Hattie McCoy smoothed the front of her flowing white dress and sat down by an adjacent tree. Her gaze fondly drifted over to the pair of young lovers, and she sighed with contentment.

"Now, Hattie," a warm, familiar voice said before the apparition that came with it appeared. "We ain't supposed to be spying on kin like that, specially when they in delicate situations. Just because we spirits, and can, don't mean that we should."

"I know," Hattie said. She watched her friend of many years fully materialize to sit beside her. "But just look at 'em. So young, and so in love."

Ethel Hatfield smiled. "If them two don't watch out, they gonna make a baby this afternoon, if you ask me."

"I know," Hattie crooned, clasping her hands in joy. "Wouldn't that just be divine?"

Ethel nodded and then frowned. "But that danged celibacy spell both our families cast is gonna get in the way." She glanced up. "Gonna storm, too. Them Hatfields and McCoys is at it again! Don't make sense—always thirteen women aunts conjurin' on one side against them thirteen uncles on the other . . . chile, you know how it goes through the genes on each side, but why can't folks just stop and let sleepin' dogs lie?"

"That's why I came here," Hattie whispered, standing and putting both hands on her disappearing hips. "All these years and our fami­lies are still feudin'? Don't make no kinda sense. Working roots on each other, casting evil spells, dabblin' in hoodoo—humph!"

Ethel floated toward the tree near the two lovers. "Girl, you block that tree limb and try to shoo them off the blanket 'fore it falls. I'll try to whisper some sense into these two lovebirds to try make 'em hold off until we can get this all straightened out."

Hattie covered her mouth and giggled, loving that they'd both been allowed to take on their old girlish forms once they'd crossed over to the other side as ancestors. "Chile, I don't think they'd mind right now if lightning did hit 'em. Gonna be mighty hard to get in between them two."

Ethel laughed. "Not sure that I want to, given how they's rubbing and bumping and grinding all up on each other. Have mercy!"

"Aw, girl, don't act like you don't remember those days. Love is a mighty powerful thing, magic all by itself," Hattie said with a mis­chievous wink.

Both ghosts laughed and danced about in the shards of sunlight, becoming shining pollen motes.

"Oooh, honey!" Ethel exclaimed. "What you think they'll make first—a boy or a girl?"

He pulled out of their kiss like a man drowning. Odelia's sweet breath washed his lips in warm temptation, her mouth so close to his that he could still taste the mint iced tea she'd had only minutes ago. His hands slid down her shoulders, his eyes coveting every inch of her dark, satiny skin, wanting to lower the thin straps of her yellow tank top.

"I know it's hard to wait, but we can't," she whispered. "We shouldn't."

He searched her face, rendered mute for a moment by the plea within her beautiful brown eyes. But the conflict he saw in them, the passion they belied, while her body against his created a hot seal that rivaled the muggy afternoon, it was more than a man could bear.

"But we're gonna be married soon," he said quietly, his thumbs lazily stroking her upper arms. "We're engaged." He swept up her hand and kissed the back of it, then the center of her palm, as his other hand stroked her long, velvety braids.

She hesitated, glanced at the two-karat stone that picked up sun­light and splashed prism-sent color against his cheek while she gen­tly brushed it, and then stared into his eyes. What could she say to this man?

A yearlong whirlwind college romance in their senior year had turned into an engagement. A whole year of trying to abstain, like Minister had said, had been the toughest thing she'd had to endure in her life. A year of them both mysteriously neglecting to inform their families of this new development was torture. She knew why she'd omitted Jeff's existence from her family's purview, and also knew why he'd never taken her home to meet his people.

She could only pray that Jeff's folks weren't still carrying the gen­erational grudge that was legendary between their families, and that they didn't conjure, too. According to her family's crazy view, his folks were wicked spell-casters and so was everyone in his extended family. No. Couldn't be. Jeff seemed so logical, so levelheaded, and so removed from the old superstitious ways, it was impossible that his people were like hers.

As she stared up into Jefferson McCoy's intense brown eyes, she knew there was no way to explain the insanity she'd grown up with. Once married, they'd be his kin, too. Maybe she'd break it to him gently after the wedding. Yet, how did one explain that her daddy was as close to a Dr. Buzzard-root-master as one could get, or that her aunties all worked roots, with serious, inexplicable consequences befalling the unfortunate individuals who'd dared to cross them? She'd escaped to college to get away from all of that backwoods stuff. Intellectual pursuits and the campus church had been a cloak and a shield against the kitchen conjuring her folks could do. If her family spooked this man, she'd die a natural death.

