Bane

February 5, 1998

"What the hell is the fourth day?"

"Well, your Saturday is our first day of the week. Your Thursday is our fourth day. We've collectively decided that in living Godly lives, we ought abandon the pagan names of a Hellenistic week's time. Since I have no desire to include Helios, Selene, Ares, Hermès, Zeus, Aphrodite or Kronos in my daily life, I simply loie my days - each day - by the numbered day of the week."

Karen frowned. "Bishop, it sounds absolutely bo-ring."

"I would take this life here over the violence of your Driftwood any day. I know we don't have your ceaseless raining here, but it would be rude of me to keep you at my door all the same. Will you come inside?"

* * *

Bishop's home was its usual dim lighting but Karen adjusted without difficulty. David was still rubbing his eyes. Karen nudged him.

"Your house smells delightful. What is that?"

"Shepard's pie. Cooking large portions for tonight's supper. Mark and Penelope work hard, so they eat a lot. Cameron favors lamb, and so I tend to prepare for meals. Whatever keeps morale high and satisfies a hunter's hunger."

Karen and David followed Bishop into his drawing room.

Bishop sat into his armchair and unwrapped the bandages from his face. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled. "There is nothing I can do to help you. My estate is here and in our little splinter of the inquisition there's too much to lose that we haven't lost already."

David and Karen sat down onto the couch in Bishop's drawing room. David leaned in, elbows propped up on his knees. "Your home looks the same. Your furniture, the same. Not just how it looks. Everything is arranged here as it was when you were back home."

"Home is where the heart aches, David. I suffer here just as much as I suffered there but the difference here being the respite from your Grand Inquisitor. Here, it's quiet. I am an old man and only interested in retirement. Dean will take up my role eventually and then I can spend the remainder of my days staring out a window, watching the seasons change."

"Pining over the good old days?"

Bishop drew a pipe from the table beside his seat. "You're out of line, David."

"My apologies, Inquistor Bishop. I didn't come here to make trouble for you."

"Don't call me inquisitor." Bishop held the stem of his pipe between his teeth and produce two wooden matches and lit them off his thumbnail. He lit the bowl of his pipe and inhaled deeply. The gray-purple smoke swirled out of his mouth as he exhaled. It smelled of tobacco, roses and vaguely of hashish. "The past is the past. It dies as all things die. The woman from whom I used to purchase this tobacco. The Gypsy lady. She moved on. I have about twenty-five bricks of it in storage, but this blend is in its last days with me. Like everything else, it will eventually disappear."

"I'm not going to let our city die like that."

Karen placed a hand on David's shoulder. "Your honor, Bishop. If you can't help us, do you know anyone who can?"

Bishop drew in another breath through his pipe. He exhaled out a smoke ring, a solid looking circle that grew in size and faded into a faint swirling mass. "No. Everyone I knew is dead and those still living have no desire to go back to Driftwood."

David rubbed his face and wiped his nose a moment between his thumb and forefinger. "A lot of people are going to die if no one does a thing."

"There was a moment before you were born, a moment when the church demanded the Inquisition be dissolved. The brothers Grifford wouldn't have it. I don't know who did it, but the Griffords had delivered the head of the archbishop in a box back to the church. We were at that moment a weakened order. Had someone spoken up, had someone taken action back then, sure. We could do something now. The Order has become too powerful, reconstructed entirely from Grifford's vision and direction."