Chapter 18

The Light beamed on The Glass. So clear, so magnificent The Glass, to distract their enemies with reflections, to control the minds of those who would abet their enemies and turn them into allies. To The Light, The Glass was a greater tool when used with finesse, honing the power of The Light into a laser-like ray of influence.

The Glass owed its existence, its allegiance to The Light. The Light was the true creator, not The Word, who is an illusion. The Word who claims "I AM" and is not could not be compared to The Light, who is self-evident by his glorious creation.

Without The Light, The Glass was powerless, but with it, there had been no enemy capable of withstanding it, even The Blood of The Word fleeing its onslaught. The Light had been betrayed by The Dark, bastard son of The Word Which Is Not, who is known as The Lie of the Void to those who serve The Light. This was no fault of The Glass, who was a perfect tool, but was the fault of The Dark. Only The Light need fear The Dark, and only The Dark need fear The Light, for to bring The Light and The Dark together is the sign of the return of The Void, which proves The Word a lie.

The Glass reflected, then, that The Left and The Right, the bastard twins who also saw The Word as a lie, should be their allies. Unlike The Dark, however, who believes the perversion that The Void gave birth to The Word, and that the two are aligned towards a creation beyond the power of The Light, which is blasphemy. The Light, however, rejects the alignment of three of four of The Brothers, fearing The Void would reject her children whom she cast as individuals, and the conflict of whom powers the world. To do so would be to reject the chaos of The Void, and ultimately to accept the will of The Word.

The Prince of Lies smiled the ancient smile of one who knows the comedy of existence, of its futility and the freedom of its meaninglessness. Nevertheless, it had been a productive meeting with his servant. It was too easy for him to assume Nate could just pull in the big guns for some upstart of a mixed blood shaman. The world was a web of lies, nihilism the only great truth. Should Rodney and Pete ally with him while he was still allied with Dom, it could push things over the edge and bring the return of The Void, which would destroy all of his creation. Despite what he told his minions, Father was real, and eventually Father would take this world from him and send him to comfort The Void with his brothers, a fate worse than death in Nate's eyes.

Senora Maya's family had been nearly decimated by Rodney, and Rodney had even been slick enough to convince the family it was all Nate's doing. Rodney had actually arranged things to force Nate to do his dirty work, leaving poor Pedro with his family in ruins. It was enough to make a big brother proud.

Rodney had corrupted every single possible matriarch of the family, and had used the hate so powerful it only exists between blood relatives to ensure whoever Nate hadn't killed, Pedro would.

For now, thanks to Dom, the girl was out of bounds. There was no chance of converting her to his side; she was too biased against him. How was she to know he was he was the reason for her existence, and for the existence of all people of blood?

It was his angels, sent among humans to create the races of renown, who were the pure source of the blood that gave them their power. Each strain of blood came from a different angel with different abilities, and no two were quite alike, which was the reason for the various different families.

At this point an ignorant girl like Caroline was expendable, having just as much value dead as alive. Alive, she was a dim hope of a convert. Dead, Lucille would take her place, barely setting the family back anymore than the death of Mrs. Black had. Scared, though, she could be manipulated. She could be a tool, if a blunt and unwitting one. Fear was the only handle he had left on her, but with time that hold could grow into respect and ultimately service.

It was settled then. The Glass had the go ahead.

At any instant, a cloud could hover anywhere in the sky. Sometimes here, sometimes there, sometimes nowhere to be found. This is not important. However, there is a cloud, now, blocking the sun. A ray of darkness fails to shine onto the ground, contrasting a single house in a sea of other unimposing homes. In front of this home is a basketball goal and a flowerbed, behind, an expansive vegetable and herb garden. This, again, is unimportant, but less unimportant than the cloud, because inside this house is a room, and inside that room is a matronly black woman who appears to be in her late forties. Her skin is coal black, yet it glows from inside with self assured vitality. It speaks of hard work and perseverance in the face of ultimate depression and despair. It speaks of a culture far away, a culture of the Egyptian lotus and of continent spanning wisdom, of rising above the constantly surrounding filth to create beauty that is all the more beautiful for its pestilent environment.

Mama Agnes clucked her tongue in her dark back bedroom, warmly lit by gray light that despite being dimmed by a cloud managed to eat its way through the antiqued curtains. It was enough to see by, but more importantly, enough to sleep by. She hated herself for being forced to wake Caroline, being at her core a caretaker of the weary and a mother. She couldn't blame Dom for calling on her despite her well know distaste for him touching the world outside of his authority. Unlike Mrs. Black, Mama could never get over who Dom really was no matter how much honey dripped from his lips.

Still, she had to wake up Caroline now before Jaleesa hung up. Caroline had to face this in person, and she needed to know Mama would never shield her from a hurtful truth. Whatever differences they may have, truth was the ultimate power, the foundation of wisdom, and wisdom was the key to making all things possible.

"Caroline, it's Jaleesa. It's bad news." Mama said, distracting Caroline from who she was with and where she was so she could deal with the matter at hand.

Caroline answered groggily, "Hello?"
"Why didn't you show up this morning? Bob tried to call in a special order at nine, and there was no one there. He wanted to fire both of us, but luckily for me he had to keep one of us to train the new employee." Jaleesa spat, her jaws operating a mile a minute, each word having been composed in her mind long before they were released.
"Wait... what the fuck? I'm fucking fired?!"

It was then that Caroline realized she didn't recognize the texture of the quilt she was laying under, didn't know who the matronly black woman who handed her the phone was, didn't know where she was.

Jaleesa calmed down, her initial anger dulled by sympathy. "I did all I could. What did you want me to do, give up MY fucking job?"
"Did you know I had a friend try and kill himself last night?" Caroline played her card, not bothering to try and sweet talk her way back into Jaleesa's good graces.
"No... but what the fuck does that have to do with you almost getting ME fucking fired?" Jaleesa responded, her earlier anger creeping back into her inflection.
Caroline, for once, was fed up. "You know what? Fuck you."

Click

It was almost as surreal as waking up covered in dried blood, solemnly strolling through the icily air-conditioned hallways of All-Saints Cogic. Every wall was covered with some sort of iconic imagery, most of it scrolled into decadent wood paneling as part of the building design. Caroline followed last in a contingent consisting of Mama Agnes, Starburst, and Straight Mike wearing a borrowed conservative black dress and second hand heels, her hair slicked back in a pony tail, still wet from the shower.

They took their seats at the front of an opulent auditorium as large as any secular concert hall venue. It was then that Caroline looked around, and realized Mrs. Black's mourners packed the converted sanctuary, now a funeral hall, behind her. On the front stage left, sat the rows of her new blood family.

Caroline had never met the Black family other than through Thug, Lucille, or Mike and it was unsettling to see the attending members at the funeral take up five rows. What was more unsettling was to see the rest of the auditorium at All-Saints scattered with Mama Agnes's family, easily three times the size of the Blacks. How could one little meeting with one drag queen affect the lives of so many people?

The service itself was short, but not sweet. The pallbearers carried Mrs. Black's symbolic coffin uneasily, walking a little too fast with the empty box than what respect dictated. This was despite warning glares from Thug and Lucille's husband, whom Caroline still didn't know the name of. The three poor boys other than Straight Mike that were drafted unknowing from their homes to carry an empty coffin barely knew what they were doing, and it was clear what they did know they were nervous about.

The minister himself seemed in an unseemly rush to get Mrs. Black's spirit consigned to the afterlife, as if he did something wrong she might get impatient and rise up to take vengeance for them having the audacity to declare her dead. It gave Caroline a morbid giggle to know that box was empty, and that Mrs. Black's mortal remains sat in an urn in 646 Cottage Church Lane. How much did these people know? The Black family maybe had a glimmering, but the greasy minister and most of Mama Agnes's people seemed oblivious.

It shocked her then when in eulogy the minister, a mister Willie C. Banks, mentioned Belforte by name but not in conjunction to what Mrs. Black had done. Then she realized the connection. This wasn't about Mrs. Black personally, this was about civil rights, about honoring the memory of a white woman who risked everything to stand up against her own people in the name of justice on behalf of some poor black men she'd never even met.

This funeral, then, was the ground level cementing of Mama Agnes's family and the Black family, a way of Mama Agnes letting her children know who Caroline was and who her children were, and how similar the two families truly were. The emphasis was on the fact that justice shouldn't exist merely within an individual governed family, because an individual family may face odds it cannot overcome on its own. True justice against the greatest of evil, such as men like Belforte, could only be had through the alliance of not only individuals within a family, but of different families altogether working towards a common noble goal.