"Jeff," she said quietly, unable to draw her body away from his, "I don't want anything to mess up what we have. I don't want to tempt fate, or draw down The Wrath. If we just get married quickly, pri­vately, me and you . . . I—"

"You want to elope?" he asked in a ragged murmur, bringing his lips to her neck and breathing out the words. The more he thought about it while caressing her, the more her idea had merit. It was stu­pid to think that two weeks before graduation they could just drop this announcement on their families and turn what were initially supposed to be individual graduation parties into a combined, sur­prise wedding. At the time, it had seemed like a reasonable concept; there would already be a cake, food, people gathered, and a minister present—all that would be needed was a license, a few flowers, and a dress. He already had a good suit.

"Okay," Jeff finally choked out, unable to stop kissing her. "I can't stand a long engagement and all the drama of a wedding, anyway."

His ardent attention to her earlobe under the private canopy of trees, where they were just supposed to be having a picnic lunch, was making her forget everything Minister had said, and about the fam­ily dangers of going too far. The way Jeff's hot breath scored her ear sent tiny shivers along her spine. He smelled so good . . . deep, rich, male, and earthy . . . and felt divine; his tall, six-foot frame was like solid oak. Lawd. She couldn't help but allow her lips to taste his Hershey-toned skin, and before she knew it, her fingertips began to tingle as they grazed his short-cropped, thick hair.

"You'd do that for me?" she whispered, as he made her breath hitch with a slow kiss on her shoulder.

"I,d do anything for you," he said into her ear hotly. "Anything. I love you, girl."

It was almost too good to be true. She'd escaped. They might be able to have a life together. He'd be fresh out of law school and prac­ticing at his first big job with his new degree in Seattle. She'd have her master's, could go there as his wife, and could pursue social work, far, far away from home. They could make love day and night, with­out fear of reprisal, because the union would be under the protective cloak of the Almighty; even her folks couldn't mess with that—or could they? she wondered. Maybe her children with Jeff might even be born "normal," and not have the conjurer gene or the proclivity.

When his kiss became more aggressive, she returned it in kind, knowing full well this was foolhardy. All the nights that they'd come close to breaking their vow to wait began to come crashing down on her. The ache he'd produced within her was a fire that hadn't burned out since the day they'd met.

Each near miss had only made it worse. Each chaperoned get-together, dating in a church group from campus, now made her ready to shriek. Each time they'd gone to either his or her apartment, supposedly to watch movies, they had ended up in a passionate tussle of way-too-heavy petting on the sofa, the movie neglected. The past two months, they'd both agreed not to tempt fate by doing that, cit­ing church tenets as the reason—but there was more to it than that. Then he'd messed up and given her a ring during a quiet, unplanned dinner for two. That had almost broken them down. But today . . . she couldn't take it. Her willpower was gone.

"Jefferson, we can't," she gasped, stopping the next kiss and lean­ing her forehead on his chest. She could feel his heart thudding against her skull and connecting to the thud of desire between her legs. His USC T-shirt clung to his hard torso, dampened.

"Baby, I don't know how much more of this I can take. . . ."

Steel pierced my leg and my body went rigid with pain, but I could not allow myself to move. "Billy," I growled through my teeth. "Kill him."

Billy the Werewolf squinted up at me from his seat and said, "That might be a little extreme."

"This is torture," I said.

"Oh, for crying out loud, Dresden," Billy said, his tone amused. "He's just fitting the tux."

Yanof the tailor, a squat, sturdy little guy who had recently immi­grated to Chicago from Outer Sloboviakastan or somewhere, glared up at me, with another dozen pins clutched between his lips and re­sentment in his eyes. I'm better than six and a half feet tall. It can't be fun to be told that you've got to fit a tux to someone my height only a few hours before the wedding.

"It ought to be Kirby standing here," I said.

"Yeah. But it would be harder to fit the tux around the body cast and all those traction cables."

"I keep telling you guys," I said. "Werewolves or not, you've got to be more careful."

Ordinarily, I would not have mentioned Billy's talent for shapeshifting into a wolf in front of a stranger, but Yanof didn't speak a word of English. Evidently, his skills with needle and thread were such that he had no pressing need to learn. As Chicago's resident wizard, I'd worked with Billy on several occasions, and we were friends.

