By Dark

by T Thorn Coyle

  He sipped at his coffee, wondering if he shouldn’t eat something himself. Breakfast wasn’t his usual, but nothing about his life lately was his usual. What was life like when he wasn’t rushing out the door to move and shake some corporation, or immerse himself in code by eight in the morning? Maybe that life included breakfast. Reading the news. Scrolling through kitten gifs.

  Connecting with a new lover.

  “So, how long have you been a Thelemite?”

  Thomas finished chewing and swallowed. “Around seven years now. Hey, don’t look so surprised. I know you think I’m a child, but I’m actually thirty years old…Daddy.” Thomas winked one of his devastatingly green eyes.

  Alejandro groaned and grabbed Thomas by the back of his neck, pulling him in for a satisfying kiss.

  “Damn puppy.”

  Thomas smirked and went back to demolishing his eggs.

  “I’m surprised I’ve never run into you before. The coven has done some work with Light Eternal Lodge here in town. I have a lot of respect for Frater Louis.”

  “I just moved up from Oakland in June and only started attending mass at Light Eternal Lodge in the past couple of months. I like the crew there, though.”

  Alejandro poured them both more coffee, adding thick, creamy coconut milk to both cups. None of that watery mixed crap for him.

  He took a sip, thoughtful, fully aware of the fact that his ancestors were buzzing around the base of his skull and he hadn’t attended to the ofrenda yet this morning. I’ll get to you soon. Promise.

  ::Pay attention:: they replied.

  Pay attention to what?

  He felt a sharp pain in the spot where the ancestors were buzzing, as if some abuela had just smacked him with her sandal.

  “Are you okay?” Thomas was frozen, loaded fork halfway to his mouth, concerned look on his face.

  “Uhhh, yeah. Just thinking about too many things all at once.” Alejandro grinned. “Clearly I need more caffeine.”

  Thomas chewed his final bite and set his fork down on the plate. “You cook a mean breakfast. Too bad you didn’t eat any yourself. Thanks for feeding me.”

  “You’re welcome. It’s really my pleasure.” Alejandro took another sip of coffee, then swiveled his stool so he could gaze out the huge living room windows. “You do much sigil work?”

  Thomas swiveled around, half facing the windows, half facing Alejandro. “I have, but not recently.” He was quiet for a moment, then held out his left arm, underside up, showing the soft skin that ran over the veins and tendons leading to his hand. “Look near my wrist.”

  Alejandro circled his thumb and pointer finger around Thomas’s wrist, feeling the steady rhythm of his pulse. He peered at the bright colors. Yellow bell peppers. Japanese eggplant. A red stalk of chard. Was there something else? Bending closer, he saw it, inked in red. A symbol of some sort. It looked like a a stylized T.

  “Tau?” he asked, recognizing the shape of the Greek letter.

  “You’re good. Yeah. That’s my personal sigil. Most people just think it’s a T for Thomas, and it is, but it’s also everything represented by the letter Tau.”

  “The ratio of the radius and circumference of a circle,” Alejandro replied.

  “Right again. The dynamic between the center and the edge. But it’s also the letter of life. Resurrection. As opposed to the letter theta, or death. It became the symbol of my transition. Being reborn into who I truly am. I wanted it tattooed there to remind me that rebirth is never finished.”

  Well shit. Alejandro sat there, gobsmacked, staring down at Thomas’s arm. Rebirth is never finished. Maybe that’s what all of this was about. His crisis.

  The base of his skull pinged again. Insistent, as if there was something more.

  Rebirth is never finished…the ancestors seemed to think this had to do with his visions. He didn’t see how… There was the sharp sandal smack again.

  “Ouch!” He dropped Thomas’s arm and whirled toward the ofrenda. “Knock it off.”

  “Uh…you okay? What’s going on?”

  “Just my mouthy ancestors.” Alejandro raked his fingers through his hair. After so many years of shaving his head to intimidate the corporate masters, it was weird having his thick hair back. “They’re trying to tell me something and apparently I’m not getting the message fast enough.”

