To drown this fury in th.., p.1
To Drown This Fury in the Sea, page 1
To Drown This Fury in the Sea
The Panther Chronicles, Book Three
T. Thorn Coyle
Copyright © 2017
T. Thorn Coyle
PF Publishing
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Cover Art and Design © 2020
T. Thorn Coyle
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Editing:
Dayle Dermatis
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, events, or locales is coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved.
“Serve the light and seek the truth resting in darkness. Aid those in need, to the utmost of your power. Learn the avenues of magic and protect the secrets of the Association whenever possible. Risk your own life before putting the life of another in danger.”
* * *
– The Oath of the Association of Magical Arts and Sorcery
“I think what motivates people is not great hate,
but great love for other people.”
—Huey P. Newton
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“Radical simply means 'grasping things at the root’.”
— Angela Y. Davis
Prologue
He paced the cage, big paws padding on the concrete, from the metal toilet bowl to the bars and back again.
He didn’t look at the terrified eyes of the guard on the other side of the bars, but he could smell the man’s stink. The guard’s nervous sweat was sour and acrid. And his crotch stank of a long night in spent in jail, encased in a gray polyester uniform.
How they stood it, he would never understand. His panther form could not comprehend how any creature would voluntarily place itself in concrete walls and bars that clanged and stank of oil and cold.
His man’s mind could not comprehend how any man could oppress another. Eking out a living with a truncheon and a gun. Lording it over people, treating them like they were vermin, when your life was little better. A small house or apartment in a depressing neighborhood with a few scraggly trees. Barely paying the heating bill come winter. Wife and children complaining, if you were lucky enough that the wife and children stayed.
Prison was still prison, even for the pigs.
Everyone except the ones who put the people there. The capitalists. The overlords. The oppressors. The Man.
He was in jail without bail. On trumped-up charges.
He’d spent too long here already. They’d botched his trial, separating him out from the the white cats, turning the Chicago Eight into the Seven.
Wasn’t that always the way. The white hippies and yippies got a proper trial, while the Black Panther was carted off in shackles.
The judge had ordered him gagged during trial, and they’d literally chained him to a fucking chair. His shifter form had roared in his head at that, but the Party told him to be cool. They would try to get him out. Don’t show his skin.
Not yet.
But after Fred killed those cops, and Roland shifted in front of a crowd in South Central LA? All bets were off. And once the Panthers busted Huey out, there was no need for him to hide his nature anymore.
So, in the service of getting free, or at least an actual fucking trial, not the farce they’d forced him through, he shifted now. Every single day.
Every morning, he turned into his sleek, massive, black-furred self. Every day, he trained his orange eyes on the guards. He yawned and licked his lips. He gave a low, terrifying cough from the back of his throat.
The guards couldn’t see that he was smiling.
All they saw were jaws filled with sharp teeth. And the razors on the ends of his black paws.
Today was different. Today, a white man in a black suit, with movie-star hair and glasses dark as midnight, stood outside the bars of his cage and stared.
A fucking Feeb.
The man had some kinda magic, that was for sure. He was one cold motherfucker. Something slippery about him. Something the panther recognized as a threat.
Riding just on top of the papery magic smell the man gave off, he could smell something else. Something familiar. He smelled it from the guards here every day.
The acrid, sweaty stink of fear.
The panther licked his lips and spread his jaws again.
Let the fucking pigs be scared. They should be. They couldn’t gag him now.
He was a shifter.
A member of the Black Panther Party, in good standing.
Freedom fighter. Revolutionary.
Motherfucking actual panther.
1
Jasmine
My worn black lace-up boots marched through Oakland’s Chinatown, supporting my feet and legs the way they must have supported whatever poor small-footed soldier had them before me.
I wasn’t a middle-class, eighteen-year-old sorcerer fresh off the bus from Southern California anymore.
One year later, I was a soldier now. Fighting in an army of liberation. Looking for freedom for my people. For all oppressed people: black, brown, white…whatever. If they were struggling, poor, and oppressed, the Black Panther Party was there for them.
As Huey said, “Black Power is giving power to people who have not had power to determine their destiny.”
I hadn’t been to Father Neil’s church to work the Free Breakfast for Children program in what felt like too long. The Party had taken me off duty, to free me up to train folks in community magical defense. That was cool and all. I liked it.
But days like today? I needed something simple. Something good.
A reminder of why we were doing all this revolutionary action in the first place.
My boots took me up to busy San Pablo Avenue, where the delivery trucks rolled by. To Saint Augustine’s. The old, red-brick church that was home to so many of us.
It took us all in, believers or not. Embracing us in warm, forgiving arms.
Even though I knew my work was righteous, I felt a little bruised all the same.
Some forgiveness, a warm kitchen, and the faces of some little kids?
That would suit my day just fine.
“Hey Tanya!”
