Skai

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

In every Burns family there was a sacred book of sigils and spells passed down through the generations. Lyss first laid eyes on her own family’s text when she was a child. Her grandfather brought it out to share with her father. If she remembered correctly, it had been the first day of their obsession with necromancy. They’d pulled it out to compare sigils. To discover which sigil could be altered to produce more power and easier black lux energy flow. Over the next few years she snuck peeks at the spells and scribbles of her family. She vaguely remembered the sigil for beginner necromancers, and it was only because her father had pointed it out to her many times. This will be your legacy, Alyssa. I will teach you the way of the Burns name when you are older. That day never came, and Lyss had sworn off necromancy after her father’s death. Until today…

Lyss was knelt in front of her closet door, back at her apartment that she barely stepped foot into now. Before her was an open safe. Inside were various items. A photo of her family when she was young, a case that held a glock inside, a bag with a certain amount of cash held within in case she needed to dash, and one item that was now open in her hands. The Burns family book. It was open to the page with the very sigil her father intended to teach her. It was child’s play, really, but Lyss was too anxious to try any level of sigil above it.

Lyss took a deep breath as she read over the spell. Her eyes etched each line of the sigil until she knew it by memory. She would bring the book with her, of course, but she wanted to prove something to her deceased father today. If she was going to learn necromancy she’d do it the Michaelis Burns way. With sheer determination and willpower. Her wariness would make it difficult, but she hoped that it would soon dissolve like sugar in warm water.

So with a nod and a sigh, Lyss stuffed the book into her bag and closed the door to the safe. She stood and gave her apartment a glance. Nothing was out of place. No sign of any other presence inside but her own. She was happy to be staying in the beach house. It felt like a safe zone, where her name could not be traced to or logged within paperwork. She only held onto the apartment because she wanted it to draw any unwanted attention first. If her old partners came looking for her, her apartment would be the first place they went to. The only place they’d stakeout as they waited for a sighting of her. She wanted to keep them as far away from the Coven as possible.

Plus, her apartment was also an easy place to meet Max…

Shaking her head of the thought, Lyss grabbed the keys to her speedster and locked the door behind her.

---

Later that day…

Lyss rolled up to the meeting spot in the woods late. She hadn’t meant to miss the beginning of the training, but she had been doing some training of her own. Surely Claudette would excuse her once she knew the reason why. So, Lyss took her time walking from the place she’d parked towards the sound of mayhem. To be perfectly honest she wasn’t looking forward to seeing this messy group attempt to work together. While she thought many of them could work great together in pairs, putting all of them into one group would be difficult. She also wasn’t quite sure where she fit into the mess. Her only abstraction was meant to affect apparitions only, and her first-day attempt at necromancy wasn’t enough compared to the other’s abstractions. Maybe she’d shown up late just to get a little more practice in. She didn’t want her first public necromancy summoning to be a flop.

Her nerves were quelled the moment she heard screams in the clearing before her. Lyss stepped out of the forest in time to see Madison tossing the new girl, Kara, and Maya right at the flag. She also had to suppress a laugh as she watched Emily fling herself directly into the dirt with her new abstraction.

Her own amusement was short lived the moment she heard a man’s voice to her right. ”NO, MY BALLS!” Lyss’s head whipped towards the chaos. At first she saw Claudette had tased the assumes assaulter, but as she saw the spikes? jutting out of his body she knew she had to spring into action. Almost on instinct now, Lyss knelt to the ground and slammed her palms onto the dirt. Black lines of light began to curl out from beneath her hands and form a sigil two feet in diameter. Her hazel eyes dulled to a shade of grey as she channeled the black lux energy through her body and into the ground. She began to whisper the incantation she’d memorized so well this morning.

At first, it seemed like nothing was going to happen. Then the ground before her began to shift and crack. Out from the dirt rose a hand, and then the hand crawled at the ground until an undead man emerged. Lyss didn’t give it a moment to process the fresh air and green trees. The second it was on its feet, she pointed her finger towards the human pincushion and spoke. “Seize him”

The undead immediately moved in Claudette’s direction. It moved almost like a living human would, except with a slumped posture and slow, sluggish drag of its feet. It wasn’t as terrifying as Lyss would have liked it to be, but she blamed it on her ineptitude with the cast. If she continued to practice. If she continued the path of her father and grandfather, she could summon a horde of quick undead soldiers by simply placing her finger on the earth.

