The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

‘I think my heart is breaking,’ Lizzie said from the floor, and Dee looked down and saw her and got to her feet.

‘How long has she been like that?’ she said to Mare, suddenly sounding frightened.

‘Couple minutes,’ Mare said. ‘You know Lizzie. There should be bunnies any time now.’ She looked around and felt a chill that had nothing to do with her lowered body temperature. ‘Wait a minute. Why aren’t there bunnies?

Dee was on her knees beside Lizzie, gathering her up into her arms. ‘It’s all right, baby, it’s all right, I’m here, it’s all right. I’ll take care of you.’

‘I’m so cold,’ Lizzie said to her. And my heart is breaking.’

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Mare said, dropping to the floor beside Dee, really frightened now. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

‘Xan,’ Dee said, holding Lizzie tightly against her, as if to wrap her in warmth. ‘That’s what Mama said right before she died, when Xan took her power’ She met Mare’s eyes over Lizzie’s bright curls. ‘She was cold and shivering and rocking like this and that’s what she said and then she died.’

‘You’re cold, too,’ Mare said, putting her arms around them both. And so am I. I was cold after I left Xan. What did she do to us?’

Mother put the tea tray down on the floor beside them: a teapot, three cups, and a plateful of cookies covered in sugar. ‘Eat. You need sugar.’

‘Sugar’s going to take care of this?’ Dee said, incredulous, as Mare tightened her arms around all of them for warmth.

‘Cookies, just like the ones they give you after you give blood,’ Mother said cheerfully. ‘Instant energy’

‘We didn’t give blood,’ Mare said.

‘Oh,’ Mother said and left them alone.

Dee looked stricken. ‘What did Xan do? Did she touch you? She took my hand. She twisted my fingers with hers. And she was holding Mama’s hand the same way right before…’ She turned to Lizzie. ‘Did she touch you?’ She looked at Mare.

Mare nodded. ‘Yeah. She did. Just like that. That twisting thing.’

‘She took our power,’ Dee said, still rocking Lizzie. ‘I know you think Xan’s my nightmare in the closet, but she took our power.’

‘No, I believe you, I’m with you now.’ Mare picked up a cup and held it to Lizzie’s lips. ‘Drink, Lizzie.’

Lizzie sipped and made a face. ‘Too sweet.’

‘Drink it anyway, baby’ Dee said, and Lizzie did, sipping at first and then gulping, and when Lizzie was done, Mare gave Dee a cup, too, and then picked up the third cup and drained it.

‘Did Xan take all our power?’ Mare said, and then answered her question by lifting the needle off Mother’s tray from across the room. ‘Still got that.’ She tried for her bag, much heavier, and couldn’t budge it. ‘She took part of it. A pint. Like at the blood bank, she took some off the top. What was she doing?’ She picked up a cookie as if it were a life source and chomped her way through it.

‘Maybe she didn’t have time,’ Dee said, sipping and rocking. ‘We’d have noticed if she’d taken more. We’d have fought. But if she finds a way to take it all…’

‘I become a spoiled brat forever,’ Mare said, and called out, ‘I’m sorry I was rude, Mother’ She picked up the teapot and filled everybody’s cup again. ‘Tea. Cookies. Eat. Drink.’

‘And I become the most annoying victim on the planet,’ Dee said, her voice already stronger. And Lizzie…’

They both looked at Lizzie, gulping her second cup of tea as if it were a lifeline.

Lizzie curls up and dies just like Mama, Mare thought. We’d all die.

‘You three feeling better?’ Mother said, coming back in. ‘I’ve turned up the heat.’

‘Thank you,’ Mare said.

‘You shouldn’t give blood when you’re not feeling well,’ Mother said. ‘I’ll fill in the black on your tattoo now’

Mare thought about saying, ‘You know damn well we didn’t give blood,’ but if Mother was rewinding to normal, that worked for her. She got up and sat down on the chair again, feeling the chill abate. It really was like giving blood, she thought. Probably in a couple of hours, she’d have built her power back up again. As long as nobody came along and sucked more off. Or took too much. Like her mother. Xan had taken too much from her mother. Dee had been right all along.

Any fascination Mare had for Xan died on the instant. Lizzie pulled away and reached for another cookie, and Dee took a deep breath. ‘We need to think. We need to work this out. Xan wants our powers, and she has a plan and the guys have something to do with it. But I think she’s telling the truth about them being our true loves.’

‘She thinks she made a mistake with Jude,’ Mare said. ‘And I have to agree there.’

‘I think we have to go back to the guys and ask them about it,’ Dee said. ‘Tell them what just happened and ask them. If they really do love us, they’ll tell us the truth.’

‘Elric loves me,’ Lizzie said, sounding stronger. ‘He left me, but he loves me. When he finds out what she did…’

Mare frowned. ‘Jude doesn’t love me, but I bet he knows something.’

‘Can you seduce it out of him?’ Dee said.

‘No, but I can beat it out of him,’ Mare said, looking over her shoulder as Mother filled in her tattoo.

Lizzie watched her finish.

‘What’s it look like, Liz?’ Mare said when she was done.

‘Like you,’ Lizzie said. ‘Like a warrior’ Her color was back, her hands were no longer shaking, and for the first time in her life she looked strong and determined. ‘I want a butterfly,’ she said to Mother. ‘But not a warrior. I want a sorcerer butterfly. I want the magic.’

Mother handed Lizzie a book of flash and then smeared cream on Mare’s back and covered it with plastic wrap, while Lizzie began to look for her sorcerer tat.

‘That one, the sorcerer butterfly,’ Lizzie said a few moments later, handing Mother the book as she took Mare’s place on the chair. ‘But small on my ankle. Something that’ll look great with my shoes. Whatever they turn into.’

Dee put down her cup and got to her feet. ‘I think that’s my cue to leave. We all know about Xan now, we’re all protected because we know, we’ll talk to the guys-’

Mother turned those gray eyes on Dee. ‘Three sisters. Three tattoos. Different but the same.’

‘I am not getting a tattoo,’ Dee said.

Mother nodded, still serene, and handed her a second book of flash.

‘Save yourself a little time,’ Mare said to Mother, ‘don’t bother with Dee and the flash. It’s not going to happen.’

Mother sighed. ‘You’ll be fine, Mare. Stop trying to control the universe. It’s not trying to control you.’ She put a gentle hand on her arm and Mare almost burst into tears. ‘And give my love to Crash when you see him.’

Mare sniffed. ‘Okay,’ she said, and headed for the door.

The last thing she heard was Dee saying, ‘Really, I am not getting a tattoo.’

Xan was lighting the candle under her chafing dish when she saw Maxine in the see glass, huddled next to the Dumpster, looking tense. She frowned and then waved her hand and opened the portal, and Maxine stumbled into the room.

‘What’s wrong?’ Xan said, not unkindly. Maxine looked around, trying to hide her nervousness. ‘Hey, it’s nice in here. I never been in this room before.’

‘It’s my kitchen.’

‘Yeah,’ Maxine said, reaching out to stroke the black granite countertops. ‘Are those cherrywood cabinets? They’re really red. This is something.’

‘Thank you.’ Xan watched her for a moment and then went back to the silver chafing dish.

The cream there was warming beautifully, thick and rich, and Maxine inhaled and sneezed.

Xan sighed.

Maxine moved closer to the bowl. ‘What is that?’

‘Cream,’ Xan said. A few spices. A little coffee. Some dark chocolate.’

Maxine leaned closer and sniffed. ‘What are you making?’

‘A spell.’ Xan picked up three cinnamon sticks from an intricately painted box that held dozens and, for the moment, her see glass. ‘Lean back, Maxine, I do not want you sneezing into this.’

Maxine stepped back. ‘Is it dangerous?’

‘Very.’ Xan broke the three cinnamon sticks into the cream.

The rich spice filled the room, the cloud spiraling up in three curling strands, rust-colored arabesques with tiny red sparks that made Maxine’s mouth drop open. ‘Whoa,’ she said, leaning closer again as the spirals turned and twisted, and Xan watched, smiling, her eyes half shut.

‘What kind of spell is that?’

It’s a libido spell, Maxine,’ Xan said, watching the cinnamon curl. ‘I went to Salem’s Fork today to nudge the plan back into place, and this spell is going to make sure it stays there. Tonight the sisters and their lovers are going to find each other irresistible. Tonight seals the deal.’

‘I’m sorry we couldn’t get the necklace, Xantippe,’ Maxine said, watching the cinnamon, too.

‘It’s all right, Maxine,’ Xan said. ‘You can try again tomorrow.’

‘Jude will help,’ Maxine said eagerly.

‘Jude will not help,’ Xan said. ‘Jude is finished. Mare has chosen Crash. It’s going to make things difficult, but I’ll simply have to adapt.’

‘No.’ Maxine drew closer. ‘That’s what I wanted to tell you, Jude will try harder. Don’t fire him or turn him into something, he’ll do better, really…’

The cream was ready, so Xan tuned Maxine out and picked up three glass beads strung on a silver thread, beads she’d separated temporarily from the see glass. ‘Deirdre, Elizabeth, and Moira,’ she said over the cream and the beads, as Maxine leaned still closer, pleading with her. ‘May your deepest passions be unleashed-’

‘Please, Xantippe,’ Maxine said.

‘- may your wildest fantasies come true-’

‘- he’ll try really hard-’

‘- may this night make you one with your true love-’

‘-Xantippe!’

‘- so I say, so be-’

Maxine moved to grab her arm and knocked the cinnamon box and the see glass into the cream.

‘- it,’ Xan said, and watched as the cream began to turn dark as the entire box of cinnamon sticks and the see glass sank to the bottom of the pan. She sighed and dropped in the Fortune sisters’ beads, too.

Maxine stood frozen as Xan turned to her.

‘That was bad, Maxine.’

‘I’m sorry, Xantippe.’

Xan looked down at the rapidly darkening cream, sighed again, and then took a glass rod from the table and fished out the see glass, letting the cream drip from it before she wiped it clean.

Maxine swallowed. ‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘Now?’ Xan poured herself a drink. ‘Now there’s going to be a hot time in the old town tonight.’

Maxine’s eyes got huge. ‘It’s going to burn down?’

‘Only figuratively. Go home, Maxine.’

‘What did I do?’

‘The spell was meant for the sisters only,’ Xan said. ‘That’s why there were only three beads. But you blundered. You knocked the whole see glass in, so now the entire town-’

‘What about Jude?’

‘Forget Jude. He’s finished.’

‘What do you mean, finished?’

‘Go home, Maxine.’

‘No, please!’

‘Home, Maxine.’

Maxine backed toward the paneled door, sniffing, her breath coming in mewing sounds. She stopped when she had it open. ‘Xantippe?’

Xan was still watching the dark cream bubble. It had been such an elegant spell, so beautifully subtle, so carefully aimed.

Now it was going to be a fuckfest. She put her forehead in her hand. ‘Xantippe?’

Xan raised her head, looked into Maxine’s terrified little eyes, and raised her hand.

‘No!’ Maxine screamed and dove through the door, letting the panel slam behind her.

Xan watched in the see glass as Maxine landed in a sobbing heap behind the Dumpster.

She was going to have to do something about Maxine. She turned back to the glass, decided that Salem’s Fork was not something she wanted to see tonight, and covered it with a velvet cloth before leaving the room.

Dee was still a block away from the inn when she spotted Danny’s Triumph at the curb. Absently rubbing at her right shoulder blade, she stopped dead in the street.

Should she go on up? More important, would he talk to her? Would he understand?

Dee didn’t even want to think about the scars Danny could inflict before he left. Or that she could inflict on him. What choice did she have, though? What choice had she ever really had?

Her pulse had speeded up again, and she had to lay a hand on her chest to help her breathe.

‘Danny?’

He was sitting on the white wicker swing on Velma’s front porch. Dee realized he was bent over, his head in his hands. She strode up the sidewalk.

He jumped to his feet. ‘Dee?’

His face looked drawn, his hair spiked from where he’d been tangling it in his hands. His smile, when it came, was lopsided and sweet. Dee ignored the flare of panic in her chest and kept walking. She met Danny at the bottom of the porch steps.

‘I went to your house,’ he said, giving her a quick, hard hug, ‘but you weren’t there. I’m sorry.’ Another hug, then he pulled back, running a hand down her face, as if apologies had to be tactile. ‘I really am. I wish I had a good excuse for taking off on you like that. My mother would have called me everything but a Republican for what I did.’

She fingered his hair back into a semblance of order. ‘It’s all right. I’m sorry I upset you.’

He dipped his head. ‘I guess I’m a little touchier than I thought. After what happened to my family, I’m afraid all New Age psychicbabble just sets me off.’

Well, good. Dee wouldn’t have wanted to feel too good before she had her come-to-Jesus meeting with him. Over his shoulder, the curtains shifted in the front window, and Dee caught a flash of Velma’s face. She was amazed the little woman had the restraint to stay in the house.

‘Would you like to take a walk?’ she asked Danny.

He took a wry look at the sky. ‘It looks like it’s going to rain.’

True. Dingy gray clouds scudded fast, and the air was thick with the smell of unsettled dust. Dee wished like hell it would just rain and get it over with.

‘Not yet,’ she said.

Are you a prognosticator, now?’

The clouds reflected in the cerulean of his eyes, like a portent of things to come. Dee tried not to shiver. ‘Nah. I just know the weather here. Come on.’

‘Will you go to France with me when we get back?’

He was smiling. She did her best to smile back. ‘Only if we can bring Lizzie, Mare, and Pywackt.’

‘All of them?’

‘Well, it wouldn’t be fair if I saw Montmartre and they didn’t. Besides, Py’s always had a hankering to see France. He collects Edith Piaf records.’

Danny shook his head. ‘Cool cat. Come on.’

Somehow they ended up hand in hand. Dee didn’t mind. She relished the feel of his callused fingers as they wound around hers. The sense of belonging. It was nice for a moment to just pretend she was doing nothing more than taking a walk with her honey.

It was Saturday. A chorus of lawnmowers serenaded the street. A couple of kids were skateboarding beneath the overgrown elm trees that lined the sidewalk. Pete Semple had his garage open and was hammering on something. Mrs Ledbetter hurried past with an armful of groceries. Nobody paid attention to Dee and Danny.

Dee rubbed at her shoulder again, wondering what she’d been thinking to believe she was brave.

‘Has Xan called you again?’ she asked.

‘You want her to?’

‘It doesn’t matter what I want her to do. It just matters that she doesn’t hurt you.’

Danny looked over at her, every instinctive suspicion plain in his bright blue eyes. ‘We’ve had this discussion, Dee.’

‘No we haven’t,’ she said. ‘Not really. It’s why it’s important we have it now. Has she called?’

‘No. Should she?’

‘I imagine she will, and when she does I need you to tell me right away. I’m not exactly sure what her strategy is this time. I just know she has to be stopped. Which is why I’m talking to you now.’

‘I guess I still don’t understand.’

‘Well, I hope I’m going to clear it up for you.’

Because above and beyond the obvious dilemma, if Dee couldn’t prove what she was, he would never understand what a threat Xan was. Not just to her and her sisters. To him. Xan would delight in breaking Danny James.

‘What do you need to tell me?’ he asked.

‘I’m a shapeshifter.’

Good God, where had that come from? Hi, my name is Dee and I’m a shapeshifter. I’ll be taking questions now.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if Danny just picked up and ran off. Instead he pulled her to a halt, still holding hands right in the middle of the sidewalk. One of the skateboarders missed them by inches and yelled invectives.

‘My sister Lizzie changes silverware into shoes,’ Dee said before she could chicken out. ‘My sister Mare can rearrange furniture without using her hands. My mother could tell the future, and Xan can… well, you saw what she could do this morning. We’ve had these gifts since we were young. Well, actually, since puberty. For the women they arrive then and then wane… change at menopause. I think that’s why Aunt Xan is on the warpath again. She’s just about that age, and I think it terrifies her.’

Danny gave her a bemused smile. ‘All she did this morning was convince me to see you.’

‘She wasn’t there, Danny,’ Dee said. ‘No matter what it looked like. She was a suggestion. Xan deals in suggestion.’

‘And you, uh, shift into…’

She rubbed a finger between her eyes, where a headache was blooming. ‘It depends. I’m still working on control. When you came yesterday morning, you remember the owl sitting on the table?’

His smile had long gone. Now he was looking nervous. ‘Yeah?’

She did her best to smile. ‘Twee. Twee.’

Brandon Upshot rode by on his paper route and almost clipped Danny in the head with a copy of the Salem Times. A car came the other way. Danny didn’t notice.

Suddenly he grinned as if it were the greatest joke in history. ‘Of course you were. And I…’

Dee pulled her hand away. He could have at least tried. She’d already turned for home when he caught hold of her -unfortunately by her right shoulder, which made her yelp.

‘What’s wrong?’ he asked.

‘Nothing. I think it’s just time for me to go home.’ Especially since her shoulder had started to burn the minute he’d touched it. Maybe she should have somebody look at it.

‘No, really,’ he said, frowning over her back. ‘Did you hurt yourself?’

And before she could protest, he’d pulled her cardigan and T-shirt down far enough to make her blush.

‘Dee?’

‘Yes,’ she snapped. ‘It’s a butterfly. It’s a symbol of, oh, I don’t know. Having the courage to fly. Well, I fly all the time. I didn’t need an insect on my back to help me. I’ll probably be the only hawk with a butterfly on its back. All the other hawks will laugh at me.’

He was smiling. ‘It’s beautiful. And so small. I really like the color’

Dee turned, trying to see. ‘Color? It’s black.’

‘It’s green.’

Which made Dee shake her head. ‘Of course.’

She tugged her clothes back up. ‘We’ve gotten off topic, Danny. You either need to take me seriously, or I go home alone.’

He flailed a bit, shoving his hand through his hair. ‘You’re asking a lot, Dee.’

‘I know.’ She was asking everything. ‘Believe me. Will you come to the house?’

‘Of course.’

She nodded. He took her hand again and they walked on. The trees were beginning to writhe as they passed, and Dee could smell cut grass and a hint of rain. The very air was in turmoil, as if Mare had been weaving her fingers through it. It gave Dee a chill.

They reached the house to find it dark and empty. Lizzie had obviously cleaned, because there wasn’t anything out of place. The only thing Dee heard was the throb of complete silence.

Something was wrong, though. Off. Dee stopped in the middle of the living room floor, but she heard nothing but her own steps echo off the hardwood. She thought to call out, but Lizzie’s door was closed. She looked hard into the shadowy corners without seeing anything. She took a sniff.

Ah, that was it. It was the power signature in the air. She caught Mare’s licorice and a whiff of Lizzie, gardenia and roses. And there, underlying it, a new scent. A tang of spices that made her think of something ancient and powerful and beautiful. She looked toward the bedrooms. Even though she couldn’t hear anything, she felt it. Power. Hell, there should have been waves of purple wafting out from beneath the door.

Was Lizzie here? Was she okay? Was it this Elric she was sensing?

‘She’s fine,’ Danny said.

Dee turned on him. ‘Could you at least wait for me to say it out loud?’

‘You did.’

‘No, Danny. I didn’t. And how do you know Lizzie’s okay? She just lost her guy this morning. This guy I’ve never met…’

‘I hear it. Like I heard the witches. This gives me a good feeling. A… hmmm, wow. Whatever she’s been up to, she’s enjoying it.’

‘Well, thanks for putting that image in my head.’ His grin was impish. ‘You wanted me to believe I can hear things.’

‘I just don’t want to hear what you’re hearing. Not about my little sister’

‘From what I saw of her, she’s not so little.’

Dee physically turned him for the stairs. ‘Come on. I brought you here to see my studio. Not eavesdrop on my sister’

Dee’s studio shared the second floor with Mare’s bedroom. Fourteen steps up and a slide of the hand along the banister from the outside world to hers. She had no control over the outside world. The downstairs rooms were kept fairly anonymous. Even her own bedroom was nondescript. Pale gray walls, black duvet, and thrift store dresser. Zen, Lizzie called it. Disinterested was the truth. What was the point of decorating a room that would see such uninspiring use? Dee saved all her whimsy for her studio.

She climbed the fourteenth step and led the way into her room. She flipped the light and held her breath.

‘Good God,’ Danny breathed, frozen to the spot.

Dee stayed where she was by the white hutch she used as a storage cabinet. This room was her sanctuary, her soul. It was what kept her sane when the responsibilities and the isolation wore her away. It was the only place on earth she didn’t feel like somebody’s mother.

