“What of Arinniti’s crime?” Beyonce prodded. She wasn’t feeling self-righteous. Quite the opposite; the mood had shifted away from bloodlust to uncertainty. Amazons liked decisiveness. They also liked only having to do something once and being done with it. That was the riptide of the New Directive – some houses couldn’t let go of the fact they’d lost.
That constant pecking away at the plan were the half-measures Katrina was complaining to Hayden about. From my experience, the Ash Men was Katrina’s goal all along. Had she been open and honest with this desire, there was no way any aspect of the New Directive would be implemented.
If you believed in conspiracy theories, Katrina had groomed me for some time. If you believed in luck, Katrina was cosmically lucky our paths collided. If you believed in mysticism, I was fucked. Let’s not forget that there were three millennia of bad ass bitches on the other side of the spiritual divide who thought nothing of guiding me into a life full of fear, heartache and pain.
A lengthy debate ended in a classic Amazon compromise – they forgot about it. Literally, they erased the crime against the Ash Men and Arinniti’s ‘omission’ of sparing three of their sons. What had happened to all my ‘Ash’ brethren? Whoops – they were misplaced. They weren’t erased from the rolls – that would make my existence inexplicable, so we remained honorary Amazons.
I was sure their angry ghosts were totally mollified. I was sure me and the first female Pope would get it on too. As the meeting was breaking up, one of the ‘unfriendly’ Amazons shot me a remark.
“I supposed you are elated,” she grumbled.
“Really? You think so? Here, let me sell all your underage daughters to Romany gypsies so that you never see them again and you’ll have an inkling of how I feel,” I smiled serenely.
“You should be happy you are allowed to stand in our presence,” she got truly pissy.
“Lady, I won’t be happy until I get to hunt hate-filled monsters like you for sport,” I kept smiling.
“Until then, I’m afraid we are both going to have to live unsatisfying lives,” I added.
“Perhaps we should handle this with a blood feud?” she salivated at the prospect.
“Sure. I’ll get the Neutron Bomb we have in the Armory. You chose whatever you like. I’ll meet you downtown at noon,” I proposed.
It is much better to make a nuclear weapon joke and not have every authority figure in the room glance at you nervously. Did we really have a nuclear warhead in the basement? Fuck if I knew. They’d have never told me if there was. I felt a hand on my shoulder and recalled the touch.
“Cael Nyilas, you are forbidden from engaging in blood feuds – in your case, feuds of any kind until one lunar cycle is completed,” Hayden instructed.
“Thank you. I appreciate that,” my honesty, heartfelt reply slipped forth.
“My judgment wasn’t for you, Cael. You’ve caused catastrophic trauma to our society as an outsider. I tremble to think what you can do now that you are one of us,” Hayden gave me a truly serene response. “Give me a little time to prepare.”
“Oh! Great idea,” I exclaimed. “Gotta go!” and I raced for the door, tossing Elsa her gun.
“Should I shoot him?” Elsa suggested. “Only to slow him down a bit.” I made it to the elevator carrying my jacket and shoes. With me were four sets of Amazons that wanted me dead and one set who were rather ambivalent about the whole matter.
I caught one of the ‘hater’ juniors looking at me. I turned my head enough so we could make prolonged eye contact. I smiled. Reluctantly she smiled back. I leaned in slightly.
“Can I borrow your phone? SD beat me up earlier and stole all my stuff,” I innocently requested. I was pretty sure she was as surprised as every other man-hater in the box that she handed it over.
Like shooting fish in a barrel. I began making a few quick texts to the three crucial people in my scheme.
“What did you do that for?” her senior hissed. With my brand new Stinky Pooh-Bah status, she couldn’t knock the device out of my hands.
“I don’t know,” she pleaded to her superior. I finished up then handed it back.
“Your ‘apprentice’ has rendered House Ishara an important service that shall be entered into our records of boons and debts,” I nodded gravely. “What is your name?”
“Gale,” she batted her eyelashes. “What did I do?”
“What are you doing for lunch tomorrow?” I magically conjured up her hand in mine with my fingertips coursing over her palm and wrist. “I’ll explain it then.”
“You may not spend time with this… person,” Senior insisted.
“We should not overlook an opportunity to make an alliance with a First House,” Gale countered.
Bang! Looking like trout for lunch. Gale won, I won and we were meeting at my place so we could figure out where to eat – yummy. Somewhere in the episode, I’d introduce Odette into the mix. It was only fair. I was asking her to hide in Timothy’s room until I got Gale warmed up after all.
I was the first one of the ‘team’ to arrive. I was nervously pacing Katrina’s office when Desiree and Paula showed up. Desiree took a casual seat on the sofa while Paula hovered around my desk.
