By Dark

by T Thorn Coyle

  “As long as you are in your integrity, and loving in this way strengthens you, anything is possible.”

  Her breath left her chest in a whoosh.

  “Really?”

  He pursed his lips, frowning slightly. “I probe my heart and find that it does not offend me, this kind of love you speak of.” He looked at her and smiled. Not a big smile, but a smile, nonetheless. She’d take it.

  “I have heard of such things, of course, as one does, but have never met anyone who practiced in this way.”

  Shekinah sat, stunned. Out of words, and suddenly exhausted. It had been a very, very long day.

  “So, we have addressed your troubles?”

  “Most of them.”

  “There are others?”

  She looked into her own heart and found that her other worries seemed to have faded, at least for the moment.

  “Not right now. No.”

  He waved a hand as if to say, Well, all right, then.

  She nodded and began to rise.

  “Shekinah?”

  She stopped, halfway between sitting and standing, and decided to stand the rest of the way.

  “You pray every day?”

  “Yes, Yogi.”

  “That is good. Be well. I shall see you next time.”

  She pressed her palms together and gave a slight bow to him, and to the portrait of Shiva behind his desk.

  “Thank you, teacher.”

  She left, head still filled with questions, but with a heart much lighter than when she had arrived.

  19

  Alejandro

  Alejandro loaded the dishwasher in Raquel’s kitchen, cleaning up with Zion as Raquel greeted the members of Arrow and Crescent coven who’d started trickling in.

  After the intensity of his visions, and the emotional aftermath, he’d just wanted to go home and curl up into a ball, but Raquel had convinced him to stay for dinner and the coven meeting. She’d insisted that not only did Tish need their help, but he did, too. So, the already scheduled meeting was going ahead, even if it had a different agenda than just last-minute pre-Samhain planning.

  He swore, the past year had messed up so many Sabbats, he might as well count them twelve for twelve. Only a few of the solar feast days had been celebrated unscathed by local politics or some magical crisis or another. Good thing Arrow and Crescent was well trained enough to roll with the punches.

  “I think that’s it,” Alejandro said, looking around the kitchen and the round table in the dining area as Zion put the last of the leftover eggplant lasagna into the big stainless fridge.

  “Yep. Think so,” Zion replied. He was thirteen now, and seemed equally proud of his raggedy Afro and his Captain America T-shirt. “Guess I’ll head to my room.”

  “See you, Zion.”

  Alejandro grabbed a sponge and wiped down the marble countertops. Alejandro appreciated a tidy kitchen, and Raquel did, too. She might a single parent with a full time job running her own café but that didn’t mean she let things slide at home. The opposite was true, in fact.

  But even she tells you to loosen up sometimes. And that the fact that you’re so anal has made this rough patch even harder.

  He had no in between, it seemed. Only total structure or feeling as if the world was falling apart. He sighed. Well, he was going to work on that, wasn’t he?

  Selene poked their head through the kitchen door, then entered. “We’re all here. Lucy and Tobias just arrived.” Dressed all in black as usual, their long black hair a sheet around their pale face, Selene looked concerned. “You okay? You kind of look like hell, which is unusual for you.”

  “Thanks for the compliment. I don’t know if I’m okay. But you’ll hear all about it in a minute. I don’t want to tell the story more than once.”

  “Fair enough. Raquel also sent me in to get fizzy water and a bottle of Pinot.”

  He raised his eyebrows at that. The coven used to never drink at meetings, never did more than share a libation at the end of ritual, in fact. But this past year had taken a toll on everyone. Once the tide turned, they were going to have to discuss it, Brenda had said, but for now, he guessed Raquel figured some folks at least were going to want a glass of wine.

  “I’ll get the glasses if you grab the wine,” he said.

  Soon enough, they were settled in the living room with the other coven members. Lucky number nine. Three times three. Alejandro went for the fizzy water. After the afternoon he’d had, the last thing he needed was alcohol.