Mama Agnes was aloof, obsidian grace seeping out from under her colorful headscarf. The contingent had retired after the memorial service to a somber dinner of store-bought take-away supplied by Mama Agnes's family at her home, its old school veneer interior warm and welcoming in a way that the over-ornamented All-Saints could never be.

"So what happened to Raz? Did... did I save him?" Caroline asked; glad to be able to speak the question she'd been holding inside since she realized what had happened.
"Raz is ok Caroline," Mike answered, "We've got him checked in at Lakeside right now, getting help. No one could figure out how he survived, but since he was ok when they got him, they didn't ask too many questions."
"But how did you know to come?" Caroline asked naively.
Mama Agnes's eyes went steely with Mike's reply. "Dom called us. Both you and Raz were passed out after the shock of the separation. We only had a few hours until the funeral at that point, so we just dropped you off at this house while we took care of Raz." Mike answered.
"But why isn't Dom here now?" Caroline asked, to some extent wishing for the warmth of the gregarious Italian.
"Because only a fool invites Death into her home," Mama Agnes snapped icily. "And furthermore, by any name, I would prefer you not draw his attention here by talking about him."
"They didn't know, Mama," Starburst apologized.
"Mrs. Black's relationships were never normal for someone of her education." Mike said diplomatically. He was showing a side of him Caroline had never been exposed to at The Fool's Card. Maybe Mike was more of an asset than she had once thought.
"True." Mama Agnes conceded. "Regardless, her blood is not my blood, and her ways are not my ways. Neither are they Caroline's, except by adoption. There was another blood in her that got her into this trouble, and while the Black's blood carries allegiance, Caroline's natural blood may still have it's own alliances."

Blood, blood, blood, it all stirred something inside of Caroline. Hadn't Mrs. Black said something about blood being involved in the sacraments that drew The Glass to her? Blood, knife, glass, plate, hand, foot, and eye: that was it. Other than the blood, all were common, almost accidental objects.

Caroline hated being so ignorant, of not having a more intelligent way to phrase the question. Without Mrs. Black, though, she had no one else to ask.
"What do you mean, 'other blood'? Are you saying I was born like this?"
"Not everyone in one of the families shows their blood," Mama Agnes answered, "However should a member of a family become separated from their ancestors, they become targets for the Devil. Mrs. Black adopted you into her blood partly so you would have protection she understood. Compared to my family, or even Pedro's bloodline, Mrs. Black was an upstart. Most of what she knew she learned from books or from demons like Dom. The short answer, though, is yes. You come from an independent bloodline that has no local roots I recognize."
"So you mean I can't apprentice under you? With Mrs. Black gone, who's going to protect me? I have no idea what I'm doing!" With every word, Caroline felt more frustrated and alone. Why was she always the most ignorant person in the room?
"Even if I did accept you, it's doubtful anything I taught you would work. Blood isn't supposed to mix, and the histories normally associate the mixing of different strains of blood with wars. There has never been a mixed blood matriarch that hasn't been dragged down by an alliance of victimized families and other local heads."
"But the other local heads... you mean you and Pedro? I've got Thug to protect me from Pedro if he tries anything. I have a feeling I wouldn't have woken up this morning had you been out to get me"

Mama Agnes said nothing; the room taking her cue and watching as she slowly opened an old wardrobe and pulled out a small velvet bag. She casually tossed the bag onto Caroline's lap.

Finally, she spoke. "Do you know what this is?"

Caroline was confused. She loosened the drawstring and reached inside the bag, feeling a stringy tuft of something hanging from a hard knot of slick, lumpy leather. She pulled the tuft, and nearly dropped what she saw.

"That, Caroline, is the preserved head of Marcia M'buto. She is an object lesson passed down through my family. She was the last person in our history know to have mixed blood."

Immediately Caroline put the head back into the bag, thrusting the grisly artifact towards Mama Agnes. Mike and Starburst wisely kept their mouths shut as the two matriarchs tried to come to terms.

Mama Agnes refused to take the bag.
"No, Caroline, you keep that. Let it be a reminder of the stakes we're playing with. Marcia M'buto was a powerful priestess during the Slave Wars who enlisted slave-takers to abduct the other family heads. Once she had them, she sacrificed them to herself, trying to become a living goddess by absorbing their power."
"How did she sacrifice them?" Caroline blurted before she realized what she was asking.

Mama Agnes's throat bobbed, uncharacteristic of her warm demeanor.
"She pinned them to the ground with wooden stakes. Then she made an incision just below the left floating rib. She dug around inside their still living bodies and pulled out their livers to give her access to their beating hearts. Once she had the room inside, she cut the veins and arteries to the heart and sucked the life blood from it, then cut the heart into slivers and ate it in front of the other staked down victims."

There was something about the way Mama Agnes recalled every detail as if she were replying to a quiz by a teacher that sent a chill through her bones. Is this how Mama saw her, as some kind of monster? She'd never killed anyone, not by her own hand, not intentionally. However, Mama's historical example made it clear the few known mixed blood matriarchs were brutal power hungry killers at best.

"That's not me. I just got caught up. I never planned this..." Caroline whimpered, for the first time as scared of herself as other people were.
"Mike, Starburst, could you please excuse us?" Mama Agnes cut in, her Caribbean accent getting the best of her.

"I've been looking out for you, you know." Mama Agnes said slowly, some of the hard edge leaving her demeanor, "You are about to go to a dark place."
"Why can't you just tell me what's going to happen? You know. Why can't you tell me?" Caroline spat childishly, forgetting herself.
"I CAN do many things. You are the one who needs to learn to do for yourself." Mama replied, the little warmth leaving her voice once more, as if it had never been there.

"The path is hidden from you by a shadow. By THE shadow. He doesn't believe you're capable of doing what needs to be done knowingly, and neither do I. Inside, you're still willing to lie to yourself, to gloss over reality for your own comfort. The upcoming trial will kill this diseased part of you, and it's important that you know that what you MUST do is not your choice. Being who you are, you must accept it all, to be yourself as you truly are, and not as you wish you were."
"But who am I? Who am I now? Some mixed blood victim, waiting to happen? I've sat down and had dinner with Lucifer! Death himself looks at me like some kind of stepchild or something! Just last night, I grabbed a man's soul from nearly dying and returned him back to life. What kind of person is that?! This isn't some stupid movie, this is my LIFE. Why can't I just forget all this and be a normal, boring person?"

Mama Agnes smiled, like a hug with eyes.
"That's who you need to be. Did you know I like crossword puzzles? I have a stack of them in the corner. But people who know what I really am, do they ever talk to me about crossword puzzles? I love the Jerry Springer show, but does anyone ever come to gossip with me about that? No. We've both stuck. That's why I don't tell everyone who I am, why Mrs. Black lived in that rickety cottage reading old books instead of out on the church social scene. Back when she was alive, Senora Maya would go fishing for days at a time."
"Wait... what? What does that have to do with anything?" Caroline broke in, confused.
"Fish can't tell a priestess from a fisherman, baby. I don't tell my kids what I do until they need me. Mrs. Black wasn't prepared for when her children died; she didn't understand she was going to be a grandmother to a giant mob for the next hundred years. I did, but it's still just as hard. You, you don't have any kids of your own, you inherited your people. They came and found you though, didn't they?"
"What, you mean like Lucille? Or when Mike called me to set up that meeting? How much more to this is there?" Caroline asked, finally asking the right kind of question.
Mama Agnes laughed, her dark skin glowing radiantly in the light, for a moment, beautiful in her own special way.
"As little as we can get away with, baby. As little as we can get away with. Do you know why the Father doesn't like to answer prayers?"
"No..." Caroline said, getting confused again. Dom and Nate had talked about a Father before. But their Father would be...
"It's not the kind of relationship he wants with his children. What do you do with a child that whines all the time and says 'gimme gimme gimme!'? You ignore it, you tell it to do for itself. Now imagine if all of creation were your whiny child. Wouldn't you do the same thing?"

Caroline was stunned. She'd never thought about it that way. She'd always been on the other end. Was that how Mrs. Black had gotten Dom's help, by being his friend instead of some kind of supplicant? Was that why Mrs. Black had always had that charming, socialite way about her? If Mama meant what it seems she did, that all of existence was just one big family stemming down from God the Father and it was blood and relationships that held it all together...
"I think I've been the wrong person." Caroline said sheepishly.
"Oh honey, nobody ever told you what to be. I grew up singing the chants, learning the histories from Mama Sadie. You, you were forced to choose death, or this. The Glass would have used you to try and kill Mrs. Black, you know. You'd be fertilizing her roses right now if hadn't wanted to die."
"She WANTED to die?!" Caroline gasped.
"She wasn't cut out for this, sweetie. She never wanted this, never wanted to head a family, never wanted to be anything other than a midwife. I'm PROUD of who I am, who I've trained to be, but she never felt quite right. She always felt guilty, like she'd betrayed Father somehow by consorting with Dom and other entities. Playing with your cousin isn't stabbing your grandpa in the back, though. Even so, how old does anyone want to get, living a life they don't believe in?" Mama explained.

