Witch Way From Demon's Delight Anthology By MaryJanice Davidson --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   To my husband, who is my opposite in every way: politically, religiously, economically, and neurologically. Do I believe in love at first sight? You bet! Do I believe opposites attract? I have two children (both look like him) who would testify to that fact. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Thanks again to Cindy Hwang at Berkley, who never clutches her head (at least in my presence) when I pitch a new idea. And thanks to the fabulous cover artists and the flap copy techs; I could never sum up a book (or four novellas) in two paragraphs, but those bums make it look easy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   AUTHOR'S NOTE   Not all witches were bad. Not all witches were even witches, particularly during the madness of the Salem witch trials. But some were. And they got pissed. That's all I've got to say about that. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------   She turned me into a newt! It got better. —Monty Python and the Holy Grail   My mother says I must not pass Too near that glass. She is afraid that I will see A little witch that looks like me. With a red mouth to whisper low The very thing I should not know. —Sarah Morgan Bruamt Piatt, The Witch in the Glass   There is no hate lost between us. —The Witch,Act iv, Sc .   There is no love lost between us. —Cervantes, Don Quixote,Book iv -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Prologue   TUCKER Goodman did not take his hat off, a whipping offense if anyone else dared try it. He pointed a long, bony finger at the witch in the blocks and said, in a voice trembling with rage and age, "You are an unnatural thing, cast out by the devil to live among good people—" "Good people," the witch said, craning (and failing) to look at him, "like the Swansons? You know perfectly well the last three littluns born on that farm weren't got on the missus, but instead, the eldest daughter. Not to mention—" "Liar!" Farmer Swanson was on his feet, his face purpling, while Mrs. Swanson just huddled deeper into the bench and cried softy into her handkerchief. "Thatthing filled my girls' heads with lies!" "Silence, Farmer Swanson!" Silence reigned, as the witch knew it would. There was no reasoning with a mob. Unless you were the leader of the mob. "I think we can all agree—" "That you're a creaky old man who likes having marital congress with fifteen-year-olds to keep the evil spirits away." The witch laughed. "—that since you were sent here, there has been naught but wickedness afoot." "Except for all the children I cured of the waxing disease," the witch pointed out helpfully. No one said anything. The witch wasn't surprised. Say just the wrong thing at the wrong time, and things like guilt or innocence didn't matter. Defend a witch, and you'd be burned alive, too. Just a handy scapegoat to roast and dance about. That's all they really wanted. "You will die in agony, yet cleansed by fire." "Terrific," the witch muttered. "And in penance for your evil deeds, your children and your children's children, down through the ages, will be persecuted and hunted until you share your powers with your greatest enemy." "I see no logic in that order of things," the witch commented. "Why not just kill me and get it over with?" "Because you keep coming back," Goodman said, clearly exasperated. "My great-great-grandfather told me all about you. You bring your mischief to the town and have your fun and then are burned and show up in another town a few years later." "I like to keep busy." "This time, if you don't give over your powers to your greatest enemy, you'll be doomed to walk the earth forever, alone and persecuted." "And if I do give over my powers to my greatest enemy?" Goodman smirked, revealing teeth blackening with age. "But you never will, unnatural thing. You don't have a heart to share, to open. And so I curse you, as this town curses you, doomed to walk the earth forever, alone." "How very Christian and forgiving of you," the witch muttered. Goodman, wrapped tightly in his cloak of smug judgment, ignored the witch's comment. Instead, he sprinkled a foul-smelling herb poultice in the witch's hair and clothes, ignoring the sneezes, then stood back as flaming chunks of wood were tossed, arcing through the air and landing on the pile of wood the witch was standing on. The witch wriggled, but the town elders knew their business: The witch was trussed as firmly to the center pole as a turkey on a spit. An unpleasant comparison, given what was happening right now… "Well, if Ido come back," the witch shouted over the crackling flames, "you can bet I will never set foot in Massachusetts again!" Then, as his feet caught fire, Christopher de Mere muttered, "Fie on this. Fie allover this." The villagers watched the man turn into a living candle, making the sign of the cross, as he hardly made a sound, except for the occasional yelp of pain or muttered taunt. And later, scraping through the ashes, they never found a single bone. Things were quiet. For a while. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter One   RHEA Goodman sat at the broad wooden table in her mother's farmhouse and waited expectantly. Her parents, Flower and Power (real names: Stephanie and Bob), were looking uneasy, and Rhea felt in her bones that It Was Time. Time to explain why she'd been brought up a nomad, moving from commune to commune. Time for Flower and Power to explain why they clung to the hippie thing, even though they were in their fifties and ought to have ulcers and IBM stock. Time to explain her younger sister's insistence on playing "kill the witch! kill the witch!" with the kid as the hero and her as the witch. Her theory? Flower and Power had robbed a bank. Or blown up a building. Because they were on the run, no question. Only… from whom? And her little sister was just weird. "Rhea, baby, we wanted to sit you down and have a talk." Flower ran her long, bony fingers through her graying red hair, waist length and for once not pulled back in the perpetual braid. "About your future," Power added, rubbing his bald, sunburned pate. He was about three inches shorter than her mother, who, at five-five, wasn't exactly Giganto. She had passed both of them in height by the time she was fourteen. "And your past." "Super-duper." She folded her hands and leaned forward. "And whatever you guys did, I'm sure you had to do. So I forgive you." "It wasn't us," Flower said, sitting down, then changing her mind and standing. Then sitting again. The sun was slanting through the western windows, making the table look like it was on fire, and for the first time in memory, Rhea saw her mother wince away from the light. "It was destiny." Yeah, you were destined to rob a bank. Or free test animals. And then have kids and spend the rest of your life on the run. Homeschooling, ugh! "As the eldest—" "Yeah, whereare the other ankle biters, anyway?" Rhea had four brothers and sisters: Ramen, Kane, Chrysanthemum, and Violet, aged nineteen, fifteen, twelve, and eight, respectively. "Away from here. This is business strictly for the eldest of the family. For centuries it has been this way." Abruptly, Flower started to cry. Power got up and clumsily patted her. "We can't tell her," she sobbed into her work-roughened hands. "We just can't!" "We must," Power soothed. "Hey, whoa, it's all right!" She held her hands up in the universal "simmer down" motion. "Whatever you did, it's cool with me."Good God, did they kill someone ? "I'm sure we can figure something out." "It's not what we did, it's what you're going to do." "Go back to college? Forget it. Like the man said, it's high school with ashtrays. Get a new job? Working on it. Try to get one of my poems published? Working on that, too." "No," Flower said, lips trembling. "Nothing like that." "Then what is it?" "It's destiny." "Yeah, great, what does that mean?" "You're going to kill the greatest evil to walk the earth, and you'll die in the process," Power told her. "So it is, so it has been, so it shall be. Only if the hunter makes the ultimate sacrifice will the witch be vanquished." He sounded like he was quoting from a book. Then he continued, and his voice no longer sounded like a recitation. "I'm so sorry, Rhea. I'm just so, so sorry." Her mother was beyond contributing to the conversation and simply cried harder. Rhea felt her mouth pop open in surprise. "So, uh, you guys didn't rob a federal bank?" Then, "Don't tell me all those fairy stories you told me about witches and witch-hunters and demons aretrue . Because if they are—" Flower and Power nodded. "Jinkies," she muttered and rested her sharp little chin on her folded hands. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Two   CHRIS Mere tried. He really did. If his family history wasn't reason enough not to draw attention to himself, ever, the fact that he had parked in a rough neighborhood was. But the girl was screaming.Screaming . And as he approached, he could hear the man ripping her clothes, talking to her in a hissing whisper, could see the moonlight bounce off the blade he held at her neck. Chris cleared his throat. "Uh. Excuse me?" Victim and would-be rapist both looked at him. "Yeah, uh. Could you, uh, not do that?" "Fuck off, white bread. Me and the bitch got bidness." "I guess you didn't hear. Times have changed.No meansno , and all that. And it looks to me like the lady is sayingno . Emphatically. So why don't you let her go, before I turn you into a turnip?"And what the hell rhymes with turnip, anyway ? "You come any closer, I cut the bitch!" "With what?" "You blind? With this!" "You who have a knife at her throat Put it down or be turned into… shit!" They were both staring at him. And the knife was still jammed against the underside of the woman's chin. "What's this? Rhyming an' shit?" "Help me, you idiot," the woman practically hissed, glaring at him. "Wait, wait, I've got it." Chris closed his eyes and concentrated on the mental image he needed. "If you keep robbing ladies, You'll come down with rabies. Not to mention scabies." "Stop with the poetry and call. The. Police," the woman grated. "Man, you arenuts . You—" He stopped suddenly and clutched his throat. "Oh, man… I am so hot. Are you guys hot?" He coughed and spat and spat again. "Where am I? Who the hell are you guys?" He dropped the knife. "I've got to get out of here!" "That seems like a good plan," Chris agreed. "I—I—garrggh!" The would-be rapist started foaming at the mouth and actually barked at him. "What the hell?" the woman said, twisting away from her assailant. "Did you just give himrabies ?" "Uh, yeah." "Will he die?" The woman warily watched Sir Foams-a-Lot, as he darted in and out of a nearby alley. "No, it's only temporary. Of course, every time he tries to bother a lady, it'll come back. Either that," he added thoughtfully, "or scabies will get him. That's some kind of skin condition, isn't it?" "He was right," the woman said, backing away from him. "You're nuts." "Hey!" he yelled at her rapidly departing form. "Don't thank me or anything!" She waved a hand over her shoulder, but never slowed down. Chris sighed and kept walking, stepping over the knife like most men would step over dog poop. He was not really thinking about what he was doing, he was just automatically avoiding something unpleasant. He thought about turning it into a banana, but for the life of him couldn't remember anything that rhymed with banana. Why did he even bother? They never hung around. No matter what he did for them, what magic he could make, they always got scared and ran away. For two cents, he'd give them something toreally — He stopped walking and pressed his palms over his eyes.Don't think like that. You're one of the good guys, remember ? Yeah, sure. As if he could fight three centuries of ingrained behavior. You'd better. Or what? You know what. He snorted. His inner voice sounded weirdly like his late grandfather… who had been killed by a witch-hunter from the Goodman line. His father had died at the hands of a Goodman twenty years later. Now it was his turn. Unless he could prove to Goodman that he wasn't a danger to society. Because ifhe could fight three centuries of conditioning,she sure as hell could. Hell, he was as much of a demon fighter as a witch… how many demons had he vanquished? How many lives had he saved? Did you do it for them, or for you? What difference did it make? But sometimes, when sleep wouldn't come, he'd burn with the desire for revenge. The Goodmans had been killing his family for centuries. Wasn't it time the de Meres got back some of their own? He'd shove the thought away, try to be a good enough guy, but it always came back. Freakin'always . Mixed feelings or not, he'd spent the last five years tracking down just about all the Goodmans in the country. And he had satisfied himself that, in every past case, the surname was just a coincidence. And he'd had many pleasant conversations as a result… and even a few free meals. Not that, as a Mere, he needed free anything. But still, they had been nice. They gave him hope for what was to come. Annoyingly, the last batch lived in—ugh—Massachusetts. Salem, to be exact. Salem. Just reading the name on a map gave him chills, never mind driving there. Salem, land of the disenchanted and intolerant. Salem, the killing grounds for twenty accused witches (only one of which, by the way, had been a witch). Salem, where hundreds were accused of witchcraft during the rising hysteria between June and September 1692. Come to think of it, he probably should have started there and saved himself several years of looking, but he couldn't bring himself to take that step until it was absolutely necessary. As far as he knew, a Mere hadn't set foot in Massachusetts in more than two hundred years, maybe longer. And there was a good reason for that. The freakin' state motto was, "By the Sword We Seek Peace," for God's sake! No, he had been right to avoid the state, at least until it was absolutely necessary to his plan. Unfortunately, now it was. It gave him the creeps to even be crossing the state line, never mind lurking in Boston's dark alleys, tracking down more friggin' Goodmans and vanquishing the occasional smelly demon. Not that he expected the witch-hunter to be listed in the Yellow Pages under "Hunters, Witch." Fortunately, lots of things rhymed with Goodman, and his magic was helping him methodically track them all down. And—and maybe it was just a fable, after all. Maybe all his antecedents had died of natural causes. Ha. Were being burned at the stake or hanged on the gallows natural causes anywhere but Salem? Still, he'd go. Then he'd talk, try to make peace. If only Goodman wouldn't set him on fire before he could explain that he was one of the good guys… Assuming he actually was. Sometimes he wasn't too sure. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Three   "AGAIN, Rhea. Again!" Panting, she lowered the crossbow and glared at her father. "I don't see you out here slinging arrows of misfortune. And for an ex-hippie, you know entirely too much about how to kill people." "I watched my father train my older brother," Power replied, absently running his hand over his bald spot—a sure sign he was distressed. "We never did find his body." "Oh,great ." Disgusted, she aimed the crossbow, and the arrow thwacked the mannequin right in the groin. "That's not a lethal wound," her father snapped. "No, but I bet he wishes it was." "Rhea, stop it! This is a serious business. You have to fulfill your destiny, to—" "That's another thing. Why did you wait until now to tell me?" "Think, Rhea. Why?" She sighed and reloaded the crossbow. "Don't even tell me. Twenty-first birthday ritual?" Oh,great . She'd been legal-drinking-age for twelve whole hours and was doomed to kill a powerful magic user and get killed in the process. "So you let me have twenty-one years of blissful ignorance, is that the way it works?" Power nodded. "Great. Any idea when Hot Shit Magic Guy is going to show up?" "You've got a couple more years to train. So we have to be ready. Again." None of the weapons were new to her. She'd been training (for fun, she had thought) in the barn for more than ten years. But shooting a man-shaped mannequin or a scarecrow wasn't the same as pointing a gun or a crossbow or a knife at a real man and finding the will to drive home a lethal stroke. She'd never killed anything in her life. Heck, she'd never even swatted a fly. But her parents pooh-poohed her worries, telling her that killing was in her blood, that with proper training she would do her duty when the time came. "For what?" she had asked. Her mother had finally stopped crying. "What do you mean, Rhea?" "What's the point? According to you guys, another witch and another Goodman—one of the ankle biters' kids, I'm betting—will be born in the next generation, and the whole stupid thing starts all over again." "Your point?" her father had asked. "Why do it at all? It's fruitless." "We do it," her mother had said, sounding firm for once, "because it is our family duty. And we do it to rid the world of evil. I don't want to lose you, Rhea, but I'll see you dead by my own hand before I'll let you turn your back on the world, on your family." "Great, Mother. Just wonderful." Still trying to reconcile the fact that her parents were fine with seeing her dead—by a witch or by their hands—Rhea groped for her Beretta and obliterated the mannequin's face with eight rounds. It didn't make her feel much better. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Four   CHRIS drove the rental car through the gate and up the winding driveway, admiring the trees lining the drive, their leaves in full summer glory.It must be amazing in the fall , he thought. The house and barn loomed before him, the barn a traditional red, the two-story house cream-colored with black shutters. Horses grazed in the field beside the barn, their coats glossy in the July sun. It was too idyllic for a hotbed of born-and-bred killers, which cheered him. He braked, yanked on the parking break, shut off the engine, and got out. Just in time to practically shit his pants when a voice behind him shrilled, "Kill the witch! Kill the witch!" He whirled, frantically trying to think of a rhyme to save himself, only to see a girl around seven years old pointing a toy six-shooter at him. "Yeesh," he said. "Kill the witch! Pschow, pschow!" She aimed the toy gun between his eyes and fired twice. She was grinning hugely, showing the gap between her front teeth, the sun bouncing off the golden highlights in her light brown hair, dark eyes sparkling with fun. "You're dead, witch!" "Uh, run along, kiddo." "You're dead, witch!" "Okay. Bye now." With a final "pschow!" she darted past him and up the porch steps, disappearing around the corner. Chris took long, steadying breaths.Okay. I clearly have not prepared for this encounter. It's okay. Deep breath. The kid caught you off guard, and you're on edge anyway, because nobody's tried the "let's just talk" approach, ever. And you're breaking years of tradition by showing up before your official "coming of age" ceremony. Deep breaths . He attached little importance to the witch game; the kid had, after all, grown up in Salem. They probably soaked up "kill the witch" with their mother's milk. Instead, he shrugged off the encounter and mounted the front porch steps, then rapped politely at the front door. It was opened almost immediately by a middle-aged woman, late forties or early fifties, a woman who would have looked very nice if her eyes weren't so red and swollen.Allergies , he thought.Or she's been crying for a while . "Yes?" she asked in a watery voice. "Uh, hello, I'm looking for your eldest." "My—you mean Rhea?" She pulled a tissue out of her sleeve and blew her nose. "Who are you? Are you from her school?" "My name's Chris Merees," he replied, not expecting much in the way of consequences. He'd done this thousands of times in the past five years. So the woman's reaction was startling, to say the least. Her eyes widened, then narrowed, and she started to slam the door, on his foot, which he'd thrust forward. Bingo! "You get out of here, foul thing! You're two years too early!" "I like to plan ahead. Uh, ma'am, you're crushing my foot." "Pity it isn't your head," she snarled, shoving harder. "Look, I just want to—ow—talk. I'm not here for a fight." "Too bad," the woman replied, half a second before a walloping pain slammed into his left ass cheek. He staggered and went down on one knee. "Ow, damn it!" "You get away from herright now ," a female voice said coldly, behind him and to his left. Shot me in the back, he thought, astonished. He clutched his ass and fell on his side. His other side, luckily.One of the friggin' Goodmans shotme in the back ! The pain of it was like nothing in the world; the thing felt like it was coming out his belly button. He heard steps running up the porch and rolled his eye up to see her. Arrows? Flying? Flying arrows? No, arrows flying true. That was it, by God. "Rhea, watch out! You're not ready yet!" Rhea, he thought. She pointed the crossbow at his forehead. Not ready, his bleeding butt! He assumed she was the eldest Goodman; she looked about the right age. And the good looks he'd hardly noticed in the child and hadn't seen in the mother were unmistakable in this one. She stared down at him, and time seemed to slow down, giving him a chance to take in her excellent good looks. Shoulder-length brown hair with gold and red highlights. Fair skin, freckled nose. Big dark eyes, currently narrowed to thoughtful slits. About five-seven, one-thirty. A foxy little pointed chin. Curves in all the right places, though the muscle definition was clear, because she was wearing khaki shorts and a red tank top. Red, the color of blood. Her finger tightened on the trigger. From his vantage point (writhing in pain on the front porch) the arrow looked very, very big and very, very sharp. He could actually see her finger whitening as she slowly squeezed. Summer sunlight bounced off the arrow's silver tip. I'm going to be killed, he thought,by the prettiest girl I've ever seen . -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Five   RHEA heard the car come up the drive, but paid little attention. Her parents were always having friends over, salesmen often called (her parents were notorious for having trouble saying "no, thanks"), old school chums dropped by, people occasionally got lost in the country and stopped for directions. So she kept practicing until her father decided to check the stock. Then she made her escape. Fuck destiny, she thought.It's too nice a day to think about killing. Or being killed . Weapons were so much a part of her upbringing that she actually forgot to put the crossbow and quiver away; the bow was like an extension of her hand, and she didn't even notice the weight of the quiver. By the time she realized it, she saw her mother try to slam the door on the tall stranger. In all Rhea's twenty-one years, her mother hadnever slammed the door. Not even on the Jehovah's Witnesses. So she shot him. Not to kill. To get him to remove his foot from the bottom of the doorway. And it worked splendidly. He went down like a ton of saltwater taffy. She was more than a little amazed; had she worried so much, just an hour ago, about her ability to wound or kill? She darted up the steps in time to see the tall man curl on his side like a shrimp and frown up at her. "Rhea, watch out!" her mother shrilled. "You're not ready yet!" She stared down at him, bringing the crossbow up in slow motion. At least, that's what it felt like. Everything was happening so slowly, she had plenty of time to get a good look at the guy. Unmistakable: a de Mere. Short, sandy blond hair. Eyes the color of wet leaves. Tall, very tall (his head had almost touched the top of the doorway, before she shot him). Thin, but his broad shoulders were in evidence through his black T-shirt. His long legs looked even longer in the tight, faded jeans. He looked exactly like the pictures of the de Mere her great-great-great-great- (how many greats was that?) grandfather had burned at the stake (except for the modern clothing). She had seen the archives, the drawings.Fairy stories , she had thought. About witches and the warriors who protected the world from their evil. And the demons some of the witches would call forth. At last, the crossbow was in place. Her finger tightened on the trigger.This is it! I'm going to kill him on my own front porch, and I'll live to a ripe old age. Why the hell were my folks so scared of him ? "Arrows, arrows, flying true," he rasped. "Form instead a cloud of blue." The arrow in his butt vanished in a puff of blue smoke. The arrow loaded in her crossbow vanished as well. And her quiver suddenly felt pretty light. Horribly light. "That's better," he mumbled, climbing to his feet with difficulty. He staggered for a few seconds, clutched his butt, then muttered, "Arrow's wound paining me, Form instead a—shit!" "Are those supposed to be poems?" Rhea asked, reaching for her Beretta, then remembering she'd locked it in the barn after practice.Oh, great . "You shot me in the back," he snapped, still massaging his ass. His hands were red to the wrist. "That's why I'm the good guy, and you're the bad guys." "The hell!" she almost shouted, then realized her mother was still standing in the doorway, utterly shocked. Rhea darted forward, shoved her mom back, and slammed the door. Meanwhile, the witch was hobbling around the porch, dripping blood all over the place and mumbling "Ooh, ow, ouch, God help me, ow ow ow…" "You're wrong," she snapped, freshly outraged. How dare he accuse her of villainy? He'd come to her home uninvited and terrorized her mother. For that last one, if nothing else, she'd see him dead. Her blood was still humming; her heartbeat thundered in her ears. She itched for a weapon, or a stake, some rope, and a box of fireplace matches. Because she wanted to kill him. She needed to kill him. Everything that was in her, centuries of tradition, cried out for it. It was like, until she saw him in the flesh, her life had been rudderless. "The hell," he retorted, and she tried to remember what they had been talking about. "I've never shot anybody in the back in the twenty-eight yearsI've been running around on the planet. You can't say the same, Rhea. Hell, your little sister runs around yelling 'kill the witch' at complete strangers." "Shut up." She wondered if she could kick him to death. Surely it was worth a try. "You're the foul evil magicks bringer and demon raiser, not me.I'm protecting the world fromyou . It's not the other way around." "Magic," he sighed, straightening. "And I don'traise them. I just get rid of them. That's an old wives tale, that we raise demons.Magicks . Jesus!" "What?" "Not magicks. Magic. I can hear the 'ck,' and you're wrong about that, too. What rhymes with wound?" "Boon, dune, croon, cartoon, commune, swoon…" she answered automatically. She'd been studying poetry since the seventh grade. Her other talent, you might say. "Swoon!" he shouted. "That's it. Unkind arrow, leaving a wound, Fix me up before I swoon." She gasped as the bleeding stopped, as the blood disappeared from his hands, as he straightened up with a sigh. "Oh, God, that's so much better. Christ, my aching ass." Okayyyy. So, her parents were right to be scared shitless by this guy. It seemed her ancestors had the right idea: Wipe out the de Mere line, witch by witch. Funny, in all the archives and all the old records and during her training, no one had mentioned he couldbend the very fabric of reality to his will . "Nobody told me you could bend the very fabric of reality to your will." "Gee, so sorry your intel isn't up to snuff. No pun intended." "I thought you were supposed to curse cows and sour their milk, or be a bride of Satan, or something like that." He stared at her, green eyes wide. "Do I look like I spend my days hanging around cows? And I'm not a bride of anything." "Why didn't the archives mention your little poetry trick?" she mused aloud, not really expecting an answer. "Nobody knows, except you Goodmans. My great-great-great-great grandfather couldn't." "Not enough greats." "Never mind. Anyway, Christopher de Mere couldn't do it, and none of his descendants could, for the longest time. And FYI, we dropped the 'de' about four generations ago." "What do you mean, they couldn't do it? You can all do magic." He nodded and even smiled. She couldn't believe they were having a civilized conversation. She still wanted to kill him, though. "Oh, they could do magic," he replied, "but it was a lot harder—I mean, would real witches allow themselves to be burned at the stake if they could save themselves? Oh, and that's quite a family history of murder, mayhem, and close-mindedness you've got there." "Shutup . It wasn't just my family," she added lamely. The insanity of the Salem witch trials, deemed so necessary three hundred years ago, were an embarrassment to the Goodmans these days. So many innocents. Not enough of the guilty. "Why are we having a conversation? You're a dead man walking." "Takes one to know one, sunshine. Except for the 'man' part, of course. And to finish answering your rude and intrusive questions, the Mere family has been evolving each generation in order to better deal withyou bums. Thus, I rhyme, things happen. I rhyme, your pretty shiny things go bye-bye." "Oh, great." "I thought so," he admitted. She abruptly