So my last 20 posts were the rough drafts to my novel "The Cutting Garden." That's in rewrites right now, about 3/4's of the way done. However, that's just the tip of the iceberg, really.

A lot of people get the wrong idea about me because I'm a forum mod. Being a forum mod is just an extension of being a good writer; it's a way to practice being funny and intelligent in text. Long before I ever made my first BBS post, I started playing drums, and in teh IRL, that's where I get most of my recognition.

I've been playing drums in a band called Strangled Blue for about two years, previous to that Chiselfist, and previous to that a project called Dominion (ends up the name wasn't original. Who knew?). Anyways, over the years I've built up a bit of a reputation for being a hardcore moshpit freak, and I've met a lot of the hardcore freakshow scene people. In particular, I'm fairly good friends with Tony Myers of Sex and Violence Hardcore wrestling, and I've hung out with Paintribe on mulitple occasions, just shooting the shit. I'm also deeply entrenched in the local memphis Goth community, despite the fact I'm not technically goth. In fact, I'm mainly a beatnik.

Because of these connections, I was able to get my band booked for the baddest ass show ever to happen ANYWHERE, EVER, with Pain Tribe and Sex and Violence.

PainTribe is a group of whacked out piercing/suspension artists from New Orleans in the greatest voodoo tradition. They specialize in hook pulling competitions, where two members of the group will put hooks in their backs attached by chains, and then attempt to rip those hooks out of each other's backs in a bloody tug of war all while ambient techno and.... well... your boy FUNK play in the background with his band Strangled Blue. So if you ever wonder what it feels like to be a part of a real freakshow, honestly, it feels a lot like watching old ladies get the holy roller spirit in a southern Pentecostal church. It'll give you the shakes just watching, man. You won't leave the same.

Sex and Violence Hardcore wrestling is basically the most fucked up shit... EVER. Period. Bar none. I'm talking Cactus Jack style shit. They start the show with the Sex: straight up oil wrestling with super hot chicks. Oh yes, it was hot and greasy, and I was there, and YOU WEREN'T!! LOLOLOLOL!!!

Next, S&V hard The Abortionist VS FAUST VS. Psycho VS Chair VS. Madman Pondo of Juggalo hardcore wrestling fame (this guy is AMAZING!!! Look him up on You tube, ZOMFG!!!). These guys are NUTZ, with broken glass, barbwire, thumbtacks, you name it, they hit each other with it action. I watched a guy get WHACKED with a taxidermied deer hoof, for crying out loud!

Blood was EVERYWHERE. If you wonder where I get my blood descriptions from my novel from, it's stuff like this. There's no other group of people willing to bleed that much, anywhere, PERIOD. Imagine someone getting tarred and feathered. Now, instead of tar, use their own blood from a vicious beating. And instead of feathers, use broken glass. Then take that guy, covered in blood and broken glass, and THROW HIS ASS OFF A FUCKIN BALCONY. That's sex and violence hardcore wrestling at it's finest.

Faust started the match by hiring Psycho to destroy The Abortionist for revenge against The Abortionist hacking Faust face up (true story. I watched the shit happen. That scar is big as shit). However, Faust mistakenly hit Psycho with a flourescent light, and both Psycho and the Abortionist took turns slapping his faggy goth ass all over the stage. Pondo ended up pile driving him off the stage, where he layed crying like a homo until they realized he was too hurt to continue and let him go home to cry to his girlfriend.

Chair was the first eliminated, eliminated while Faust was still crying like a girl. A lot of people underestimate Chair, because they always see hot chicks sitting on him and just ASSUME he's just a piece of furniture. Originally he WAS a person, but after decades of the japanese hardcore wrestling scene, eventually every bone in his body was replaced with either steel or plastic. One night after mainlining a shit load of meth and heroine with some prostitutes, he got the idea to give up on being a person altogether, and had himself surgically altered to be a chair. Sadly, after just recently defeating Faust with his patented Chair Rope-a-Dope technique, he had Madman Pondo crush his legs and pin him, resulting in his elimination.

Now it was Pondo, Abortionist, and Psycho, the biggest and nastiest of the big and nasty. Abortionist and Pondo teamed up against Psycho, mainly because Psycho is WAY too crazy to be trusted with the Hardcore Sick Fuck belt. I mean, he might EAT it, or something. After a struggle, they managed to pick Psycho's fat ass up in a tag team suplex off the stage, right into a pit of broken glass, knocking him clean out in a pool of his own blood.

Now it was just Pondo and Abortionist.

At this point Abortionist had been wrestling from the jump, and was barely recognizable from the blood pouring from every inch of skin on his body. I really wish I was making this shit up: Tony's a close personal friend, and it's CRAZY to see how much pain he can take. I mean, I DRINK with the guy, so I don't see him in that light, but he is what he is.

Abortionist knew his only chance was to throw Pondo off the Balcony of the New Daisy theatre; Pondo had come in late to the fight, and was too fresh to beat any other way. Pondo was too glad to meet him up there, knowing that he still had the advantage.

After a brutal struggle on the balcony, Pondo managed to get the slip on Abortionist and drop him off the two story tall balcony, breaking his leg and nose (no shit). Finally, Pondo was Sick Fuck champion!

Then we spent like an hour scraping blood and broken glass off the stage before the venue owner shit a kitten, and went home. YAY.

Don't believe me? Go find Sex and Violence on myspace, and watch their videos. The new match will be for sale on DVD in a few weeks or so: RESERVE ONE NOW!!!

Chapter 20

Two pairs of dark-blue clad police officers slowly made the rounds of the brown brick two-story apartment complex with clipboards in their hands and black expressions on their faces. They worked from opposite ends of the two buildings that faced the cracked gray asphalt, gently informing the occupants of the murder and asking for information with the mildly interested tones of those people with government jobs who get paid by the hour and not the client. It didn't really matter what the witnesses said, and the officers knew it. They'd already been debriefed on the situation by a slim young man in a sharp silk suit.

It was their acquaintance with the effeminate suit that got them their jobs in the first place, in exchange for situations such as this. Officer Jackson remembered the day he'd met the slim black man at a small house near the train tracks after being laid off from his sporadic construction job. They'd been introduced by his wife's grandmother, Mrs. Agnes. It was Mrs. Agnes, in her bright old-fashioned head-wrap, that had given him a warm smile, and told him how a black man with no formal education could get a job at the police station and feed his daughter.

At the time, he didn't ask many questions. After all, you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Well, not if you want to keep getting gift horses, anyways.

No one else did, either. Not the other two male officers of the one Spanish female officer. All four of the just kept on their blank masks, not talking about how strange it was all four of them were reassigned to a murder investigation unit on the same day without a single senior officer in sight. Mainly what they didn't talk about, though, were the short stacks of forged affidavits in their pockets, signed statements from imaginary witnesses that had mysteriously appeared after the most recent meeting with the silk suited man in gaudy alligator skin shoes.

Everyone's acting so normal, Jackson thought, reminded of the immaculate homes in the rich part of town that nevertheless managed to be red flagged for domestic disputes. It was the false normality of the assassin, the gray man that uses his mundanity to blend into a crowd in the street, stalking his victim in the open, pulling the trigger in full view before anyone notices he doesn't belong there.

They used phrases like "at this time" and "an investigation is proceeding," white noise, cop talk, nothing to see here. But the way the other officers didn't wisecrack and kept their noses in the job was enough to tell an experienced cop something was very, very wrong.

And an experienced cop was exactly what wasn't there.

Caroline followed the smooth gray aura into the back of the van with flashing light on it. Smooth, nice and smooth, she thought to herself. Not fuzzy or static-y, no flagellate tendrils extending from it, no dark black holes forming nearby, hungry to snatch the soul into oblivion. Just Thug, who cried like a baby when his grandmother died, who hid in the shadows to take a gut wound that would have killed her.

Soon the EMTs would make everything ok, stitch her poor boy shut and make everything ok again. The EMT, whose pale moon-shaped face looked eerily like...

Lucille.

"Oh, Caroline..." the stranger said, looking down at Thug's moaning body, blood still leaking from the nasty looking gash.
"How do you know my name?" Caroline said quietly, her dry mouth clicking after having been locked shut for so long.
"You're...you're Caroline. I saw you at the funeral. Mike said you were Mrs. Black's protégé. You're supposed to fix Thug like she used to do." The name "Thug" had a warm inflection on her lips. Her uncle? Cousin?
"No...no... I can't. I'm just a florist..." Caroline stammered, still in shock.
"But you HAVE to..." the girl said, a waver of desperation creeping into her voice, belying her true identity.
"How?"
"Like Mrs. Black used to do, with a needle and a strand of her own hair." The girl said, pulling up a white medical scrub sleeve to reveal a razor thin scar on her forearm.

Caroline bit her lip, dreading the next precious few minutes as Thug lay bleeding on the gurney on her right side. NO. She would not back away, not from the promise she made. She wasn't that person anymore, who would let Thug bleed to death while she did nothing. She plucked a hair from her head, wincing.

"Hand me a needle." Caroline commanded, taking on a touch of Mrs. Black's serenity as the old part of herself drifted a little father from her heart, the trance forming a buffer between her and reality, the blind focus of it shielding her.

