An Irish, a Russian and a Mexican live in a three-rooms apartment near the Boston Docks.

You're just a Jew short of a wonderful joke.

They had been living there for the last five years, since they raised to the rank of XIII Coven, and had been finally cleared to leave Losertown.

The apartment, that all three had, strangely in accord, democratically named "Casa Pollos", was cozy and practical, and when Banshee didn't have to battle Chico, Vopros, or both, for the use of the bathroom, it was good. Of course, being two men and a woman, Banshee ended up bunking up with Chico, because no man in his right mind would have ever wanted to contradict Vopros when he said: "That room mine." and closed himself in the eastern room.

The furniture was essential, and most of it came from the generous donations of the good citizens of Boston, and their consumerism, that let them leave so much good stuff in the trash. The couch, the coffee table, all of the six unmatching chairs, Banshee's bed structure and most of the shelves around the house were "recycled" and given new life with a robust wash and a new coat of paint. But that let them save enough to buy a decent TV set with a blue-ray player where they could, at least, relax when they could.

So, not like that night.

«Ay! We're out of tequila, again!» chimed Chico closing the kitchen closet. Banshee had just taken out a bottle of whisky that still had more than a half inside.

«Will this do?» she asked. Chico let out a disappointed sound, then shrugged and took two glasses. Banshee raised an eyebrow, before wolfing down a good sip of whisky directly from the bottle, after filling one glass for him. Chico sighed and gurgled down the copper liquid in a strong gulp.

«The aftertaste is vaguely terrible.» he pointed out.

«We don't need a fancy evening, we just need brain juice to come up with a good plan.»

«How can we come up with a plan if we don't know anything about the place, or the lady, or in your specific case about the loot?» Chico reminded her. Banshee rolled her eyes.

«Listen, we just need to infiltrate the house for a party, this hardly calls for movie-quality planning. We're fucking Mages, fer God's sake!»

«Ay, and did you miss the part where the house is full of D'Yves and if we use magic we confirm that the Order might be involved and we're burnt as fuck?»

«Didn't the Chief said that the lady was kinda fallen out with her family?»

«Yes, but I can be kind of sure that the family isn't fallen out with her. Especially if her Head of the House has put an invaluable artifact in her care.» Chico replied, taking another shot at the whisky, that became more and more drinkable with the time. «Why hadn't he tried to open that, I wonder.»

«Isn't it, like, incredibly dangerous and stuff?» Banshee shrugged, emptying the bottle right in her throat and looking inside it with a desolated look.

«He'd have to ask a Vice, but it's not that difficult, not for someone in Justin's position.»

«So, ye think it's bad intel? We're snuffing up just a kid's toy?» Banshee frowned, raising to her feet and starting to rummage around the kitchen's cabinets.

«Hadn't this come from the Council, I would have think that someone could be trying to prank us hard.» Chico nodded «There are some patatas under the sink.» he then revealed.

«For the last time, ye make vodka and brandy with potatoes, ye make whisky with malt and barley!» she scoffed, picking up some cornflakes, baking malt, sugar, and a large bottle of chemical alcohol. «And, come on, we're so unimportant that for someone to go all this way to prank us would be really not worthy.»

«Well, they could be trying to tank the Chief, though.» Chico guessed, while Banshee grabbed a deep pot and shoved everything she had found in it.

«The Chief? Why? He's the saddest little bureaucrat I know. And bureaucrats are all sad.» she pointed out, mixing the stuff with a wooden spoon. «What's to tank there? His morning coffee routine?»

«He's still, you know, connected with the Council.» Chico tried to walk along the lines of the subject.

«Meh. Politics.» Banshee shushed him altogether, hovering a hand over the stirred pot, concentrating. Chico shut up, with a sigh.

She looked into the pot and focused all her energy in her hand, feeling the familiar tingle rushing through her veins to her opened fingers. Her vision shifted slightly, to what reality was, and to what she could see. Shining, colorful lines and filaments, dancing all around them. The Fluxes. She focused on the fluxes stirring around the strange mixture inside the pot, and moved her fingers, just like a puppeteer, with surgeon-like precision. Three, four movements. The filaments moved, switched and intertwined.

The pot's content shimmered of an orange light and started to boil. But not a normal boil, the alcohol didn't even evaporate like it was supposed to. They boiled meshing together in a confused mass, losing their proper form to bubble up, in a few seconds, into an amber-colored mixture with an unmistakable smell of single-malt.

«Aye, that's it. Good fer three bottles at least.» smiled Banshee, inhaling deeply and started to pour the liquid into empty bottles.

«You know we not supposed to use magic for this.» said a deep voice from the door. Banshee jumped up, risking spilling the whisky.

Vopros entered the room and closed the door behind him with a click.