The studio faced south, a stark wood-floored, slant-ceilinged, well-windowed space furnished in secondhand rockers, her grandmother’s trunk and a pair of cluttered worktables she’d painted cobalt teal, the very color, she realized, of Danny’s eyes. Multicolored bottles filled the sills to catch the sun, and every flat surface held a vase or bowl or pot stuffed with flowers from the garden. The air was thick with their scent. Her easel stood by the north wall, and jewel-toned saris draped the windows in purples and reds and oranges. Travel posters took up the stark white walls. Vienna, Rome, Bali. Peru. And, of course, Montmartre.

‘You’ve really never been to those places?’ Danny asked, bemused.

Dee looked at the Byzantine dome of Sacre Coeur. She knew how many steps it took to get to that door, too. ‘Some day.’

He turned to look down at her. ‘I’ll take you.’

God, she wanted to just say yes. ‘Thanks for the offer. But there’s stuff you need to know first.’

‘About your painting, obviously.’ He walked over to where canvases sat stacked against the bare white walls. He bent, hands clasped behind his back as he studied each one carefully. Dee rubbed her hands along her jeans and prayed for strength.

‘Do you know what that is?’ she asked Danny as he stood considering a painting that looked like a patchwork quilt of greens and golds. ‘Salem Valley. See the river snaking through? And the cliffs at the edge? See the design?’

It was what she painted. The designs of her life. All experience reduced to geometries and color, as primary as it got.

‘I shifted into a hawk to get that perspective. I also ate two mice and chased a pigeon for three miles. And that one, the violet and green? It’s the flowers on Salem’s Mountain.’

He tilted his head, trying to pull a flower from the simple lines.

‘I was a hummingbird to see that. Exhausting. Those little bastards never stop fighting. And a cat to see the white one. It’s a garage door.’ Titanium white on Payne’s gray on burnt sienna with just a stroke or two of alizarin crimson, the composition of genteel decay. ‘I trotted all over town for two weeks before I found that one. A subject has to strike me, and it usually doesn’t until I’m shifted. The one by your arm is the sun reflecting off the rim of Linda Rose’s trash can. I was a rat that day. Rats see a lot. And they have a passion for trash cans.’

And, of course, if I even tried to have sex with you, I’d turn into your mother faster than you can say Oedipus.

He stopped in front of each painting. He fingered through the stacks as if checking CDs in a record store. He was silent. Dee waited where she was, her hands twisted together, her chest suddenly constricted with dread. Say something.

‘These are beautiful,’ he breathed, turning on her, his hands up as if trying to take it all in.

‘I use acrylics. They’re cheaper, have purer color, and they work faster. I get up before the sun comes up so I can be shifted and anonymous by the time I’m seen. I’ve only been caught once. Fortunately it was a frat jock on the way home from a kegger. Much better than the time in Ames, Iowa, when I got mad at Lizzie’s high school principal and turned into a rott-weiler in his office chair. That was the second time we moved. The third was when Mare started her period in the middle of chemistry lab. Everything in the room started flying. She almost burned down the school. Well, we didn’t move because of that, really. It was that Xan smelled Mare’s power coming on and-’

‘Dee,’ he said softly as he came up to her. ‘Shut up.’

He laid his hands on her shoulders, stilling her. He looked down at her as if discovering something amazing. His eyes, like pools at sunset, seemed to glow in the dim light. ‘You don’t show these, do you?’ Not a question at all.

‘Of course not.’

‘Why?’

‘They’re personal.’

‘They’re unique and amazing. You could be famous.’

Dee scrunched up her face. ‘Oh, yes. I enjoyed being famous so much I changed my name and moved across the country. I’m happy as I am.’

Her heart had gone on alert again. She was trembling. He stroked her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing to do, and it took her breath, because it was so alien to her. It made her shoulder flare, as if his fingers had lit that butterfly into sunlight. It made her ache. This was so important. Didn’t he know how important this was?

‘You’re not happy,’ he said. ‘You’re in prison here. You’re dying and you don’t even know it. God,’ he said, shaking his head in amazement. ‘I knew you were special, but I had no idea. I don’t think even you have any idea.’

‘I didn’t bring you up here for that,’ she protested, suddenly afraid of things she hadn’t even anticipated. Beautiful? They were beautiful? ‘Weren’t you listening? Didn’t you hear how I painted them?’

‘I don’t care if you rode a monkey in a wet suit to paint these. They’re magnificent.’

Dee was rubbing her forehead again. ‘I. Shape. Shift. I’m not delusional. I’m not lost in Dungeons and Dragons. When I was thirteen I shifted into a wolverine and treed Mare for two hours when she broke my bike. I do this, Danny. You have to believe it.’

For a long moment, he just looked at her. Just held her, his big hands gentle on her sore shoulder. Dee couldn’t look away. He was mesmerizing, a phantom in the shadows who dangled terrible possibilities before her.

‘Dee,’ he said. ‘You don’t belong here. You belong out in the world, where your work can have a chance to be seen.’

‘Much tougher to turn into a ferret if you’re famous, Danny’

‘You can be anything you want. Don’t you get that? This can get you out of the bank and off wherever you want. The rest doesn’t matter’

She looked at him a long time. ‘Does it matter to you?’

He shook his head. ‘Dee…’

She closed her eyes and made a last-ditch grab for courage. ‘I’m going to have to show you, aren’t I? Oh, this would be so much easier if Mare were here. She’d just hit you in the head with a muffin and be done with it.’

‘You don’t have to do this. I don’t care.’

‘What’s your favorite animal? And don’t make it too big. Or a golden retriever. I have too many breakables in here.’

‘You don’t need to prove anything. I love you.’

That brought her eyes wide open. Even Danny looked stunned. ‘I mean it,’ he said, and suddenly grinned, hands up in the air. ‘Good God. In twenty-four hours I’ve fallen madly in love with a four-star, grade-A-’

‘You say shrew and I’ll have Lizzie turn you into a wart.’ How could he make her want to laugh when she was inches away from losing him?

His grin softened, and he bent to cup her face in his hands. ‘Genius. I’m in love with a goddamn genius, and I want to show her to the world. She doesn’t have to prove anything to me.’

It was almost enough to make her melt. She wanted to close her eyes and lean into him and be comforted. She wanted to meet him skin to skin, clothes tossed in a heap, mouths bruised with the force of their kissing. She wanted to be safe and she wanted to be free, and there was only one way that was possible. She lifted her own hands and laid them over his.

‘I do have to prove it, or I can’t trust that you love me.’

‘Why not? It sure feels like it.’ He touched noses, his eyes whimsical. ‘I thought it was gas, but that would have gone away.’

‘Because you don’t know me. Not the real me. You have to meet her before you can decide. Now pick your favorite animal.’

‘Why?’

She struggled against the tears that crowded her throat. ‘Because it’s who I am, Danny. It’s inseparable from the rest of me. If you can’t live with it, then you can’t love me.’

‘Hedgehog.’

She pulled away. ‘Your favorite animal is not a hedgehog.’

‘Of course it is. It reminds me so much of you.’

She glared. ‘Fine.’ Pulling out the rubber band, she let her hair loose, shucked her sweater and kicked off her basic boring white tennis shoes. ‘I’ll be a freakin’ hedgehog.’

She did a couple of stretching exercises. Hedgehog. Hedgehog. She tried to concentrate, but Danny was standing there with his hands on his hips, a silly grin on his face as if he were waiting for a card trick. She closed her eyes. Hedgehog. The image appeared, a quivering, sharp-nosed little thing. Great. Well, at least it wasn’t a shrew.

She eased herself down and curled her legs up under her, which saved time when she had to minimize. Four legs, round body, a quiver of bristles. He couldn’t have likened her to a fawn. Maybe a kestrel. The air around her seemed to congeal. Sound sharpened, light intensified, and she could smell the charge of her power as it gathered. Lime. Lizzie got flowers. Mare got candy. She got a garnish.

Another charge shot along her nerves. Something alien that glittered a dozen colors behind her eyes. Was Lizzie setting something off downstairs? It was distracting her.

She’d find out later. Right now… Hedgehog.

The tingling began in her chest, a disruption that spread and congealed like the air, so that her blood slowed, settled. Her lungs contracted. Her skin shrank.

Hedgehog.

One last push and she should have it. The power coalesced. Her body fizzed and itched, trembling so hard she was sure her cells convulsed. She squeezed her eyes shut, wrapped her arms tightly around her legs, gathered that odd little animal deep until…

Poof!

She coughed. She opened her eyes. She found herself waving away the cloud of green fog that filled the room. With hands.

‘Damn.’

She stared at her fingers as if they’d betrayed her. She hadn’t changed. Something had thrown her off. ‘Dee?’

‘I’m going to try again.’

She tried three more times. All she got was a lot of fog and a couple of lame snapping sounds.

‘The green fog is a nice touch,’ Danny offered, sounding bemused somewhere inside the cloud. ‘It kinda matches the butterfly.’

Dee didn’t move from where she was curled up on the floor, her face in her arms. ‘Green is my color.’

Silence. She’d exhausted herself with the trying. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to eat chocolate and cry. She didn’t have the luxury. She’d wasted too much time already on this party trick.

‘I do love you,’ Danny whispered, and Dee realized he’d crouched down on his haunches right in front of her.

She lifted her head, miserable tears sliding down her cheeks. ‘I love you, too.’

He looked startled. ‘Really?’

She nodded, trying to keep from openly sobbing. I’m so sorry.’

He wiped at her tears. ‘Why?’

She wailed like a little girl. ‘Because now we’re going to have to have sex!’

‘God, no. Not that.’ He was grinning, the bastard. ‘It’s not a laughing matter.’

Gently, he reached over and pulled her to her feet. ‘If we have to have sex, then we’ll just have to take one for the team.’

‘Oh, Danny. You don’t understand. I shift when I have sex.’

‘Well, unless it’s into Jude Law, I don’t see a problem.’

Dee sighed. ‘I think you should. And don’t joke about Jude Law. The way Xan’s been screwing with things, he’s suddenly a candidate.’

He took a second to lift her hair behind her shoulders. ‘God, I love your hair. I’m dying to see you wearing nothing but that.’

Dee fiddled with his silver chain. ‘It can be arranged.’ There was a medal on the end that somehow came free of his shirt. ‘Saint Michael?’ It was still warm from his skin.

‘My mother gave me that,’ he said. ‘She said it would keep me safe.’

Carefully Dee tucked it back inside his shirt and gave it a pat. ‘Well, for your sake I hope Saint Michael stays on alert.’

‘Does that mean we’re having sex now?’

Dee shook her head. ‘I need to eat something,’ she said and sat back down to put on her shoes. ‘Misfires always make me hungry. Since Mare exploded all of Lizzie’s muffins, it’ll have to be something else. Nutritional value is strictly optional.’

Danny grabbed her shoes before she could and crouched before her. ‘I know a place we can get all the Nutter Butter bars you can swallow,’ he said. Lifting her foot, he fitted her shoe.

Dee blinked away new tears. He was putting on her shoes. ‘If you can also score me a giant order of onion rings, you have a deal. Don’t forget to double-knot. I’m tough on my shoes.’

He double-knotted. Then he brought her to her feet and dropped a kiss on her nose.

‘Thank you.’ Her smile was a bit watery.

He helped her slide her sweater back on. ‘We also need to call your aunt.’

She’d been all set to turn off the light. His words stopped her. ‘You really know how to bring a party to a crashing halt.’

‘You said you wanted to talk to her’

‘I don’t want to talk to her.’ Hitting the wall switch, she stalked out the door and down the stairs. ‘I want to find her before she finds me.’

Danny guided her down the stairs. ‘Then can we have sex?’

It was overcast and threatening by the time Lizzie made it home, and darker than it should be at two in the afternoon, and she moved fast, avoiding the neighbors. She didn’t have it in her to make cheery small talk. The tattoo was burning against the inside of her ankle. It wasn’t a painful burn, more of a needful throbbing. She didn’t want her mind to go in that direction, but then, life wasn’t going the way she wanted it to.

The purple satin sheets were still on her bed, and the wallpaper with its splash of flowers had disappeared, leaving the walls a rich, creamy shade, even in the darkness. She reached for the light switch and then stopped, the tattoo burning brighter, the amethyst resting against her heart pulsing with life. She looked down at the plain black Asian-style butterfly on her ankle, and it had turned a rich shade of purple, strong and beautiful, like her amethyst. It was as if the tattoo had claimed her, turning from stark black to the rich violet shade that made her think of endless nights and sex and impossible true love. How could a color mean all that?

It was dark in the workshop, the only light coming from the candle that sat in the middle of the circle he’d drawn on the workbench. The array was a new one, more complex than the one he’d used originally, and in the light of the candle his eyes glowed with a deep, lavender light.

He was wearing white, an open shirt and loose white pants, barefoot, watching her, and his dark blond hair was loose around his beautiful face.

‘I thought you weren’t coming back,’ she said. And then could have kicked herself. She wanted him back, no matter what she’d said, no matter what she’d told herself.

The teapot was sitting on the workbench, the porcelain Imari cups beside it. He filled hers without a word and held it out to her. And she knew if she took it there’d be no coming back.

She took the cup, careful not to touch his hand, and drank. The perfume filled her senses, spreading through her body, and the frantic pulse of the amethyst slowed, calmed, soothed.

‘I put a guard on the door. Your aunt can’t touch any of you.’

‘It’ll keep her out?’

He shrugged. ‘Xantippe shouldn’t be underestimated. But as long as the three of you are in this house she can’t touch you.’

‘Why?’

‘It’s a simple enough protection charm but surprisingly effective

‘Not why does it work. Why did you come back and set it?’

‘It’s not something that can be done from a distance.’

She set her teacup down. ‘You aren’t answering my question. Why did you come back and set a spell to protect us when you’re the one who betrayed us in the first place? And why are you still here?’

He didn’t answer her question. Instead he pulled up his loose pants leg. ‘I wondered if you could explain this? It suddenly appeared on my ankle, and I’m thinking it has something to do with you.’

She stared down at his feet. They were narrow, beautiful – she never thought she’d be thinking about a man’s feet. And then she saw the tattoo glowing on the inside of his ankle, a match to her Asian butterfly, deep purple and glowing.

‘What’s that doing there?’

‘I thought you might know. You didn’t have a tattoo when I was here earlier.’

She didn’t ask him how he knew that. She still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in the purple nightgown, and she preferred to think it was through magic, not his hands on her. ‘I just got it an hour ago. But I don’t understand why it showed up on you, as well.’

‘I do.’ He put his teacup down, moved the candle to one side, and before she realized what he was doing he’d picked her up and set her down on the workbench, her butt directly on top of the array.

It was like sitting on a hot burner, the power spiking through her body, turning her insides to molten lava.

‘Oh, hell,’ Elric muttered. He was standing in front of her, and he put his hand on her face, pushing her tangled hair back. ‘Your eyes are purple,’ he said, sounding impossibly gloomy.

‘My eyes are blue,’ she protested in a strangled voice. She didn’t want his hand to leave her skin – the feel of his long fingers gently stroking the side of her face was a sensation so astonishing that she wanted to cry. ‘Your eyes are purple.’

‘What?’ He sounded appalled, starting to pull away, but she reached up and covered his hand with hers, holding it against her face.

As if he couldn’t fight it anymore he leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. ‘Doomed,’ he said bleakly.

Horrible things ran through her mind – had his protection spell backfired, infecting them both with some deadly disease? Had Xan done something unspeakably terrible, poisoning them both?

‘Are we going to die?’ she whispered, not sure she minded as long as he was with her.

His breathless laugh was only a slight reassurance. ‘Eventually,’ he said. ‘Most people do. We’ll just be a lot older when it happens. A lot older than everybody.’

‘Then what’s wrong with our eyes?’

‘Disaster. A fate worse than death. I thought I’d done everything to keep this from happening, but my best efforts weren’t good enough. The universe will have its way.’

He lifted his head and looked down at her, and even in the murky candlelight the lavender glow of his eyes was unmistakable.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This,’ he said. And kissed her.

Had he only kissed her once before? Why did it feel so hot, so powerful, so right? There was nothing tentative about the kiss – his mouth covered hers as his hand cupped her face, and he kissed her fully, holding nothing back, and she felt a tremor dancing through her body, something she’d never felt before. Except in dreams.

He moved closer, between her legs, coming up against the workbench, and she slid her arms around his neck, opening her mouth for him, kissing him back, and between their bodies the amethyst hummed and pulsed.

He wrapped her legs around his hips and pulled her off the workbench, and she could feel him, hard and hot against her, and another quiver of reaction danced across her skin.

He left the candle burning, moving through the shadows back into her bedroom, setting her down on the rich, purple sheets.

‘Take off your clothes,’ he said, and the door to her room closed and locked, the clicking sound reverberating in her stomach.

But he was no longer touching her, and some unwanted but unavoidable doubt had reared its ugly head. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He was stripping off his loose white shirt, and even in the darkness she could see the perfect glow of his chest, the smooth golden skin, the taut musculature. A man shouldn’t be that beautiful – it was unfair.

‘Making a very big mistake. Take off your clothes or I’ll do it for you.’

She slid backward on the bed, out of reach, suddenly wary. ‘Don’t make any dire mistakes on my account.’ She couldn’t keep the stiffness from her voice, from her body. ‘I didn’t ask you to come back, I didn’t ask you to kiss me.’

That wasn’t exactly true. She’d held on to his hand as he’d tried to pull away, and then it had been too late.

The storm was picking up outside, and the sky was as dark as night, but even in the shadows she could see him quite clearly, the look of annoyance and resignation on his beautiful face. ‘Yes you did,’ he said. ‘Every time you look at me you’re asking me to kiss you, whether you know it or not. I should have gotten the hell out of here the first time I touched you. God knows I’ve been trying to avoid such a disaster for most of my life, and after all these years I thought I was safe.’

He was making no sense at all. ‘Safe from what? From me? I’m no threat to you.’

He moved so fast she doubted it was by human means. One moment he was across the room from her, the next his hands were gripping her shoulders as he shook her.

‘Are you that blind, Lizzie? Do you really have no idea what’s going on here? I know you’re not a virgin, even though you might as well be, considering how clueless you are.’

She wrenched herself away, moving farther back, to the very edge of the bed, against the wall. ‘Okay, I get it. I’m clueless and blind, life as we know it will cease to exist. Exactly what has caused this Armageddon?’

‘We fell in love.’

She couldn’t help it – she had to laugh. First, because he seemed so angry and resentful at the thought, and second because it was patently absurd. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘You’re incapable of it.’

‘That’s what I was counting on,’ he said, almost sounding sullen. ‘I happen to like my life very well, indeed. I have a castle in Spain, a house in Provence, a flat in London. I have friends, I have lovers, I have a rich full life and there’s no room for you in it.’

‘I don’t want to be in it.’

‘Liar.’

She’d been feeling hot, angry, ready to explode, but suddenly she felt cooler, as if a breeze had washed over her skin. She looked down and jumped. He’d somehow managed to change her sensible jeans and T-shirt into the clinging silk nightgown from the night before.

‘Hell, no,’ she said, furious, and a moment later she was wearing a nun’s habit, a puff of purple mist shimmering around her. She only had a moment to be pleased with herself, before he moved.

‘Don’t bother,’ he said, and the voluminous folds of cloth disappeared, leaving her in skimpy underwear that might have come from some cosmic Victoria’s Secret. Her slightly small breasts spilled out of the lace bra, and the thong was riding up, both arousing and uncomfortable.

She growled, and a moment later she was frozen, immovable, and something was pinching her butt a lot harder than the strip of lace. She tried to move, only to be rewarded with the sound of clanking metal.

‘Armor, Lizzie?’

She was totally immobilized. She threw her weight to one side and fell over, pinned to the bed by the weight of the metal.

It didn’t help that he was laughing. ‘Let me help you with that,’ he said in a kindly tone, and a moment later she was lying on the bed without any clothes at all.

She shrieked as she dove for the covers, wrapping the silk sheet around her.

He knelt on the bed, moving toward her as she huddled in the corner with the covers wrapped around her like a shroud, and he was lean, feral, and the hottest thing she’d ever seen. He was also clearly out of his mind, and even for the sake of great sex she wasn’t going to sleep with a crazy man.

And it would be great sex – she had little doubt of that. Bone-melting, soul-shattering sex, hot and wicked and everything she never thought existed.