The girl sighed with relief. She recognized this face. This was the right Caroline.

"Of course." The girl reached into a bulkhead drawer that looked like a thousand other drawers inside the ambulance as the engine changed gears in the background, the sirens only dimly registering to them as they stared at their ailing kin. She pulled out a white sterilized paper packet and pulled it open with professional ease, at once revealing she was at least partially medically trained.

"Here." She said, handing the needle of to Caroline's unnaturally still palm.

Caroline entered her own little world, saw her own pink aura streaked with black, stained by recent events, the taint roiling through her ragged strand of hair. Of course, a tiny piece of her to replace a tiny piece of him; her new blood making any part of her body a powerful component.

She carefully threaded the needle, using a doubled length of hair as her thread as ancient physicians had done before the invention of surgical silk, let alone dissolving stitches or medical glue. As she worked, the girl that looked eerily like Lucille eased an epidural into Thug's vein with professional exactness.

Wasn't she supposed to flush the wound with iodine or something? The girl didn't seem to think so. She saw the white fat under the skin, and decided not to waste time asking.

Thug's skin was tougher than she expected, her fingertips turning white under the pressure of keeping the needle from slipping in her sweaty hands. Each hole was a chore, a struggle to punch through the thick skin. Too late, Caroline realized she should have shaved Thug's hairy belly. There was too much she didn't know, too much left to chance. She tightened her stitch, eerily reminded of Marcia M'buto's skull-less rictus as the overlap of skin folded up between the whipstitches. Had it really been Jr. High when she'd last used needle and thread?

The nameless girl stared at her as she worked, like an electric guitar player might stare at a concert violinist. Nameless except for the tag on her scrub shirt, Caroline noticed for the first time. Madeline Mayweather. It was easier to focus on the girl than the wound, easier to let her hands fall into the blind, mechanical repetition of sliding each stitch through a fine thickness of skin and meat.

"So Madeline, how often does this happen?"
Madeline snapped out of her mystified reverie. "There's always someone in the family breaking an arm or getting in a car wreck. It happens every few weeks or so, but normally just fevers and colds. Maybe once a year for stuff this bad." She answered, the content of her words never touching her face as she stared at Caroline's sloppy stitch work.

Self-consciously, Caroline stared too, surprised to see her earlier stitches had disappeared, leaving a razor thin scar just like Madeline's without even a scab. She focused on the trance and watched the traces of her aura dissolve and be absorbed by Thug's, transfused as indecipherably as a pint of blood into an anemic.

Caroline plucked another hair from her head, having used all of the last one. Already, the wound was half closed.

"Wow..." Madeline drawled. "I forgot what it looked like."
"It's my first time seeing it." Caroline mumbled under her breath, catching the flow of the stitching, finding her rhythm and accelerating as she gained confidence.

Even as the wound closed, Thug's eye began to darken and swell from the concussion with Todd's devilishly strong fist. Caroline flashed back to Raz, how she'd entered his body and felt out his damage, squeezing the bullet out of his head as though nothing had happened. She tied off the last stitch, not bothering to marvel at the may it dissolved into the skin, leaving it whole and healed.

The trance, the trance was key. She formed the umbilical, pushing a piece of herself out towards Thug and into him. She roared through his blood, drunk on the power of his strong heartbeat, for once strengthened by her connection to another soul. The damaged blood vessels seemed so minor compared to what she'd done to Raz, shocking her that she'd been successful so easily with him.

She smoothed the ragged blood vessels like the fur of a wind-ruffled kitten, pushing the draining blood back inside where it belonged. Now only the epidural kept Thug incapacitated.

Madeline wrapped her arms around Caroline in the back of the ambulance, holding her close and tight.
"Thank you. Thank you for being who we didn't want to be..."

Straight Mike and Starburst passed a joint across the living room table in Starburst's high ceilinged historic home, each of them barking tersely into their phones.

"...it's a legally valid document. It's not my fault it's old..."
"...that job. You wanna keep..."
"...you six weeks ago..."
"...can't back out now. Too..."
"...wanna let him catch it? You're..."
"...right. All signed and legit..."
"...good money. Like last time..."
"...busy. But she'll be there..."

Finally, Mike snapped his phone shut with a resounding click, taking a long drag off the smooth rolled joint. Seconds later, Starburst joined him, taking the joint in one hand while putting his phone into its holster with the other.

"You done too?" Mike drawled, the sweet smoke making his voice sound thick and deep.
"Yeah... it was touch and go for a second. Jackson wanted to back out."
"Really?" Mike said in conversational surprise.
"Yeah. I had to explain to him he'd screw everyone if he backed out, even if he didn't squeal."
"You need to use the rose garden?" Mike prompted icily.
"No. He knows where his bread is buttered." Starburst answered, his lisp becoming a little more pronounced now that he was off the phone.
"Well, fuck it. You wanna hit The Card?"
"Hellz yeah. Let me put on my face..."

Lucille dropped the dusty portfolio on Mr. Jeff Jones desk, creating a small puffball cloud.

Mr. Jones looked the yellowed paper over with a professional eye, surprised to see such a document after years of grand fathered stipend checks.

"You mean you found Mrs. Parker?" He said, still officious in his astonishment.
"Yes. Her name and birth date match exactly."
"And you're sure you don't want it? Legally you have just cause as next of kin." He counseled her.
"No. It was written this way for a reason, and frankly, I already have a house."
"But she was born seventy years after this was written. Don't you want to keep it in the family?" he asked, owing her the question even as he itched to finally have the will executed and out of his hair.
"Oh, it stays in the family this way."
"Sorry. I had to ask."

Mr. Jones pulled a much fresher, crisper sheet of paper from his huge black walnut desk in his richly ornamented law office.

"Alright then. Just sign this release form, and have her sent up here."

Madeline waved from the back of the ambulance as Caroline walked away towards the downtown skyscraper.

15th floor, room 78, 6:00 PM, late for a lawyer's office, but then again these were special circumstances. Madeline said it was a special surprise, but something in her head rang false when she'd said it.

Lucille met her in the lobby, her newborn in the care of her husband for a change. Caroline didn't know how she knew this, only that it was true. Lucille gave her a warm hug.
"Thanks for everything, Caroline. You have no idea how much this means to us."
"Madeline told me Mike was handling the police. Why are we going into a lawyer's office?" Caroline asked suspiciously, prodding at the inconsistency.
Lucille broke down. "It's not about that. Mrs. Black named you in her will."
"WHAT?!" Caroline hissed.
"Look, we'll go see the executor Mr. Jones, sign off on some paper work, and be done."
"HOW?!"
"You know how. You know how probably better than any of us. She wrote the thing before you were born."
Caroline bit her lip, trying not to curse.

"Hello Lucille, and this must be Caroline Parker?" Mr. Jones greeted the two women.
A nod from Lucille proved his presumption correct.
"According to the will, you inherit..." he looked down at the yellowed paper, "646 Cottage Church Lane. Also, you receive a modest stipend for upkeep: Five hundred dollars a month. Sign here."

"What if I say 'no'?" Caroline whispered to Lucille.
"Then we forge your signature. Back out again, and we release the real way Todd died. Right now the official story is that he fell down the steps onto Thug."

This time, Caroline bit her lip until she tasted blood.

Then she signed.

There had been an awkward housewarming party, although Caroline had been minimally involved. Thug brought a grill and cooked smoked sausage and burgers for what seemed like an endless sea of elementary aged children and a smattering of smiling adults, glad to sit back and enjoy a few beers while their children made messes for someone else to clean up for a change.

Twilight came and the children left, Thug staying behind to pick up the paper plates and red plastic cups scattered throughout rose bushes so immense they could have passed for young Maple trees. A powder blue Impala showed up, with Mama Agnes's familiar head-wrap cresting the passenger seat like the prow of a battleship. Starburst exited the car, opened Mama Agnes's door, and sidled off to make small talk with Thug.

Mama Agnes sailed proudly up to the front door, knocking, then patiently waiting for Caroline. The door opened slowly, and she stepped inside.

"It's been speaking. You know that?" Caroline said abruptly, her voice sounding robotic.
"What's speaking? I don't hear anything." Mama Agnes answered, her eyes cutting warily.
"It won't shut up. It's speaking right now." Caroline continued, still entranced.
"Where is it? I can't hear it." Agnes said, her brow furrowing.
"Oh, wait... It's quiet now." Caroline's face and neck relaxed noticeably.

"I just dropped by to see how you were doing in the new place." Mama Agnes started, trying to refocus Caroline's mind. She'd slipped since the incident, still tortured by dreams, new dreams that were all her own creation.