As the undead approached the man on the ground Lyss headed in Claudette’s direction. She kept her eyes on the man as her soldier reached his arms out towards him. If he used the spikes against him, the zombie wouldn’t feel a thing. If anything, it would give Lyss time to make sure Claudette was safe and rally the rest of the Coven to subdue the stranger.

“Claudette, are you okay?” She asked as she approached her. “Hit ‘em with the taser again. My guy can take it.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

“...why the fuck do you seem all buddy-buddy with the very people that attacked us?"

Lyss felt her body tense as she heard the words. She looked at Madison, but all she could do was press her lips together as she watched her sister leave the room. There was a tight feeling in her stomach and it wasn’t the hangover. She could admit that she hadn’t outright told them why, but she was sure that the girls would give her shit if they knew. She and Maximillian, Agent Cornell of the DENs, had grown close. Too close. What would they say? Would they suspect her of betraying them? She would never, even if it killed her. Yet she still had been in bed with one of them. She’d lose whatever ounce of trust she still had with them.

Lyss slowly returned to her seat and was glad to see that the new girl, the one with the beanie, had gone to talk to the other newbies. This wasn’t a good look for her, but at this point she was glad that they’d also see how unfit she was to lead. When it came to standing up for others and handling life or death situations, Lyss took up the mantle of leader because she naturally acted that way. On the other hand, she couldn’t handle other people's emotions in the aftermath. She’d always been an independent worker and now that she was in a group she realized why she liked the Black Market so much. She’d worked in a group then, of course, but at the end of the day they were only there for the money and not for the companionship. She’d only ever let one into her life and that burnt her too. Would this be the same? Would she end up running from Tampa, from the Coven, too?

She didn’t want to. She’d been on the run since she was eighteen and she was already tired of it. So what could she do to show the Coven, her sisters, that she wouldn’t betray their trust too?

“I will keep my ear to the ground.” Lyss glanced up at Emily and nodded. At least when she looked at Claudette she only saw minor apprehension. With the others, even with Maya, it looked like they’d already begun to distrust her. Lyss nodded again in response to Claudette. The worst part of it all was that she hadn’t kept it a secret on purpose. If she had, it was only to protect them. The guilt she felt when she thought of Izzy, and the fact that the killer she’d kept secret for this long was the one to murder her, was the only reason she didn’t defend herself. Izzy might have stood a chance if she’d only known. Lyss didn’t know much about her, but it could have given Izzy a fighting chance.

She made no effort to agree or disagree with Claudette once she’d finished. It was a good idea to have all of the girls train with their abstractions. Next time a Blake-Schmidt-type sent an apparition their way, or another Babylon, or even if Annabelle did bust down their door, they would be ready to handle it. If they could actually work together, like she had asked of them so long ago, they could walk out of any fight with only scrapes and bruises. They didn’t have Izzy there to patch them up after now.

As her heart once more felt like it was being pricked with a needle, the voice of the newcomer got her attention. It was the girl from Blake’s party boat. The one that had been on the balcony, the stage, and then out of nowhere was there to kick the shit out of Blake in his private room. It made Lyss smirk as she thought of it. Blake’s tiny little manhood dangling before her. Horrifying at first and then almost-piss-your-pants hilarious once she’d taken in the sight of it. She remembered laughing her ass off in one of the nearby chairs while the girls beat him into a slimy pulp. Even before the new girl- Mariah, as she introduced herself- spoke, Lyss knew she liked her after that day. It was nice to see that she’d accepted their invitation to join.

At this point it seemed like everyone was on board with training. She wasn’t too keen to bother Blake Schmidt again for a whole warehouse to practice in, but today she thought it best to sit back and let Claudette and the girls decide. Every time she’d trained as a child, with her cousins, or with her partners from the Black Market, it was in an extra-normal safe community. Now that they were out in the middle of normie land, it would be much harder to do so without getting another video of their abilities put online. This time if she was caught using her abilities in the middle of Tampa, her old “buddies” would definitely know where she was hiding. She couldn’t afford a leak of her abstraction, but she needed to up her game too.

