Sloane made two false promises to herself the morning following the Halloween Festival. The first was that she was never going to teleport again. The second was that she was never going to drink again. The first day after the Halloween Festival was spent in a perpetual state of nausea and migraines, either curled up in the fetal position underneath a blanket on her chaise lounge or wrapped around the clean porcelain of her toilet. The sight and smell of the food she had delivered was offensive and upsetting. It sat untouched on her coffee table, growing cold alongside a kettle of ginger tea as the sun voyaged from one side of the window to the other. She had startled herself at some point in her wallowing when she had made the big, life altering decision to trek back from the chaise to her own bed and discovered that her California King had been occupied by another judging by the lumpy puff of a comforter on the side of the bed where most nights she would stare at the vacancy and dissociate. Throwing back the sheets revealed not a person but a blank, water damaged canvas, a confounding mystery that when solved left her feeling sicker than before.
The second day was not much better. Sloane never knew a hangover could be more than a twenty four hour affair. She spent the morning composing a series of unsent text messages to Anya and Jack, apologies for her behavior that she remembered much more than she wanted to, before transitioning to an afternoon spent absentmindedly watching classic movies with her back turned to the screen while. She had managed to stomach two small slices of plain cheese pizza, the crusts thrown back in the box like they were a chicken bone, before becoming annoyed and disgusted by the pizza from the chain delivery joint wasn’t a traditional margherita cooked inside of a wood burning oven following the methodology of someone’s ancient Italian grandmother. She had fallen asleep even earlier than the night before, waking for the meeting no longer hungover but instead just her usual amount of extreme tiredness exacerbated by yet another strange nightmare.
In comparison, Sully had been downright productive. Thanks to the restorative properties of the Chalice, his hangover died the moment he awoke. Auri had been able to forward Tayla's contact information, and while the rest of Greenwood cleaned up after their post-Halloween Festival party Sully took the time to compose a message to Tayla. The text became long winded and sprawling, an epic rivaling the works of Homer and focusing too much on the loss and recovery of his jacket that it almost buried the part that was relevant to Tayla. He had spent the rest of the day and the day after that stomping around St. Portwell with members of Greenwood, looking for a part-time gig so he could avoid being late on rent.
He had been out of work for a couple of weeks now, and reality was beginning to look more and more like he’d be moving back in with his mom. Although, really he’d rather just camp out then be a burden on her. Sully hadn’t mentioned any of his financial problems to Greenwood and really, with the Chalice in his possession and the extra weight on his gut there was little for him to ever worry about starving. Hell, as long as the weather didn’t get too extreme he imagined he could camp outside throughout much of November without ever getting too uncomfortable. However, all of these concerns were quickly becoming irrelevant when he found a place hiring workers to help repair the damage done to an area hit by a small seismic shock the previous day. Work started the following morning, a shift that Sully ended up having to skip because Auri had invited him to a meeting and he had promised her that last time was going to be the last time he skipped.
The morning of the meeting, Sully rounded the bend in his rusty old pickup, singing along poorly to the Jimmy Buffett song playing through the stereo. One of those black zip-up CD binders sitting on the bench seat next to him absolutely filled to the brim with Greatest Hits albums of bands that dads listen to and unmarked burnt CDs that Sully had made in high school. He let the car idle a little longer as he pulled in behind Drake’s car at the bottom of Kari’s drive, knowing full well that it was a felony offense to not finish the song
Boat Drinks once it started playing.
“Boat drinks. Boys in the band ordered boat drinks…” A black SUV could be seen pulling in behind Sully through his rear view mirror, the vehicle's windows tinted dark. Sully was unaware as the driver’s door opened and a man in a suit with sunglasses stepped out, crooning off key between sips from the Chalice to wet his whistle.
“I shot six holes in my freezer, I think I got cabin fever…” The goon opened the rear passenger side door of the SUV and offered out a hand that was waved away by a black glove. A sharply dressed woman stepped out of the SUV and began walking towards the pathway leading up to Kari’s house, pausing to turn to chastise her driver as he followed closely after her like a puppy.
“I should be leaving this climate, I got a verse but can’t rhyme it…” Sheepishly, the driver stepped back into the SUV.