"What? Oh... I'm sorry. It's been a busy day. Welcome to my home, Mama." Caroline said, her mind wrenching back onto track.
"Hm..." Agnes droned, worried, "I know this has been a big change, dear, but you have to be strong for the people who depend on you now. Imagine what it would feel like for one of the children, if they were to see you space out like that."
"I know," Caroline apologized, "I'm just so paranoid. I have to keep one in the trance, just in case."
"Hm... I guess he was right, then. But you're young, and it IS traditional. I have a solution, but I think I'll let Starburst handle it."
"A solution for what? All this slowly driving me crazy?" Caroline asked , exasperated at herself.
"Girl, you were crazy to start with. Never forget that. This will just help you cope."
"And this is what, a magic powder? A black cat bone? A bat's wing?" Caroline spurted, her irritation at herself showing by redirecting towards Mama Agnes.
"Nothing so hoodoo." Mama Agnes replied, chuckling. Caroline's hard head would hurt her more than any admonition. "I think I'll let Starburst handle it."
"Handle what?" Caroline asked sheepishly, suddenly guilty for her insolence, insolence Agnes had so graciously ignored.

"I'll let him tell you that."

Or maybe hadn't ignored at all...

Caroline beat herself up for running Mama Agnes off like that. She was only trying to help, and she'd acted like a spoiled brat. Luckily, it wasn't long before Starburst appeared, the smell of sweet skunky hydroponics entering with him.

"Mama was just messing with you; she doesn't smoke. You have to lighten up sometimes. 'You have to laugh to keep from crying' you know."
"Jesus, that stuff reeks. Todd's pot was..." Caroline trailed off, Todd's name driving a dagger into her heart.
"Todd's pot was one fourth the price of this stuff." Starburst joked. "And The Glass killed Todd. Not you. Get used to it; that's the reality you're going to be living in for the rest of your life."

Caroline took the thin joint, dragging deeply off of it.
"You don't understand. I became a monster. I didn't CARE who it was, I just wanted them dead. I'm some vicious... THING now, and I don't want to be vicious. I don't want to be anything at all..."
"And you think I'd be who I am if I had a choice? None of us do. You either change yourself, or you change the world, but as long as you live, nothing can stay the same. It's only when you stop growing that you die inside."

Caroline thought back to what Mrs. Black had said, about how people were flowers, and when they had finally bloomed, they were snipped and taken away. A person wants to stay alive, to wither on the vine, but how much better it is for those clipped in full bloom, to be a part of an other worldly bouquet?

From the perspective of the flower, it seems so cruel. But from the perspective of the gardener, it's only right that those who choose to grow the flowers get to choose when they are clipped.

Caroline giggled to herself as the sweet smoke killed the voices in her head, her own voice full of self-doubt, the voices of the dead with their remembered advice, and the voices of the living.

Sweet anesthesia....

END.

Chapter 19

There are things known as dust devils, tiny tornados that are the phenomena of greater, world spinning forces. An individual dust devil is easily destroyed; it has no sense of self-preservation. It doesn't have to. It is the result of a greater force, the Coriolis effect. It could be said quite accurately in the terms of the supernatural that Coriolis is a demon, and each individual dust devil is one of its avatars.

To destroy an individual dust devil, then, is pointless. Another will appear as long as the air is moving in such a way as to bring the Coriolis effect into play. No matter how many times the wind currents of a dust devil are interrupted and destroyed, the Coriolis effect remains a true principle of physics. Such acts of destruction, then, are futile.
There are many dust devils all over the world at any given time, but only one Coriolis effect, only one planet rotating to cause the curvature in what would otherwise be a straight-line wind. Similarly, beings like Nate and The Glass may have many avatars all over the world wherever the situation is right, but they are still single forces. Somewhere else, there is another avatar of Dom collecting the souls of the dead wherever he is called. The avatars of a demon may emulate human thought, but the demon itself is still a single, basic force of nature. Only the most powerful and complex demons are capable of forming fully individual physical avatars, only the most intrinsic forces of reality are easily personified.

There is only one Sun, but cultures all over the world have different Sun gods. There is only one harvest, but this too has a deity in every farming culture. The form of the idol is unimportant. Every statue of Buddha may be smashed, but the principals of Buddhism will live on, and eventually, more statues will be made.

To fight a demon, then, is to try to stop the Sun, to hold back the tide, to jam yourself into the gears of the engine that spins the stars into space every night. The oceans are filled with the ground remains of mountains that stood in the path of the tides, now sand. The ground is filled with the carbonized remains of ancient forests, now coal, that dared defy the changing of the seasons.

The nature of a human, however, is to defy nature. The Sun is not defied through violence; a man left in the sun will burn, go into shock, and die. Instead, to fight the Sun, a man invokes darkness. To fight the fire, a man invokes water. Human kind survives by being the fulcrum at which the destructive forces of nature are balanced.

And if Caroline Parker had ever been an apprentice, she would already know this.

The inside of Todd's mind was a clean place, a place of deep reflections. Todd's mind was a place where a beam of thought could enter and bounce off the brilliant surfaces, its luminescence added to and combined with Todd's own to exit the mouth greater and with more clarity than when it entered.

Thus, it was the perfect home for The Glass.

Berry's soulless body had been a functional tool, but only just barely. Having no internal focus, it fought control like a car with a bent rim, skittering back and forth and pulling to one side or another. Todd's mind was much more disciplined, and as his would withered, The Glass's influence grew fat inside him, growing cozy in it opulent surroundings.

If The Glass were capable of sympathy, capable of emotions, it would have felt sorry for Todd's withering, miserable soul. However, given the circumstances, given it's nature, The Glass found it much easier to watch and wait. Todd's soul could be used as a valuable hostage in the right situation.

Caroline was a soft target. She'd barely survived being a bystander in The Glass's last escapade; there was no chance she could survive a direct assault. If anything, The Glass was a creature of finesse, and it could blur as well as focus. Should Caroline merely go missing, or The Glass somehow regain control of her mind, it would have much greater effect than Thug merely finding her mangled corpse in the kitchen floor.

The light glinted off of the Glass's crystalline surface. It was almost time.

Todd sat in his tiny one-bedroom apartment, staring at his soft, uncalloused hands in the dark. Somehow the light felt wrong to him; it fed something alien inside. There was something missing in him, too, as though some part of his brain was suffering from palsy. He'd tried drinking more water, eating more green vegetables, but he felt more and more abstract every day, as though he were becoming a mere shell of himself.

He was having strange urges, too, like some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder. He found himself polishing the cheap stainless steel cutlery he'd bout at the dollar store when he'd first moved into his apartment, washing his windows meticulously, buffing up a shine on just about every surface he could, right down to the kitchen sink. He felt so... focused, like he did when he was writing lesson plans, only in a strange, alien direction.

What made it worse was that at first there had been more conflict to it, like his old self was fighting back, but it seemed like the more time passed, the more the old him seemed to fade away. He couldn't help but think that recent events had done something to him, like some sort of post-traumatic stress disorder or something.

It was like when Straight Mike had called with the news about Raz, a piece of him had died, but something new was growing in its place. However at the very least it was making him a better housekeeper. He couldn't help but think there was something horribly wrong, but he couldn't seem to focus on it either, some OCD distraction always cropping up right before he could get a grip on what was happening.

He kept thinking about Caroline, too, but not in the warm way he once did. Things were so blurry...

Caroling had developed a habit of inspecting things since the dreams had started. The world she lived in now was full of concrete things she had to focus on to learn about, as opposed to the attention grabbing insanity that had filled it such a short time ago.

She petted the material of the velvet bag that held Marcia M'buto's preserved, skull-less head. It was so deceptively luxurious, like a mousetrap baited with gourmet cheese. This was a bag for jewelry, liquor, or antique coins, but inside instead were Marcia M'buto's shriveled lips, sewn shut possibly before she died.

Caroline had lost her squeamishness since the incident with Lucille, and had no qualms about holding the desiccated shrunken head in her bare hands. It was only a ball of leather in the end, albeit leather made from human flesh. If she could see a human placenta as meat, certainly she could see human skin as taxidermy.

She relaxed her breathing, for once noticing how it instantly increased her calm and focus. It was so much easier to breathe with her back straight and her head held high. No wonder Mrs. Black had always seemed so poised; familiarity with the trance state had yogic benefits as well as its benefits to perception.

It was the pan-spectrum snowstorm of the trance state, a state she almost defaulted to whenever she wanted to be at her best, that revealed the disturbing secret of the head.

It contained the light of souls.

She couldn't believe the smooth, whirling lavender core of the object, a mix-mosh of soul energy from male and female, clan and tribe, blood and blood. Despite its macabre origin, the severed head gave her a strange sense of comfort, like the antique wallet of a deceased grandparent. The mixture, the conglomerate, the diverse, it felt like a reflection of herself, like a piece of art she would have made if only she had the skill.

There was a puff of dust as a rotten stitch popped in the center or M'buto's jawless, toothless mouth. Caroline's inner vision and outer view split for a second, maintaining the trance while no longer ignoring mundane vision. The souls inside... they were alive, bound to this remnant, this zombie avatar. Did Mama Agnes know about this? Surely she would have mentioned it. Since Mrs. Black's potion, Caroline knew better than to take such a gift for granted.

Perhaps this was a thing of mixed blood, or some ability Mama Agnes's family didn't have that was a part of her own heritage. That could explain why Mama Agnes had been so eager to give it to her. Then again, perhaps it was also a way of being rid of it so that she would no longer be responsible for the souls trapped inside.

