The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

‘Mare got distracted,’ Dee said. ‘Maybe we should take her to the Greasy Fork…’

‘I don’t think we should leave the house.’ Lizzie sat down and reached for the toast. ‘Xan can’t get in here for a very long time, according to Elric’ She looked down at her feet. They were bare – for the first time since she could remember there were no extraneous shoes on her feet.

Naked feet, with the glowing purple butterfly tattoo to set them off. How appropriate.

‘Don’t eat that,’ Mare said. ‘It’ll kill you. I’m working on a second batch. It’ll be good. I dialed the toaster back to two again.’

Dee pushed the toast away. ‘We still haven’t decided what we’re going to do about Xan. We can’t hide out forever. And I’m hungry, too. What do we have besides… toast?’

Mare said, ‘There’s nothing in the kitchen. Nobody made muffins this morning. Maybe I’ll go make muffins-’ She started to get up.

‘Elric!’ Lizzie called. She knew the moment he’d reappeared in her tiny, wonderful bedroom. The door opened, and she sucked in her breath. He was wearing dove gray this time, and yet the colors shimmered around him.

‘Damn,’ Dee said. ‘He’s gorgeous.’

‘Mine,’ Lizzie said. ‘This is my older sister, Dee. Deirdre Dolores O’Brien.’

Elric crossed the room with his usual elegance, taking Dee’s hand in his. ‘Darling Dee-Dee Fortune,’ he murmured. ‘It’s an honor.’

And Dee was so dazzled she didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Call me Dee.’

‘And you’ve met my sister Mare.’

He nodded in Mare’s direction.

‘Hey, Elric,’ Mare said, still depressed. ‘I’m going to make muffins.’

‘Please don’t,’ Elric said.

And this is Elric,’ Lizzie said to Dee.

‘Elric who?’ Dee said, smiling at him, her older sister instincts clearly shot to hell by one night with Danny James. ‘Let’s see, what am I supposed to be asking here? Are your intentions honorable? Who are your people?’

Lizzie blinked, glancing at him. Had she just spent the last twenty-four hours doing really wicked things with a man and she didn’t know his last name? ‘Elric the Magnificent?’ she suggested.

Elric laughed, and shards of color split the room. Lizzie glanced at her sisters, but apparently they were immune to it. Only she could see the scattered rainbows.

‘Then you’d end up being Mrs The Magnificent,’ he said, ‘and I don’t think that suits you.’

‘You’re marrying a man you just met?’ Dee asked, sounding far less protective than usual. ‘What am I talking about? So am I. When he comes back, anyway.’

‘Of course. We’re soul mates,’ Elric said, moving up behind Lizzie and putting his hands on the back of her chair.

Lizzie looked up at him. She wanted to grab him and drag him back into the bedroom. She wanted to send her sisters away and haul him onto the dining room table, and she could see by the deep purple in his eyes that he was thinking exactly the same thing. And the libido spell had worn off at dawn.

She gave herself a mental shake. ‘I’m starving. We’re all starving. Any chance you could go out and get us a pizza?’

His luscious mouth curved in a faint smile. ‘I think that would be within my capabilities.’ He glanced at the pile of burned toast, and she belatedly realized he could simply transmute. But he could read her far too well. ‘How long do we want me to be gone?’

‘Just long enough for me to talk with my sisters. Half an hour? There’s a pizza place in town – if you walked slowly it would be perfect.’

‘You don’t want pizza from New York? Or Venice? It’s much better, I can promise you.’

‘Salem’s Fork pizza will be perfect.’ I don’t want to be too far away from you, she thought. Knowing he could read it. ‘Oh, and set the frog free while you’re out, please.’

‘Half an hour.’ He released the chair and headed toward the door.

It closed after him, and Lizzie felt suddenly bereft.

‘How does he know what kind of pizza we want?’ Dee asked.

‘He knows,’ Lizzie said. ‘So what are we going to do next? We’re safe for now, but sooner or later we’re going to have to confront Xan. We can’t spend our lives dealing with her like this.’

‘We’re not going to,’ Dee said.

‘I don’t know why you two are so pissed,’ Mare said. ‘She sent you your true loves. Look what I ended up with. Ribbit.’

‘Crash came back to town,’ Dee pointed out.

‘And left again. You know, maybe we should just split up, go our separate ways. You’re happy with Danny, or you will be as soon as you let him back in. Lizzie’s absolutely glowing…’ Mare’s words trailed off as she stared at Lizzie. ‘You really are glowing, aren’t you? Literally.’ She bit her lip. ‘That’s lovely. Good for you both.’

Lizzie was still shimmering a bit. She smiled. ‘What can I say? He’s a wizard.’

‘I bet,’ Mare said. ‘Sometime you’ll have to tell me all about it. I’ll come visit you in Toledo.’

‘Wow,’ Dee said. ‘I guess I never thought of the three of us ever being apart. I think I saw us living together, sisters to the end.’

‘Like that cheesy television show?’ Mare said. ‘Kill me now. Even they got married. I’ll be the maiden aunt, the one everybody comes to for advice.’ The smell of burning bread rolled in from the kitchen. ‘And toast.’ She got up to save the toast and then said, ‘Oh, hell,’ and waved her hand as the newest batch of charcoal floated up out of the toaster and through the doorway on its own.

‘The important thing is, we’re not letting Xan get away with it this time,’ Lizzie said firmly. ‘We have to face her and tell her to stay out of our lives. Are we agreed?’

‘Agreed,’ Mare said, dropping the toast on the table.

‘Agreed,’ Dee said, and they began to talk, making and discarding plans, closer than they’d ever been before.

Xan stood over the silver bowl, now rimmed with smooth river rock, the see glass like mist in the center. In it, Danny James walked the streets of Salem’s Fork, Crash Duncan strapped his bags onto his motorcycle, and Elric, Elric entered a pizza parlor. A pizza parlor.

What the hell had Lizzie done to him?

Maxine stumbled through paneling, clutching her fists to her sweat-stained waitress uniform.

‘Did you get the talismans?’ Xan said.

‘What?’ Maxine said, gulping back tears.