She kept thinking back to her tussle with the Outsider. The apparition’s words had stuck in her mind like glue.
"̵̭͐I̷͉̍ ̵͇̀s̵̞̋ȁ̵̹w̶͚͂ ̵̛̰y̴̘̿o̷͚͋ú̶͓r̷̖̍ ̴̬́a̷̛̺ṋ̷̕c̵̜̈ë̸̘́s̸̫̚t̴̖̃ô̸̝r̶͙̈ ̶̭́s̷̗͐u̴̗͠m̸̼͝m̷̯͗ô̴̧n̵̟̔ ̷̟͊a̴̛̟ ̷̮̐m̴̟͂o̴̮̿ü̷̺ǹ̸͜t̵̳̽a̶̢͒ǐ̵͜n̴̡͝ ̴͈̃ǒ̶̦f̷̭́ ̸͓̃f̶̡͝l̶͍͋ĕ̷͖ș̸̆ȟ̶͔ ̵̮́ã̷̜n̴̙̑d̴̛̳ ̵̝̂b̶̬͒o̶̲̐n̵͎̂ē̴̢ ̴̢̅t̸̳́o̷̬̔ ̸̡͌b̷̪͊a̶̜͆t̸̼́t̴̰̅ḽ̵̽ẽ̴͕ ̶̞̒ḿ̶̻e̶̻͗.̶̧͑.̴͋ͅ.̸̡͠"̷͍̈
Her grandfather and her father alike shared the same power of the Burns ancestry. Her father once told her that she possessed the same power. She’d played with the notion of following in her father’s footsteps before his death, but after he followed her fallen grandfather into the grave too, she’d sworn it off. Was it time to make her father proud? To continue the Burns legacy of necromancy?

All she’d need to do is find a sigil and practice...

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

#babygateAnnabelle2020

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

Looks like the plan is to trap Annabelle in a basement until she starves to death.

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

This… this was why Lyss never wanted to be the “leader.” In her hungover and grieving state, she obviously hadn’t thought over her words. Now, hearing the others react to her this way, she realized that she’d done them wrong. She felt like something was off about herself. She wasn’t feeling the same after the recent failures and tragedies. Sure, she barely knew Ellie and Izzy, but they had become a large part of her new life in Tampa. Maybe it was because she wasn’t supposed to have been in this city for so long. I should have moved on the second the DENs were involved.

The girls had a point. Her inside information from the DENs did look suspicious. She was getting too entangled with them, but was that really such a bad thing? Would they have known of Izzy’s death if not for Liao? Would they know that Annabelle Heart was growing more of a danger to their home with every passing day? No. They would have found out the hard way. When Annabelle would crash through their new front door and kill them all.

Lyss raised her eyes to look at Emily and the girls and felt her cheeks flush. They all looked just as in pain as she’d felt last night. At first she’d wondered why she even felt that way. Yet after talking with Max, and drinking half a bottle of whiskey before bed, she realized that she hadn’t cared for another person in so long that she forgot what it felt like to lose them.

Still, Emily and Vashti had a point. Liao told her that the pictures were too grotesque to see, but Lyss had seen mangled bodies before. She hadn’t asked for the pictures because of the shock of it all. What if she had? Would Liao have shared them with her? Would they have looked like a killing done by a monster or by an extra-normal government agent? Lyss pressed her lips together. She was going to find out one way or another. It was time they tested the DENs. She had to admit that if Liao or even Max was playing with her, she’d fallen for it easily.

But just before she could explain why it happened this way, who Annabelle Heart was, or how she even knew this information about Annabelle, Claudette rolled in with two newbies. Lyss cleared her throat and took this moment of awkward pause to drink the melted ice water that was in her glass. This was the first time she felt so out of place in this group. Even if Maya and Vashti were defending her honor despite their anger towards her. She never felt this way before because she didn’t care what any of them said or did, but now it was different. She’d done them wrong and let her emotions get the better of her. It couldn’t happen again. Especially now that Annabelle was a bigger threat to the Coven than before.

