Bart stood in the den of his home, the home once Clayton's, once Emily's. The broken home of Jonathan, and David Walker. He pondered whether or not to meet with Gina in the drawing room, but given the circumstances, today was no day for discussing old traditions, and arguing philosophical differences. She stepped up to her role, a role Bart thought she would flee. Grifford was certain she would fail, and demonstrate her unworthiness to The Order, and he was mistaken. He was mistaken too often, anymore. "...and so, it is done."

Bart Walker frowned at the tear stained face of Gina Guerrero. 

Her redrimmed eyes said it all.

He cleared his throat. "I know it can't have been easy, Gina... but you've saved your mentor's life, restored - advanced - his station, and increased his holdings."

"Would you send your father away, Bart Walker?"

"Bishop isn't your father."

"He's more a father than Victor Guerrero."

Bart fell silent.

She was right, of course, and more than right, she was correct... but The Order had its politics, and its politicians, and when those such things reared their ugly heads, bad things followed. "The Rowans."

"What?" Gina stared at Bart.

"Your next assignment. The Rowans. Tonight we declare war on Coven. All Coven. Our inside sources determined tonight we strike at the Rowans."

Gina narrowed her eyes. They felt stiff, if it were possible, and raw.

"Tonight William Plow - the brother of Lillian Plow - and his circle will meet at the rowans. Some bullshit about a medicine circle. Kill them. Kill them all."

"...at The Rowans."

Bart nodded. "If your loyalty is with us, yes."

"Say, wasn't there a recently transferrer member of our order - you may know him, he's pale as Casper's ass - that met an unfortunate accident out there in that grove of rowans?"

Bart felt his heart skip a beat. "Judge Randall Grifford is not his brother. Id you don't trust his word, trust mine."

Gina crossed her arms. "Just so i unserstand, you know, so we're clear. When I get there, and there's a cadre of Griff's loyal assassins, and I wipe them out... will I recieve as kind a punishment as exile, like Bishop? Or is it straight to the gallows for me?"

"The judge - our Judge - assured me there's no trickery, or treachory involved. We can strike a blow that will spark war, and force Lillian to act. If she acts, she dies. She, and all her circle with her. You have my word."

"First, my only judge sits in a throne on high, in Heaven. I may be willing to accept Griff's authority in The Order, but he is not my judge. Second: Bart Walker, I want to trust you. I'm not Hutch, and I'm not Cameron, and I'm sure as fuck not blood, like David. I've  know you for like maybe ten seconds, and so far I had to relocate the only man I'd consider a father to some shithole, and now you want me to go where that man was betrayed by a Grifford?"

"...but not this Grifford. He's not a pious man, youre right... but who among us here are? We are too few in numbers to sink to the practices of Pope Urban the sixth, or risk Medici scale assassination plots."

"You're blind in your devotion to The Order. If you can pretend that one brother wouldn't do what another did because 'Randall isn't Samael', then how could I trust you anymore than Griff? Wasn't it Samael Grifford that took the head of a church cadinal in defiance of the demand to dissolve The Order? Did Randall stop him? Did anyone?"

"...the church was bowing to terrorist demands. They wanted to kowtow to the heathens out of fear, not some holy decision to preserve life."

"So you approve of the murder of one of our own? By what justification? We didnt get our way?"

"We're at war, woman!" Bart's voice echoed through his otherwise empty home.

Silence filled the room between them, and her sense of The Order became too real, too clear.

"That's right." Gina nodded. "It's empty. Empty rooms, empty chairs. Where is the family sitting around the dinner table, talking about their day at school? Where are the stories by the hearth, and who occupies all these empty beds? Who do you tuck in at night, and who do you greet in the morning? Will you live to see.your grandchildren bring you great grandchildren? Where is David? Where's Emily? Where's Clayton?"

Bart lashed out, slapping Gina across the face with the back of his bare hand. She spun once, lost her footing, amd recovered before she could fall. "You speak of things you can't possibly unserstand."

Gina felt a trickle of blood run down from her nose, and over her top lip. She frowned. "What's worse is you agree with me, and you obey them anyway."

They glared at one another.