‘The talismans,’ Xan said. ‘One piece of silver from Danny, Elric, and Crash. For my last spell,’ she said patiently, treating Maxine like the idiot she was. ‘Did you get them?’

‘Yes, but Xantippe, please, Jude-’

‘I told you,’ Xan said with no expression. ‘Jude is of no use to me. Put the silver in the bowl.’

Maxine gulped. ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to hurt them? Are you going to change them into frogs?’

Xan closed her eyes. ‘Maxine, I need them. They’re the men my nieces love. If I change them into frogs, then my nieces won’t recognize them, will they? Give me the talismans.’

Maxine opened her shaking fists.

A silver medallion. Xan remembered Danny James wearing that.

‘He took it off to shower,’ Maxine said as Xan took it. ‘Your spell pulled it through the window to me.’

Xan dropped it into the bowl and the mist from the see glass curled around it, obscuring it as she looked at Maxine’s shaking hands for the next token.

A silver stud, an earring. Xan saw it with a shock. Elric never took that off.

‘He gave it to Lizzie,’ Maxine said. ‘It got lost in the sheets. Your spell pulled it-’

Xan grabbed the stud from her and felt it hum against her skin. He gave it to Lizzie? It had been in his family for centuries, the contact power in it was enormous, and he gave it to Lizzie?

She dropped it into the bowl as if it had bitten her and the mist curled and covered it, and Maxine handed her the last piece, a silver tie tack.

‘He was packing-’

‘I don’t care.’ Xan said and threw it into the bowl where the mist covered it. Elric had given an heirloom to Lizzie, to Lizzie, she’d known the girl was his true love, but he’d given her power, he’d given her-’

The mist rose up in arabesques, stone gray this time, and the river rock rose, too, and became the Big Bocks up on Salem’s Mountain.

Xan shook her head and waved her hand through the mist, curling her fingers in a summoning gesture until the arabesques coiled about her hand in response. ‘Like to like, silver draws you,’ she whispered, ‘like to like, silver keeps you, there to stay, till I release you, so I say, so be it.’ She blew on the mist and there below in the see glass she saw Danny James stumble into the circle and look around confused, and then Elric appear and look up at her, enraged, and then…

Nothing.

Where the hell was Crash Duncan?

‘Oh,’ Maxine said, looking into the glass. ‘Oh, no.’

‘Maxine?’

Maxine stepped back, visibly upset. ‘Well, I’ll just be going then.’

Xan narrowed her eyes.

‘Lunchtime,’ Maxine said, sidling toward the paneling.

‘Maxine, that tie tack you gave me. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen Mr Duncan wearing a tie.’

Maxine froze. ‘Just give Jude one more chance,’ she whispered.

Xan looked down at the stone circle more closely. Danny James, Elric, and… ‘Oh, for the love of-’ She put her head in her hands. ‘Now I have to get this Crash lout out of town before I can get this charade over with since he’s not in the circle, is he, Maxine?’

‘No,’ Maxine cried. ‘But I love Jude, Xantippe. I had to save him.’

Xan turned cold eyes on her. ‘You love him, do you?’ Maxine lifted her chin. ‘Yes, I do.’

‘Then you should be with him,’ Xan said, and waited for hope to dawn in Maxine’s eyes before she waved her hand.

A minute later, a frog croaked its distress behind the Dumpster of the Greasy Fork. And then sneezed.

‘I should have done that a long time ago,’ Xan said and then made her plans. She had the men, or most of them, now all she had to do was get rid of the loose ends – Maxine was gone, Crash Duncan would be soon – invite the girls to the mountain, take their powers, leave them to their tawdry true loves – Mare would need an aquarium – and everybody would be happy.

Unless they resisted and she had to kill them.

‘Well, they were the ones who made this difficult,’ she said to the figures in the see glass and went to change for her last trip to Salem’s Fork.

The wind was growing stronger outside the house, and Lizzie could hear the sound of their neighbor’s garbage cans being tossed down the street. All the lights were on in the house, but an odd shadow remained, maybe just the manifestation of Mare’s unhappiness. The computer in the corner was in sleep mode, and Lizzie was half tempted to give it a knock so that the flying toasters on the screensaver would vanish, but she left it alone. She needed food.

‘That computer is taunting me,’ Mare said, watching the toast on the screen.

Dee glanced at her watch again, and frowned. ‘I thought Danny would be back by now.’

‘Danny? What about Elric and the pizza?’ Mare said. ‘I’m starving.’

The shadows gnawing away at Lizzie weren’t from Mare’s grief after all, she realized suddenly. Things weren’t right. Elric should have been back, even if he’d allowed them a little extra time for the sake of delicacy. Not that Elric was particularly delicate, though he could be, in the most delicious ways. And he could be quite indelicate, as well…

The sudden beep of the computer stopped her cold as the screen came to life. No flying toasters, no welcome screen. It was black, not the usual steel gray of a hibernating monitor, dead black, and then a cream colored dot spun itself into a square-shaped invitation with a sepia-toned script font:

‘She’s got Danny!’ Dee said, furious.

‘She’s got Elric,’ Lizzie said, astonished.

‘She’s got Crash,’ Mare said, panicked, and then she stopped and scowled. ‘Oh, hell, no she doesn’t, she’s probably got the frog. Well, she can have him. Maybe she likes frogs’ legs.’ She realized her sisters were looking at her. ‘Kidding. I’ll save the frog. What are we going to do?’

‘Whatever it is, we’re doing it together,’ Lizzie said firmly. ‘We’ve got five hours to come up with a plan.’

‘Xan’s very powerful,’ Dee warned. ‘We can’t underestimate her’

‘She’s powerful on her own,’ Lizzie said. ‘But she’s nothing compared to the three of us put together. This time she’s gone too far’

‘Yeah,’ Mare said. ‘Who steals my frog steals trash.’

Lizzie turned steely eyes on her and Mare said, ‘Hey, I’m on it. This bitch screwed up my life forever, and for that alone I’d go after her, but she’s taken the two men who made my sisters happy, so this chick is toast.’ She held up the charcoal square on her plate. ‘And we all know what happens to toast in this house.’

