Dear Persephone,

I’m writing to you because I think you, more than Olivia and Betsy, are capable of understanding me, of appreciating what I’m trying to do even if you don’t agree with me. I’ve truly changed. It’s not an act like Olivia says. I realized today, after Olivia called me, that no one else in this group has changed since high school. I don’t think they ever will.

At least I wasn’t alone in thinking that.

That is ludicrous too. The whole world has changed so much, but our little clique of girls hasn’t? Do you remember when we were kids? Before all the nightmares decided to let the world know they were real? Do you remember what it was like before the horrors became real?

I hadn’t known she was so scared. Her getting saved suddenly made sense.

Sometimes I just want to grab Olivia and shake her and demand that she wake up, that she acknowledge how much her words hurt me. How much her stagnation hurts her. But I think it would take more than shaking to get through to her.

Definitely, I thought. Like a decade of hypnotherapy…though a bottle of Smirnoff might work in the short term.

I kept reading.

She hates me, I’m sure of it. I represent something she fears, so she tries to hurt me to keep dominion over me and subdue me.

And of course Nancy couldn’t see that she was having exactly the same unjustified reaction where wæres were concerned.

Maintaining a friendship with you and Betsy exclusive of her would be unfair to ask, and likely impossible. I hope you don’t hate me. You’re the one who listened to me, who didn’t snub me immediately when I announced that I’d gotten saved. But I saw the snubbing in Olivia’s eyes. I heard her words encourage Betsy’s snubbing. You’ve always stood alone. I’ve always admired you for that.

I’m coming to our luncheon this weekend, but I’m afraid it will be the last time. I can’t deny who I’ve become just to ease Olivia’s conscience. Or yours, my friend. The world has become a frightening place. Inhumanity is everywhere! Who can be trusted anymore? There should be required testing for everyone. The public has a right to know. God didn’t make those abominations.

But I digress. I don’t know why I think you can do something about this dying quartet of ours. I’m not even sure I want you to. But maybe you can. Maybe we can all stay friends if you do. If I knew what words to say to Olivia, I would say them. But I don’t. You’re the editor-person. If any of us knows the right words, it’s you.

Nancy

I was supposed to try to save her from Olivia’s opinions? Her own were pretty harsh. And scattered. But of course, she wouldn’t see it that way. Her way, similar to so many on her path, was the only right way. And I was so tired of being in the middle.

“Must be bad news,” Nana mumbled.

“Hmmm?”

“You’re frowning hard enough to make your hair grow.”

I snorted an awkward laugh. It was better than crying. Losing friends sucked, no matter how the death of friendship came about. So I went the other direction, toward a new friend. “Let’s go get Poopsie some food and a new collar.” I stood and cleared the table. “When we get back, we’ll bring him up out of the cellar.”

Nana’s grin could have lit up the night, but then suddenly it faded like a bright idea shorting out. “Your wolf friends don’t leave their fleas in the cellar, do they?”

Poopsie had all a puppy could want, including a cushy dog bed in Nana’s room. It wouldn’t fit him for long, but I hoped it would get him through the whining stage.

After locking the doors for the night, I stood perfectly still just inside my door and concentrated. Closing my eyes and flicking that switch to hit alpha, I reached out with a part of me that was not tangible. Stretching across the acreage as if it were no more than a coffee table, my spirit self could touch the power of the ley line that ran across the rear of my property.

Ley lines are a pure “source” of power. As I understand it, if you visualize the planet’s surface lined with geodesic triangles with all the lines carrying flowing power, the intersecting points are like power stations. An intersection, called a nucleus, has power that is available in increased amounts, like water in a deep aquifer.

As a witch, I can tap into a ley line and draw on that power, but it can be very dangerous. Ley lines are volatile. As power flows—affected by moon phases and astrological correspondences—it can swirl and eddy dangerously.

My line ran from the Serpent Mound to Indian Point Park. I was relatively close to a nucleus, so the current stayed strong here. Putting my metaphysical hand near it, I sensed its speed and level in the thrumming pulse of its flow. Using just my fingertips, I redirected a minuscule portion along the path I chose, guiding it to refill the wards that kept my windows and entries safe. Problem was, even the tiny touch of power was like sticking my hand in boiling water and, as it gushed through me, every nerve felt scalded. I quickly released the line and emptied all of it into the wards, retaining none for myself.

No electronic security system on the market could rival my metaphysical one.

That done, I flicked off the last light and headed up the creaky oak steps, deciding halfway up that I’d be stuffing cotton into my ears to block the dog noise out.

The phone rang.

I turned and went back down to find the cordless phone ringing on the coffee table. I picked it up and hit the button even as I turned back for the steps. “Hello?”

“Boy, do you know how to pick ’em.” It was Theo.

“What do you mean?”

“This Goliath guy. Better than a drama on Lifetime.”

“What’d you find?”

“Well, I just dropped the printouts and photocopies in the mail to you. There’s way too much to go over this time of night but, in a nutshell, he was born in Texas, seemed to have a normal life for a while, then became a sensation when he got a perfect score on the SAT at age ten. Forty-eight hours later, he was kidnapped. Taken from his bed in the night.”

My stomach tightened. I didn’t watch Lifetime because of stuff like this.

“And now he’s what?” I asked. “Twenty? Thirty?”

“Now he’s undead.”

“What?” I froze at the top of the steps. “A child vampire?”

“No. They let him grow up before they turned him. And coincidentally, his younger brother, who witnessed the kidnapping, grew up to be the now-notorious Reverend Samson D. Kline.” She paused. “Do I hear whining?”

Wæres have such good hearing. “Yeah. Nana got a puppy.”

Her throaty laugh erupted again. “You could’ve asked Johnny to move in. He doesn’t whine or shit on the floor.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

She cackled.

I sat down on the bed in my room and changed the subject back. “Samson D. Kline. You mean that guy videotaped in the hotel room with—”

“That’s the one.”

The soft glow of my bedside lamp on the pale butter-yellow walls could not soothe away the panic starting to form inside me. My target wasn’t a rogue council Elder. He was a damned vampire. Vivian hadn’t mentioned that.

I hate vampires. Anal-retentive know-it-alls, the lot of them. They smell like the bottom of a pile of raked leaves after a three-day rain and are probably just as buggy. I suppressed a shiver. Every vampire I’d ever met spiked my creep-o-meter.

I would just call Vivian and tell her the deal was off. Another call would stop Johnny—or stop him from making the trip, anyway. Nothing short of a strong chastity spell would stop his flirtatious personality.

“Persephone? You got quiet on me.”

“I just didn’t expect that.”

“What? That his brother is a fundamentalist hypocrite?”

“No, that Goliath Kline is a vampire.” I stood, slipped out of my jeans, and tossed them onto the wicker chair in the corner. “Any idea where he keeps his dirt bag?” Vampires really did have to sleep on a pillow of their home earth. I always envisioned it as a place for the worms to go when they’d eaten their fill from the inside. Yuck.