I walked into the steamy kitchen through the back door. The rust-colored tiles and long steel countertops embraced me, as did the humming fluorescent lights, the crashing of the scrambled egg pans coming out of the oven, and the cinnamon oats in the big pot on the battered gas stove.
“Jasmine! I thought you weren’t coming here for a while.” Tanya was a marvel.
Pressed hair with perfect edges, always dressed for her bank job, Tanya was the most dedicated Panther I knew. Not part of leadership, and a person too many others overlooked, Tanya pretty much kept the Free Breakfast for Children program running, often starting and ending her day in the kitchen, between getting her own two kids to school and putting in her time as a bank teller downtown.
Today she wore burgundy slacks and a cream-colored blouse under a flowered apron. She set the shallow baking pan of eggs on the stove top and kicked the heavy oven door closed.
“I wasn’t, but I missed it too much,” I replied.
Tanya took off the battered gray oven mitts and ran the back of her hand across her forehead, smoothing down the edges of her hair.
“Come here, girl,” she said, arms opened wide. I dropped my big fringed leather purse on the counter and walked into her arms.
I smelled cocoa butter, a whiff of pressing iron, and eggs. Her arms were bony despite all the kitchen work, but her chest was soft against mine. The hug was quick, but surprising all the same. I’d never had a hug from a party member besides my boyfriend Jimmy. And Tanya and I? We liked each other, and respected one another, but weren’t particularly close. She was a woman I always wished could become a friend, but there was never enough spare time.
“Thanks for the welcome, Tanya. What can I do to help?”
“Start serving up the food. The kids’ll be here any minute, and then you know how things get.”
I grabbed paper plates for the eggs and melamine bowls for the oatmeal and stacked them on the counter next to the long metal serving trays.
Tanya’s hug was strange, but a lot of things were strange these days. Ever since the standoff at DeFremary Park, people had started treating me different. And then word got out that I’d taken part in busting Oakland Party founder Huey Newton out of prison. People were either terrified of me, or wanted to take care of me somehow.
I was grateful that some folks just treated me like a friend. Maybe Tanya and I would get there. Seemed like it.
“Who else is here?” I asked.
“Leroy and George are setting up the dining room, but that’s it today. We’re a little short, so…” She scooped eggs onto the paper plates with a metal serving spoon and handed them to me to set onto the trays. “It’s a good thing you stopped by.”
“Tanya.” I stopped myself. Wasn’t sure exactly how to ask what I needed to.
One tray was full, so I scooted the full one aside and started on a second.
“What?” she asked, still scooping egg onto plates.
I kept up with her pace, trying to think. How in the Powers could I put this?
“Have you ever noticed anything strange here at the kit
She snorted at that. “You mean, besides finding out that honest-to-Goddamn shape-shifting panthers are bringing in the powdered milk and oats and spouting off about Frantz Fanon?”
I grinned at that. She had a point. She also seemed to have the eggs under control. I set out a couple more empty trays, then moved over to the ten-gallon pot of oatmeal on the stove, grabbing a ladle from the hood overhead.
“No. I mean like that snake thing I was battling at HQ. Or white spiders.”
Tanya’s brow wrinkled at that. “White spiders? That’s strange. The only spiders I see in the kitchen are daddy longlegs or the little brown ones. We shoo those outside. Should I be watching for white spiders now?”
I stopped ladling out the oatmeal, because even with my back to her, I could feel Tanya had stopped scooping eggs and was staring at me. So I turned. Sure enough, hands on her aproned hips, small scowl on her face, Tanya was waiting for an answer.
Hoping I hadn’t just blown it, I took in a big breath and dropped into my center to steady myself. As much experience as I had with this sorcerous shit, talking to mundanes about it still made me feel uneasy. But we were all part of this army now.
Children’s voices filtered through the swinging wood door that led into the church hall where breakfast was served. Damn. I could hear Leroy and George greeting the kids. Hear the voices, excited for a warm meal, happy to see their friends, excited even for the little lecture that accompanied breakfast. Black history. Black power. Black pride.
What we all needed right about now. I dug it. And I had other work to do here. And I still had to figure out the right way to talk to people about it, and to make sure danger wasn’t creeping around behind my back, undermining everything the Panthers worked for.
“Let’s get this breakfast ready. I’ll keep talking as we work.”
Tanya nodded and turned to scrape the last of the eggs onto plates. Then I felt her at my side, sliding the bowls I’d filled onto more serving trays.
“So. There’s a weird cosmic battle going on. And we’ve seen white spiders appearing in strange places where spiders had no right to be. We think they’re magic. Maybe even spies.”
I could smell Tanya’s nervousness rising. Couldn’t blame her.
“This is so not what I signed up for, you dig?” She shoved a full tray down the counter next to the stove and slammed another down, grabbing more bowls.