Lizzie nodded solemnly. ‘So we get the toaster from hell…’

Mare started to laugh, and Lizzie did, too, and then Dee got a gleam in her eye, and leaned forward.

‘Maybe not toast,’ she said. ‘But I like the ‘kitchen from hell’ part. Let’s put that bitch where she belongs.’

Crash took the after noon to finish up the last of his American business, pack, and talk to his partner about the

Annapolis delivery for the Moto Guzzi, but when it came time to go, he couldn’t leave Salem’s Fork, not without Mare. All right, so there were some new wrinkles in the relationship, the magic thing was still giving him headaches, he’d been a frog, for Christ’s sake, and there was that love spell mess, but at the end of the day, she was Mare, and he loved her, and he’d sworn to never leave her again, and he wasn’t going to. So he’d spend the extra week and she’d see he still loved her…

What if he spent the extra week and he didn’t love her? It had taken him five years to come back for her. What if she was right?

Clueless about what to do next, he went to the Greasy Fork. It was packed because the service was slow – one of the waitresses had disappeared and the place was buzzing with gossip about it – but then a booth miraculously opened up even though the people had just sat down – ‘Forgot my wallet,’ the guy told Crash, bemused – and Crash told Pauline to bring him the usual.

‘Could you be more specific?’ she said, and he looked up in surprise, but when she glared back, he told her.

Fuck, not even Pauline could remember him.

When his burger and fries were gone, and he was trying to drown his sorrows in his milkshake, Pauline came back with the check.

‘So what’s with you?’ she said, cracking her gum.

‘What’s with you and the gum?’ he said, feeling hostile. ‘You never did that before.’

Pauline stopped cracking. ‘You look like you lost your best friend.’

‘I did. Mare dumped me.’

Pauline nodded. ‘Eh, it’s for the best. She really wasn’t the Italian type. Good-looking guy like you, it’s too soon for you to settle down. Go back to Italy. Play the field. I hear they got a lot of fields there.’

‘No, it’s not for the best,’ Crash said, annoyed. ‘I’m ready to settle down and I always knew I’d settle down with Mare. And she’d have loved Italy. And Italy would have loved her’ And what the fuck’s with you, Pauline?

‘You’re telling me you’re ready to get married. Ha.’ Pauline cracked her gum again. ‘With all the lookers in the world, you’re gonna give all that up for one woman you probably haven’t even thought about for five years.’

‘The hell I haven’t,’ Crash said.

‘Well, it doesn’t matter,’ Pauline said. ‘She doesn’t want you. You think she hasn’t been dating and screwing around? I can tell you, she has.’

Crash winced. Then something bumped into the window and he saw a butterfly fluttering there, a big blue one with round wings, staring back at him. Belligerent, aren’t you? he thought. It looked like the kind of butterfly that probably beat up the other butterflies. In fact, it looked exactly like Mare’s butch butterfly, tilted above Mare’s beautiful round butt. ‘Well, why shouldn’t she have?’ he told Pauline, as the butterfly shoved off and disappeared. ‘I did, too. We lived our lives. We learned things. Now we’re going to learn things with each other. We’re ready. No regrets.’

Pauline cracked her gum. ‘Yeah, you look ready.’

‘She wants me.’ Crash pushed the milkshake away. I’m the one she loves, damn it, she said so.’

‘You just don’t love her,’ Pauline said. ‘Well, them’s the breaks. You should go back to Italy.’

‘Not without Mare.’

‘You’re just being stubborn.’ Pauline began to clear the table as Crash got out his wallet to pay the check. ‘You haven’t thought about her in five years, so why-’

The picture of Mare’s Florett fluttered out of his wallet, looped a loop, and landed face up on the table.

‘The hell I haven’t.’ Crash picked up the picture. ‘Look at this. I’ve been looking for the parts for this bike for three years…’

He stopped, realizing what he was saying.

‘Three years,’ he told Pauline, jabbing the photo at her. ‘I’ve been planning on coming back for her for three years. I’ve always meant to come back for her. I’m just slow.’ He looked at the bike. And stupid,’ he added to be fair. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t love-’ He looked up at Pauline and for the first time noticed the red glint in her eyes. And the red ring around her iris.

Pauline did not crack gum. Pauline knew exactly what his order was. Pauline was not serving his dinner.

‘Of course, there’s no reason to rush into anything,’ he told Xan.

‘Yeah,’ she said, cracking her gum.

‘I think I’ll go back to Italy now,’ he said, putting the photo back in his wallet. ‘Good plan.’

He handed her a twenty. ‘Keep the change.’

She nodded, the red glint in her eye getting brighter. ‘That’s real generous of you.’

‘Well, I’m leaving the country. Gotta get rid of my American money.’ Grash stood up and bumped into the woman who’d just gotten up from the booth behind his. ‘Sorry,’ he said to the top of her head, her gray razor-cut hair neatly parted.

‘My fault,’ the woman said, keeping her head down.

He followed her out the door, and then got on his bike and headed for the O’Brien house to tell Mare that her aunt was at the Greasy Fork possessing waitresses.

And that he’d loved her since the day he’d met her and would until the end of time.

They’d almost reached the top of the mountain, Pywackt padding beside them, the Great Big Rock in view, Mare with ‘Remains of the Day’ stuck in her head, when she heard the purr of a well-tuned motorcycle.

He’s not coming back for you, she told herself sternly, but her heart said, He’s coming back for me.

‘Send him away,’ Dee said. ‘This is not the time or the place for civilians,’ and Mare slowed as Crash rounded the final turn to the top, narrowly missing a frog that was hopping along the roadside. The frog sneezed.

‘This is so not the time for us to discuss the relationship,’ she told him as he parked his bike, but she sighed in spite of herself, he looked so good standing in front of her again.

He took off his helmet. ‘Your aunt is at the Greasy Fork. I think she’s possessed Pauline.’