  “You know,” Thomas replied, “I don’t usually tell people about that tattoo. Makes me wonder if your people had something to do with that.”

  “With the way they’ve been acting up lately, that’s likely. If you don’t mind, I should probably make my offerings.”

  “Go for it. I’ll start cleaning up the kitchen.”

  Alejandro gave Thomas a quick kiss, then filled a pitcher of water at the sink and walked over to the ofrenda, refilling the cups and glasses nestled on the shelves between the framed photos, flowers, and pieces of Mexican folk art. Once that chore was done, he lit some candles, pausing and breathing in the sharpness of the sulfur mixed with the spicy marigold and mellow scent of beeswax.

  Blocking out the sounds of Thomas loading the dishwasher and clattering the frying pan into the sink, he concentrated on slowing his breathing down. As he exhaled, he tried to soften his ætheric body, especially in the place his skull met his neck. The place his ancestors kept crowding around. He needed to relax everything. Last night’s sex had helped, but frankly, his body felt a bit battered from the visions and everything else. His spirit, too.

  What are you trying to tell me? Resurrection? I know some of you were Christian, but I’m still not sure…

  Pain spiked through his head. Alejandro’s hands flew to his temples and he bent at the waist with a groan.

  “Alejandro!” He barely registered Thomas’s panicked voice before falling to his knees. Fire. There was fire everywhere. Barely registered the pain of bone and flesh smacking the engineered bamboo floor. Hands on his shoulders, easing him the rest of the way down. A sofa pillow, shoved under his cheek.

  He was being dragged again, across the sere, dry packed earth of the Eastern Oregon desert. Hands bound. Feet bound. Shoulders wrenched. Bones rattling. Teeth biting through his tongue. Blood-filled mouth. Pain. So much pain.

  That silver star, glinting in the firelight. The horrible smile.

  The sharp retort of a gun. Smell of dust and cordite.

  Blackness. Endless blackness. Pinpricks of starlight. The scent of green. Then black again. Warm. Safe. Close.

  Then a rush of moisture. Light again. So bright. Too bright. Sharp smell of rubbing alcohol. Then a wash of color and confusion. Then…

  Alejandro came to, weeping, half cradled in Thomas’s arms.

  “I need my phone,” he croaked.

  He had to call Shekinah. Tell her what he saw.

  He knew what resurrection meant now. He knew exactly what it meant.

  28

  Shekinah

  “This shit has to stop. Now.” Raquel paced in the back room of the Inner Eye. The brightly colored banners that graced each wall of the room fluttered with each pass. Shekinah supposed they represented the four classical elements that many witches worked with. Brenda sat beneath one that was different shades of green, black, and brown, forming a mountain shape. They were pretty. Well done, actually.

  It was easier to focus on the artwork than on the wild energy currently roiling off of Raquel’s skin, or on the fact that her own partner, Alejandro, was curled up on a doubled-over quilt on the floor at her feet, covered by a soft woven throw blanket. She could tell he was in pain, and there was also not a damn thing she could do about it. So her eyes were wandering and her thoughts racing.

  When she’d arrived at Alejandro’s loft, Thomas had been half out of his mind with panic. Alejandro was rolling on the living room floor, clutching his head. He’d looked at her, lucid for a few seconds, and croaked out “Take me. Brenda and Raquel.”

  So, against her better judgment, she and Thomas had managed to half walk, half drag him to her car
and here, to the Inner Eye. Thomas had to head off to work, or she knew he would have still been here, hovering over Alejandro’s prone form.

  Soft murmurs of conversation came from beyond the purple curtain leading to the store itself. Tempest had done some sort of energy work to make Alejandro more comfortable, but then had gone back to mind the shop so Brenda and Raquel could confer.

  Shekinah felt agitated. Off her game. What kind of a yogi was she, if she couldn’t keep her shit together? Certainly not one ready for teacher training, and nowhere near on the pathway to whatever initiation would entail.

  At least, that’s what you’re telling yourself. Coward. Shekinah grimaced. Her inner voice was too spot on sometimes, and wasn’t that annoying?

