Red Feline Faces the Inquisition - Chapter One

	Out of the shadows, a figure resembling an angel, a bound, red-haired angel, is pushed into the torture chamber of the Inquisition. She wears a white shift, trimmed with lace, stained with sweat and soiled from the prison. Chains, dark with the grime of those who wore them before, cut into her slim wrists and ankles, connected to another chain that is threaded around her waist and under her crotch. "The priests are so busy.", the torturer thinks, standing by another woman who kneels on the floor."I've barely begun with this one, and here they bring me another witch!." He has his work cut out for him now, the nun at his feet has not proved to be quick to confess and the redheaded newcomer looks feisty, the day's tasks stretch out in front of him.

	Red Feline is roughly herded into the room by the guard behind her. He jerks upwards on the chains around her middle and pushes her forward. She struggles to keep her balance, the filthy, oily chains cut into her ankles, hindering her balance. She trips. The nun hears chains rattling behind her and the sound of bare feet brushing the hard, dirty, wooden floor. She kneels with her head down, between her hands. Her shorn head feels strange and comforting between her hands. She doesn't dare to look up, the world is better in the space between her arms.

	The angel in white teeters as she enters the room. She cannot keep her balance. The white figure tumbles to the floor at the feet of her torturer. He has a quick glimpse of her face, it is the face of an angel cast down from heaven, an angel that has lost the grace of God. "Witches look like angels, sometimes.", he thinks.

	Red Feline topples onto her side, unable to help herself, her hands and feet restricted. The full weight of her body falls on her left hip and shoulder, bruising them. She lets out a cry, a cry that reaches the nun's ears. Melissa the nun tries to make out a face in her mind's eye, a face that could match that cry. The face that comes to her is a familiar one, but it couldn't possibly be that woman.

	Red Feline cannot pay attention to anything except the pain in her body. Her ankles and wrists are pinched and chafed by the nasty chains. Her shoulder is crushed under the weight of her struggling body. Her hip throbs from the bruise her fall has caused. She is not aware of her surroundings yet, images of wood floor, posts, chains and rough walls blur in front of her eyes. She isn't aware of the other woman near her, or the brutish man standing nearby, watching her struggle.