Caroline sat at home, pondering Mama Agnes's words. She had to want her life, she had to believe in it. She didn't want to end up like Raz, or Mrs. Black, giving up on a life that still had an inkling of potential in it. She had a responsibility, a responsibility to her family. She'd seen Thug break down after Mrs. Black's death. She'd spent her life looking for someone to be, and now, like it or not, she was someone. Someone with a responsibility to five rows of people she hadn't even bothered to meet, someone who should constantly be using her abilities to help those around her. She needed to not only admit who she was, but also embrace herself and be that to her fullest extent.

She was a witch. She should be scrying, looking for potential problems, not for herself, but for her friends and family. Had she used what she'd found with Raz to help anyone other than herself, she could have stopped his suicide attempt. Instead, she acted selfishly and treated him like a sex object instead of a friend under her protection. She'd still have her job, and Raz wouldn't be in Lakeside thinking who knows what about her.

She closed her eyes, reaching for the rainbow static, for the spiritual ether. She pulled out the ball, forming it casually so as not to make any mistakes, to enjoy her craft. She stared into the ball, isolating the information she wanted, looking blankly into the future for the unexpected, the unknown, the...

The sphere went black. The world went black. Suddenly, Caroline was no longer in the trance.

Just like when Dom severed her umbilical to Raz. Death had finally turned on her.

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Chapter 17

Berry woke with an itch.

She pulled herself off the couch Sunday afternoon, twisting her mangled hair back into some semblance of order. Her fashionable wristbands hid the still savage looking scars on her wrists, but then again, that wasn't the first time for that, either.

She stood and stretched, leaning so far back as to fall right back on the couch where she started, where she'd laid since dawn that morning. She lay there in a heap, savoring the luxury of sleeping late until the itch struck her again.

She stood once more, this time not stretching, her head cocked to the side as she tried to locate the source of the itch. It wasn't a physical itch, but a mental one, a hunch, a tickle in the back of her mind that something was wrong, like an unlocked door or an oven left on. Millennia of instinct were going nuts, twisting her guts, screaming at her that she had been betrayed, that she needed to discover some dirty, hidden truth.

Despite Berry's cute appearance, her childhood and teenage years had been anything but coddling. Sometimes knowing when her mom was cheating on her dad was the only way to avoid a vicious fight, fights that sometimes kept her out of school for a week at a time while her bruises went away.

Never again.

The itch. The itch was how she knew, how she survived. You feel the itch, and you start looking. You start looking, and you find mom's blow, or her meth, or her pills, or whatever it was her new boyfriend was hooking her up on behind dad's back. Once you knew, you could steal it, throw it away, sell it, or leave it, because either way mom would deny it, and if dad found it, he'd blame it all on you if he could.

Raz. It had to be Raz. The itch always struck close to home. It was a survival instinct, an animal thing, the same itch that makes a dog howl in a thunderstorm. However bad things were, Raz was her lifeline, her sole means of support. If he left her, no more car, no more apartment, no more ramen noodles, nothing. It would mean back on the all-night scene, sleeping in gay bars while gray-haired queens watched her with worried mother's eyes. It would mean living off of free beer and bummed French fries, going on dates just for the hot meal and a place to stay.

Which was how they met, wasn't it?

No. She'd already lost her focus, her drive; whatever it was inside her Mrs. Black had taken away. She wouldn't lose her meal ticket, not without a fight, not without standing up for herself. She wasn't anybody's bitch, not his, not anyone's.

When reputation is all you have, even the slightest insult has to be met full on. Otherwise, they'd just peck you to death, wouldn't they?

Todd looked over at Raz, over at his quiet, introspective friend. He didn't feel any different towards him, though he felt he should. There was no connection there as there was with a woman. It was like something just came over him, something new, something that hadn't been there when they had first started hanging out.

It was gone now, whatever it was, leaving him in this awkward position. Raz had scared Caroline away, but then again Caroline had been starting to weird him out lately anyways, showing up to his bed with fresh scars and talking out of her head all the time.

Raz was more than willing to fill that vacancy, but then again, he always had been. Raz had always been this way; it was him, Todd that something had changed in.

The sex had felt amazing. There was no doubt of that. Raz had a way of taking what he wanted while still respecting his boundaries, something Caroline couldn't seem to keep a handle on with her kinky excesses.

Still, Todd felt there was a pallor over the affair. He didn't feel in control of himself with Raz as he did the first night with Caroline, although the first time he'd felt that weird detachment had been with her. He was tempted to talk with Berry about it, but considering Raz was all but living in his apartment due to Berry's anger issues, it was probably a bad idea. What if she was jealous with him the same way Raz was with Caroline?

Things were so confusing; it was so much easier to sit back ad lay in the moment, letting events wash over him like the tide. Right now, right now he was sharing a bed with a good friend, a caring friend, and a surprisingly good lover. Why question it? Why label it? Was it really so necessary to judge the things that he did based on what he thought he knew of himself?

No. It was much better this way, allowing life to take shape around him, living like a bird, pecking whatever caught his eye with no worries as to why it appealed to him. Just let animal instinct take control; that was the easy way, the fun way, the passionate way.

He'd spent enough of his life with logic, with philosophy, with school in general. All it really did was force him to conform, and charge him so much for graduate tuition that even his job teaching general education courses in public speaking left him in this dumpy little apartment.

Raz suddenly snapped awake next to him, not once yawning, just bolting upright in bed.

"Did you hear that?" He asked in a burst, tense and fully lucid.
"Hear what?" Todd replied, trying to croon Raz back to sleep.
"My car. I heard my car." Raz continued, if anything becoming more tense.
"It's a whole complex. There's lots of cars going in and out all the time."
"My brakes squeal funny. It's my car."

With no sound to compare it to, he had no way to get Raz to relax. After all, it wasn't like Raz didn't have a legitimate reason to be worried about where his car was all the time.

Before Todd had a chance to think of something to say, there was a bang at the door.

"Aren't Jehovah's Witnesses supposed to be in church on Sunday?" Todd mumbled jokingly as he threw on an old pair of workout shorts to answer the door.

Raz didn't laugh.

"Where's Raz?" Berry demanded, trying to peer past Todd into the apartment.
"...sleeping..." Todd said slowly, as if to say, "What else would he be doing?"
"That's funny. I don't see him on the couch." She fired back spitefully.
"Who said he had to sleep on the couch?" Todd diverted. He knew what Berry was like when she was looking for a fight.
"Well, considering that mop on your head screams 'I just woke up' I'd say because you guys don't normally share a bed."

Berry took advantage of Todd's sleepiness to duck under his arm, bolting into the apartment like a stray cat.
"Raz!" she cawed like a tiny harpy, "You better fucking be here." She finished under her breath.
Raz walked out of the bedroom, surprising both Todd and Berry by wearing nothing but a sheet.
"Oh, I've been fucking here. Been fucking TODD," he said with emphasis, nodding towards him. "You know, someone who actually gives a shit about me."

Immediately crocodile tears began streaming down Berry's face.
"You know I fucking love you!" she wailed hoarsely, trying to cover her lies with emotion.
"Bullshit." Raz spat. "You only ever 'loved' me long enough to get your shit moved back into my apartment."

Todd was taken aback. He didn't expect Raz not to play along, not to try and hide anything. Raz was burning bridges he couldn't build back. It was too late now to realize that Raz had nothing to lose if he though he was going to have a relationship with Todd. To Raz, it seemed perfectly logical that good friends who start sleeping together would become more serious, but Todd had never even considered the idea.

"C'mon, guys, you two've been on and off for years..." Todd attempted to mediate.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!" Raz and Berry yelled at Todd in unison.

Then Berry took the offensive.
"Don't give me that shit!" I've been devoted to you this whole time!"
"Devoted to me this whole time?!" Raz repeated incredulously. "That's funny, you spent a lot of time with Caroline for someone devoted to me."
"You knew about Caroline! You were in on it the first night we were together!"
"What about those other nights?" Raz threw in her face. "We were supposed to share her, but you just wanted her to yourself."
"I couldn't help it she wasn't attracted to you!" Berry defended.
"And you think I was attracted to HER? You were the one that started on that, not me."

All of a sudden Todd realized how deep this all ran. Raz had a vendetta against Caroline for stealing his girl; that's why he exploded when she tried to butt her head in between them. He was trying to get revenge by stealing Caroline's man: Todd. He was gambling everything on a bond he thought they shared that Todd didn't return.