‘Really,’ Mare said, smiling at the thought of Xan slinging hash at the Fork. ‘Well, she hasn’t possessed Pauline. Pauline’s in Baltimore with William. They ran off together after William’s dinner break in the middle of the libido spell. He quit his job at Value Video!! so they tried to make me manager this afternoon, but I’m busy with the whole Antichrist thing so they offered it to Dreama. She’s the youngest manager in the history of the company.’ Mare knew she was babbling, but he was right there, with her, and it was all she could do not to reach out and pat him because he was right there.

I love you, she thought. I have to go do something horrible to my aunt and I’ll probably die, but I love you.

‘Okay,’ Crash said. ‘So who’s at the Greasy Fork?’

‘Probably Xan, shapeshifting. What did she want?’

‘Me, back in Italy. But I’m not going without you.’ Crash got off his bike. ‘So what are we doing here?’

‘Mare!’ Lizzie called from the top of the path.

‘Just a minute,’ she called up. ‘This is new.’ She looked back at him. ‘I can’t talk now. Xan has grabbed Danny and Elric for some kind of Evil Overlord plan and we have to turn her into a geranium. But if we survive this, her power will be broken, and then if you still love me without her spell-’

‘You’re kidding,’ Crash said.

‘Which part?’

‘The geranium,’ Crash said.

‘Oh, no, we have to turn her into something powerless, and Dee said if Xan likes red that much, she could go be a geranium on the kitchen windowsill in Hell. Dee’s really had it with Xan this time, and a geranium’s as good as anything else.’

Crash nodded, looking lost but prepared to follow anyway. ‘You really can turn her into a geranium?’

‘I can’t, but Lizzie can if she has enough power, so if Dee and I channel what we’ve got into Lizzie, then Lizzie can turn Xan into a potted plant, and that should break whatever spell she has on Danny and Elric up there, and we can all go home for dinner, and then you and I can talk about living happily ever after in Italy, which we might actually have a shot at if we can turn Xan into a geranium. Or something equally nonlethal. And sedentary. And if you still love me when Xan’s power is gone.’ Mare drew in a deep breath.

‘Okay,’ Crash said, and she couldn’t stand it any more and leaned in and kissed him, loving the taste of him and the heat of his mouth, so glad to see him that the pebbles on the path rose up and swirled around them, and then he put his hands on her arms and kissed her back and some boulders shifted.

‘Mare,’ Dee said, from the top of the path.

‘I have to go,’ Mare said, dizzy with love. ‘My aunt the Antichrist is up there. She’s probably going to kill us all.’

‘And your plan is to turn her into a geranium,’ Crash said, breathless. ‘Okay, if you’re up there, I’m up there.’ He started up the path.

‘Not a good idea,’ Mare said, and followed him.

‘No civilians,’ Lizzie said when he reached them, but she didn’t stop climbing.

‘I’m marrying in,’ Crash said, not stopping, either.

‘Not if you get fried by a stray bolt of something,’ Dee said, as they reached the top. ‘You have no powers to protect you.’

‘And they do?’ Crash nodded over to the stone circle where Danny and Elric were sitting on the Great Big Rock, Danny looking bemused, Elric looking murderous.

‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ Dee said.

‘‘Bout time you got here,’ Danny called to Dee. ‘Okay, Elric and I slept with you and Lizzie, we know what we’re in for. But what did the frog do?’ He jerked his thumb at a frog on the edge of the rock.

‘Hey, Jude,’ Crash said.

The other frog they’d seen sneezing on the path had made it to the top of the mountain and now was hopping frantically across the green toward the circle, as Dee said, ‘Crash, I’m sorry, but you have to go. You’re going to get hurt.’

‘No,’ Crash said.

‘Give it up,’ Lizzie said to Dee. ‘Neither one of them can take an order. I say he’s part of the family and he stays. Now, has anybody seen Xan? Because if not, this is going to be the biggest anticlimax-’

The setting sun hit the Great Big Rock, and Xan appeared from behind it, clad in a long white dress, looking spectacular with her dark hair flowing across her shoulders.

‘Nice entrance,’ Mare said.

‘Overdone,’ Dee said.

‘Well, natural light is tricky,’ Lizzie said fairly. ‘Especially at her age,’ Elric said from inside the circle. Xan’s face darkened.

‘Does not take criticism well,’ Mare said primly. ‘Needs to improve.’

‘And she’s wearing white?’ Dee said. ‘Who is she kidding?’

Lightning split the sky behind Xan, lighting up the circle with fluorescent clarity, tinting the rocks with a bloodred glow.

‘Did she do that?’ Crash whispered to Mare.

‘The lightning, no,’ Mare whispered back. ‘The red light, probably. That’s just high school stuff for her. The real magic is keeping the guys in the circle. If we can distract her, they can get out.’

‘Like if I went and got my bike and rode it straight at her?’

‘I’d get you a very nice wreath and put flowers on your grave every Sunday’

‘So, Plan B,’ Crash said.

Dee stepped forward. ‘Let the guys go, Xan. They’re not part of this. You can keep the frog if you want.’

Jude croaked and the other frog croaked, too, and then sneezed.

‘Of course they’re part of this,’ Xan said, sounding exasperated. ‘I brought them into this. It’s a trade. I brought you True Love-’

‘Thanks for the amphibian,’ Mare said, scowling.

‘Do you know how rare True Love is?’ Xan said to Dee. And I found yours for you. And Lizzie.’ She lifted her head and looked past Dee to Lizzie. ‘You think you’d ever have gone to Toledo and found Elric? It would never have happened. Without me, you never-’

‘Yo,’ Mare said. ‘About the frog.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Xan said to her. ‘I made a mistake. Sue me. You got your mechanic. Stop complaining.’

‘I’m not complaining about the mechanic,’ Mare said. ‘I’m pissed about the frog.’

‘And what are we supposed to give you in return?’ Dee said.

Xan smiled. ‘Your powers, of course.’

Dee looked exasperated. ‘Our powers. Of course.’

‘Well, you’re not using them,’ Xan said, her voice full of reason. ‘You don’t even like yours, Dee, you’re inconvenienced by it, and I can set you free. And Lizzie, well, poor Lizzie can’t control hers, Elric was ready to take it from her just because of the damage she was doing to the universe, like a baby with a flamethrower. And Mare…’ Xan turned and smiled at Mare. ‘Mare doesn’t have enough power to worry about controlling it. She’d rather sell videos and make babies with a mechanic-’

‘I don’t like her,’ Crash said.

