My mind struggled to rationalize seeing Doris outside of her place at Side Pocket. She was a part of that restaurant, an extension of its ambience and atmosphere and seeing her sitting on my couch in my apartment was like seeing a teacher outside of school. It was like realizing that they were just a normal person. It was— unsettling.
She’d appeared at my doorway, somewhat pale and somewhat shaken and I’d immediately offered to brew some coffee, a gesture she’d eagerly accepted.
“You’ve been here ten minutes and I’m still not sure what you want.” I pressed my hands to both sides of my own warm mug and sipped at it, studying the woman, who looked far older than I’d ever seen her.
She turned and pulled her eyes from where they’d been staring into the rippling surface of dark liquid. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Gus.”
“I think I’m starting to get the picture.”
“As you probably suspect, I am a member of the Darkheart Coven. I have been for years. Until now it was a badge of honor I wore. Nadella, more or less, let me do my own thing and running Side Pocket was all I really wanted to do.” She took a drink, the quiver in her voice fading as she sipped at her coffee. “I mean, I would be present for important council decisions, and whenever Nadella sought my insight, I’d provide it. But more or less, I was my own person, and I preferred it that way.”
“Things are changing?”
“Things have— already changed.” No longer apparently content to just sip, she drank long from the mug, emptying it in a swift gulp. “Truthfully, I could feel it happening even before Nadella passed— the shift within the upper echelons of the council.”
“Shift how?”
“Decisions they made. Decisions, I guess, we made didn’t align with the Darkheart philosophy. We cut off negotiations with almost every other coven in the United States, no longer content with being part of the larger whole. Slowly, over time, we’d begun segregating ourselves from our sisters, building an island for ourselves.”
“And Nadella was okay with this?”
“As much as I hate to say it— yes, I think she was.” Doris looked up at me, setting her cup on the table. Her hand actually shook. “Perhaps we didn’t see it at first, I certainly didn’t, I was only present very rarely. But looking back at it now, I feel foolish for not seeing it before, not doing something to stop it earlier on.”
“The way you talk, it almost sounds like it’s too late.”
Doris didn’t respond, which in its own way, spoke volumes. I plucked her mug off the table and walked back to the kitchen, refilling it with coffee and returning it to her eager, trembling hands.
“I never expected things to go this far, Gus.” She swallowed, then lifted her head and looked at me. “Loren is in trouble. She’s back in town and she’s in trouble.”
“He knows.”
Doris swung her head around, nearly dropping the mug of coffee as she looked back toward my bedroom. Loren had emerged and leaned against the wall near the hallway entrance, looking as though she was barely holding herself upright.
“Loren!” Doris gasped and set down her mug, shooting upright, pressing a hand to her chest. “The rumors I’ve heard— that you were attacked— that you were— you’d been—” She strode swiftly and somehow Loren managed to step from the wall and offer Doris a warm embrace. My mind was officially blown. Loren, my one-time wife, who I hadn’t seen in— a hundred years or more? And the woman I saw almost every day, who owned my favorite restaurant, who greeted me with a warm smile and a black coffee at every opportunity. Somehow, they were connected. I was tempted to say what a small world it was, but something told me that it wasn’t just coincidence.
They separated from each other and Doris studied Loren as she returned to her spot on the wall, using it to help herself remain upright.
“Gus— I’m— I’m sorry, I should have come sooner. I should have told you—”
“Told me what? I haven’t had a connection with the Darkheart Coven in years, Doris. The last time Loren and I saw each other— well— it wasn’t exactly the best time of my life. I’m okay that you didn’t want to remind me of that.”
“Still. This is— I just—”
I had never seen Doris in this sort of mood. The perpetually sixty-something year old, grandmotherly woman was disarmingly out of sorts and the worst thing was, I wasn’t sure how to put her pieces back together. Hell, I wasn’t even sure how to put my own pieces back together. Loren’s arrival, as much as I didn’t want to admit it, had set my entire world askew and I continued to struggle to think about how to set it straight.
“Can you start from the beginning?” Loren walked gingerly toward the chair across from the couch and nearly fell into it, expelling a breath of air as a balloon might deflate.
Doris nodded and took another drink of her coffee. I made my way to the kitchen and refilled my own mug, eyed Loren, then tipped some whiskey into it, gently stirring it with my index finger. I drank and watched the two witches talk.
“As you know,” Doris said quietly, “the council has undergone a bit of a shift in recent years. At least— I assume you know?”
“I’ve been— purposefully out of the loop,” Loren replied. She looked peaked and pale and I grabbed a third mug and filled it with coffee, automatically retrieving some milk and sugar and mixing it the perfect ratio, at least as much as I remembered.
“I isolated myself, Doris— I could— just no longer deal with the politics of it all.” I walked past the couch and offered the mug, which she accepted with the same warm smile that had softened my hard edges for more years than I could recall.
“Was it just the politics? Or— something else?” Doris shot me a sideways glance.
“It was a combination of things. I’ve been enjoying my time in the human realm, Doris. I’ve met— people. Experienced things that we don’t always get the opportunity to experience.” She sipped her drink and tipped it toward me. “As Gus might say, I’ve been living my best life.” She said the words in an almost mocking, sing-song voice. But any trace of humor quickly left her tone and her expression fell. “Perhaps this is partly my fault. Perhaps if I’d stuck around, taken more of a leadership position like my mother wanted, things wouldn’t have gotten to this point.”
“Do you want my honest opinion, Loren?” Doris leaned forward.
“Always.”
“If you’d done what your mother asked— you would have been dead a long time ago.” The words dropped the temperature of the air by several degrees and claws of ice raked both my arms. “You were a threat. You are a threat. Clearly, you see that now.”
Loren nodded. “I never would have thought— as nasty as Ricard and Lucinda have always been— that things would go this far.”