  “If Alejandro’s ancestors think…” Brenda began.

  Raquel waved her hands, stopping her friend. Shekinah wondered if they were always like this. Able to be at odds with one another without it seeming like a threat. The way she and Alejandro used to be. Or the way she thought they were.

  “I don’t care what they think right now,” Raquel replied. “Whatever’s happening is messing up our brother Alejandro here, and is also messing with Tish, and Goddess knows how many other people. We have to figure out how to protect them! How the hell did this shit get past Alejandro’s wards, anyway?”

  Good question. She knew Alejandro had done some sort of ritual protection of his space when he moved in, and he said he “fed” those protections once a month, at the full moon.

  Shekinah settled into the arm chair she currently occupied, one of four relatively comfortable chairs set up in what looked like a break room, but must also double as a classroom or meeting space, given the chairs stacked next to a couple of long folding tables against one wall. There was a pocket kitchen in one corner, where an electric kettle was switched on, waiting to boil. She needed to get her thoughts in order. Right now, they raced from thought to thought and thing to thing. She was no good to anyone this way.

  Focusing her breathing, she fell into the familiar pattern, and closed her eyes. Brenda and Raquel could work out what they needed to on their own, and there wasn’t anything she could do for Alejandro this minute. Tobias, one of the coven healers, was apparently on his way. They’d have to check in with Tish, too, to make sure nothing bad was going on there, but for now?

  She entered her breath. Inhaling for a slow four count, she allowed her spirit to ride on the breath, to expand, to become spacious. And the pattern continued. As she breathed, she found her hands wanting to move. To take on shapes. Form patterns. Mudrās. Letting breath and body flow as they wanted to, Shekinah kept her attention on the fourfold pattern, and on remaining in an open state. The tension in the room bounced off her, radiating outward from her aura, not touching her core anymore. Good. That was what she needed.

  Eyes fluttering beneath her eyelids, she pictured a bright, luminous spaciousness, with herself and Alejandro in the center of it. Nothing could touch them here. It was a cocoon of safety and repair. A place his soul could heal.

  His soul had needed healing for a long time.

  Her hands continued their search for the proper patterns. Fingers pointing upward, then down. Four fingers held together, then two. Palms up. Palms down. Symbols of wisdom. Symbols of strength. Symbols of change.

  They finally settled into one form, and her attention sank like a stone. Her edges expanded, as if she could hold the world like this. A center. A radius. A circumference. The being of All.

  The unbroken circle of life itself. The seed that dies, and is reborn from the darkness, becoming first the flower, then the fruit.

  Alejandro.

  Shekinah…

  A voice came floating, as if heard through layers of water. Her attention remained centered. Her fingers still, holding the symbols. Communicating to the cosmos with two strong hands.

  “Shekinah!” A voice she recognized. Brenda’s voice. “I need you to come back to us. At least enough to speak.”

  “Something is going on with Alejandro. We need you.” A smoother voice, like warm honey. Raquel.

  Her eyes fluttered, blinking at the light. Shapes resolving into two faces. One pale, with dark hair in soft waves piled over a narrow face. Silver jewelry. Brenda. A darker face with high cheekbones and deep eyes. Dreadlocks coiled around it. Raquel.

  And a soft, moaning sound at her feet.

  “Alejandro?” Her eyes opened all the way. Her hands dropped to her lap once again. The sense of peace and protection remained.

  He moaned again, then shuddered, as if every muscle in his body had tensed up. Shekinah held her hands, palms down, in the air above his body. He sighed, and relaxed, limbs uncurling themselves. His breathing deepened, as if he was drifting off to sleep. She felt untroubled, as if whatever was going wrong with him, or in the world, she could face it.

  All her life, she had avoided fighting. Avoided the warrior’s way. She had never felt strong enough, never felt worthy. But perhaps she had been wrong all along. Maybe this was what her teacher had tried to tell her. Why he prodded her. Perhaps this was what he prodded her toward.

