Dark Cotillion

Three

The Council Chamber should have been some dank, dark dungeon type room with stonewalls, cracked floors, and cuffs attached in strategic places. It isn't, but it should be. Instead, it is a large building on my father's land made of wood sometime shortly after he bought the place. Seating is uncomfortable, padded folding chairs crammed into a space that should not allow as many beings inside as it does. There is a back gallery that allows standing room.

The folding chairs are a testament to modernization. There are exactly 84 of them. The lieutenants that have been born all have their names on a particular chair.

The Council table is a different story though. It is a massive thing, carved in wood and decorated with symbols from the past. The chairs are also carved in wood, although cushions have been added to all of them. Each is specifically built to hold a particular Elder, or at least a particular breed.

It's built in a square U shape. The back section holds three chairs, each side holds five (disturbing since there are really only twelve breeds), and the front is open. When we have a trial, a chair is set in that opening.

My father sits in the middle at the back, first among equals, so to speak. To his right, sits the Angels, specifically Gabriel, to his left, the Vampires, Anubis. On the right side of the table as one looks at it sits Morgana, Overlord of the Fey; Fenrir, Overlord of the Lycans; Uther Pendragon, The Keeper, and in the last seat on that side sits Kagutsuchi, Elemental Overlord. On the left, Ba'al, Overlord of the Gargoyles fills the first seat; next to him, you have Chiron, Centaur and enemy to me; Vishnu, Djinn Overlord; and our two Human representatives take the final seats on that side. Mr. Magnus Donagal, the most powerful Witch currently living, and Mr. George Johnson, our Human Council Member.

They get two members, because we recognize Witches as a different type of Human, and we have been allowing them to sit in the Council for over a thousand years. The Humans have only come to the table Post-Merge. We keep no Council secrets from the UN.

I walked into the brightly lit room. The other thing that I find disturbing about the Council Chamber is that it has lots of windows and skylights. It makes the room bright, shiny, and happy. Considering some of the business that is discussed behind the doors, it seems slightly wrong.

Gabriel gave me a parting stare before moving towards the Council table. I found my seat, my name written in Sharpie marker on the fading vinyl of the folding chair. My uncle, Beezel, was already sitting in his spot. The other Demon Lieutenant, John, was standing up. Demonnation only has three lieutenants at the current time. This leaves four empty Demonnation chairs, but we each have our names on our seats, so we are still packed in like sardines. Ritual sometimes dies very hard.

"Bren," Beezel nodded to me as I wiggled into my chair. I don't have a bad relationship with my uncle, it's friendly enough, but that's about as far as it goes. I don't go to his house, chat with him or his family. I spent my childhood surrounded by Overlords. I was closer to Ba'al, Anubis, and Gabriel, than I was to any of my father's blood kin.

My relationship with John was polite at best. He was roughly 500 years old and had a chip on his shoulder the size of Mt. Everest. He was not a strong supporter of mine, but he was incredibly loyal to my father and Demonnation. This meant I could be polite, even though he made my skin crawl, loyalty to Demonnation is a good thing.

After my arrival, the room seemed to fill impossibly fast. The back gallery was packed, I wasn't sure they had room to breathe. I didn't turn around, I knew better than to stare into the eyes of so many. Emotions were high in the room, hard to ignore. My mother was doing an exceptional job of dealing with them, I felt like I was drowning in them.