By Flame

by T Thorn Coyle

  “This is it. This is where we need to make our stand.”

  He wasn’t sure whether or not he had said those words out loud, but he felt the coven respond. They circled the encampment. It was filled with bright colors of the beings who lived there. He could see their auras. Forest green and rich yellow. Purple and orange. Plants and trees, humans and animals. But surrounding the camp was a noxious thread of rusty red and dirty green. Clear colors turned to mud with twisted intentions.

  Tobias wasn’t sure what those colors were, but just looking at them made him feel slightly sick. Fear and greed could twist the colors of the spirit, he knew. And every city had its own spirit. So did the police. The fire department. Every corporation. Even the city council.

  Every group of people formed a spirit together, what some called a “third body” or an “egregore.” And they could become just as twisted as an individual. Sometimes even more so, because groups didn’t have clarity of conscience.

  So, what was rusty red and dirty green? Tobias had a feeling they were going to find out soon, whether on the astral plane, or in the physical, he didn’t know.

  Brenda’s voice cut through the æthers again, joining the physical with the astral plane through sound. “It’s time to return. Feel your body tugging at your spirit. Come back home.”

  Tobias felt himself move rapidly downward. He felt the calling of flesh to spirit, he felt the ways in which they were not separate but one. He eased in through the crown of his head, slipping into his body until he was inhabited from head to toe.

  And then Moss spoke. “Brigid, we need to help our houseless brothers and sisters, our siblings who live on the streets, or in shelters, in doorways, under freeways, in tents, or on cardboard in the rain. We ask your blessing for this work. We ask you to guide us. Give us insight. Lend us strength. Let us bring healing and wholeness to our city that is in so much pain. Let us act as protectors for those in need. Brigid, show us how.”

  Yes.

  And then, just as they had done on her feast day a week before, they each stepped forward to gaze into the well and feel the flame. Tobias moved forward with Tempest and Alejandro, and they all bowed their heads toward the fire and water and knelt.

  Brigid appeared to him, luminous. It was as though a thousand candles lit her up from the inside. Her skin and eyes glowed with it. She was just as Aiden had described her. The green cloak around her shoulders flew backwards in the wind but the flame in her left hand only flickered and burned more brightly, never to be extinguished. In her other hand she held something very tiny, pinched between two fingers. He couldn’t tell what it was. He leaned forward, and smelled sulfur. It tickled the back of his tongue. It was as though he could taste fire.

  “Lady, I do not understand.”

  She held the object higher. He could see it now, just barely. A tiny stick with a red dot at the tip.

  Her voice resounded in his head. You shall become the match that kindles flame.

  26

  Aiden

  He had to see Tobias tonight. Aiden felt desperate with the need. That story about Brigid and her mantle…it was working in him. Working through him. He knew they needed to use it somehow. To make things right in this city again, but he had no idea how.

  His Catholicism had carried him all these years, even when he almost left it, feeling rejected, it had taken him back into its embrace. But this? This all was something new, and Aiden was no longer certain whether he was dealing with the Goddess, or the Saint.

  Does it matter?

  He wasn’t sure of that anymore, either.

  But the story was important, and Tobias would know what was needed. Or maybe the coven would be able to figure something out.

  That was another thing: he needed to tell Tobias about the fact that Brigid had been the one to come through for the coven in the end. It was her story that had convinced them, somehow, not anything he had said.

  In all his life, Aiden had never known his religion to work this way. It was freaking him out a little bit. It felt far away from what he was used to, from just going to mass and confession, and saying his prayers at night. It felt too close to what Tobias called magic.

  He hadn’t liked Tobias joking about that, the night he found out the man he’d slept with was a witch, but he was starting to suspect he was right. All Aiden knew was that his life was turning on its head. Stuff was happening to him that he couldn’t explain or understand.

  Damn it, he thought, I was happy just making soup and scrubbing pots.

  He stepped off the bus, navigating the bright streets of the shopping district on Division, skirting past people leaving bars and restaurants, and nodding at a few folks out in front of a café, smoking and talking in the light rainfall. Turning a corner, he entered the darker residential neighborhood, the streetlamps spaced far apart, their light diffused by the shadows of tree branches.

  His current tendency to let words just spout from his mouth, coming from nowhere…was just weird. And he wondered now if those Biblical prophets were that different from some of the street people. They came into the kitchen, and sometimes the words sounded like babble, but occasionally, one of them looked at a person, clear-eyed, and delivered a message that carried real weight, and the quality of truth.

  He knew more than one person who had a story like that, about the street person stopping their rant, staring right at them, and saying something that caused the hairs to stand up on the back of their neck.

  Aiden carried no illusions that he was a prophet, but maybe some of the folks people called crazy were. Who knew? He sure didn’t anymore. But maybe battle needed crazy.

  Pulling his three-iterations-old phone out of his jacket pocket, he tried calling Tobias again. Still no answer. Right. The coven was working tonight. It was probably rude to just show up on someone’s doorstep, probably against some dating code, too, but he didn’t care.

  Not tonight.

  Aiden had caught a bus from downtown to the Richmond district where Tobias and his housemates lived. He needed to tell Tobias what had happened at the meeting, how Brigid’s story had come through. He needed to share the holy fire with him.