"You're new, and you don't know how this works,  so I'm not going to beat the understanding into you this time. You're an outsider living on the inside... but you're still an outsider looking in. My son sacrificed his life for The Order, fighting against an abomination to save our last sitting judge. You don't understand, and you may never. Our war isn't a war of vanity. It isn't for material possession, or territory. We are the only counter scale to maintain a balance in a world plagued by the heathen scum who walk among us, and would twist our world into a blasphemy if they could."

Gina raised up her right hand and opened it. She stared at it a long time, before wiling the blood away from under her nose. "I'm not mad at you, Walker..."

Bart's eyes were wide, furious, and brimming; they did not run over.

Gina nodded. "You're afraid. Fuck, I'm afraid... but someone I love told me that fear makes monsters of men, and there is little men fear more than change. I didn't really get it until right now. You hit me, man. Cameron did that once. It feels like forever ago. Beat me until I was black, and blue. He did it out of fear, and some twisted perception of love."

"I heard."

"...but it was fear, mostly. In that moment for him, and in this moment for you now. It's only fear. If there were no order, what would there be?"

Bart stumbled over his own feet, and Gina caught him, and walked him to a shabby looking armchair. He shrugged her off, and sat himself down into it.

It still smelled like Clayton, and was stained in faded spots of Jonathan's baby food. There were scuffs in it where Karen and David sparred in the house.

It was in the same chair he soothed Clayton to sleep when his boy was small, plagued by nightmares, and those nightmares followed Clay his entire life to the very end... and it was all too entirely possible, those nightmares manifested in Bane. Those nightmares that killed his little boy long before he was a grown man.

The den was empty. His chair. A sofa. Fine tables, and a large television. Pictures, and paintings. A large window to enjoy the view of the surrounding woods, and wild animals.

Silence echoed silence.

"You come with me tonight, to the Rowans. You fight beside me, and prove to me The Order is worth our service. Show me this legend ypure supposed to be, and if I survive the night,  my loyalty is yours." Gina folded her arms.

"Midnight. Driftwood heights. Meet me where the lodge was. We'll go down together."

"Mind your phrasing, old man."

✟ ☧ ✟

If the third quarter moon was there in the sky, no one in Driftwood could see it.

Too few - and still too many - years ago the clouds came, and there was seldom a clear day. It came as a blessing to see 'partly cloudy' in the forecast. Even then, those partly clouded skies, were never the delicious looking cumulus clouds notorious for lazy spring picnics, or finding delight in the imagined shapes spurred by pareidolia.

These grey, and black clouds smeared across the sky like a stain, an oil spill on water without even so much the superficial beauty of a chemical rainbow.

Driftwood was cursed; cursed by the Silent War, by imbalance; by Coven and their black glass, and blacker magicks still, and by the righteous indignation of The Order's holy war;  cursed by the cursed, those soulless sons and daughters of Driftwood,  those sentinals walking as living embodiments of the very city itself, exacting her will, and suffering her agonies.

Darkness bled into the skies, and far too often, the skies rained their torment back into the tortured soil of the city.

Gina sat on the edge of Driftwood Heights, legs hanging over the sheer ledge, watching the city below; it was too small to be more than a micropolitan blip on the map, a place north-west of Collings, east of Pridewater, and south of the state of Washinton. Traffic was heavier.than usual, but especially as late into the evening, headlights like diamonds on the highway, and lava rubies, those heading away.

"It's still beautiful."

Gina glanced over her shoulder.  "I know you."

Suheila stepped carefully to her side, and sat down identical to Gina, her legs hanging over the side. "I expected you'd be here tonight. "

"Yeah,  yeah. You're a seer. I get it." Gina waved a gloved hand.

"You're sad."

"Oh, yeah? Well you're a heathen."

Suheila smiled. "I always liked your sense of humor."

"You liked my man."

"Aren't you gay?"

"What of it? Love is love."

Suheila nodded, peering at Gina with pretty blue eyes. "Yeah, I liked your man for a time. Loved.him, really. It's not his fault that changed. Not really."

"Someone has to be the blame. Cameron. Me. The Order."

Suheila shook her head. "Nah. It's my fault. Don't get me wrong, you totally deserve him. It's not like that."

"Bitch, are you hitting on me?"

She ignored Gina's question. "You know, I regret it."

