"Previously on "Salem"..." "The terror outside drives refugees into Salem, where soon they all, including my dear father, will be with the burning candles that ignite my inauguration." "Serve him in the most minimal of ways, and he will allow you and my sister to live happily ever after." "Say the wrong thing and you will die." "Little Sibley is dedicated to growing and rebuilding Salem until it truly is Jerusalem!" "It is one thing to lay low." "It is something else to do the devil's work for him." "I am now as always serving God." "Do you ever think you knew a man, come to find out you didn't know what he was at all?" "What have you done to me?" "I think we're being followed." "I saved her from that ogress Mercy Lewis." "Now I can't shake her." "I still have friends in this town." "I told them one night I'd call for them." "If you want to save the life of your love, you must kill your son." "Mother!" "Please!" "Mother, you failed my final test." "Why did God ever place an immortal soul into such a fragile vessel?" "A mayfly in the face of eternity." "Release her." "Is this the mighty Angel of Death?" "When did you ever spare a life?" "This life is precious to me." "Has that tiny meat suit corrupted you?" "This human body is a pitiful sac of blood, piss, and water." "I fear in your case, mostly piss." "She is my mother... a love you know nothing of." "Do not be blinded by mother love." "Or mother lust." "You cannot let this go unpunished." "There are punishments far worse than death." "Trust me." "I did." "Once." "I persuaded a full legion of our brothers to follow you and throw God, that ungrateful tyrant, from His celestial throne." "Our fellow fallen still pay the price." "Can you not hear their cries echoing from hell?" "Rest assured." "Our brothers will be freed and our tyrant father will weep." "But I would have my mother beside me then." "Beside you?" "Or beneath you?" "Just what exactly do you plan to have her with?" "That boy's tiny member?" "Or will one of your wretched witches snatch a grown man's..." "These suits of meat are capable of the most exquisite pain." "Pleasure, too." "Try it." "They make delightful drinks that go far to relieve some of the pain of incarnation." "There is not one I would rather have fight beside me." "But an army may only have one leader... else, like a two-headed snake, it may strike itself with its own fangs." "Now, place my mother somewhere secure to await her reckoning." "Good." "You're awake." "I am no incubus that takes pleasure in the sleeping." "I would have your spirit sharp when I teach you just how foul and helpless your body is." "Not worth the pathetic strength that remains." "You are not my master." "I know." "If I were, you would no longer draw breath." "You surprise me, servant." "I expected some dark, damp, mildewing dungeon." "No need." "I built this place." "Not this house, but the world." "Helped forge its geometries." "And I retain all the keys to all the locks on all the doors... so I may make a dungeon in a grain of sand large enough to contain your soul." "You bastard!" "Take a hair of the witch that bit you..." "Add bear's breech, columbine, henbane, hyacinth, larkspur, mandrake, mugwort, and nettle." "Suspended in potent spirits." "Only one way to destroy a familiar." "From within." "Remember the list." "Write nothing down." "Bear's breech, columbine, henbane, hyacinth, larkspur, mandrake, mugwort, and nettle." "Again." "Bear's breech, columbine, henbane, hyacinth, larkspur, mandrake, mugwort, and nettle." "But even if I find the necessary herbs," "I must have strong drink to fire it in my belly." "What is happening to me?" "Your body dies inch by inch." "And as your tongue rots inside your mouth, you'll soon lose the power of speech." "So I advise you, waste no time in questions." "All fours now." "Like a dog." "Show me that vestige of a tongue before there isn't enough left of it to please me." "Thank God." "Thank God." "No." "You thank me." "See the ability to stop you is one of my gifts." "And you'll come to enjoy it, too." "It can be used to prolong things in a most delightful way." "What do you want?" "At first, I wanted revenge." "Revenge on your contempt for women, exceeded only by your desire to just use them." "But then I..." "I saw something in you." "Something that looked much like... me." "Unloved creatures... both, who have clawed out of the dark corners." "Self-made and on the make." "You see... the poison I gave you is quite permanent." "And the remedy is very, very temporary." "This pain... will return?" "Stop." "Stop it." "Stop." "But I will be here... nightly... with