Mother of Magic

The Day After the Night Before

"There are a few Witches unaccounted for." Simon told the table.

"What does that mean? Unaccounted for?" Le asked

Brianna took that question. "It means that we know where most of the living Witches are. Not all Witches everywhere on the planet, obviously. The ones that were part of the attack here. Built the towers. Did the weather attack. All of that. We also have bodies for 13 Witches. Add those two things together: and we are missing a few people. We have no idea where they are. No one knows what happened to them. Some were missing during the night. They probably flew off and left the scene before the fight started. Decided what was going on here was not what they signed up for. Whatever. Some may have flown to a Tower to land, saw through the Windows that life was going poorly for those within, and took off rather than be taken down. Some of the missing Witches were seen in the camp after we pulled them out of the towers and landed them there for care. Now they are gone. We assume they walked away and did something. Jumped a train? Who knows? We can't find them is all we know." Brianna sipped at her beer.

Le was stunned. "Thirteen dead?"

"Yes." Simon told him simply. He managed to pack a fair amount of honest sympathy into that one word. Both he and Brianna had been given access through the Ward to Collins so that they could come in and report what was going on with the rescue efforts.

Brianna heard the shock and grief in Le's voice. "Le. If they did not want to face their fate they should not have attacked. It is not as if they did not know they could lose magic. You already demonstrated that over and over. They may not have known how you did it, or even who did it, but none of that matters. The Seattle crowd sent Guild and Militia at you and then did this. They knew they could lose magic. Why they tried to attack other ways first. They did not learn any of the lessons. Not from from your escape, and not from any of the subsequent attacks. They came at you. Head on. That had consequences. Some could not face that. Could not live with the consequences of their actions. Some from other organizations feel like they were sold a bill of goods, but the Seattle Witches here suffered the same fate. They could not do anything. They could not help themselves."

"Suicide?" Le asked.

"One was dead from the fall from the tower. The other twelve? Yes." Brianna said

"Fuck." Le was not one to use that word often. Not like Silena or even his wife. "How?"

Simon was very gentle in explaining. "No one way, Le. No magic was used, meaning no one else assisted. With the Ward down from around the floor at the top of the tower? Nothing prevented anyone from coming or going. Not that the Ward, as I understand how it was set up, would have stopped a non-magical person anyway. In any case, some jumped out windows or from the porch. There were other ways. There was plenty of broken glass and other sharp objects in the debris. One had a pistol from somewhere. I say somewhere because Witches rarely carry firearms. The ones that do are typically the less magically gifted who feel they might need some additional self-protection. No one recruited for this assault on Collins matches that description. They — the organizers from Seattle — went after Witches with significant magical access. A gun like that would probably be a family heirloom or something. Why it was here? No one knows. It just was, and so it was convenient. A fast and easy exit. Far quicker than falling from the top of the spire."

If the last set of comments about the gun was meant as any kind of reassurance about the death being fast and painless, it did not help.

"Fuck!" Le repeated more loudly.

Silena put an arm around Le. "Boss. I get it. It's not in you to be a killer. That's my job. You have never, ever abused the power you got when you came here. You got a pile of it. More than even Ava. Yet you never misused it. Not once. You didn't this time either. Le! You only ever used it to help Collins. To protect this city from them! Looks at any of those damn towers, boss. Did they ask to stick those on other people's land? No! Did they come here and tear down the baseball park? Yes? Did they tell everyone they could not be independent of them anymore? Yes! They chased my curvy ass right on out of this city! When they got booted, and Collins put back right, because of what you did, at least in part — did they take the hint? No! They sent Guild and Militia and then when that didn't work, they fuckers were trying to drown the city. Flood it.!"

Silena paused for a breath and pointed to the East. "Do you know how many dead animals we found outside the Ward? Out in the pastures that way? Not just horses and cows either. Rabbits and all kinds of little critters. Dead. Drowned. Did they care? No. Look at Brianna. The second you figured out that taking her power was a mistake? A heat of the battle thing? You fixed it."

"I killed, with full intention, Le. You were there. You saw me do it. A Guild assassin. Someone who was trying to kill Ava. Shot Brianna just because she was in the way. I killed him. Namber to the brain. A stone I did not diffuse like we usually do." Stephanie shrugged. "I don't feel bad about it. The guy was being paid to kill people in the town we are here to protect. Doesn't matter we did not volunteer for that duty. How could we? We are here and we agreed to help."

Stephanie added a slightly humorous tag. "Besides. I got nothing on Silena's body count."

"Or mine." Tasha said.

Stephanie gave the Were an affectionate smile. "Or yours."

Le considered. "What is going to happen to all the dead animals? Just going to rot out there? Or are we going to need to fly around and take care of that?"

Brianna headed off that. "No, Le. It's on the Witch community to clean up this mess. Other Witches besides you I mean. I think your part was defending this place from this appalling shitshow. This gross abuse of power. No. We'll organize parties to circle the city and not only clean up the dead animals but look at damage to the land. Try to put things back right. You all should not have to build a Ward over the entire region! If anyone could do it, it's probably you. No. We'll take care of it."

Brianna considered her hand. "I have my access to magic back. A gift from you. I'm going to use it to do the right things here."

"You were trying to do the right thing here before that." Ava said.

"And we screwed up and Nambered you." Stephanie said.

"I think we owed it to you to fix that. You were as much a victim here as Collins was." Le agreed.

"Too little too late. I should have done more and sooner. It should never have gotten to the point it did."

"Bullshit" Silena assessed.

Brianna raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"Look, I know you are a big cheese in San Fran and all, but come on. How are you going to stop this? Look at this place? This may have been organized by Seattle, but they brought in a bunch of like-minded Witches to get this big. Look at the number of people that were neutralized. Look at the size of the damn towers they built just to sit up there and look down on this city they hate so much. Look at the unrelenting damage they did. No. They wanted to be here, and they agreed with the party line. Safe Harbors bad. Threat to Witchy power. All that. How is one church in one city going to stop this without you ending up in a witch-on-witch war? How you gonna get all the Witches in your churchy thing to go in and fight for a Safe Harbor? No way you talk enough Witches to get opposite this."

"She is not wrong." Simon told Brianna.

Ava pointed out another thing to Brianna. "The Seattle Temple knew what could happen if they came here. We demonstrated it convincingly. They knew, as a fact and without a doubt, we have the ability to take away their access to magic. Even if they did not fear technology and a Safe Harbor city, they would be afraid of the city because it contained a new kind of threat. A threat to their power."

"I don't think they knew you could scale that ability up like this. Towers full of Witches, utterly helpless to defend themselves." Brianna said.

"I would not say that. My back and butt are a mass of bruises. Wards are great but they knocked us around pretty good." Stephanie said.

Brianna disagreed with that. "Three went up against what... four or five hundred? Witches picked for access to power. You were knocked around? So what? Anyone else would have been blasted into dust. Wards and all. You have more than the ability to remove access to magic. You have the magical power level necessary to survive a massed attack from some tier-one power. A Trio with the power of a high-end Quint? The Mother picked her defenders well. It's hard to believe she could even assemble such an array of magic."

"We just sit down here and drink while you all fix up the place?" Silena asked.

"That's the idea." Brianna agreed. "Relax. Take a load off. The B team is here and on the job."