Lyss felt a moment of relief as she listened to Claudette. Her eyes silently thanked the other leader. She agreed that it was time to tell the Coven about the DENs number one target. In fact, she’d planned to do it yesterday until the booze and Max distracted her. Her moment of weakness yesterday, and a few times before that, was what put her in this situation. Then again, if she hadn’t given the DENs an ounce of trust she would have never learned about Annabelle until yesterday. At least she had the information from her first meeting with Max to tell the girls now.

Lyss frowned again as Emily spoke. Annabelle, Babylon, the DENs, what else would come for them next? Her old partners from the market? A giant Michelin man? The old Lyss would have packed her bags and left by now. For some reason, she didn’t have the heart to leave this time. This has just made my headache worse. She thought bitterly before getting to her feet. It was time she got over her own emotions. She always had a clear head when she was apathetic. What she needed to do now was figure out a middle ground. It would start with explaining the situation to the girls.

“Emily… I know that it’s important to find Babylon. In fact, I think she’s the one we should focus on for the time being. She needs to be brought to justice and sealed away from the world forever. Ellie… Ellie’s body needs to be put to rest. The proper way, with a burial.”

Her heart hurt again as she thought of Izzy, but she ignored it.

“I don’t know why this Annabelle attacked Izzy. Maybe she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it was something to do with the DENs. I admit I’ve become too entangled with them, but I’ve also learned more about them in my meetings with Maximil-Agent Cornell- than I could have if I didn’t give them the time to speak.”

“The thing that killed Izzy is named Annabelle Heart. From what I’ve heard, she was a normal girl with no magic until she ran into a man named Saul up north. I’ve looked Saul up, and it seems like he runs some sort of cult following that’s made its way from South Carolina to Tampa. Wherever Saul goes, Annabelle follows him and leaves a trail of blood behind her. It seems like she’s looking for him, and I think it's because she wants revenge. I think Saul has something to do with how she’s become such a monster.”

She sighed softly now and pushed her hair back from her face. “I didn’t tell you about Annabelle because I didn’t want any of us to be put in danger. I used to think that it was the DENs problem, and that we had enough problems of our own. Then Blake fucking Schmidt killed the girls from the strip club, the Outsider attacked… Babylon killed Ellie… and now Izzy is gone.” She looked each girl in the eyes.

“I’m sorry that I waited to tell you. I let myself get distracted, and my emotions got the better of me. I guess… I didn’t have the stomach to tell you so soon after Ellie.” The guilt was eating at her empty stomach, but she wasn’t going to let it shut her down again. She needed to use it to make her stronger.

“What I can do now is promise you that I will do my best to make sure that no more of us are taken by Babylon, Annabelle, or even the DENs. Next time I see Liao or Maximillian I will confront them. I’m going to demand that Izzy gets put to rest properly, and then we are going to hunt Babylon down so that we can do the same for Ellie.”

She looked at Emily now. “Keep looking for leads. Keep us informed. I’m sure you can lead us to Babylon, and we can help you take her down. You’re capable of leading us, Emily, but I think this has to be a group effort from now on, like I’ve said before.”

“I haven’t listened to my own advice lately, but I promise you all that I’m going to from now on.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

Lyss barely looked Quinn and Grace’s way as they came in through the door. Quinn made herself scarce, which Lyss was grateful for. There were already too many voices in the room. Grace was as sweet and normal as ever, but her girly voice was making the headache worse. Lyss found herself squinting her eyes to focus on Isla as she tried to ignore Grace.

The beanie girl repeated what Lyss already acknowledged, but Lyss was more irritated by another thing the girl did. Why the fuck is she holding a plant? She thought, her eyes on the plant as the girl started speaking. At least she was sitting down, now. Hopefully the others would just hang back and give her a chance to speak.

Lyss finished the ice she’d been chewing on and moved to set her glass down when the girl hesitated. Lyss’s eyes moved to Isla’s face. She could see the hesitation clearly. She’s lying. Lyss frowned lightly. She could call her out on it, but Lyss also never told the Coven why she’d joined them. So Lyss stayed silent, nodding along as the girl described her powers. Isla may have her own demons, too, but she’d keep an eye on her in case there were other intentions.

