Mother of Magic

Protectors

Silena shrugged. "Why I got this mission? Isn't it obvious, your former Reverend-ness? High Priestess? Holy Mother... whatever. No. Your former Temple up there in Seattle uses Reverend Mother for women in high office. I wish you Witches would standardize that! Guild works across all the Temples. It's like they have to brief us before a meeting on what to call the hierarchy. Patriarch this and Protopriest that. Abbess here and Deaconess there. Make up your damn minds! Is it funny that Seer is a title? I mean back in the Witch Wars they burned Witches, right? Seared them? Was that intentional ...? Owning the burn, so to speak. Whatever."

Every time Stephanie and Le learned new things like this about the world and Witches, they gave each other significant looks. Setting aside Silena's humorous take on local-to-this-world history, it put a different spin on things from their world like the Salem witch trials. Here that was a very different thing. Actual Witches were involved.

Silena waved that away before Ava could answer. "Doesn't matter, your magical holiness. I'm here because you, Miss Ava DiMorna, pissed off the powers that be by whatever name you call them. You stuck your fingers right up their collective Witchy noses. You rejected everything they are all about. Power. Influence. Running the world. Keeping the Incaps in their place. They say it's because they want to avoid more Witch wars. Keep all of us non-magical types under control. But you know better. Right? You know why they want you gone."

Ava nodded. "My former Temple-mates want me gone because I am an inconvenient truth. That truth that Witch power has moved far past protecting themselves and turned into a pure love for control and influence. Not only in my former Temple. Everywhere. Witches may not be united on their organizational titles, but they are on this general point. A Temple in New York, Saint Louis, or Oakland all have that in common. Witch power gives them access to all the things they cannot get with magic. My continued existence and protection of this town are more than thorns in their sides. In the modern world of the non-magical, with radio, the existence of the Safe Harbor towns and the ways in which they support each other are a direct threat to their message and their desire to control." Ava gave one short laugh. "By sending an assassin, they are showing that even one of the most powerful Witches, in this country, and perhaps most anywhere, can be killed. This both undermines their message to the rest of the world and proves it, at the same time. Witches, for all their power and control, are still vulnerable to the non-magical. Nothing to worry about. We police our own. Just keep everything like it is."

"Yeah. Gotta keep them Incaps in their place." Silena said with no little bitterness. "Look. I probably fucked this mission up in part because I did not want this damn job. I may not remember your exact title because who cares what that is? Titles plus a few bucks will get me a beer at the Saloon. The thing here is that I met you before, like you say. You are the only Witch I even remotely liked."

"Oh?" Ava seemed to think that was news.

"Yeah. You were never popular up there in Seattle, right? Always going on about not treating the Incaps like slaves. When people came to you on bended knees, you told 'em to rise and just ask for whatever they needed. You did not like to charge for your magical favors. You never took a servant or a sexual slave. Never forced anyone to be a bedmate. Your own personal sexual toy. You never broke up a family with extra-martial and forced sex because they had a sick kid. Great example: If they had a sick kid, you helped a sick kid. Like that. No charge. Let's be honest your holiness: The only reason you rose to be a Reverend Mother is that you were and are more powerful than anyone else at the Temple. They promoted you to get you out of the way. Right?"

Ava had to agree. "Yes. That is true."

"That's a whole thing. You see it all the time. Promote people until they are one level higher than they can handle. I see that everywhere. Even at the Guild. Not you though. Being promoted out of your depth or ability is not why you left. You could handle it just fine. Hell: as the face of the Temple, that was part of the problem wasn't it? At the pinnacle of your church, you took your vaunted position and told them to put a spell on it until it was all sharp edges, and then shove it up their asses. No. I didn't want this job. I'd gladly kill most any Witch at the Temple — hell: most any Temple! — if they asked me to, but not you."