By Dark

by T Thorn Coyle

  “Stop it, you two.”

  The banter showed Alejandro just how worried they all were.

  “Take this.” Tobias held out a dropper filled with what looked like brown sludge. Alejandro opened his mouth obediently and let his coven mate squeeze the liquid onto his tongue. Yep. Sludge. Bitter sludge. He grimaced and swallowed.

  “May I?”

  “You don’t have to ask. Just do what you need to.”

  Tobias gently placed his hands on Alejandro’s temples. He felt a slight buzzing that felt like bees hovering over flowers on a warm summer’s day. The aching in his head slowly eased. His stomach settled the rest of the way down. His muscles still felt as if he’d been three rounds in a kickboxing match, though.

  “Tempest is better at this sort of healing than I am, and you should book her for a massage if she has time.”

  Brenda spoke. “Once we hear what Alejandro has to report back, I can cover for her in the store.”

  “Shekinah? I want to take your place at his back, so I can keep feeding him energy while he talks,” Tobias said. “Alejandro? Can you sit up by yourself while we make the switch?”

  “Fine.” Though how he was going to talk about all of this when he was barely able to grunt out single syllables, he wasn’t sure.

  Shekinah passed him to Tobias. His muscles screamed, trying hold him upright, and spit filled his mouth from the effort.

  “Trash?” Raquel hurried it under his chin and he spat. Once. Twice. Three times. Then he paused, waiting to see if his stomach was going to rebel again. No. “Better. Thank you.”

  By the time Raquel took the trash can away, Tobias was in place, his fingertips resting gently against Alejandro’s. Shekinah settled on the quilt next to him, one hand on his thigh.

  “Can you talk?” she asked him.

  “It’s hard. Maybe some tea?”

  “The kettle just boiled. What do you suggest?” Brenda asked Tobias.

  “There’s a packet in my bag. Steep two teaspoons of that for five minutes. Meanwhile, can you handle a few sips of water?”

  “Yes.”

  Everything seemed to be taking so long. Moving in slow motion. But he couldn’t make it go any faster. Water was brought. He took an experimental sip, then three more swallows.

  Finally, Alejandro took in a breath. Whatever Tobias was doing was starting to help.

  “I was being dragged again. And I saw that star. And the sneering, smiling face that Tish described.”

  “Past or future?” Raquel asked.

  “Still the past. I was still back with my ancestor…and something very bad was going on. Worse even than being dragged. Worse than the fact that they were going to kill me. It was the reason they were going to kill me…”

  Tears ran down his face again. He grabbed a tissue and pressed it to his mouth. How could he even speak these words out loud?

  “I was part of a…ritual. Oh Goddess.” Panic rose inside his chest and he began to pant.

  “Sshhh,” Tobias whispered near his ear. “Breathe slowly. Deep into your belly. We’ve got you. You’re not there anymore. You’re going to be fine.”

  Alejandro fought to breathe normally. Fought to stop the quiver in his diaphragm. Fought to relax enough that his muscles didn’t seize up again.

  “It was horrific,” he finally got out, throat tight, his whisper harsh with the effort of it all. “They were dancing. Leering. Circling around my tied-up body.”

  “You, or your ancestor?” Brenda crouched near him, face intent.

  “Me. That’s the thing…”

  “He is his ancestor.” Shekinah’s soft voice surprised him. “That’s what I meant, before he started shaking and moaning again and freaked us all out. He’s older than we know, because he is Alejandro Guillermo. And he is Alejandro Juan.”

  “Reincarnation,” Raquel said, speaking into the room the word that Alejandro had been refusing to hear, every time his ancestors tried to speak it. La reencarnación. A concept he didn’t believe in, but here he was…

  “And I was a sacrifice.”

  The floodgates opened and he was suddenly crying again. Sobbing like a child. Like an animal. Like a being with no thought.

  His heart had broken. He was broken. They had broken him. And everything was pain.