  And now what was he doing? Approaching a dark house. Tobias wasn’t home yet. His housemates must be either out or in bed. Aiden could smell the mingled scents of pine and the woodsmoke from a fireplace somewhere in the neighborhood.

  His throat was a little tender. He hoped he wasn’t coming down with something. That was the last thing he needed. Fishing in his coat pocket, he dug out a packet of lozenges that had been there for months, and popped one in his mouth. Eucalyptus and honey.

  Then he sat down, shivering a little, on the front stoop of Tobias’s home and watched the steady fall of rain.

  It was late. There were barely even any cars coming and going on Tobias’s street. No people out walking dogs. Aiden started to second guess himself. Maybe he should have just gone home. At least he’d be warm now. He could be hanging out with Renee and Reggie, Brad, Stingray, Sister Jan, and Ghatso, their resident Buddhist. He could have told them about the stupid arguments on the Interfaith Council. They would be snorting and shaking their heads. Sister Jan would have made him a cup of tea.

  He could have talked to them about Brigid. And what had been happening inside of him. He hadn’t told them anything, stopping every time he felt the impulse to share.

  He knew his housemates—his community—were worried about him. But until tonight, all he could have told them was that he was angry, and that fury compelled him to act. Even if he didn’t know why he had to do things like pray in the middle of hailstorms, the anger had compelled him. And he knew saying that would only worry them more.

  And a saint appearing to him in the middle of it all? Funny, he’d been able to tell the witch, but not the Catholics.

  Tonight, though? Maybe he was ready to come clean. To tell them everything. About collapsing in the church. The saint. The visions. The holy fire.

  The air smelled of
rosemary and rain. Aiden breathed deeply, trying to clear his head.

  He certainly needed to tell them they had to get ready for battle. The stakes had changed, almost overnight. And a bunch of middle-class, middle-aged, petty-squabbling, interfaith people were going to need training in tactics that would make them effective and strong.

  The folks from De Porres House who knew how? They were going to need to train up a group of barely willing activists.

  This was going to be some undertaking. Aiden hoped that they had time. He wasn’t trained for battle himself. He knew Stingray and Brad were. And maybe Sister Jan. She’d certainly been arrested before, but that was years ago. He wasn’t even sure about the others. Well, they could all learn together, couldn’t they?

  “Hey. What are you doing here? I thought you were going to text if you were coming by. And you didn’t leave a message when you called. Sorry I couldn’t pick up, by the way.” Tobias was home, heading up the walkway between two bare Japanese maple trees.

  Aiden stood up on the porch steps, beneath the dripping eaves, and watched the man he was willing to fight for approach. Tobias’s hood was up, but Aiden could see his shadowed face. It was smiling.

  Right. He said he would text. He’d completely forgotten that.

  “I just…needed to see you.”

  Tobias climbed the steps, boots thunking on the old wood. Aiden reached for him. Felt the solidness of his body pressed up against him. Felt the damp of his face against his cheek.

  “Do you want to come in?” Tobias breathed into his neck.

  “Yes, please.”

  Then Aiden felt his lips, seeking out his own. They were cold, but soft.

  Tonight, he tasted like the rain.

  27

  Tobias

  “We’re going to need to train, is what Aiden said.”

  Tobias had taken a break from work and walked over to Brenda’s shop. Serendipitously, Lucy had also stopped by on her lunch break. They sat in Brenda’s back room, eating sandwiches and soup.

  Brenda had opened the curtains that divided the classroom and meeting space from the rest of the shop so she could keep an eye and ear out while they ate. It was Tempest’s day off, so she didn’t have the extra pair of hands.

  They sat on mismatched wooden chairs around a big wood drop-leaf table that was tucked against the wall on class nights. Brenda left it open during the day as an extra work table. Quilted banners representing the four elements hung on each wall. Air was pale blue and yellow; Fire, red and orange; Water, teal and royal blue; Earth, purple and rich brown. They brightened up the room, along with the bookcases running along one wall. The other wall held a mini kitchen, with a microwave and the all-important electric kettle for making tea.

  Tobias dipped a spoon into the minestrone soup he’d brought for himself and Brenda from the café next door. It wasn’t Raquel’s soup, but it was pretty good anyway.

  “Train how? In what?” Lucy asked. She wore paint-spattered overalls under an equally spattered sweatshirt, sleeves pushed up on her strong brown arms. Her house-painting business was in high demand, and while she had one team that did exteriors during the drier months, winter and spring she focused on her specialty: interiors. She was a master, and her rates reflected it.

  “Resistance. How to blockade properly. How to go limp if necessary. Basically, how to stand between cops and the people whose heads they want to bust in.”

  Lucy raised an eyebrow at that. “Being Latinx, I have enough trouble keeping cops away from my friends and family. You mean to tell me we’re going to head into the fray? The whole coven?”

  Tobias shrugged. All of this was brand new to him. He’d never been an activist. That was Moss’s territory. He was cool with it, of course, but as a healer, he had figured it was more important that he be there for people in the aftermath of battle, not in the middle of it.

