ungagged, their screamsjoining the whistling of the wind. With a snap he managed to open the helmet. It split along a hinge in the middle, separating into two halves.
    He stood and rushed to the chair, securing the back half of the helmet behind Morgan’s head. Despite Virgil’s death, despite Dean weeping and holding his brother and apparently unable to be of use, he felt at last hopeful. The end of the nightmare was in sight. He drew himself straight and fumbled to get the front half of the helmet into place. Morgan’s chant was a distraction.
    “Recite as you wish,” he said. “There is no escape from the true Word of God! There is no resurrection from the pits of Hell!”
    And then he had it right and had closed it over Morgan’s face. He slid the iron hasp into place to lock it closed.
    Behind him, all the witches shouted, as if one: “Satan’s everlasting plague!”
    “So be it that under our blessed God we are judge, jury, and executioner this night. Set the fires… Purify Salem from this curse!” shouted Hawthorne.
    But Dean still stayed bent over his brother, holding his body.
    “Dean!” shouted Hawthorne. “For God’s sake, the fires!”
    The bearlike man seemed to suddenly come to himself. He let his brother fall gently to the floor and lumbered toward one of the torch sconces. He grabbed a torch and trailed it along the trough. The tinder caught flame, a wall of fire quickly spreading down the trough. The witches began screaming, a veritable symphony of agony as the flesh of their legs burned and bubbled. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.
    The wind began to rise again. “The nails!” Hawthorne shouted.
    Mather stepped forward. In his hands he held five metal spikes and a wooden mallet. Hawthorne