His bachelor party the night before had gotten interesting on the walk back to Billy's place, when we happened across a ghoul terror­izing an old woman in a parking lot.

It hadn't been a pretty fight. Mostly because we'd all had too many stripper-induced Jell-O shots.

Billy's injuries had all been bruises and all to the body. They wouldn't spoil the wedding. Alex had a nasty set of gashes on his throat From the ghoul's clawlike nails but could probably pass them off as particularly enthusiastic hickeys. Mitchell had broken two teeth when he'd charged the ghoul but hit a wall instead. He was go­ing to be a dedicated disciple of Anbesol until he got to the dentist.

All I had to remember the evening by was a splitting headache, and not from the fight. Jell-O shots are far more dangerous, if you ask me.

Billy's best man, Kirby, had gotten unlucky. The ghoul slammed him into a brick wall so hard that it broke both his legs and cracked a vertebra.

"We handled him, didn't we?" Billy asked.

"Let's ask Kirby," I said. "Look, there isn't always going to be a broken metal fence post sticking up out of the ground like that, Billy. We got lucky."

“Now this," Ian Taylor said with satisfaction, surveying the ship bobbing just outside of the harbor, "is what I call an adventure?' He turned a blinding grin on his wife-to-be as he patted her hand. He had to hunt for it; it only wrapped partly around his well-muscled forearm. "It's going to be amazing. Better than any church wedding, eh?"

She looked up at him, speechless. He stood six feet, five inches to her dumpy five-foot-four and had the kind of rippling, tanned body usually only seen onstage in gay strip clubs. Silky blond hair. Impos­sibly white, even teeth. Big blue eyes.

And he was—unbelievably—a romance-novel cover model.

For a woman whose self-image most often involved the words "mousy" and "short," meeting Ian had been like being run down by the speeding Love Train. Ian had knocked her off her feet (literally, with a shopping cart to her midsection), and upon reviving her in the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart, he'd set about seducing her by wearing ruffled poet shirts and declaiming flowery compliments.

Their romance—two months along, yesterday—had been one big, rose-colored dream, and she kept waiting to wake up. But the dream was starting to take on a surreal edge of panic, and all Cecilia could finally sum up in response to Ian's enthusiasm was a wan smile and a quiet, "It looks great."

She supposed it did, if you were a romance-cover heroine. When Ian had mentioned the surprise, she'd been thinking with desperate optimism of a cruise ship. Something like a floating city, with beauty shops and bowling alleys and seven ballroom-sized dining rooms. (She'd done considerable last-minute research.)

The huge ship bobbing like a cork was, in true Ian fashion, not a boring old honeymoon cruise ship. No, this was straight out of some sweeping pirate tale, with towering masts and yo-ho-ho on a dead man's chest. It was even flying a pirate flag. Cute.

"When—" She tried to banish the squeak from her voice. "When do we—" Drown. Yes, sink and drown, arrrrrr, matey. "Sail?"

"Sail?" Ian echoed, and picked her up to whirl her around in a nauseating spiral. "Within the hour, Cess! Isn't that wonderful?"

It was a measure of how overwhelmed she was that she hadn't complained about that damn nickname. Cess. Ugh. Cecilia, if you please, she imagined herself saying coolly, like those heroines in the novels, as she pulled her shoulders straight and cowed him with an imperious gaze.

Of course, none of those women would have gotten themselves into a fix like this in the first place.

Cecilia squeezed her eyes shut and clung for dear life until Ian, and the world in general, stopped whirling. Well, at least she had manly thews to which she could cling. Hadn't had those, a couple of months ago. Hadn't had anything at all but herself.

Ah, some traitorous part of her heart sighed, hadn't that just been the life?

With shock, she realized what he'd just said. SAIL? Within the hour?!

She must have made some squeak of protest. Ian, hair blowing in cornsilk waves on the wind, shirt billowing romantically, looked down at her. "Trust me," he said. "You're going to love this." Somehow, he managed to get her down the boardwalk, mostly by bum's-rushing her with an arm around her shoulders. Terror ren­dered her effectively mute and manageable.

"There she is, Cess. Isn't she beautiful?"

She supposed, in a scary piratical way. The ship was anchored out in the harbor, riding the waves, its skeletal spires draped with ropes like cobwebs in the mist. The day was clouding over and fog boiling in from the ocean. Perfect. Well, maybe she could use it to slip away.