The dry lips tried to move once more, to do what, Caroline had no idea. Before she could inspect further, the trance went black, and she felt a shock like ice-cold water as once again Death, Dom, or whatever it was calling itself murdered her connection to the trance state.

What were they trying to make her do, that she should be kept ignorant?! Caroline's jaw set in steel reserve. Whatever it was, she was going to be ready this time.

Todd felt something break inside him, his body suddenly going numb to his commands, but not his senses. His eyes darted around in their sockets until the left one froze and focused a short moment before the right eye went perfectly still.

At first, Todd was paralyzed, his right arm going completely numb. Was he having a heart attack? He felt he should react, knew these were the symptoms of a stroke or a blockage, but the dead space inside him allowed no room for fear. The anesthetic haze lent a certain sense of detachment as his right eye watched his left arm drunkenly, surprised to find it lacked the spasmodic twitching of a stroke-induced seizure. There was a snake-like grace to it, the grace of an old man still too young to shake, but too old to shudder, a grace Todd had yet to achieve in his own lifetime.

The possession crept down the left side, stealing it's way through his torso, trickling past his pelvis and down into his left leg, there too taking control and enforcing an unnatural peace. The numbness in his right side gave way to passivity. The Glass wasted no time savoring its dominance, immediately pulling its new meat puppet up on marionette strings older than written language.

There was little left of Todd capable of fighting back, a mere pittance of himself left to watch was The Glass took his body for its own. This body was lithe and supple, eager to be at the command of a spirit with strength once more. The left hand deftly reached into Todd's right pocket across his body in a way Todd would never normally do, pulling his phone out. The left thumb dialed the numbers 877-7777, the universal code for a yellow cab he would normally never dream of affording on his meager salary. The voice of The Glass was greasy and smooth as it ordered a pickup.

The Glass knew that for this body, such material possessions as money would soon be pointless regardless of the success or failure of its current mission. The value of such a body was in its expendability. This face alone carried enough psychological charge to render its intended victim confused.

Confusion and mock-enlightenment were the favored tools of The Glass, having made such things useful against this victim in the past. The fog of war that could turn allied guns into friendly fire was the perfect weapon of the unarmed, although in this case The Glass had no intention to be.

The left hand slipped a small but razor sharp paring knife into its left pocket, and calmly waited for the friendly beep of the smiling and soon to be well-tipped driver to its final destination.

The Glass was evident in force, and a plate would only be needed after its intended butchery. The blood could come first. Such niceties as fine china could be arranged later.

Thug parked his black Cadillac at a gas station two blocks away from Caroline's apartment, his mind desolate and cold with the knowledge Mrs. Black had forced on him. He envied Caroline's ignorance of the situation, and steeled for what he knew was coming. He had to be careful not to be seen in case he tipped her off.

It was vitally important she react with her heart and not her mind. She didn't have the strength of will to do what was best for everyone; she still didn't understand the inevitable end, the choice would be just too painful for her to make.

Thug settled into the shadow of the stairway up to Caroline's second floor apartment, pulling out a chrome Zippo lighter and a smuggled Cuban cigar he'd saved from the days back before Pedro had gone crazy. He snapped the Zippo to a flame, blazing the blunt rolled tobacco to a dime-sized cherry. It would be a long time before he could enjoy a smoke again.

The yellow cab pulled up to the entrance of the complex with reckless speed, eager to be on its next commission. The Glass handed over Todd's last twenty-dollar bill to the driver, wordlessly thanking him in the only way a cabbie cared about.

The Glass slinked his way towards the stairway to Caroline's shabby second floor apartment, smiling eagerly with his human face in anticipation. Human forms had their shortsighted flaws, but their faces had a certain expressive allure in the reflections of the eyes. In only a few short moments...

WHAM! Thug's hammy fist made meaty contact with Todd's right ear, knocking him face first from behind into the steps in front of him. Todd's front teeth and nose shattered with the impact with the sharp corner of the steps, instantly blossoming into a flower of blood.

The Glass responded with inhuman reflexes, summoning inhuman strength to bounce back up with the impact, pulling the small knife out all in one motion. The demon endured the pain silently, still hoping to dispatch his enemy quickly so he could have the element of surprise against his main target.

Todd's human mind, however intelligent, hindered The Glass from anticipating the strategy Mrs. Black had armed her enforcer with. Thug's left hand jammed the smoldering cherry of the cigar hard into Todd's left eye, dragging the ember across the bridge of his nose and spraying hot coals into his right eye, viciously and callously blinding him.

The Glass took advantage of Thug's raised hands to slice with wicked force across Thug's tubby midsection, leaving a long gas that would have eviscerated a thinner man. Not waiting for his opponent to react to the cut, The Glass used the momentum of the slash to re-cock his arm and go for an intestine rupturing stab before Thug could dance out of his way. Without his eyes, The Glass had no chance of dragging Thug down before he had a chance to warn his mistress and help her escape.

Before The Glass could extend the knife into Thug's belly, however, Thug charged forward oblivious to the danger and pinned Todd's knife hand to his side, slamming Todd's head backwards into the hard concrete steps once more. The maneuver would have knocked even the toughest prize-fighter unconscious, however a body possessed by a demon as powerful as The Glass, with a demon's force of will is almost as invulnerable as the undead. Even with a cracked skull, The Glass was able to fight his way back up to his feet as though it had hardly been damaged.

The Glass's iron grip on Todd's body gave it access to every drop of adrenaline that body could muster, making the two men equals in strength despite Thug's deceptively muscular bulk. It was all Thug could do to maintain his hand's grip on one another behind Todd's back as the demon within him struggled to free his knife hand and finish off Caroline's only protector.

Thug kept his head low, his legs spread wide to keep from being whipped off of his feet and thrown to the ground. Todd's head slammed down into Thug's, every muscle in his neck snapping together to pummel Thug with his bony skull.

Thug's head, however, was tucked down enough to avoid serious damage, the attack only managing to further batter what was left of Todd's face. The Glass shifted tactics, using its uncanny strength to push Todd's head sideways into Thug's, pushing it out of position and exposing Thug's vulnerable neck.

"Caroline!" Thug screamed, having waited until this moment to make a sound according to Mrs. Black's orders, her voice of command reaching past the grave to struggle with every nerve in Thug's bleeding stomach to still win out.

Before he could bellow again, The Glass sank his teeth deep into the leathery skin of Thug's neck pinching for his jugular. The Glass's strength wasn't enough to overcome the weak engineering of Todd's blunt human jaws, but it was only a matter of time before he gnawed his way through Thug's bull-neck and finished him off.

"Caroline!"

The cry penetrated the chintzy doors of the discount apartment complex, and Caroline recognized it immediately as one of her own.

"One of her own": that was how she thought about it now in this split second. The Black family was the only people who cared about her anymore. Her own parent's divorce, bitterness, and anger had long ago made talking to them much too painful, and she'd been an only child. For a while she'd shared that closeness with Jaleesa, but since she'd been fired that too had been lost.

These lightening quick thoughts were incongruous with Caroline's gritty lock-jawed reaction to them. She snatched up a three-holed brick she'd been using as a doorstop and rushed out towards her baby's scream, instinctively knowing Thug would never cry her name out for anything less than bloody murder. The Black blood that flowed through her veins required nothing less, her reaction as reflexive and undeniable as disgustedly snatching a leech from the leg of a child, or yanking a toddler back by its tiny hand from traipsing into the freeway.

She flung open her door and ran down the stairs to Thug's face contorted in pain: her child's face. Fear turned to anger and disgust as some sicko bit her poor baby like a wild animal, like a rabid dog begging by its very existence to be put down.

Caroline hopped down the stairs holding her body weight up on the rail with her left hand and letting gravity pull her down to the disgusting vermin that dared touch the flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone. She skipped the last four stairs, slipping her fingers into the holes in the brick with her right hand, angling the chipped corner of the red ceramic point-first into the human cockroach that would sully her grandson with it's filthy touch.

Both men stumbled away from the stairs as Caroline's full weight dropped behind the blow, knocking Thug onto his back. The Glass's knife clattered to the concrete, doubling Caroline's fury. How dare this blood-sucking tick try to deprive her of her child!

The Glass continued gnawing at Thug's throat, intent on drawing Caroline closer now that it sensed her presence. The foolish girl had come within arm's reach, a mistake she would pay for with her life once she realized whose body it was attacking Thug. The Glass battered at Thug with his left hand, hoping the added impact combined with the shock and blood loss would be enough to incapacitate Caroline's only protector, giving The Glass time to finish its task before the swelling in Todd's skull shut down his brain and rendered this body useless.

Blood spattered the ground, making Caroline desperate. How hurt was Thug? Had that maggot already bitten through his poor neck? She brought the brick down again, raising it high behind the attacker's head with both hands, using ever muscle in her arms, back, stomach and thighs to drive it deep into the fracture Thug had already caused.

This time Todd's head was too badly damaged for even The Glass to maintain its grip on Thug's throat, rocking hard to Caroline's left. Thug lay on the ground breathing heavily as the pain from his sliced belly finally screamed through the adrenaline into his brain. Caroline struck again, rolling Todd's body completely off of Thug with almost demonic strength of her own as her labored breathing drove her into the edges of the trance state. The smooth grooves of her now well trained mind slipping there almost accidentally, just as how it had all began, just how The Glass planned it.