  Perhaps this was what it meant to be a warrior. Centered. Connected with your actions and the actions of the cosmos. Still. Focused, yet encompassing all. Able to move rightly, with certainty.

  “Can you speak?” Brenda asked her.

  Shekinah nodded. Then cleared her throat. She had seen something in that space beyond space, and time beyond time. A piece of information. A key.

  “Alejandro.” She cleared her throat again, then looked from Brenda to Raquel. “I think his soul is older than we know.”

  29

  Alejandro

  His whole body felt beaten this time. Far worse than after the other visions. Were the visions getting worse? Or was the pain cumulative? His still-foggy brain barely parsed the half thoughts. The main thread running through his mind was just an awareness of the pain.

  Alejandro groaned. He was on some sort of soft quilt, and covered with some other soft blanket. He fought to roll up into a sitting position. The motion made his stomach lurch. He groaned again, then eased back down. He really, really didn’t want to puke. His head couldn’t handle it.

  “We’ve got a trash can near by,” Raquel’s voice came from near his head. A soft hand whose touch he recognized was on his shoulder. Shekinah. He could smell the incense perfume of her hair.

  “Tobias is en route. He just finished with a client and is bringing some herbs.” That was Brenda, speaking from across the room.

  “What’s happening to me?” He croaked out. “I called you…Thomas.” His eyes were still closed against the lights in the room, but even through the pounding in his head, he felt his friends around him.

  And then felt her. His love. His partner. She eased down onto the quilt, spooning her body behind his, just barely touching, not putting any pressure on him. Just enough to feel her warmth. She felt good. She always felt good to him, even when he was acting like an ass and pushing her away.

  “Alejandro, you did have Thomas call me. That was the right thing to do. I’m glad he was with you and I’m glad I’m with you now.”

  His throat closed up and tears flooded his eyes. “Love you. So much.”

  She really was everything. Not everything in the way the songs meant it. Everything in that, she was his rock. His steady home. The light that called to him in the darkness…even when the darkness was exactly the thing he needed to explore. And she managed to do all that, be all that, and still be herself.

  As the tears spilled over, running in wet rivulets down his face, he felt all of that, in one clear rush. Not thoughts. A feeling. He felt her.

  “I see you, Alejandro. And I love who you are.”

  His aching body shook with release. An animal sobbing tore itself from his throat. He had a vague sense of motion, but still couldn’t open his eyes.

  “Too bright,” he whispered.

  “Damn. Of course it is.” Raquel’s voice.
r />   The light dimmed behind his eyes. He slowly blinked, but closed his eyes again. Too much effort. Then someone new knelt in front of him, with the slight clank of glass and the thump of a bag. A cool hand on his forehead.

  “Hey, brother. You look like shit.” Tobias. His voice was gentle and warm. “Do you think you can sit up if we help you?”

  “Yes,” he whispered, not wanting to nod. He blinked his eyes open again, and slowly rolled up onto his arms.

  “Take it slowly,” Tobias said, peering at him from beneath that one brown lock of hair that always half covered his forehead. His goatee was scruffier than Alejandro’s, but he looked beautiful. Alejandro began to weep again, slow, silent tears that wet his cheeks. He let them come, too overwhelmed to feel self-conscious about it all.

  Tobias and Shekinah helped Alejandro sit up on the quilt, Shekinah adjusting herself so her thighs were around his hips.

  “Lean back,” she said. “I’ve got you.”

  He leaned into her, gently, and released the breath he’d been holding with a sigh. He noticed Raquel hovering, trash can in hand, and smiled.

  He cleared his throat. Damn. Even that hurt his head.

  “I think I’m okay for now. Not going to heave anytime soon. I could use some tissue though. My handkerchief is in my back pocket and I’m not sure I can move to get it.”

  Raquel gave a tight, worried smile back. “I’m keeping this nearby anyway. You never know. Besides, the taste of Tobias’s herbs can make anyone want to hurl.”

  “Hey!” Tobias said.

  Brenda tsked and set a box of tissues on the edge of the quilt.