By Dark

by T Thorn Coyle

  Fellow programmer Olivia walked in, holding the curtain for her girlfriend, Grace, to roll through. Olivia nodded at Alejandro as they found a spot in the corner of the room near Lucy.

  A couple of heathens had shown up. Alejandro remembered them from the battle against the so-called Patriots at the waterfront park just after Beltane. One of them, a burly white guy with a big brown beard, gave him a small wave. The witches from the shop down in Salem were there, too. Shani and Lindy.

  Damn. The coven had been busy the past couple of days while Alejandro worked with Shekinah, Tish, Brenda, and Raquel, trying to get tonight’s ritual together.

  Maybe Tobias was right. This was as strong a cross section of community as they’d ever had.

  Then Shekinah walked through the curtain.

  “Thanks, Tobias.” He squeezed his coven brother’s shoulder and rose to greet her with a kiss.

  44

  Shekinah

  The room was packed. She hadn’t expected so many people to show up for whatever this weird ritual was going to end up being.

  And then her lover was heading across the room, face intent, walking across the big green rug, straight at her. He had worried her plenty the past couple of days, but there had been no time to dwell on it. They had work to do. Everything else would have to wait until they were through this.

  “Hey,” he said softly, brown eyes warm, his face still the beautiful one that had drawn her in. He slipped his hands into hers, interlacing their fingers, and then he kissed her. Gently. Their lips met in a promise that they were still in this together, and would be for as long as love remained.

  “Hey yourself,” she said when they pulled apart, hands still interlaced. “You doing okay? Ready?”

  “Not really, but both Brenda and Raquel insisted that I had to do this even if I wasn't ready.”

  They both laughed at that, though there was more affection than humor in the sound.

  She looked around the room then, scanning the faces both familiar and those she hadn’t yet met. One was missing.

  “Tish isn’t here yet?”

  The curtain rattled behind Shekinah and, as if she heard her name, Tish burst through.

  “Hey! I meant to get here earlier, but I was meeting with Jeremy Landis’s mother and it was hard to get away. The grief…I can’t even imagine having your child killed like that. When I told her what we were doing though, she gave me this.” Tish held out her hand. Resting in her palm was a gold cross. It looked like a lapel pin.

  “She said he used to wear this to church when he ushered. She wanted us to use it tonight, in whatever way we needed to. And when I told her about Yogi Basu leading chanting tonight, she said she’d contact her church phone tree and get a prayer rope going, too.”

  “Wow,” Shekinah said. “That’s fantastic.” She blinked her eyes against threatening tears—again. When in the world had she become such a crier?

  “This may be the most interfaith ritual we’ve ever done,” Alejandro chimed in. “Hey, babe, I’m gonna go say hi to Thomas. Okay?”

  Raising a hand to his face, she felt the soft prickle of his pointed beard against her skin. He was a dashing man, her love, despite the tired fear that still haunted his eyes. “Of course.”

  Tish shook her head. “I still don’t know how you guys do it, but I’m glad it works for you, you know? Maybe I’ll find someone one day.”

  “Once this is over, let’s work on it. Okay?”

  Brenda and Raquel came through the curtain then.

  “It’s almost showtime,” Raquel said. “Tish, you let me know if you need anything. Anything at all, at any time. You got me?”

  “I got you.”

  “Okay,” she said. “You, too, Shekinah. Brenda and Tobias will be monitoring Alejandro, and Tempest and I will be looking after both of you. We don’t want any casualties tonight.”

  Raquel moved past them then, heading toward Tobias.

  “Do either of you have any questions?” Brenda asked. She smelled of tuberose and rain. The scents felt comforting. Clean. Shekinah inhaled deeply, letting the perfume clear the cobwebs from her head.

  “I don’t think so,” Tish replied.

  Shekinah shook her head. If she started asking questions, she’d never stop. She had to trust the certainty she’d felt while chanting two nights before. She had to trust Yogi Basu, the coven, and everyone else.