your portion of relief." "So, come." "Come." "Put that restored tongue to better use than talking." "Cotton?" "What are you doing out here?" "Tonight was... everything I dreamt our first time would be." "You were so tender... and so fierce." "Cotton..." "I feel like I already have our future growing inside me." "It's too soon to tell, but I hope..." "Faith, hope, and charity." "And the greatest of these is hope." "Who am I to correct the great Reverend Cotton Mather?" "But I believe the Bible says the greatest of these is charity." "Holding you, I believe that the Bible was wrong." "What in God's name?" "It ain't safe for you to be following me about." "Just be gone by the time I get back." "Is it the end of the world?" "No doubt the end of someone's world." "It had the ring of a cannon." "Or a thousand cannons shot at exactly the same time." "The explosion came from Deerfield." "I was just at the barricade." "A rider arrived like one of the four horsemen, covered in ash." "He said the sky above Deerfield was blood red." "Every settlement between there and here is being emptied out, and the people are coming here for refuge." "So I need to take my men..." "Leave us unarmed?" "There could be women and children there, too injured to leave." "What about our women and children?" "Mr. Hathorne, would you put the safety of strangers before our own?" "Of course not, Mr. Putnam." "While we argue, people are dying." "The militia would be better used clearing those already here." "If you think there aren't enough militia to defend this town, try using them to force out nearly a third of the population." "It'll be total chaos!" "People, please." "Please." "Let us not allow these irrational fears to incite us." "We shall save any decision until this evening when calmer heads may prevail." "Today or tonight... no matter." "I will demand a vote." "Clear the town of heretic and refugee scum." "Then seal Salem." "Protect ourselves." "I need to know what's out there to know what we face." "No." "I order you to remain here with your men." "Fine." "I'll leave the men behind." "I'll take one." "I'll take... him." "A man and a boy against the French army and those demonic natives?" "Fine." "Let it be your death, not ours." "I ain't afraid." "Come on." "Please, people, stay calm." "There will be a meeting tonight, and a decision will be made." "Keep calm." "We need to hear, our lordship." "Later." "Please." "Stay calm." "I know who killed that man in Knockers Hole." "Isaac... for God's sake, look around you." "Salem is turned upside down." "War rages outside in the woods." "We're overrun with strangers." "Who cares for one more dead wastrel in Knockers Hole?" "I can't do anything about the war out there." "But I can do this one thing." "I can prove that you can't just kill someone and get away with it." "I know who done it." "One bad man kills another..." "either way we win." "This ain't no bad man." "It ain't a man." "And she's killed before." "It's Mercy Lewis." "And she's running that new brothel." "You know this for certain?" "I seen her." "The mind, Isaac, plays tricks." "Especially a mind that has suffered as much as you have." "No, I ain't imagined it." "She killed that man." "I know it." "Just like she killed my Dollie." "...so that's what this is about." "Justice for Dollie." "No, I'm sorry, Isaac." "That is the sacrifice that we public servants must make." "To put public safety over and above our own private vendettas." "I know..." "I'm telling you here and now, if you can't let it go, you're off the Night Watch." "Understood?" "If looks could burn," "I do believe that house would be on fire." "My father always said stay away from the big houses." "The bigger the house, the smaller the hearts that live in it." "You ever been in the Sibley house?" "Smart man, your daddy." "Know what mine taught me?" "Never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut." "Let's go." "Very good." "Very good." "Let my red knock open this lock." "Let this blood key set me free." "Stop." "Let me out of here!" "Please, let me out of here!" "Mary?" "What have you done to her?" "!" "'Tis what she's doing to herself you should wonder at." "Forgive me, I... have revealed your true weakness." "I am astounded at the power this pale twig has over all of you." "Do you love her?" "I see you do." "Be careful." "Have you seen it for yourself?" "I was told not to open it." "And you always do as you are told?" "Rarely." "But when it is Him telling, I do my best." "Take a look." "Know what it is?" "I know what it can do." "Your alchemists call it Red Mercury." "We call it Angel's Tears, for