“I gotta go where it’s warm!” hollered Sully from inside of his truck. Fully pumped he ripped the keys out of his ignition and swung the door open with full force. At the same time, Sloane, the passenger from the SUV, was walking by. She let out a startled yelp and jumped back, her hand over her beating heart as Sully’s door nearly pulverized her. Sully let out a startled scream of his own, not expecting to be ambushed the second he got out of his car. He even raised his hands up as if he was about to take Sloane on in a boxing match, expecting to see Dean instead of Sloane. Sloane recovered quickly, rolling her eyes as she gave another dismissive wave to her driver that had begun to step out of the car, hand clutching at his jacket.
“Pay more attention to where you’re going, Sullivan,” said Sloane, a little more edge to her usual dulled tone, looking down as she adjusted her coat.
“Hey, the same could be said to you, Sloaney,” said Sully, a bit of foamy liquid sloshing out of the top of the Chalice as he held up his hands in peace.
“That’s not my name,” said Sloane, going stiff.
“Holy shit, what happened to your nose?” asked Sully as the woman finally looked up at him. It was his first time seeing Sloane since the original meeting. He was legitimately unaware that Drake had broken her nose, but Sloane assumed otherwise.
She turned without a word, hands shoved into her coat pockets, and began moving to the house with a surprising amount of speed in her step. Sully called out for her to wait up and had to break into a light jog to catch up to her power walk. They made an odd duo. Sloane immaculately dressed with a nice black peacoat and a new cream turtleneck, Sully wearing a letterman jacket he had for over ten years and dirty boots, Sloane small enough that it would take three of her to make one Sully yet Sully looking infinitely more approachable than Sloane who despite being more fabric than person still carried a heavy gravitas around her. Sully was able to get ahold of her shoulder and slow her down.
“Do you know if Tayla’s coming?” he asked.
“Why would I?” asked Sloane. She didn’t talk to Tayla. Or rather, as she was growing to understand it all, Tayla didn’t talk to her. She hated Tayla almost as much as she hated Sully. Of course he’d be asking after Tayla. They used to party together. Meanwhile, Sloane bet Sully would’ve forgotten who Sloane was if she hadn’t held on to the Chalice for him while he went about chasing after some stupid, worthless dream that he was still somehow too inadequate to accomplish.
“Oh, um, I dunno. I just thought you might,” he said, taking a step back. Excluding the day that he had recruited her, Sully had never been really close with Sloane. She was one of the few people from back in the day that he actually found himself uncomfortable spending time with alone. She was also just so guarded that he felt unwelcome in her presence. However, today was a little different. She wasn’t just on guard, she was en garde—poised and ready to strike at anyone or anything that got in her way.
“You should leave the thinking to people who aren’t drunk,” said Sloane, glancing at the Chalice.
“Whoa, hey, I’m not drunk, I was just having a road soda,” said Sully, smiling as he tried to joke with Sloane. The smile quickly faded as she began to turn back towards the house. Sully caught her again by the shoulder, a grab she attempted to roughly shove off. He splashed the lager in his Chalice out on the ground and filled it with the elixir. He nodded to her partially healed nose.
“Loooook, I’m a little out of the loop, but I’m here now. At the very least let me fix that.”Sloane paused. She was tempted to leave her broken nose unchanged, to forever leave her face offset to serve as a permanent taunt towards Drake reminding him of the idiot he was, but he’d already proven that he didn’t give a shit and she didn’t need the injury to remind her of how she felt. It wasn’t worth getting the bridge on all of her designer sunglasses adjusted. With a hint of reluctance she nodded. Sully began lowering the Chalice as if he was going to make her drink from it himself, so she quickly mumbled her dissent and snatched the goblet from his hand. She took a drink, wincing as she felt the bones beneath her face shift until they were back in the proper place. She held onto the Chalice for a little while longer, tempted to confiscate it or at the very least ask him permission to hold onto it longer enough to recreate its Counterfeit. Instead she just handed it back and wiped her lip.
“There you go. Everything’s all healed now,” said Sully.
No it isn’t, thought Sloane. Out loud she managed to mutter a half-hearted thanks. Sully thought about asking her what happened but decided against it, taking any kind of reaction out of her that wasn’t a poke at the ribs as some kind of moral victory. Their walking pace slowed and the pair continued on to the house in silence, one that Sloane appreciated greatly. For Sully the silence was more uncomfortable, like stumbling through a small patch of poison oak and spending the rest of the day with an nagging itching sensation that begged to be scratched but knowing he shouldn’t or it’d make things worse. He was grateful to see Kari’s house emerge out of the woods.