She'd just taken the first sidle in that direction when Ian pulled her into a smothering embrace. She tried for that square-shouldered dignity she'd been imagining earlier. "Ian, we can't do this. It's impossible."

"Can't? What do you mean? You said you'd marry me, didn't you?"

Well. . . yes. She had. But it had been one of those yes, of course, someday things, not a yes, God, drag me to the docks and throw me on a pi­rate ship thing.

"Ian, listen to me," she said. "I really can't—"

She paused, because Ian had been walking her toward the edge of the wooden pier, and suddenly there was nothing between her and the greasy, slippery water except his arm and about an inch of foothold. Her voice locked tight in her throat.

Out in the growing mist, she heard the rhythmic splash of oars.

Tell him. Tell him you can't marry him. TELL HIM!

She opened her mouth to do it, and a boat glided out of the gray fog. A black, glossy boat with six men at the oars and another stand­ing straight as a pike with his arms folded. Clearly the man in charge. Pirate in charge. Whatever.

Well, Cecilia thought numbly, you couldn't say Ian didn't go in for authenticity. She'd never in her life seen a more likely brigand. Sun-browned skin. A mass of coiling dark hair shot with gray, the lot barely contained by some braids to either side and a battered tricorn hat. He wasn't tall—not as tall as Ian, certainly—and wore a heavy, antique-style coat with corroded brass buttons and fraying bullion on the sleeves. Faded and sea stained.

His eyes were fierce and dark, and under a bristle of mustache and goatee she couldn't see any expression at all. For all she could tell, he was about to draw that frightening-looking cutlass at his belt and de­mand that she stand and deliver.

"Ah," Ian said. "Captain Lockhart. May I present my wife-to-be, Cecilia Welles?"

Captain Lockhart flicked that impenetrable glance from her to Ian and then back. "If you must," he said, in the most dismissive tone she'd ever heard.

She'd been about to turn around and bolt, but that did it. It came to her in a blinding, angry rush, exactly why she was doing this. She'd found the perfect man, and there was no reason, no reason at all, not to see this for the incredible lucky break it was. She'd be stu­pid to turn away. Some other woman would be all over Ian like spray-on tan the second she did.

Cecilia squared her shoulders and fixed the ragged pirate with the glare she wasn't capable of aiming at Ian. "Yes," she said. "He must. Is this our ride?"

Captain Lockhart clasped his hands behind his back and easily rocked with the waves that battered the small boat. His face re­mained bland. "No horses," he said.

"What?"

"Not a ride, love. No horses."

She felt an obscure sense of satisfaction at having provoked even that much reaction. "Our . . . conveyance." That was a good romance-novel word. "Conveyance." She saw a sudden, startling flash of teeth.

"Aye," he said. "It's a conveyance, if you're not too particular about your terms. Get in, if you're getting. Tide's about to turn."

Ian jumped into the boat with a solid thump and swung Cecilia in before she could suck in breath to protest.

Too late. She sat and clung to the side convulsively as it lurched in the waves. The left-side oarsmen pushed off from the pier, and the boat began a hideous rocking motion. "Ian, wait! Isn't—isn't anybody else coming? Your family? My friends? We should have witnesses. ..."

Ian patted her shoulder. "Captain Lockhart and his men will sign all of the necessary papers, Cess." She shivered, damp and miserable in her thin T-shirt and blue jeans. "See? I told you it'd be a surprise."

Captain Lockhart cast her a look, raised an expressive eyebrow, and turned to watch the unseen horizon as they rowed into the mist.

“Hey there, little sister, pull my pants down, would ya please?" Frankie halted cold in her tracks at the sound of the man's velvety, uncannily familiar voice, which originated somewhere above her, frozen in a "what the . . . ?" reaction. Normally she'd have blown off any guy daring such a line with her, but that voice.

She'd been raised on that voice.

Frankie looked up and, oh yeah, it was him—standing tall on the backstage platform getting ready for his opening set.

It couldn't have been, but it was; Elvis had just asked her to pull his pants down.

What the hell . . . ?

"The legs, darlin'." He pointed, a half smile curling the famous lips and a glint of mischief in his blue, blue eyes.

His knees were just at her eye level, and his pant hems were hung on the tops of his shiny black half boots. She stared, blinking, then gaped up at him again. He sure looked like the real deal, but it belat­edly registered in her harried brain that this was the special wedding singer the bride had insisted on. Dang. She had good taste.