  “What do we need to know?” Lucy asked. Always direct, and ready to go, Lucy helped sheep dog the meetings when they got too far off track. “I’ve got an early start in the morning and can’t stay past eleven.”

  Alejandro looked around the room, scanning the faces of the people who’d become like family to him over the years, even the newer members, like Cassiel, Moss, and Tobias, sitting together on the couch. A riot of red curls. Black hair in a fauxhawk. Brown hair and goatee. Shit. They looked young to him, too. Was that insulting, and part of his crisis, or just real? They were witches, just like him, and had skills he didn’t have. Everyone in the coven was trained in magical and psychic basics, but each of them had a specialty, too.

  Tempest, a healer, was looking kind of fragile. Her short, platinum-blond hair—previously dyed any variety of unnatural colors—only made her face look even paler than before. He had heard whispers that she struggled with chronic illness, but so far, she hadn’t come out to the whole coven…At any rate, no time to worry about that right now. Tempest and Lucy sat on chairs filched from the dining room. Lucy wore spattered painter’s pants, her dark brown hair caught back in a ponytail. Selene sat next to him, both of them on overstuffed cushions, cross-legged on the floor. Brenda and Raquel, their high priestesses and mentors, sat in the two chairs flanking the cold fireplace. Pretty soon, it would be cold enough outside to light the fire.

  He realized they were all waiting for him to start.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’m not sure where to begin, because there are at least three things to discuss tonight, so I’ll just dive in and hope you can figure it out.”

  “That’s what we’re here for,” Tobias quipped, running his fingers over his goatee.

  Alejandro ignored his coven brother. Now that it was time to talk, his stomach wasn’t too happy with the eggplant parmesan. Considering his career success was based mostly on his ability to explain things to people without making them feel ignorant, rather than his stellar IT skills, this nervousness was a new sensation. He didn’t like it. Okay. Just dive in.

  “Shekinah’s friend Tish started having visions, including one in which she saw her brother shot dead on a sidewalk.”

  “Damn,” Moss said. “That’s messed up.”

  “Then my ancestors started pinging me, and I figured, ’tis the season, right? So I got a new ofrenda console, got out the old photos…and things got worse. They’re also trying to show me something in these two woven rugs I have. They showed me symbols that I never noticed before. I brought pictures.”

  “You have to tell them, Alejandro,” Raquel said, gesturing with her glass of red wine. “The only way out is through.”

  Alejandro closed his eyes for a moment, sending a quick prayer to his ancestors for help. For guidance. His throat began to close again. He cleared it, sipped more fizzy water, and began.

  “Today I had a vision of one of my ancestors being dragged until dead by a bunch of white men, including a sheriff.”

  “Alejandro!” Selene grabbed his hand. He jerked away and shook his head. If he was going to get through this without breaking down, he couldn’t handle sympathy.

  “I heard horses. Felt myself being dragged. And then I saw firelight, reflected off a badge. A star.”

  “And Tish saw stars, too,” Raquel said. “Five- and six-pointed. And she said they weren’t the kind we wear.”

  “What the hell?” Lucy said. “What in Tonantzin’s name are we looking at here?”

&n
bsp; “That’s what we need to figure out.” Brenda finally spoke from her chair. Her eyes were closed and she fingered the enormous moonstone that always rested on her chest. “There are threads from the past. Threads from a possible future. Both are connected by the power of these stars.”

  “And by violence,” Raquel reminded her.

  “And by violence,” Brenda echoed. “And family. Lineage. Blood.”

  She opened her eyes and stared at Alejandro. He could tell she was in some liminal space, not really seeing him, or seeing around him. Neither here nor there. “You said there were weavings. Show them.”

  He pulled out his laptop, where he’d stored photos from his phone. Each member of the coven looked at one, and then the other. No one spoke. He could hear Zion, talking to someone on the phone in his room. A car driving by outside. Finally, the computer reached Brenda. She looked at it with those half-hooded eyes.