‘-except that she can’t do that for fear the villagers will burn her at the stake if she goes to the backwoods of Italy and moves something while she’s screaming, “yesYesYES!” So really, girls, I think I’m making you an excellent offer. I’m giving you the loves of your lives and freedom from powers you don’t even want. I’m doing you a favor-’

‘Well, color us grateful,’ Dee said flatly. ‘Sadly, we’re just going to have to say no. Let them go.’

‘That’s so like you,’ Xan said, drifting closer. ‘Making all the decisions, not even consulting your sisters.’

‘Oh, we’re with her on that,’ Mare said, moving to stand beside Dee, sandwiching Lizzie in the middle. ‘We want our powers. And our lives. We’re selfish like that.’

‘Yep,’ Lizzie said. ‘Let’em go.’

Xan sighed, and opened her arms, the long sleeves of her white dress flowing like bat wings. ‘Fine. Then we’ll do it the hard way’

‘Like there was ever any other way,’ Lizzie muttered and took her sisters’ hands.

‘Maybe we should have been practicing this,’ Mare whispered, praying this was going to work. ‘Like for, thirteen years. Plan ahead.’

‘Stop it,’ Dee said. ‘Strong thoughts. Positive thinking.’

I’m positive we’re going to get our asses kicked, Mare thought and looked at her sisters’ faces, stern and determined as they faced Xan. Well, hell, she’d be stern if Crash were in that damn stone circle, too. She’d be homicidal. ‘Right. Strong thoughts, positive thinking. Don’t cross the streams.’ And then she concentrated on giving Lizzie everything she had.

In her peripheral vision, she could see Xan turn and raise her arms as if to smite the men in the circle, and there was something wrong about that, too theatrical, too Disney witch by far, but Mare couldn’t do anything about it now. She bowed her head, touched her forehead to Lizzie’s shoulder to create a deeper contact, and felt the power start to flow. She heard Lizzie draw in a deep breath and breathed with her, felt blue mist flow into lavender smoke and twine with green, the colors making a watery rope that grew stronger as they twisted together, more powerful because there were three, and a part of her sent a silent apology for all the times she’d sneered at the TV for that power-of-three chant. Around them lightning crackled and then Lizzie raised her head, focused on Xan, and lifted her arms, encircled, and before them Xan wavered, and began to shift, elongating into a green stem, her head blossoming into bright red petals while her face grew slack with shock.

She snarled, ‘A geranium?’ and then Mare rocked as talons raked at her mind, red claws cutting through the rope of then powers, smearing the colors into grays, Lizzie screaming as red mist filled the air, and then she realized she was screaming, too, and Crash hit her hard, knocking her to the ground, cutting the connection to Lizzie and to Dee and to Xan, who’d been raping their gifts, leaving her mind savaged and bloody, Lizzie weeping on the ground, and somewhere in that red mist Dee shrieking, and Xan rising up before them…

Dee felt the hit of energy like an explosion. The geranium was gone, and Xan had turned. All Dee could see was dark red. Old bloodred. She was shaking hard with the energy she’d expended, holding on by her fingertips to Lizzie, and she knew it had all gone wrong. The flow reversed. The rope of their powers tangled and snapped, a living thing that whipped back at them like a live wire. Lizzie screamed and Dee tried to pull her free, but she couldn’t manage it; she couldn’t see. All she could feel was that terrible shriek of energy shattering around them, and then she was on her ass, the connection broken.

She scrambled up, thinking it was Xan, but it was Crash who’d hit them, knocking them around like bowling pins and snapping the connection and saving them. But they were separated now, to be picked off at Xan’s leisure. Lizzie was weeping, and the men were shouting from the circle, Danny yelling, ‘Now, Dee! Now!’

Now.

It was an instant, and it was filled with rage, with the weight of the accumulated years, with the liquid crimson viscera of Xan’s avarice that collected and solidified and grew. Suddenly out of the bloodred mist a dragon rose, black and skeletal and stinking – Xan, her mouth open in a scream of fury. Her eyes glittered crimson. Her neck arched, snakelike, as she reared up to strike Lizzie where she lay helpless on the ground, and Dee thought, Yes, Danny, now, and she let her rage gather, coalesce, compress into form and light and fury, and she rose off the ground herself, there off the dust of defeat where her sisters were still in danger, where Xan wanted to leave them crushed and empty and bloody, and Dee could finally call on every ounce of her power and know that her sisters would help her to finally, finally call that bitch to task. She rose right up, her cells swelling, the light so hot it blinded her in the red mist that suddenly sparked green. She opened her mouth and filled her lungs and shrieked, a terrible bone-chilling cry she’d never heard before, greater than a hawk’s, more awful than any predator she’d ever been or hoped to be, a magnificent full-throated war cry the kind that she’d wanted to let loose her whole life, and she stretched out her hands, but they weren’t hands, and she was the one reaching now, because she was going to impale herself on that fearsome neck, she was going to rip out that snakelike neck that rose above her. The red mist had been swallowed by green fog, but she could see. She could see Xan and she was finally going to have her…

Lizzie stood frozen, staring up as the huge black dragon reared overhead, bearing down on her, lethal, merciless, and then it was engulfed in a cloud of green fog as Dee attacked.

Oh, God, not an owl, Lizzie thought, horrified. They were all going to die. But then Dee speared upward, out of the thick fog, and even in the darkness of the storm, her green and gold scales glittered brilliantly. She had outdone herself- a magnificent Chinese dragon, soaring through the air, flying straight at the black and red Xan beast with a shriek of rage. For a moment, the older dragon wavered, and little Py leaped beneath them both, aiming for Xan’s huge black tail with the same determination he’d shown for Lizzie’s bunnies, the ballsiest house cat in Salem’s Fork.