"Uh, sure," Frankie said, abruptly aware she was holding a wide platter heavy with stuffed mushrooms. She owned the catering ser­vice hired for the wedding but pitched in with the rest of the staff when the heat was on. Things were in swelter mode tonight. She'd been forced to find an alternate way around to the buffet tables be­cause of a drinks spill. Her idea to take a backstage route hadn't been well considered; the cramped area was littered with sound equip­ment, cases for musical instruments, and lots and lots of trip-worthy electrical cables and little to no lighting. A bad choice on her part until now. She quickly edged the tray onto the platform and, hands free, yanked at the man's cuffs. Leather pant cuffs. He was Come­back Elvis from 1968, head to toe in black leather and at his absolute sexiest.

"Just a little harder, darlin'," he said, apparently in full character. Only Elvis could get away with it. But he wasn't really Elvis, just a damned excellent hunky substitute, built exactly the same, with a tight butt and wide shoulders stretching the limits of the leather jacket. Nothing fake there. Wow, they still made guys like that?

She pulled and the black leather rutched up the length of one of his long legs suddenly smoothed into a lean second skin. She did the same again for the other leg. Not exactly listed on her job descrip­tion, but. . . wow, no trouble, nope, none at all.

"How's that?" she asked.

He shot her the look—the one that had once caused her then twenty-year-old grandmother to scream and fall into a dead faint at one of his concerts in 1956. Gramma had been proud of that inci­dent, if ticked off for missing things while being revived by her friends.

Frankie suddenly understood what Gramma had felt. Knees go­ing, heart leaping, eyes bugging out a little with the shock of impact, but Frankie held her ground and looked right back. The view was great even if it resulted in the temporary loss of her higher brain and motor functions.

And that was from just a look. Wow. Again.

Then Frankie pulled herself together. Elvis was the hottest of the hot, but hey, he was hired help, too, just in a different ranking on the wedding industry food chain. No need to go all groupie-girl. He was the result of costume, makeup, and assumed attitude. He proba­bly had a dorky real name.

"What's your name, honey?" he asked, as though reading her mind. His smile wattage increased. The son of a gun was obviously aware of his effect on her and enjoying the moment.

"Yummy Catering," she blurted. It was the name of her tiny company, the name she proudly announced into the receiver each time the phone rang, and for the life of her she couldn't think why she'd said that.

On the other hand, it made him blink, a little startled. Then the eye-glint thing, happened again, and he flashed very white teeth. "Well, now, your momma 'n' poppa sure got that right. May I call you Yummy Cat for short?"

She felt a completely idiotic giggle trying to flutter out and firmly slammed it down. Frankie was a lot of things, but a brainless, gig­gling ditz was not one of them. "I mean, my name is Frankie Foster. I'm the caterer for this job."

"Pleased to meet you, then. Those sure smell good." He gave a nod at the mushrooms.

"Have one?"

"Not before a show, how about after? Save some for me and my crew?"

"Sure!" she chirped. Again without thinking. The food had been paid for by someone else; it belonged to them, but she'd yet to get through a wedding where they bothered about the leftovers.

And this was Elvis for crying out loud. Okay, Tribute-Artist Elvis. She heard they preferred that over "impersonator." But still. . .

He winked. "Well, that's all right. See you then, Miss Foster." He swept away, tossing her a last look—oh, that was another glint all right, but who was counting?—then went to consult with one of the technicians in his group.

Frankie sagged, suddenly drained. It felt like every muscle in her body had gone through a major workout. This was no surprise— she'd always had a weakness for performers. Their energy was unique, addictive, and not always good for her. Better to enjoy it from the safe distance of audience seating than up close and-and-and ... up close. She grabbed the platter of mushrooms and contin­ued on, picking her way forward over the junk on the floor. Breaking through to the other side of the platform, she made it to the buffet tables.

"I gotta stay away from the showbiz types," she muttered. They were exciting but more often than not came with baggage, or ex­pected her to know all the unwritten rules of their trade. Oh, and egos; don't forget egos. It was a very different world from hers, and the culture shock tended to mess with her head and heart too much.

She'd once wasted six weeks dating a gorgeous but terminally in­secure mama's boy. He'd finally picked one fight too many when she hadn't applauded hard enough for his performance as the second murderer in a community theater production of Macbeth.

