The Delicious Dark Side

Sometimes hilarious, sometimes dark, always sexy,

The Delicious Dark Side is waiting for you...

Covenant of the Second Family

 

© 2008

Grayson Reyes-Cole

 

 

Leaders of the Second Families convene once every thirteen years…

 

Covenant of the Second Family

Grayson Reyes-Cole

 

Leaders of the Second Families convene once every thirteen years…

 

Carved from cool, buffed gray rock, the walls, ceiling and floor of the enormous room gave the forum the image of an elegant cave. Wrought iron scrolls acted as sconces protecting low flickering flames mounted on the walls.  Still the onlookers, hanging back out of respect, were barely illuminated. Though the room intimidated with its size and lack of ornament, it was warm.  Electricity sparked in the air.

Thirteen high-backed chairs surrounded the long, dark table at the center. Six on either side. The one at the head had not in recent history been occupied. Lit with old, yellowed candles, the burled wood shined, worn with ancient stories. A corroded iron cylinder lay on top of it. Six people stood around the table. Each of the six spoke a name.

“Dragon.”

“Eye.”

“Palm.”

“Water.”

“Breath.”

“Number.”

“Let’s get this over with.” Though short and to the point, Winston Clay’s words rang deep and melodic.  They reverberated off the walls and left a subtle, intoxicating hum in the air. Everyone in earshot craved it once it was gone. Winston was the leader of the Second Family of the Breath.

“We can’t sign the Covenant without every leader present.” Cobb Douglass, leader of the Second Family of the Palm, argued. He stood nearest the ancient, iron tube resting on the table. Cautiously, he pushed a rolled up, large expanse of brown parchment back into the deep well and started to close the cap.

“Yes, we can,” Rich Beltran, leader of the Second Family of the Dragon, attempted to halt him. Rich stood beside Mindy Banner-Beltran, his wife, and leader of the Second Family of the Eye. “There are thirteen chairs at this table.  For more than two centuries the number at this Covenant has been a meager six. The other six Second Families have long been lost to us. We have only just this past year discovered the Water again through Christian. The last time we convened there were six Families. Today there are six. We don’t have an issue.”

“But we didn’t know about Christian,” Cobb supplied. His frustration created lines in his forehead. “Had we known, we never would have had a Covenant thirteen years ago without him. We know there is another Second Family out there. If we know it, then there must be seven now, not six to sign.”

“It’s the only way, Cobb. We have to make do with six.” Mindy attempted to reason with him. “There is no one from that Family who would come here, now.”

“We all know where the Dragons and the Eyes stand on this subject.” Winston commented with bitterness in his voice.

“Of course,” Cobb sneered. “They stand together.”

Mindy could sense Rich in her mind. He wanted to tell them all to go to Hell. He wanted to grab her hand and drag her out of there away from the tension and the memories of what had happened the last time anyone tangled with the Other Second Family.

She shook out her long, coarse, wavy red hair and stepped apart from Rich. She kept her eyes off her husband as well. “Each Second Family is its own,” she stated in her deep whiskey voice, a voice incongruous with her slim form and sharp features. “In this, the Eye agrees with the Dragon. I understand your problem with me, Winston, but what does the Breath say?”

“I don’t have a problem with you, Mindy,” Winston’s melodic voice thickened then. He licked dry lips and flexed his hands. “You didn’t go half as far as most of us would have.”

Mindy kept quiet waiting for his answer.

“I agree.” He answered finally.

“And the Water and the Number?”

Christian Romero, newly found leader of the Second Family of the Water waved an insouciant hand. “Of course, I agree.” He smoothed his glossy black hair behind an ear.

Christian looked over at his best friend, Joshua Odum. “What’s up, Yaz?”

Yaz’s attention seemed focused beyond the group at the table, to the collection people wait patiently at the edges of the light. Their Second Families.

Winston cleared his throat and prodded, “Number?”