She pulled her knees up to her chest, one more layer of defense. ‘Go away, Elric. You’ll get over this if you try. You think I’m a scatterbrained idiot, and I’d drive you crazy if you had to spend much time with me.’

‘You already drive me crazy,’ he said. ‘The fact of the matter is, we don’t have any choice.’

‘You may not have a choice, but I do. Go away or I’ll start screaming, and one of the neighbors will call the police.’

She had no place to retreat to, and he knelt in front of her, grabbing her hands as she clutched at the sheet. ‘Look at me, Lizzie,’ he said in a gentler voice. She closed her eyes tightly, shutting him out.

He was holding her prisoner and she didn’t like it. Except that the hands encircling her wrists were oddly gentle, and she knew she could break free any time she wanted to. And she knew she should want to.

‘Look at me, Lizzie,’ he said again, and she couldn’t resist the wry note in his voice. She opened one eye, cautiously, then the other.

‘What do you want from me?’ If she sounded sullen and childish she didn’t care. He’d already said that she was a disaster of epic proportions – she had no intention of encouraging his delusions. Even if she had the almost overwhelming urge to put her mouth on his flat, golden stomach.

‘Sex. Companionship. True love. Take your pick.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she said, appalled.

‘I know,’ he said. ‘Let’s start with sex.’

She should have said no. Her entire life had turned upside down, all thanks to the man kneeling in front of her, and he seemed to regret it even more than she did. And it wasn’t helping that every time he touched her she could feel light and color flooding through her body, and she was tired of being gray and ordinary.

But she wasn’t going down without a fight. ‘Okay, let’s look at this logically. You’ve got some delusion that we’re trapped in the curse of true love, though I’m not sure I understand why it’s a curse. So if I sleep with you, it’ll either free you from that delusion, which would be a relief, or convince you that it’s true, which would be revenge. If I sent you away right now, I know that you’d go, and sooner or later you’d realize it was only temporary insanity and you’d forget all about me, and I’d marry Charles if he ever gets back from Alaska and remembers who I am, and I’ll have a safe, ordinary life, which is everything I always wanted. The trouble is, I don’t want to marry Charles after all.’

‘Oh, God,’ he said weakly. ‘Do I have to marry you, too?’

‘Revenge is sounding good to me,’ she said, half to herself. She scooted down on the bed, the purple sheets pulled up to her armpits, and closed her eyes. ‘Have at it.’

If Elric had any doubts as to the scope of this catastrophe, looking down at Lizzie as she lay on the bed, swaddled like a mummy in purple satin, her blond curls tangled around her pale face, her eyes tightly shut, convinced him it was all too terribly, horribly true. He was in love with her. He didn’t need the purple rim around his eyes to prove it – all he had to do was look at her and he was lost.

She was fighting it even harder than he was, but then, she didn’t know it was hopeless.

He leaned over her, taking the edge of the sheet and tugging gently. She quivered for a moment, keeping her hands at her sides, effectively keeping the sheet over her, but he was a lot more experienced than she was, and he simply pulled it down, away from her body, tossing it on the floor beside the bed.

She was the most luscious thing he’d ever seen in his entire life. Smooth, creamy skin, smallish breasts, soft and small and sleek. A far cry from the experienced, sophisticated women he tended to sleep with, and she was absolutely, shyly irresistible.

He put his hand on her ankle and she jerked, her eyes opening for a minute and then shutting again. This was probably the way Charles did it – with Lizzie lying passively, missionary style, while he groaned and sweated over her. He might have to kill Charles.

Or at least turn him into a moose. Moose did well in Alaska, didn’t they? Maybe a polar bear would eat him.

But he wasn’t interested in thinking about Charles at the moment. He kissed her ankle by the side of her brand-new tattoo, tasting the rose-scented soap she’d bathed in. He kissed her behind her knee, and he could feel the tremors run through her body. Fear or arousal? Or a heady combination of both? He kissed the inside of her thigh, the soft skin at her hip, and she was trembling in earnest now, her eyes tightly shut. Poor baby, she had no idea what was in store for her.

He kissed her other ankle, moving up her legs with slow, lingering kisses, and his hands cupped the full sweetness of her hips.

‘Open your legs for me, Lizzie,’ he whispered. She opened her eyes instead. ‘What?’ she demanded, shocked.

‘This doesn’t work with your legs together, sweetness. Hadn’t you figured that out yet?’

‘But…’

‘Open your legs for me,’ he said again, helping her, pushing them apart and moving between them, and she braced herself, expecting God knows what. He hadn’t even taken his pants off yet.

She really was the most adorable, pathetic creature right now. So frightened, so needy. So why was he shaking, too?

He pulled her toward him and put his mouth between her legs, because he needed to, and she let out a shriek loud enough to rouse the neighbors. Her hands left the bed to clutch his shoulders, pushing at him. ‘Don’t do that,’ she said, a thread of desperation in her voice.

He looked up at her. ‘Why? Is it sinful?’

‘You shouldn’t… I can’t… you wouldn’t…’

‘I like it,’ he said, touching her. She was slick and wet, even before he’d gone down on her, and she was wound up so tightly she might burst. He wanted her to burst. To split apart, into a thousand pieces, and then he could pull her back together again.

All it took was the touch of his tongue, and she began to spasm, her body contracting in helpless pleasure. He held her there, for long, endless moments, letting the waves of her release fall around him, and as each one began to subside he would bring it on again, with his fingers deep inside her, with his tongue, his lips, his teeth, until she was sobbing, rigid, gasping for breath, and then he took her further still, into a dark, hot place that even he seldom reached.

When he sat back on his heels, kneeling between her legs, she tried to curl up, in on herself, hiding her face, hiding her body, sobbing, and he knew if he let her she’d keep hiding. He pushed her back against the sheets, gently, covering her body with his and kissing her mouth. And another orgasm caught her body with weary pleasure.

He hadn’t even realized how fucking hard he was – he’d been concentrating so intently on her response that he hadn’t even realized he was about to explode. He’d barely started with her, hadn’t gotten to the sweet perfection of her small breasts, the smooth curve of her back, the softness of her butt. He wanted to touch everything, inside and out, he wanted to take her places he barely knew himself, and he shoved the loose white pants off, leaving him naked and so painfully aroused he didn’t know if he’d ever manage to get off.

‘No.’ The voice was no more than a plaintive whisper, and yet it was like a death knell. He could change her mind, all he had to do was touch her and she’d forget that she ever said no. But her hands came up to push at his chest, and he fell back, away, onto the bed beside her, barely able to catch his breath. If she really wanted revenge she couldn’t have picked a crueler one. He closed his eyes, trying to control the tension that drummed through his body. He didn’t know where he’d get the strength to move, to leave her, he only knew he had to, because she’d said no after all, and maybe he’d been wrong about the purple in her baby blue eyes, and maybe…

Her mouth touched his, her lips feathering across his with sweet, soft kisses, and he stared up into the lavender shadows of her eyes, confused and so damned needy he thought he might never walk again. She’d gotten to her knees, leaning over him, her scattered curls falling in her face as she kissed him, his mouth, his eye-lids, the pulse in his throat, moving down his chest with slow, delicious, torturous bites and licks and kisses, and he needed her to just touch him, just lightly, please, so he could die a happy man, as her tongue touched his navel, working downward, and he knew he was going to die and he was happy to do so.

Her hands were cool, soft, as she touched him, encircling him, holding him, and he wanted to teach her, tell her what to do, but her very helplessness made it even more powerful, and when she leaned down and put her unpracticed mouth on his cock he felt the power of it through every cell in his body.

And he knew he certainly wasn’t going to last long at that rate. He let himself absorb the sweetness of her mouth for a moment, then gently lifted her away, ignoring her sound of protest.

‘Later,’ he said, sliding her onto her back. ‘We have time for everything.’ And he pushed inside her, filling her tight, clamping sweetness with his cock, pushing in so deeply that she gasped, her breath catching as he filled her.

They both froze, staring into each other’s eyes. Lavender into violet, wizard into wizard, and it was so right he would have cried, if he was a man who cried.

She reached up and smoothed the moisture away from his eyes, her fingers shaking, and then she pulled him down to kiss him, and he lost the last tiny bit of control he’d been clinging to. He pulled her legs up, tight around his hips. He tried to move slowly, deliberately, but her fingernails were digging into his back, she was shivering and shattering in his arms, and he could feel her body clamp around his, and there was no holding back. He followed her down the dark slide into eternity, feeling it burst around them in a flame of colors. And there was nothing left at all.

Dee told herself she was on a mission from God. She couldn’t just sit in Salem’s Fork waiting for Xan to bring disaster down on them. She had to try and prevent it, and the only way she knew was to find her aunt before she had a chance to act. Xan was close, metaphysically. Dee could feel it. So she searched for her like Tommy Lee Jones tracking a fleeing felon. She refused to admit that she was using her search as a means of avoiding Danny.

He’d bought her Nutter Butter bars. He’d fed her onion rings. She hadn’t even been able to dredge up the courage to so much as kiss him thank-you. After all, how gracious would it be to respond to such kindness by sending the man into therapy for the rest of his adult life? Especially a man who’d just said that he loved her.

What if Xan was right? What if Dee actually had found her true love, only to have to give him away again? She’d never had to survive that kind of alone before.

So, she ran. The problem was, Danny James refused to be left behind.

‘Butterflies make me hot,’ he whispered as they stalked the halls of the General Lee Motel. Dee was trying to be surreptitious, but she knew she looked like a German shepherd sniffing out bombs. Come to think of it, if she weren’t so distracted, it might have been easier to shift into one. Nobody stared at a dog that sniffed the air.

‘From what you’ve told me today,’ Dee said, ‘breathing makes you hot.’

‘If you’re the one breathing.’

Dee flushed, unaccustomed to the flirting. Terrified to anticipate anything beyond his escort through motel halls.

There was no Xan here. Not that she should have been surprised. It was one of those brown-and-gold-paisley kinds of places with a pool smack in the middle so the chlorine clogged up your nose. But even chlorine couldn’t mask cinnamon and sulfur. At least not Xan’s mix. And there wasn’t a trace of it.

Dee had only caught her scent once, at the Peaceful Garden B and B down the road in Martinsville. The owner swore the only guest she’d had was a shy librarian sort who’d checked out that morning. Dee had nodded and moved on to the next place. She wasn’t going to give up until she’d checked out every hotel, motel, and rented room in a ten-mile radius.

Danny held open the General Lee’s front door. ‘Why don’t you just meet with her?’

‘I did.’

Danny frowned at her. ‘Then why are we chasing her around town?’ Dee struck the General Lee off the list she’d scrawled on the back of deposit slips and stepped out onto the cracked parking lot. ‘Because I can’t let her get another jump on me. Next time, she could really hurt us.’

‘She hurt you?’

‘Not enough to matter. Not like my parents. I was right. She killed them. So I’m not going to let her kill my sisters.’

‘She told you that?’

‘She did, actually. I shouldn’t have been surprised, I guess. She said it was their fault, of course.’

‘Can you tell me anything else?’

Dee considered him a moment, with his clear honest eyes and his untested power. ‘Not yet. I’m sorry’ Danny nodded. ‘Okay’ He steered her to the bike. Dee stopped. ‘That’s it? Okay?’

He shot her a bright smile that could make a girl forget her name. ‘Sure. Witch hunts make me hot.’

He bent far enough that his lips fluttered over the shell of her ear. ‘Especially when the hunter is a gorgeous redhead with a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder’

Dee damn near melted into a puddle on the spot. God, she wished he’d stop doing that. He was driving her insane. Already she felt as if she needed to borrow one of Mare’s bras. Hers suddenly seemed so tight. He handed her in and out of doors, on and off the bike, and always managed to find a bit of exposed skin to brush against. Wrist, throat, the gap between her jeans and T-shirt above her hip. She felt as if he’d stroked a live wire over her. And he kept riding her back and forth across those godforsaken cobblestones. How did he know?

‘I’d say I should dye my hair,’ she challenged, ‘but you’d tell me that brunettes make you hot.’

‘Do they have tattoos?’

She giggled. She couldn’t help it. He was keeping her in an agony of ambivalence. He tempted her so much, with his mad blue eyes and sly smiles. But he terrified her even more. She’d seen the horror in men’s eyes. She couldn’t bear to see it in his. For all the brave talk in her studio, all she wanted was to put off the inevitable as long as possible.

They stopped by a Dollar Dayz and got Dee a small spiral notebook to replace her deposit slips, a package of rubber bands for her hair, which Danny immediately snatched, and ten more Nutter Butter bars. Witch-hunter supplies. They also discovered that Xan had been in. Of course everybody in the place remembered the stunning visitor from the day before. Staying over to Bicksburg, they thought. Two of the men even pulled out phone numbers. Dee would have told them how hopeless a return call was, but Fred Norton had tried to bully Mare in high school. Mare had knocked two of his teeth out, of course. Dee figured Xan would make him grovel like a serf. She tucked her new notebook in her purse and headed for the door.

‘Can we have sex now?’ Danny asked, following. Dee patted him like a toddler. ‘After Bicksburg.’

‘You promise?’

‘Don’t you ever think of anything else?’ she demanded as they walked across the parking lot.

He never slowed. ‘No man ever thinks of anything else. Well, except rare moments when they’re trying to remember football statistics.’

She was smiling again. Damn him. He made her want him.

‘You don’t have to kill yourself, Dee,’ he said, touching her arm again. Always touching her. ‘You know she’ll find you.’

‘The best defense is a good offense.’

He grinned. ‘Football coaches-’

Dee laughed, pushed him again. ‘We can’t have sex.’

She should just get it over with. She should haul him into one of those cheesy pressboard-furniture-and-industrial-carpet rooms they’d been scouring, toss him on the bed, and break most of the cardinal rules of nature. He sure wouldn’t be whispering in her ear after that.

‘You’re not going to have sex with me until you find her, are you?’ he asked.

Dee stood by his bike, running her hand over the butter-soft leather. ‘I have responsibilities. Since you showed up, I’ve forgotten most of them. But that’s not going to keep Xan from coming after us. If we don’t stop her first, we’ll never be safe.’

‘Coward.’

She straightened to find that he wasn’t smiling anymore. The storm shadows collected in the hollows of his cheeks and made him look fierce.

‘I am not a coward.’

‘You’re hiding behind your sisters, behind the threat of your aunt. Behind the door of that little house of yours. You’re braver than that, Dee.’

‘I’m not hiding. I’m trying to live a normal life, just as I dreamed when I was a little girl. Hell, I even have a white picket fence.’

She knew she was trembling again. Her stomach was suddenly in turmoil. Right there in the middle of the Dollar Dayz parking lot, for God’s sake. Couldn’t he challenge her in private? Couldn’t he not challenge her at all?

‘You have a prison surrounded by a big garden.’

‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered, her voice suddenly hoarse. ‘You don’t know what Xan really is.’

‘I’m not talking about Xan.’

‘Then what?’

He bent over so he could face her eye to eye and took her face in his hands. ‘Not everyone hides her passion in the attic, Dee. Come out into the sunlight.’

‘As what?’ she asked, pulling away. ‘I can be a bulldog. Or maybe a seagull, except nobody really wants them around, no matter how cute they are.’

He ran a finger down her cheek, setting off sparks all the way down her arm.

‘As the woman who painted those paintings.’

He brought her to a stop. They’ll see me.

Danny frowned. ‘Who’ll see you?’ Dee started. ‘You’re doing it again.’

‘Then maybe I am psychic. Tell me, Dee. Who’ll see you?’

She drew in a deep breath, struggling to quell the hot rush of tears that crowded the back of her throat. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She watched the street.

The Dollar Dayz took up a corner of Main near the highway, a graceless stretch of fast food and strip malls. She’d painted it in shades of umber and gray. ‘Do you know what a nightmare it was to be Delightful Dee-Dee? To never have privacy? To have strangers think they had the right to you? Those paintings are…’ She picked at a loose button on her cardigan. ‘They’re me.’ She knew her voice was small. ‘I should have the right to say who I share them with.’

Gently Danny lifted her face. ‘You showed them to me.’

The button came off in her hand. ‘You don’t understand them, either’

‘I understand that they’re the product of an amazing, beautiful, talented woman who should be able to share her vision with the world. I understand that I want her to smile more and worry less. That I’ve been thinking about wandering the world with her just so I can watch her paint my favorite places, because I can’t even imagine how they’ll look through her eyes.’

How could something that sweet hurt so much?

Danny took her by the arms. ‘The rest doesn’t matter, Dee. I promise.’

Damn. The tears were swelling, searing her throat and forcing her to swallow. She nodded. ‘I promise you. It does.’

‘Then make love with me. As the woman who paints those paintings.’

For a minute Dee couldn’t manage a single syllable. She could barely see him through the tears she kept sniffing back. ‘You don’t believe in her. And I don’t think you’d like her’

‘I have the courage to try. And I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed. Do you?’

There was no air to breathe. Her heart hammered like an off-balance washing machine. Dee opened her mouth twice before she could answer. ‘Will you promise me something?’

‘My life, my wealth, my body.’

‘If you suddenly see somebody you recognize, just close your eyes?’

His laugh was sharp. ‘You do make life interesting, Dee.’

‘Promise.’

‘I promise. But I’m not inviting anybody to this party but you.’

His eyes were so sweet. So very dear and bright and clear. Dee sighed. ‘You may be surprised by who shows up.’

‘And you’ll make love to me without consideration of whether Xan is confronted or not. Or whether your sisters are having man troubles or Xan troubles or tattoo troubles. I assume they got them, too.’

Dee gaped. ‘How did you know?’

He grinned. ‘Because I know you’d never do that on your own. But you’d do anything for your sisters. Now, are you agreed?’

‘Where? When?’

‘Dee,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘We’re not scheduling a root canal. These things are better done spontaneously.’

‘Not in my house they aren’t. Lately, you just don’t know what’s going to happen there. Besides, I really, really don’t want any surprises. Well, more than are inevitable.’

Her heart picked up even more speed. She was damp all the way down her back. She shook like a terrier, and a fire burned in her chest that threatened to melt her.

Oh, God. She was going to try.

With Danny James. Her lover.

Well, there was no better way to spit in Xan’s face. If both of them survived, anyway.

‘The mountain,’ she blurted out.

Danny took a second to consider. ‘I like it. Dancing up with the witches. It’s just about Beltane, isn’t it? I know the moon’s almost full. Doesn’t sex play a big part in the celebration?’

‘How did you know?’

‘Researcher, remember? We’re all frustrated Jeopardy champs. I say we go right now. After all, my policy is to never put off something you want to do. Only the things you have to do.’

She giggled like a nervous virgin. ‘It’s only five. A bit of discretion from the local personal banker is always a good idea.’

‘On the other hand, if you shatter your reputation like cheap ceramic, it’ll give you the excuse to take up painting full-time.’

‘I don’t want to traumatize the girls.’

‘Are you kidding? The girls are going to throw a parade in my honor’

‘I beg your pardon.’

Reaching over, he pulled off her current rubber band and sent her hair flying. ‘You,’ he said, dangling the limp oval before her, ‘need to let your hair down more.’

She wanted to giggle again, but she was too breathless. He was smiling, but his eyes gleamed hot. His eyes took the stuffing out of her knees.

‘Also, when we’re traveling the world, being sybaritic and feckless, I absolutely forbid you to wear cardigans. Math teachers wear cardigans. You will wear silk and linen and the odd feather in your hair.’

‘On a researcher’s salary?’

He kissed her nose. ‘I’m going to live on your art. Clever, don’t you think?’

She nodded again. She was beyond fear. Somewhere between anticipation and terror, she thought. And before she’d even so much as shed her shirt.

He pulled her against him. ‘Kiss me to seal the deal?’

Dee took another anxious look around. ‘Right here?’

‘It’s part of proving how brave you are.’ He blew gently in her ear. And how feckless.’

Dee was glad he had a hold on her. Her knees failed again. Her nipples snapped to attention and showers of sparks washed down her neck. He was smiling down at her as if she were the last drink on a desert. She couldn’t have looked away if Xan had tapped her on the shoulder.

She managed to lift her face and smile back. It was all the invitation Danny needed. Dee thought she heard a sigh of relief from him as he bent to her.

Dee had been kissed before. Good kisses, bad kisses, kisses that curled her toes. In all the history of kisses, though, none was more perfect. His lips were so soft she wanted to lick them. His whiskers chafed her skin. His eyes, open so she couldn’t mistake him, darkened to midnight.