  Besides, she wasn’t the one with the high stakes, was she? That would be people like Tish and her brother. Or the families she’d met in the park.

  All she could do was show up and do her best to help make things right.

  45

  Alejandro

  Cassiel cast the circle. Eyes half closed, part of the ragged circle of bodies staggered two deep, Alejandro could almost see the flickering of ætheric blue fire as it moved from quarter to quarter. Cassie, red hair an unbound flame down her back, spoke the holy words of conjuring. Earth and wind. Flame and sea. And all the powers above, below, beyond and in between. He let the cadence of the familiar cantrip wash over and through him, breathing deeply, slowly, becoming more and more present as priest. As witch.

  The air smelled slightly of ozone, and the mingled scents of Thomas and Shekinah. He sat in between old and new, past and future. He only hoped that he could actually do something in the present. It felt as if too much was riding on tonight’s ritual, but that, of course, was the very reason it needed to be done.

  Cassiel’s milk-pale wrists and hands carved through the air, her double-sided blade trailing the blue mist that now formed a dome around the room.

  “With will and love, from below to above, let the magic portals open.” She stood in the center of the room, arms crossed over her chest, and bowed.

  “So mote it be,” the witches in the room replied.

  And then it was his turn. He squeezed Shekinah and Thomas’s hands and stepped forward, beckoning to Tish, who stood on the other side of the room, flanked by Brenda and Raquel. They both moved to the center of the room. Alejandro looked around, vision still soft, calling on the vision of this world and the ætheric realms. He saw the glimmering of candlelight on Brenda and Selene’s moonstone pendants, and from the silver of Frater Louis’s unicursal hexagram that hung from a gold chain against the black of his shirt. Tobias and Tempest both wore silver pentacles, and Raquel wore a bright necklace of heavy blue glass beads.

  All of these symbols were arrayed against the forces they would fight tonight. He touched his own pentagram, which he rarely wore, but he’d spent some time last night charging it up and it had sat on his ofrenda all night. After that, he and Shekinah had made love, before he dropped into blessedly dreamless sleep.

  He breathed in all of it, drawing on the hope he felt in the strength of those assembled, and drawing on his own practice, and the prayers and practices of all the ancestors who had come before him.

  “Ancestors, we call to you! We stand here, as an army of magic and love, to lend our power to the work of justice.” His words rippled through the æthers, sending out the call.

  “Ancestors,” Tish called, “we honor you! Though we come from different backgrounds and traditions, we ask that those of you who wish to help us with this work of justice join us here tonight. We need you.”

  “Ancestors of spirit and of blood, we ask you to bring your power to this work that has been done for so many years. We are but one small strand in a mighty thread woven by those who have come before us. Let us be a bridge that leads toward justice, founded upon the law of love.” Alejandro’s vocal chords strained, trying to hold back the burst of energy that tried to take over his body.

  Stop fighting, hermano. Let me in. Let us become who we really are.

  “Love is the law, love under will!” Frater Louis and Thomas said.

  “My law is love unto all beings!” shouted Brenda.

  Alejandro’s energy flared, and he saw his twin step out from his body and turn. As he looked into his own dark eyes, Alejandro fell. H
e dimly heard some shouting, and felt hands on his body, easing him onto some sort of soft carpeting. Smelled familiar scents of people who loved him.

  And then that was all gone.

  His bones ground into hard earth and his joints screamed from strain.

  Clouds gathered overhead. Past the distant mountains, thunder rumbled. The afternoon darkened with the coming of dusk and the gathering storm.

  The air was thick and the pressure of the storm built inside his head. Alejandro tasted the grit of dirt. The semi-arid Oregon desert was no joke. He just hoped the storm didn’t wash too much soil away. Or drown him. But maybe it would put a damper on the preparations for the giant bonfire the pendejos seemed to be building. He was trussed up like one of his cattle for what must have been an hour as the lawmen stacked and clattered wood and branches in the center of a big circle. The edges of the space were defined by iron brackets that would hold torches come full night.