Todd saw what was coming, though he should have known it all along, and now it was too late to stop what Raz was about to say.

"Look Berry, it's taken me a few years, but I see through you now. I didn't want to be alone. Now that I have Todd, I'm not. You may need me, but I don't need you anymore."

This time, Berry's tears were real.

"Now give me back my keys."

It was over, Berry thought. No chance to runoff with the car until Raz cooled down, and a witness to stop her from slapping him. If she didn't give up the keys now, it would prove Raz right.

She handed over the keys, contorting her face for sympathy. She found none. Berry couldn't believe her ears, as Todd said the stupidest thing she'd ever heard.

"Raz, no, you don't understand. I...I was just in a weird mood, and you were available. I mean, I thought you were in a relationship. I didn't expect you to get ideas..."

That sealed it. Raz's eyes blinded with tears, despairing that he'd ever find people who wouldn't use him that he'd ever fit in, or be content. He marched into Todd's room, haphazardly yanking on his clothes. Todd tried to touch his shoulder, to say something comforting, but Raz pushed him away, his face soaked with rejection.

He'd gambled everything, gambled everything and lost, that was all Raz could thin as he drove manically down the street. He couldn't go home; too many bad memories. He'd just left Todd's, maybe never to come back, and he was in no mood to deal with any of The Fool's Card regulars.

He hit the expressway loop, trying to lose himself in the mindless pattern of driving fast, trying to feel he was a winner, like he could achieve something.

Raz was startled back to sanity when he realized he was low on gas. He was thirty-five, and everything was ending. His friendships, his relationships, and now his gas tank, all empty. He'd always been depressive, even as a kid, but when he'd become an adult he thought he'd grown out of suicidal tendencies.

What did he have left to lose, though? He'd never wanted children; he knew he would have been a terrible father. Other than sex, what was his goal? He'd even fucked his fantasy, and it hadn't been worth it. Stupid kids games had eaten his life. Really, he'd never been alive anyway, just faking it to try and make everyone else happy. Right now, he just wanted it all over.

Raz reached into his glove box for the baby .22 Berretta he kept in a fake purse. He'd never told Berry about it because he didn't trust her, but he'd promised his brother he'd keep it ever since the robbery.

If only his brother knew what he planned for it now.

Raz smiled, the easy answer coming into view. The best years of his life were over, he was losing his looks, and he was only getting older by the minute. He had nothing to lose anymore, not now. She wanted to kill him inside, to strip him of all he was over a quick fuck? She might not have known what she was doing, but he'd be damned if she didn't find out before he'd drawn his last breath.

A flurry of angry knocks startled Caroline awake Sunday night, just an hour after she'd finally been able to rest. She scrambled for clothes, the tension of the past few days slamming back into her and knocking her out of whatever peace she'd had. It had happened too many times, a stranger showing up on her doorstep, and she wouldn't allow herself to be caught unaware again.

The banging continued as her oversized nightshirt full of holes settled over her panty-ed figure, covering the flaws in her skin tone. She popped open the utility drawer, grabbing an old rusty screwdriver and cupping it gently behind her wrist with her fingertips, giving the illusion of her hand empty at her side despite holding a stabbing weapon. If she'd only kept her kitchen knives, she thought in perfect hindsight as she walked quietly to the door and peeped through the hole.

Not Thug, not Nate, not Mike, but Raz was on the other side, a madcap grin smeared across his face.
"What do you want?" she asked through the crack in the door with the chain still in place.
"I just came back to say I was sorry." Raz replied, his grin threatening to stretch all the way back to his ears.
"Oh God, thanks for that!" Caroline whooshed, relieve the situation wasn't serious. "I'm sorry for what I did too. I never even considered your feelings before I acted."

Caroline brought the chain down to let her friend into the apartment when Raz interjected.

"...sorry I can only do this once..."

There was a loud CLACK and suddenly everything went red. A sound came, like a laundry basket falling off a doorstep, then silence. Caroline tried to calm herself; she wasn't in any pain, but she couldn't see. She realized she was still standing, just blinded by some inconsistent dark red shadow. She reached up towards her eyes to feel for the damage, but the stickiness on her glasses foreshadowed the grisly scene her eyes were glad to be unaided to see.

Caroline's nearsighted blur helped cover the details as she looked at what a blindly optimistic person would call a pile of wet laundry, but her blood called the incapacitated body of Raz.

There was no fear now, only calm as she focused on the trance. She pushed through the rainbow static, bull-dogged her way in as hard and as fast as she could with the strength of a mother pulling her babies out from under the rubble of an earthquake.

Already Raz's dark purple soul had the telltale hairs Dom had warned her about. The solution... solution... the solution... didn't he do the avatar bubble first?

Caroline formed the rainbow static into a ball, only to slip in her control and have the whole thing dissipate back into the ether of the dream-space. She pulled again, the time more calmly, but she couldn't figure out how to hollow the ball. The hairs on Raz were ever lengthening and beginning to writhe like spaghetti thin worms as she berated herself over what to do next. She tried to form a depression in the ball, only to have the whole thing shatter once again.

The umbilical! She had a knack for the umbilical!

She formed the image in her mind of a tendril extending from her navel, just as she remembered doing with Dom. The umbilical extended, taking a tiny strand of her own soul with it just as it had done before. She braced herself for the non-numbness of contact, contact she remembered all too well from Mrs. Black.

Unlike with Mrs. Black, however, Raz's soul avoided her umbilical, dodged it just as Raz consciously rejected life by spraying his brains all over Caroline's apartment. Suddenly a voice projected itself, Dom's voice in black oscilloscope lines, like tiny tears in the dream-space ether.
"Don't worry. He'll accept it when he gets desperate enough. Poor kid doesn't know what he's done to himself."

It was then she recognized Dom's black vortex avatar, nothing like any soul or avatar she'd ever experienced. Why was he different? More morbidly, how did he know to come?

Sure enough, Raz's dying soul latched onto Caroline's umbilical. The thickening tendrils ceased and were reabsorbed, but unlike Mrs. Black, Raz had no idea how to communicate in the spirit world. He was still alive, but in a zombie state, like some sort of human pupae.

"So what are you going to do now?" Dom asked, still not bothering to explain himself.
"I...I...I don't know." She said through the pain, a pain she was learning to cope with even as it increased over time.
"Do you know why I'm here? Have you figured it out yet?"
"No...I just don't want him to die. Not another one. Not because of me."
"Right now, I'm the only one that can help you." Dom expressed reservedly. "Do you remember how Mrs. Black's soul reached for something? That something was me. I'm not a man, and I don't claim to be an angel. I'm the garbage man of souls, the counterbalance to the promise of everlasting spiritual life. I'm Death."

The pain and shock overtook Caroline as she fell through the umbilical into Raz's body, her soul mixing with his in a lover's embrace. Every touch was pain and pleasure, Raz's raw life force caressing hers with abrasive destructiveness as it scrabbled at life like a drowning man pulling a would-be rescuer to a watery grave.
"Come with me and let go." Raz called to her from inside his head. "We can go forever. Forever, together, alone and forgotten."

The peace and pleasure of it almost overwhelmed her before it struck the hardened core that had formed with Lucille, that iron core left in her after tasting the flesh of her new bloodline. She separated herself from him, refusing to mix their souls and become one only to die for nothing. She regained control of herself, the pain now like being dragged across a gravel road.

"Tell me what to do, Dom!" she wailed.
"You have to fix his head, so his body can hold his soul. A living soul can't inhabit a dead body." Dom advised sagely.
"HOW?!" she blasted at him.
"Feel out the damage. Use his body to heal itself, but use your soul to force it to happen more quickly. The healing comes from him. The power comes from you."

She entered Raz again, this time riding his pain into his nervous system to the damage, demanding the individual cells reconnect before permanent damage was done, domineering the small copper slug the size of the tip of a pinky out of his head through the peristalsis of his knitting flesh.

"Quick, get out before Nate finds me!" Dom trumpeted.

Too late, a brilliant sphere of pure light appeared, the opposite of Dom in every way, projecting its light through the ether.
"Ah, Caroline, nice to see you've come along," said the brilliant sphere, almost godly in its magnificence.
"No Nate! She doesn't get a choice! I won't let her!"

The glorious sphere of shimmering light touched everything around, like the smile of a god. It was so warm, so unlike the cold clutches of death Caroline had struggled with. She reached out for it instinctively, like a toddler stretching out a hand to the warm licking tongues of a summer bonfire.

It was then she noticed the black bar, the silvery blade. It was then she noticed Dom for who he really was, seeing past his gregarious demeanor to the Angel of Death it hid, saw his brother for who he was as well, the liberator, the light-bringer, the... the...