He didn’t just kiss her. He claimed her, his mouth ravenous, his hand curled behind her head, his other arm wrapped so tightly around her she had no room for escape. He branded her with his lips and his tongue and his breath, and Dee couldn’t bear the idea of stopping. She raised her arms and wrapped her hands around his neck, and oh, yes, his hair was just as silky as she’d hoped. And fun to winnow her fingers through. Just another color of sensuality; damson maybe, rich and deep and delicious.

For the kiss she’d use vermilion. Hot and sweet and impossible to turn from. Dee dined on that kiss. She let Danny plunder her lips and then returned the favor. She traced the tiny scar she hadn’t noticed at the edge of his mouth, and nibbled at his lower lip like a forbidden sweet. And his tongue. Oh, she couldn’t think of a thing that could give proper homage to his clever tongue. He sought out every part of her mouth, tracing ridge and hollow and the sweeping slope of her tongue. And then he returned to engage it in an unbearably erotic dance.

Dee lost track of time and place and propriety in that kiss. She felt him harden against her and envisioned them skin to skin. She didn’t ever want to stop. She wanted to wallow in the sudden glow of her own body. She was nothing but liquid and light, and only one thing could have brought her up short.

Her body warned her. It wasn’t insistent yet, but it was obvious. A hot ember that lodged right behind her breastbone and flared to life. It kept expanding until she thought it would consume her, a pulsing, living lucency that seemed to coalesce in her belly. Her very cells began to hum. She jerked back, pushing at his chest. ‘No…’

Danny was panting like a long distance runner. ‘Oh, yes.’ He was smiling, the rat.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said instinctively, giving him another little push.

He let her go without hesitation. ‘You’re not allowed to apologize. Official Feckless rules.’

She shook her head, trying to get her breathing and heart rate back under control. She wanted nothing more than to grab him by the ears and pull him back into that kiss. She wanted to go down on him like a hooker. She wanted. She sucked in a series of calming breaths, and inevitably the glow faded to safety. It made her want to cry again. She wanted to go up the mountain so badly.

Danny tucked a couple of curls behind her ear. ‘You want to go to Bicksburg now?’

She blinked, still trying to pull her senses together. ‘Just like that?’

‘Are you kidding? I’m going to spend every second we’re there fantasizing about what crimes we’re going to commit on that mountain tonight.’

He didn’t just fantasize. He aided and abetted. In Bicksburg he bought her a red feather boa. In Martinsville it was scented warm body oil. Citrus. An odd choice, Dee thought until Danny told her he liked his pleasures tangy and tart. Like her.

While Dee was checking out the Burns Bridge B and B, Danny was at the Sweet Tooth confectioner getting liqueur truffles. And next door to the Motor 8, he found a string of pop beads.

‘Okay, I wanted pearls,’ he told her as they sat in Miss Mamie’s Tea Parlor for dinner. ‘But we’ll have to settle for these.’

Dee pulled the beads apart and then reattached them with a lovely, well, popping noise. ‘You want me to wear a necklace of hot-pink pop beads when we make love?’

Danny’s grin was purely salacious. ‘Honey, they’re not going to be anywhere near your neck.’

Dee was sure she was a fluorescent shade of crimson. ‘Oh.’

But oddly enough, it was Xan who furnished the best accessory. After a long day of not even coming close to finding her, Dee gave up and asked Danny to run by the house. It was sundown, and the storm still threatened. The temperatures ahead of it had risen unnaturally, so that she’d even ditched her cardigan by about four. But it was almost dark now, and Dee had plans.

She was so hungry. So anxious. So damned ready. No matter what, she was going to walk up that mountain and see this through. She might have a spectacular flameout, but she might actually succeed. The only way she’d know for sure was by taking the chance.

So, Danny’s saddlebags loaded with everything from whiskey to a lovely suede French tickler, just in case one of them got spunky, he pulled up to the gate and shut off the motor. Dee swung off the bike and almost stumbled. Something hit her from behind. Something soft, like a wash of air from an open oven. She spun around, wondering what Danny had done now, but he was checking something on his front wheel.

Suddenly there was a rustle in the bushes, and Py let out the most incredibly soulful yowl Dee had ever heard. His call set up a veritable glee club from hell all up and down the block.

‘Pywackt?’ Dee called, shoving open the gate.

‘Seems to have quite a following,’ Danny said, looking up the street. ‘Must be all that Edith Piaf.’

It wasn’t just the cats, though. Dogs howled. Birds chattered and trilled. A veritable squadron of rabbits was suddenly doing maneuvers on the Ortballs’ yard, and the Coxes’ Chihuahua could be seen nuzzling the Nelsons’ Saint Bernard. Dee kept turning in circles, wondering at the sudden heat that was crawling down her spine, at the softening of the stormy air so that it seemed the sun shone anyway. Damn, her flowers were multiplying again, and it was almost dark out.

Her first thought was that Lizzie had had another experiment go wrong. She checked the chimney, but there wasn’t any new smoke. She couldn’t blame Mare. She certainly couldn’t blame herself. She didn’t do that kind of stuff.

‘Is that Frank Sinatra?’ Danny asked.

Dee cocked an ear to hear the vague tunes above the caterwauling. And Michael Bolton and Andrea Bocelli and Liza Minnelli. And, wait for it… yes. Barry White. Every neighbor on the block must be getting in the mood.’

And the Foleys next door were well into their eighties. But that was definitely their silhouette in their front window.

‘I’m impressed,’ Danny marveled.

‘Me, too. Mr Foley’s been in a wheelchair for a month.’

Her own senses were heightened. She could hear Danny breathing as if he were whispering in her ear again. She could smell that wonderful soap and man musk on him, and his power signature had strengthened. Not just an approaching storm, but one about to break. She could see the pale glow of his eyes, and couldn’t bear to turn away.

She was suddenly aching and hot and hungry. She took a look at the oak tree next door and thought how delicious it would be to scrape her back against that bark as Danny took her against it, driving hard into her until her skin was raw and everybody on the block heard her screaming.

‘Dee,’ Danny said from right behind her. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

He wrapped those wonderful long-fingered hands around her breasts. Dee sucked in a desperate breath. ‘Probably not,’ she had to admit. Then she closed her eyes and savored every stroke of his fingers.

‘I’m thinking I might not make the mountain. What are you thinking?’

She sighed. ‘That Aunt Xan’s sent out a libido spell.’

Well, there went his hands. ‘Now, Dee. Everything isn’t from your Aunt Xan.’

‘No, but I can guarantee this is. The Foleys haven’t spoken to each other since he had an affair with her sister fifteen years ago. Besides, they both loathe Sinatra. They listen to polka music’

Danny looked over to where the silhouette was gyrating to ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight.’ And you really believe it’s a… libido spell.’

Py set up another grating racket, making Dee wince. ‘Yeah. When we were younger, we tried a libido spell for me. We hoped it would improve my results. It didn’t. But I know the feeling. Only Aunt Xan’s is much stronger. Either that or it’s just exacerbating the fact that I’m already horny enough to howl.’

‘Uh-huh. Well, what do you plan to do about it?’

Dee laughed so hard three of the rabbits stopped and turned to look. ‘Are you kidding? Say thank you and head up the mountain.’

Mare had walked back to Value Video!! in time to see William moping in the storeroom. ‘Go eat something,’ she said and sent him to the diner, in no mood for any more depression. Then she’d taken her Styrofoam out to the counter and found Jude talking sternly to Dreama, who looked rebellious.

‘Ciao, Mare!’ Jude said.

‘Now what?’ Mare said to Dreama.

‘I caught Dreama making a personal phone call,’ Jude said stiffly.

‘I called Algy,’ Dreama said.

‘That wasn’t a personal phone call,’ Mare said to Jude. ‘Stop being such a damn bean counter.’ She looked at Dreama. ‘Is Algy coming back tonight?’

‘No,’ Dreama said miserably. ‘He wouldn’t even talk to me.’

‘Well, you did your best.’

‘You could have gotten Algy back,’ Dreama said even more miserably.

‘The hell I could have,’ Mare said. ‘I’m a complete failure.’ And Dreama scowled at her.

‘Now about New York,’ Jude said, trying for businesslike and just sounding fussy. ‘I can guarantee you a vice presidency in public relations, but you’ll have to promise to give up anything out of the ordinary-’

‘No. Also, I sent William on a lunch break. He needed hot protein.’ Mare put her Coke down on the counter.

‘No food at the front of the store,’ Jude said automatically.

‘Don’t make me hurt you,’ Mare said. ‘I want to talk to you. In private.’

Jude blinked and said, ‘I really don’t have the time right now, perhaps later,’ and made tracks for the back of the store, and when Mare followed him, he was gone.

‘Little weasel,’ Mare said when she came back to the front.

‘I don’t like him,’ Dreama said. ‘Hold that thought,’ Mare said.

Jude stayed MIA, but William came back very late in a slightly better mood after Pauline fed him, the afternoon went by without incident, and then the six-thirty showing of Corpse Bride went off without a hitch except for Mare’s almost uncontrollable urge to weep when Emily turned into moths at the end. That’s me, she thought, I’ll end up a bunch of blue moths, unloved in this creepy little town. She was so bummed by the thought, that she almost missed the weirdness that started around eight o’clock, just as the sun was going down.

First William didn’t come back from his dinner break, although the fact that he’d taken not only a lunch break but a dinner break, too, was noteworthy in itself Jude came back and called the Greasy Fork to track him down, incensed that Value Video!! was missing fifteen minutes of quality morose manager time, and they told him that not only was William not there, but Pauline had gone AWOL, too. ‘He didn’t kidnap her and take her hostage, did he?’ Dreama asked, and Mare said, ‘For what? Extra ketchup on his fries?’ Then Algy called and asked to talk to Dreama, and when she hung up, she was pink-cheeked.

Mare said, ‘So?’

‘He’s coming to the nine-thirty show,’ Dreama said, blushing brighter.

‘That’s good,’ Mare said, starting to smile in spite of herself because Dreama looked so flustered. And why is that?’

‘He said he’d come if I’d sit with him,’ Dreama said. And I’m, like, off work then, so I can. He was really cute about it. Forceful, even.’

‘This is excellent,’ Mare said. ‘I think – Hey, you!’

Across the store, the boy who’d put his hand down his girlfriend’s blouse straightened up.

‘What were you thinking?’ Mare said. ‘The sun isn’t even down yet,’ and he sank back into his chair.

That was when she noticed everybody was sitting closer than usual.

‘You know, Algy is really cute,’ Dreama said, fluffing up her hair a little. ‘I told him to come early so we could like, talk.’

‘You did,’ Mare said, looking around.

Over on the love seat, Katie stuck her tongue in Brandon’s ear. Brandon almost passed out.

Jude caught her eye from the back of the store and motioned to her.

‘Stay here,’ she told Dreama. ‘Watch everybody. There’s something weird going on.’

‘Well, fix it,’ Dreama said.

Mare sighed. ‘I told you, I’m not-’

‘Yeah, but that’s crap,’ Dreama said. ‘I’ve been working with you for two years. I know what you do. I watch you talk to the people who come in here. I watch you walk down the street. People stare at you, but it’s not because of the weird stuff you wear, it’s because you know stuff, because you’re not afraid to say things, because you make a difference, you make things happen.’ She stepped closer. ‘You can catch DVDs, no hands. Pencils don’t fall on the floor when you’re around. I was right behind you when you found William, and we were clear across the storeroom, but you lifted him off that rope before we were even close. You saved him before we were close. You really are the Queen of the Universe. So I know you’re having a bad day, but snap out of it. Because we need you. Queens of the Universe do not get days off, so just suck it up and get back to work.’

Mare blinked at her, and Dreama stuck her chin in the air and went back to the counter.

Mare thought, Well, hot damn, Dreama, and then Jude called, ‘Mare, I’m ready to have that talk now,’ and she went to the back of the store and followed him into the storeroom, still stunned by Dreama and the backbone she’d grown while nobody was watching.

‘So, Mare,’ he said, when he’d closed the door.

‘So, Jude,’ Mare said. ‘I know Xan’s up to something because she damn near killed me this afternoon, and I know you’re part of it, so tell me everything right now and you’ll get to keep all your working parts.’

‘You were right, I do know your aunt,’ Jude said. ‘She told me all about you, she showed me your picture, she told me you worked in one of our stores, and Mare, I fell in love right there.’

Mare rolled her eyes. ‘No you didn’t. You’re the wrong guy. She probably put a spell on you or something. Now what’s her plan? We know the whole taking-the-powers bit, but exactly how is she-’

‘No, Mare,’ Jude said fervently. ‘You put a spell on me, I loved you from the moment I saw your picture, and I wanted you-’

He lunged for her, grabbing her arms, and she said, ‘Hey, watch my veil!’ and tripped backward into the shell behind her, knocking over the plastic bottles of orange popcorn oil, bouncing them onto the concrete floor and breaking one as Jude tried to slide his arms around her, aiming for her lips and kissing her cheek instead, his tongue flicking out at her ear.

‘God, no, stop it.’ Mare pushed him away, trying to keep her veil from ripping, but he grabbed again and got her breast this time, squeezing it as if he’d never felt one before, and she smacked at him with the flat of her hand, catching him on the nose so that he jerked back. Then she kneed him in the stomach and he slipped in the oil, and she lifted the broken oil bottle with her mind, and dumped the rest of the oil over him so that he slipped again and again on the floor. She looked around for something else and levitated the ripped beanbag chair, letting the pellets fall out to hover in the air in a blanket above him and then dropped them on him all at once so that he was covered in them while she smoothed out her blue tulle skirt.

She didn’t mind kicking a guy around, but she drew the line at screwing up her Corpse Bride dress.

‘For the last time,’ she said, shoving her veil back into place so she could see him better. ‘You’re an evil minion. You do not get the girl, you do not get laid, you do not get anything but humiliated.’ She shook her head at him, splayed on the concrete floor, covered in orange goo and white pellets. ‘Why anybody ever applies for the evil minion job is beyond me. Didn’t you see this coming?’

‘I’m a vice president,’ he said from the floor, outraged.

‘You’re a minion,’ she snapped. ‘You might as well have a target painted on your forehead. Now what the hell is my aunt doing? And while we’re at it, what the hell is going on out there?’

‘Out where?’ he said, looking legitimately confused as he kept a wary eye on the empty vinyl beanbag still hovering above him.

‘Out there in the store? All the PDA?’

‘PDA?’

‘Public Display of Affection,’ Mare said, exasperated. ‘Don’t tell me that’s not a spell. What’s Xan doing? Or is that your idea of foreplay?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jude said, still watching the vinyl bag overhead.

‘Oh, great,’ Mare said, ‘a clueless evil minion,’ and dropped the bag on him.

She detoured around the popcorn oil slick and locked him in the storeroom and then went back to Dreama. ‘How’s it going?’

Dreama looked perplexed. ‘I never thought Corpse Bride was a very hot movie, did you?’

‘No.’

‘Well, a lot of people are necking to it.’

Mare cast an eye over the escalating PDA in her audience. ‘Wait here.’ She walked around the counter and out the door into the street. People were walking hand in hand, stopping to kiss in the twilight. In darkened doorways, they were doing more. In bouncing parked cars, a lot more. Dogs howled. Cats yowled. The birds in the trees twittered with more enthusiasm than usual.

A passerby said, ‘Hey baby,’ and tried to kiss her, grabbing her butt in the process, and she gave him a bloody nose.

He staggered on down the street and she got out her cell phone and called Dee. ‘Hello?’ Dee said breathlessly.

‘Dee, it’s Mare. I think Xan’s doing something. Jude just attacked me in the Value Video!! storeroom, and now everywhere I look, there’s sex.’

‘It’s a libido spell,’ Dee said.

Mare looked at the phone, stunned. ‘A libido spell?’

‘She’s made the whole town hot to get us into bed with the guys she sent.’

‘Oh.’ Mare thought about it. ‘What’s that going to get her?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dee said. ‘Make us fall in love faster? She really wants us with these guys. Are you okay?’

A guy stopped and opened his mouth to say something, and Mare looked him straight in the eye. He moved on.

‘Yep.’

‘Good. I have to go.’

Mare frowned at the phone. ‘Go where?’

‘Up on the mountain with the guy she wants me with. This is a good libido spell. No point in wasting it.’

‘Danny’s back? That’s gr – No, wait. This is Xan’s plan. You tell that man good-bye and get your butt back home. What are you thinking?’

‘I’m thinking it’s about time I had sex on a mountain.’

Mare started to yell and then reconsidered. ‘Oh. Good point. Be careful.’

‘Not this time,’ Dee said and hung up.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Mare said, and went back inside.

Algy was behind the counter with Dreama.

‘Good to see you, Algy,’ Mare said. ‘Take any liberties with Dreama, and I’ll rip your heart out and feed it to my cat.’

‘Mare,’ Dreama said.

‘I’m Queen of the Universe. I can do that.’ Mare dialed her cell phone again and waited until Crash picked up. ‘I was wrong. I apologize.’

‘I accept,’ Crash said. ‘What took you so long?’

‘I’ve been mostly dead all day.’

‘Princess Bride,’ Crash said. ‘Your roof at eleven?’

‘Yes,’ Mare said. ‘Do not talk to another woman until then.’

‘Why would I?’ Crash said and hung up.

Dreama was smiling at her. ‘Feeling better?’

‘Jude’s locked in the storeroom covered in popcorn oil and beanbag peanuts.’ Mare straightened her veil and put her sunglasses back on. ‘Take Algy with you when you let him out, just in case he has Ideas.’

‘Oh, my,’ Dreama said, impressed.

‘Yep.’ Mare swished her blue tulle skirt which looked fabulous. ‘I’m back. And I owe you, baby. Have another box of Junior Mints. Take two. Knock yourself out on the Jujubes, too. In fact, take anything you want.’

‘Cool,’ Algy said.

‘Respect this woman,’ Mare said to Algy as she headed out to the floor to break up the worst of the PDA. ‘She’s gonna be Queen of the Universe someday.’

‘I’m glorious,’ Dreama said and handed Algy his Junior Mints.

Lizzie lay on the bed, purple smoke floating in the air above her, the purple silk sheets smooth and sensual beneath her body. She could smell roses – she hadn’t realized the ones in the dining room were so strong. And then she realized the scent was coming from the bed. She opened her eyes, to see her body covered with lavender rose petals. Elric lay on his stomach beside her, a few stray petals in his tangled blond hair. He looked exhausted, and she couldn’t blame him. All she wanted to do was curl up next to him and sleep in his arms – the emotions swamping her body were too new, too strange. It was as if a protective covering had been washed away, and the new Lizzie, the one lying naked and exhausted and replete beside her wizard lover, was a stranger.

And yet she wasn’t. This Lizzie had always been inside her, hiding from the arguments, trying to keep her magic from getting noticed, doing her best to fix things. Right now she didn’t have to fix a thing, didn’t have to listen to anybody. All she had to do was slide up against Elric’s strong, beautiful body and try to ignore the sudden resurgence of desire that was sweeping through her. For heaven’s sake, they’d done it three times in a row, and each time had been more powerful. There was no way she could want more.

But she did. She rolled onto the scattered rose petals, and the fragrance drifted up as she snuggled against him, trying to quiet the sudden stirrings. He opened his eyes to look at her, and the deep iris hue was glowing. He plucked a rose petal from her shoulder.

‘I should have known,’ he said, resigned. He picked up a handful of the feather-soft petals and let them drift down over her body. ‘It only needed flowers to seal the deal. There’s no escape now.’ He shook his head, and a loose petal landed on his elegant nose. ‘We may as well accept our fate.’

‘Oh, I’ve accepted it,’ she said. I’m just…’ Words failed her.

‘You ready for more?’ he asked lazily.

She should have been embarrassed. Except that he rolled onto his back and he was clearly as interested as she was. ‘This is crazy,’ she whispered, sliding up beside him.

‘No it’s not. It’s Xantippe.’

‘What?’ Lizzie jumped back from him in horror, almost falling off the bed.

He sat up. ‘Not that I want to keep my hands from you, my love, but normally even I would like a rest at about this point. Your aunt must have cast some kind of libido spell.’

Lizzie grabbed the sheet from the foot of the bed, wrapping it around her as she climbed off the bed, and the flower petals scattered everywhere. ‘You mean the only reason I had sex with you was because Aunt Xan made me do it?’ There was no way she could hide her horror.