Fish tails of rainbow static filled the edges of Caroline's vision as Todd's face turned up towards her, mangled by the multiple impacts and rendered unrecognizable by a mask of blood and swollen face meat. What Caroline could recognize were the telltale traces of green aura that revealed the true identity of Thug's assailant: The Glass.

Caroline drove the brick down again into Todd's unprotected cheekbone as her anger at what The Glass had stolen from her took hold.

THUNK

The Glass had stolen her old life.

THUNK

The Glass had stolen her old job.

THUNK

The Glass had...

The green aura drained from Todd's mangled head, this body no longer being any use to it anymore. The Glass had possessed it only as long as it had value and opportunity, just as the devil winds only spin where the warm flows towards the Earth's poles, the pure fatness of the planet and its big round belly turned under the wind that was too ethereal to move with the rest of the planet.

Caroline paused, for once recognizing Todd's slim attractive frame, the stubbly once-shaven hair on his arms, his fuzzy light blue aura...

NO! But it was too late. Already, black hole of Death had formed instantaneously, just as Death can appear with no warning in even the most tranquil of lives. Death sucked the pitiful remnant of Todd's soul out into oblivion forever before she even had a chance to save him.

For once, the old Caroline returned, and she lay holding both Dom's living body and Todd's dead on weeping until the police and ambulances arrived.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 plates or seats or forks in this intimate solitude. The flavors of sweet honey and savory garlic mingled in her mouth orgasmically, stroking her ego in a way no other person's praise ever could.

Where was Todd at a time like this? Caroline mused as she rinsed the sticky sauce from her skillet before it had a chance to set like concrete.

A convocation of thoughts bombarded her at this concept. After all, she was safe behind the protections she'd laid out. In this place, her own altar really, she was at her strongest. The Glass invading her mind was no threat. Could Mrs. Black even interrupt her now? Of course not. She was too sick for visitors, a non-player. Besides, if Mrs. Black really was out of the picture, maybe it was time to expand and stretch her own abilities. She'd already taken the drastic step of joining Mrs. Black's bloodline, it was time to admit she was a burgeoning witch, and start acting like one.

Caroline returned to her dark living room floor, sitting cross-legged on the rough carpet. Knowing where Todd was, that was a challenge; just like the challenge her rumbling belly had been, just like the challenge Lucille's daughter had been. True pleasure, deserved pleasure, came from meeting challenges. To dodge a challenge was at best cowardly, at worst, an act of emotional suicide. Caroline knew that, now, which was why she slowed her breathing and opened her eyes without seeing.

Self possession. That was the key to everything; she knew that now, too. The trance was induced by stoically ignoring by body's needless requests on her conscious mind, by devoting her brainpower to what she wanted, not where it naturally fell by default. That was the key she had learned from Lucille, to react by her own standards. Many of the things she had done and enjoyed her earlier self would have been disgusted by. By interpreting things by the standards of the mind instead of the heart, however, allowed her to pervert any situation into a pleasurable.

The trance, for example, had once been bewildering to her, frightening. Now it was a comfort to be able to shut off the outside world and exist in a world where she controlled who and what she was, even if she didn't know how as well as Mrs. Black. With time and security on her side, though, it was only a matter of practice she had that kind of razor sharp control.

Millions of complicated patterns swirled on her retinas, so many as to seem completely random t the ignorant mind. There was no chance here, no randomness at all, rather, there were only things her mind had the capacity to interpret, and things that were beyond it, nothing more. Details were a matter of perception, not presentation. The illusion of self, of ego, was the only thing that separated her from truth. Dying to herself, freeing her spirit, then having that purified spirit return to her and possess her; this was the path to freedom from her natural, flawed instincts.

The trance enveloped her, buoyed her, like an adept swimmer floating asleep on their back on a calm, warm sea. The trance was merely a tool, though, a tool that Caroline had only just begun learn to use.

The formation of an avatar for example, she had no clue of. Many of the more flamboyant abilities Mrs. Black had in the dream space Caroline couldn't even begin to understand, let alone imitate. Still, she had to start somewhere.

She focused on a single point, and it formed into a ball before her, the irrelevant details seeming to scurry away into the background. This hardened core of relevant detail was still encoded in a convoluted pattern of light, still too complex to be intuitive to the untrained. It related to whom, but not when, or where. This knot of fractal wisdom clarified as she added the condition of time to her request, the time of now. The three dimensional ball lost its internal convolutions, becoming an opaque sphere where it was once semi-translucent. The patterns became recognizable, but distorted, like bad reception on an old-fashioned rabbit-ears television that had many layers of ghost images super-imposed on it. She had the "who" and the "when" right, but something was missing, a refinement she needed to make the pattern cross the line between recognizable and unrecognizable. Todd could only be a handful of places, after all. It's not like he had a car.

Caroline guessed he was at The Fool's Card, only for the colorful opaque sphere to go black. She guessed again, this time his apartment, to be rewarded with the familiar scene of Todd and Raz together on the couch of the tiny apartment playing video games.

The victory was electric, the power of it made her bowels vibrate like a hose full of rushing water. She felt giddy and fresh, like she had a busted lip but still had her adrenaline rushing too much to feel it. The visceral nature of it nearly sucked her out of the trance and back into her own body, but she steeled her discipline again, viciously severing all ties between mind and body.

A hiss differentiated itself from the pure white noise of the trance, a hiss that was modulated by bursts of coherent speech. The speech was visible as well, oscilloscope lines of sky blue with a touch of sunset for Todd, and an almost purplish dark set for Raz. Caroline filled in the details she already knew to clarify the sound, her own inferences on the random pattern giving the sound and picture clarity...

Todd held a piece of bloody rare steak in his bare hands uncharacteristically, the bowl of his wineglass smeared with blood and partially rendered animal fat from his fingertips as he sat on the couch wearing nothing but a pair of satin boxers. He watched Raz play some violent game detachedly, like a hobo staring into a barrel fire. Raz held his game controller lightly and precisely between his knees while the rest of his body leaned in, giving his all to the game, every muscle fiber screaming to escape their mundane prison.

Raz himself was oblivious, barefoot in sweat pants and a weather-beaten button down shirt without a single button fastened, the cuffs hanging limply towards the carpet from just above the wrist. The imaginary world some other man had created sucked him inside, like a creepy physics demonstration of air pressure sucking a cold egg into the vacuum of a once piping hot beer bottle.

Todd spoke, in the gruff way men use only around each other that is generally associated with sports and beer, with overtones of a slamming locker-room door.
"This is good." He mumbled through a half full mouth.
"Yeah, smells good." Raz answered almost as if from the spine, neither his eyes nor face changing without some prompting from the game.
"You want some?" Todd pressed, clearly needing some social entertainment over and above what online gaming could provide.
"Nah, I'm good." Replied the bony gamer, his ribs telling the tale of countless meals skipped for the sake of his passion.

Raz's face developed a scowl, his hands frantically jabbing the buttons just before the screen filtered red over the background of his dying character. Raz dropped the controller dejectedly, like an old poker player folding a bad hand in disgust.
"My turn." Todd piped, snatching for the controller with his greasy, bloody hands.
"No way dude, you'll get gunk all over it!" Raz replied in more words than he'd used in a single uninterrupted stream in the past two days as he diverted Todd's intruding fingers with a supple twist of his bony wrist.

Todd, however, was tired of passively watching his depressed friend sulk in his escapist world. He snatched for the controller again after a brief pause, allowing Raz room to make the tactical error of letting his guard back down, only to have Raz meet him there, each man holding the controller in a crab-like grip.
"You're gonna fuck up the action on the buttons!" Raz hissed between clenched teeth as he pulled as hard as he dared without breaking the controller.
"Whatever! You've been hogging it all day!" Todd retorted childishly, pulling the controller into his hip and then twisting sharply, trying to break Raz's grip with a fast mixture of brute force and practiced finesse. Raz allowed his arm to be dragged forward, keeping his grip while at the same time bringing his other hand to bear, each man now scrabbling at the controller with both hands like scavenging crustaceans on fresh carrion.

The violence of their tussle popped the controller neatly out of its socket as both men wrestled for it in the floor, saving the gaming console from serious damage. Raz pinned Todd to the ground, only to have Todd extend the controller at arms length away from Raz. Raz leaned over to collect his prize only to have Todd take advantage of his lost balance and escape, taking his controller with him. Raz leaped onto his back as he rose, wrapping his legs around Todd to keep him from escaping as he attempted to apply a half nelson to break Todd's two-handed grip.

It was then that Todd noticed something soft rubbing against his left kidney, something that had been less apparent before. As the two had broken a sweat wrestling, Raz had the beginnings of a sleepy erection.

It must be said at this point that whom one chooses for a mate is a deep reflection of self. One of the reasons Raz and Berry's relationship had worked so well at first was because of the fact they were both openly bisexual, meaning there was an understanding between the two regarding liaisons with the same sex, namely that they were allowed provided everything was out in the open. Part of the reason for their current problems was over time Berry and Raz were realizing they were much more homosexual than they had presented themselves, and the whole relationship reeked of cover-up.

