The Magnificent Bastards

III | The Shadow, the Siren, and the Sage-4

SATYENA WAVED A HAND before her as the elevator reached the top, willing its machinery and its bells silent, then froze in position as its doors rolled open, revealing a lengthy kitchen which was the size of the common room in their old coven building, the building which now lay smoldering amidst its slums—a fact she could blame upon the Witch Doctors but which she really blamed on Samain, for having let it fall outside her sphere of protection, purposely, Satyena was convinced. And that’s when she realized that Samain was right in front of her, that she had been all along, only cloaked—a façade she now dropped—and before Satyena could respond the older woman had opened her mouth and launched a stream of black bile directly at her head, which Satyena narrowly avoided by ducking and rolling, after which she sat up on one elbow and responded in kind, also missing but causing the Master Witch to lose her balance briefly before she was able to cast a spell of protection about herself, which crackled and sizzled and spat blue sparks. “Oh, Satyena, surely you did not expect to just waltz right in here and find me sitting cross-legged in the center of a pentagram, completely oblivious, did you?”

“I expected to find you exerting at least some effort toward maintaining the cloaking spell,” said Satyena. “For all the covens. Or is it that it requires no effort? Is it that you control it easily and at will, and that you purposefully turn out those who would defy you, even a little?”

Samain’s white eyes seemed to dance. “The outer covens have become weak,” she said. “Even you, a half-breed—and there are more of you spell-birthed every year—must know this and fear for our future.” She circled Satyena slowly. “What would you have us do? Make peace with the men and return us all to the exploitation and a***e of the past? If so, that is because you are too young to remember the way things were before the Pestilence.”

“I know how things were before the Pestilence,” said Satyena, and stood. “I mean, how things really were, not as they are portrayed by you, and by others like you. Men and woman danced. They courted and competed and completed each other, they even made love!”

Samain reared back as if struck across the face. “Made love?” Her shield seemed to sputter and weaken, if only for an instant, then she laughed. “And by this you mean the act of r**e, which all women had to endure. Oh, Satyena, not even you could be so naïve ... by the goddess, look around you! Look at the animals in their kingdoms—tell me, do they make love? And do you think our Third Eye would have even been opened if we had not first closed ourselves off to men completely? Oh, Satyena! You are far worse than a mere half-breed if you believe these things, you are a fully human woman, as trapped in the binary of old as any precious mother.”

She raised her hand suddenly and Satyena was propelled across the room, where she collided with the shelves violently and caused the china to shatter and cascade all around her as she crumpled to the floor. But it wasn’t until the younger woman had regained herself and was preparing to counterattack that she realized the full extent of Samain’s assault, for when she moved to curse blindness upon her she found she hadn’t the tongue to do it, that Samain had used her superior powers to seal up her mouth completely. Nor did the Master Witch stop there but immediately cast a spell of paralysis upon Satyena so that she could not even defend herself by conjuring with her hands. And then Samain approached for what would certainly be the killing blow and Satyena could only wonder how Jeremiah was fairing and if Jasper were aware of her plight and what they would think of her when the White Noise barrier fell but the cloaking spell remained intact.

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