His expression was so tender that she wanted to cry. ‘Haven’t you been paying attention? Up until about fifteen minutes ago it was just us. The rose petals prove it – if Xantippe’s spell had been working they never would have appeared, trust me. This spell is brand-new. Your aunt’s been trying to disturb things, and she’d use just about every trick in the book. You don’t need to worry about it – the spell doesn’t work unless the partners are more than willing. God knows she’s tried it on me for decades and I have yet to succumb.’

She stared at him, unmoving. ‘Decades? You and Xan? Ew.’

‘Not me and Xan. I’ve never been interested. She likes men – surely you know that much. She likes men with power even more. The problem is, I see her a lot more clearly than she likes. I wouldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.’

She glanced down at him. ‘That might be a bit of an exaggeration,’ she murmured, and then clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified, and the satin sheet began to slip.

‘That’s the spell, you saucy creature. It relaxes inhibitions, and puts one’s libido into overdrive. But don’t worry – we can ignore it.’

‘We can?’

‘Of course. Singly we’re more than a match for Xantippe’s waning power. Together she doesn’t stand a chance. Though I think I like the idea of you being just the slightest bit raunchy.’

‘Let me build up to it,’ she said faintly. ‘So what do we do?’

‘Talk?’ he said, and laughed when he saw the expression on her face. ‘We can talk about how powerful you’ve become.’

‘I know,’ she said, curling closer to him. ‘Isn’t it amazing?’

She smiled to herself. ‘Maybe it’s because you’re such a good teacher.’

He shook his head. ‘It was you, Lizzie. You had that power all the time. I don’t know why you weren’t using it.’

‘We had to be so careful,’ she said, relaxing into the sheet as it slipped farther down. ‘Always looking over our shoulders, making sure that nobody thought there was anything wrong with us, never calling attention to ourselves.’ She pushed her hair out of her face as she looked at him. ‘No smoldering purple smoke coming out the windows, no green fog seeping out the doorway, no blue sparks shooting out the chimney. We just sat on ourselves all the time. I practically buried myself in that workroom.’

‘Buried yourself?’ Elric said, grinning. ‘How tragic.’

‘We were good little girls,’ Lizzie said primly, letting the sheet slip a little more. And I was the best. And then you showed up.’

‘The big bad wolf

‘The big bad sorcerer,’ Lizzie said. And now I feel… unleashed!’ She threw her arms open and the sheet dropped to her waist and Elric laughed and reached for her and she grabbed for the sheet again as he pulled her to him.

‘Xan’s spell must have made me do that,’ she whispered, and he kissed her.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I’m hungry,’ she said.

And he let her go and said, ‘Then eat something.’ He saw the expression on her face, and laughed. ‘Not that, Lizzie! We’ll find something for dinner, and I’ll tell you about Spain, and just to prove how weak Xantippe is, I won’t even touch you.’

‘Okay,’ she said, not necessarily pleased at the notion. ‘I’ll just take a shower. Alone,’ she added, catching his eye. ‘If we’re going to circumvent Xan we need to avoid temptation. How long do these things usually last?’

‘It should be gone by dawn.’

‘We have to wait that long?’ Lizzie wailed.

‘We don’t have to do anything…’

‘Never mind. I’ll take a shower and then cook us dinner’

‘So will I,’ Elric said. A cold one. And I’m going to cook for you. Oysters. And strawberries, and champagne…’

‘Saltpeter,’ she said firmly, clutching the sheet more tightly around her. If she jumped his bones, as she wanted to so desperately, then Xan would win. And she couldn’t let that happen.

Her own shower didn’t do much good. The feel of the hot water beating down against her skin was an erotic stimulus, and she couldn’t wipe lascivious thoughts from her brain. She hadn’t had a chance to really use her mouth on him, and she was getting obsessed with the idea, fantasizing about it, her hands soaping between her legs-

‘No!’ she said out loud, turning the water to icy cold. But even that was arousing, and she turned off the water with a curse, wrapping herself in a towel, rubbing her skin briskly, then more slowly, languorously…

‘Goddammit,’ she muttered. She was standing stark naked in the middle of the bathroom, wearing nothing but red patent hooker stiletto heels, and she yanked on her clothes with shaking hands. The fresh tattoo on her ankle glowed with an almost malevolent sensuality, and she shoved open the door with a little moan.

She headed down the stairs, careful in her hooker shoes, to find Elric in the kitchen, shirtless, a helpless expression on his face. ‘I can cook,’ he said. ‘I promise you, I could cook you an absolute feast out of nothing. But right now…’

‘Right now we’ve got better things to do,’ she said. ‘You have any problems giving in to Xan’s spell?’

‘I thought you’d never ask.’ And he picked her up, tossed her over his bare shoulder, and headed back into the bedroom.

The moon shone after all. It wasn’t perfectly full. Beltane wouldn’t officially start for a few more hours. If anybody felt compelled to light bonfires, they’d have to do it the next night. Which was just fine. Dee had an idea she was going to create enough of a conflagration as it was.

They approached the stone circle at dusk. Danny brought the whiskey and truffles. Dee brought the feather boa and pop beads. She even wore what she considered to be her ritual garments. She’d ridden up the hill covered in her long raincoat, her hair caught in a pony tail to keep it out of the way. She carried two blankets and a couple of green pillows she’d pulled from her studio.

When they reached the stone circle, though, she revealed her true colors. Laying her burdens across the grass at the foot of the Great Big Rock, she set her boa and beads alongside. Danny pulled whiskey glasses from his jacket pockets and set them up alongside the bottle of Midleton he’d managed to unearth in town. He was just turning when Dee slid out of her coat.

‘Holy Mother of God,’ he breathed in awe.

For the first time in her life, Dee O’Brien appeared outside her house wearing nothing but the long white silk slip dress she wore to paint. She pulled the band from her hair and shook it out so that it caught the breeze and whispered into lazy motion, her Irish witch’s banner flowing well past her shoulders. She slid off her sandals and stood on the sacred ground in bare feet.

‘I decided not to hide in the attic,’ she said, and hated the fact that her voice sounded uncertain.

For the first time since she’d known him, Danny James was struck dumb. He just stared, hands out, breathing hard, face frozen in a stunned kind of yearning.

‘What?’ she asked, his amazement bolstering her. ‘You don’t think the virgin-on-the-way-to-a-sacrifice look is good for me?’

‘I think it’s about to make my eyes melt.’ He unfroze, walking up to her and lifting a trembling hand to her hair. ‘My sweet God, Dee. You’re an earth goddess.’

She smiled. ‘That’s actually what I was hoping for. Something in the Persephone line. Innocent but brazen.’

‘I couldn’t have said it better,’ He kept fingering her curls. ‘Great dress, by the way. Do you wear it for any other guys?’

‘I wear it to paint.’

He nodded, still looking stunned. ‘I bet you do. It goes great with your butterfly.’

Dee felt the fizz of his arousal along every nerve ending. ‘An added bonus, just for you.’

He nodded. Swallowed. ‘Um, would you like a drink? I sure think I’m gonna need one.’

Dee wanted to laugh. She’d never felt so strong before, for once in her relationship life not the supplicant. He needed a drink. And not because he was disgusted. Okay, that might come later, but for now she was damn well going to enjoy the feverish light in his eyes.

‘I’m not used to drinking,’ she said. ‘It makes me a little nuts.’

Danny held out a hand, as if calling her to dance. ‘Oh, but this night demands a little nuts, don’t you think? And I promise. You’re going to like this.’

‘As much as the pop beads?’

Good heavens. His eyes simply went black. ‘Oh, no. But it’s a close second to the feather boa.’

Dee grinned and laid her hand in his. As tenderly as if he were escorting her to a cotillion, he guided her over to where the blankets were spread and helped her down to sit with her back against the Great Big Rock. She faced the edge of the cliff, which gave her a lovely view of the sleeping fields and the deepening twilight sky overhead. Peacock and carmine and a slash of gold where the lowered sun licked the top of low clouds.

And there, the evening star. Let us be safe. And let me not disappoint this good man.

Sliding out of his jacket, Danny laid it on the slab of granite and took the glasses in hand. With those in one hand and the bottle in the other, he slid down to nestle right next to Dee on the thick plaid blanket. ‘Now, this is some of the finest whiskey the Irish make. And the Irish make great whiskey.’ He poured two fingers each and handed Dee her glass.

‘Have you been to Ireland?’ she asked, measuring the light that glinted off the amber liquid.

‘Often.’ He carefully set the bottle over his head on the rock. ‘You think the fields are green here in the spring. In Ireland they’re so intense they make your eyes ache.’

‘And Paris. You said you’ve been to Paris. Have you walked Montmartre?’

Danny laced the fingers of his free hand with hers. ‘It’s a flea market of a place with narrow, steep streets and quaint cafes and one of the most beautiful churches on earth. Would you let me take you there?’

Dee held on tightly to him, both with her hand and her eyes. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d love more.’

‘But we’ll see?’

She opened her mouth. Shut it. Shook her head. ‘This isn’t a test, Danny,’ she said. ‘It’s not pass fail. I want to make love to you because I love you. But it could well prove that we’re not able to go any farther.’

‘You mean me.’

‘I know who I am. You don’t.’

‘I told you. I know enough. Did I tell you I love you?’

Her smile was wistful. ‘You did.’

‘And you’ll let me show you?’

‘As long as I get to show you back.’

He leaned down, so that he blocked the last light of afternoon and the breeze, so that he brought the stillness of night with him, and he kissed her. Hot and wet and openmouthed, but with unspeakable gentleness. Heat swept through Dee. Longing such as she’d never known. Terror.

She denied the terror its root, and leaned into the kiss with every ounce of passion she’d stored up for twenty-six years.

This time it was Danny who pulled back, panting. ‘You haven’t had your drink yet.’

Dee ran her tongue over her lips to capture the rest of his taste. ‘You want to take the time?’

He scowled at her, flicking the end of her nose with his finger. ‘This is a seduction,’ he informed her archly. ‘Not a blitzkrieg. Proprieties will be observed at all times.’

‘Oh, good God,’ she said with a scowl. ‘Another movie quote. Are you sure you shouldn’t be dating Mare?’

He laughed. ‘Another reason to love you. You recognize The Quiet Man. A classic in film.’

‘You aren’t a John Wayne fan, are you?’

‘John Wayne is God. It’s tattooed on my left buttock. Wanna see?’

‘It is not. I already have.’

He looked astonished. ‘You’ve been peeking?’

Dee lifted her glass and grinned at him over its rim. ‘Twee. Twee.’

Danny spun around on her. ‘Good God. It wasn’t stuffed.’

‘Not the owl. And yes,’ she said. ‘She did like you. Especially that star birthmark on the inside of your right thigh.’

‘Wanna see it again?’

She grinned, giddy. ‘Birthmarks make me hot.’

He drew a finger down the hollow of her throat. ‘That can be arranged.’

Dee took another sip of the whiskey. Danny was right. It was smoky and smooth and the perfect accompaniment for a tryst in the middle of a stone circle. It settled into her stomach and sent tendrils of warmth spreading through her. Good. A few more of these and she might relax enough to avoid disaster.

Danny finished his drink in a gulp and set both glasses aside. Dee damn near gulped herself.

‘There is one thing you should probably know,’ she said. ‘You shift. I heard.’

He reached both hands out to her. Dee shied back. ‘Uh, no. This is something else. A direct result, if you will, of the shifting.’

Danny lowered his arms. ‘I’m doing the best I can here, Dee. But my patience is not what it usually is tonight.’

‘The libido spell,’ she said with a nod. ‘I know. It’s affecting me, too. Do you know you smell like the sea and the air right before a storm?’

‘I hope you like those things.’

‘Hugely. I’m a virgin.’

She’d done it again. What had happened to her tact? She squeezed her eyes closed in humiliation, knowing damn well Danny would be appalled.

‘It hasn’t just been a long time,’ she babbled. ‘It’s been never. Not because I didn’t try. I did. But… so far there isn’t a guy who’s lasted past the point where I shift. At least one wasn’t heard to speak again for four solid months.’

‘Never?’ he asked, his voice oddly small. ‘Not even in college?’

‘By then I’d given up. Besides, I was too busy. Mare was going through puberty, and it was spectacular’ She shrugged and rested her head against his chest. ‘I hope you’re not allergic to dust bunnies. I really want to do this.’

She surprised a laugh out of him, which got her eyes open fast. ‘I’m sure it amuses you. It’s not quite so fun from here.’

He wouldn’t let her pull away this time. Reaching out, he slid his hands into her hair and pulled her toward him. ‘I promise,’ he said, his face no more than inches from hers so she couldn’t miss his sincerity, ‘you will not leave this mountain a virgin. I think you can trust me to make it past the dust bunnies and lost socks. And I further promise you’re going to enjoy it.’

Dee couldn’t help smiling. ‘Did I tell you I love you?’

Danny smiled back, and it was incandescent. ‘You did.’

And then he kissed her. His hands still tangled in her hair, his body warm and strong, his breath a whisper of enticement.

‘Did I tell you I’ve been to Peru?’ he said against her mouth.

She did her own kissing. She could survive on nothing but his mouth. She explored, savoring every curve, every secret recess that carried the taste of him. She nibbled and licked and teased her tongue against the nascent whiskers that lined the edge of his lip. She dipped her tongue into a dimple and traced his lips with her own. Then she closed her eyes and traced them all with her fingers.

‘I’d love to go to Peru,’ she said, stroking her thumb over his upper lip, sliding it up to measure the slight crook in the bridge of his nose.

Danny took her hand in his own and kissed it. Then he took his turn, kissing her forehead, her cheeks, her chin. He kissed her eyes closed and then paid tribute to the shells of her ears.

Dee gasped, shuddering with the startling pleasure of having someone lave her ear with his tongue. Who knew? No one else had ever taken the time. Then he sipped lower, along her pulse point, which she knew was erratic and bounding. She felt as if she had a hummingbird trapped in her chest, her heart beat so fast. She was sure that was why she couldn’t catch her breath. Not the fact that when she finally got the chance to give in to temptation and explore the lovely contours of his chest with her hands, she met rock-hard muscles and the surprise spring of hair. Oh, and she knew the Line that lovely mahogany hair followed. She wanted to trace it down. She wanted to yank his shirt off and discover the texture of his skin with her hands and lips and tongue.

‘Would you like to go to Giverny?’ he asked, sliding her straps off her shoulders. ‘I could take you to Giverny.’

Dee arched a bit to give him better access. It seemed as if her breasts anticipated him, already tingling and taut and heavy. Please, she thought in desperation. Take them in your hands. Take them in your mouth and suckle so hard I feel it in my toes.

He must have heard her again. He set his mouth to her and feasted.

‘I’d love to… oh… ah, go to Giverny. What about… oh, yes… Tahiti? If I’m following great painters I should… go…’

Her gown was at her waist, and his mouth was on her breast. She couldn’t keep her eyes open or her hands still. She measured his back, his strong, lean back, and traced those lovely biceps. She fought that ember when it sparked. But then Danny nipped at her breasts with his teeth, and she forgot control.

‘Tahiti,’ he said, taking her breast into his hand, ‘would be lovely. As long as you dress like a native. I want to be able to see these magnificent breasts every day.’

He licked her throat, inciting fierce chills.

‘My breasts are too small.’

‘Shut up. Your breasts are perfect.’

And to prove it, he devoured them all over again. Dee didn’t mind losing that argument. She was melting, the wicked witch in water. Sliding down to lie on the blanket with Danny following her as he traced her arms, her hips, her legs with his wonderfully callused hands. As he slid the dress completely off.

‘Not fair,’ she gasped, arching with the pressure of his palm against her belly. ‘You’re the only one in clothes here.’

‘Easily remedied.’

Immediately remedied. She’d thought he’d looked impressive before. It was nothing to Danny James rampant.

‘Dear Mother of God,’ Dee breathed, unconsciously mimicking his earlier words. ‘Do you think you’re appropriate for a virgin? I mean, shouldn’t I start out on something smaller and work my way up?’

Danny burst out laughing. ‘You do know how to make a man happy.’ He lay down next to her, nestling skin to skin, just as she’d dreamed. ‘Now, relax. It’s a man’s work I have before me this day.’

She groaned. Another John Wayne… oooooohhhhhh…

He kissed her, slowly and sweetly and absolutely sinfully. He fitted himself against her, shoulders to toes, so she couldn’t be confused about how happy he was to be there. He let his hand drift from breast to belly to mons.

‘Open for me, Dee. Let me give you as much pleasure as you give me.’

Dee wasn’t sure her legs worked properly, but she did her best to oblige. And gasped again when she felt his hand on her inner thigh. When he slipped his fingers into her.

‘God,’ he moaned. ‘You’re so beautiful. You’re so wet for me. Feel it?’

Feel it? She was writhing with it, stunned with the sudden shaft of pure, sweet pleasure his fingers unleashed. It consumed her, sweeping away every other thought or action. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe, and he was still tormenting her with the most cunning fingers ever attached to a hand. He slid a finger inside, then two. Pleasure speared through her, igniting unquenchable holocausts, freezing and burning her at once, confusing her body, her power, so she didn’t know how to gauge her danger. So she couldn’t care.

But oh, his hands. His mouth. His sweet, hot breath fanning across breasts dampened by his tongue. His words, raw words of need and want, promising, pleading, propelling her to new agonies.

‘Danny… please…’

She was scrabbling at him, sobbing and cursing, fighting the inevitable explosion. It was coming, and he wouldn’t allow her to rest, to hide from it. She was going to change.

God, her body had to be glowing with the building power. She had to be too close to stop it.

‘Close your eyes…’ she begged. ‘Oh, close your… ooooooh… my… God…!’

Cataclysms, catastrophes, colors that simply didn’t exist in the universe spun within her, gathering, intensifying until she couldn’t stop moving, until she couldn’t stop begging, until, suddenly, she disintegrated into shards of light and color and sound, gasping and weeping and bucking hard against Danny’s touch, convulsing into the night sky like fireworks on the Fourth of July.

She was panting like a long distance runner, and she knew tears ran down her cheeks. ‘Never,’ she admitted, ‘this has never…’

‘Well, it will again,’ he promised, still stroking her. ‘And there’s even better.’

‘There can’t be. I’d never survive it.’ She opened her eyes and almost came right off the blanket. ‘Oh, no! I told you to close your eyes.’

Danny easily held her to him. ‘Why should I, and miss the most beautiful sight ever?’ His smile was so bright, so wicked. ‘You in the throes of orgasm.’

He was acting as if nothing had happened that wasn’t natural.

Dee frowned, still struggling with the aftershocks that shuddered along her limbs. ‘But I’ve shifted.’

‘Shifted? Into what?’

Dee caught her breath. The idea was inconceivable. ‘Who do I look like?’

Danny brushed her hair away from her damp forehead. ‘Persephone.’

Suddenly she was sobbing, and she couldn’t stop. ‘I’m me?’ she demanded. ‘I’m really me?’

He looked so confused, so concerned. He kept stroking her, soothing her sobs. ‘There’s nobody else I’d be making love to.’

‘Oh, Danny.’ She laughed and cried at once. ‘Make love to me.’ She took his face in her hands. ‘Banish the dust bunnies. Please.’

‘With pleasure.’

He kissed her, mouth and breast and the tender, sleek skin he’d just been torturing with his fingers. He stoked those terrible fires all over again until Dee couldn’t breathe well enough to beg. And then he lifted himself over her and nudged her legs open and kissed her hard, plunging his tongue deep in her mouth, stroking her to incandescence, and then he slid into her, tight into her, impossibly large for her, and he gentled her and incited her and brought her right back to a shattering, gasping climax at the very moment he plunged home, past the slight resistance that didn’t matter after all, so deep into her that she thought she’d die, that she thought she had died, and he pumped into her, slowly at first, but gathering speed, murmuring delight to her, murmuring encouragement and gratitude and love as she felt the pleasure spiral yet again to impossible heights, matching him move for move, murmur for murmur until she convulsed, screaming, and he emptied himself into her, emptied the last of him into her, and fell into her arms, spent and struggling for breath.

‘I really look like me?’ she asked a few minutes later as she stroked his hair where he’d rested his head between her breasts.

‘Like no one else.’

She chuckled. ‘Oh, hell. Now I’ll never be able to convince you that I’m a shapeshifter’

And then she slept, with Danny James in her arms, up on the mountain where the witches danced.