Lucifer.

Dom dropped his scythe across Caroline's umbilical, and it was all over.

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Chapter 16

The Glass sat behind the eyes of its host, its victim this time. Unbelievers are so weak, never truly understanding the power they could possess. What a shame, a waste, an ... inefficiency. Together they could do so much more, but it was not to be. When a souled host struggles, the soul must be ... subjugated. Minimized. Shoved into a corner to wither and die if weak, or merely be forgotten if strong.

Still, this host had more function than the last, more brawn. The Glass gleamed as though freshly shined, like a hotrod with a fresh coat of paint and a new engine.

Mrs. Black was gone, that smudge was finally rubbed out. A victory, but one that had been had countless times with different enemies. So much clarity had been wasted there, so much brilliance, but no longer.

Direct action had failed. Defenses had been made; a tactical advantage had been lost. Lying low, that was the key. Create a false sense of security. Wait for the sigh of relief, wait for the pattern. Find the hole in the pattern, and then strike.

The Glass was good at watching, that was its nature, and now it had the tool it needed to get what it wanted, and no one was there to stop it.

Straight Mike spoke tersely into his phone frustrated and irritated that his cousin was so hard to work with.
"Look, I don't fucking CARE how you feel. You did your job, now I've got to do mine. You're an idiot if you don't think they already know, and they're not going to wait for the funeral, ok? So just give me the goddamn number, and let me handle this part."

There was a brief pause as Mike listened, his face screwed up with stress.
"Look, if you're that worried, dig a couple of holes in the back yard. I've already gotten calls from Nate AND Dom, and if she's not ready to give orders, THEY will. Once that starts, there's no stopping it. So unless you want fucking NATE," he spat the word like an epithet, "calling the shots for the next hundred years, I suggest you give me that number and let me do my fucking job."

There was another pause, this time because Mike was busy entering numbers into his phone.
"Alright, thanks. And don't worry; this'll all blow over real soon. She'll get up to speed, and we can all get back to normal. See ya, cuz."

Click

"Now where the hell am I going to get reservations...?" he mumbled to himself.

Caroline sat in a dark corner, clutching her knees to her chest, rocking gently back and forth. She was dead, that was all she could think. Dom had been nice, but was quick to leave when it was all over, not even waiting for her to exit the trance before disappearing. Thug was inconsolable, not even capable of speaking in anything but a blubber. He had just pulled that cotton sheet up over her head and started gibbering, and there was nothing she could do but go home.

Go home to what, though? There was nothing here for her. She had already shut off from the outside world for fear of her dreams taking hold of her once again, and it's not exactly like she had a lot of friends to begin with. Everyone was gone, everyone except her...

Ring

Cell phone? She didn't believe it until it rang a second time.

Ring

She ran for the phone, ran for it like a lifeline. It didn't matter who it was, as long as it was someone other than herself.

"Hello?" Caroline answered the unfamiliar number.
"Hey Carl, it's me, Mike, you know, from The Fool's Card?" Answered the somewhat familiar voice.
"Hey Mike... sorry about your grandma..." she apologized.
"Yeah, this call is kind of about that." He said bluntly. "Look, I know Todd's probably told you some bad things about me, but I'm a part of this family, just like Thug, just like Lucille."
"So? What's your point?" she stated flatly, sensing an ulterior motive.
"So you know Thug's first boy, right? Well, we all have jobs like that. Lucille's head mother. Her job is handling internal family politics. Thug's in charge of all external, non-family stuff like security. Me, I'm chief liaison to the other families." He explained.
"Wait... what other families?"
"Look, Mrs. Black wasn't the only witch in the world. Locally there's two other families, families we have truces with. As the new head, it's your job to meet with them, let them see everything's kosher, and most importantly let them know we're not about to fall apart and go back on any of the agreements. It's been a blood bath since Senora Maya died, and Mama Agnes might move on us if she thinks the Blacks are going that route. We're small, but we stay alive by not pissing anyone off. That means keeping up the protocols."
"Wait, what the fuck are you talking about?" Caroline spat, irritated by Mike's self-importance when he should be in mourning.
"I'm talking about a meeting. Tonight. Mama Agnes had Starburst arrange a meeting with me the second she saw what happened, and Nate's been calling ever since he found out."
"Nate? Starburst? Who are these people?" Caroline asked, confused again.
"Ok. Starburst is Mama Agnes's emissary; basically her version of me. She's the tall black girl with the shades from The Fool's Card. You've never met, but you'll recognize her. Nate... you're gonna have to ask Dom about Nate. All I know is I hate the greasy bastard, and I hope his lying ass rots in hell." He explained.
"So what do I have to do?"
"Ok. Dom's gonna come meet you and Nate at the Applebee's on Westingham and Norwood down the street from here. Don't worry; Dom's paying. Nate won't cross Dom, and I'll have Starburst meet you there."
"What time?" Caroline asked, trying to get this all over with as soon as possible.
"Oh, just show up. Dom'll call me when he sees you."

Caroline walked form her car to the restaurant to see Dom just closing his phone as he stood next to a tall, tastefully dressed middle-eastern man with sharp features.
"Hey!" Dom called, waving and smiling cordially, wrapping Caroline in an unexpected fatherly hug as she approached.
"Caroline, this is my brother Nate Task. Nate, this is Caroline Parker, new matriarch of the Black Family."
"Pleased to meet you, Caroline." Nate said with an infectious smile, showing his pearly white teeth. "Really, so sad to hear about your loss." He continued, sounding earnest.
"It's ok. She told me she wanted it this way." Caroline answered him somberly.
"C'mon, lets go ahead and order while we wait for Starburst." Dom cut in awkwardly.

Dom sat next to Caroline in the booth, with Nate tucked away in the back corner.

"So...you two don't look like brothers. Are you step brothers or something?" Caroline asked, trying to kill the mystery.
"Hah, no..." Nate laughed gregariously, sounding strangely inappropriate. "You could say we're only related by marriage, as it were."
Dom made a weird face. "We're not related by blood. It's rather complicated." He said, sounding slightly embarrassed.
"Our two brothers are a lot more like me, although none of us look alike. Pete and Rod have always thought of Dom as a bit of a snitch. He's always been the white sheep of the family, you could say." Nate explained.
"Nate's the oldest, I'm second, then Pete, then Rod. Nate's always tried to be like Dad, but I had a bad case of middle child syndrome and Pete and Rod have never let me live it down." Dom finished wryly.

Their drinks arrived.

"Ok, let me cut straight to business." Dom said as he sipped his gin and tonic. "Mama Agnes is an old school African national priestess that can trace her roots all the way back to the Congo, even WITH the slave ships. Her family's big, HUGE, but they're pretty disorganized and the fact Mama Agnes is a witch is pretty hush-hush even with her own kids. She's only in her mid-nineties, and she stays pretty busy with her own affairs. She'd always respected Mrs. Black because of the stance she took against Belforte. Apparently the oral histories they use speak quite highly of it."
"Then why does she want to see ME? I wasn't even involved!" Caroline interjected.
"Oh, that's simple, Caroline." Nate answered. "It's because you're Mrs. Black's descendent by blood, albeit in a circuitous manner. These families are generational, so the descendent is treated the same as the parent."
"Basically, Starburst is coming BECAUSE Mama Agnes likes you. Normally a witch's only concern is her own family, but in this case if you get caught up, Mama Agnes will be the only person capable of getting you straight again." Dom finished.

Along with their drinks, the waitress arrived with an amazingly tall black man, built thin and lithe like a track star. The man wore skintight jeans and an undersized Rainbow Bright t-shirt and sandals. His shoulder length hair was beautifully straightened, and he wore a pair of Bootsie Collins-esque shades.

"Caroline!" said the effeminate baritone as Dom relayed the order to the waitress. Taking a second look, Caroline realized where she'd seen those shades before; talking to Straight Mike with the other queens at The Fool's Card.
"You must be Starburst." Caroline said, doing her best to imitate Mrs. Black's stately grace as she extended a hand.
"Pleased to meet you. And these gentlemen are...?"
Dom rose to the challenge. "I'm Dom Borden, and this is my brother Nate Task. He's just along with me. I'm one of Mrs. Black's old friends."

Something wrinkled above the bright yellow star-shaped shades on Starburst's head.
"Wait... Dom? I remember you now. I'd heard the rumors, but it's strange to find out they were all true like this."
Dom laughed. "Oh, it's not as serious as all that! Once Caroline gets up on her feet, me and Nate'll back out of the picture. Isn't that right Nate?"
Nate pretended not to hear as he sipped his drink.