It was not the sensation, then, that disturbed Todd, but his own reaction to it. Todd, after all, presented himself as not only a straight man, but as a bit of a Don Juan. He'd been around the block a few times, so the idea of a gay man being attracted to him wasn't exactly alien. He tried to think of them along the same line as unattractive women.

Raz released his grip on Todd, sensing the indecision as Todd's body went stiff. There were protocols between men regarding wrestling, a point at which a friendly tussle could easily become an all-out brawl with a single misstep. Raz valued his friendship with Todd, and that meant respecting his friend's boundaries.

Todd, however, wasn't giving up that easily. He was having fun, a kind of fun that he'd never experienced with another man. Furthermore his ego was too much not to think of Raz as a sexual compliment, another in a long string of people willing to touch and caress him.

It was Todd then, not Raz, who left a draping hand on the other man, giving him a sly wink with a greenish eye. That was all it took for Raz to mentally commit to what his body had involuntarily started...

Caroline watched this from her trance, not knowing whether this was a true dream or just some wild fantasy her subconscious mind had dreamed up. Until recently she'd been a sexual traditionalist, so such a fantasy didn't feel like her own. It was a single man with her that had been the main theme of her own erotic doldrums, not anything as exotic as this.

Was it real then? Was it real like the plane crash? Was it real like Mrs. Black? Or was it imaginary, like the hamster wheel, or The Glass's crystal ball? This practice was supposed to increase her certainty in her abilities, not weaken it. All of a sudden Caroline had a pressing need to know exactly what was going on in Todd's apartment.

Caroline rushed down the stairs; keys in hand, letting the door slam shut unlocked behind her. Once Todd and Raz were done with one another, they might never admit it, meaning she could never know if her vision was true. She didn't dare call Todd and warn him of her suspicions. She didn't feel jealous of Raz, but Todd had no way of knowing that and may lie just to hold the tenuous he and she shared together.

Caroline was excited and turned on by the prospect of catching Todd compromised, not only because of her attraction to Todd, but also because of the sexual attraction she had begun to develop for her own power. She'd never been pretty, and had certainly never felt pretty, but her power made her feel special in a way even supermodels never attained.

The prospect of her power being validated by catching Todd and Raz in the act gave her a gambler's high as she flew down the road, not even giving The Fool's card a second glance as she buzzed past recklessly. Only two more turns....

She took the stairs two at a time, making her fast and quiet although it strained her short legs a bit. She put an ear to Todd's door. Nothing. Gently she tried the lock, and finding it open gave her an excited shiver. Her face hurt with anticipation, her cheeks spasming tight like a kid on acid. She turned the knob slowly and quietly, retracting the tongue of the catch out of its notch in the doorframe as carefully as she could.

She was greeted by the flickering light of a game-over screen in the dark room. The sounds of heavy breathing drew her gaze downward, past the battered second hand couch. She opened the door more and entered, shutting it silently behind her. Her ears pricked to the sound of shifting cloth, adding it to the labored breathing. She was so close... so right...

She paused, not wanting to break the moment, not wanting her brashness to somehow negate the validity of her vision. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room and she recognized the short stubble of Todd's once shaven back trembling in the dark. She was drawn to it, her hand reaching out involuntarily to touch his nail-scarred skin.

He gasped, intently knowing where both Raz's hands were, and where his own hands were, for that matter. After all, as a man who had once been a boy, he knew the best way to please a man was with both hands. It was Raz's turn to gasp then as Todd turned from him to Caroline. Raz's eyes were filled with irritation and annoyance, like a house-pet having his belly rub interrupted as he glared up to see what was taking Todd's attention away from him.

"Carl... I can explain..." Todd said smoothly, immediately taking the defensive.
Raz was silent and exposed, neither embarrassed nor caring about Caroline's opinion. Caroline had certainly spent enough time with Berry; after all, if he had to explain himself to her, then she would have some explaining to do as well.

"It's not like that..." Caroline said, her hand never leaving Todd's skin. After all, Todd and Raz had always been strangely close. When she had first met Raz, she had assumed they were together anyways.
"...it's not like that at all." She continued, getting closer to Todd, aching to celebrate her victory over the metaphysical that allowed her to discover this tryst. Todd returned the touch, his left hand leaving Raz's body to stroke Caroline's calf through her pants.

Raz spoke up; one of the rare times he ever did so.
"So it's not enough to fuck my girlfriend behind my back? You have to cock block me with Todd, too?"
Todd looked back at him, shocked that he wouldn't play into Caroline's obvious intention.

Now it was Caroline's turn to gasp.
"Raz, it's not like that... I know we're not as close as you and Todd, but I like you too..."
"Jesus, you really think I'm going to buy that pack of bullshit?" Raz continued, standing unashamed naked. "You've been nothing but in my shit since the night I met you. If I hadn't rolled over for you, you probably wouldn't even be with Todd now." Raz's voice was eerily understated and hushed, as if he'd been thinking about this speech for a long time. Even as he spoke, he was already pulling on his sweat pants.

"Raz...she doesn't mean it like that..." Todd placated.
"Oh, so you're in on this shit too then? Fucking figures." Raz spat bitterly. "It explains why after all these years you pick today to come onto me. Always a bitch. Always a bitch fucking everything up!" Raz jammed his feet into his shoes angrily, already walking towards the door with his shirt in hand.
"That's not even..." Caroline tried to say, but it was too late.
"Not what? What the plan was? You couldn't get Berry to bring you home, so you try to use Todd to fuck me? I see through all you filthy fucks!"

And with that, Raz slammed the door.

Caroline looked up at Todd, all of a sudden understanding Raz's point of view.
"I don't know what to tell you." Todd intoned monolithically, not willing to explain to Caroline what had been going on, and not feeling she even had a right to know.

Caroline had known all too well what had been going on, but now just wasn't the right time to explain.

There was a pause as Caroline tried to think of something to say. Nothing had gone as she had expected, but exactly how she could have foreseen it had she bothered to think about the consequences of her vision being true.
"I think I should just go..." Caroline said as her former enthusiasm was quashed by her inability to think before she acted.
"Maybe you should." Todd agreed solemnly, "Call me later."
"Ok." Caroline answered, getting one last breath of Todd's cologne before walking back out into the parking lot.

Modern humanism is the basice belief in the human good, the idea that all humans are born as things of positive social and moral value, and only exposure to negative external elements causes corruption in the individual. This belief is predicated upon a logical scientific history in which humans are basically a type of animal evolved from other animals throughout a period of time that makes a single human lifetime inconsequential. Furthermore, it commonly assumes on faith that human cooperation can overcome any obstacle and presents itself as a message of hope.

Why then does humanity seem to be seeking isolation? Most major advances in popular consumer technology seem mindlessly devoted to separating people from one another physcially and emotionally. A deeper look at pre-history reveals the most prosperous time for individual humans to be the ice-age, when human populations were much lower, competition for resources was almost non-existent and social disputes were easily solved by creating separate camps. Technology such as cell phones, computers, and cars encapsulate individuals and filter their interactions into ice-age microcosms, tiny underpopulated worlds of limited social interraction where we can feel more comfortable. In a world of six billion people and infinite connectivity, people still only have the same handful of trusted friends and family members they had in the ice-age. The reason for this seems to be that humans are naturally limited in their mental capacity to deal with the stress of social interraction. In short, that humans are not naturally social or benevolent at all, and that altruism is at best a limited tribal phenomenon.

In comes a theology that admits to the existence of intrinsic human flaw. Human beings are insufficient to the task of living in civilization and need laws to maintain stability. We inherently seek not unity, but division. We seek not a mass orgy of human congregation, but single intimate interractions. our competitive nature which we inherit from our genetic origin of mammalian animals incompatible with large scale civilization, which requires individuals to work and act as one like ants or bees. In those insects, unquestioning faith in authority is a necessary trait for the survival of the hive. In a fallible human world, however, such faith in flawed humans only leads to death and war.

In the spirit of the preservation of human intellectualism, individuality, and nature, we have turned as a society that uses birth control to prevent this overcrowding, this being considered an improvement on the older techniques of war and slavery. Even our best and brightest advocate merely sitting back and waiting for our elders to die while we make no more children, increasing the world space for our own individual lives in opposition to natural selection by inheritance from dead generations.

In this, we see the line where the animal ends and the human begins. Animals have no care for any individual, although some mammals, being closer to humans genetically, share this trait. to be human, then, is to struggle agains the animal nature, to suppress instinct, to admit that the natural inclination is not a moral one, and those so-called people who fail to do so are not worthy of the name "human" but are rather animal infiltrators into the human race.

Her in this conflict we discover the reason for human mental disorder: people who put their own animal needs and feelings above logical reason. The animal nature is stronger in some people than others, and there is no shame in having an unchosen corrupt nature as long as every effort is made to fight it.