the pain it causes us to make it and the remorse we felt when we had to use it." "When we were sent to slaughter the Canaanites, we wept." "When we delivered the plagues, we wept." "But beware." "For Samael, that boy, when he killed every firstborn of every mother in Egypt, his eyes were as dry as the desert." "Keep your feelings to yourself, and attend to your next delivery." "And... and Mary?" "The Mary you have known, you'll never see again." "Still awake in there, I hope." "All our true fun has yet to begin." "No." "No!" "...think my favorite is the one about how you faced down that wolf pack up in the White Mountains." "Wolf pack?" "There was only one." "He was weaker and hungrier than me." "No, I remember it well." "What the hell is that?" "The Ballad of Captain John Alden." "A ballad?" "About me?" "Sure." "In the northland you're a regular hero... like Pilgrim or Cromwell or Robin Hood." "If it smells like bullshit, it is bullshit." "And if it don't, it's bullshit wearing French perfume." "What about all the other stories?" "When you've tasted war, you'll know the difference between battles and ballads." "Slow down." "So not only aren't you half the man the ballads say, you're old and slow." "Hey." "Animals are better hunters and trackers than we are." "And you know why?" "Because they know how to stop." "You ever see a hawk hover still in the sky?" "Or a wolf pause to catch a scent?" "You are trampling more signs than you can see by thundering ahead like a blind bear." "We must find a way to help these poor refugees." "Why?" "They will all die anyway in your master's infernal plan." "We are not yet certain what will happen." "I still hope..." "Again, hope." "You are so filled with it." "They should have named you Hope instead of Anne." "Perhaps if we have a girl child, then we will." "Herbs!" "Fresh herbs!" "Cotton." "I have just spoken with the Baron Von Marburg." "He has made clear to me the policy he wishes... that we remain open to those desperate arrivals... and he and the Sibley fortune will back it." "But now, with this latest atrocity, the temperament among the people is running very high." "I fear they may demand swift and harsh measures." "There is even talk about gathering an armed mob to drive the refugees back into the forest." "Why, they wouldn't!" "I need you, at the inn tonight, to discuss the matter with the Selectmen." " At the inn?" " The inn?" "Absolutely not." "And why ever not, Madame?" "The best hope that we can offer these poor people is to stop them from being driven out of town to starve." "Pleading their case," "I would merely be doing exactly what you wanted." "Very well, husband." "I must say, Mather," "I could never allow a woman to control me like that." "You're gathering the Selectmen at Lamb's?" "I was hoping a few drinks might calm them, leave them more susceptible to your persuasion." "That should do the trick." "Bear's breech, columbine, henbane, hyacinth, larkspur, mandrake, mugwort, and nettle." "Please." "Quickly!" "Reverend Mather." "You're the only one who can help me." "You're the only one knows the truth about witches." "Let us have no talk of witches, Isaac." "But, sir, I am certain that Mercy..." "Listen and believe me when I tell you... stay away from witches." "At all costs." "I did not summon you, Hag, and you will not ride your own mistress." "Now begone!" "There is nothing to be done here." "But... we gotta bury them." "There's nothing to bury here." "But, we can't..." "Hide." "Et Voila." "On pourrait détruire tout un monde avec assez de cela." "Quel monde voulez-vous que nous détruire prochaine?" "Salem, bien sur." "Mais pas encore." "Yes." "You tart!" "Gimme that!" "Help, please!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "Stop!" "Isaac the Fornicator." "The Truth Teller." "Magistrate named it so." "Just like he named me Night Watch." "Heard you been asking questions about Mercy Lewis." "What if I have?" "If you like your tongue, never say that name again." "There ain't no Mercy Lewis." "Get it?" "Fornicator." "There was nothing left alive." "Not even a blade of grass." "Just dust and death." "Yes." "What a lovely thought." "The French only await my word to strike here next." "The French have done their job." "Filled our pot with frightened meat." "And when Salem is obliterated, they will take the blame." "This will be the spark that ignites a war that shall not cease for a hundred years." "All this just to start a war?" "Not just any war... total war." "Give a man enough blood-thirst, and he will kill God by the simple device of unbelief." "I can see something concerns you." "What