Bane

January 10, 1980

"Zealots, you Brothers of Thunder from the Seven-Seventy-Seventh! Hypocrites! You call for blood when blood is taken unjustly from our own! While a family mourns, you drudge up matters settled, old feuds, and demand recompense for the sins of your fallen? What of The Order? What of those who still live? Is it not your sworn duty to protect us, to insure our safety even as we protect Driftwood?"

Silence fell over the ballroom. The Zealots withdrew back to their respective sides of the ballroom, gathering tight to the walls.

Samael sat in Randall's seat and watched as his brother took control before the situation could fully unravel. "Do you want to hunt this Malcolm Bishop? Should it be his life for all those lost?"

The Zealots broke into an uproar again, demanding blood.

Randall Grifford raised his arms in a slow shrug. "Hunt him, the whole of you. Consider yourselves avenged, but know your considerations are false. Your comfort in revenge is a lie. Malcolm Bishop is old blood in The Order, from an old line, and you will all fall by his hand to the last on among you. This will be his Thermopylae, except this sole warrior will stand over your dead, and not you over he! You will fail in your duty to The Order, and come time to bury your cold dead corpse - if you are buried at all - you will be buried in a place unmarked. You will be buried in a place reserved for traitors, and witches, and no one will know you died. No one will remember you. No one will visit your graves. The brush, and the wilds will reclaim you. No one will know you existed, you will be erased! Be silent, you hypocrites of The Order! You bloodthirsty gourmets of war! We shall not spill a further drop of our own blood, be silent! Be silent!"

Randall Grifford's voice echoed through the ballroom, and not a soul among the First and Second Houses dared even cough. The Zealots, their faces pale, stood in shock and awe of Randall's presence, and command.

"Today we gather here in the memory of our fallen, but not forgotten. We remember it was not only the fault of her killer, but the fault of The Order this happened. For too long we sat contented by our own strength, daring all those outside to act. We carried our Inquisition without fear of consequence, and now we real the disorder we have sown."

Jonathan stood abruptly, and Randall Grifford raised his black gloved hand at him, offering him a place at the podium. Jonathan stood still, and stared first at the Griffords, but then his gaze swept across the ballroom, the Houses, and the Zealots.

"My world is crumbling around me. My Nadjia," Jonathan swallowed against the lump in his throat, and coughed. "My Nadjia is dead. Our Judges, and our Houses, and our standing forces sworn to protect us... this was not your responsibility. It was mine."

A chorus of chatter rose up, voices overlapping, the murmurs of disagreement and sympathy a cacophony of collected nothing in Jonathan's ears.

"Jonathan Walker if you mean to speak, please come and speak." Randall Grifford, stone faced and unreadable, patted at the podium.

Jonathan shook his head, and began to side step through his aisle. Clayton caught his wrist, and Jonathan shook his hand free without effort. He continued out of the aisle, out of his row, and toward the large closed doors of the ballroom. He stopped at the doors. "The Judges Grifford are right. The world has changed, and your order has to change with it... but I am not a politician, or a judge, or a speaker."

"Where are you going, Walker?"

"I'm going to find my wife's killer. Then, I'm going to remind Coven - all coven - their place in my city."

"Where is that?"

Jonathan's gaze swept the Zealots, the Second, and First Houses, and finally locked on Randall Grifford. "Hanging from a tree. Facedown in Pridewater Lake. In a shallow unmarked grave. Whatever is convenient."