“I agree,” Yaz’s response was absent and his fingers tapped rapidly against the table.

“And the Palm?” Mindy pressed.

“I agree,” Cobb’s answer came quick, though his voice was gruff.

From somewhere, in the dark recesses of the room, came a shocked inhalation of breath. Then another. And another.

A figure clad in a dark purple, red and gold sari rolled into the room. A thin gold band around her forehead held back her thick black hair.  A matching gold band wound around one of her biceps. As she walked by, one could see that the sari fell only to the knee and she was wearing jeans and boots beneath it. She smelled of musk and gardenias. Her skin was almost as dark and smooth as seal skin, though beneath her black, winged brows her eyes were green like lime-flavored jewels. She was breathtaking.

“You are not welcome here.” Cobb declared, though he took a step back. “The Covenant is for leaders. You are not a leader.”

“And who the Hell are they?” Kenya snarled. She gestured toward Remy and Huntington Durant, Devon and Jada McAteer. Theresa and Darius. There were so many lurking in the shadows. “You allow yourselves to be outnumbered by Dragons and Eyes.” She pointed at Cobb, “Where are your Palms?” She turned her head to Winston, “Where is your Breath?”

Neither Cobb nor Winston spoke to her. “I see only one or two of yours, Yaz.” Joshua sat down at the table then slumping back in his seat. He remained silent.

Her poisonous gaze found a new target then. “I don’t even know you.” She studied Christian. Cream-skinned with long, black hair, his cheeks pinkened as if kissed by a blush. His eyes, a lighter green—almost sea green—studied her as well… then turned to Rich.

“Don’t look at him!” Kenya snapped with hot fury. “He’s not your leader. He’s a Dragon. You’re the leader of the Second Family of the Water. Don’t you know anything? Don’t you have any idea what that means?”

“Leave him alone,” Rich spoke to her finally.

She whipped around to stare at him. But pain flickered in her eyes. “You’ve got every one of them bowing down to you, right Rich?”

She smiled bitterly and her eyes blazed quickly with an orange flame. “Look at them all. Doctors, bankers, athletes, lawyers,” she added with disgust. “Worker bees. All very professional, all very mundane, all very human.”

“We are human.” Rich stated.

She laughed, and the candles on tables and on the walls all flickered. She asked, “Are we? I thought the jury was still out on that one.” She stepped nearer then and stood in front of Mindy. “Melinda Ann,” she intoned catching the light-skinned woman’s eyes.

“Kenya,” Mindy returned. The tension between the two women literally had tiny embers forming in the air. Luckily, they quickly turned to ash, perhaps with help from the seemingly disinterested Christian.

“We have unfinished business.” Kenya looked her up and down. It was a dare. The hostility reached between them like clawing fingers.

“If you think so.” Mindy retorted.

“Why are you here?” Rich questioned stepping closer to Mindy drawing Kenya’s attention to him.

“I have come for the Covenant,” she answered succinctly.

“To watch it?” Mindy asked.

“To sign it.”

A rumble swept through the room.

“Where is Phaedra?” Cobb demanded.

“She met a quick… and frankly tragic end,” Kenya dropped her head with sarcasm and melodrama. Then she laughed. “So sad.  I ain’t gonna say it surprised me, though. That’s what happens with us Gut folks, you know. We die young.”

“So—“ Winston inserted.

“So, I got a promotion,” Kenya smirked at the only living member of her First Family. Her biological brother.

“Leaders are born.” Cobb interjected.

“Not in the Gut,” Kenya’s eyes narrowed to sinister slits. Then in a complete turnabout, she grinned wide.

That bitch is crazy, Mindy picked out of someone’s head, she wasn’t quite sure whose.

Kenya whipped around to her enemy again. “You stole something from me,” she accused striding closer to Mindy, not caring that she had to stare up at the taller woman.