At eleven o’clock, Crash climbed the rickety trellis again and found Mare waiting for him on the roof, dressed in her Corpse Bride dress and holding two DQ hot fudge sundaes. Py was stretched out at her feet, eyeing the cups.

‘You look great,’ he said, sitting down beside her, using every ounce of self-control he had not to touch her.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said, primly. ‘That was very forgiving of you.’

He looked at her, round in the moonlight, smiling at him. ‘Not that much to forgive.’

The moonlight was bright enough that he could see straight through that blue tulle to her spectacular legs, long strong legs, and the urge to run his hand up under that skirt was damn near overpowering. He reached for his sundae instead, but she cocked her head at him, holding it out of his reach. ‘So that’s all it takes? I call up and say, “I’m sorry,” and you come back?’

‘What am I, stupid?’ Crash said, ‘Of course that’s all it takes. ‘This is True Love. You think this happens every day?’

‘Princess Bride,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why anybody ever quotes any other movie.’

‘Well, there are other really good ones.’ Crash closed his eyes to keep from lunging for her since he was sure he was in a good place right now. Mare smiling at him was always a good place. ‘Can I have my sundae now?’

She stuck her chin out. ‘You remember what I tried to tell you last night? That I was magic?’

‘Mare, I have always believed you were magic,’ Crash said.

‘Uh-huh. Here’s your sundae.’

Crash reached out, but the sundae floated over to him of its own accord, bobbing along on the cool night air, ignoring the stiff breeze that was still promising the storm to come.

He froze for a moment, watching it hover in front of him, while Mare took the lid off her sundae and spooned up the first bite as if nothing unusual were happening. His stayed just out of reach, moving up and down, side to side, back and forth, as if sliding on invisible strings. It had to be a trick, he told himself, but when it slid closer to him, he ran his hands around it, trying to find the supports and couldn’t.

‘You’re good,’ he said finally. ‘How do you do that?’

‘Magic.’ Mare spooned up more sundae.

He took his and still couldn’t find the wires that had held it up. ‘You’re really good. Got a spoon?’

The spoon floated over to him, too, spinning in lazy circles until it arrived at his cup and stuck itself into the ice cream.

Okay, that was beyond good. Granted, he never did think clearly when he was with Mare, but this… He looked over at her.

She looked back at him calmly, heat in her eyes.

‘My uncle used to do magic tricks,’ he said, staring at the sundae and the spoon and then at her again. ‘Nothing like this.’

‘I didn’t say “trick,”‘ Mare said carefully. ‘I said “magic.” I’m magic. My family is magic. I’m psychokinetic. Dee’s a shapeshifter. And Lizzie transmutes things. She’s trying to turn straw into gold right now. That’s why the shed roof hums.’

Crash looked at the sundae again, took a deep breath, and dug the spoon into the ice cream. Mare was not crazy. She was odd, she did and said odd things, that was one of the reasons he loved her. But this… ‘Shapeshifter?’

‘Usually some kind of bird. She’s into flying. I think it’s a metaphor for her need to escape, but that’s just me.’ Mare licked her spoon, sounding very matter-of-fact, but his mind latched on to the ‘licking the spoon’ part as something pleasurable and understandable and much preferable to ‘My sister is a shapeshifter,’ and it was with real regret that he dragged his mind back to the part he was going to have to deal with.

‘Straw into gold.’

Mare nodded. ‘That’s Lizzie’s big project. She does smaller things. Like when she gets nervous, she turns things into rabbits. On bad days, we’re up to our asses in bunnies. If she’s turned on, it’s shoes. Usually, whatever she transmutes turns back on its own. Sometimes it doesn’t.’

Py lifted his big head and stared at Crash, his golden eyes solemn in the darkness, and Crash began to believe against his will because those were not house cat eyes.

‘Where did you say Lizzie found Py?’

‘The zoo.’

‘Right.’ He rubbed his forehead with his hand. ‘Let’s try this again.’

‘We come from a long line of witches,’ Mare said, as if they were having a completely normal conversation. ‘No real trouble aside from the odd pond ducking and one burning at the stake.’ Her voice darkened. ‘We ever get time travel, somebody’s gonna pay for that one.’

Crash took a deep breath. ‘Uh-huh.’

Mare scooped up more ice cream. ‘Our aunt Xan convinced Dad and Mom to go on TV and we ended up the Little Miss Fortunes, and you’d have thought somebody would have seen the play on words there, wouldn’t you? But no, and the show was a success, but then something went wrong, and there was a fraud conviction, and Mom and Dad asked Xan to take their powers for some reason, and she took too much and they died.’

Crash straightened at the bleakness in her voice there. That wasn’t magic, that was real, he knew that part, and suddenly her whole preoccupation with Xan began to make sense, magic or not. ‘Dee took us and ran from her, and it’s been thirteen years on the run since then, what with all kinds of people wanting to get hold of us.’

‘Hold of you,’ Crash said, losing all appetite for his ice cream. He put the cup down for Py, having a feeling that anything he could do to make Py like him might pay off big in the future.

‘We were the Miss Fortunes,’ Mare said. ‘Very big deal. Especially for Aunt Xan. All those powers, you know?’

‘I’m starting to. That’s the secret you could never tell me?’ Okay, she thought she was magic. Except there was that spoon spinning around and sticking in the cup. So maybe she was magic.

‘It’s a lot to wrap your head around,’ Mare said. I’ve never told anybody before. I don’t know what the time frame on the learning curve is. Maybe never.’

Crash took a deep breath. Keep an open mind. This is the woman you love. No matter what happens, this is the woman you’re with for the rest of your life, so… ‘So what else can you do?’

Mare put her cup down on the roof for Py. ‘Nothing. I have the suckiest power in the family.’

‘Hey,’ Crash said. ‘It’s a great power. I just got here, so I’m not fully clued in yet, but it’s amazing.’

Mare looked at him oddly.

‘Well, it amazes me,’ Crash said, with absolute truth.

Mare nodded. ‘So you believe me. Just like that.’

‘I saw it,’ Crash said, pretty sure he had.

‘It could be just a great trick.’ Mare stuck her chin out. ‘I’m pretty smart, you know.’

‘Smarter than I am,’ Crash said. ‘But you wouldn’t lie.’ She wouldn’t, he realized. And she wasn’t crazy; Mare was a little off the wall, but at base, she was the sanest person he knew. ‘You wouldn’t lie about something like that. You’d lie about getting a tattoo while I was gone-’

Mare groaned and put her head on her knees.

‘-but not about something like this. You’re serious about this. And I have to tell you, there are weirder things in the world. So why not? I saw it. Do it again.’

Mare looked away from him, biting her lip.

‘Hey.’ He put his arm around her, and when she looked back at him her eyes were bright. ‘Don’t cry. We’re good.’

‘We’re great,’ she whispered. ‘If you can hear all that in five minutes and believe it and still say, “We’re good,” we are fucking great.’

‘Well, we knew that,’ he said, and kissed her, and any doubts he had went away in the heat and the rightness of that kiss, the way she fell into his arms and became part of him, the way he went dizzy, wanting her.

When she broke the kiss, she sniffed, and he thumbed away the tear on her cheek. ‘Hey, I love you,’ he said. ‘You were always magic to me,’ and she sniffed louder.

‘Okay, then.’ She rolled to her knees and wiped her eyes. ‘Look in here.’ She took the front of his jacket in her hand and pulled him toward her bedroom window, and he peered inside and got the first good look at it he’d ever seen.

The room looked like Mare. The walls were draped with mismatched blue velvet and satin curtains with glittery gold butterflies embroidered on them and dark blue flowers painted on them. There was a long backless couch covered in blue zebra skin and a vase full of the black satin roses he’d given her for prom – she’d kept his roses, that was something – but the biggest thing in the room was a broken iron bedstead, huge and black with spirals and circles, spinning and turning in on each other, making Crash dizzy when he looked at it, mostly because it was Mare’s bed and he wanted her on it. A big black witch’s hat was stuck on one of the high posts, and the mattress was piled high with blue and lavender and green pillows, and even as he saw them, they began to stir and flip and tumble to the floor on their own -she’s doing that, he thought, she’s magic - and when the watery blue satin comforter rolled slowly back, no hands, he drew in his breath and looked at Mare, and she smiled at him in the moonlight. Then the blue-striped top sheet rose up and floated toward the curlicued iron foot of bedstead until the bed lay open and inviting in the full moon, and all the blood left his brain, and he pulled her closer to him, feeling her soft flesh yield to him under that slippery, torn blue tulle dress.

Mare whispered in his ear, her voice full and rich, making him shiver. ‘This is my room. No man has ever been in here before. We don’t bring men into our bedrooms. We’re magic in there and we can’t trust them.’

Oh, Christ, he thought, and nodded and began to turn away, and then she whispered, ‘Come to bed, Crash,’ and he shuddered as a wave of lust hit him and damn near knocked him off the roof, but she caught him and climbed through the window, pulling at his arm, and he fell into the magic that was Mare’s bedroom.

Her room seemed smaller with Crash in it, a little kid’s room with a witch’s hat on the bedpost and the cheesy crystal ball and black fake flowers on the vanity, and she swished her Corpse Bride dress a little from nervousness because it was one thing to boink with her boyfriend on a mountaintop and another thing entirely to bring her One True Love and future husband home to meet her bedroom.

‘So this is my place,’ she said, fighting back the heat that washed over her every time she looked up at him because that was the libido spell and she had to keep a clear head for this next part. He looked around, taking his time, and she did, too, biting her lip, seeing through his eyes the moth-eaten secondhand draperies she’d tacked to the walls every place she’d ever lived, covered with the sloppy blue flowers she’d painted on them when she was ten and the crooked gold butterflies she’d embroidered on them at twelve; and under them the beat-up iron bedstead she’d found in a junkyard at fourteen, its spirals broken and bent and some of them missing; and the silky blue comforter she’d gotten on sale when she was sixteen, the day she’d decided to have sex with him someday, whenever his dad stopped calling her ‘jail bait.’ She remembered that first time, how careful he’d been, and she put her hand out to steady herself on the bedstead as the libido spell got her again, or maybe it was just that memory. She jerked her mind back to the room and all its failings: the tacky zebra-covered fainting couch was missing one leg that she’d replaced with her copy of the OED, the cheval mirror that was so speckled with age that it looked like it had mildewed, the threadbare rugs and the cracked lamps, the whole place just so…

‘Great room,’ he said, his voice a little unsteady.

It’s a mess, she thought, it’s junk. Why would any man want to marry a woman who lives like this? ‘It’s not much,’ she said. ‘But you know, it’s-’

‘No, it really is great,’ he said, looking at her. ‘It’s hot and it’s magic like you,’ and she looked around again and saw the splashy flowers and the jaunty butterflies and his wicked black silk prom roses that Lizzie had gathered up off the road for her after they’d wrecked, and Py stretched out yawning on the windowsill-

‘I like it here,’ he said. ‘Do I get to stay all night?’

‘Yes,’ she said happily, and took off her veil and tossed it toward the bed. It floated through the air – she gave it a little help – and landed on the bedpost opposite the witch’s hat, the ends curling down to fold themselves like arms over the post.

‘That’s amazing,’ he said.

‘I can do better,’ she said, and pulled her dress off over her head and tossed it into the middle of the room where it pirouetted, its skirt spinning out around it, and then curtsied to him. ‘How about that?’ she said, and turned to look at him, but he was looking at her. ‘Hey, you missed it.’

‘I didn’t miss anything,’ he said, looking at her blue lace bra.

She sighed happily, and he didn’t miss that, either, so she kicked off her shoes and went over to crawl onto the bed and sit cross-legged with her back against the headboard, rosy with heat for him, smiling all over but determined to make sure he understood everything before they ripped into Xan’s libido gift.

When he tried to join her, she pointed to the footboard. ‘Sit.’

He sighed, but he took off his boots and sat down there.

‘Is there anything you want to know?’ she said, gathering her hair up off her neck where the heat was making it stick.

‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘How long am I going be stuck down here?’

She let her hair drop. ‘I mean about me. About this.’ She gestured to her dress, and it pirouetted again. ‘What’s to know?’

‘Well, it’s hereditary,’ she said, a little annoyed. ‘All right.’

‘So if you’re serious about getting married and having kids-’

‘I am.’

‘-there could be some surprises down the road,’ Mare finished. ‘Okay.’

Mare leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. ‘That’s it? Okay?’

Crash leaned forward, too. ‘You sit like that, anything you say, I’m going to say “okay.” But yes, okay. Our kids will be all right. They’ll be ours. Now can we practice making one?’

‘You sure you want to have them?’

‘Yes,’ Crash said. ‘We can start tonight if you want. I’m ready. I want to get married to you, and I want to have kids with you. But mostly right now, I want to have sex with you. Lots of it. As much as we both can stand. All night.’

‘Libido spell,’ Mare said. ‘My aunt cast it.’

‘No,’ Crash said. ‘I always feel like this about you. I always have. But you always had to come home and shut your window, keep your secret, shut me out. Now I’m inside. I’m staying. Anything else?’

‘Just like that,’ Mare said. ‘You want to marry me and have kids, my aunt does libido spells, my magic’s no problem.’

Crash sighed. ‘Okay. Tell me the part I’m missing that makes it complicated.’ He leaned back against the footboard, patient. ‘Put a little speed on it if you can. I want you.’

‘Well,’ Mare began, and thought about it.

She wanted to marry him and spend the rest of her life with him. She wanted kids. She wanted them while she was young. If she thought about it, she was ready now. There wasn’t anything she wanted to do that she couldn’t do while backpacking a baby. Crash’s baby. Maybe two. Two would be good.

‘Two?’ she said.

‘Two would be good,’ Crash said. ‘Maybe three. Four.’

‘Two,’ Mare said. ‘They shouldn’t outnumber us. We don’t know what they can do yet.’ Maybe it wasn’t complicated.

Crash stood up and stripped off his T-shirt. ‘Is this something we could discuss later?’ He sat down on the edge of the bed and shoved off his jeans.

‘Why, yes, I think we could,’ Mare said, looking at the muscles in his back. In his thighs. Well, everywhere.

She cautiously let go of the edge of her control and let the libido spell in just as Crash rolled onto the bed and reached for her.

He touched her and she shuddered, sliding against him as the memory of him came back.

‘Huh,’ she said, as the heat washed over her, the bubble in her blood and the prickle under her skin.

‘What?’

‘You’re right. It always feels like this.’ She arched up and kissed him, loving the feel of him against her, the sure pulse he started everywhere. ‘Just one more thing.’

He groaned and put his head down on her thigh, and she patted the top of his head, loving the way her hand bounced on his thick, springy dark hair, loving more the weight of his head there, the heat of his breath, wanting to pull him into her.

She drew in her breath. ‘You know how we always go up on the mountain?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his voice muffled.

‘That’s because everything up there is too heavy for me to lift.’

He picked up his head and looked at her.

‘When I get distracted,’ she said, smiling down at him, breathing hard now, ‘things move. So when we’re rolling around on this bed, as we’re gonna be very shortly, and I start to lose my mind, as I’m gonna very shortly, this place is going to get active. Try to keep your head down.’

He sat up on the edge of the bed and looked around. ‘Anything in here I should know about?’

Come back here. ‘I don’t know.’ She leaned forward and put her chin on his shoulder, refraining from biting it only by Herculean control, and looked around with him. ‘I’ve never had sex in here. I mean, there’s loose stuff like hairbrushes and shoes and my jewelry, that stuff, and I collect a lot of things, but I’ve never done an inventory. I wasn’t expecting to invite you tonight, so I didn’t go through looking for projectiles, you know? I didn’t, like, sex-proof it.’

Crash looked over his shoulder at the dressing table.

‘We can go up on the mountain,’ Mare offered, praying he wouldn’t take her up on it. The mountain was minutes away.

‘Oh, no. It’s taken me years to get in here, we’re staying.’ He looked at the pointed witch’s hat on the bedpost. ‘This is the first time in my life I’m wondering if it’s a good idea to be naked for sex.’

She bit him gently on the shoulder.

‘So that’s a yes,’ he said, and kissed her, and she kissed him back as he slid his hand up her thigh, and the kiss lasted longer than they’d meant it to, neither one wanting to stop.

‘We could start slow,’ she whispered against his mouth, when they broke for air, breathing hard against him. ‘See what happens.’

‘Uh, Mare?’ he said, looking over her shoulder.

She turned her head. Her Corpse Bride veil was floating behind them. ‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘No pins. That crown thing is a headband. Kiss me again.’

He kissed her again and she closed her eyes and sighed against his mouth, letting the kiss seep into her brain as his hand moved to her breast, her blood hot now, breathing with him, but when she opened her eyes, he was looking up, his mouth still on hers and his hand still curved around her, but not really paying attention. She pulled away and looked up, too.

The veil was spiraling above them. ‘Is that good?’ Crash said.

‘I’m happy,’ Mare said, but she snapped her fingers and the veil fell down into her hand. ‘You know, you’re going to have to just let go and ignore this stuff or we’re never going to get anywhere. You sure you don’t want to go to the mount-’

‘I’m sure,’ Crash said, and bent her back onto the bed onto cool blue sheets that were infinitely better than the rocky ground up on the mountaintop.

This could bring a whole new dimension to sex, she thought and dropped the veil and tilted her hips, rolling him over so she could be on top, straddling him and looking down with her hands on each side of him. He looked new, too, with pillows all around him instead of grass and leaves, and then he shifted under her and she felt him hard against her and shuddered as the heat flared, and she smiled and rocked against him until he grabbed her neck and yanked her down, snagging her crystal ball with his other hand as it zinged by her ear.

‘Whoa,’ she said. ‘Good catch.’

‘Jesus.’ He hefted it in his hand. ‘This thing is heavy.’

‘Well, it’s solid crystal’ She took it from him and rolled it under the bed, stuffing the veil after it.

‘A crystal ball. Did you look in it for us?’

She sat up and looked at him sternly, which wasn’t easy because he was naked and beautiful and hard between her legs. ‘Crash, I can’t see the future, nobody can. Human beings have free will. The crystal ball is just a joke. I got it in New Orleans because I liked the dragonfly stand.’

‘Right,’ Crash said. ‘But you can do magic. How am I supposed to know the difference?’

‘Because magic makes sense.’ Mare slid her hands up his chest. ‘It’s like sex. It’s too good to be true, but it works.’ She bent to kiss him and then started working her way down. ‘Every. Single. Time.’

‘I believe in magic,’ Crash said and closed his eyes.

He was hot under her lips and her hands, hotter as she moved against him, and then he moved, too, and the night grew darker and the stars came out and Mare sighed against him as he took her in his arms and she wrapped herself around him as he slid inside her, hard inside her, and became part of her. She felt the draperies shift on the wall as their bodies slipped together, felt the room begin to throb as her blood began to pulse, but mostly she felt Crash, breathing with her the way he always did except this time it was in the quiet of her room and this time he was holding her tighter, this time when she said, ‘I love you,’ he said, ‘I’ll never leave you, I swear, I’ll never leave you,’ and she bit her lip so she wouldn’t cry, and he kissed her, and she cried anyway, and it didn’t matter, he didn’t stop. He held on and rocked her until the heat wiped everything else away and there was just him and his rhythm in her blood, the bubble and the shudder there, the weight of him on top of her and the backbeat of the crystal ball bumping against her butt under the mattress, and she dug her fingernails into him, gasping for breath in the heat, rocking against him harder, and harder, the whole room rocking, the walls moving with them, the black roses rustling in their vase, the zebra couch dancing across the floor, and then something gold glittering in the air like the blue sparks she saw behind her eyelids when she scrunched them closed, and then Crash rocked and hit something good and her eyes flew open and there was gold everywhere, fluttering everywhere, and Py was pulsating on the windowsill – tiger cat, tiger cat, tiger, cat, tiger, cat - and the cheval mirror was spinning, and Crash was looking into her eyes, his eyes so blue she fell into them, into him, his eyes spiraling into her, his hips spiraling into her as he moved closer, higher, harder, the heat built and built and built inside her, and then she cried out and grabbed the headboard and it writhed under her hands, and she looked up to see the ceiling spinning around and around, closer and closer as she came and came and came and came…

When the bed landed with a thump, she held on to Crash, gasping for breath, and realized the ceiling was fine, it hadn’t moved, it was the bed.