When she’d finally finished, Lyss nodded her head before taking a deep breath. She sat up a little straighter and leaned forwards to rest her elbows on her knees. “I understand if you want to seek shelter here. You don’t have to tell us the real reason why you’re here, but I hope you come to trust us with that reason one day.”

“I also hope you understand that we are not exactly a safe haven anymore. We’ve run into trouble many times now. We’ll run into trouble again. We’ve fought off strong apparitions and pissed off a multi-millionaire. There’s a government agency watching our very move, and two of our girls have crossed over with the Hound.”

She paused for a moment. She hadn’t told the other girls about Izzy, yet. Her eyes turned towards the rest of the girls and Herik. She clasped her hands together. “The DENs have been looking for a woman named Annabelle. She is responsible for the recent mass murders in Tampa.”

…

“I regret to inform you all that a few days ago, she was the one responsible for Izzy’s death. I only discovered this yesterday when Agent Liao approached me.”

Lyss averted her eyes now, so that the Coven wouldn’t see the anger and guilt in her eyes. I should have asked Meifeng to give her a proper burial. We should have given her a funeral. She’s probably in some morgue somewhere counting as evidence for the DENs. She wrung her fingers together and suddenly wished for more booze, and maybe a text from Max.

She then looked up at Isla again. "Are you willing to protect the members of this Coven, at the cost of your life, in return for your protection?"

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

"... WHO THE FUCK DRUNK ALL THE FUCKIN' LIQUOR?!”

Lyss shifted in the California king sized bed and grunted. Her hand reached through the charcoal purple, silk sheets to find her phone somewhere inside. When she pulled the burner towards her, she noticed two things about it. The first was the time. She’d slept in rather late today. The empty bottle of whiskey on her nightstand was to blame for that. It was definitely to blame for the headache that made her squint in the bright bedroom. The second thing she noticed was that she hadn’t received any texts. Not only from anyone, but from a certain someone that usually would have said something by now.

Well, maybe it was for the better that she didn’t.

By the time she’d stumbled out of bed, pulled on her pants, and threw on a flannel over her tank top, she’d made it down to the bottom floor to see a random girl in an orange beanie showing off her abilities. Lyss frowned and rubbed her head. She could have joined the three girls in the living room. She could have given a “friendly leader” greeting or continued the interrogation. Yeah, she could have done anything... but she wasn’t in the mood. She turned away from the scene instead and headed towards the kitchen.

First, she needed water. At least a whole glass or two. While she stood in front of the fridge and pushed buttons so that water and ice filled her cup, she could hear Madison and Emily in the living room. ”Aw hell naw!” Lyss furrowed her brows, and as she watched her glass fill with water she thought over every step of her life that led to this exact situation until it almost spilled over. She gulped down half of the glass’s content before filling it up again. Vashti, her voice coming from the living room, sounded confused and irritated at the same time. Lyss sighed. Guess it’s time for me to get out there.

Yet as she saw what was going on in the living room, she decided to sit back and watch. She leant against the wall of the hallway that led from the kitchen into it. If the hangover didn’t give her enough of a headache, the new scene before her did. As if in some comical cartoon, Madison continued to throw the new girl out of the house. Only for the new girl to show up right behind her again. Lyss sipped her water as she thought about this new girl. She felt no apparition from within her. So that meant she was either an awakened or an adept. Probably with a purple lux, if she was the latter. From what she knew, most teleporters came from purple lux heritage.

The girl wasn’t an outright threat. If anything, it was funny to see Madison and Emily trying to deal with her themselves. Lyss was just about to laugh and give her position away when the two girls called their giant, scaly guard dog into the house. Oh, fuck. Lyss, concerned about her dehydrated body, took to chugging the water in her glass as she prepared her mind to intervene. She was ready to bust into the room and stop the wild alligator and give the newbie a proper greeting.

Thankfully, by the time she’d finished the glass, Herik came in to save the day. Lyss was still mildly impressed by his abstraction. She tilted the glass back and let an ice cube fall into her mouth. The first noise that the group of extra normals would hear from her direction was the crunching of the ice cube between her teeth. She slowly made her way into the living room now and kept her gaze on Isla as she did.

