It was nearly sunset when Tate finally pulled the car up outside the Montgomery Mansion. He had avoided looking in the mirror the rest of the way back and he quickly abandoned the vehicle in the driveway, nearly forgetting the keys in his haste. Once they were in his hand, he shifted himself inside the house. When the walls were securely around him, he put the keys back on the hook near the back door. Then he shot a paranoid glance around, half-expecting to see the Hat Person there.

His senses weren't entirely wrong: There was someone in the doorway to the dining room, but it wasn't a hat-wearing anonymous shadow.

"Violet!"

Surprise and joy erased everything else for Tate when he saw her. She smiled and then had to steady herself as he galloped the short distance to seize her in a great big bearhug.

"Hi," she laughed.

"Oh, God, Violet! I've missed you sooo much!"

He wanted to tell her more, but he needed to kiss her, so he did. She put her arms around his neck to deepen the kiss and the whole world felt right again. They kissed for a long time before Tate reluctantly broke away, and only because she initiated it.

"I missed you, too," she said then. She ran her fingers through his uncombed curls and smiled up at him affectionately. She hadn't realized just how much she'd missed him until they were reunited. "Mom and dad found out about what Michael said and made us come home."

Tate made a face. "Doesn't make sense to me but…I guess your dad knows what he's doing."

Violet snorted a laugh. "As if."

He squeezed her narrow waist, loving the way she felt in his arms. "What was the beach like?"

She squeezed back and stole a quick, light kiss. "Let's go sit down and I'll tell you all about it. I want a cigarette."

The dishes in the cupboards started to rattle all at once, chittering softly at first but quickly rising to a clamor as the whole room began to shake.

"Shit!" said Tate, instinctively holding his girlfriend tighter. "It's another goddamned earthquake!"

The tremor reached its crescendo where it sustained noticeable swaying and trembling for several seconds before tapering off again.

After several seconds without a follow-up, Tate said, "Guess it was just a baby quake. Quakelet."

"Let's hope that's the last one," Violet muttered as they separated to head for the great room. "There was a bad one while we were at the beach."

"You felt it too?" Tate marveled. "Wow. It must've been real big then."

"It fucked shit up all down the beach," she confirmed. She flopped down on the white sofa, regretting the move when the hard cushions resisted her. It was like sitting on cloth-wrapped concrete. With effort, she pushed back Chad's influence on the room and forced it into the 60's, when the room had much more comfortable furnishings.

"What was it like there before then?" he asked as he settled next to her on the couch, which had changed to an olive green with squishy cushions.

Tate gathered her nearest hand for holding and chewed a hangnail on his other hand while he listened to her describe her weird trip to the ocean. She didn't leave anything out, not even the part where Jett said he liked her. Tate found the crush amusing, which was better than him getting jealous in Violet's opinion, even if it made her feel even sorrier for the living boy.

"So, did anything happen here besides the quake?" she prompted, to stop Tate hacking on the guy more.

Tate thought and shook his head. "Nah. Nothing you'd care about."

He didn't want to tell her about the coven taking Constance's body. He had a feeling that might spoil Violet's good mood somehow. She could be funny about things like that.

…

Across town, the Hollywood Hills was in a state of disaster. The tremor had originated there, when Michael cracked open the vault that hid the privileged, wealthy survivors and separated them from the struggling common people. Together with the majority of New Jerusalem's coven and a substantial amount of supernatural fire, he scoured the elite from out of the bowels of the earth. They left only the youngest children alive at Michael's behest.

"I don't see why we should keep them," Fiona objected when they were discussing the toddlers and infants in the aftermath of the cleansing. "They're only screaming mouths to feed. Someone will have to look after them, too, and it's not going to be me!"

"I want them for my flock," Michael insisted. "Parker can take care of them. Him and, uh…" He quickly sifted through his options. "Misty Day. They can handle nine babies."

Fiona gave a short laugh. "Neither of them is a parent. They wouldn't know the first thing about taking care of babies."

"Then scramble their brains with your magic, Auntie!" the young man snapped. "Make it so they're vegetables, for all I care! I just want their blood. Alive."

Fiona's jaw set and her dark eyes flashed. She didn't take well to any male ordering her around. She checked the impulse to slap him, though. "If you want them 'scrambled'," she said, keeping a tight restraint on her voice. "You do it."

She was pretty scary when she was like that and, for all his newfound power, Michael was relieved when she stalked away. He briefly considered setting her on fire like he had the people in the bunker, but he knew she was still far more useful to him alive. He felt the need to reassert himself once she left, though, so he looked to the other coven members who had convened within the blood-splattered common area.

"This place needs to be cleaned up if you're going to make it a base of operations," he told them authoritatively. "See that it's done."

Then he left the bunker as well, head held high in spite of his jangled feelings.

—

Late that same night, Michael made a speech outside the entrance of the bunker. It was an impromptu public address, so they lit it with barrels of fire and guttering emergency candles lined up in a row above the warped doors. He stood, bathed in the flickering glow from hundreds of flames, dark eyes dancing with golden light. Nearby, the high ranking members of the coven stood by, both to hear and to monitor the crowd that had assembled on the side of the hill to hear their Messiah speak.

"The old ways are done," he announced, his voice projected through an old microphone and amp. There was feedback but he could be heard by all. "Those who try to cling to those ways, those who try to force those ways on us, will meet with the same end as these. These people who, in the times before the fog, ruined everything!"

A ragtag cheer began but Michael spoke louder. "It's a new world, now. The presidents and kings and emperors had their time and they ruined this world. It's my turn now."

A huge cheer went up but was quickly overwhelmed by the roar that went up from every source of fire near Michael, as the flames suddenly shot several feet in the air. The flames from the emergency candles was so intense, the wax melted and wept in fat gleaming drops behind him like rain. Black smoke from the flames coalesced into the distinct form of a dragon that hung in the air above him for several seconds before suddenly dispersing in a clap of thunder that shook the ground and left many partially deaf for hours later.

—

The next day, a proclamation was hung on every public bulletin and passed out by town newsies. It was entitled "The Seven Deadlies" and it described the seven basic laws of New Jerusalem. In essence, they were:

Above everything, all must recognize and defer to the authority of Michael Langdon.

All must recognize and defer to the authority of the Coven.

Any who would plot against either of the above must be brought to justice or, failing that, killed.

All citizens must belong to the One Church, Michael's order, led by Misty Day.

Citizens must treat one another civilly, in accordance with the community laws set down.

Any person may not do anything that would jeopardize Michael, the Coven, New Jerusalem, the Hills, or its inhabitants.

Everything and everyone in New Jerusalem and the Hills belong to Michael Langdon and the Coven.

There may have been some in town who objected to the litany, but no one was brave enough to contest it. By then, every living being in the area had witnessed the power of the witches and the Antichrist first-hand. The world beyond the fog was unstable and showing no signs of regulating. It was safer for most just to go along with the new regime, at least for the time being.

Things were just beginning to normalize when Pietre got news that one of the Daggers of Armageddon had been located.

xxx

Author's Note:

End episode. The song for the credits this time is Iron Maiden's "Can I Play with Madness".

Next chapter starts the next episode, called "The Wild Hunt". If you want a teaser for what the episode's about, check Wikipedia for that phrase.

Really big things are ahead so hold onto your seat. Shit's about to get scary.