  30

  Shekinah

  If this kept up, Shekinah was going to need to get extensions on her current contracts. Luckily, the two projects she was currently working on were for clients she had good relationships with, and not the new start-up she had scheduled for next month.

  She was back in Raquel’s living room, which was currently empty of everyone except her and Alejandro. He was still too battered and out of it to go anyplace else. She sat with him on the big red couch, waiting for everyone to arrive for what was supposed to be an all hands on deck meeting. She had wanted to take him home and put him to bed, but he’d insisted that the situation was too critical to wait.

  When both Brenda and Raquel had agreed, she’d backed down, after insisting that at the very least, Tempest had the chance to work on him before the damn meeting. That had happened, at least, and Tobias had sent them off with more herbs, both in tincture and tea form. It all seemed to be helping. Alejandro was looking a little more himself, though his eyes were still slightly sunken and his usually neat hair and goatee were slightly mussed and his once-pressed blue shirt was decidedly wrinkled.

  She was still a little pissed off, though given Alejandro’s pain levels, was trying not to show it. This damn coven always let crisis take precedence over personal needs. At least, that’s the way it had started to look to her this past year. Alejandro was always running off to coven meetings, organizing meetings, and actions, or taking down domestic abusers, or any number of things. And it had all led to this. First his personal crisis or breakdown or midlife whatever. And now these visions that scared her half out of her mind.

  “You aren’t being fair, you know.” Alejandro’s voice was quiet, but she heard him anyway.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I can see your thoughts, whirring in your head. And I saw the looks you gave Brenda and Raquel back at the shop. This is all my choice. Not theirs.”

  “But they influence you,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down. Raquel was in the kitchen, getting Zion set up with his homework. They’d called in orders for gluten free pizza and salads that should be arriving soon.

  “We all influence each other. Just like you influence me and I influence you. It’s part of how we live, Shekinah.” He reached out and grabbed her fingertips, rocking her hand gently. Reminding her they were connected. “It’s part of why we’re poly, right? The world is interdependent. We’re just living that out loud.”

  She huffed. “You’re not going to get out of this with Poly 201 theory. I’m still mad at you. And at them.”

  He smiled. A weak smile, but a smile all the same. It was so good to see. “You mad because you’re worried about me doing something I believe in versus you mad because I’m fucking up again? I’ll take it.”

  She laughed. How could she not.

  “Oh, and speaking of Poly 201, Thomas will be here tonight. With Frater Louis from his Thelema Lodge. Is that okay?”

  Shekinah rolled her eyes. “After he helped me drag you to my car this morning? You think I’m worried about running into him here? Under normal circumstances, I’d say thanks for telling me, but we all of a sudden feel a little beyond that.”

  He shrugged.

  “But lover? Thanks for telling me anyway.”

  Then a knock came. Either folks were starting to arrive, or the pizza was here. As she walked to the door, Shekinah had to admit that Alejandro was right. And there was also the growing sense that this was part of the warrior path work that seemed to be showing up for her, again and again, lately.

  She didn’t have to like it; she just had to keep breathing.

  Tish was at the door and the pizza delivery person was coming up
the walkway.

  “Come in, come in!”

  After that, the living room quickly filled, and any privacy with her partner was gone.

  31

  Alejandro

  Every coven member who could make it, plus some of their allies, arrived in twos and threes, greeting him, getting plates and napkins for the pizza, saying hello to Zion, who perched on the arm of one of the living room chairs.

  Despite Alejandro’s bone-deep exhaustion, it was good to see the coven. His body felt like hell, but at least his mind was finally clearing. Whatever herbs Tobias had given him, along with the energy work from him and Tempest, had really helped. Arrow and Crescent coven was a good family to have. Which reminded him, he needed to do something nice for Catarina and the kiddos. Something more than his usual.