“They’ve always been ambitious,” Doris replied, and sipped at her coffee, “but never like this. Things have changed recently, Loren and not for the better.”
“What is driving this change?”
Doris shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not sure anyone knows. But what’s important to understand is that with your mother’s death and the twin’s potential elevation— their side has the majority now. As much as Nadella had changed herself in recent years, she was still a balance to their wild ambitions.”
“What sorts of ambitions?” I didn’t want to interrupt, but there were certain questions I needed the answers to.
“I’m not sure anyone truly knows. Ricard and Lucinda— but mostly Ricard, if I’m being honest, have this perception that the Darkheart Coven can be this central lynchpin. That it can represent the core of the witch’s interests with the Caretakers. That perhaps they can have a seat at the table. I know Ricard has spent his entire life feeling like he was playing second fiddle to his sister— hell, to an entire gender. I just wonder if this is his way of trying to make up for that.”
“Ricard’s inferiority complex is legendary,” Loren said quietly, looking forlorn as she drank her coffee. I could see her mug trembling slightly and could tell she was struggling, either physically or emotionally, with keeping herself together. “Even after that bargain he struck with Dornac. I thought that maybe a taste of that power would quench his thirst, but if anything— it only seemed to further parch his pallet.”
Dornac. Though I’d never directly interacted with the infamous demon of the shadow realm, his name was enough to send chills up my spine. Demons in general were one of the unspoken horrors about the supernatural world, a dark side to the magic that even the elder of wizards felt reluctant to discuss. Rumors persisted that while the Caretakers were in charge of the veil and responsible for keeping the supernatural world intact that within the darkness resided a similar seat of power amongst the demons. Though, again, it was something best not discussed lest you get drawn into a quagmire of mystical politics which bordered on conspiracy theory.
Warlocks weren’t prevalent, even within the various covens throughout the world, and certainly none had reached the sort of power that Ricard had. Yet, in spite of that, Loren’s brother seemed to have a thirst for more.
“So, can I ask why you came?” Again, I didn’t want to interrupt, but there had been a gap in the conversation that I felt encouraged to fill. “Did you just want to talk to me about Loren?”
Doris lowered her eyes and sloshed the coffee around in her mug. “No, Gus, it wasn’t just to tell you about Loren. It was also to ask for your help.”
“My help? What is it you think I can do against the most powerful witch’s coven in the country?”
“Not necessarily you, but— those that you know. Those that you used to represent.”
“Wait.” I set my mug down on the counter with a louder clatter than I intended. “You want me to go to the Caretakers for you?”
“Something must be done, Gus. The coven is a freight train on a collision course and if we don’t force it to jump the tracks—”
“And what makes you think the Caretakers will even listen to me? The last time I got mixed up in coven business, it didn’t exactly end well.” I looked at Loren, but she glanced away, seemingly afraid to meet my eyes. I didn’t yet share with her the fact that I’d already reached out to the Caretakers the previous night and had been summarily ignored.
“I’m not sure what else to do. There’s a resistance forming among those in the Darkheart Coven. It’s quiet but getting louder. I fear that we may be headed toward civil war, or even worse, war amongst the covens. Several of the other organizations out there don’t agree with the direction we’re headed and although the twins think an iron fist will solve all of that— they’re too young and too hungry to know how to rule.”
“I still don’t understand how they’re even getting support from the council at this point. None of this makes sense.”
“That is also why I’m coming to you. As much as it pains me to say it— I’m not sure the council can even be trusted. I think this corruption runs deep. It’s embedded within the fabric of our entire system of leadership. I don’t know how it got this far, but it did and now it’s up to us to dig out from under it.”
“I— I don’t know if I can.” Loren’s voice was weak and thready and she’d set her coffee down, her fingers intertwined in her lap. “I’ve spent the last hundred years trying to escape my past— now I should just sprint back into it?”
“I had no intention of getting you mixed back up in this, dear.” Doris looked as though she might actually start crying.
“You’re not getting mixed up in anything,” I said, shaking my head. “You can barely stand upright without using a wall for support. You need to rest. To heal. You need to live.” My throat tightened.
“Please, Gus,” Doris insisted, and pressed her hand to the arm of the couch so she could stand. “I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. You must understand that.”
“So what do you want from me?” I paused. “I should tell you—I already tried speaking with the Caretakers. Last night, after Loren appeared at my door. I asked for their help.”
Doris looked over at me, the glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“They didn’t even answer.”
Doris’ hopeful eyes closed, any glimmer extinguished.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to help, I’m just—I’m not sure how I can.”
Doris sighed. “As I said— there is a resistance amongst the coven. A certain selection of coven members who see what’s happening— who want to stop it. Who truly wants what’s best for our family. If the Caretakers won’t get involved—can you just come with me, please? Talk to them. Hear what they have to say and see if that changes any of the Caretakers’ minds?”
I sighed and looked down at the floor, but only mostly saw the cascading tangle of Sebastian Bach’s ridiculous blonde hair covering the width of my chest across the fabric of the white t-shirt. Ridiculously I wondered what Sebastian Bach might do in this situation and I had to stifle an unhinged chuckle.
“Last time I went to Salem, the twins didn’t even let me make it to the stairs.”
“We can mask your presence— for a time, anyway. Let you move at least somewhat undetected.”
I looked at Loren, who again, seemed reluctant to even look back. I remembered our last conversation, standing in the shadows of the Darkheart Manor house, the ringing of her mother’s angry voice still resonating within my head. Loren hadn’t been able to look me in the eyes on that day either, and now, a century later, give or take, it seemed as though she had moved on, but I was still firmly stuck in the past. I decided then and there that whatever I could do, I would do— if not for the coven’s sake, then for hers.
“All right,” I finally agreed. “Let’s do it.”