“She’s going to have to explain herself before she’s allowed to stay.” She murmured. Without waiting for the others to chill out and sit down like normal humans, Lyss sat in the corner of the massive, and far too comfortable, couch. She still had bits of the ice cube in her mouth as she looked at Isla again. “Forgive me if I wasn’t here to hear you say this earlier, but why do you want to join the Coven?”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

The look on Blake fucking Schmidt’s face was priceless. Lyss felt her grin growing wider as she saw the fear in his eyes. She even took a step towards him as he stepped away from her. It would have felt so good to just sock him in the nose right at that moment…

… but she knew it would only get herself and the Coven into trouble. She needed to get him alone before he would get what he deserved. Somewhere private, like, ugh, one of his rooms below deck. So she kept her composure. Even though the grin was still on her face, she didn’t make any move to threaten him. Instead, she relaxed her body and allowed it to be fluid and graceful as she edged her way towards him.

“Don’t you recognize me in this meatsuit, Mr. Schmidt?” She let the words fall off of her tongue like sugar. “I know she’s not exactly your type, but she is a suitable vessel.”

She was close to him now and could see that he was beginning to realize what she was getting at. Her hand came up to rest on his shoulder, and she leaned forwards to whisper in his ear. “That pesky Coven is gone. I wiped them off of the face of the Earth like I will to all of your enemies.”

She pulled away from him now, and her hand reached to stroke the scruff on his chin. To her disgust, Blake suddenly had a devilish smile on his face. She couldn’t let her disgust show. So instead she turned from him and walked a few paces towards the back of the boat. “Come now, Mr. Schmidt. I think we have to discuss our next moves privately.” She rolled her eyes to herself before turning back to give him a sultry grin. “I understand there is more to give you now that I have a body.”

His fucking eyes are about to pop out.

Now completely immersed in his thoughts of… whatever “The Outsider” might give him behind closed doors, Lyss led him down to the bottom floor. She made sure he followed, but kept a distance between them that would ensure that he’d think she still held the cards. He was following her. The real Outsider would have created chaos above deck, but he had no idea. Whatever deal they’d made before she attacked the girls, The Outsider definitely agreed to give him more since he freed her. Lyss assumed that she was most likely going to just give him some sort of extra-normal curse or blessing and be on her way to destroy the world. Whatever would satisfy Blake Schmidt until she destroyed his empire as well.

They were now nearing the doors to the various rooms. She turned to look at him. Her eyes were firm, but she needed him to pick the room. A room that he would know was entirely private. Well, private until the rest of the girls made their way downstairs. She’d noticed Claudette looking their way. Claudette would be smart enough to know to gather the others and send them this way.

Once Lyss had followed Blake into a room, she found herself a chair to sit in and gestured for him to sit across from her.

“Now, Mr. Schmidt. You freed me, and I am grateful for that. I am also grateful that I have now found a vessel because of you. What can I do to repay your generosity?”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

The boat was busy. The amount of girls present on the boat had to be breaking the maximum capacity limit. Lyss had already downed half of the champagne glass to even gather the energy to move past the girls shaking their ass and spilling their drinks. She wasn’t opposed to a party, but today she had more important plans than getting fucked up. There could be no distraction while she looked for Blake Schmidt. It was already a bad sign that she felt the presence of several apparitions nearby, and that wasn’t counting the ones that lived within her friends. The possibility that Blake already had other extra-normal friends would make this a challenge. She wasn’t going to let that stop her, though.

The back of the boat proved to be a dead zone for a middle aged sugar daddy, so Lyss moved inwards. She could cover all five floors while the rest searched the front. Her eyes peered over the crowd at the bar on the first floor before she headed up a staircase onto the next. From there it was just a sea of women lounging in chairs with their drinks. Some looked bored. As if they were there just hoping that Blake would notice them and they’d be set. The others were just on the boat for the free tan and alcohol with their girls. She’d made it all the way to peek at the helm of the ship before she realized she’d wasted time. There was no way a narcissist would hide himself away above the party. He was either center stage or he’d already made his way below deck with some of the thirsty girls.

