Bane

December 5, 1993

"Congratulations are in order." Bishop held up his hand to block the daylight pouring in from the open door to his foyer. "Could you shut that door, please?"

Gina crept into Bishop's foyer, shutting the door behind her. "Goodman Bishop, The Order..."

Bishop glanced over his shoulder, and leaned from his chair. He was wearing his cowl, and goggles like some real life invisible man. "...The Order wants me to leave."

Gina blinked, staring at the glint reflecting of the dark lenses of Bishops goggles.

"Don't look so surprised. I didn't return to Driftwood to open a halfway house for rogue hunters. I did what I came to do."

Gina walked from the foyer, around Bishop's chair, until she stood before him."You have every right to be here."

"I never intended to stay, but to put pressure on The Order. Now, they've seen what you can do."

"Why does it matter what I can do?"

Bishop drew a deep drag on his pipe, and exhaled, the plume of purple-gray smoke passing through his cowl in a misty fog. "Could you turn down the lamps for me, please?"

Gina hesitated.

"Please."

Gina stepped back, and turned. She took slow steps, and turned down the gas lamp fixtures down one at a time, the. The kerosene lamps on the end table, and coffee tables until the room was dusky.

"Thank you." Bishop sat his pipe on its pipe rest, and rose up out of his chair. "I didn't have to teach you how to fight, Gina. I just had to teach you to fight like me. I taught you to use your senses beyond the limitations of the rites and blessings." Bishop spoke, while removing the cowl from his face, and head.

"This shouldn't even be an argument."

"Yet, here you are. So, if you please." His voice was its typical high, singsong cadence, thouhh she could hear his strain. "You came speaking of this..?"

"...of what? The Order evicting you?"

"The Order was stagnant, built on pure bloodlines, and it's every generation smaller than the last. The last time someone spoke out against it, well..." Bishop opened his robe, revealing numerous scars - old, circular wounds long since healed - over his chest, and abdomen, and continued down below his pants.

"Monsters."

"Fear makes monsters of men, and there is little men fear more than change." Bishop pulled his robe shut, and drew the satin tie into a loose square knot.

"The Order did this to you?"

"Samael Grifford did this to me. I should be dead, darling... but it was just as well to him my..." He stared down a moment. "...my bloodline effectively be wiped out. I may as well be dead, as far as Judge Samael Grifford was concerned. My line ends with me."

Gina shook her head. "You've got me. Maybe I'm not blood, but you have me the rites and blessings. You taught me how to fight against the heathens, and if not for you, I might be dead."

"The brother Grifford, Randall. He accepted you outright?" Bishop slumped into his seat, his pale face, weary. He stared at Gina with blue eyes so faint in their color, they were almost white.

"No." Gina crossed the room from the kerosene lamps, and took a seat in the sofa opposite from Bishop. "The judge asked me pine, or gold."

"What did you say?"

Gina frowned. "I asked him if he wanted an open, or closed casket for his funeral."

"Good bluff."

Gina shook her head only once. "It wasn't a bluff. I was taught to fight like was dead already. I meant it. You have no idea how tempted I was to pull the trigger."

"...and damn Driftwood to the control of the heathen circles?"

"How can you defend them? Bishop, The Order betrayed you."

"Only one man betrayed me. The Order is an ideal, a practice, and an ongoing study into the nature of moral condition and conviction. Some are strong, and some are weak. It wasn't Bart, or Clayton Walker that pulled those triggers. It wasn't Donovan Blackwood that sent me into a trap. Gerald Dean, God rest his soul, didn't attempt to have me murdered. It wasn't even Randall. It was Samael, and his sect of Zealots... and that sect is long dead. You came here to do a job, Mistress Gina Guerrero."

"...ew, Bishop."

"Its your title. We men are Goodman, and our women, Mistress. Goody is reserved for the wives of Zealots, wherever they've gone, and of a lesser station."

Gina nodded. "I just had this argument with Bart Walker. Times change, and connotation with them."

"Don't allow the secular world to impede your judgment, or your station. You are Mistress Gina Guerrero, affianced to Goodman Cameron Dean, and a hunter of The Order Inquisition. You have a duty, and you're bound by the oath of fealty to consumate it."

Gina fought back tears. "I dont want you to go."

"We all go, Gina Guerrero. One way, or another, right? It's not when we go, or even how. Its why we leave, and what for we leave. That's what matters."

Gina wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands, smearing her excess of masquera down her face. "Under the edict of Judge Randall Grifford, the sitting judge, and authority over The Order Inquisition, I, Goodman..."

"...Mistress."

Gina wiped her runny nose along her arm. "I, Goodman Gina Guerrero, House Dean, grant you full rights, title, and estate in Pridewater, California whereupon your duties begin as an Arbiter of The Order Inquisition. You have three days to report to your new station, or forfeit all rights, estate, and status forthwith, and be exiled from both Driftwood, and The Order for all time."

Bishop smiled, and to Gina, the pale, gaunt man looked like he stepped out of a black and white movie. "An Arbiter of The Order over a ghost town."

Gina sniffed, and nodded. "It's not entirely a ghost town."

"You've no idea." Bishop grinned. "I accept. Go tell your Judge that I accept his terms."