The Elvis guy . . . devastatingly hot, but off her menu. She would appreciate his talent from a distance.

Catering was her speed and her life, and she was good at it. She could cook like a demon and calculate the cost (gross and net) for a sit-down feast for a hundred in her head and was able to guide the most nervous of brides through the complex process of planning a wedding supper. Yes, better to stick to what she knew best and not mix worlds.

Of course, it never hurt to peek over the fence at the guest talent now and then.

Frankie took an empty platter from the appetizers table, slipping her full one into place so quickly that the guests filing past hardly noticed. She checked the food levels at the various tables and was pleased (and relieved) to see she'd figured things right yet again. The salad bar was popular. The bridesmaids, all of them rail-thin maga­zine models like the bride, were chewing through the lettuce, veggies, and tofu like starved rabbits. That had been a clever call, to find out how many guests were vegetarians and allow for it. Raw green edibles were cheap, allowing one to get fancy with the meat dishes and still stay within the budget.

The prime rib (a costly but popular classic) was steadily shrinking along with the chicken and fish as lines of guests inched by filling their plates. Her second-in-command, Omar, had everything in hand. As the last of the rib vanished, he produced another, expertly carving it up with one of his big knives.

Except for the spill (sticky fruit juice, not pricey wine), this job was going exceptionally well. It was the bride's third time at mar­riage, so she'd known exactly what she wanted. Planning had been easy, though the numbers had staggered Frankie at first. She'd never done a wedding of this size before and was grateful the bride had opted for a buffet. Frankie didn't have the staff to deal with serving so many tables. Not with food, anyway. There were a number of fleet-footed temps rushing around making sure everyone had their drink of choice. If the staff had to serve food as well it would have been too big a job and Frankie would have had to turn it down altogether.

Which meant she'd have missed meeting the Elvis guy.

"What's he like?"

She tried not to give a start. The question had come from Gramma, who was in charge of the dinner rolls. A nicely preserved seventy, she liked to keep busy and loved helping out on weddings.

"He, who?" Frankie asked.

"The groom. You know—Santiago."

Because she had lots of practice, Frankie kept from making a face at the name she presumed the man had chosen for himself. He was a flashy TV wrestler, big and muscled through and through. Somehow the magic of a tuxedo (a custom extra-extra-large fit) had given so­phisticated class to his shaved head and the tattoos all over his scalp. "Not my type," she answered.

Gramma made a frustrated noise involving both nose and throat. "Wake up and smell the sweat, girl; he's awesome!" She quivered a bit, not from infirmity but adrenaline. The buckets of testosterone floating around the wedding party—as represented by the groom's many beefcake pals from the wrestling world—had its effect on her. She was fond of saying, "I'm old, not dead!"

"Still not my type." Frankie shrugged. Santiago put her off, and it wasn't anything to do with his fearsome outward looks. There was something inside him she'd picked up on but hadn't bothered to identify.

Regardless of what was hidden within, the man had netted him­self a beauty, a cover model for the slicks who was fast gaining inter­national recognition.

The bride had been on a photo shoot requiring she be in evening clothes surrounded by wrestlers, the tougher looking the better, and he was the toughest of the lot. Somehow they'd hit it off. Perhaps they'd found common ground—so to speak—with their geographi­cally inspired names. Hers happened to be Trinidad. Frankie won­dered if they would continue the tradition of place names for their kids. She had a mercifully brief mental picture of them posing for a Christmas card photo before the fireplace, Santiago with his beefy arm around Trinidad and on their laps little Tierra del Fuego and his sister, Peru.

But somehow Frankie knew that would never happen. Santiago . . . what was it about him?

Frankie had a clear view of him across the crowded room. She didn't do it often since it was sort of like invading another's privacy, but now she was curious. She focused and let it come to her. The smallest nuances of expression and body language took on pre­dictable meaning. Just a bare hint was all she got at this distance, but she had it. Oh, dear. This was bad. He would want Trinidad to stay home, wait on him hand and foot, have babies, and cheer nonstop at his wrestling bouts, her modeling days over.

That wouldn't work with her; she loved her career and had left two ex-husbands (a minor rock star and an accountant) in her wake to pursue it.

Well, darn. Frankie grimaced. The split, and there would be one, would start within months of the couple's return from the honey­moon. Any warning Frankie gave wouldn't be believed. They were both past the age of consent, hitched, and happy for now. Matters would take their course.