"Losing Cameron? It never would have lasted. I'd have kicked.your ass, and stolen your man, ghetto style."

"No, you wouldn't.  You pretend otherwise, but you're probably the purest among them. Maybe only third to David, and Karen. You have a good heart, and a good soul. I think we could have beem friends."

Gina shifted her weight and turned to meet Suheila's staring eyes. "Then why the fuck would you, of all people you, accept the blacl glass?"

"Pain."

"Pain. Yean, right. Pain."

Suheila risked a hand on Gina's shoulder. The heavy, raw fabric of her duster was rough. "You're in pain. So conflixted2. You've cost me a lot of sleep since you sent your father away."

"I didn't do shit to Victor Guerrero. That dumb motherfucker beat feet befpre i was teething."

"I mean your real father. Tbis Bishop I've heard so much about."

"Your hand. If you want to keep it, get it off my shoulder."

Suheila laughed, and the sound was sweet, even in Gina's ears. "You're not going to kill me tonight, Gina."

Gina shrugged "Probably not... but you'd survive if I cut off your hand."

"If."

"How very laconic."

"Gina, what are you fighting? Youve got a job to do."

Gina shifted further, inching closer to Suheila. "Why does everyone keep telling me that? Don't you think I know? I didn't want The Order. I wanted Cameron." She shook her head, and stared down below the ledge. It was dark. She could not see the Rowans.

"They'll be down there, Gina. For betyer or worse,  you'll succeed. I've seen it."

"Sue, we cluld have used you. We could have used your help, and now you're the enemy."

"I'm your friend, right now."

"It feels like thay, you know? For them, it's not even a question. Theyre raised in their hatred. Raised to kill your kind. Maybe Bart was right. Maybe I am the outsider on the inside. Still looking in."

"Don't sell yourself short. If everyone in The Order was like you, and your fiance, or David, and Karen - maybe not David - the war would be over already, amd with honor."

"Yeah, well... here we are, enemies on the precupice. I could just push you over, and that would be it for you."

"...and yet, you don't. It's all very frustrating.  Like having the same conversation twice. Could I even change it... to say, or.do something else... but it isn't how thay works. Everything I see, it will be. That's all there is to it."

"Including this conversation."

"Yes, Gina. Including this conversation. "

"I don't know, Sue. It seems very expository to me."

Suheila laughed again. "Try living with it. It's only gotten stronger as I've gotten older."

"I'm afraid, Sue. I'm afraid the Order is evil. You know, as much as you heathen scum."

Suheila shrugged, and broke away from Gina's eye contact. "I disagree. There are good amd evil men in everything. In The Order, in Coven, amd even in the Citywalkers. Purpose drives us, and shapes us, and we become - all of us - unwitting, and sometimes unwilling products of our environment. You were right, though."

"...about what?"

"If there never was a war. A lot of people who are gone now. They wpuld be alive today."

"I knew I was right."

"Don't you be so quick to celebrate.  Bartholomew Walker is right, too. You are, the both of you. Correct."

"No, one of us has to be wrong."

"Nothing is so black and white. A green eyed monster, and i don't mean jealousy, roams Driftwood. He's driven by impulses he barely understands. Is he friend, or foe?"

"Yeah, sue, I'm pretty sure he wants me dead."

Suheila nodded. "Yes, but maybe less from want, and more from necessity."

Gina nudged Suheila with her shpulder, and Suheila returned her gaze to Gina's. "It would still end the same."

"I'm not arguing that point."

"Then what's your point?"

"Nothing is black and white. Of course there will be heroes, and villains in every faction of this war... but good and bad aren't so clear as they were whem we were children. I conjure, you've killed. Youre going to kill tonight."

"I keep hearing that message, too. It isn't what we do, its why we do it. It gets old, fast." Gina pulled herself away frlm the edge, until her black clad legs were flat.on the ground. She climbed up to her feet, and Suheila followed in suit.

"It's a valuable lesson, Gina. I know I can't convince you to do anything you're going to do."

Gina looked desperate. "Maybe just tell me, and I can change it."

"In telling you, I would only insure it happens."

"You're kind of useless, aren't you?" Gina dusted her black fatigues woth her gloved hands.