  It felt as if he was waking up from a long, strange dream, one in which he’d been wrapped in cotton wool, protected from the world. From his feelings. From stepping fully into the responsibilities he knew were his. Like setting up a fund for his sobrinos. Like doing more than giving his sister one night off a week. Like seeing Shekinah for who she truly was: not only his best friend and lover, but his full partner in life.

  He’d spent so much time making money, hustling for deals, thinking that was what it meant to be an adult. Working with Arrow and Crescent had set him on the road to changing all of that. Alejandro felt almost ready for whatever his life needed to become, but they had to get through this thing first. And figuring out he might just be his ancestor, Alejandro Juan? That was going to take work as well.

  Shekinah set a plate with a slice of pizza and some salad on his lap, and handed him a napkin with a light kiss, her blond hair brushing his face. “You need to eat.”

  “Thank you.” He smiled at her, and warmth pooled inside his belly. “I love you.”

  She smiled back, gave him another kiss, and went to fix her own plate.

  Tish sat across the room, looking haunted, barely attending to the buzz of activity around her. Tugging at the cuffs of her orange sweater, she seemed as if she might jump out of her skin at any moment. Raquel placed a hand on her shoulder and Tish jumped, before looking up to see who it was. Raquel bent to say something to her, and Tish relaxed. Just a little.

  Finally, everyone who was there was settled into dining room chairs, living room furniture, or cushions on the floor. Moss and his housemates, Tariq and Barbara Jean, sat next to Selene. Thomas sat on one of the dining room chairs next to Frater Louis, a small, neat Latino man, head of the Light Eternal Lodge. Alejandro had a lot of respect for him.

  Thomas had given Alejandro a quick kiss upon arrival. And as it turned out, that was just fine. Shekinah wasn’t being weird, and amazingly, neither was Thomas.

  Tears pricked at his eyes again. He felt damn lucky. A lot of people didn’t even have one close friend, let alone the network of support he sometimes took for granted.

  “Let’s get this started,” Raquel said, perched on one of the dining room chairs. “We’ve called on some of you to help out in the past, and Arrow and Crescent Coven has helped you out on your projects, too. This one is tricky…”

  She paused, and looked up at the corner of the room. Thinking. Everyone had stopped talking and munching on their pizza. Alejandro waited with the rest of the group, wondering what Raquel was going to say. He was in the thick of it, and had no clue where she was heading.

  Raquel tugged on one of the thick coils of her dreadlocks. “Brenda and I have been talking, and we seem to be dealing with a nexus of powerful magic that is drawing from both the past and the future. Alejandro and Tish are having similar visions, but one is historical and one feels like premonition. As we know, premonitions only convey one possible future. We want to act before her visions come true.”

  “This isn’t going to be our usual combination of magic and community action,” Brenda chimed in. “At least, we don’t think so.”

  “What are you thinking?” Frater Louis asked.

  “While we may need community action as a screen, this battle is mostly going to be fought on the magical front,” Raquel continued. “At least, that’s how it looks right now. But before we get into our theories, we wanted Alejandro and Tish to share their visions. If you both feel up to it. If not…”

  “I can talk,” Tish said. “It’s hard, but…I’m getting used to it now. The visions, I mean. The exercises you both gave me to do are really helping me deal with the visions and not freak out. So…” She exhaled.

  Alejandro took a bite of his pizza. He had no desire to eat, but his body was telling him it needed the calories to make up for all of the psychic work he’d been doing, and to repair his physical and ætheric bodies. Once he crunched through the crust, he was suddenly ravenous and practically inhaled the slice. Tobias promptly plopped a second slice onto his plate. He nodded in thanks and started in on the salad.

  “The visions may have started with a dream about my brother, but they’ve expanded,” Tish was in the middle of saying. “I’ve seen more murders, but more disturbing than that are what Raquel and Brenda think are rituals being done by the police. It’s starting to feel like we can help stop the murders by stopping the rituals.”