No one liked a Cassandra, as Frankie had figured out during pu­berty when her talent for reading people first manifested itself. She didn't always get a handle on a person's future, but she could tell friend from foe. It came in very handy for her business. She could accurately determine who would bounce her check and who would not, thus booting a number of mystified deadbeats out the door long before they ordered anything.

But sadly, she wasn't all-knowing. There was the hormone factor. If a man hit all her buttons at the same time, then her talent seized up and stopped working. Like what happened with the actor.

Like what had just happened with the Elvis guy.

No regrets there, and no big problem, since Frankie wouldn't be dating him even if he asked. A nice meal on the leftovers and maybe some shop talk would be the limit. Gramma would get a big kick out of it, though. She adored Elvis and had volunteered to help at this reception as soon as she heard an impersonator—er—tribute artist had been hired as the wedding singer. This man's resemblance to the original was uncanny—at least when seen backstage in low lighting. Maybe a picture or two of Gramma with him could be arranged. He had seemed a friendly sort. . . unless that was just part of his act. Until she could mentally settle down, Frankie wouldn't be reading him.

Hoping to catch a glimpse of him again, Frankie looked across the wide reception hall toward the platform stage. It glittered with gold tinsel and Mylar balloons. A girl in a maroon coat with wide padded shoulders that marked her as one of the musicians was messing around with the drums, while two guys in matching maroon T-shirts checked the microphones and soundboard. A second musician had both acoustic and electric guitars in place onstage and was making sure the latter were hooked up to power. This promised to be more like a concert than wedding entertainment. She caught the group's name from the front of the bass drum: "Coop's Cool-Cats." The three Cs were linked to one another in a fiftie's-style font. Very retro. No sign of the star, though.

"How's it going?" asked a girl who eased up next to her.

"Pretty good, but I don't want to jinx things," said Frankie. The question had come from Aleen, one of the bridesmaids. She actually looked good in her special dress, though tradition held that such things had to be walking eyesores. On Aleen it worked. She went in for piercings, lots of piercings: ears, tongue, and other places that didn't bear thinking about, soot black hair, and tattoos. So what was a little purple satin with flounces against all that? Like Trinidad, Aleen was a professional model. She was very popular for the more edgy fashion layouts. She and Frankie had been best friends since grade school, and she'd suggested Yummy Catering to the bride, for which Frankie was still thanking her. Trinidad had taken quite a chance bestowing her trade on an unknown.

"Trini was so nervous before the ceremony," said Aleen. "Didn't show one flicker of it when she went down the aisle. What a pro."

"Nervous? Five hundred guests, bodyguards, and the tabloid press to juggle, why should she be nervous?" Frankie shook her head.

"The usual. Third time's supposed to be the charm. She really wants this one to work."

"Then she picked the wrong guy," said Gramma, who had leaned sideways from the bread tray to listen.

"Oh, don't tell me your vibe twanged again." Aleen looked dis­tressed. Of course, it was hard to tell, as her trademark chalk-white-and-gray-toned makeup made her look distressed all the time.

"Like a guitar with a bad string." Gramma pronounced.

"Frankie?"

She nodded agreement. Gramma had picked up on Santiago's in­ner man, just chosen not to mention it. " 'Fraid so."

"You guys are just spooky with that."

"A blessing and a curse," said Gramma, raising her gaze briefly to the ceiling as though to apportion blame; then she resumed dishing out rolls with a smile.

"What's going to happen?"

Frankie haltingly gave what few deductions she'd drawn concern­ing Santiago.

Gramma backed her up on it, then added: "It won't necessarily turn out that way Things can change."

"How?" Aleen demanded.

Gramma shrugged. "That's up to the happy couple. Maybe Trinidad will suddenly go all domestic; maybe Santiago will join the twenty-first century and back off from pushing her into being some­thing she's not. The key to any solid relationship is seeing your part­ner for what he or she is, not for what you've projected onto them. Projections always disappoint."

"But poor Trini," said Aleen. "I feel I should warn her or some­thing."

"Never works. Trust me, it's been tried."

"Is your vibe ever wrong?"

"Never. But it's handy. Helped me pick the right man. Helped Frankie's mom do the same. Hopefully she'll have the same good luck if and when she takes a crack at it."