With a scream, the black dragon fell back beneath Dee’s fierce onslaught, howling into the wind with rage and pain, and red mist flew upward like a tornado. The creature within it began to shift again, narrowing, changing, pulsing, until a huge snake remained, black, malevolent, only Xan’s glowing red eyes left with any trace of humanity, all of it bad.

‘Lizzie!’ Mare cried. ‘Do something!’

She wanted to hide. All her power, her self-assurance seemed to have vanished, and she was terrified, helpless. Her sisters were going to die, Elric was going to die, unless she did something. And then she felt it – the power rumbling against her heart, the amethyst pendant burning, and the strength flowing through her, not just her own, but Mare’s, Dee’s, Elric’s, all the power of the universe was surging through her veins, so strong that if she threw a transformation spell it would hit Dee, as well, turning her into a frail human who’d never survive. She tried to move, to get between the two massive combatants, one so ugly, one so beautiful, but the lightning was flashing all around them, and even as she finally slipped between them the snake focused on her, rearing its huge head to strike.

‘Lizzie!’ She heard Elric’s furious cry of warning, and it pulled the last bit of energy through her, enough so that she looked up, arched her back, and threw the spell upward, directly in the face of the snake, as purple smoke exploded around them.

Mare saw Xan draw back to spit poison at Lizzie and lunged to drag her away, but a huge violet crack of lightning split the sky and purple smoke rolled up, gushing over the landscape. Mare screamed, ‘Lizzie!’ and crawled toward where she’d last seen her, hearing Crash yell and then a roaring, and then the rain began to fall, beating down the smoke. As it cleared, Mare saw Lizzie standing like a warrior queen, her arms encircled; and beyond her Dee, human again, sitting naked on her butt in the mud; and beyond her, Crash eyeing a large tiger who looked as confused as he was; and beyond them, Maxine, naked, too, looking startled and guilty as all hell; and in front of all of them, a giant gold snake, frozen in the attack position, glistening in the violet rain.

‘Huh.’ Mare looked up at Lizzie, and then at the giant gold snake, and then back at Lizzie. ‘Finally got that gold thing down, did you?’

Lizzie took a deep breath and smiled and dropped her arms. ‘Yes. Yes, I did. Told you I could do it.’

Danny and Elric walked out of the stone circle, staring at the giant gold snake, even Elric speechless for once, the frog hopping behind them, while Maxine followed, looking lost.

‘She looks like a giant war memorial,’ Danny said as he picked up Dee’s silk dress and helped her slip it on.

‘Yes,’ Elric said. ‘If the war was really strange, and the victors were really rich.’

‘Maybe we should make a nice plaque to commemorate the event.’ Mare shoved her wet hair out of her eyes, trying to wrap her mind around it all. ‘With something from the Evil Overlord Rules. Like Rule Thirty-four: ‘I will not turn into a giant snake; it never helps.’ She looked at Maxine. ‘Hi, Maxine. So, you were a frog?’

Maxine picked up Jude. ‘Yes,’ she said defiantly, cradling him in her hands, trying to pretend she wasn’t naked.

‘Okay, then,’ Mare said and turned back to Crash, who’d come up beside her, keeping an eye on the tiger.

‘She tried to take your powers,’ Elric said, his arms around Lizzie, as he stared up at the snake. ‘That’s why she wanted you all up here united to save us. She wanted your powers bound together so she could take them all’

‘Bitch.’ Dee dusted off her hands.

Py gave up staring at Crash and came up and rubbed his huge, wet, furry tiger head against Mare’s leg. ‘Hello, baby,’ she said, scratching him behind the ears. ‘Do you feel better back to normal? Kind of normal?’

‘So it’s over?’ Lizzie said, safe in the circle of Elric’s arms.

‘Yep,’ Mare said, letting her skirt drop. ‘You and Dee saved the day, all by yourselves. Unless you want me to turn Xan to face the east, I got nothin’ here. And she’d hate facing the east, you know how she stayed out of the sun.’

Dee and Lizzie looked at each other.

‘Yes, it would be a nice punishment,’ Mare said, exasperated. ‘But I lied, I can’t turn her to face the east, either. I’m not much good at heavy lifting. I’m not much good at anything.’ She looked at Crash, and took a deep breath. ‘So the woman who put the True Love spell on you? She’s got no power, that spell is broken, you can leave now.’

‘I love you,’ he said.

Mare swallowed. ‘Still?’

Crash looked patient. ‘I told you this.’

‘She has abandonment issues,’ Dee said.

‘Who doesn’t?’ Crash said.

Mare blinked back tears. ‘You came back for me and you weren’t under a spell?’

‘Like I’d leave you,’ Crash said.

‘I’d rather have the giant snake spitting venom,’ Elric said, casting his eyes to the heavens. Then his face changed. ‘Oh, hell’

‘What?’ Lizzie said and followed his eyes up.

‘This isn’t over,’ Elric said, staring up at the snake’s eyes. ‘She’s still alive in there.’

‘No,’ Maxine said, holding Jude tighter.

Danny pulled Dee closer. ‘How can you tell?’

‘Her eyes’ he said. ‘Just a slight movement, but she’s in there.’

‘How?’ Dee said. ‘She’s gold.’

Elric shook his head. ‘You can only turn like to like. The human body is about eighteen percent carbon, so that’s what Lizzie transformed. Xan’s just a very unstable shell right now. She’s going to change back, and when she does-’

‘Oh, hell,’ Crash said to Mare. ‘I knew the holidays with your family were going to be a bitch. Well, you’ll just have to keep changing her into something else. A piano or something.’

‘The piano from hell,’ Mare said, leaning into him again. All it plays is Tree Bird.’

‘Dee and Lizzie can’t do transformation magic again this soon,’ Elric said. And since my powers seem to be on the fritz from the damn containment spell, and Mare thinks she isn’t good at anything-’

‘Hey!’ Crash said.

‘- I suggest we leave. Xantippe is not going to be up for an intercontinental chase for a while. We should have time for three honeymoons before…’ He looked at Mare with distaste. ‘Tree Bird.’

Mare looked up at Crash. ‘You got any ideas?’