  “Attack and protection. Protection, and attack. We must be prepared for both, on every front. There are more innocent lives at stake, and a frightening power that once again stalks the land. It was seeded long ago, back as far as your ancestor’s arrival, Alejandro. And it works among us today.”

  Brenda took in a shuddering breath, blinked her blue eyes, and released the moonstone. She rolled her head and shrugged her shoulders, then shook out her hands.

  “That’s all my spirit allies gave me,” she said.

  “So what is this about? Who or what are we defending from or preparing to attack?” Tempest’s voice was quiet, but asked the question Alejandro didn’t really want the answer to.

  Lucy snorted. “Not to be rude, but isn’t it obvious?”

  She looked from Moss, to Alejandro, to Selene, to Raquel. All of the most marginalized people in the coven. Each of them nodded. Alejandro found himself nodding, too, the answer crowding at the back of his head.

  “It’s the cops,” Moss finally said. “Damn it.”

  Damn it, indeed. Alejandro was not ready for this one. He wasn’t even certain how to be.

  20

  Shekinah

  Alejandro fumbled his keys from the pocket of his slacks. It was funny to see him in a rumpled shirt, not starched and perfect. Funny, and a little heartbreaking, too. Shekinah knew what today had cost him.

  Opening the door, he let her pass. She went straight through to the big common space and dumped her purse on the long, golden-brown leather couch. Then she saw it, a brand new mid-twentieth-century piece, a console filled with photographs, marigolds in small, brightly painted vases, and some traditional Mexican art. The new console was gorgeous, like all of his pieces were, which gave her a minor pang. What would they do with their furniture if they ever ended up wanting to move in together? What sort of home would they settle on?

  “I like the new altar.”

  “The ancestors insisted,” he said, coming to stand next to her. “I’ve been neglecting them and they weren’t very happy about it.”

  She felt his fingers on hers, soft, tapping at her fingertips, asking the question. She opened her fingers and laced his hand into her own. The answer. For now, at least.

  “I know they’re not the only thing I’ve been neglecting. I’m so sorry, Shekinah. Sorry about everything.”

  She turned to look at him. Her partner. Her lover. Her friend. The witch who, the first time they met, looked at her with eyes that swore they saw her. Knew her.

  “Do you think you’re going to be okay?” And yet another question, beneath the spoken one: Are we going to be okay?

  He gave her a gentle kiss, then rested his forehead against hers. “I think so. I want to be now, so that’s something.”

  “You didn’t want to be okay?”

  “I think I liked flailing a little bit. I…got sick of having everything in my life together all the time, maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still fucked up, and can’t make any promises yet, but I’m ready to start trying again. Get back in the saddle.”

  As soon as the words left his mouth, his face changed, crumbling back in on itself.

  “Oh, Alejandro.” She folded him in her arms, breathing in the scent of his skin. “I’m so sorry about your uncle. This has to be hard. Want to sit and talk about it some more?”

  She felt him shake his head.

  “No,” he murmured. “Not tonight. What I want more than anything right now is to take you to my bed. I want to make love to you tonight, Shekinah, if that’s all right with you. And after that? I want to eat ice cream and ask how your meeting with your teacher went.”

  She released the breath she didn’t even know she’d been holding. Turning her head, she kissed his perfect brown ear.

  “I want that, too,” she whispered. Pulling away from him, she caught his hand again and led him to his perfect bedroom, where she hoped to make messy, sloppy love.

  21

  Alejandro

  The sun was out, but there was a definite chill to the air. Alejandro walked next to Brenda on the tree-lined streets around Hawthorne Boulevard. Tempest was watching the Inner Eye, Brenda’s shop, and it was slow enough that Brenda had agreed to a break and a walk. So here they were, both in light coats against the autumn chill, her boots and his shoes making a syncopated rhythm on the sidewalk. Slowing his long stride to match hers, he avoided fallen chestnuts that looked like a Tribble colony on the sidewalk.