turned and marched down the porch steps, annoyed to hear him following her. "Hey! We're talking, here." "We're done talking." "Where are you going?" "Shut up." "Are you going into the barn?" "Shut up." "Rhea, Rhea, tell me true What is in the barn for you?" She felt an invisible hand seize her mouth and force it open. She stopped in her tracks, appalled, and fought with as much inner strength as she could muster, but still her traitorous mouth fell open, and she said, almost babbled, "Four nines, two crossbows, a twelve-gauge shotgun, a twenty-gauge shotgun, ammo for everything, four skinning knives, two filet knives, six switchblades, and a Magnum .357." "But we were just talking!" he yelled after her, sounding panicked. "There's no need to take out four nines! What the hell is a four nine?" Since he hadn't done magic, she was not compelled to answer and did not bother to explain that she had four nine-millimeter Berettas in the locked chest under the floor of the barn. "Don't you want to just talk?" The rhyming moron was still trotting after her. "We don't have to kill each other, you know." What bullshit! She didn't trouble herself to come up with the scathing remarks he had coming. Instead, she made it to the barn without interference (magical or otherwise), and pulled on the trapdoor on the south side of the building. She leaned down, spun the combination on the safe, popped it open, reached inside, and pulled out two Berettas. "Rhea, Rhea, with your guns, Stop this madness before it… shit!" He's not a god, she thought with not a little relief.He can't rhyme for shit. And thank goodness. Because otherwise, we'd all be cooked . She cocked the guns (they were always loaded; no need to even check) and held them up, just in time to see him sprint in the other direction. Yeah, you'd better run, de Mere. She started to take the shot (I've never shot anybody in the back.) and hesitated. Was it true? Was it cowardly and sneaking and bad-guy-like to take a witch from behind? All her teachings cried out in the negative. But de Mere had the weight of a bunch of Westerns on his side. Because the bad guys always snuck up and shot you in the back. These outrageous new thoughts crowded her brain and she hesitated. Not for long, but it gave de Mere time to dive through the driver's side window. She put plenty of bullets through said window, but either he had perfected the art of driving while kneeling on the mat, or he had made a rhyme that made bullets bounce off, because the next thing she knew, the only thing left of Chris de Mere was a spume of dust in her driveway. She lowered her now-empty guns and stared at the dust. She'd had the shot, and she bungled it. The Goodmans might be out of luck if they were counting on her to save them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Six   A WEEK later, he returned. This time he had scribbled down several words on pink Post-Its, words that rhymed with arrow and Beretta and gun and Rhea. He had been careful to return the bullet-ridden rental and drive up in a different car (the Avis people had not been pleased, to say the least), hoping they wouldn't nuke him the moment he pulled into their driveway. He convinced himself he was here because it was worth another try, that people could overcome centuries of conditioning, these were modern times, and witch-hunting was just silly. But the reality was, he couldn't get the trigger-happy jerk out of his head.That's why he'd come back. Her "oh,greats" and "shut ups" were actually kind of funny. And that hot little figure she had wasn't bad, either. And he loved the pointy little chin. At six-four, he was taller, but he didn't tower over Rhea the way he did with most women. Worst of all: He couldn't imagine killing her. He'd liked her right away (insanity!), even if she had shot him in the ass. Or maybebecause she shot him in the ass. She had sure charged up the steps in defense of her mother without hesitation, and he liked that, too. His parents were long dead. He tried not to blame the Goodmans… the one who had done the deed was, after all, also dead. For every Mere death, a Goodman had died, too. He tried to keep it in mind at all times. It helped when he was tempted to abandon the human race, let the demons swarm, and use his magic to win the lottery. Repeatedly. Anyway, he liked—what was the word? He liked hermoxie . And frankly, verbally sparring with a woman who could kill him (who wasfated to kill him) was an unbelievable rush. He carefully drove up to the house, eyes peeled for Goodmans. But the house and barn looked quiet, and he could see no cars in the drive. He put the car in park, deliberately left the parking brake alone (it had almost been the death of him last time; he'd wasted valuable seconds releasing it before making his escape), and climbed out. "Uh… hello? Anybody home? Goodmans? Rhea?" He moved closer to the front porch, then heard a sound to his left and turned in the direction of the barn. "Mr. and Mrs. Goodman? Rhea? Anybody up for a rematch?" The attack came without warning; he hadn't heard a thing. But a sturdy weight smacked him in the middle of the back, and he went facedown onto the gravel driveway. "Kill the witch!" a familiar voice shouted. "Pschow, pschow!" "Kid," he said into the driveway, "get off me. Seriously." "Die, evil fiend, die!" "Kid." "Pschow!" "Kid. I'm serious." He tried to move, to gently shift her off his back, but she clung like a lamprey. "I know it's not cool to smack children, especially not your own, but if you don't get off me—" "Kill the witch!" "What are theyfeeding you guys? You're, what? Seven? And you're already obsessed with witch-hunting? Jesus wept." "I'm eight, not seven, stupidhead." "Thank God. I can't for the life of me think of what rhymes with seven. "Great, great, Hate, hate, Off my back Child of eight." It was one of his worst rhymes ever (he felt like jumping rope to it), but it had the desired effect; he felt the weight disappear from his back and climbed to his feet. He dusted off his clothes and looked around for the kid. She was scowling at him from on the other side of the rental car. "No fair. You cheater." "You're one to talk—er, what's your name?" "Violet Goodman." "Of course. Anyway, who ambushed who? You Goodmans. Bloodthirsty savages." "You wait 'til Rhea finds out what you—" "DID YOU JUST USE MAGIC ON MY BABY SISTER?" "Uh-oh," Violet said, looking, to her credit, worried for him. Then she added in a much lower voice, "I wasn't really going to tell. You're a good witch, I know." "Thanks for that." He turned in time to see Rhea come storming down the front steps, headed for him like a flame toward kindling. "Listen, Rhea, Violet jumped me. All I did was pull into your driveway." "You usedmagic on mysister ." "I didn't hurt her. And before you go running into the arsenal-slash-barn, I warn you that I'm armed with tons of gun-and-arrow rhymes." He patted his pockets, fairly bulging with Post-Its, for emphasis. She wasn't heading for the barn. She was steaming straight for him, pale face flushed to the eyebrows with rage. He wasn't sure if he was aroused or scared. Or both. "So don't do anything crazy," he added, standing his ground. "I come in peace, like a benevolent alien. I mean you no harm—ow!" She'd dropped into a crouch at the last second and swept his legs out from under him with a lunge. Then she was on him, her small hands grasping his neck, squeezing. "I don't know—if you know—but I can't breathe—when you do that," he gurgled. "If you can talk," she said grimly, tightening her grip, "you can breathe. How dare you? How dare you come back to my home, threaten my baby sister?" She started to slam his head up and down. Gravel bounced and flew around his ears. "He didn't threaten me," Violet quickly spoke up. "We were playing." "Violet. Go in the house." "But Mom and Dad said you had to play with me when you were watching me, and all you've done is work out in the—" "Violet. House." "I don't think you need to choke him," the girl retorted, then reluctantly left. "I agree," he gasped. The only thing that was saving him was his upper body strength; he had two hands clamped around her wrists, barely holding her off. She might work out like a fiend, but her hands were small, and she couldn't get them all the way around his neck. And it wouldn't be long before she figured that out and starting beating the living shit out of him in earnest. "You should listen to Violet, a kindhearted but slightly disturbed third-grader." "Don't talk about my sister," she said through gritted teeth, her face going even redder from her strangulation efforts. Throttle? Bottle? Strangle? What rhymed with strangle? Maybe he could turn her hands into flippers. Flipper, slipper? Oh, to hell with it. He tightened his grip on her wrists and abruptly rolled over.Thank you, Mother Nature, for making me a guy . Now he was on top, still encircling her wrists with his fingers, and she glared up at him with such malevolence that he almost let go of her. Which would have been a disaster. "Okay," he said, and coughed, politely turning his face away. He hated to think how his throat would feel if she'd had bigger hands. "Okay. Listen. I just came here to—" "Get thehell off me!" "—talk and try to convince you that this is a dance we don't have to do—" "I am going to kill you alot ." "—because after all, this is the twenty-first century, and don't you think witch-hunting should have been left behind with slavery?" "Not as long as any de Mere descendants are running around on the planet nowlet go !" "Oh, shut up," he said, and bent down and kissed her. She went rigid with astonishment, which was a relief, because he didn't care to be bitten at the moment. He'd just meant to give her a peck, but the taste of her soft, sweet mouth worked on him like a hormone shot, and he slid his tongue between her lips, tasting