Here, then, is the quest for solitude. Why do humans form suburban communities? Why do those with the means always buy large, isolated country homes? If humanism is true, the rich would want to be surrounded by as many "good" people as possible, not all alone on a giant estate. The answer is that solitude allows the animal nature to be indulged. It removes the stress of social compliance. It is freedom, liberty, and power. It gives the creative mind room to function, to indulge in trial and experimentation.

How do we provide this solitude? There is a short list of answers: Outerspace exploration, extraspace creation, and innerspace development.

Outerspace exploration is an obvious answer. While the planet earth is finite, space is desolate and vast, with the power of stars uncounted to fulfill the dreams of men, provided such men have the technology to harness it. Space colonies, however, are prohibitively expensive in a world where animistic competition creates unnecessary shortages resulting in the starvation of millions.

Extraspace creation, which is a fancy way of saying "Internet" creates eheral or "videogame" space such as what is found in various MMORPGs and FPS online games, where human interaction is liimited to a party or team that is a single isolated unit. This solution is only an illusion and a way of escaping real-life.

Innerspace development is the oldest solution to this problem, generally associated with eastern philosophy and budhism, with hypnotic overtones. Through medtiation, the mind creates space within itself to deal with animistic self-conflict and escape external stress. These meditative techniques have been in use for thousands of years under various names.

Of the three solutions, only innerspace development is free and available to all people regardless of economic status. It needs only education by word of mouth to spread relief throughout the human tribe, thus making it unprofitable in the animistic competition equation. Those deeply invested in this selfdestruction therefore hate it, and have successfully sabotaged it in popular culture.

Chapter 13

Caroline stumbled into work Tuesday morning, nursing a black eye and bruised ribs from the day before. She'd left Mrs. Black in Thug's teary eyed care, emotionally wiped out by watching the prophecy that had broken him down just a few days before come to pass. She sipped her coffee gingerly through a bruised jaw; savoring the blank empty mind the morning had blessed her with.

"What the fuck happened to you?" Jaleesa said as she saw Caroline half asleep at her desk. Caroline was stuck for words. Jaleesa couldn't possibly believe she'd been in a rough exorcism the night before, and even if she did, she certainly couldn't sympathize. There was something distinctly inhuman feeling about having someone as earthy as Jaleesa so close to her, and still having no one to confide in.
"I fell down the stairs." She lied, sounding like a battered woman in denial.
"Well then why didn't you call in? The owner was PISSED when you didn't show, and it didn't look any better when there was no one there to clock in for me. I technically AM your manager, after all." Jaleesa said tersely, clearly having been through hell the day before.
"I...I didn't think about it." Caroline stammered, left defenseless by Jaleesa's lack of compassion.

"Bob wanted to do a 'no-call, no-show, no-job' on you, but I talked him down to a write-up." Jaleesa continued and reached into a file cabinet, removing a pink sheet of paper. "Here. The official reason is absenteeism, which you're not exactly contesting. You might as well sign it. It's not like there's some kind of union to appeal to."
Caroline reluctantly signed the write-up, even her fingers feeling sore after the previous day.

Jaleesa affected an arch expression. "Oh, quit being so pouty. I kept you from getting fired, didn't I? Goddamn girl, you act like nobody ever gets written up. This'll all cool down in a month or two, and Bob'll go on vacation and forget all about it."
"I guess you're right." Caroline mumbled glumly.
"Damn straight." Jaleesa affirmed. "Now, you look like shit. Why don't you just take it easy and do some heartbreak specials? It's not like we have a whole bunch of work this week anyway."

Caroline pulled out of the parking lot feeling somewhat refreshed after having indulged herself in a two-hour nap after lunch. Her bruised had just started to darken and turn purplish during the day and that had helped keep Jaleesa from giving her too much flak over having missed Monday, even with Bob's reaction. Still, her first goal was to check on Mrs. Black, who'd taken a bellyful of broken glass just to spare one of her friend's lives.

Caroline parked her car and walked through the magnificent garden that surrounded Mrs. Black's cottage. As she climbed the short stairs, Thug opened the door with a concerned expression on his face and a sizable bruise on his head.
"How did you know I was coming?" Caroline asked, trying to hide her worry.
"Wooden steps." Thug replied quietly.
Caroline couldn't contain the question anymore. "How is she?"
"She said she wanted to tell you herself." Thug answered, still using a pallbearer's hush in his voice.

Quietly Thug led Caroline past the table that stood where the pulpit in the tiny country church once was, back into a minister's study that had been converted into Mrs. Black's bedroom. The walls of the room were covered in shelves, each shelf packed end to end in leather bound antique books. The bedroom was lit with natural light of a large single open window, illuminating a plain antique wardrobe and Mrs. Black's bed.

Mrs. Black lay on her back, reading, her head propped up by numerous pillows. Caroline heard the faint click of a door latch closing, and Thug disappeared from behind her.

"Well sweetie, I'm not going to toy with you. I have a lacerated intestinal tract." Mrs. Black stated boldly.
"So you're going to be okay?" Caroline replied, glimmers of hope tugging at her down turned cheeks.
"Of course not." Mrs. Black chuffed comically. "I'm going to die. I've taken good care of myself, but my liver's just too old to withstand the antibiotics I'll need to keep me. from getting blood poisoning."

Just then, Caroline noticed an antique but well-oiled flintlock pistol lying on the shelf nearest the bed.

"No. We can take you to a hospital. You just need to see a doctor..." Caroline simpered, still fighting the denial that had plagued her all her life up to this point.
"A doctor better than me?" Mrs. Black snorted. "Oh, I imagine they could prop me up for days, maybe even a few weeks, but only by pumping me so full of drugs I'd be incoherent and worthless."
"But you can't just...give up...I mean, life is about fighting off the inevitable..."
Mrs. Black cut Caroline off abruptly. "I'm over a hundred years old, almost two, and I've watched hundreds of people, members of my own family, my own flesh and blood, die in my arms. Had I died at fifty, I would have quit. At seventy, my death would have been reasonable. I've been an old woman for over a century, but I can't cheat fate. 'It is appointed unto every man once to die' and my appointment is LONG overdue."

Caroline had no reply.

"I have to apologize in advance for what I'm about to ask, but if you know anything about witches, you'd know nothing with us comes without strings." Mrs. Black paused, honestly recovering as sweat beaded on her forehead. Already the infection from her ruptured guts was taking its toll. "I need you to go see Thug's sister tonight. She'll be giving birth to his niece, my great grand daughter. You'll be acting as midwife."
"MIDWIFE?! I don't know anything about birth!" Caroline stuttered, incredulous.
"I'd go myself, but as you can see I'm in no position to." Mrs. Black said, her voice straining. "It's her fourth child. She knows enough about it to do it without you, but birth by midwife has become a bit of a tradition in this family." She said wryly, her voice becoming faint and hoarse. "Thug will explain the details. There's a bag with everything in it you need. Inside is a book that explains the procedure. Thug will handle the paperwork after you leave."
"But..." Caroline sputtered.

Thug's hand settled on Caroline's shoulder. "She needs to rest now. We've got a few hours to eat dinner before it's time."

Dilation. Contractions. Breach birth. Caesarean birth.

Caroline read and re-read the hand written she'd found in Mrs. Black's midwife bag, but she was already familiar with the subject from human experience. She'd grown in the age of teenage pregnancy, after all. Her main duties were helping physically pull the child from it's mother's womb, making sure she passed the after birth, cutting the umbilical chord, and washing the blood off the new born with warm sterile water before it fed from its mother's breast for the first time.

For once since Caroline had met Thug, he didn't seem one bit nervous. He carried himself with a sense of optimistic resolve, like the vice principal of a high school at graduation day. This time it was Caroline's turn to sweat.

Something was going to happen, something Caroline wasn't prepared for. There was a smell to the air, a taste to it, like the electric tang of the edge, or the top of a nine-volt battery.

Why would Mrs. Black do this? What was she trying to prove? Women were supposed to go to a maternity ward to have children, not have some naïve florist with psychological problems take care of things, all consequences be damned.

Thug was going to be an uncle again; the reason for his serenity and optimism was obvious after a little thought. What kind of family was this, though, to rely on her instead of conventional medicine? Something didn't smell right in Denmark, and Caroline had no idea what it was.

"Mrs. Black said it was going to be a girl." Thug mused over his fajitas at the Mexican restaurant he'd chosen to bring Caroline to for dinner.
"What was that?" Caroline said, looking up from the book that had occupied her mind for the past hour as she shoveled her bean and rice combo into her face.
"I said Lucille's going to have a girl." Repeated Thug.

Finally, Caroline put down her book and came clean with her doubts.
"Why can't Lucille just go to a real doctor? Mrs. Black is dying; it's only a matter of time before she'll have to start seeing a real physician anyway."
Thug chuckled, like an evil Santa Claus.

"She said you'd say that."

Caroline grimaced. She'd looked inside Mrs. Black's bag, and it had a lot more in it than just blankets and a little knit cap for Lucille's baby girl. There was a scalpel, a needle, and surgical silk in little sterile paper packets, as well as a giant metal device for gripping the child inside its mother in case it came out backwards. Who hadn't heard of miscarriage? Women could die in childbirth of shock and blood loss, but Thug seemed happy to place his sister's life in her hands.