Mindy didn’t so much as bat an eye. When Rich tried to touch her, she again stepped out of his reach. As much as she wanted his support, this was the one place, the one moment when she could not accept it.

“This is ridiculous!” Cobb spat. In his deep Southern drawl, he added, “Can’t y’all take this outside? Can’t you take this up after we’ve done what we came here to do?”

“I want what you took from me!” Kenya hissed at Mindy.

“If I remember correctly, you didn’t know what to do with it when you had it.” Mindy responded venomously. She was challenging Kenya. She just couldn’t seem to help herself.

Kenya’s eyes flared, an orange flame trapped in the center of their dark green depths. The room actually bowed inward then expanded again. A colossal warble put pressure in their ears.

Bright flames started to leap around them, then hissed and sputtered as they were snuffed out.  Christian’s eyes were riveted to the pair as he controlled the fire.

To Mindy’s credit, she still did not flinch. Her red tresses seemed to wave in the non-existent wind. “It’s a shame I made the mistake of letting you live.”

“Oh really?” Kenya asked with a wide smile. “Seems like I remember it differently. Seems like in the end, I couldn’t hurt my husband.” She leered at Rich.

“He hasn’t been your husband for years and years, Kenya,” Mindy bit out. “He’s my husband now.”

“What do you want, Kenya?” Winston asked with exhaustion in his voice.

She turned to him and in a chipper, magnificently happy voice exclaimed, “I’m so glad you asked!”

Too late, Winston realized his mistake. His foolishness was quick and irrevocable. He had entered into a pact when above anyone else, knew better. Kenya stabbed him with the dagger of her bright green gaze. “I want either my husband or my child.”

She stretched her hand out to let her fingers dance toward Rich. She stopped just short of touching him. “I suggest you choose Kayla,” she reasoned as she seemed to feast on his face. “You’ve got two more after her.”

“You never wanted that baby!” Mindy found herself yelling. The air surrounding her body crackled and spit light like a sparkler on New Year’s.

Kenya ignored her. “You have seventy-two hours to comply, Rich, or who knows what I might do.”

“We do not deal with the Other.” Winston said in a low steady voice.

“The Gut,” Kenya corrected her older brother. “Get it right. The Second Family of the Gut.”  She looked each leader in the eye then took a seat at the head of the table. She put her feet up crossing her ankles. “And, unless you’ve forgotten the rules, Winston, you asked what I wanted, so you have no choice but to deal with me.”

“I do,” Winston agreed doggedly.  “But, they don’t.”

“Do you think the Dragon and the Eye with all their high and mightiness would allow you to fight this battle for them? Let me answer that for you: Hell no.”

“We wouldn’t,” both Mindy and Rich concurred at the same time.

“You see, Winston?” Kenya leaned over and patted her brother’s hand. He snatched it away from her. “Seventy-two hours.” She fixed Rich and Mindy with a toxic green glare.

“Or what?” The voice was low and male.

All eyes turned on Christian Romero. The newest leader. His attention was solely on Kenya. “If you don’t get Rich or Kayla in the next seventy-two hours, what will happen? You said ‘who knows what you’ll do’, but I think you should tell us.”

Rich started to say something, but seemed to think better of it.

Kenya pondered Christian’s request and her mouth was partially open, stupefied. Then, she regained her composure. “It is Winston who created this situation. It is his responsibility. If I don’t get what I want… he’ll die.”

 Gasps rippled like crashing waves through the room.

Christian only nodded. Then he closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and said: “Winston Clay, leader of the Second Family of the Breath, you are released of your burden. I, Water, will bear it for you.”

“Can he do that?” Huntington Durant’s voice rang out from the darkness.

Kenya Clay pressed a hand to her stomach and looked at her brother. She shook her head and turned back to Christian stumbling backward. She could feel the bond of the Gut unraveled with her brother and knit together anew with Christian. “How did you?”

“Now,” Christian intoned, “Can we do what we came here for? Cobb, I think you have the Covenant?”