  While half of him appreciated the maples that shaded from orange and yellow, to the deep red of the Japanese variety, he was also half lost in himself, barely paying attention to the blue car about to turn until Brenda laid a hand on his coat sleeve, stopping him from crossing the street.

  Being around his priestess was soothing, comforting to the confused boy inside of him. She’d asked about his practice and he was doing his best to answer as they walked. Walking was good, too. His body craved movement, he realized. Not working meant he wasn’t walking to client meetings downtown, and he hadn’t bothered with the gym in three months.

  At some point between the horrible visions in Raquel’s living room, the sweet, half-sad sex with Shekinah, and talking over ice cream afterward, Alejandro decided he needed to recommit. To his practice and to Shekinah, and he supposed he could add his body back in there, too. There were still other questions in the air, and he was probably going to need to see a therapist, or start dosing with CBD, but every person had to start somewhere, right?

  So before heading out to meet with Brenda, he had spent ten minutes on his meditation cushion, just breathing, letting the jumble of thoughts and emotions do their thing. Then he poured fresh cups of water for the ancestors on the ofrenda, and spent some time listening. They hadn’t wanted to talk, but he’d gotten a sense that they were happy with the new altar space, at least.

  “That’s a start,” Brenda was saying, flipping the collar of her gray coat up. “A good one, actually. Congratulations, Alejandro.”

  He chuffed out a small laugh. “Congratulations? Thanks, boss. But frankly? I feel ashamed. Ashamed that my life feels like a mess, that I’ve hurt Shekinah, and let the coven down.”

  Brenda stopped suddenly and whipped toward him. Startled, he felt his foot rock on top of a spiny chestnut and barely saved his ankle from turning.

  “Let the coven down? What in the world are you talking about?”

  He threw his hands in the air. “I’m a wreck, Brenda! A forty-five-year-old wreck! I’m supposed to be there for the rest of the coven. And I almost seriously messed things up last month.”

  She started walking again. He paused, then fell back into step.

  “You think you messed things up?”

  “Yes, with GranCo. I could’ve…”

  “Could’ve what, exactly? As soon as you found out what they were doing, you quit the project. And you helped the coven, despite your NDA.”

  He was silent, hands clenched, resisting the urge to kick the Goddess-damned Tribbles out of the way with his pointy shoes.

  “Right?” she prodded.

  He just walked, m
ind darting with half-thoughts, not able to see a clear path. Not able to make the connections he needed to make.

  “It doesn’t feel like enough,” he finally ground out. “And, things with Shekinah are a little bit better after yesterday, but that’s not good enough, either. I’m still lost, Brenda. And I hate feeling this way.”

  “No one likes feeling lost, Alejandro, especially not control freaks like us.”

  He stopped again, aghast. “You?”

  It was her turn to laugh, though her laughter had more humor in it than his had. “Why do you think I own my own business? And run my own coven? And how do you think I got the courage to get Carolyn away from her abusive bastard of a husband? Your problem is that you still think your so-called flaws aren’t also your strengths. It’s time you face those demons, Alejandro.”

  “I did my demon work…”

  “Before your second-degree initiation. I know. You think that’s where it stops? You think there isn’t round upon round of inner work we need to do? What exactly do you think you’re going through now?”

  “But I integrated those demons.”

  “You established a better relationship with them,” she corrected. “This round? You need to really ask them what they need, and start giving it to them. It’s time, Alejandro. Time for your demons to become the allies they really want to be.”

  “But…”

  “What got you through your childhood, Alejandro? What helped you deal with the bullies, and figure out maybe it was okay to be bisexual? What helps you give Catarina’s kids the stability they need?”

  “I don’t know! I just…did it. Do it. I just do things!”

  “That isn’t true, and you know it.”

  They had circled around the block and were back on the busy street again, walking past shops and restaurants, walking past people pushing strollers and holding cups of coffee. Life. The trees were life. The sidewalks were life. The people were life.