A gentle pulsating buzz emitted from Thug's waist, and he looked down from laughing in Caroline's face to see who was calling.
"Two contractions within fifteen minutes of each other?" he mumbled, reading the lazily sent text message. "SHIT! We've got less time that I though..." Thug bounced to his feet, peppering the table in a spray of dollar bills to cover the cost of the meal. Caroline barely had time to put down her fork before Thug threw her purse over her shoulder and pushed her out the door.

The strange house was eerily silent and devoid of other cars as Thug pulled up, with Caroline clutching her bag of unfamiliar tools in a white-knuckle grip.
"Shouldn't there be some cars here?"
"No...Lucille won't be in any position to drive, and Mrs. Black didn't want anyone around to make you feel nervous your first time." Thug let the implication slip out without a second thought. Luckily for Caroline's screaming pulse, the insinuation that she'd be doing this again flew high and wide over her head like a satellite.

Caroline followed Thug sheepishly into his sister's sacred family home where she sacrificed herself each day, dying a little at a time to feed and care for her three, soon to be four children. At temple to life, a mother's home, capable of the miracle of the creation of human souls. The keys toward the closest thing to immortality were going to be placed in her clumsy fumble-fingered grip, and the pressure was titanic. In her head, a baby slicked with blood slipped through her hands again and again as her familiar self-doubt savaged her mercilessly.

The sharp scream of Lucille's birthing pains brought Caroline back to focus. She jogged a few steps to catch back up with Thug's increasingly manic pace to the bedroom, the scream, and eventually, the fulfillment of a promise to a dying woman.

"What took you so long?" Lucille grunted between huffing breaths, her teeth locked together in pain.
"Sorry sis. I thought I had a good four hours since your first contraction, like last time." Thug uselessly apologized.
"Whatever. Where's Caroline?" Lucille snapped.
"I'm right here."

Caroline tried to sound reassuring as she stepped into the harsh yellow light of an incandescent bulb.
"Good." Lucille barked abruptly, with overtones starkly similar to those of her maternal ancestor.

Caroline placed a mask of certainty over her doubt. Half of her job here was moral support during the trial of pain that was natural childbirth, to be a solid emotional rock for this fellow woman in one of the most vulnerable situations of her life. Even though she had no idea what she was doing, it was her human moral duty to act like she did.

Instinctually she knew she needed belief to give her the power to fill the role thrust upon her, and the only belief she could be certain of was belief in herself.

"Thug, start boiling water" she said authoritatively, giving her an excuse to be alone with Lucille, and also giving her the hot sterile water she would need to wash the soon to be newborn. Thug left in obedient silence, eerily reminiscent of the way he responded to Mrs. Black's commands. Now alone with her patient, she was free to lift her dress and visually check the dilation of Lucille's cervix.

Already the sparsely haired crown of the child's head was visible.

Lucille's eyes bulged and a huge vein popped out on her bright red forehead as another contraction ripped through her abdomen, releasing the world's most human scream from her lips.

The baby's cone shaped head surged a mere fraction of an inch towards its goal, a tiny yet symbolically huge distance. The sound of hoarse, ragged breathing replaced the scream as Caroline rushed to check on her patient.

So much suffering, just for continuing the cycle of life. Lucille tolerated the pain stoically, accustomed to life and its trials as only a mother could be. Caroline pulled a large, soft natural sponge from her bag and gently wiped Lucille's brow. Where was Thug with that hot water?

"I can already see the head." Caroline comforted, knowing that in this frantic state only the child being safely born was what mattered.
"Good." Lucille grunted between panting breaths. "It's not so bad...you know, her... not being here. She said... it would feel right... and it does. I just hope... you know... you can't leave us."

Lucille had another contraction, cutting her short. Caroline reacted more calmly this time, knowing her patient had many contractions to go before the widest part of the head passed.
"What do you..." Caroline said, but was interrupted by Thug thrusting a cell phone in her face as he laid the steaming water in an old tub of ice cream next to her.
"It's Mrs. Black." He whispered incongruously to Lucille's panting. Over the phone Mrs. Black's voice was an insistent croak.
"Caroline?"
"Yes?" Caroline affirmed.
"This is very important. You have to say yes. It's the only way to link the blood."

Before she could reply, Lucille screamed again, pushing with every muscle of her viscera to free the life within her. The child's head surged a slightly shorter distance than before as an even greater circumference of the head crested.
"Mrs. Black? Mrs. Black?" Caroline begged frantically in the dead silence on the other end of the phone.
"You heard me." Was the cryptic reply, followed by the phone hanging up. Thug looked around pensively like a child at Disney who thinks his round-eared hat may be in jeopardy.

Lucille's condition quickly snapped Caroline back to focus. There was a feeling of fulfillment her Caroline had only ever felt with Todd or Berry, a possession, but a human kind of possession, like her own spirit was in full control of her body instead of just watching from the side lines. To see another woman in such distress, helpless, and to be the only comfort for her was the most purely sexual pleasure she'd ever felt. Not sexual in the traditional orgasm-based sense, but in the sense of procreation, of succeeding for the human cause. It was the endorphin rush rich movie stars get when donate to charity, only cleaner and more personal. There were lesbian overtones, bondage overtones, and even enough blood for the most avid fetishist, but all available in a beneficial and socially acceptable context.

The beautiful agony of the contraction came again, and it was clear that Lucille was no longer holding anything back. The time for pacing herself while the baby dropped into position was over. Once the head was out, it was three easy squeezes between her and her newborn. The head crested to the baby girl's wrinkly brow, poised to emerge and take its first breath.

Caroline forgot everything except the woman in her care, in a way a mother and lover to her. She crept into position near the head, a warm towel and mouth/nose syringe at the ready. Lucille's panting was louder than words, louder than thought. Here at the edge, life was singular, simple and vibrant. The rainbow static crept into the outside edges of Caroline's vision, giving her tunnel-like focus.

The next contraction came fast and hard, like a breaching whale. Lucille's face was a brilliant mix of victory and pain, every vein in her face and neck standing at full attention. To Caroline's surprise, the girl's head came completely out and mocked the effort that had come before it. The tiny face was bright red; a good sign that it's heart was beating fiercely.

Lucille panted again, resting up for the final two squeezes. The baby's head was too fragile for Caroline to help pull it to life and freedom from the womb. Lucille gave a knowing smile and winked through the sweat and tears.
"Are you ready?" She said, with atypical poise, like a tigress purring over a fresh kill still lathered and bloody.

Now it was Caroline's turn to catch her breath.
"Ready or not, I'll give it all I've got." She said, eyeing the child's emergent head. Wasn't it supposed to be crying or something?

Lucille's teeth locked together like a white plastic zipper.
"3"
"2"
"1"
"PUSH!"

Caroline carefully supported the head as the shoulders started to clear, then grabbed hold of the tiny body and physically pulled it free with minimum force, acting almost like a spotter to a weight lifter, pulling just enough to get free.

Clear an air passage way.

Now was a critical time. The child had to begin breathing on it's own before the umbilical cord was severed, cutting off the supply of life-sustaining mother's blood.

Caroline cradled the bloody body in her arms, carefully sucking birthing mucous from its nose and mouth with a teardrop shaped rubber ball syringe.

Still nothing.

Instinct kicked in, and her strong right hand took over, striking the child gently but firmly with a palm on its fragile back.

There was a tiny cough, followed by a full-throated wail as a new soul recognized itself in a frigid helpless condition, unable even to life it's own head. Despite her pain Lucille leaned up and reached insistently for her child with one breast already exposed, all thoughts of gore, mucous, and blood forgotten.

The tunnel vision of rainbow static increased, reaching a crescendo into a rapturous holy white light that overcame Caroline for a moment. The child's aura shined, freshly minted and untarnished by the darkness of the world. Lucille's aura was dim and weak, but it's mother's milk was as bright white as child itself, it's beautiful liquid light burning itself into Caroline's consciousness like a magnesium flare.

There was still work to do, however.

"One more push." Caroline said reverentially, unknowingly expectant. Lucille looked up and pushed, releasing the placenta in a short burst of blood and amorphous tissues into a dish Caroline held under her. The placenta had a smell to it, an allure, but Caroline pushed that aside as she began gently wiping down the new child still in its mother's sticky arms with a warm, damp cloth. A tiny cap and blanket completed the job.

Lucille broke herself from her resting reverie with her new daughter.
"You can't let her go. Take my gift, and become one of us. I saw your face. It's ok. This is how things have to be."

Thug tugged gently at Caroline's wrist, the placenta raw and warm in his left hand.
"Please, Caroline. She said time was important."

Things solidified for Caroline. The placenta was the flesh and blood of this family, possessed of that ancient original magic of the soul. She no longer needed subtle hints to the gruesome task at hand. Her animal need was too great, her understanding too concrete. The ultimate delight, raw human flesh, was available to her in the only pure manner, the only acceptable manner possible.

Thug couldn't contain his grin as his sister's birthing blood dripped down Caroline's chin, her mouth, stomach, throat, and hands now one with the still living flesh of his bloodline.