“Is this going to be really bad, or really good?” Desiree mused.
“Why should you have to choose?” I laughed. “Besides, we are aiming for epic status today.”
“Why are we here?” Paula worried. I stopped. I had a ‘Eureka!’ moment. There probably was a Bible for what I was planning to do, but they hadn’t given it to me. I ran to the bathroom and came back with a glass.
“Desiree, I need two things. I need your sharp, pointy thing and for you to slap me until I cry,” I looked at her expectantly.
“My pleasure,” Desiree rocked up from her seat. “Slapping then knife?” I nodded. I was still in the painful smacking process when Buffy and Violet entered.
“Can anyone join?” Buffy asked Paula.
“I… I don’t think so,” Paula shook her head. “He’s got a plan. I don’t know what for.” I dodged Desiree’s final swing. I had gathered enough tears – I hoped.
“That was truly therapeutic, Cael,” Desiree stated. “Let me know if you need a repeat performance.” She handed me her small knife.
Helena and Daphne finally strolled in. I wove past them, retrieved a piece of paper which I tore in two and two pens.
“Helena and Buffy, please write your names down on these pages,” I requested.
“What the hell?” Buffy growled. “What is this about?”
“Trust me,” I met her gaze.
“Buffy, Cael is an ass, but he’s not crazy. He’s up to something,” Desiree intervened. Helena stepped up and wrote her name. Buffy followed suit. I took the pages to Katrina’s desk.
“Come forth and kneel before me,” I commanded.
This was the point in the ritual when I figured my death was most likely. Buffy shot an evil look at Desiree then very reluctantly complied. Helena followed. Hmmm… Amazons kneel with both knees on the ground. That puts their mouths almost… I had to keep with the program. I burned the two autographs and scattered the ashes.
“There is no Buffy DuBois. There is no Helena Shultz,” I began. I dipped a finger into the shallow pool of my tears. I ran one down under the left eye of each lady. “With this, I open your eyes to the joys and sorrows of our ancestors.” That brought on a hush and the anger in Buffy’s eyes evaporated.
I cut my left forefinger then motioned them to do the same. First Buffy: I linked our bloody digits.
“With this, our blood is mixed. You are Buffy of House Ishara from this moment forth. You are the first of this House. You are our spear and shield,” I met her gaze. She started crying.
“You are Helena of House Ishara from this moment forth,” I continued on. “You are the second of this House. You keep the records of our Host, keep track of our deeds, sins and accounts.” Helena began weeping too. Had I said ‘just joking’, the cleaning team would have been finding torn pieces of me weeks later.
“House Ishara is dead,” Daphne stated the obvious.
“Suffice it to say, long ago, House Ishara brought a male into their ranks as a member of the House,” I started. I motioned for my two House-mates… members to rise.
“The Second Betrayal,” Violet interrupted.
“Yes. During the Second Betrayal, some males remained loyal. My descendent was sent on a mission for the Host. The mission took him past his lifespan. His offspring continued on until you end up with me – being here – today. Suffice it to say, he was never removed from the rosters of the Host, thus every offspring was a member too,” I recalled recent edited events.
“By Amazon law, House Leaders are selected by their peers, victors in a challenge for leadership, or…” I continued.
“The eldest of the house,” Daphne gasped. “Since Ishara is… since all the female members of the Host are dead, you are the eldest member of the Host.”
“You don’t have to be a female?” Desiree muttered. “That’s insane. We are Amazons.”
“There hasn’t been a male in the host for over 2500 years,” I explained. “It never came up. Back when they had them, there simply weren’t enough men to worry about. Afterwards, there were NO men to worry about. Apparently your ancestors thought writing down ‘eldest female’ was redundant.”
“That had to have gone down like a mouse passing an elephant turd,” Paula muttered. We all looked at her. “What? Since I met Cael, I’ve been writing down little phrases to use in situations like now. This was the first one I could recall.”
“Actually, they wept tears of joy, lifted me up on their shoulders and sung paeans to my glory,” I lied.
“So, when do you think the first assassination attempt will be?” Desiree shook her head. This was a lot for her to take in. Not only was my tale fantastic, Buffy was her friend and Desiree knew that Buffy bled for a chance to join the Host and had done so for years.
“Why do you think I called Buffy first?” I snickered.
“I won’t let you down,” Buffy declared with grim determination.
“Calm down, Buffy,” I assured her. “I don’t think me being casually snuffed out is on their agenda. They’ve already gone through a torturous compromise to end up with this screwed up situation.”
“So why did you pick me… and Helena?” Buffy studied me.