her, relishing her the way he relished a ripe piece of fruit in the summertime. She didn't make a sound. Just laid there like a board. An amazed, totally shocked board. So he let go of her wrists and cupped her face and deepened the kiss, and he thought he felt her respond, and then— —and then her face shot out of his line of sight, and he realized she'd slapped him so hard he'd flown off her. "Ow," he groaned, once again face down in the dust. "What did you think you were doing?" He rolled over in time to see her spring to her feet. "What the hell is wrong with you?" "Well, at the moment, I've got dust all over me and a piece of gravel up my nose and maybe a nosebleed, too." She stood over him, jabbing her finger in the air for emphasis. He tried not to flinch. "We are supposed to be killing each other, not kissing. So cool your gonads and get your head in the game." "That's what I've been trying to tell you," he said patiently, staring up at her. "I'm not in the game. I'm not going to play. I think our families have been killing each other long enough, don't you?" "As long as a de Mere is around, a Goodman has to kill him." "Who says?" Her mouth popped open, and she appeared to be struggling for words, then burst out with, "Everybody! My parents and tradition and—everybody. All the way back to the first Goodman and the first de Mere." "Yawn," he said. "It's my duty to kill you and be killed doing it. Just like it's your family duty to try to kill me and be killed doing it." "Don't you think that's just about the dumbest fucking thing in the world?" "Well. Yes," she admitted. "But who are we to break from tradition?" "And that's the second dumbest thing. Oooof!" She had dropped to her knees—right on his chest. "Gkkk! Air!" "You listen to me, de Mere. You—" "Chris," he groaned. "Christopher Mere, do I have to carve it into my forehead?" "Shut up. You go away and do whatever you have to do until your thirtieth birthday, and I'll do what I have to do, and then the next generation can worry about it." "Forget it," he gurgled. "And no more of this showing up at my house being all chatty and shit. Stay away from my family and stay away from me. For the next couple of years at least." "Sorry. Can't do it." "You'dbetter do it. And keep your Mere lips to yourself." "What's wrong with my lips?" He put his hands around her small waist and tossed her off him. She hit the dirt (literally), planted her arms, and spun right back over him. He shoved. She shoved. Soon they were rolling around in the driveway like a couple of kids having a playground spat. "Go away!" "No." "Buzz off!" "No." "I hate you!" "Well, I hate you, too, sunshine. But you taste pretty good, I must—ow!" "And don't eventhink about using your rhymes on me. You're a lousy poet and an evil magic-doer." "Yeah? Well, you come from a long line of cold-blooded murderers." "I do not!" "Do too." "Not!" "You totally, completely do." "Shut up!" "Make me, sunshine." "I'll make you, all right." She had temporarily gained the upper hand and was again on top. "I'll make you wish you were neverborn ." "Don't you think we're a little too old for this kind of thing?" He brought his legs up, hooked them around her neck, and rode her all the way down. "Now will you stop trying to beat the hell out of me—ow—and listen? Ouch!" He wondered dizzily if that last punch had given him a concussion. Beneath him, she wriggled and squirmed in the dirt like an outraged snake. That was actually a big, big problem, because the fight (and the kiss) had seriously turned him on. He prayed she couldn't feel his erection. She'd cut if off. He pressed down harder, careful not to hurt her, inwardly groaning as he tried to hide the biggest boner of his life. A boner for the witch-hunter! Jesus wept. "Will you stop wiggling and listen?" Gasping from her efforts, Rhea wheezed, "There's nothing to listen to." "Oh, that's the spirit." "We don't talk, we fight. And kill. You'd better reread your archives." "Rhea, I can see how it is with you, but you don't know how it is with me. I won't kill you." She blinked up at him. Her eyes were watering from all the dust in the air. "You'd better," she said. "Because I'm going to do my damnedest to kill you." "I won't fight back, Rhea. It'll be murder. Cold-blooded murder." "It isn't murder." "It really, really is." "De Mere, you'd better fight!" "No." Before she could screech at him some more, he heard a car pull into the drive, then skid to a halt with the left front tire no more than six inches from the top of Rhea's face. Car doors were flung open, and quite a few Goodmans piled out and swarmed (how manywere there, anyway?) around him. He realized he was pinning their eldest into the dirt and the two of them were filthy and sweaty. And their clothes were ripped. He craned his neck to look up at Rhea's father, who looked about ready to start breathing fire. "Hi, Goodmans. Uh. This isn't what it looks like." Then somebody came up behind him and turned off all the lights inside his skull. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Seven   RHEA'S lips were still burning from the kiss. She thought of a line fromKing of the Hill : "That boy's not right." It perfectly explained Chris Mere, the big grabby rhyming kissing dolt. And the bastard was strong. Well, he was big, so she should have expected it, but she'd had no idea how much physical power was lurking within those ropy muscles. She'd tried her very best to beat the hell out of him, and he'd come away from it with only scratches. But he'd be sore tomorrow, by God. Her parents had been utterly at a loss. It was inconceivable that a Mere showed up years early, that a Mere was talking peace. Neither of them knew what to do, and both of them thought it might be a trick or a trap of some kind. The de Meres had a centuries-old rep for treachery. Interestingly, Violet spoke up for him. And Rhea had been forced to admit to Power and Flower that not only had he not hurt the little girl, he'd taken several blows to avoid hurtingher . That made her folks reel all over again. After some discussion, they decided it would be disrespectful (not to mention leaving them open to embarrassing questions if someone stopped by) to leave an unconscious Mere in their driveway, so they dragged him inside, all the way to the guest room. Her mother had hesitantly brought a warm, wet washcloth, tiptoed to the bed, then handed the washcloth to Rhea and hurriedly left, clearly not interested in hanging around the unconscious witch. Rhea considered gagging him with the washcloth, then gave it up and gently wiped the gravel and small trickles of dried blood off the left side of his face. Once she had that clean enough, she moved to the right side— —and quick as thought, he was awake and grabbing her wrist, yanking it back from his face. That startled her even more than the kiss, the way he went from flat-out cold unconsciousness to being wide awake, if a little disoriented. "Oh. It's you. Hey, sunshi—oh, God, my head. My aching, breaking head. How long have I been out?" "An hour," she said, handing him the washcloth. He folded it into a small square and rested it on his forehead. "Give or take a few minutes." "Who hit me from behind?" he asked groggily. "Fucking Goodmans; do you ever try a frontal assault?" "Me," she replied, ignoring the very uncomfortable feeling his comment planted. "I brought my leg up and kicked you in the back of the skull." "So that's why the room is spinning. I thought we were on a merry-go-round with a bed." "Not hardly." "I am totally astonished—yet grateful—to find myself not dead. I don't know how you were all able to restrain yourselves." "Even we cold-blooded murderers wouldn't slit the vocal cords on an unconscious witch." "Slit the—" "Sure. That's how I'll have to kill you. You won't be able to rhyme—make magic—and you'll bleed out in about a minute and a half." He touched various cuts and scrapes, wincing as he did so. "If anybody can do it, you can." "Oh, stop." "No, really." "You're just saying that." "No, I'm not. You could absolutely do it." "Well, thanks. I appreciate that. But if you're feeling better—" "I am not." "—you'd better hit the road. My dad's pretty upset, and my mom's not too happy, either." "Why am I in a bedroom?" "Well. We couldn't just leave you in the driveway like a dead earthworm." "How charitable." "Damn straight, considering the fact that your father killed my dad's older brother." "I'm pretty sure it was the other way around." "Either way, time to go." "But I have contusions," he moaned, as she pulled him into a sitting position. "And possibly a fractured skull. You can't just turn me out into the cold." "It's eighty degrees outside. And make a rhyme to fix your hurts." "What rhymes with pain?" "What doesn't? Chain, brain, drain, mane, main, champagne, bloodstain, complain, disdain, explain, ingrain, migraine—" "That's it!" he shouted, startling her. "The man on the bed With a migraine Fix his head And take away his pain." Rhea covered her eyes. She probably should have covered her ears. "That's really horrible. You're anawful poet." "Hey, it got the job done, didn't it, sunshine?" "Quit calling me that." "Why?" "We're fated to kill each other, not give each other nicknames like Sunshine and Stupidhead." He sprang out of the bed, fully healed, and examined his filthy, shredded clothes in the mirror. "I am absolutely billing you for the clothes I must now go buy at Neiman's." "You will not. And did you hear what I said?" "Sure. How come you can always come up with a bunch of words that rhyme?" She studied the pattern of the quilt, rather than look directly at him. She'd been feeling weird, staring at his broad shoulders. Almost… tingly? "It was my minor in college. I still, you know, write them. Poems." She wouldn't say it. No, she wouldn't. Okay, maybe she would. "You should get yourself a rhyming