A few minutes later, when they were both breathing evenly again, when they’d come unstuck from each other and were curled together and Mare was so happy she thought about weeping from sheer exuberance except she was too damn exhausted, Crash said in her ear, ‘So we bolt the bed down.’

‘Maybe,’ she said, rolling onto her back, taking a deep breath just to feel her body ache from all the places he’d touched, all the places he’d been. ‘That was really good.’

‘There was a tiger on the windowsill.’

She smiled at him and then picked something gold out of his hair, a tiny awkward butterfly that fluttered in her hand briefly and then flew back to the drapery and stuck on. ‘Huh.’ She let her head flop back and saw the headboard. It looked different.

She eased herself up on one elbow, feeling fat with satisfaction.

The iron headboard was now the same on both sides, no broken places, no missing pieces, and the pattern was different, more intricate, more beautiful. It took her a minute, and then she realized that she’d straightened out all the pieces of it with her mind, rebent them so they’d matched. Whatever rhythm she and Crash had been moving to, the headboard had gotten caught in it, and her mind had moved and curled the two halves to match.

‘What?’ Crash said, looking up at her, exhausted, while she tilted her head, looking at the iron twists and curls. ‘We just did that,’ she said, pointing to it. He squinted at it.

‘That’s how we make love,’ she said. ‘That’s what the way we make love looks like. Isn’t it beautiful?’

‘I like it.’ He let his face drop back into the pillow.

She patted his back and found another butterfly so she peeled it off and set it free to fly back to the curtain.

‘It must have been something to see in here,’ she said, pulling her hair off her sweaty neck and piling it on top of her head, loving the stretch in her back, and he said, ‘It was,’ into the pillow.

‘I mean for everything else, too,’ she said, laughing. ‘I bet there were blue sparks everywhere.’

He moved his head so his face wasn’t buried. ‘What blue sparks?’

‘My magic,’ she said, setting free another gold butterfly. ‘It’s blue sparks.’

‘I didn’t see any blue sparks.’

She shook her head at him. ‘You were distracted. Look.’

She waved her hand at the cheval mirror, and it rose and minced across the room on its three curved legs. No blue sparks.

She straightened, letting her hair fall back down. ‘What the hell?’

‘That wasn’t like that, was it?’ Crash said, squinting at the mirror.

Mare looked at the freckled mirror. The freckles were all in spirals along the edges now, the center clear. ‘No. Never mind that. Where are my sparks?’

He rolled over on his back to watch her, putting an arm behind his head, and she was momentarily distracted by how gorgeous he was, but then she looked around. ‘Maybe I have to do something… more complicated. Like… all the butterflies.’

‘Butterflies?’ Crash said, but Mare concentrated on them, visualizing all the little gold filigree wings and then threw them toward the drapery they’d come off of.

Crash yelped as dozens of little gold wings went hurtling across the room to splat on the fabric, some of them peeling off him, but there weren’t any sparks.

‘I want my sparks back,’ Mare said, flustered. ‘When I make magic, there are blue sparks, damn it.’

‘Weight?’ Crash suggested, looking over his shoulder for more butterflies. ‘Maybe it has to be something heavy.’

‘Yesterday morning, I got them lifting muffins,’ Mare said.

‘Well, things have happened since yesterday,’ Crash said. ‘Maybe you’ve gotten stronger.’

Mare nodded. ‘Okay. Hold on.’ She took a deep breath, wrapped her mind around the bed, and lifted. It got about a foot off the floor, some blue sparks shot out, and then it thumped down again.

‘Ouch,’ Crash said, holding on. ‘But I saw blue sparks.’

‘This sucker was spinning when we were coming,’ Mare said, disgruntled. ‘I should be able to do that again.’

‘Hey, anything I can do to help-’

‘Shhhh,’ Mare said, and sat back against her beautiful new headboard to think.

Okay. Time to stop going on instinct and think about how her power actually worked.

With the muffins, she’d seen dust motes in the air turn into blue sparks. That must have something to do with friction, that her power moved things at a really small level. Like the sugar cubes. Like there was something in the air -what? molecules? atoms? germs? tiny little Legos? – that she could latch on to and wrap around things and then-

‘Mare?’

Mare bit her lip and went for something easier. Whatever that is, she thought, I’m gonna string it together, wrap it around this bed, and lift. She put her head down and began to wrap her power around and around the bed in a big spiral, tightening as she went, putting her tongue in the corner of her mouth, her head lowering as she concentrated, her arms spreading out naturally, fingers spreading, too, and then she lifted…

‘Oh, shit,’ Crash said, and grabbed on to the headboard.

‘Sparks?’ she said, concentrating on keeping them afloat.

‘Ceiling,’ he said, and she looked up and saw it right above her nose.

‘Right,’ she said and set them down gently. ‘Huh.’

‘Well, I can see why you never let me in here before.’ He swung around and put his feet on the floor.

‘Too much?’ Mare said, suddenly afraid.

‘No,’ Crash said. ‘Well, a lot Not too much.’ He looked over at her and smiled. ‘We’re bolting the bed down. This one and the one in Italy. You’re coming to Italy, right?’

Mare relaxed. ‘I have to talk to Dee and Lizzie first. If it’s okay-’

He shook his head, and she leaned forward and put her hand on his arm.

‘Crash, they’re like me, they’re magic, they can’t be alone. I think Elric is okay, but I don’t know about Danny, he doesn’t like magic, and if my sisters haven’t found anybody like you, I can’t leave them alone. You know? I just can’t. They need me.’

He kissed her forehead. ‘I know. But then they come with us. Honest to God, Mare, they’d love Italy. And I’ll help. Dee turns into birds, right? And Lizzie turns stuff into…’ He frowned, trying to remember.

‘Bunnies and shoes, mostly.’

He shrugged. ‘It’s Tuscany, it’s a country town. Nobody will notice birds and bunnies. And shoes, well, hell, it’s Italy. Dee can paint there. I’ll build her a studio and Lizzie a workshop. They’ll be safe. I’ll keep them safe.’

‘Oh.’ Mare felt heat behind her eyes and tried to blink it back, but it was too late.

‘Hey,’ he said as she picked up the sheet to wipe the tears away.

‘I’ve loved you forever,’ she told him, sniffing. ‘I’m going to love you forever.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ll love you forever, too.’

‘There’s just one thing,’ she said, blinking back tears.

He closed his eyes and nodded. ‘Whatever it is, I’ll fix it,’ he said, patience incarnate.

‘The footboard.’

‘What?’ He looked around.

‘I was holding on to the headboard when I came,’ Mare said. ‘That’s why it got rearranged and it looks so beautiful now. So I was thinking if I held onto the footboard and you-’

‘It’s just one damn thing after another with you,’ Crash said, and reached for her.

Dee woke to see the sky in turmoil. A broad bank of roiling clouds allowed only brief glimpses of the setting moon. The trees on the mountain writhed and whispered, making Dee think of those witches dancing in the dark, and far down in the valley a train whistle blew. Within the stone circle, it was curiously quiet. Dee was absolutely content, tucked close to her lover after their second bout of lovemaking, this one involving the pop beads.

Dee decided that she definitely had a preference for a man with an imagination. Who knew what pleasure pink pop beads could incite when pulled across some of the more sensitive areas of the body. Then again, they were also a great hit wrapped around a rousing erect penis. She couldn’t wait to see what Danny had in mind for the boa.

‘You’ll marry me, of course,’ Danny murmured, pulling her more snugly into his arms. ‘After all, I’ve stolen your virtue.’

Busy running her fingers through the curiously soft hair that traced Danny’s sternum, Dee chuckled. ‘You can’t steal something that was offered on a silver platter.’

He yawned. ‘Nevertheless, my honor demands it.’

‘Consider your honor upheld. Right now I can’t think past what we’re going to do next. I have to say that I’m sorry it took so long to find out what fun this is.’

‘I’m not. If you’d found out sooner, it wouldn’t have been with me.’

‘It was meant to be, I think.’

‘True. After all, the first person you failed to shift with just happens to be your one true love.’

‘It might also be because he’s the first one who tried to make sure I had an orgasm first. Maybe it was a protective mechanism.’

‘Nah. I prefer the true love idea.’

‘If you must.’ She could hear his heart, and it soothed her. She’d never been this close to a human before. Oh, she’d held Lizzie and Mare, but she’d never been given the gift of a lover’s comfort.

‘I really do want to marry you,’ he said, lazily stroking her hair. ‘Did I tell you I love you?’

‘Better than that,’ she said, spreading her hand over his heart. ‘You showed me. I am honored by your offer.’

‘You’re not allowed to say no.’

‘I have two sisters to think of, Danny.’

‘Let ‘em get their own husbands.’

‘Until they do, we need to stick together just to survive.’

‘I work, too, ya know.’

Dee lifted her head so she could face him. ‘Could you work from Salem’s Fork? We could live here to save money. I could stay in the bank. That way I could be here for the girls.’

He stroked her cheek with his thumb. ‘What if I can’t? What if you need to come to Chicago with me?’

She frowned. ‘I don’t think we’d have the money to commute. Could you wait? The situation here can’t last that much longer. Especially if we can finally take care of Xan.’

‘You’d give me up for your sisters?’

‘Give up is not the idea. Postpone at most. I have a responsibility to them, Danny. I mean, right now Lizzie hasn’t even been able to hold down a job.’

‘Why?’

She shrugged. ‘She’s distracted by trying to change straw into gold. She thinks it would save us all. I think Lizzie’s greatest gift is that she loves us enough to try.’

‘And Mare?’

‘Mare will be okay. But if I could stay, I could help out.’

‘So if I could base my activities out of Salem’s Fork, you’d marry me?’

‘Before you could get the question out. I know it wouldn’t be easy. Neither of us makes a lot of money, and you’d need to travel. But we could make it work.’ She knew her smile was anxious. She wasn’t sure her heart could stand a rejection.

‘What about me?’ he asked very quietly.

‘If you’re close,’ she said, ‘we’d have more time for impulse activity. I mean, we’re not really far from anywhere. And I get three weeks’ vacation at the bank.’

‘And your art?’

She briefly closed her eyes. ‘I don’t want to lose my anonymity.’

‘If I could guarantee you that you won’t?’

She frowned. ‘There is no artist protection program, Danny.’

‘I know people.’

She considered it. ‘I’ve always wanted to share my vision. I just can’t bear the idea of intrusion. Do you understand?’

Danny pulled her down to him for a brief, searing kiss. ‘Better than you know, sweetheart. So if I move here and promise to keep you anonymous, you’d live off my less than stellar salary until you can sell paintings?’

‘I’d hope we’d share all the responsibility. But of course. Although I think you’re setting too high a store on those paintings.’

‘And I think I’m not.’ He kissed her again. ‘Okay, missy. You have a deal. When do we ask your sisters’ permission?’

‘When Mare wears a gray suit. Don’t worry. They love you already. Mare will offer to have your babies if you take my attention away from her. Hey, I don’t suppose you could help me talk her into college.’

Danny laughed. ‘Mare? Oh, Dee, don’t waste your breath. Mare’s going to end up creating something wonderfully bizarre, like, oh, an interactive movie-watching game that everybody’s going to want, and she’s going to become a cultural phenomenon.’

Dee sighed and settled back on Danny’s chest. ‘Fine. Outvoted again.’

‘I will do one thing for you.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Show you why I bought the feather boa.’ She was up again and smiling. ‘Boas make me hot.’ Danny James could look very smug when he wanted to. ‘I thought they would.’

Lizzie opened her eyes, slowly letting them adjust to the predawn light. She was lying sprawled across Elric’s perfect body, exhausted and deliciously, perfectly happy. She had no idea where, or when, or how she’d gone – at some point the arcs of color had speared through her body, turning it into tiny shards of crimson, blue, and gold, fairy dust spread across the universe until it settled back into lavender and then into flesh once more. It had been endless, glorious, and instinctively she tightened her grip on Elric’s shoulder, afraid he’d gone.

He murmured something sleepily, but his arm was locked around her back, and there was no way she could escape. No way she wanted to.

The door to her room was open. Someone must have come in to check on her during the night and she could only guess they’d found nothing. Lizzie and her phantom lover had vanished, at least for the time being, which was probably just as well. She wasn’t sure either of her sisters could have withstood the shock of seeing peaceful little Lizzie turning into…

What had she turned into? A raging sex addict? If you considered exactly what she’d done, what he’d gotten her to do with nothing more than a gentle tug, then she was the most wanton creature on the face of this earth. Except that she wanted no one but him.

The bastard was right after all. They were in love, bonded, and there was no breaking away. No safe life in the suburbs with a mini-van and two children. There’d be children all right, but the thought of what they might produce was enough to send chills through the heart of any prospective mother. A child with both their gifts would be something to reckon with, indeed.

She turned her face to look at him. He looked so young, so beautiful. And most astonishing of all, he was hers.

The door closed and locked again, and he opened his eyes to meet hers. ‘Has someone been snooping around?’ he murmured.

‘Probably my sisters. Are you ready to meet them officially?’

‘God, no,’ he said, sliding his hand up the smooth line of her back. ‘I can think of much better ways to spend our time. Even if we have more than our fair share I don’t want to waste a minute of it.’

She slid back down in the bed, back on the purple sheets, and smiled at him. ‘Don’t you think the next fifty years will be enough?’

He made a face. ‘I think it’ll be more than that,’ he said. ‘And even then it won’t be enough.’

‘Are you asking me to marry you?’

‘No. It’s a foregone conclusion.’ At least this morning he didn’t seem nearly as upset over the notion. In fact, he seemed quite smug. ‘The way I figure it, if an average life span is ninety years, then we’re both about one third of the way through it.’

‘So another sixty years, then.’

He shook his head. ‘You forgot what I taught you about traditional alchemy. There are two main quests. One is to change base metals into gold. The other is to prolong life. You’ve already crossed that border, though I’m not sure when. I expect we’ll die within hours of each other, a very long time from now.’

‘What border?’

He didn’t answer. ‘You don’t mind marrying an older man?’ he said instead.

‘For all I know you’re younger than I am,’ Lizzie said. ‘And I’d marry you no matter how old you are.’ She looked into his deep lavender eyes, wondering if hers had the same translucent glow. ‘Er… exactly how old are you?’

He reached up and pulled her down to his mouth, kissing her. ‘Older,’ he said.

‘How old?’ she persisted.

He put his mouth against her ear, hot and sweet and arousing. ‘Physically, I’m in my late twenties. Mentally, I’m about thirty-five. In actual years…’ He hesitated.

‘In actual years?’ she prompted.

‘Ninety-three,’ he whispered.

And she let out a shriek of laughter that woke the entire house.

Dee had long since lost hope of ever waking to the sight of a man in her room. But when she woke up, there he was. Lying on his side, head propped on his hand, just watching her.

‘You really will marry me,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t just dreaming.’

Dee laid her hand against his heart. ‘And all my worldly goods endow. Unfortunately the sum of that is three business suits, a handful of bird feathers, and a closet of acrylic paint.’

She’d thought he’d been beautiful last night. This morning he was glorious, a celebration of sensuality in her sterile bed. His beard shadowed the hard angles of his jaw, adding a rakish air to his smile. His eyes were sleepy and sated. He was naked to his hips where the crisp white sheet pooled just south of his navel to expose her favorite torso on earth. She’d traced every inch of it last night with her tongue. She’d followed the hair that decorated his chest straight down to where his cock rose to meet her and tasted that, too. Then when it had gotten too cold up on the mountain, they’d gathered their blankets and snuck inside the house, giggling like teenagers, and she’d explored all over again.

Danny never looked away from her as he traced a lazy hand along her jaw to dip into the hollow of her throat. ‘And you really won’t mind that we’ll have to pinch pennies.’

Dee savored the shivers his touch unleashed. ‘I live to hear Lincoln scream.’

‘You probably won’t be able to go on research trips with me.’

She sighed. ‘So all that talk of Montmartre?’

‘To get you to have sex with me.’

‘It worked. I’ll save up my own money and go. But I am going… one of these days.’

He just kept watching her. At first Dee felt cherished. Slowly, though, she began to suspect that his contemplation wasn’t all infatuation. He was just too quiet. Too still. After the night they’d had last night, he should be singing like Domingo. He should at least praise the luster of her eyes, or the fact that she was double-jointed.

‘Dee, I have a confession to make.’

She fell back against her pillow and shut her eyes. ‘Oh, hell. I knew it was too good to be true. I looked like your mother after all.’

‘Like my who?’

‘If I did and you didn’t mind, then I’m afraid you’re just too gothic for me. You’ll have to leave. Just don’t sell my story to The Enquirer.’

‘Nothing short of the News of the World, I promise. What the hell are you talking about?’

She cracked an eye open. ‘It’s my usual party trick. Why else did you think I was so frantic?’

‘You turn into… whoa, that is out there.’

‘The fact that you seem surprised is a good thing.’ She rose up on her own elbow to face him. ‘So if it wasn’t that -and I thank all the powers of the universe that it wasn’t -what is it?’

Danny stopped making eye contact. Dee felt that loss right in her solar plexus where all her dread lived.

‘What?’ she demanded. ‘Your wife needs you? Your gay lover needs you? Your bishop needs you? What?’

‘I’m, uh, not who you think I am.’

That brought her all the way to a sitting position. ‘I really think this demands an explanation.’

Danny reached for one of her hands. She slapped him away.

‘You said it yourself,’ he defended himself. ‘You can’t bear the notoriety. To have people think they have the right to you. That they know you. I, uh, I guess I’m here under an assumed name.’

‘You’re not Danny James.’

‘I am. Daniel James Mark-’

He never got the rest out. The figurative light went on in a blinding flash, and Dee shoved him ass first off the bed. They should have heard the thud across town. Dee found she didn’t care. She leaned over the side to see him sprawled naked on her hardwood floor, his dignity in serious disarray. It would have been easier if he didn’t look as if he were posing for a portrait titled The Male Animal Recumbent.

Dee swung her feet off the side of the bed, oblivious to her nudity. Danny wisely scooted beyond immediate range.

‘You are not going to tell me that you’re really billionaire, world-famous author Mark Delaney,’ she snarled.

He tried to smile his crime away. ‘He’s not such a bad guy.’

She climbed off the bed and stalked over to pick up her clothes. When Danny or Mark or whoever tried to rise and follow her, she planted her foot in his solar plexus to dissuade him. He went down with a faint ‘oof!’

‘I hope you know that this is one of my favorite fantasies.’

Dee glared him into submission. She was not going to allow him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. ‘So, what was this?’ she demanded, struggling into her sweat suit. ‘A joke? A bet? Are things so boring in Chicago that you have to go all the way to Salem’s Fork for a little fraternity humor?’

‘Actually, not Chicago, either’

‘Shut up.’

With a nervous glance to make sure she wasn’t in striking position, Danny climbed to his feet. ‘I was perfectly serious. I just mostly do my own research. And I call myself Danny James so I can avoid the hoopla. When I still did research as Mark Delaney, the only thing I could accomplish was finding new places on teenage girls where they wanted me to sign my name. I couldn’t tell you.’

‘Oh, I imagine you could have. Any time during the four times last night you had my legs spread, for instance. Or sometime around that marriage proposal… or is that part of the joke, too? See how the poor chick responds to an honorable but poverty-stricken invitation to marriage. Did I score high? Will you at least spell my name right in the book?’

He yanked his jeans on. ‘All right, I admit it. I was afraid.’ Dee laughed out loud. ‘Of course you were. After all, I’m so fierce.’

‘Actually,’ he said with a wry grin, ‘you are.’

She sucked in a calming breath and squeezed her eyes shut. ‘Snap your jeans. You look like a cheesy Chippendales poster’

He ducked into his shirt, too. It didn’t make Dee feel any better. ‘Dee, listen to me.’

She threw out a hand. ‘From across the room.’

She was backed against her wall, where she could see the only art she’d thought to put up, school paintings from her sisters. A pony with big brown eyes from Liz and Lydia from Beetle Juice from Mare, all sharp angles and lots of black. It was good to remind herself sometimes just who she could trust. And here she’d been worried about shape-shifting.

Danny speared his hands through his hair. Dee held her position instead of hurrying over to smooth it back down, like she wanted to.

‘This has just been a bit overwhelming, ya know.’ He wasn’t telling her anything. ‘I came here on a mission. I wanted to blow the whistle on self-serving hucksters who took advantage of people in pain. I wanted you to give up your parents. The only thing I knew about you was from your aunt. And I have to admit-’ He shook his head. ‘She doesn’t know you as well as she thinks. To be honest, Dee, I didn’t think past getting my proof. I told you. What happened to my mother shouldn’t happen to anybody.’