Caroline broke the awkward pause.
"So, what's going on with Mama Agnes? I've heard good things."
"Oh, everything's nice and solid on our front. It's a day by day struggle, but even though the cops keeps getting worse, we keep doing better anyways." Starburst smiled. "In fact, I'm here to give you Mama's personal number. She knows you need a lot of advice and support right now. In fact, we're willing to handle the arrangements for Mrs. Black's funeral."
Dom spoke up. "A-S Cogic?"
"Yeah, down at All Saints Cogic." Starburst answered. "The Church of God in Christ knows Mama Agnes's place in the stream of things, so they don't ask too many questions in how she runs the place."

"Good, good." Dom crooned. "We want to keep everything small. Pedro needs to think everything's under control, otherwise he might do something stupid."
"Mama Agnes also wants everything nice and unified. Things are way too unstable now, and Pedro's running on fear. Did you know he completed the purge?" Starburst supplied conspiratorially.
"I did." Dom said ruefully. "I was there. That's why I'm here now."
Stardust swallowed, the cold nature of Dom's voice reminding him of something he was trying to forget.
"Of course. You probably found out first, maybe before even Pedro himself."
"It's worse, Star. Pedro's been watching me, that's why I had to bring Nate, even though I didn't want to let him come."

Suddenly Nate jumped to his feet, looking back towards the kitchen. "Speak of the devil..." he muttered as a commotion broke out. A paint splattered young Mexican man was arguing loudly in vulgar Spanish with a female member of the kitchen staff. Things died down, but the pair immediately came to the table where Nate was standing.

The stocky Mexican pointed at Nate, yelling accusatorily in guttural Spanish. Nate chuckled and smiled sharply, replying with smug fluent Spanish. The man turned to the girl, barking orders. The woman answered him, then turned to Caroline.
"He says he's not afraid of you." The unnamed girl said in a voice that would have been musical if it wasn't under such stress.
The man barked more orders to her.
"He says he knows what you did to Mrs. Black." She said, her eyes darting around nervously, her arms crossed protectively in front of her.

Nate said something disgusting in Spanish and then licked his fingers.

The small man snapped, yanking a big awkward utility knife form his tool-belt and lunged towards Nate across the table, just inches away from Caroline. Nate grabbed the man's overextended arm at the wrist just below the knife, bringing his other elbow down all in one motion crushing the small bones of the Mexican's knife hand against the table and the handle of his own knife.

Before the Mexican could recover or retaliate, three large servers grabbed him and yanked him from the restaurant. Already the waitress came running to the table, apologizing.
"No, that's fine." Dom smoothed. "No, we don't want to press any charges. Just get us our food and we'll be on our way."

Starburst looked shocked. "Is that who I think it was?"
Nate's sadistic grin nearly cut his face in half. "It was. Fool, he'll end up just like his grandmother if he doesn't see the light."
"Don't rub it in." Dom placated. "You wouldn't even be here if I had the freedom you do."
"Yeah, well, Father learned his lesson the hard way with me. That's why he was so much stricter with you three."

Dom sighed, and the wait staff hurriedly delivered everyone's food.

"So who was that?" Caroline asked, scared of her ignorance when everyone else seemed to know exactly what was going on.
"Pedro." Dom answered shortly. "He followed me here. I can't fight him, but Nate can, so I had to bring Nate for insurance."
"He doesn't speak a word of English." Starburst cut in. "He just recently got control of the family, so he doesn't have an emissary yet to meet with. In better times, he would have sent someone like me instead."
"So why is he coming after Nate with a knife, then?" Caroline asked.

Nate smiled again, coldly.

"Because I killed his mother and drank her blood."

Starburst started to speak, but Dom cut him off. "Look, Senora Maya knew what she was getting into when she started dealing with Nate. She crossed him, and she paid the price. Now you know the price of dealing with him, too, so you won't make the same mistake."

"There goes my brother, ever the snitch. Are you going to tell her my real name, too? Or are you scared I'll tell her who YOU are?" Nate oozed acidly.
"She'll find out all too soon as it is." Dom admitted with a hint of sadness. He looked Caroline dead in the eye. "I'd tell you if I could, I swear to God. You'll know who I am by the end of the week."
"Promises, promises." Nate chuckled, his fork held delicately as he spoke.
"So is Caroline dealing with Nate?" Starburst asked Dom pointedly, ignoring Caroline.
"Absolutely not." He said, solid as tombstone granite. "Nate's here doing me a favor, nothing more. I can't do anything about Pedro, but Nate needs me enough to where he won't cross me."
"You mean I won't cross myself." Nate interjected after sipping his wine. "You know we work to the same purpose, in the end."

Dom changed the subject, slightly shaken. "So, Starburst, what day is the funeral set for?"
"Thug turned in the body for cremation today. We're filing to have her declared dead without the body, though, to get her will enacted without too many questions. It shouldn't be too hard with her birth certificate saying what it does. We're setting it for the afternoon on Monday."
"But I have to work Monday..." Caroline responded instinctively, reverting to her old self.
Now it was Starburst's turn to chuckle knowingly. "Oh, Mama Agnes said that wouldn't be an issue."
"Hear that Dom?" Nate teased.
"Hear what?" Dom snapped, successfully baited.
"Oh, nothing." Nate said flippantly, turning his attention back to his meal.

"I'm sure I'll figure something out." Caroline said, just beginning to realize she was supposed to be in charge here.
"Don't worry honey, we're here for you. Mama's been holding everything together for us since the Great Depression. She apprenticed her whole life before she inherited the family; we don't expect you to be able to just jump in after a few months." Starburst consoled, which he was quite good at. "The bottom line is that the funeral's tomorrow at three, at All-Saints Cogic. There's still a lot to lose if you Blacks don't' keep your guards up, because Pedro can take a big chuck out of us if our allies are weak. He's about as new to all this as you are, though, so if we can get you up to speed before him, we'll have the leverage we need to get the three families normalized."

"Thanks Starburst." Caroline said earnestly. "Things have been hard for me. Everything's happening way too fast."
"You're telling me, girl. Don't you find a pretty young thing like me stuck in all this?"
"I didn't mean..." Caroline stuttered.
"No, it's ok. We all get caught up for different reasons. We all owe someone something. Debt and payment are what this is all about."

With that, Dom motioned for the waitress and the check.

"Well, Starburst, I'd like to thank you and your family for your help with the funeral." Caroline said, seeing it was time to leave.
"Ha, well, you'll be doing plenty of that on your own, soon." Starburst said as he handed her a card. "Oh, and don't worry about Pedro. We'll get him so busy he won't have time to mess with you."

Things were fuzzy to Caroline as she came home early that Sunday evening. It had seemed like only a moment after saying her goodbyes to Dom and Nate that they both left, not even walking with her back out to her car.

She shrugged it off with a sigh of relief. The entire situation was overwhelming, and it was clear things were only going to get more complicated after the funeral. Still, she no longer felt alone in her struggle. She had big shoes to fill, but now that she knew she wasn't the only one filling them, she could finally relax and go to sleep.

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Chapter 15

Saturday is the day of the satyr, a day for feasting and drinking after a week's hard work. The seventh day, the holy day on which God himself rested after creation of the earth. Also Saturday is the last day of the week, a day of endings, of having nothing to lose and looking forward to Sunday's forgiveness and absolution.

Friday is the final day of working struggle, the last day for war, but Saturday was more ominous, the day after war, the last day for life. Saturday was the day that decided the survivors from the casualties, the day on which the wounds of war were stitched shut or became infected beyond all repair.

Saturday is a closing door, the intersection of the shearing blades of a pair of scissors, the thick leather cover of a book slammed shut after a week of reading.

That was why Saturday was the day Caroline got Thug's phone call.

Caroline was at an emotional low. She didn't have a single friend she could trust with everything, and no one who could help her even if she did. Jaleesa was too closed-minded to understand. Raz, Todd, and Berry each had special reasons to avoid her during the past lonely Friday, and the last thing Caroline needed was an emotionally awkward night down at The Fool's Card fending off the likes of Straight Mike and his unnamed cross-dressing friends.

She'd spent the day alone in meditation, re-enacting the episode at Todd's house in her mind over and over. The episode at Lucille's grated at her as well, the events of the past piling up on top of her faster than she could make sense of them, like her life was a game of slow motion Tetris gone awry with bits and pieces coming in too fast for her to organize them.

It was sometime that afternoon then that Caroline finished washing up from a light but filling meal of eggs and fried rice to the sing-song sound of her cell phone going off. She reached down to her hip and checked it, but the incoming call was from an unknown source.

She answered it.
"Hello?"