shall become of Mary?" "Nothing." "And everything." "Her reckoning." "I should be present at this reckoning." "No." "Your sister will witness." "A reminder of the vital need to keep a very tight leash on her pet Puritan." "But I..." "I may not command your heart, but I will command your loyalty." "The good men of Salem debate their future." "You must help Mr. Hathorne squash any change." "Does Hathorne know what we do?" "Hathorne knows only one thing... which side of the bread his butter is on." "We are ill-prepared..." "What would you have me do, cast them out?" "Send women and children from the safety of our town to be torn apart in the woods by beasts, scalped by Indians, and slaughtered by the French?" "If our lives and our livelihoods, which in truth are the same thing, depend on it... then yes." "Salem's coffers empty while the town fills with this human flotsam and jetsam!" "Gentlemen!" "Gentlemen, please." "Please." "Let me remind you that the combined wealth of the Sibleys, the Marburgs, the Mathers, and the Hales all stand behind Salem as long as Salem does the right thing." "The right thing for who?" "What is it you really want, Marburg?" "I want what we all want." "For Salem to be what your founders intended it to be... the new Jerusalem." "Not the new Sodom, which as I recall, was destroyed by God for its treatment of strangers." "Is that not correct, Reverend Mather?" "Quite so." "Very easy for such as yourself, Baron, to be so generously minded." "But who will protect the rest of us?" "Who will protect our wives and our daughters..." "Good Mr. Putnam... do you not know... we are all strangers." "All of us." "Refugees fleeing a lost Eden and washed up on an alien shore." "You are quite right that the world is filled with the most terrible dangers." "So how is it that man has survived in this terrible world?" "Love." "God's love." "And God does not grant us love so that we may love Him alone." "No." "It's so that we may love each other!" "Empires vaster and... and greater than ours have fallen." "Fallen more times than I... emptied a glass tonight." "Fallen because God's love was withdrawn." "Do not, in your haste to make yourselves safe, commit the very act that will so offend God that He withdraws His love and unleashes a terrible wrath!" "In the light of such charitable and fluid wisdom," "I believe it is beneath the assembly to even call for a vote." "Are you quite all right?" "Simply... simply too long since I've indulged." "Forgive me." "I must, um, take refuge of my own between my sheets." "You." "What are you still doing here?" "I don't need charity!" "You saved my life." "Was that charity?" "I just wanted to stop anyone else from getting hurt." "I know." "You will." "Will I?" "You think anyone wants help from "Isaac the Fornicator?"" "For Fearless." "Well, Mother... are you ready for your reckoning?" "I will not beg for my life." "Not from you." "Go on." "Kill me." "Do me the favor." "So that I might never again see the atrocity I gave birth to." "Kill you?" "Never, Mother dearest." "Never." "We will take something more precious to you than your life." "Something you have entirely forgotten how to live without." "Something you came to think of as your own... nay... was... you." "But it was never yours." "Only lent to you by your betters." "I know what you are." "You're nothing." "Nothing but common thieves, liars, traitors, rapists, murderers." "But worse than that, you're cry babies." "Poor, proud, pitiful things." "I've seen you... and the best and worst men can be." "And I assure you... even the lowest of human has more heart, more soul than you two." "Take what you will." "I want nothing of you or yours." "Get your hands off me!" "I see you don't even remember who you were." "What you were... when I first came to you." "In the depth of your need, you called upon me, and I gave you power." "The power to survive this world of shit God gave you." "You cannot." "I gave you my soul." "We have a contract." "Had a contract." "I now declare that contract null and void." "Here, now, and forever." "Aaah!" "And now I take from you every power I gave." "I take from you the power of Earth." "And now I retract all power over air." "No, you little bastard." "Leave me my breath..." "Now give up your waters, woman." "Earth, air, water." "That leaves but one precious elemental power." "No." "That is mine." "That fire is mine, and it was there long before I..." "I have killed the elemental powers within you." "I have killed the witch in you and left nothing." "Nothing but a woman." "Weep, woman." "Weep." "The tears are all we have left you."