dictionary."Good work! You've just put a powerful weapon into the hands of your greatest enemy . "Yeah, well, I don't have a lot of leisure time to hang out in bookstores and—" He spun around so quickly she nearly jumped out the window. "What? You're a poet?" "Apparently, I'm a warrior for the honor of the Goodman clan," she said dryly. "Yeah, tell me about it. I got the whole song and dance by the time I was sixteen. How long have you known?" "Since last Monday," she admitted. "Oh, shit! Why did your folks wait so long?" "Tradition." He had turned back and now scowled at his reflection. "I'm really beginning to hate that word." Then, quick as thought, he spun back. "Wait just one minute. You were going to be a poet, weren't you? But then you had to do…" He gestured to his (broad) chest. "This." "Well…" She looked away. "And you've only known this sincelast week ?" He marched to the door and yanked it open. "Where's your dad?" "Uh… target practice, I think." "Because I'm off to kick his ass." "Better not," she said, hiding a grin. It wasn't a laughing matter, not really. "He taught me everything I know, not everything he knows." "I can take him," Chris said confidently. She snatched up the water glass from the bedside table and flung it toward him, missing his nose (on purpose) by half an inch. The glass exploded against the wall, and he ducked (about two seconds too late). "What thehell ?" "I could have thrown that at your left eye. But I didn't. It's why we always vanquish you, Mere. You can't do magic fast enough to save yourself from our reflexes. All you can do is—" "Yes?" "Get your licks in." "Very nice. I'm out of here. You think I've got nothing better to do than hang out with a girl who wants to ice me?" "Woman," she corrected. "Please. I've got almost a decade on you." "Are you leaving, or do I have to talk to you some more?" "I am leaving. Right now. I'm sure there's a demon to vanquish or a damsel in distress to rescue." "Demon?" "What do you think I do," he snapped, "when I'm not here trying to talk you out of murdering me?" "Make evil happen?" she guessed. He rolled his eyes and stomped out the door. She couldn't help it; she ran to the window and watched as he stormed out, kicking up tufts of dust, then climbed into his car and roared out of the driveway—backward. "And don't come back!" she shouted after him, wondering why that sounded unconvincing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Eight   "WHERE is he?" Power demanded. "You let him get away?" Flower asked, aghast. Rhea rubbed her eyes. Shehad let him go. What was wrong with her? Other than being attracted to the man she was supposed to kill. A man who had been very, very careful not to hurt her, despite almost constant provocation. A man she almost wanted to… help? Had she gone crazy in the past week? Or had she always been crazy? Still and all, he sure didn'tseem evil. "Answer me," Power said. "What, you wanted him to spend the night? Have a slumber party with cookies and warm milk? I thought you'd be glad he beat feet out of here, not bummed because you don't have a jammy buddy." "Watch your mouth." "Thehell . You two are egging me on to kill this guy and get killed myself. Then he shows up and not only doesn't kill me, doesn't hurt any one of us. Then he cameback . And didn't hurt us again." "He isn't in his prime quite yet. When he has thirty years, he will be formidable. And you. You're already distracted." "He said he wouldn't fight me." "He's a liar." "He said it'd be cold-blooded murder on my part." "And he has no respect for tradition," her mother added. "That's true," she had to admit. "Rhea. You can't be fooled by his tricks and his charm." Flower paused, then took a deep breath and continued. "I admit he's attractive. And he seems harmless. But he's a Mere, descended from de Meres. He. Will. Kill. You." "And then one of Violet's kids will kill his kid." "Yes, or one of your other nieces or nephews, assuming he has already fathered a child, or will in the next couple of years." For some reason, that caused her a stab of anxiety right in the gut. Chris Mere kissing some bimbo? Touching her, whispering to her, caressing her? "—be distracted." "What?" "You cannot be distracted. This is a trick. On top of everything else, he's probably afraid to face you when you're inyour prime. So he showed up early and tried the de Mere charm. But it didn't work. Right?" She said nothing. "Right?" "Why do we always take people from behind?" Her father blinked. "What?" "I was taught to strike from the rear, every chance I could get. Even most of the practice mannequins are facing away from us. How come?" "Because we need every advantage over a magicks user." "Magic," she corrected. "Yes." "Well. Our family has a rep for cold-blooded murder—" "Defending the family and the town is not murder!" "—we always hit from behind—" "Because we cannot do magic!" "—and we've been killing his family for centuries. Some of them a lot more helpless than Chris Mere." "That is our duty!" her father practically screamed, his bald spot turning purple with rage. "You know what? I think weare the bad guys." "Rhea!" her parents howled in unison. "No, really. We are. He came in peace—twice—and all you two can do is talk about how it's some cruel trick. Because you'll never trust a Mere." "True enough," her mother said. "But I think I can." "Oh, Rhea." "You guys weren't here. I was beating the shit out of him, and he took it. Not only did he not use magic on me, he didn't use his upper body strength, either. Well, not too much." "That was not how it appeared when we drove up," her father said sharply. "You're right. That's not how it looked. Which proves my point: Appearances are deceiving. What if we've had the wrong idea for three centuries?" "That's—that's—" Her father shook his head. "I would have to give the matter some thought." "Also, I think I know how to break the curse." Her mother slumped wearily into one of the kitchen chairs. "Thisis the curse. To kill and be killed, again and again and again. To bury your mothers and your aunts and your sisters and your nieces." "No. There's a loophole, and you know it." Her parents were silent. Finally, her father tentatively said, "If he shares his powers with you?" "That and one other thing." "What?" her mother asked. "Never mind. I don't know if I can pull it off. The important thing is to find him." "Find him?" "Yeah. I have to find him before he turns thirty and I have no idea where he is. Too bad for him I memorized his rental car license plate. It'll be a start." "Rhea, you cannot do this." "I'm calling your bluff, Mom. Because I'mnot going to kill him. If you think killing me will fix that, you've gone over to the dark side for sure. And we're already there, damn it." "Rhea, you know I—you know I would never hurt you. I—I was angry and I didn't mean—" "Don't do it, Rhea," Power said quietly, sounding for the first time in a week like the superb trainer and parent she adored, instead of the shrill, easily angered man he had become after Chris showed up. "It's a trick. He'll kill you. Please don't go after him. Stay here and train. Maybe—maybe you can break the curse if you break him." "You guys. I have to do this my way, because the old way doesn't work. I'm telling you:I can break the curse . Isn't that worth the risk? Think about it, Dad. No more training, ever. Not having to flinch every time a stranger shows up in town. Saving Violet's baby! Or Ramen's, or Kane's. Not having to bury me." Her father couldn't meet her gaze and turned to stare out the north window. Her mother, however, looked hopeful for the first time in a week. "Oh, Rhea, do you really think so?" Actually, I have no idea if my plan will work, but don't give it another thought. "Absolutely," she lied. Her father stood with his back to her, still staring out the window. "Then go," he said, "quickly. While there's still time to catch him. Do—do you want me to come with you?" "I'll come, too," her mother added, though she wasn't a Goodman by blood, of course. "My, my, look at you two. I'm shocked to my very core. Breaking tradition like that? No chance," she teased. "Mmm. And Rhea…" "Yeah?" "If it goes badly—" "I know, Dad." "Because it may be an elaborate charade on his part." "I know, Dad." "To trick you into lowering your defenses." "Gotcha." "Why was he the one on top when we drove up?" "Uh—gotta go, Dad." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Nine   CALL girls—or "soiled doves" as Chris preferred to think of them—had been disappearing in Boston for more than two months. Chris drove yet another rental down to the harbor for a quick look. And a finder spell, of course. Because he had a good idea what was happening. A K'shir demon: The Taker of the Lost. Looks like a man, feeds like a devil, then looks like a man again. Only a magic user could spot it for what it was—a creature so unnatural to this world that it actually made his head hurt. In fact, it hadn't hurt so badly since the day Rhea had smacked the shit out of him. Don't think about Rhea. He tried. He really tried. He'd spent the last two days holed up in his hotel room, determinedly not thinking about Rhea. Trying to become absorbed with the Call Girl Killer. And in all the not thinking about Rhea, he'd decided what to do: stay away. Don't go looking for her on his thirtieth. And don't knock anybody up, for the love of God! He swallowed at the thought. Did he have the courage to end his family line? Could he?Should he? If it kept Rhea and the next Goodman safe, then yes. Absolutely. Feeling a bit better about his decision, he'd decided to look into the missing soiled doves. All had been lured down to the harbor. Other than that, they had nothing in common, except for the way they died—in great terror and pain. The police thought wild animals were on the loose, even though no one had reported a pack of wolves gone missing. And Chris couldn't blame them—he'd seen the crime scene photos. A quick show-me spell, a quick forget spell, and he had copies of everything. He had seen. Nothing human could do that to the poor girls. Frankly, he hadn't been able to eat a thing for quite a few hours after looking through the case files. He had a strong hunch that the cops weren't going to be able to solve this case. Ever. So he would step in, again. In truth, he couldn't wait. All the pent-up anger and frustration at his situation—his and Rhea's, whom he wasn't thinking about—could be poured into his attack. Go back, the rat in his brain whispered.Do a spell. Make her come with you to the hotel. Make her take off her clothes and yours and — He shoved the thought away. It would reappear in another half hour or so, much to his disgust. After all the lectures Rhea had endured, it looked like he was the bad guy after all. How she would have liked to hear him say so! But she would never hear him again. He would see to it. And he would end his line and break the curse. And she could live happily ever after, and so could her niece, the player-to-be-named-later. He parked near Faneuil Hall and walked toward the harbor. His head hurt more and more with each step—excellent. The Taker of the Lost was planning on feeding tonight. Good. Chris was in a skull-cracking mood. He stopped near a relatively deserted side street, read a Post-It, then stuffed the note back in his pocket and chanted, "Taker of the Lost Show your true face. Then you'll be bossed And I'll hit you with mace." Okay, as far as poems went… not so great. Really kind of dreadful. But that was the trick. They didn'thave to be good poems. They just had to rhyme, even clumsily. What had Rhea said? Get a rhyming dictionary? How had he never thought of that? The girl—woman—was a genius! But more important, why had she given the suggestion? It was kind of out of character for her—for any Goodman—to help a Mere. Frankly, it— A startled roar from two blocks over smashed up his chain of thought; he started to sprint. The demon was likely to lash out at anybody near it; they hated—hated—being forced to drop their disguises. He heard a car pull up behind him and slam on the brakes, and was absently grateful not to be creamed by what sounded like a typical Boston driver. He rounded a corner and ran another block, then checked himself before he could run blindly into the alley. He looked up. And there it was, hanging twelve feet up like a bloated bat—all dark leathery wings, two hearts, and bad smell. "Don't you want to come down here and kick my ass?" he called up to it, hoping it understood English. That was when the one behind him slammed into him, shoving him so hard into the wall that he almost lost consciousness. Twoof them? Oh,great , as Rhea would say. It certainly explained the number of missing girls… he'd assumed it was a ridiculously hungry demon, not that it had a mate. Demons of any kind were not known for teamwork. He should have remembered there was an exception to every rule. Too bad for him. He rolled away just as the demon's left foot came down where his head had been, cracking the cobblestones. He felt something warm drip into his eyes and realized he was bleeding from a scalp wound. It's possible, he mused, that I jumped into this without planning it so well. Anything was better than wondering how things might have been between him and the girl (woman) he wasn't thinking about. Even facing an extra demon on a Wednesday night. He watched with something close to disinterest as the male scuttled down the wall and the female edged closer. He couldn't think of a thing that rhymed with demon, and he was too woozy to grope for a Post-It and try to read it in the darkness of the alley. This is it. Heaven, here I come. I'll go to heaven, right? There was a shhhhk-THUD and another shhhhhk-THUD, and the female, who had been once again getting ready to stomp him, screamed. Chris wiped more blood out of his eyes and saw two arrows sticking out of the female's back. The demon popped her extra elbow joint loose and was able to reach far enough up her back to yank at them, and then screamed again—in anger as much as pain—when she moved them in her flesh but did not dislodge them. Shhhhhk-THUD, shhhhhk-THUD, shhhhhk-THUD. More screaming. Now the male was roaring in a rage, but (typical of demons) did not come closer to help his mate, preferring to wait in the shadows to ambush—who? "You dumb shit," Rhea observed, marching into the alley. She was dressed in super-cool badass black from neck to ankles, and—was that a Kevlar vest? "It's nice to see you, too, sunshine. Dressed for the occasion, I see. And by the way, ow, my head." "Taker of the Lost?" she asked, studying the wounded female, who had gone down on her knees and managed to claw out one of the arrows. "To think I thought all those stories my dad told me were fairy tales." Her hand snaked behind her back and she came out with a gun—a really big-ass gun—and emptied six chambers into the female's head. "And for the record, you stinking big bastard, the only one allowed to make him go 'ow' isme ." "Stinking big bitch," Chris said helpfully. "This is the female." Despite their exotic mythology, demons could be killed with conventional weapons: Destroy enough of the brain and it was a fait accompli. So Chris was not surprised to see the female slowly topple forward and lie still. Hewas surprised to see Rhea squat in front of him and hand him a Wet Nap, which he batted out of her hand. He'd stupidly assumed she had seen the male as well—which was a gross disservice to the girl. Woman. She'd only known about her "duty" for a little over a week, and damned sure didn't spend spare time casting spells on demons. She was a fucking poet! Those thoughts whirled through his brain in half a second, and he brought his knees up and kicked her as hard as he could, square in the chest. She flew away from him like he'd shot her out of a cannon, (God, God, don't let her be hurt, please God, I'll owe you one, okay?) and then two black feet smashed into the spot where Rhea had been crouching. "Ow," Rhea bitched from eight feet away. Then, "Two of them? In all the stories I heard—" "Yeah, and all those old stories are always totally truthful." "Good point," she admitted, climbing to her feet and popping the cylinder on her six, grabbing a speed loader and sliding it home, even as she edged toward the male, who, in a rage, was still stomping on the spot she'd recently occupied. "Jesus, what are you waiting for? Shoot him! He's alone now, so he's being careful. Which is the only reason he hasn't eaten our heads. Shoot!" "No. You might be killed in the crossfire." "Who cares? Shoot the fucker!" "I care. Freeman, gleeman, semen, seamen, Philemon, cacodemon. Lost, boss, floss, gloss, toss." The male twisted toward her, hissing, but it had to climb over the body of its mate to get to Rhea, so he had maybe three seconds. "Taker of the Lost Begone to where lives a demon Lest I give you a toss Then drown you in semen." "I think I'd rather have my face clawed off than listen to another one of those," Rhea commented as the advancing male suddenly vanished with a loud "pop!"… the sound of air rushing into the space it had so recently occupied. "Shut up. It worked, didn't it?" "You couldn't think of anything that rhymed with demon, could you?" she asked kindly. "Shut up," he said, trying not to sulk. They stared at each other from opposite sides of the alley. Then he wondered why he was sulking. She had come! She had (somehow) tracked him down and found him and come armed and— "Before I embrace you and cry like a little girl, you didn't bring all that stuff and wear all that stuff to kill me, did you?" "Only if you misbehave." She grimaced, stood, and rubbed the small of her back. "Thank goodness for body armor. You kickhard , Mere." "Chris. And thanks. My fault, by the way. I had no business assuming you knew there were two." "And I had no business charging into an alley before I effectively deduced the threat level. So we both fucked up. That's why we can't kill each other." "Really?" he asked, almost afraid to hope. She bent, found the Wet Nap, skirted the dead female, and handed it back to him. "Really. If we try to kill each other, we'll just screw it up. Excuse me." She leaned against the wall and efficiently threw up. He climbed to his feet, wiping more blood out of his eyes, then went to her and patted her shoulder while she vomited. "Sorry, sorry," he said, as distressed as he'd ever been. "It's awful, I know. The smell and the—the general unnaturalness of them." He couldn't believe she'd walked into a dark alley to save his ass. "It hurts my brain to look at them." She coughed, pulled an arm across her mouth, then said, "It hurts my stomach." "Then why did you come?" "Oh, I broke into your hotel room and found all the police reports. After I tracked your car rental. It wasn't hard to figure out where you went next—I was right behind you those last few minutes, but you ignored my honking." "This is Boston," he said, as if that explained everything. She laughed, a sound that caused his heart rate to double with pure joy. Then her eyes narrowed, and she cut off her laugh and said, "You didn't raise those two, right? You just get rid of them. Right?" "Rhea. You really have to ask?" "Sorry. Distrusting you is going to be a tough habit to break." "Sunshine, you don't even know how tough. So now what? Since you're sure if we turn on each other we'll screw it up. What does that leave? Teaching each other to knit? Taking a judo class at the Y? What?" She laughed again. "Now we go back to your hotel room and make a baby." "What?" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter Ten   "I CAN'T believe this is happening. I just can't believe it." Rhea actually had to lead Chris through the lobby like a Seeing Eye dog. He was so shocked by her plan, he'd almost gone catatonic. "I've been spending all this time not thinking about you, and now you want a Mere baby." "A Goodman-Mere baby." "I can't believe this is happening," he said again, following her robotically into the elevator. "Are you all right? You're like kind of… out of it." "I can't believe this is happening." "It's a good way to break the curse, don't you think?" "Curse?" "Thecurse . The one that's been on our families for three hundred some years?The curse." "Oh. That curse." She pressed the button for his floor. "Are you sure you're okay?" "Sure as sure can be," he replied absently. "It's just that I fell in love with you and was resigned to never seeing you again, and then you saved me in the alley, and now you want to have sex. I'm feeling a little like a Powerball winner. Also, I think we already broke the curse." "When you shared your powers with your greatest enemy. And we teamed up and kicked some demonic butt." "Right, right." The elevator dinged, and they walked out. She used his key card to pop the door open, and inside they went. The hotel had already done turn-down service. "Look!" Rhea said. "Chocolates!" "Help yourself." He was just standing in the middle of the room, like he wasn't exactly sure what to do. Which was problematic. She gobbled both chocolates, then started taking off her body armor, short-sleeved T-shirt, black leggings, black socks, black running shoes, and white panties. "What are you doing?" he said, sounding almost—startled? "Like I'm going to make a baby with body armor on. Don't just stand there. Strip." "I can't believe this is happening." "Yes, Chris, Iknow . Strip." Still moving like his limbs were barely thawed, he started taking off his clothes. Belt, shirt, khakis, socks, shoes (in no particular order, she noted). Simpsons boxer shorts. "I'll overlook the shorts, but afterward, we really have to talk." "Did I make fun of your underwear?" "You were thinking it," she said, taking his hand and leading him to the bed. She was trying not to stare, and failing—miserably. He was just—superb. Long lean limbs, broad shoulders, lightly furred chest, slightly dazed green eyes. And what looked to her like a rather sizeable erection, jutting stiffly upward toward his taut stomach. "Chris?" "Mmmm?" "Do youwant a baby with me?" He blinked. "A Goodman-Mere baby? I could care less.Our baby? Sure. Oh. You'll have to marry me once you're knocked up. Or maybe next week." "Good," she whispered in his ear. "Because I want one, too. So get me pregnant. Right now." Finally, he snapped out of the trance and nearly fell on her as he bore her to the bed, his lips frantic over hers, his tongue probing, his teeth gently nibbling her ear lobes, her neck, her cleavage. His hand spread her thighs apart and stroked the tender skin of her inner thighs, which made her shiver beneath him. He moved lower so he could pull her nipples into his hot, wet mouth, sucking greedily, even gently biting her, and the sensation shot from her breasts to her toes in half a second. And now he was gently stroking the hot throbbing center between her thighs, making her strain against him, making her groan, making her plead. He needed no such encouragement, just returned his attention to her mouth while spreading her legs a little wider. He broke the kiss to gaze into her eyes, as his hips thrust against hers, hard. "Ow!" "What, ow?" he panted. "I just wasn't quite ready for you." Sweat stood out on his forehead, and she could see him gritting his teeth as he forced his hips to be still. "Wasn't ready for me?" "Well. This is kind of my first time." He gaped at her. "Kind of?" "Okay. It's my first time." He started to roll off her, but she grabbed him by the elbows and managed to keep him in place. "A virgin?" he practically yelped. "You're a virgin, and you didn't say anything? Andwhy are you a virgin?" "Why wouldn't I be?" she snapped back. "I've spent my whole life training to kill you, or in school. When the hell would I have time to lose my virginity?" "Okay, okay, don't get your guns. I was just—surprised. I've never done it with a virgin before." He squinted thoughtfully. "I'm pretty sure." "Could you not reminisce about other sex partners when you're inside me?" "Sorry, sorry. Does it still hurt?" "It's a lot better." A whole lot better. Almost… delightful? Yes, delightful, the hot friction between her legs was no longer a burning pain but instead a thrilling amusement park ride, where she went up and up and up. He was thrusting against her with such care she almost wept. And he watched her face every moment. Again, shuddering all over, he stopped. "Hurts?" "No." She strained against him, trying to create her own friction. "Oh, no." "You're…" He wiped his thumb on her cheek and showed her the tear. "Crying." "I'm just so happy. Right this minute is the happiest moment of my whole life." "What whole life?" he teased, continuing to stroke and surge into her. "Ah, God, Rhea, you really shouldn't say things like 'give me a baby' and 'I'm so happy.' It's hell on my self-control." "You're doing all—oh!" She felt an all-over tightening and held her breath, and then her orgasm—her firstassisted orgasm—blew through her like a hurricane, leaving her trembling in his arms. "Oh, Christ!" Then he was groaning and shuddering against her, and she felt even more warmth between her legs than before. "Uck. You made me sticky." His head, which had been resting on her shoulder, jerked up. "Uck?Uck ? You're hell on the self-esteem, too." "Not uck for the sex. Uck for immediately after the sex. I mean—yeesh. I'd better clean up." He clamped down on her arms and squeezed. "Don't you dare move," he growled. "No fair ruining the afterglow." "Oh, was I wrecking pillow talk?" she teased. "To put it mildly. You came, right? I was pretty sure you came." "Oh, yes." "That's great. Usually I have to go down on—" "Stop." "Sorry. Boy," he added cheerfully, grinning at her, "your dad is going to shit when we tell him what we were up to in Beantown." "Now who's wrecking the afterglow? Why did you bring up my dad? Now I have to call them so they won't worry." "Be sure to mention your recent deflowering." "Thanks for the advice." "And our upcoming wedding." She shoved and punched and finally kicked him off her. She sat up in bed and didn't bother with the sheet, and could see the admiration in his eyes as he looked her over from head to foot. "I didn't hear a proposal, buster." "Oh, stop it. You totally fell under my spell, and you know it." "Ha!" "What else do you call this?" he asked, gesturing to them both. "But magic?" "You're a bag of sentimental mush." "One of us should have a feminine side." "Shut up," she retorted, then grabbed the phone and started dialing. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Epilogue     POWER and Flower made it to Mass General in record time, given rush hour traffic, and went at once to the maternity ward. Flower was carrying a teddy bear. Power had a gaily wrapped box with a big blue bow on the top. "Excuse me," he said to the charge nurse. "My daughter, Rhea Goodman Mere? She's having a baby? Can you tell me what—" A shout interrupted him. "And stay out!" Punctuated by the clatter of an emesis basin slamming into the wall. "Never mind," Flower said. "We can find her." They turned and walked down the hall in time to see their son-in-law practically sprint into the hallway. "All right, allright !" he yelled back. "Don't come crying to me when you forget how to do your breathing!" "Chris, darling!" Flower called, hurrying up to him and giving him a hug. "We came as soon as you called." "Happy birthday, by the way," Power added, handing Chris the gaily wrapped box. "A milestone. You're to be congratulated." "I foundthree gray hairs on my head this morning, and your daughter—and my daughter—are directly responsible. I'm only thirty-two, and I'm going gray!" "Well, nobody forced you two to get married and have babies," Flower said gently. "Quite the opposite," Power muttered. "And don't worry about Violet Number Two; she's at home with her aunties and uncles." "Great. If she points a toy gun in my face and pretends to shoot me, I'm holding both of you responsible." "We can't help it that 'kill the witch' is everyone's favorite childhood game." "It's not everyone's—" "What are you doing out there?" Rhea shouted. "Taking a poll? Get your ass in here!" "Coming, coming!" He gave his in-laws a final, harassed glance before going back through the gates of hell. "The baby will be your birthday present!" Flower called after him. "Doubt it," Power said, glancing at his watch. "It's almost midnight." "Second babies always come faster." "She's only been in labor for four hours." "Darling. It'sRhea ." "That's true," Power said, and sat down with his wife to wait for another Goodman-Mere baby.   "And… it's a boy!" "Oh,great" Rhea groaned. "What was I thinking? Iknew it hurt like a bastard, and I let you knock me up again anyway." "Hold on a minute, Mom, we'll get him cleaned up, and then you can hold him." The nurse had to shout over the baby's wails to be heard. "Listen to the lungs on that kid," Chris said happily. "A chip off the old maternal block." "Shut up." "And he's gorgeous." She perked up, as much as she could in her exhausted state. "He looks okay? I figured he was okay from all the yelling. Violet Number Two did the same thing when she was born." "Here he is, Mom!" Rhea stared down in wonder at the tiny, perfect face. The baby was looking up at her with the blue eyes of a fair-skinned newborn, and she wondered if they would go dark like hers, or green like Chris's. She hoped they would be green, because… "Welcome to the world, Christopher Goodman Mere," she said softly, and kissed her baby at the exact moment her husband kissed her on the top of her head.