  He really did not want to be present for whatever was going to happen when darkness fell. He needed to get the fuck away, but every movement further tightened the bonds around his ankles and wrists.

  The stink of human sweat and chewing tobacco hit him just before Sheriff Carlson stepped into his view. The man bent to peer at him, and the tin star pinned to the tanned brown leather of his jacket shone dully in the gray light.

  Alejandro knew it would gleam brightly once the fires were lit.

  “You gonna tell us where your daddy’s gold is buried? If you do, we’ll slit your throat before throwing your sorry ass on the fire. ’Cause we’re what passes for gentlemen around here, and unlike you heathens, a gentleman always offer a coup de grace.”

  Alejandro remained silent. He’d learned years ago that talking meant little to these ranchers who fancied themselves to be the law.

  “If you don’t? That might just mean you get dragged first. Softened up, as it were. We got some horses that just love to drag a man.”

  Alejandro gazed up at the broad face, tanned and wrinkled. He’d never hated a man’s face more in his life. He worked at the grit in his mouth, trying to work up some spit in answer.

  Carlson’s right foot shot out and the solid tip of his boot thumped into Alejandro’s gut. A huff of breath was all the noise he would make, though the pain felt like fire.

  He wished like hell he had his granny’s brujería. He would curse this man—curse all of these men—to whatever hell they most feared.

  46

  Shekinah

  Alejandro just…collapsed. Raquel and Tobias rushed toward him, catching him before he crashed into the central candles, and eased him down onto the rug. Shekinah’s heart flew upward, half choking off her breath. She started forward, but Brenda grabbed her wrist. When had the witch moved to her part of the circle?

  Alejandro’s eyes flickered behind his lids and he moaned, then hissed sharply, as if he was in pain.

  “Is he going to be all right?” she asked Brenda.

  “He’s Raquel and Tobias’s job, not yours. Focus on your own work. The work you were brought here to do. And if you can’t do that? Focus on your friend, Tish.”

  Tish rocked and swayed on her feet, but seemed okay, and the witch with short white hair—Tempest—stood at her side, one hand up behind Tish’s back, clearly ready to help her. Her opposite, a tall non-binary-looking Goth named Selene stood on Tish’s other side. Clearly her friend was well in hand. Brenda was right. Shekinah had a lot of people counting on her, and her job was to pray, not to get sucked out of herself by useless worry.

  But frankly, she found it hard to focus. Everywhere she turned, something was happening, and people were doing strange things.

  Besides Tish and Alejandro, there were the anarchists. They formed a smaller circle in the southern quadrant of the room, crouched around the sigils. They were doing something with Frater Louis and Thomas.

  She glanced down at the central altar, eye caught by the small gold cross on the black lacquered tray. The four candles around it gleamed softly, casting red, green, blue, and gold light that bounced up off the black tray, reflecting the colors in the banners on the room’s four walls.

  The cross was a reminder. There were a bunch of Catholics lending their prayers to the working right now, and Brenda was right, that’s what Shekinah was supposed to be doing, too. Calling upon Lord Shiva to protect Tish on her journey.

  From the back pocket of her jeans, she drew out the one object that had called to come to the ritual. It was a gold compact mirror that had belonged to her great-grandmother. When she slipped it into her pocket before leaving the house, she had no idea what she would use it for. All she knew was that Raquel had instructed everyone to bring something that reminded or connected them to their ancestors.

  But now she knew exactly what the mirror was for. Besides connecting her to Grandmother Rachel, it was a clear mirror, unmarked even by its age. Its reflection was true. She snapped open the clasp and looked at herself. In the light of the colored candles, she could have been any age, and from any time. She supposed that was good. Nodding at her reflection, she felt the weight of the gold compact in her right hand. She touched the forefinger and thumb of her left hand together, and raised her hand in the mudrā of truth.

  “Om Namah Shivaya,” she chanted softly. “Protect us all. Help us to reflect the truth. Om Namah Shivaya. Om Namah Shivaya.”