  Frater Louis set his plate on the coffee table and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, dark eyes intense. “This disturbs me. We’ve worked for a long time on the assumption that all divisions of law enforcement have egregores that can and should be worked against magically, but this is the first I’ve heard that they may be consciously formed. That police may be actually doing some form of magic. And the time aspect…will you talk more about that?”

  “Alejandro?” Brenda asked.

  He raised an eyebrow and held his plate out to Shekinah, who, understanding, took it from him and set it on the coffee table. He was grateful for that. Leaning and stretching still hurt, and took more effort than he currently had the energy for.

  “I’ve also been having visions. Visceral, very real visions of one of my ancestors being tied and dragged behind horses, and of sheriffs’ stars, gleaming in firelight.”

  “I’ve also had visions of law enforcement badges,” Tish interjected. “Along with the weird rituals. And…” She swallowed and put down her glass of water before pressing the heels of her hands beneath her eyes.

  “The shit about my brother, and the other…murders. They’re tied to the rituals somehow. And they feel like they’re in the future.”

  “Past and future,” Frater Louis mused. “And here we are, making up the present as we go. So, the question is, how do we stop this future from happening, right now?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Raquel replied.

  And Alejandro knew, somehow, the answer was rooted in his past. And in the magic gathered in Raquel’s living room that moment.

  32

  Shekinah

  Her head reeled, and she felt on the verge of panicking.

  Damn it, you’re supposed to be here to support Alejandro and Tish, not melting down!

  But she found she couldn’t help it. And even knowing what Tish and Alejandro were going to say ahead of time wasn’t helping. This group of people giving credence to the visions made them more…real, somehow. And she felt that reality thumping up against her ribs and causing bile to rise up the back of her throat. She felt like she might pass out or puke. All of her training seemed to have fled. If she couldn’t even get through a meeting like this, how the hell was she supposed to become a warrior, spiritual or otherwise?

  “You okay?” Alejandro’s hand touched her shoulder. His voice was pitched low, to not disturb the conversation.

  She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry but, I’m…I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  “Shekinah?” Brenda’s voice carried easily across the room, and Shekinah realized the others had all stopped talking and looked at her with various expressions of puzzlement or concern. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head again, then leapt up, slamming her shin
into the coffee table, rattling the dishes. She ran to the bathroom down the hall and fell to her knees in front of the toilet as dry heaves convulsed her body. It felt as if a snake gripped her intestines and was trying to exit her body, but nothing came up but bile.

  Spitting one last time, still kneeling in front of the white toilet in the white and blue bathroom, she began to repeat a phrase. It was another from the Rig Veda that she hadn’t thought about in a long time. “Only the person having firm conviction and iron volition can attain strength and energy. At no stage of Karma does he ever hesitate.”

  She hadn’t felt this frightened, or this weak, in years. Not since she first stepped inside the Shiva Center and almost ran back out again. She knew then that her life was about to change, in a big way. And that’s what this felt like, too. Her teacher must have known it. Must have seen that an initiation was already taking place inside her.

  “Give me conviction and iron volition,” she prayed. Shekinah never thought she’d reach a point in her life where she was praying on a bathroom floor. But here she was.

  “Shekinah?”

  She pushed herself up from the tiled floor and turned. Raquel stood by the door, face filled with compassion.

  “A bit much?”

  Shekinah turned on the cold water tap, splashed her face, and rinsed her mouth. Raquel held out a blue hand towel. Shekinah mopped at her face and then looked into the mirror. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she looked ghostly pale, washed out from her skin to the blond hair that hung like limp snakes around her head.

  “Mouthwash in the cabinet if you need some.”

  Shekinah took the small bottle down, tipped some in her mouth without touching her lips to the bottle, and swished the medicinal minty liquid around before spitting and rinsing again.

  “Thanks. Yeah, it’s all a bit much. But I’m ready to go back now.” She folded the towel and set it on the side of the sink. “Thank you.”