Great, Jasmine. You’ve terrified your comrade. I shook my head. Should be used to it by now. But I likely never would.
“None of us did. But it’s what’s happening. The cops are killing people and the Feds have us under magical attack.”
“The Feds?” She backed away from me. “The Feds have magic?”
I nodded. “Straight up Solomonic Temple magic. Old. As strong as my sorcery. Maybe stronger.”
“I don’t know what any of that means…but… How do you know? And is leadership hip to all this?”
“Doreen and I told them just last night. We had to. It’s part of what went down when we broke Huey out. And part of how me and Fred got attacked at HQ.”
“The snake thing,” she whispered.
“The snake thing. And these white spiders are part of it, somehow. I’ve got a pretty good handle on the snakes, but the spiders need watching. And we need more help with that.”
We loaded up the last of the bowls onto the trays. The children’s voices had quieted down; there was just George’s voice, rising and falling through the kitchen door. They were going to be ready for breakfast any minute.
“So I got permission from leadership to talk to you about it.”
Tanya clutched her arms in front of her chest. “Why me?”
“Because I trust you, Tanya. You work hard for the Party. But more than that. You watch. You listen. And you keep your mouth shut.”
She nodded at that, face tight, mouth small. “Yeah.”
“You now have security clearance, Tanya. Leadership told me I could give it to you.”
“But you’re not…”
“I’m not leadership exactly. But I am in charge of sorcery. And I say we need your help.”
Leroy came loping through the swinging door, his shoulders practically filling the whole doorway, crammed into a tight red turtleneck shirt tucked into bell-bottom jeans cinched at his waist with a tooled leather belt and hammered brass buckle. The man was just big, from his raggedy red-tinged natural and impressive sideburns on down to his boots.
He nodded at Tanya and then grinned wide when he saw me. It was good to be back at Father Neil’s church for breakfast. I really had missed it.
“Breakfast ready?” he rumbled.
“It is,” Tanya replied. “But”—she looked at me—“can I ask him, Jasmine?”
“He knows.”
Tanya just looked up at Leroy, who dwarfed her. He put a hand on her slender shoulder and looked her in the eyes.
“I know, sister. And it’s about damn time.”
Tanya took in a jagged breath, then shook out her hands.
“Okay. I’m gonna ponder this, Jasmine.”
Then she nodded at the trays lining the counter.
“Let’s get this food out to the children,” she said.
We all grabbed a tray. Leroy led the way through the swinging door.
In the church hall turned into dining room, three dozen bright faces looked up from the long tables and turned our way, smiles and all.
Take that, Federal Agents.
The revolution begins with breakfast, your spiders and snakes be damned.
2
Carol
Carol tossed the straight sheet of long blond hair over her shoulder and settled into the creaky chair, dumping the heavy, patchwork leather shoulder bag at her feet.
There was usually open floor between the wooden shelves holding everything from jar candles, to books on sorcery, witchcraft, saints, and magic, to jars and jars of herbs and shells, porcupine quills, and the richly painted walls covered in gleaming metal milagros. Not this afternoon.
This afternoon, watched over by a blue-mantled Guadalupe backed by golden rays of light, the little shop was crowded with folding chairs. Las Manos was in session.
Rosalia shot her a look from across the crowded shop. Carol winced and shrugged her shoulders in apology. She knew that she was late, but she’d fought traffic all the way because of an accident on the freeway.
At least she didn’t need to take the bus anymore. Terrance had seen fit to give her his three-years-ago-model Oldsmobile. Likely to keep her placid. Shut her up. And as a bribe to get her to back him instead of Jasmine and Cecelia.
As though any of that was going to happen.
The challenge they’d given him was pretty clear. Either he got his shit together, or the Association sorcerers were in rebellion.
Ernesto looked back at her and smiled. That warmed Carol up inside. She was glad she had dressed well, but not Mansion well. No A-line skirt and demure nylons today. Under her short, rust-brown leather coat, Carol wore a flowered peasant blouse that exposed her collarbones and a dangling, white-gold tree of life pendant Helen had given her as an early Solstice present. The blouse flowed over a new pair of bell-bottom jeans.
Nothing had really “happened” between her and Ernesto, but they inched closer to it day by day, calamity by calamity. The hotter the sorcery and the higher the stakes, the more their bodies and souls responded to each other.
Busting Huey Newton out of jail had brought them to their first real kiss. They’d needed to do something to ground the wild sorcerous energy they’d raised on that hill above San Luis Obispo. Energy that had blown the gates right off of California Men’s Colony, where the Black Panther was being held.
And the kiss was great. Sweet. Sexy. Liquid.
But they hadn’t had a chance to repeat the act. Not yet.
Rosalia cleared her throat and Carol blushed. Damn. She really needed to get a grip on herself. Too many psychics packed the little room today.