"It's harder to see when it's about me. It's  time for me to go. I enjoyed your company, Gina. I don't want to sound rude," Suheila pushed a lock of hair behind her ear, and locked eyes again woth Gina. "I don't look forward to seeing you again."

✟ ☧ ✟

Gina stood at the edge of Driftwood heights, staring through the light showers and into the darkness below. "You're late."

Bart Walker stepped up beside her, his cowl half over his face. "Where's  your mask?"

"I don't need a mask. I don't leave survivors."

Bart flexed his neck, and arched his head to one side, and then the other. "When are you going to trade in your pistols for real weapons?"

"When I need a letter opener, I'll call you. Are we going to do this, or what?"

✟ ☧ ✟

"Hang back." Bart whispered as he and Gina closed in in the rowans.

There were still holes in the trees from the last real fight here.

"Good idea, I was just going to suggest you do that. Catch any stragglers."

Bart stopped mid step, adjusting the long brim of his hat. "What?"

"...my assignment. You back me up."

Bart turned away, rubbing his eyes through his cowl. "You're unprofessional. You're loud, clumsy, and trigger happy."

Gina stayed silent, and Bart turned back around to find her gone. "...and you're not here. Wonderful."

✟ ☧ ✟

Gina slipped through the rowans, tree to tree, and branch to branch until she saw the dim flicker of firelight.

She crept along the branches until they were in sight. There were six of them. She had eight rounds in each pistol,  one in each chamber, seven in each magazine, and four more magazines just in case.

I have you now. Gina unholstered both her desert eagle pistols, and aimed, both arms extended, both pistols out, both eyes open.

There was a sharp snap, branches breaking near the circle, and they all turned in unison toward the sound. "Tighten up!"

It was a man's voice.

William Plow. Gina drew her sight picture on him, barrels aimed at the back of his head. It would be a spectacular explosion of brain and skull. There would be panic and -

"No!" One of William's coven screamed is frightened shock.

Gina watched in awe as two rowans toppled forward, William's circle scattering in time to dodge the heavy boughs as the trees fell forward, roots bursting and tearing out of the wrt soil,  and out from the dark of the grove's cover, green eyes, and the pale bone mask over his face.

He was bigger - larger than in their last encounter - his dreadlocks matted down to the heavy leather of his well patched duster by the light rain.

Bane pushed through the fallen trees as though they were stage props, and grappled the closest witch he could. The man screamed, raising his arms out for the sky. The rain fell harder, and Gina lowered her guns as lightning struck one ofnthe fallen rowan trees. It split into halves as a second bolt struck the wet soil. There was a shower of sparks. Bane ignored it. He ignored the remaining six members of William's coven, and brought the witch in his hands down hard ovee his knee like a board.

Gina could hear the heathen's back break, a xylophone of cracking vertebre.

Bane threw the dead man, and the. Roken corpse struck the side of her tree, folding around it before dropping limp to the ground, landing in an unnatural position.

William shouted a word, but Gina could not hear it through the violent thunder rumbling through the sky. It sounded like 'tall' or 'towel'. He raised his hands and closed them into fists, punching into the empty space around him, a left hook, and then a right.

Two rowan trees leaned toward Bane, branches creaking, and cracking, and struck him from the right, and left.

Holy shit! Gina raised the desert eagles up once more as William plow raised his arms up, and brought them down as though conducting an orchestra. The remaining four stood around William,  holding the hands of the person next to them.

One of the two animate rowans lurched forward and fell onto Bane, its branches pushing into the ground, digging into the soil, rooting the tree into then groud from the bottom to the top.

William was shouting into the rain, and the rowan pinning Bane to the ground burst into flames.

"The fuck you say." Gina drew a woman into her sight. She had a splended head, round, half shaved. The other side was a curtain of platinum blond hair. Gina inhaled deep, exhaled, and she squeezed the triggers. Half of plantinum punk rock's head exploded, pieces od brain and skull spattering on the rest of the remaining circle.

"Do not break the circle!" William's shouting was drowned out by two more shots, as Gina fired careully at William Plow.

William held his hand up, palm open, and the large bullets stopped in his hand, half embedded in his flesh. Gina changed targets, and picked off her