«I still don't see the harm in using magic to make our lives simpler. We're all half-unoccupied workers, what's wrong in saving up alcohol money to buy more important things we can't create with us powers?» answered Banshee, closing the bottles tight.

The Russian sat down at the table after helping himself to one of his vodka bottles. In the kitchen fell somewhat a respectful silence. But it wasn't awkward. It was the peaceful quiet of people who had since long learnt how to coexist in the same environment without getting in each other's way.

Banshee rummaged through the cabinets over her head and took out a sack of Kolomensky pastels, put them in a bowl and put them beside Vopros. Without a word.

«So, you talk about useful things, da?» asked the man, taking a biscuit with simplicity, as if the bowl had just materialized there. Banshee smiled. Chico shrugged. «Good. So now we plan.»

«Methought ye was working on some of yer projects down in the cellar.» said Banshee, puzzled.

«I was. Now not. Let's plan.» he proclaimed.

 ***

«I can't but think that this is an elaborated trap, Francesca.» he said, standing beside the tall, blonde woman putting away her papers in her work bag, as the students left the room.

«Chantal D'Yves had been particularly proficient today. I think her way towards...» she spoke back.

«Francesca, you can do better than blatantly change the subject, thus confirming my suspicion at once, without even trying to convince me you were not aiming at something awful towards my Coven, for once.»

The woman sighed. She was one of the most beautiful women Garaham had ever seen. Her slightly olive skin was a wonderful contrast with the mane of golden curls running down her back. Sure, now she kept her hair well up in a bun, but it was almost just so one could better notice the shiny blue eyes glistening in her perfectly shaped features, soft and refined. She patted her bag closed and then caressed the man's well-cured short beard.

«It's not a trap.» she said, with a smile. «I'm just trying to help your career. My father could have gone to any other shady and needier Coven in this Order, and they would have said "yes" without even thinking.»

«So, I was right. It is, a trap.» he sighed back, locking eyes with her.

«Oh, for Christ's sake, since when a wife wanting her man to climb up the Order's Ranks is a trap?»

«Since the man, albeit grateful for the attention received, had more than once remarked that he doesn't give a hoot about career?»

«We're not having that conversation.»

«Apparently not, you passed to action.» he remarked.

«I meant, not here. Let's go somewhere more... private.» she beckoned him towards a small room, just one of the many Teacher's Rooms of the Academy. They were little places where teachers could relax between lessons, recharging the disturbingly high amount of energy needed to teach young Mages and Enforcers how to control and use their power.

It was small, of a light happy green. The furniture was white and simple. When they entered, it was empty. Francesca closed the door behind her.

He crossed his arms on his chest.

«I'm listening.»

«You have spent the last ten years being Coven Enforcer. I get that you love it, but it is time to step up! Most of the Coven Enforcers of the Order never stay for more than four, five years tops in a Coven before stepping up in the ladder. Logistics, Containment, even the 12°... you could be anywhere you want.»

«Except I already am.»

«You say that just because you feel responsible for that... trio of stereotypes. They're all grown up now. You can let them go. Jesus, if you're this way with your Mages what would happen when our children will go to College?»

He pinched the root of his nose between his index finger and his thumb. They had had that discussion a million times, with almost the same words, and every, single time, he could not past Francesca's siege proof, firm decision.

«I took them in with promises...»

«That you have greatly kept, and now it's time they fly with their own wings or, rather, ruinously fall down without dragging you with them.» she moved, closing the distance between them, posing both her hands around his face. «They're a useless albatross around your neck. You don't even like them! You're not Mariposa with her Lions!»

«The fact that I despise their ruthless annoyance and vulgarity can't, and doesn't, impact on my need of being professional. The task of a Coven Enforcer is to make sure that the Coven he leads is productive for the Order, and that the Mages it holds are satisfied with their mansions. Now, whereas the second is purely science-fiction, the former could be arranged. And they do rise to the task. When the wind is right.» he explained. For the umpteenth time. But, as always, Francesca wasn't listening.

She looked at the strangely fierce light in her husband's eyes. He wasn't a passionate man, at all. So, for him to heat up like that on something, that was unexpected.

«So, the impasse remains.» she said, with a defeated expression on her face. Garaham felt a cringe around his heart. He took a deep breath and remained silent for some minutes. Before rolling his eyes to the ceiling and speaking again.

«Let me just pass through this mission. I'll... think about it. Seriously.» he whispered, with a sigh.

Her eyes suddenly lit up like stars.

«You will?»

«This situation, if well-handled, could give us enough credit to put me in the position to request, for my Mages, proper places in good Divisions where they could live their lives without being bothered with Order duties. Fade away on the background, just like they want. That would solve everything. But it all depends on this mission. Let me see how this goes and then I surely promise you: I will consider this eventuality.» he said, his eyes lowered but palpable decision in his voice.

She smiled and jumped at his neck, hugging him tight before kissing him.

Her father had been right, once again.