Thug's voice was cold and urbane like polished granite.
"Tonight's her last night."
"But I thought she had stabilized..."
Thug cut off her equivocation sharply.
"You knew she was going to die. "
"But I mean, there was hope, right?"
"No. Tonight. With or without you."

Caroline opened her mouth to a dead phone, Thug having punctuated his last words by hanging up. She stared at the glowing light display, cold steel climbing into her spine. Things had changed since Lucille, changed in subtle ways, visceral ways. To watch a person die, even one as distant and unsympathetic as Mrs. Black would once have been devastating to Caroline, and there was still a kernel of denial in her heart about the repercussions of what Thug had told her. There was a deeper instinct, a root in her blood now, that saw this death as a challenge. Having pulled life into this world with her awkwardly gnawed fingernails, it now felt natural for her to be there when one slipped away into the unknown.

Caroline drove her car calmly; keeping within the speed limit with tight precision on the off chance even a slight flaw on her part could ruin the spirit of the upcoming events in some illogical way. She held to her old path along cottage Church Lane, making all the unnecessary turns just to stay on a path she knew, just to deal with the familiar and mundane for a few more short minutes.

Lawns turned into hedges, hedges turned to fences, and soon Thug's slick black Cadillac cruised its way into view. Caroline strolled up the rose encrusted path to Mrs. Black's large wooden porch, savoring every step she took in the old world, the world where there was a larger guiding force, however malevolent. Every inch that close between her and that door was another chunk removed from the disconnect between Caroline and reality.

Unconsciously Caroline knew there was a mental innocence she was about to lose that she could never regain. Her older future self sent this knowledge back through her soul via one of the fiber-thin connections that had developed there since her spiritual awakening, a spiritual awakening that was not quite yet complete.

The door was so close she could smell the rosin in the antique wood, her right hand reluctant to turn the knob before the last possible moment.

Click

The door swung open silently on well-oiled hinges like a million other doors, revealing the converted sanctuary as it had countless times before. All this repetition only served to reinforce the severity of the ending of a long, almost supernatural lifespan. Would these doors still open with their mistress gone? The logical answer was yes, but logic was no longer an ally to Caroline as her brain scrabbled to avoid the oppressive guilt of being the reason for Mrs. Black's suffering.

The house still wasn't familiar, but Caroline remembered the uncomplicated path to Mrs. Black's bedroom. It was a pleasant surprise then to see a smiling if unfamiliar face waiting patiently outside the door.

"Caroline Parker, is it?" the robust Italian said in a hearty voice that could easily have been the cousin to Pavarotti.
"How did you know?" Caroline said, meeting his extended hand with one of her own.
"Oh, Mrs. Black mentioned you." The chubby man said energetically. "She said we'll be working together quite a bit from now own. By the way, I'm Dominick Borden. You can call me 'Dom', though."
"Well Dom, I'm sorry to have to meet you in these circumstances..." Caroline said politely, using vain pleasantries to distract her from what she was about to face.
"Hah! It happens to me more often than you'd think." Dom said with a merry twinkle in his eye.

The doorknob's lock spun as the other end completed the half turn it took to unlock it. Thug peered sheepishly through the door, shocked to find Dom there.
"You... You... You're too early..." Thug stammered in quiet shock.
"Please Thug, we're all old friends here. I may be here on business, but I'm not ONLY here on business."

Thug visibly relaxed. "Well, I guess there's no time to waste. She's ready to see you now."

Suddenly Dom and Caroline were standing on either side of Mrs. Black's bed. She lay under her covers, only her neck showing above clean cotton sheets. Mrs. Black was an odd mix of bloated and gaunt, the flesh of her face telling the tale of her gross internal struggle.

Dom took her hand graciously, like the hand of queen taken by a prince. He looked with open love into her eyes.
"Who'd have thought after all these years, it would be ME of all people here holding your hand."
Mrs. Black smiled weakly. "Well, they always said I was special. Thank you for coming under these terms. It's a greater compliment than you could know." Mrs. Black's voice strained, but she refused to allow that to detract from her eloquence.

Mrs. Black turned her eyes to Caroline.
"Caroline, this is Dom. He's here to give you your lesson on necromancy."
"Necromancy! But I though...I thought we were here... you know... to be with you..." Caroline stuttered.
"You'll never get a better opportunity than today, and I refuse to waste anything, even my own death and besides, there's no better teacher than Dom."
"You flatter me." Dom said with a smile incongruous to the subject at hand.

"Never the less," Mrs. Black soldiered on, "Necromancy is the magic of death, but not the magic of murder. It is the most conservative of the magical arts, and its techniques have a wide base in the medical industry."

Mrs. Black took a deep, savored breath.

"Today, you will watch me die. My death is not a worst-case scenario, but a best-case scenario. Have no sadness in this, because I have seen the alternatives, and I have chosen this."

Dom spoke up, sensing Mrs. Black's voice fading. "Everybody has to die, Caroline. Necromancy is a much older word for what a doctor might call hospice or palliative care. Necromancy can be used to revive the dead under the common name of CPR or First Aid. There are no zombies involved, just sick, dying people who want to use their last moments instead of wasting them."
"So, what are you going to show me?" Caroline instigated.
"Basic medicines, mainly. But towards the end, soul manipulation. Wait, has she..."

Dom turned to his patient as Mrs. Black's breaths began to become gasps. He scooped a white powder from a vial in his pocket in tiny sprinkles into Mrs. Black's open mouth.

"For example," he continued nonchalantly, "Methamphetamine. Nasty stuff for the mind, but it can give the dying just the jolt they need to stay lucid for a few more hours."
"Wait... you just gave Mrs. Black a bump of meth?" Caroline gasped incredulously.
"Basically. Pharmaceutical grade, though. She'll be talking again in under five minutes, tops. It shortens the death-span, but what good is being alive if you're not lucid?" Dom explained casually.

"Where did you learn this?" Caroline asked, dumbfounded.
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, but when I get more time, I will anyway. Let's just say me and Mrs. Black have worked out a lot of deals in the past and have been personal friends for many years."

The finely grained powder dissolved quickly on Mrs. Black's membranous tissues, osmosis pushing it into her blood stream almost as fast as if she'd injected it. Two minutes and sixteen seconds later the drug had fully infiltrated her brain.

"Ah, there we go." Dom intoned, self-satisfied, looking down at Mrs. Black's blinking eyes.
"Dom?" Mrs. Black asked sleepily.
"Yes?" He answered, warmly.
"Could you leave for a second?"
"Sure thing." He quipped, popping jauntily from the room.

"Caroline." Mrs. Black called.
"Yes?" Caroline answered, feeling formal for some reason.
"Do you know what it means, what happened with Lucille?" Mrs. Black struggled to keep her voice audible, the drugs failing to provide more than symptomatic relief.
"I know what it means." Caroline said with more surety than she realized. "It means their blood is my blood. Our blood, now. That for better or for worse, I'm part of the family."
"And do you know what that implies?" Mrs. Black pressed.

Caroline swallowed.
"It implies that you chose me to replace you. That's why Lucille and Thug were so eager to have me as midwife."

Mrs. Black sighed.
"The nature of a witch is to bargain. We don't have any "power," only knowledge, which is better, because power can be spent, but knowledge can be remembered forever. Our bargain, between me and you, whether you accept it or not, was that I would spare you knowing what fate The Glass had for you. Through prophecy I made normal decisions, decisions anyone could make if they had my knowledge of prophecy. I knew the cost from the very beginning, but I knew you would never agree if you knew I would die for it."

"A life for a life, Caroline. Yours for mine. I die, you live. What you pay me for my life is you life. You serve my family as I would have had I lived. That is your price, and you're in too deep not to pay it now, may God Himself have mercy on me."

It wasn't even a shock, not anymore. Why else would Thug have been so nervous and polite since day one? Why else would anyone have been so secretive? But also, worse, was admitting that knowing what she did now, she would do it all again without a drop of remorse. That lack of remorse was hers, Caroline's, and it was there long before the first time Mrs. Black entered her dreams. It was there that first night with Todd.

Accepting this was who she was, who she wanted to be, and how she wanted to be remembered. Mrs. Black needed her, her family needed her, but there was no pity in this decision; only power. In the end, Caroline did this for herself, and for no one else.

It was Caroline's turn to be the witch, now.

Caroline gave Mrs. Black an innocent peck on the lips, like a four year old might give her grandmother.
"I didn't know then, but I know now. I know, and I accept. I accept because I have tasted power, and I refuse to ever be weak again."

Mrs. Black smiled a slow, knowing smile.
"We could have been sisters, you and I. Now call Dom back in here. There is one last thing I can teach you."