  Brenda set down her half of the turkey sandwich she was splitting with Tobias. “It makes sense to me. Those tools Brigid gave us last night? How many of them were instruments of war? She wasn’t handing out hoes and shovels. How many of us got swords or hammers? Lucy, what did she give you again?”

  Lucy looked down at her own sandwich with a furrowed brow. Her shoulders slumped.

  Then she straightened up in her chair and raised her head again. “Fine. She gave me a damn spear.”

  Tobias felt like he wanted to apologize. As though he had brought them to this place. But that was just his old voices talking, the ones that wanted him to feel responsible for everything. The voices that told him he needed to control everything and was always failing at it.

  Maybe he would always feel that way, but last night’s vision had made it pretty clear that wasn’t actually reality. There were larger forces at work here, and there almost always were.

  The coven would be relieved to hear he was finally figuring this out. But without the prop of his usual habits, it almost felt as though he was starting from scratch.

  What was his place? Healing, sure, but Brigid insisted that wasn’t all. What did it mean that he had to be a match? He didn’t know yet.

  Lucy spoke again. “What’s the timetable?”

  Tobias set his spoon down. “Aiden was very insistent. He wants us to start training right away. Tonight, if possible. Something’s really pushing at him. It’s halfway scary, halfway cool. The man is really connected. Brigid is talking to him. I think we need to listen to what’s coming through.”

  Brenda looked thoughtful. “That makes sense to me. That travel we did last night? The weird, sickly looking boundary that was pressing in around the camp? It felt like an acute situation to me. As though things could explode at any moment. And the warning from the city council member coming when it did, along with the messages from Brigid? Things are about to catch fire.”

  Tobias shivered, as though a ghost had walked over his grave. He didn’t like her words, but he couldn’t deny that they felt true.

  But talk of fire when he was the one holding the match? That wasn’t resting easily inside him.

  “I’ll call the rest of the coven,” he said. “If we’re going to do this, we all have to be in. All the way in. I can feel it.”

  He also knew that he had a formula to make for the city. And he finally knew what herbs he was going to use.

  28

  Aiden

  It was actually happening. Too quickly. Too soon.

  They needed more time. A month, at least. Even a week would have been better than this. There was no way they were going to be ready for what was coming.

  “When is anyone ready for what life throws at them, man?” Barry asked. Aiden startled. He hadn’t realized he’d been speaking out loud.

  He’d invited Barry and some other folks from his encampment to the interfaith meeting. They needed to be included. Should have been involved all along. But tell middle-class folks that they need to actually work with the poor instead of just giving them clothing and food? Good luck.

  Raquel had gotten through to Arnie and he’d brought two other local members of the Wasco nation. They were conferring in a corner, sitting near an upright piano. Arnie was gesturing about something. Looked like the small group was cooking up a plan.

  They were gathered in the big church hall tonight. They needed space for Ghatso, Stingray, and Brad to do the training. Moss, from Tobias’s coven, had hooked in with those three as well. Apparently he was some sort of activist badass.

  The Interfaith Council had grumbled at yet another meeting, and Aiden wasn’t sure how many of them would actually show up.

  This was the real deal. Getting people to defend a camp? He didn’t even know if it was going to work. Maybe it would be like last time: a few of them would show up and the cops would prevail.

  The fire inside of him flared. Not this time. Not this time.

  He looked around the big hall. Stacks of chairs and long folding tables had been cleared to the walls. The space was ready for action. He saw Stingray talking with a c
ouple of pastors and with some of Tobias’s coven members. Raquel and Brenda, and a couple of people whose names he couldn’t remember.

  Stingray looked ready for action, too. Tobias just looked tasty.

  A group of Black Bloc activists showed up, in black hoodies, black bandanas over their noses and mouths. They were followed by another anarchist contingent in an assortment of winter coats and jeans, and the local socialist union, many of whom wore red scarves or kerchiefs around their necks.

  “Who the fuck invited these people?” said a scratchy voice behind him. That was a voice he’d always recognize.

  “I’m surprised at your language, Reverend Laney,” Jaqueline said. “I asked Aiden’s crew to invite them. We need more bodies to pull this off. I know you don’t like to get your hands dirty, but these people show up.”

  She arched one perfectly groomed eyebrow.

  “Show up and smash windows,” the reverend grumbled.

  “Show up and link arms with us,” said Stingray, walking toward them through the clumps of people gathering on the white Formica floor of the church hall. She must have heard the rev. He was not exactly a quiet man.

  “We about ready here?” Stingray asked Jaqueline. Jaqueline looked a little flustered. Huh. Was she hot for Stingray? Aiden had no idea Jaqueline was even a lesbian. Or he supposed she could be bisexual. Well, well, well. The working-class butch and the business femme. You just never knew about people sometimes.

  “Yes. We’re just waiting for the Buddhists…and here they are. I’ll make an announcement.”

  Jaqueline walked off, heels of her boots clicking on the floor. She stood in the center of the room and clapped her hands three times.

  “May I have your attention, please? Can we all get in close enough to listen. Will some of you bring chairs to the center for folks who need to sit? And make way for the wheelchairs, please.”