Dark Moon - Michael Langdon

Part 29 - Secrets

"Good, you two are here right on time," Cordelia states as Michael and I enter the dining room. All the witches are sitting at the table, looking nervously between each other.

"What's happening?" I ask as we sit in the two empty seats.

"I just explained to everyone what happened on your trip to California, and I'm about to tell you all my plan," she explains. "So I heard that Constance claimed to be related to Mimi Delongpre."

Michael and I nod.

"We have entirely lost contact with Mimi Delongpre's living descendants, so Constance being related to her is actually quite a possibility. As of now, we are going to assume that Constance is telling the truth, which means that she is probably quite a powerful witch."

"So we have a powerful witch who has been possessed by the devil on our hands?" I ask.

Cordelia nods. "We have two possible courses of action here; we can go straight for Devan and try to kill him. That would be much harder considering that we would quite literally be battling the devil himself. Our other option is to indirectly attack Devan and keep undermining his plans. We can either kill or exorcise Constance, and we can sabotage anything else that we find out is a part of his plan."

"How would we exorcise Constance?" Michael asks. "We can't use powers in her house, and I'd imagine that it'd be hard to get her to come out."

"We'd have to wait for her to leave her house," Cordelia replies. "It'd be time-consuming, but still a safer bet than facing Devan head-on."

"I think we should take the Constance route," I input. "The less direct contact we have with Devan, the better. He can siphon our powers, so we don't want to go anywhere near him."

"I agree," Michael nods. "It wouldn't be wise to directly face-off with Devan, at least not yet."

"I don't," Madison argues. "We need to get rid of Devan before he becomes more powerful. How the hell are we supposed to defeat him when he gets more powerful by the day? I say we take care of the problem now so we don't get engaged in this long-term battle."

"We shall vote on it," Cordelia speaks up, mediating the arguments before they get out of hand. "Who wants to face Devan head-on?"

About a quarter of the witches raise their hands, and Madison glares at everyone with their hands down.

"Who wants to indirectly attack Devan?" Cordelia asks.

Everyone else raises their hands.

Cordelia nods. "I believe we have reached a decision."

"This is bullshit," Madison shouts. "He's going to get more powerful while we just give him minor inconveniences that offset his plans. Eventually, he's going to cause the apocalypse and all that we will have done is delayed him."

"I appreciate your opinion, Madison," Cordelia states, trying to keep her cool, "But I believe that we will eventually work our way toward confronting him. We just need to start out small."

"No, you just don't want us to face him because you know that most of us will die," Madison challenges. "You're scared. I don't care if all of us die, as long as it means that we stop Devan. The fate of the world is up to you, and you're choosing to be a coward. Why is this decision even up to you?"

"Because I'm the fucking Supreme," Cordelia states, her gaze hardening as she stares into Madison. "This decision is not up to me alone; it is up to the entire coven. You all voted, and you chose to work your way up to defeating Devan. Madison, this vote cannot be overturned just because you disagree."