"Is it time already, Lil?" Dom said, using Mrs. Black's first name familiarly.
"Yeah, Dom, the crank's finally making my heart sputter. Next time use coke, it has a shorter duration and it's easier on the heart."

Dom chuckled.
"A nit-picker to the end. They're going to miss you."
"Liar." Mrs. Black said, and then closed her eyes.

Dom nudged Caroline's shoulder conspiratorially.
"Get a good look now, while you still can."

Caroline took the hint immediately, her funeral home calm helping her to enter the trance state. Mrs. Black's soul seemed... furry, blurry, and inconsistent, like a threadbare blanket all-full of static from the dryer, clinging to a random sock for dear life. She looked at Dom through the rainbow static, and was shocked. Mrs. Black's soul existed in an avatar as an aura, but Dom... Dom was a round, black... hole, warping and distending the patterns around him, drawing them in and absorbing them.

"Dom, what are you?" Caroline projected through the dream space.
"Try not to think about it." He replied, chuckling through the void. "Quick, watch."

He pointed, almost puppy-like with enthusiasm.

Caroline changed her focus back to Mrs. Black. The fuzzy hairs on her soul were becoming longer, fewer, and more defined, the longest ones curving towards Dom.
"See those strands? They're little conduits, little escape holes for the soul. Eventually one will latch on. A simple, basic technique to stop this is to create an avatar bubble."

Dom demonstrated, slowly coalescing a ball of the rainbow ether just as Caroline had to spy on Todd. The ball first went opaque white, then clear as it hollowed and expanded. Finally it moved into position, encapsulating Mrs. Black and blunting the strands escaping from her soul.

"It can only hold for so long. A dying soul creates a kind of negative spiritual pressure. Because they exist being created from nothing but pure will, souls distort the world. When they die, the natural forces stop distorting. The avatar bubble artificially maintains this distortion, like the glass of a light bulb maintains a vacuum so the filament inside doesn't burn out. Once the soul is weak enough, though, you're basically trying to create a soul by your will alone, and that's like trying to pick up the entire universe. Needless to say, it doesn't work."
"So she's not dead yet?" Caroline queried.
"Not yet, but she's too weak to control her body anymore."

The black strands writhed within the bottle, growing longer and more distinct. There was a popping blackhead quality to it, the purulent material of a dying soul being pushed out of the universe in cohesive strands. Unlike a blackhead, though, these strands were alive, like the flagella of microorganisms.

"By the way, always remember to reinforce the bubble. As the pressure increases, it can overcome your will and escape, resulting in the death of your patient." As Dom said this, he added a second coat of coalesced static to the capsule.

"Now, there's another technique that can strengthen the soul. Well, several, really, but they're all based on the same principal."

There was something ominous in Dom's tone as he conveyed this.

"If you have another soul, something I sadly lack, you can combine the dying one with the living one using an umbilical, only a purely spiritual one as opposed to a physical one. Two pieces of a soul make a whole new soul, whether one is incomplete because it is dying, or because that piece is a sexual extension. Basically, sex is the extension of two pieces of soul to create a new third self-sustaining one. Her piece will eventually die and break the connection, but this can buy you a little more time."

Caroline saw his point immediately, but with her own twist. An umbilical chord, yes, but also in a way a phallus, if it was to extend externally into another soul.

Herself, with a phallus extending from her containing a tendril of soul, just like the tendrils writhing inside of Dom's avatar bubble.

It was then that she noticed how easy it was to distort her avatar in the trance. With the image fully formed in her mind, the avatar flowed into it with the force of will it took to force out something gastrointestinal. The umbilical formed at her navel as she continued to push, driving it closer to Mrs. Black's dying soul.

"Impressive. No wonder you were so easy to find. It normally takes watching three deaths to figure out the trick of it. When I release the bubble, let one of the tendrils attach. It'll hurt, but if you hold on she may regain strength." Dom informed.

Dom's black-hole avatar drifted behind Caroline's in proportion to Mrs. Black in the defined dream-space. The bubble dissipated, reabsorbed into the rainbow static. Suddenly the tendrils escaped and surged, latching onto Caroline's umbilical.

The sensation was icy, burning cold, like having bare flesh frozen to a piece of metal. Instantly Caroline felt detached and weak, almost the exact opposite of a fever. Mrs. Black's avatar reformed, the tendrils sucking back inside leaving only the umbilical connecting them.

Mrs. Black was reborn; the only sign of her sickness the tendril that connected her to Caroline.
"This technique can be dangerous, Caroline. This can also be used to steal a soul to keep a dying mind alive, or worse, to absorb a second soul. Also, demons and the soulless can use this technique to acquire a soul in various ways." Mrs. Black spoke immediately.

Dom cut in. "I was hoping we wouldn't get this far. Very few people can even form an umbilical, let alone on the first try."

All this was barely registered to Caroline, now wrapped in an increasing torrent of burning, frigid, paralyzing pain, the feeling of a numb limb regaining sensation coursed through her body, tingling every nerve electrically.

"Caroline?"

It was too much. The umbilical was sucking the life out of her. She had to kill it, before she was too weak to fight back. Her mind formed the image of her separate once again, and with a mental wrench she broke the connection.

Mrs. Black's soul exploded in escaping rays, each one reaching hungrily past Caroline towards the lack of existence that was Dom in the spirit world.

"Caroline!" Dom projected, straining for some reason. "Watch closely! Once I do this, there's no going back!"

Caroline wavered in the trance, her weakness causing reality to fade back into view. She recovered to find a black bar with a shining silver tip radiating light. The bar extended straight from Dom's avatar like an axe handle, the tip making a right angle and hooking towards him almost as long as the handle.

A lump traveled up the tendril, a lump, Caroline realized, that was the bulk of Mrs. Black's soul, with just a thin strand connecting it to her motionless avatar.

"This is the last secret of necromancy, although there are others you still have not learned. Once a soul has been contacted by God's messenger and separated from its body, or its avatar here, it can never return, although it can still be manipulated for a time before it is reclaimed and judged."

There was a pregnant pause.

"This is what it looks like."

The silver tip, now a blade, sliced through the last weak strands holding Mrs. Black to her avatar. The tendrils connecting her soul to Dom drew it towards him, finally being sucked into that space-warping vacuum. With that, Mrs. Black was gone.

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Chapter 14

Caroline drifted in from work, from another day of aloof and unfulfilled detachment, from a world that was becoming less and less important to her. Once she'd cared intimately for what she was having for lunch, who got what workloads, or about the personal lives of various celebrities. Now, however, she luxuriated in the respite of the boring, reveled in the simple stillness of her cold, dead room.

Compared to places she's been in her dreams, or worse, places she'd been in real life, the knap of her carpet was every bit as ritzy as a silk couch. She didn't even think of turning on the computer or television. Life was dramatic enough; it was the peace and simplicity of this dark uninhabited room that was rare and exotic now.

Caroline stretched in the middle of her living room floor like a kitten, actively exploring every tendon of her body. She tensed and flexed each one as she examined the mixture of pain and pleasure they released. Thug had called her earlier, saying Mrs. Black had stabilized but wanted to be alone, and Caroline for once was ecstatic she had nothing to do that evening.

Nothing to do, that is, but cook something, her purring belly reminded her.

The peaceful security Caroline felt here, in her own home, was partially due to the faint but pervasive scent of roses, a scent she now associated with the hedges that protected 1st Holiness Pentecostal Church. That scent protected her, too, from the incursions of The Glass and other rogue psychological elements.

Caroline rose from the floor, tucking her stringy hair behind her ears to linger massagingly behind her neck as she meandered towards the kitchen. Her tub of bloody chicken livers had long since been replaced by extra firm tofu, tofu that in fact sounded quite nice battered and fried with garlic and then covered in honey barbecue sauce. She took her time cubing the tofu as she reveled in the simple task of pleasing herself with a home-cooked meal.

Pleasure she had once derived from passively watching television was replaced by craftsmanship, by shifting her focus to caring about things she could change as opposed to just reacting to those things she couldn't. The quality of her meal was a reflection of the quality within herself, giving her the same pleasure a model has preening in the mirror, or an artist re-examining their portfolio. For a moment, life was better without distractions, as opposed to living for distraction and diversion as she once did.

As the tofu slowly browned in it's skillet, Caroline couldn't help but look more deeply into it, not just seeing the bubbling oil, but letting that deeper focus set in, that rainbow static that revealed to her just how well cooked the inside was. There was a comfort in this too, a comfort in becoming familiar with what was once frightening and new, the comfort of mundanity, like she'd felt in the first few months after getting her first car. For once in her life she knew what she was doing, and didn't need to second guess herself or try to ignore what she knew to be true.

She ate her meal hot from the skillet in front of the stove, not paying any mind to useless formalities such as