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Vashti never thought she’d put so much value in a quarter. Before, change was one of those things that she always considered inconsequential, a burden that she’d often leave behind in the coin deposit just because she didn’t want to walk around with jingling pockets. Actually, change was one of those things that she never even received, since anything and everything was put on daddy’s little black card and magically paid off by the end of the month. Yet now she kept a quarter with her wherever she went, employing Herik’s trick to keep the Leviathan at bay as liberally as possible. For a couple of days it had worked to help her reach gnosis and keep herself relatively chaos free.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work one hundred percent of the time. As far as she knew she had not injured anyone, but the Dairy Queen on 56th street would be closed until further notice after a “massive alligator” got into their walk-in and devoured all of the ice cream. Meanwhile, Vashti’s search for a Lavender Lux was going about as well as a giant alligator trying to digest tubs of dairy products. There was a creeping feeling of hopelessness that Vashti tried to ignore, just as she tried to ignore the news story from the first about a chihuahua being snapped up by the Gatorboy of Cypress Swamp.

Still, all things considered, just two Leviathan outbursts in a week and some change was pretty good. Except she’d been practically avoiding the Coven during that time, and they certainly elevated the level of chaos around her. Maybe that was why she kept pacing around outside of the beach house instead of going straight in. She was nervous. The last time she had seen the entire Coven she had yelled something to them about an orgy, and from that orgy they had acquired a beach house. The girls had insisted that Blake Schmidt had gifted it to them. Vashti didn’t want to know more. Too many questions were prompted by the idea, and none of them had answers that wouldn’t be upsetting. 

However, it wasn’t those questions that were stopping Vashti from entering the beach house. She was worried about Madison. Vashti wanted to try and make amends with her. However, she just felt like there was a storm brewing, and with the Leviathan inside of her she had to keep herself from letting the hurricane out. She gripped the quarter in her pocket and ran her finger along the edge. She decided to do a loop of the neighborhood to give her head some time to clear, and to get the eyes off of her: she swore she saw blinds being peeled apart by suspicious baby boomers concerned by the appearance of a Muslim woman in their idllyic vacation spot. 

By the time she was back, the blinds were shut and Emily’s moped was there. Good. With Emily there, Vashti would have some back up if Madison decided to be a hard ass. Even if Emily didn’t actually back her up, it would be nice to have her in the room—maybe Madison would split her fury between the two of them instead of unleashing it on one. Assuming that Madison got angry at all. Vashti shook her head. There was no space for negative thoughts like that. She’d talk to Madison, and they’d be cool. Easy peasy. She stepped up to the door and let herself in.

"Okay, yeah, who the fuck are you? More importantly, why is yo' boney ass here?"

Oh no. So much for catching Madison at a good time. Vashti stayed in the entrance way, lingering near the threshold into the common area. She peeked her head around the corner as the Middle Eastern girl in the yellow beanie talked, and talked, and talked, and—holy shit, did she not need to breath? It was a bit difficult with the accent but it sounded like the girl wanted to join. Why not? Vashti was pretty sure the Coven’s whole screening process was just a little song and dance to make the group seem more legit than it ever could possibly be. She walked around the corner to meet the newest member, the greeting dying in her mouth as Madison and Emily chucked the girl out the backdoor like a bag of garbage.

[color=darkcyan]“Um, what?”[/color] Vashti felt her brain break as Madison and Emily gave each other a high five. Vashti, wide-eyed and slack jawed,  gestured repeatedly to the door as the English language began to delete itself from her mind. [color=darkcyan]“What-the-fucking, why-would-you-even, I-can’t, so-stupid, I, what? [i]What? [b]What!?[/b][/i]”[/color]