‘No, but you can stop that I’m-not-good-at-anything moan. You’re Queen of the Universe. If you can’t move big things, move something else, but settle that bitch’s hash. She tried to send me back to Italy without you. Fix her good.’

Mare thought, Yeah, she tried to ruin my life and my sisters’ lives, it’s time we did settle her hash. She stared at Xan, trying to see what Elric the master sorcerer saw, trying to believe what Crash the master mechanic believed, and began to imagine what it was like inside Xan right now, what it had been like when Xan had transformed herself from Xan to dragon. If Xan had done it, she could do it. Xan must have just seen her human molecules and maybe rearranged the atoms so they were dragon molecules, and then something had gone wrong and the dragon molecules had become snake molecules. And then Lizzie, Lizzie must have gone in and made snake molecules into gold molecules. And if that was what they’d done, Mare wouldn’t even have to change anything, all she’d have to do would be to wrap her mind around Xan’s molecules the way she’d wrapped her mind around the bed and the sugar grains and the muffins, and then just bang them together and start a chain reaction…

She closed her eyes and concentrated hard. She was Queen of the Universe, and she could see the molecules in her mind – there they were, gold snake molecules with Xan-red centers, right there in front of her – and if she could see them they must be real and if they were real…

She reached out with her mind, blue sparks flying, and surrounded the gold dots. They were feisty little devils, those Xan molecules, but as she started to make her move, she saw purple smoke and green fog in there, too, in her mind, backing up the blue sparks, and then she laughed out loud.

‘Mare?’ Dee said, and, Lizzie turned to look. ‘You know my abandonment issues?’ Mare said. ‘I’m over them.’

‘We’re happy for you’ Elric said, taking Lizzie’s arm. And now we’re leaving.’

High above them, the golden eyes turned red, flickering. ‘Go,’ Mare said. ‘I’m on it.’

‘No,’ Dee said, and Lizzie stepped closer, and said,

‘We’re here,’ and Mare reached out for them, and then she reached out with her mind again and went inside Xan and found the gold molecules there, her blue sparks zeroing in on the weakest part That’s it, she thought, and aimed for two molecules that looked crucial. She tried to pull them apart and they stuck together, so she yanked hard, and then there was cool green fog and warm violet smoke and big-ass blue sparks blowing holes through everything, and Mare used it all and broke through to set free two big fat gold molecules. One more, she thought, and kicked out a third and set them rotating, spuming faster and faster, as green and violet and blue, fog and smoke and sparkly mist, began to fill the space between the molecules and the space between her fingertips and the space between the sisters, and the whole top of the mountain began to hum.

High above her, the eyes of the golden snake flickered madly red, and Mare felt her eyes flicker madly back. Iknow what you wanted, Xan, she thought, and so do Lizzie and Dee, it was this, and we’ve got it now, and then she clamped down on the thought, no gloating, time to concentrate on the molecules, keep those suckers spinning, and as she did, the blue and green and violet became stronger, brighter, driving back the rain and the clouds, until somebody said, ‘Oh, shit,’ and then Mare gave the molecules a flick with her frontal lobe and they smacked into each other and then smacked into other molecules that smacked into other molecules that smacked into other molecules…

Crash yanked her to the ground and a second later Xan exploded into chunks of gold that exploded into smaller pieces that exploded into little pieces that exploded into golden dust, and Mare laughed into the mud of the mountain and hugged Crash to her, so grateful she had him, and her sisters, and him, and her power, and him, especially him, as the gold went everywhere, and when it was all over, she sat up and saw the gold dust coating everything. Xan was bronzing powder.

‘God, she’s gaudy,’ Dee said, trying to brush off her borrowed sleeve. ‘I hope she washes off’

‘Well, that’s Xan for you,’ Elric said. ‘She always liked things shiny.’ He flicked at his sleeve and the gold dust fell away, leaving him immaculate.

‘You’re going to be annoying me for the rest of my life, aren’t you?’ Dee said.

‘Lizzie?’ a very small voice said from the underbrush, and when they turned around, Maxine crawled out, covered in mud and gold, still holding Jude.

‘Oh, Maxine,’ Lizzie said. ‘We forgot about you. Elric, give her your coat.’

Elric looked at Lizzie as if she’d asked him to bathe Maxine by hand.

‘I don’t want his coat,’ Maxine said. She held out Jude. ‘I want him. Turn him back, please.’

Lizzie swallowed. ‘I can’t, Maxine. He is what he is. I’m sure he’s a lovely frog, but even if I made him a human again, he’d turn back into a frog again in a couple of days. He’s supposed to be a frog, honey.’

Maxine looked at her, tears in her eyes. ‘Okay, make me a frog’

‘It won’t last,’ Lizzie said. ‘You’ll turn back.’

‘Maybe,’ Maxine said. ‘But maybe I won’t.’ Mare looked at Lizzie. ‘Do it.’

Lizzie hesitated, then circled her arms. There was a swirl of purple smoke, and two frogs sat on the ground staring happily into each other’s eyes.

‘That’s not the weirdest thing I’ve seen today,’ Crash said.

Danny looked around the mountaintop. ‘I still can’t believe Xan’s gone. Shouldn’t we be playing taps or something? I mean, she died.’ And they stood there in silence, trying to summon up some regret.

Finally, Lizzie said, ‘I can restore her, you know’

Mare put up her hand. ‘I vote no.’

Dee put up her hand. ‘I vote hell no.’

Lizzie put up her hand. ‘Oh, I vote no.’

Elric looked at Danny. ‘That was a very humane impulse you just had. Next time, save it for humans.’

Danny put up both hands. ‘Sorry. My bad.’

Mare looked at Dee and Lizzie. ‘So. That thing that, just happened. You were there, too, right? That was all three of us together? Inside Xan. Inside me?’

‘Yes,’ Lizzie said. ‘And we probably shouldn’t do it again until the apocalypse.’

‘And talk about it first,’ Dee said. ‘And then vote on it.’

‘But it was good,’ Mare said. ‘Very good,’ Lizzie said. Dee smiled. ‘The best.’

And they turned and went down the mountain as the gold dust settled like a fine sparkly mist.