‘I agree. Get to the part where you think it’s a good idea to help me dispense with my virginity under false pretenses.’

‘What false pretenses? I love you. I meant it. Thursday I didn’t know you. Now I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone else. The false identity thing was an oversight.’

‘Not telling me you knew Aunt Xan could be termed an oversight. Having sex under an assumed name is fraud.’ She stalked up to him and poked him right in the chest. And I know fraud. My parents were convicted for it.’

Danny grabbed her hands and held them to his heart, which Dee could feel was beating far too fast. It hurt her, because she knew that he was serious. He really was afraid.

‘I know,’ he said quietly, holding too tightly for her to pull away. ‘And I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that the world is different when you’re famous. Everybody thinks they know you. I wanted you to fall in love with the real Danny Delaney. Not the hype on a dust jacket. I thought you’d understand.’

She was weakening, and he didn’t deserve it. Not yet.

‘What did I tell you about how I feel about liars? I don’t even know where you really live.’

‘The person you know is the real me,’ he said, sincerity radiating from every pore. ‘No pretense.’

‘Where do you live? Is it really Seattle, like the book jackets say?’

He had a great line in chagrined. ‘Actually, Detroit.’ She flinched. ‘I hate Detroit. We spent three very bad years there.’

‘We’ll move.’

She shook her head. ‘You really think it’s that easy?’

‘We really can travel. You can paint whatever or wherever you want. I’ll hold your paint box. And think about it. I’m the perfect person to show you how to share your art without paying for it.’ He leaned so close she could almost taste the perspiration that beaded on his upper lip. ‘Dee, I can take care of your sisters. You never have to worry about them again.’

She just shook her head, beyond words. ‘You said you loved me,’ he said.

Oh, why did he have to sound so uncertain? He didn’t deserve to be forgiven yet. But she couldn’t bear to hear that vulnerability.

‘I love you so much that for the first time in my life I made love to a man as me,’ she said. ‘Then it shouldn’t matter.’

That brought Dee’s eyes open again. ‘It does.’ It was all she could do to stay strong. ‘I can’t be in a relationship without honesty. I can’t give everything and then get my lover in considered bits and pieces.’

‘Your husband’s.’

‘You’re not paying attention. I think you should leave now, and think about what you want from us. I know what I want. I want it all. I want all of you. I won’t settle for less.’

‘You’ll have it!’

‘Don’t make promises you haven’t figured out how to keep.’ This time when she pulled, he let her go. ‘I’d rather you weren’t here when I try and explain this to my sisters.’

She could just hear Mare’s reaction. You threw him out because you found out he’s richer than God? Oh, yeah. That’s thinking.

Danny cupped her face in his hands. ‘Promise you’ll be here when I get back.’

She couldn’t look away from those mesmerizing eyes. For the first time, she saw no humor in them. It was enough. ‘I’ll be here.’

It wasn’t until she’d let him out the front door that she took in her first real breath. Then, where nobody could see her, she allowed herself a slow smile. Life was very, very good.

Waking up with Crash in the sunlight inspired Betty Crocker fantasies in Mare.

‘I could be a wife,’ she told him, lying on her stomach with her chin in her hand, staring at her new beautiful footboard as the Sunday sunshine poured through the window, warming her naked body and making the butterflies on the drapes glitter. ‘I could be a barefoot wife and learn to cook.’

‘A barefoot wife with a blue butterfly on her ass,’ Crash said, tracing the round wings of the new tat on her tailbone with his fingertip. ‘This works for me.’

‘It’s black, not blue,’ Mare said transferring her attention to other renovations. ‘You know, the flowers I painted never went back to the drapes. They’re all over the floor and the sheets now, they never went back. Maybe it’s because they couldn’t fly like the gold butterflies.’

‘This butterfly is blue,’ Crash said, letting his finger drift lower.

‘Hey, it’s Sunday,’ Mare said, looking over her shoulder. ‘Show some respect.’ She sat up and craned her neck, trying to see her new tattoo. ‘I saw it when Mother was done with it. It was black.’

‘It’s blue now, like your magic,’ Crash said, looking at her breasts.

‘You are entirely too predictable,’ Mare said, and got off the bed to try to see the tattoo in the newly cleared cheval mirror.

It was blue. The black outline was still there, but now it was filled with blue. The color of her magic. ‘Huh. Maybe the magic changed it. Maybe something happened last night-’

‘Come here,’ Crash said.

‘I think I should make breakfast,’ Mare said, her hands on her hips. A good wife makes breakfast for her man. I could start with toast and work up.’

‘I think we should make something else,’ Crash said. ‘I could start with your toes and work up.’

‘Okay,’ Mare said.

An hour and a half later, Mare was down in the kitchen wearing an apron over the long striped skirt she’d made for the movie that night – Victoria from Corpse Bride, since Sophie had no good clothes in Howl’s Moving Castle - and doing her damnedest to fix toast. Setting the toaster on ‘5’ turned out to be a bad idea, since it meant darker not faster – ‘You’re not going to eat that,’ she told Crash when he looked manfully ready to consume charcoal for her – so she sent him out into the dining room with orange juice while she dialed the toaster back to ‘2’ and tried again. But when she went out to the dining room with a plate of reasonably golden buttered squares of hot bread, she found Jude alone in the dining room with Py hissing at his feet.

‘Ciao, Mare,’ he said, smiling, but she scowled at him.

‘What are you doing here?’ she said, putting the plate on the table. ‘Where’s Crash?’

‘He had to go,’ Jude said. ‘I came because I have to talk to you.’

‘No you don’t. You’re a minion. Where did he have to go?’

‘It’s about Xan,’ Jude said and Mare paid attention. ‘We belong together, Mare.’

Mare frowned. ‘You and Xan?’

‘No. You and me.’ He took a step closer and Py snarled so he took a step back. ‘Xan cast a True Love Spell, Mare.’

Mare nodded. ‘I know. Where’s Crash?’

‘She cast a spell to bring the three of you, the Fortune sisters, your True Loves. That’s how Danny found Dee and Elric found Lizzie. And that’s how I found you, Mare. You can’t argue with a True Love Spell.’

‘I can argue with anything,’ Mare said. ‘As for my True Love, you are not it. Now where the hell is Crash?’

Py hissed again, and this time Mare heard a faint but angry croaking.

‘What’s wrong, baby?’ she said to the cat, and then looked under the table.

A frog sat there, panting hard, or maybe it was pulsating, Mare was not up on her Frog Basics. Py was in front of her, but just as Mare moved to scoop him up and save the frog, she realized that Py was standing between Jude and the frog, growling at Jude.

‘Nice kitty,’ Jude said.

‘Not even close.’ Mare got down on her knees and picked up the frog. ‘We don’t usually get frogs-’

The frog’s eyes were bright blue, like the Italian sky.

Mare surged to her feet, the frog cupped in her hands. ‘What did you do to him?’ she screamed at Jude.

Jude blinked in fake innocence. ‘What are you talking about?’

Mare wheeled and ran for Lizzie’s room, her fingers curled protectively around Crash who croaked his fury.

Lizzie was lying sideways across the tattered bed. She opened one eye very slowly. She could hear the wind outside, and it was so dark she had no idea what time of day it was. Not that she cared.

She started to stretch, then realized one wrist was still tied to the iron bedpost with a purple silk scarf. She sat up, looking for Elric, and she grinned.

He was still on the floor, sound asleep, looking as if he’d been hit by a truck. Not mashed by a truck, fortunately. Very little could tarnish his physical beauty. But something had managed to drain every last vestige of energy from him, and the delightful thing was, it had been her. Them.

And the libido spell had worn off hours before they’d gotten to silk bondage. She looked down at him fondly. They were going to have a really good time in Toledo.

They’d lost his heavy silver earring somewhere in the bed – she needed to find it when she recovered her energy. An overenthusiastic bite on his ear and she’d almost swallowed it. He’d laughed, tried to put it in her ear, and then they’d gotten distracted once more and forgotten all about it.

She could hear her sisters moving around in the living room. Dee would probably think twice about marching in here unannounced – in his current state of happy exhaustion she doubted Elric would have the energy to shield his presence, and she really didn’t like the idea of her sisters seeing Elric at his finest. He was hers, and for the first time in her life she wasn’t going to share.

She untied her wrist and slid off the bed, kneeling down on the floor beside him. He opened his eyes.

‘Not asleep,’ he murmured. ‘Dead.’

She bent to kiss him, but a pounding on the door made her jerk back, Elric catching her in his arms.

‘Lizzie,’ Mare screamed, and pounded again. ‘Lizzie, please, PLEASE!’ And Lizzie grabbed the purple sheet from underneath the bed where it had landed hours earlier, wrapped it around her body, toga-style, and stumbled to the door to face her sister.

Mare heard Jude behind her, but she ignored him to beat on Lizzie’s door with her fist. ‘Lizzie, I need you RIGHT NOW, Please, please, PLEASE-’

Lizzie opened the door wrapped in a purple sheet looking flushed and rumpled and annoyed.

Mare stuck the Crash frog out at her. ‘Turn him back. Please, please turn him back. I love him. Please, please, God, Lizzie, you have to.’

‘I have no idea what she’s talking about,’ Jude said from behind her.

Lizzie looked closer at the frog. ‘Put him on the floor,’ she said, no longer angry.

Mare swallowed and put Crash on the floor. ‘Oh, God, Lizzie.’

‘Step back,’ Lizzie said.

Mare stepped back, hating to leave him so exposed.

Lizzie looked down and took a deep breath and raised her encircled arms.

‘That’s vermin,’ Jude said, and raised his foot just as Lizzie struck.

There was a flash of purple light, a lot more purple smoke than Mare had ever seen before, and then Crash was back, tall and broad and choking and waving his hands through the violet smog.

‘What the fuck happened to me?’ he said.

Mare threw her arms around him and kissed him and then kissed him again. ‘I love you, I really love you, and I will marry you and go to Tuscany because those five minutes you were a frog were the worst five minutes of my life.’

‘They weren’t great for me, either,’ Crash said, holding her close, still sounding annoyed but not as much as before. ‘Hello, Lizzie.’

‘Hello, Crash,’ Lizzie said, but she was looking at the floor.

Mare looked back at her, clutching Crash. ‘What? What’s wrong? He’s okay, isn’t he? There wasn’t any damage?’ She began patting him all over. ‘He’s okay, he feels okay, tell me he’s okay. Baby, are you okay?’

‘Okay?’ Crash said, still holding on to her. ‘I was a fucking frog. Are you going tell me how that happened?’

‘I think Jude…’ Mare’s voice trailed off as she looked around. ‘The little weasel ran for it.’

‘Not a weasel.’ Lizzie nodded to the floor.

A frog sat there, looking stunned.

‘Jude?’ Mare said.

Lizzie shrugged. ‘He was there and then he wasn’t. I’m guessing that’s Jude.’

‘You turned him into a frog?’ Mare thought for a second. ‘Yeah, that’s fair.’

‘No,’ Lizzie said. ‘That was a restoration spell. He got into the line of fire when he tried to step on Crash. You know, he was the guy who tried to take my amethyst, and when I hit him the last time and he turned into a frog, I thought it was strange. I mean, why not a bunny? Or a ferret? Generally I don’t do frogs, but-’

‘What?’ Crash said, looking around. ‘Somebody tried to step on me?’

Mare looked at the frog again. ‘Restoration? He started out as a frog? Then how did he get to be a vice president at Value Video!!? Although that’s not as farfetched as you’d think.’

‘Xan,’ Lizzie said. ‘She sent us all our soul mates.’

‘And she thought mine was a frog?’ Mare raged.

‘Maybe she misunderstood,’ Lizzie said. ‘She did find him in Italy. Maybe Crash moved too fast, and she scooped up Jude instead, and then tried to make him… more attractive.’ She shrugged. ‘She chose a hot movie star. She tried.’

‘She thought my true love was a frog? If I ever get my hands on that bitch-’ Mare stopped, as the rest of what Lizzie was saying hit. ‘Wait. She cast the spell and scooped up Jude because Crash moved too fast.’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve been stupid. That means she brought Crash, too. She caught him with the spell, too.’

‘Probably,’ Lizzie said. ‘She just didn’t realize it because only the edge of the spell caught him.’ She smiled at Crash. ‘It’s nice seeing you again, Christopher. I’ve always liked you best of all of Mare’s… friends.’

‘Thanks,’ Crash said, confused. ‘I’ve always liked you best of all of Mare’s sisters. What’s going on?’

Mare let go of him.

‘What?’ Crash said, holding on to her. ‘Don’t look like that.’

Mare smiled at him, miserable. ‘Remember in the diner when you couldn’t tell me why you’d come back. It was because of Xan.’

‘No,’ Crash said. ‘I told you, I never met your aunt.’

‘I know,’ Mare said. ‘She never even knew she got you. That’s why she made Jude. But that’s why you came here, just the same. You’re not a minion. You just got caught in a spell.’

‘No,’ Crash looked confused, holding on to her. ‘I couldn’t stop thinking about you-’

‘Nobody thinks about a woman for five years without doing something about it,’ Mare said, trying to pry his fingers off her. ‘You’re back because I love you, because you’re my True Love, not because I’m yours.’

‘I never forgot you,’ Crash said. ‘I didn’t think about you every day, but I didn’t-’

‘No.’ Mare swallowed tears, determined not to cry. ‘And the second soul mate she found for me was a toad.’

‘Frog,’ Lizzie said.

‘You didn’t know him,’ Mare snapped at her, grateful for the anger.

‘This is crap,’ Crash said. ‘Could we go back to the part where somebody turned me into a frog?’

‘He’s got a point,’ Mare told Lizzie. ‘You better check Elric. For all you know, he’s a llama.’

Lizzie blinked, taken aback.

‘Elric!’ Mare yelled.

After a moment, Elric appeared behind Lizzie, looking unamused. ‘You bellowed?’

‘Do it,’ Mare snapped to Lizzie, and Lizzie turned, encircled her arms, and hit Elric with the restoration spell.

The air went purple again, there were some interesting violet sparks, and then the fog cleared and Elric was standing there, the same as before.

‘Funny,’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ Mare said. ‘I made her do it. Jude turned out to be amphibian.’ She looked at him down on the floor. ‘I’d like to feed him to Py, but it’s not his fault he’s a toad.’

‘Frog.’ Lizzie picked Jude up. ‘I’ve got the old bunny cage in here. I’ll keep him in that.’

Jude croaked, and Mare said, ‘You shut up,’ and turned back to Crash. ‘The spell will wear off soon, and you’ll be okay again, so you should probably go now.’

‘Oh, dear,’ Lizzie said, ‘don’t do anything dumb, Mare,’ and went back into her workroom, taking Jude and Elric with her and sending Mare a look of heartfelt sympathy.

Then the door closed and they were alone.

‘You’re coming with me,’ Crash said, determination chasing confusion from his face. ‘You said-’

‘Baby, you don’t want me.’ Mare tried to sound matter-of-fact, as she pulled out of his grasp and levitated him into the hall, ignoring his ‘Hey!’

‘You think you do, but you’re under a spell. If it doesn’t wear off on its own, I’ll go find Xan tomorrow and make her take it off, and you’ll be fine again.’

‘I’m fine now,’ Crash said, trying to resist as Mare floated him away from her and toward the door. ‘Or I will be if nobody else turns me into a toad and you come back to Italy with me. Why are we moving? Stop it.’

‘Frog,’ Mare said, steering him through the dining room. ‘You were a frog. And I can’t come with you. You were gotten here under false pretenses.’ She swallowed hard, knowing she only had minutes before she was going to burst into tears, the pressure increasing behind her eyes even as she blinked at him. ‘It was a true love spell, just like Jude said. Hell, just like you said, it was true love and that doesn’t happen every day, unless your girlfriend has a crazy-ass witch of an aunt who casts a spell because she’s trying to take her power. You should leave town now.’

Crash tried to stop the push toward the door by grabbing onto the woodwork around the dining room arch. He missed it by inches. ‘Wait a minute, damn it, what difference does it make how she found me?’

‘I knew I loved you,’ Mare said, guiding him toward the front door. ‘I never stopped loving you. But you left and didn’t come back for five years. If you’d loved me, you’d have been back. When the spell wears off, you won’t love me anymore again.’

He shook his head, grabbing at the doorframe as they reached the front door. ‘That’s crazy. I love you.’

‘Then why didn’t you come back for five years?’ Mare said.

‘I don’t know. I just didn’t.’

‘Bad answer,’ Mare said, and opened the front door. ‘No,’ Crash said, holding on to the doorframe. ‘Mare, I won’t-’

‘You have to.’ Mare pried his fingers off the woodwork with her mind. ‘Go. It’ll be okay, you won’t care at all tomorrow. And I don’t want to be with you when you don’t care.’ She waved good-bye, sadly, staying out of his reach. ‘Have a great life.’

‘Mare,’ he said, and she shoved him out onto the steps with magic, folding her arms across her breaking heart, and closed the door in his face.

‘And I even learned to make toast,’ she said and burst into tears.

Lizzie shoved Jude in the bunny cage, put the cover over it, and then let her sheet drop, which improved Elric’s mood considerably. Then she kissed him, which improved it even more. ‘I need to talk to my sisters,’ she said. ‘You can sleep some more.’

He sat up, leaning against the wall. ‘Let me clean up, and then I’ll face them, too.’

‘The shower is upstairs.’

‘You forget – I don’t need traditional plumbing,’ he said. And vanished, leaving Lizzie kneeling on the floor, alone. Apparently he wasn’t quite as exhausted as she’d thought.

She got Jude some water, tied the sheet tighter around her body, toga-style, and then headed out into the living room.

Dee was sitting at the table, a big splotch of bright blue paint on her cheek, a cup of tea in her hands, and a bemused, besotted expression on her face that Lizzie knew would be a perfect match to her own.

‘You have paint on your face,’ Lizzie said. ‘It looks good there.’

Dee blushed. ‘I was painting Danny’s portrait.’

Lizzie raised her eyebrows. ‘And where is Danny now?’

‘Gone,’ Dee said happily. ‘He needed to be taught a lesson. But he’ll be back.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I’d say three hours at the most. He loves me.’

‘I take it you didn’t turn into Danny’s mother?’ Lizzie asked, closing the door behind her just in case Elric reappeared in the same condition as when he’d vanished.

Dee’s smile was both shy and extremely pleased with herself. ‘Uh… yes. Er… no. No mothers. No nothing. Just…’ She let out a happy sigh. ‘Just lovely’

Lizzie looked at her for a moment, astonished. ‘Finally having sex really does change everything, doesn’t it?’ she said. ‘You look like a different woman.’

Mare came in from the kitchen. ‘You’re looking pretty lovestruck yourself

Mare was looking miserable. ‘What happened?’ Lizzie almost took her younger sister into her arms, then thought better of it. For one thing, Mare wasn’t into the huggy thing, for another, Lizzie really needed a shower. She was going to have to get Elric to teach her that trick about cosmic bathing.

‘I made Crash go,’ Mare said, sticking her chin up. ‘He was gotten here under false pretenses. Unlike the frog.’

‘Frog?’ Dee asked. ‘What frog?’

‘No,’ Lizzie said, very sure of herself. ‘Crash is your soul mate.’

‘Lizzie’s right, honey,’ Dee said, patting Mare. ‘He came all the way from Italy for you. What frog?’

Mare sighed. ‘Jude stopped by this morning and turned Crash into a frog, only it turned out that Jude was really a frog, so Lizzie has him in her room in a bunny cage.’

‘Uh-huh.’ Dee gave up on Mare and turned to Lizzie. ‘So where’s Elric? Don’t you think I ought to meet him?’

‘He’s cleaning up.’

‘Where?’

‘I haven’t the faintest idea. In Spain, for all I know. He’ll be back momentarily. In the meantime I need to take a shower.’

‘I can make toast,’ Mare said in a lousy attempt at cheering up. ‘You want me to make toast for you?’

Lizzie looked at her miserable younger sister. Mare was no longer the Queen of the Universe – she looked lost, broken. ‘Toast would be lovely,’ she said in a gentle voice. ‘I’m starving.’

By the time she got back downstairs again, fully dressed, there were three squares of burned toast on a plate, and a distinct odor of charred bread coming from the kitchen.