bengeddes: When i heard the line about torturing the puppy, I immediately thought of the Beast. Barghests are dogs after all, even if in Witcher lore they are, strictly speaking, spirits in the form of dogs.

Maybe Abigail had a puppy, and the children's torture of it was part of the villager's general cruelty and malice which summoned the Beast. Maybe the Beast even used to be the puppy.

Alternatively, maybe the Beast (speaking through Alvin) was taunting, calling Geralt and Abigail "children" and itself a "puppy." The torture was the summoning ritual forcing it to be conjured up into a human body.

Either way, it implicates that Abigail played some role, unless it was some other witch.

shmerl: Yes, but in the end Abigail was the only one actually helping to fight the beast, and she helped with information about Alzur's demon before that. So even if her anger against villagers helped to trigger the appearance of the beast, she obviously didn't wish it to stay and was willing to help getting rid of it.

Also, it's not clear what exactly happened right before Geralt killed the beast. Did the demon kill villagers who were around because Geralt was going to deal with him? You find all of them dead when heading to Vizima gate. (Vesna's house wasn't affected though, you can find her grandma in there before leaving Outskirts, as well as all houses in the area close to the city and near the river).