Witches of Lust Ch. 15

Karina told me that when my dad drove Cheryl home under the pretense that her keys had been locked up, she had trusted us that he was a good man. The word from Cheryl was quite beyond what either of us had expected. Cheryl spoke of his disarmingly casual banter, which had a way of letting Cheryl know he was emotionally available. Once they started talking about cooking, Robert talked about family, but he chose his words carefully when he realized Cheryl had never started one.

By the time they made it back to her place and she retrieved her key, my dad had already figured out he had been set up for a date, but he just chuckled to himself and played along, not wanting to embarrass Cheryl and quite enjoying her company. He offered to drive her all the way back down to the shore to get her keys. First, however, they had their little cooking competition in Cheryl's cozy kitchen and enjoyed a delicious pair of complimentary dishes. Then he gave her a ride back down to get her car, even though by then it was getting very late. The conversation that they had in the car really made Cheryl convinced that Robert was the man for her.

Karina was going to tell me all about that conversation, but to be honest I didn't really want to know all the details. Suffice to say I was very happy for them both, but my dad in particular. His life had gone quite off-track as well. My mother had lost interest in him after a few years of marriage. Eventually she divorced him, gained sole custody of me, and tried to push him out of my life. The more I thought about the contrast between my spiteful mom and Cheryl, the more I liked Cheryl. Of course, I always loved my dad, and so I told him so every night before hanging up.

Eli kept up with his 8chan page for the next week or so. Predicting the chiron graphic had placed him on the map, but he also posted hints about the hospitals we were going to visit, less than an hour before we appeared on the scene. It proved that he knew what he was talking about. His following on 8chan exploded. We didn't expect people to go to that website, but they did and what was more, other people took whatever he wrote there and posted it on larger websites that had popped up to provide the world with a place to go when they tried to do a search for the Sisters of Harmony.

There were a few popular pages, each getting hundreds of thousands of hits a day, that were devoted to coven. All of these pages caught on to Eli's posts and began to promulgate them. Everything Eli posted would go absolutely viral.

The big websites weren't obsessed with trying to find out our true identities, thankfully. The public was certainly curious but Eli encouraged them to make up names for us instead. Giving us a public persona helpd to satisfy public curiosity. People knew Morgana by the name "Elvira" and I was called the Primary Healer or Eve. Irina was Ashley, Erica was Dolly, and Lucille was Lauren. Karina was known to the public as Carmen, and there were many sexy pictures of her the meme "Where in the World is Carmen?"

The funny thing was, as the world began to call us by these names, so we too began to use them amongst ourselves as terms of endearment.

We gathered one night in the galley to discuss our next move. We had been doing missions for two weeks straight. We had mopped up three pitiful satanic covens along the way. There was no end in sight to the people who desperately needed our help.

"We could do so much more if we didn't have to worry about Medina," Denny argued. "Perhaps it is time to force a confrontation. To stand our ground."

"Perhaps? It's long overdue, Master Dengar," said Stu.

"We're all in agreement," Gaff told us, speaking for the knights. "Lady Morgana, have you not considered that perhaps the Tranquil Adept fears us and is powerless to stop us?"

"Of course I have, don't you think I wish that were the case?" Morgana replied. "I wish I knew the reason."

"You could parley with her, couldn't you?" Lucille asked. "You used to have a way of speaking to her."

"I worked up the courage to call her a couple of times," she said, Gaff nodding quietly beside her. "She didn't pick up. The other way she used to contact me was by two-way scrying, and we sent each other magic missives. Those magical communications won't work from behind all of this ship's wards."

"We could turn off stealth mode, just to parley. Let's find out what she wants," I said.

"The scrying wards cannot be toggled. We would need to leave the ship. Even so, are you sure you want to do that? It might enrage her."

"We have healed thousands now," Eli said angrily. "Just from acid burn victims alone yesterday, we healed over twenty five women. If Medina has a problem with that, fuck her. I'll shoot her gladly. We could be doing so much more if we could just coordinate with the people that need our healing!"

"What I really want to know is, once we arrive at a hospital and stay there, sometimes for as long as an hour, why she doesn't show up?" Lucille muttered. "This fear we have, and her being a constant no-show, it's driving me up a wall! She's got to be holding back for some reason. We've got to know why!"

"What if I reach out to her? I can go just about anywhere in the psychic realm."

"No Jeanie!" Morgana gasped. "Are you mad? It's far too dangerous."

"Then what do we do?" Irina asked, glancing at Stu and then all of us.

We all sat through a momentary silence.

"Well, it's not necessarily going to solve our problems, but it might give us some kind of idea of what the fates have in store for us. I know somebody who can speak with the fates. We'll need to pay her a visit."

***

Thank you for reading. If you liked this story, please consider voting and commenting below!