Dee didn’t think her heart would ease for a week. She couldn’t believe it: Xan, the snake, was nothing but cosmic dust. She looked back, just to make sure, and smiled. She loved it when a plan came together.

‘You’re gonna trip over something if you don’t turn around and look where you’re going,’ Danny offered, holding tightly to her hand.

She laughed. ‘You’re right.’ Then she laughed again, swinging hands as if she were strolling down the street instead of off a mountain where cataclysms had happened. ‘So what do you think? Will the no-eyebrow look be in this year?’

Danny smiled down at her, his eyes unspeakably proud. ‘I have a girlfriend who can turn into a dragon,’ he boasted. All my writer friends will be jealous. Especially the fantasy writers.’

Dee looked closely at him. ‘It doesn’t bother you?’ He shrugged, and picked off a few toasted curls. ‘I told you. It doesn’t matter. It’s just one more color in your array.’

How did he always know the perfect thing to say to her? ‘What a painterly way to put that.’

‘I figure I’d better do some research on the subject. Seems I’m not going to be the star in the family anymore. If either of us ever get to the point where we attend celebrity cocktail parties, I want to sound knowledgeable when I boast about your talent. You are going to marry me, Dee.’

‘Yes,’ she said through a tear-constricted throat. ‘I am.’

‘And you’ll go to Ireland with me? And Greece?’

‘And Montmartre?’

His grin was devilish. ‘Didn’t I tell you? I have an apartment on the Left Bank.’

Dee pulled him to a dead stop halfway down the hill. ‘You’re lying to me.’

He brushed away a few more ashes and plucked at her singed hair. ‘I also have a horse farm in Ireland and a little getaway in Nevis where I escape to write. Oh, and a brownstone in Greenwich Village for business trips. Do you like New York?’

‘I don’t know.’ She couldn’t take it all in. ‘I’d like to find out, though. What about Italy and Spain? I think that’s where Lizzie and Mare will be.’ Suddenly she grinned, exhilarated. ‘Pretty rarefied atmosphere for girls who spent the last twelve years hiding in small towns.’

‘You pick the city.’ He kissed her, a long sweet kiss of reunion. ‘I’m sorry, Dee. I should have listened to you. I brought that old snake right to your door.’

‘No you didn’t. She brought you. And it was the only good thing she ever did in her life.’

Rain dripped down from the trees, but Dee didn’t notice. She had eyes only for Danny, who took a moment to look at their joined hands.

‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am I lied to you. I never meant to hurt you or make you think I don’t love you enough to let you in every corner of my life.’

Dee thumbed a tear away from his cheek. ‘Okay’ He stared at her. ‘That’s it? “Okay”?’ She beamed. ‘Sure. Authors make me hot.’ Hand in hand, they turned for home.

Elric was walking beside Lizzie, uncharacteristically silent. He had his arm around her waist, a good thing, since she was feeling a bit wobbly, but he still hadn’t said anything, and Lizzie was starting to worry.

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘Remind me never to get you too pissed off at me,’ he said finally.

‘I’m not sure you’ll be able to help it. You can be awfully annoying.’

He smiled, and even in the night air the colors swirled, dancing in the dark. ‘You’re even better than I thought,’ he said, not sounding thrilled about it.

‘Is that a problem?’

‘I’ll get used to it. I’m usually the one in control.’ He glanced down at her. ‘This is good for me. Maybe we’ll use those silk ties on me next time around. We’ll have years to work it out.’ The promise in his voice made her pulse race, her tattoo throb, and her entire body tighten in anticipation.

‘Er… how long am I going to live? Just curious, mind you.’

He leaned down and brushed his mouth against hers. ‘Two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty. Give or take a decade or two. Time enough for me to figure out how to keep you on your toes.’

‘You can try,’ she said, suddenly feeling very sure of herself. ‘You know, I’m tired. Do we really have to walk down this mountain? I think I need to go to bed.’

‘I think you do, too,’ he said, his voice low and sexy. ‘Close your eyes and think of England.’

And a moment later, they were gone.

As Lizzie and Elric disappeared, Mare and Crash stopped at his bike, Pywackt regal beside them. Crash picked up his helmet and handed it to Mare and then climbed on the bike, and Pywackt sat and stared at him. ‘Want a ride, Py?’ Mare said.

‘Py’s kind of large,’ Crash said, but Mare put her hand on Py’s head and he became a house cat again. ‘Okay. How’d you do that?’

‘Remember I told you I felt weird?’ Mare put her helmet on. ‘When Xan reached inside us to take our powers, she scrambled ours a little. I can’t turn straw into gold, and I’m betting I can’t become a hawk, but I can turn Py back and I might try turning into a redhead for you some night.’

‘Okay.’ Crash shook his head. ‘Or not.’

‘Or a blonde,’ Mare said as Py jumped in front of Crash on the bike. ‘You might like a blonde. As long as she was me.’

Then Py looked up the mountain and growled.

‘Py?’ Mare said.

‘About the remains of the day,’ Crash said, looking up the mountain. ‘That dust is still moving.’ Mare looked back.

The gold dust was swirling. It might have been just a small funnel cloud, just a trick of the light. Then again, it might not be.

Mare walked a little way back up the path to see better. The dust seemed pretty well organized for a cloud. Crash called up, ‘Mare?’ and she closed her eyes and thought about the Great Big Rock up there. All those molecules, sitting up there for centuries. Heavy little suckers, too. Once she had them firmly in mind, she opened her eyes and watched blue sparkly mist swirl around the rock, little bits of green and violet in the mix. Pretty, she thought, and picked up the rock and held it over the gold dust. The Great Big Rock didn’t feel heavy at all, but when she dropped it on the dust, it made one hell of a thump and the gold poofed out around the rock and then fell down silent into the dirt.

‘Better,’ Mare said, and went back down to Crash and Py.

Crash nodded at her as she climbed on the back of the bike. ‘How long do you think that’s going to hold her?’

Mare wrapped her arms around him and put her cheek on his back. ‘Long enough for us to get to Italy.’

‘Works for me,’ Crash said, and carried them down the mountain.