  Touching the tip of her tongue to the roof of her mouth, she let the chanting go for a moment, and tuned in to her breath.

  47

  Alejandro

  “Alejandro. Brother. Come back to us. We need you.”

  “What’s happening to him?”

  Voices. A familiar warmth. Head pounding. Gut roiling. Light. Fire. The metallic taste of fear.

  “Alejandro, bridge the past with the future. Be a priest. Find Tish.”

  Priest? What did that mean?

  Hoofbeats. Pounding. Dragged across hard ground. So. Much. Pain.

  A strong, warm hand on his forehead.

  Then his spirit was flying, yanked from one world and hurtling toward the next. He almost blacked out from the vertigo, swallowed hard, willing himself to not hurl.

  Can I even throw up on the astral planes? The thought was fleeting, but it belonged to Alejandro Guillermo, not Alejandro Juan. Far below, in that room in Brenda’s shop, he felt his body inhale. Exhale. Felt the hands working the edges of his ætheric body, soothing away the pain and sense of illness and terror.

  He sought out Tish’s signature, seeking out that sense of strength and love, of solidity and purpose, of a vulnerability and fear buried just beneath the surface.

  The bonfire and horses felt far below, behind him somewhere, though a strong cord still connected him to that space. To his torture. Anger sliced through his belly and he felt his friends, his coven, his lovers, his community, all feeding the work. We got this.

  48

  Shekinah

  She felt the serpents twine up her body, mirroring each other, and somehow—she just knew it—mirroring the energy rising from her lover’s aura, which alternated deep blue and a gold as bright as day.

  You don’t need to know what that means. Just pray. Was that her own inner voice, or the voice of her teacher? That didn’t matter either.

  Each inhalation drew the cosmic energies upward. Each exhalation sent them fountaining from her head. As the kundalini built inside her, she felt the energy rise everywhere in the room, and beyond the room. There were worlds upon worlds, all present, and the work must be done in and through them all.

  Her body began to move in prayer, almost of its own accord. Her head snapped right, to the mirror, and then left, to the mudrā of truth. The chant that had anchored Shekinah to her practice all these years rose in her throat and spilled out from her mouth.

  “Sa Ray Sa Sa, Sa Ray Sa Sa, Sa Ray Sa Sa, Sa Rang…” Infinite Reality. Infinite Presence.

  The chant began slowly, softly, then built in power. The tempo increased, and her body moved
around her center, fed by the serpents twining at her core. She was one with the Infinite. Piercing the shadows. Reflecting light.

  49

  Alejandro

  The threads of past, present, and future were all wound in and around him. It was through these threads that he saw Tish, standing on the astral planes, holding a flaming sword like some avenging angel. The Sword of Enlightenment that could sever the heads of believers and non-believers alike.

  She was surrounded by cops.

  Alejandro barreled into the center of the circle and placed his back against hers, athame in one hand, wand in the other. Where did that come from? But he knew. Same place as Tish’s sword. Tools had a way of appearing on the astral when the magic worker most needed them.

  ::How do you want to play this?:: he asked.

  ::I want to take every one of these fuckers down,:: she replied. ::But we’ve got to figure out if that will take care of whatever egregore they’ve built or not.::

  He and Tish circled slowly, Tish waving the flaming sword in a figure eight. He held his blade and wand loosely crossed over his chest, muscles flexed, ready to strike in an instant.

  As they circled, Alejandro scanned, seeking out the nexus of power. It was within none of the men or women standing there, sneering and clacking their teeth as if they wanted to bite. He shoved down his discomfort at the image—things on the astral tended to show the layers beneath, and they were often horrifying if not simply strange.

  And there he was. The new chief. The one Moss had talked about. The new sheriff in town, as it were.

  Fuck if it wasn’t Sheriff Carlson. The man wore a different face, but his astral signature was the same. He smelled so strongly of chewing tobacco and sweat, Alejandro could almost taste it.