He let out a low whistle,
“Goddamn that’s a cool place. Looks like Kari did well for herself.”Sloane grumbled something under her breath. Sully didn’t quite make it out. What she had said was,
“And look where it got her.”The two had very polar reactions to witnessing the other Coven members already being present. For Sloane she felt her heart rate spike, first when she saw Jasper and second when she saw Drake, although the presence of every other member of the Coven was like a knife in the belly. She slipped behind Sully to avoid detection, suddenly discovering that the big idiot had some actual worth. For Sully he felt himself suddenly relieved, happy to see everyone together safe and sound. He didn’t even notice Sloane becoming his shadow as he charged up towards Drake and Stormy, wrapping his boys up in a big hug. Sloane took the distraction to separate completely from Sully and blend in on the other side of the patio, sitting up on the banister so that she practically vanished behind a wooden support beam and simply became part of the decor.
“C’mon Stormy, clearly those flowers are for me!” teased Sully.
“Damn, bro, you really shouldn’t have.”Sully’s face sunk when Auri revealed that Lyss had been murdered. He hadn’t even known that she had been back in town. He pulled his beanie off of his head and rubbed the back of his head, always uncertain of what to say in moments like these. His typical knee jerk reaction was to make a joke to try and break the tension, but it just felt outright inappropriate. Fortunately, Linqian and Ayrin started (playfully) going at it, and Ken was jingling around still wearing a Halloween costume a few days too late, and Amara declared to any who would hear that she actually still existed. They provided a quick distraction from the sadness and, wait, when did all of them show up anyway? How much had he missed?
“Well, hell Amara, what are the odds? I lived and I’m here too,” said Sully, giving her a friendly head nod.
Sloane closed her eyes and shook her head with a nearly imperceptible smirk on her bored face. The news about Lyss was devastating but not unexpected. Of course the PRA had failed to protect them. Of course they had. Behind the smirk her teeth grinded tightly against one another. Almost as soon as the news about Lyss's death was broken the Coven immediately moved on to buffoonery because of course they would. It took every fiber of her being not to explode and scream at Linqian to shut the hell up as she went off on Ayrin, even if it was in good fun. She couldn’t believe that someone like Jinhai was related to someone as barbaric and insensitive as his sister.
She painfully scraped her tongue against her teeth instead chose to remain silent, shifting herself around behind the others to make her way to the front door. She pulled out the crumpled tarot card from her pocket and began drawing a tiny, intricate symbol on the door’s handle. The Hexmark wasn’t a complicated one, but it did require a bit of concentration—concentration that was hard to come by as the Coven bickered and flirted with one another. Sloane felt like she was suffocating. She already knew she didn’t have the patience in her to wait for Kenshiro to begin flipping over a bunch of rocks looking for a key that probably didn’t even exist, but now she was considering just punching her hand through the glass and loosening the lock that way. She leaned her head against the door and tried to tune the world out.
Meanwhile, Sully rubbed at the thick stubble on his chin. He had thought he had been late to the last meeting he had attended seeing as how out of hand it had been, but maybe he hadn’t been as late as he thought he had considering how quickly things here felt like they were about to derail. He turned to Auri with a sympathetic look. He had wanted to speak with her and Britney about the Dean problem anyway, preferably with Tayla’s input, but right now it seemed like more than anything that Auri needed someone to help her herd all of these cats. Stepping to the center of the group, Sully filled up the Chalice with some beer and cleared his throat.
“Hey! I know we’ve all had a crazy couple of weeks, but let’s all huddle up, focus, and give Auri our undivided attention, okay? But first let’s take a moment to pay respects to Lyss. She was a good egg. A lot of us are standing here today thanks to her,” said Sully, pouring out the beer on the stoop.
“I dunno, maybe we can just give her a moment of si—”BANG!
The front door of the house had flown open and slammed loudly against the wall, denting the plaster. Sloane caught the door with her hand as it bounced back towards her, the Hexmark on the handle still glowing with a faint blue and orange light. She gave the Coven a wide, toothy smile that on anyone else would’ve been friendly but on Sloane it was only eerie. Shadows fell on her face as she stepped inside before she flicked on the lights, the smile slowly fading from her face as she glared at the group gathered on the patio.
“Door’s open. What are you waiting for?” asked Sloane. She turned her back on the group, rolled her eyes, and stepped deeper into the entrance way to clear the door. She muttered under her breath.
“Let’s go accomplish fucking nothing again.”
Punished GN
AtomicEmperor
FernStone
NoriWasHere
Arkitekt
Damycles
Fetzen
Atrocious