Lyss huffed before turning towards the stairs. She made her way down to the third floor of the deck before she heard a man’s voice playing from speakers towards the front. Her feet slowed to a stop, and then she slowly made her way towards the railing that overlooked the front of the boat. When she neared the edge, she found her viewing spot blocked by a woman standing on the railing. A microphone in hand, blue and white lights lighting her up as she held onto a silk fabric that was (hopefully) tied up above. Lyss raised an eyebrow as she watched the performance. Her hip was cocked and she sipped onto the champagne as the woman made her way down the silk and onto the floor below. Lyss took this as an opportunity to make her way towards the very spot the woman balanced herself on the railing. She leant onto it and found herself overlooking the entire front of the boat. It was just as busy as the front, but Lyss could spot her Coven girls within the crowd.

The woman that was lip-syncing was on stage now, and Lyss took this as an opportunity to look at every inch of the front deck. Blake had to be here. Otherwise he was off doing some type of nasty shit and Lyss absolutely did NOT want to barge in on that. She noticed Madison activate the Jaws, right in the middle of the crowd, and frowned. The apparitions that were present had an energy was focused at the front. If anyone here was Extra-Normal, they would have seen her little display. Yet as her eyes travelled over the crowd she could see no one had noticed. Lyss downed the rest of her champagne and was just about to turn away, to make her way to the front deck, when she heard many of the girls shout:

”Fire!”

Lyss turned back and she found the exact location of the concern. By some will of satan, the exact man she was looking for came to put it out. Lyss grinned. “Gotcha, Schmidty.” She murmured before turning towards the stairs at the back of the deck. This time she didn’t waste a second. She slipped her way easily through the crowd and even managed to grab another glass of champagne from a confused waiter. Poor sap wasn’t sure how to calm the girls that were now leaving the front because of the mishap.

She could see Blake Schmidt standing next to the charred spot. He looked obnoxiously smug as he placed his hands on his hips. What a hero. She thought snarkily. As she drew closer Lyss downed the glass of champagne, set it on a waitress’s tray, and put on her best grin as she walked straight up to Blake fucking Schmidt.

“I’ve been looking for you.”

Recollections: The Coven [COMPLETED]

---

The last time Lyss had ever been on a yacht, it had been one of the last few days she spent in Miami. It was a celebration. A huge deal that had just been cut and the money was all theirs. Except while her partners drank until they couldn’t remember who’d paid them in the first place, Lyss was plotting her escape from the black market. The perfect plan to take all of the money for herself and run.

Lyss thought over that night as the group arrived on Blake Schmidt’s way too fucking big yacht. For satan’s sake, who would need a boat this big? Schmidt must be compensating for something. She stood with her hands on her hips as she listened to Madison run over the plan. While she wasn’t happy to wear a swimsuit in front of Blake Schmidt, she wasn’t uncomfortable in her skin. She wore a pair of thick black sunglasses to hide her identity from any of the party goers.

They were supposed to split up. Madison took Claudette, and only Quinn and Maya were left. Three of them together would stick out too much. It would be easier if Lyss went on her own. Plus it wouldn’t leave Quinn or Maya by themselves. She looked at the two girls and nodded. “I’m going solo. If either of you find Blake first, don’t approach him. If he sees you, Maya, he’ll have security on our ass in an instant.” He’d definitely have security on a boat this big. “See you in a bit, ladies. Good luck.”

Lyss pulled her sunglasses down her nose and winked at them before she slipped off into the throng of bikini babes and waiters carrying drinks & horderves. On her way past a silver tray she grabbed a glass of champagne, sipping on its contents as she silently made her way through the crowd. Her eyes peered into the mess of drunk women. She was looking for one of the few men aboard. The rich douchebag that was probably already half wasted while he searched for the right sugar baby. He was probably wearing gucci sunglasses or louis v slides. Something small, but subtly expressing his wealth. As if the boat wasn’t big enough to show it.

Lyss made her way towards the back of the boat, where she could make her way towards the stairs. Was he lounging in the- holy shit this boat has a big ass pool. Or was he upstairs, sitting on a leather couch with a young woman in his lap? Perhaps he was at the helm of the ship, wearing the captain’s hat and smoking a cigar like a tool? She didn’t really care, but she was hoping to find him in one of the less crowded areas. Where she could pin him in place and wait for the other girls to find their way to him. Then they could give him something to fear about the extra-normal.