Frankie rolled her eyes. "Just not tonight. I'm too busy." So say­ing, she hurried to another part of the serving line that was about to run out of potatoes. Aleen remained with Gramma, probably hoping to find a way to save Trinidad's marriage.

"Vibe" had always been Aleen's word for whatever-it-was that ran in the distaff side of Frankie's family. Way back when, the women might have called it the Sight or the Eye, if they called it anything. Gramma never made a big to-do about it, no more than one would for a birthmark, and just as well. Frankie had grown up with a min­imum of trauma attached.

The initial assault of hungry guests was over, with everyone but a few table hoppers seated. The big hall echoed loud with simultaneous conversations, the clink and clank of utensils on plates, the noise visually punctuated by the official photographer's flash unit. Weddings ran more or less on a schedule, even one this large. Next would come the second-helping crowd, and sure enough, some of the wrestler types were already in line again.

Those were pretty big guys. Frankie hoped she'd allowed enough food for them. Coop's Cool-Cats might be out of luck for a post-show meal otherwise.

Everything was under control, though, and running smoothly. The bride would be pleased, and might recommend Yummy Cater­ing to her friends. It wouldn't hurt to have a picture of Trinidad's wedding up in the front office, either. Status-wise, this wedding was a hell of a good windfall for the business.

Frankie was in the kitchen supervising an early start on the cleanup when the loud twang of a very much in tune electric guitar thrummed through the walls, announcing the show. She wiped her wet hands and rushed out for a look. The catering line for the main meal was shut down and cleared. Nothing to do but clean until the cake cutting began. She was allowed a break.

Twa-a-a-ng again; then the drummer began thumping a vigorous beat, building for the star's big entrance. Frankie could guess that Gramma would find the best view for the show, spotted her, and stood next to her. They had a clear field to the stage.

"This is sooooo cool," said Gramma, who was able to get away with teen-talk simply because on her it was cute, not forced. The glow on her face and spark in her eyes showed that she'd not changed much from that swooning twenty-year-old of fifty years past.

"Totally cool," Frankie agreed, having to raise her voice to be heard above the rising fanfare. The group had saxophone and trom­bone players, both instruments adding to the tapestry of sound, en­riching it. She loved live music, done well; tonight would be a treat. She craned her neck, looking for the first sign of the Elvis guy com­ing onstage.

" 'Scuse me, pretty ladies."

The voice.

Frankie gave a jellied-knees start, for the man was behind her and had bent to speak almost in her ear.

Gramma also jumped, gaping, then mouthing a silent oh, my good­ness at the sight of him. What big eyes she had.

Elvis smiled down at both in turn and winked. " 'Scuse me. Gotta take care of business." Clearly he was intent on a grander entrance than simply stepping out from behind a partition onstage.

He passed between them. Frankie caught a whiff of a clean, sharp aftershave mixed with the black leather; then he was gone and on the move. The drums and guitar cut loose in frenzied earnest, and a spot­light flashed bright in her eyes before it centered on Elvis.

The guests gave a collective gasp. Many must have known the specifics of the entertainment but were clearly unprepared for the quality Spotlights were merciless and could pick out every flaw, only in this case none were to be found. He was perfect from every an­gle. He moved easily through the crowd, pausing at tables, throwing the look, and collecting squeals of reaction from dozens of stirred-up girls. Hands reached for him; he brushed at a few, grinned as though sharing a secret joke, and steadily made his way to the stage. The audience began to spontaneously applaud as though for the real deal. Frankie was surprised to find she'd joined in, caught up by the phenomenon.

He took the two steps up to the stage, plucked a cordless mic from a stand, and paused, his back to the house, feet apart, legs braced. His shoulders shifted, settled, and the ovation increased. Then he held up his free hand, fingers spread, and pointed to the ceiling. The music cut off, and as though by magic so did the applause. The whole place went utterly silent.

He slowly turned, head tilted and shoulders slightly hunched, arm still high. Everyone seemed to be holding their breath.

He brought the mic to his lips. The deep "huh-huh-huh" that came forth boomed through the room, and everyone, Frankie in­cluded, roared in response. The show could have ended right then and been considered a success, but the drummer resumed her driv­ing beat, the guitar player joined in, and Elvis launched into "Hound Dog."

The voice was the same one Frankie had heard on Gramma's rec­ords, then her CD collections. The timbre, tone, and range were identical, but this was no lip-sync performance; the man onstage was belting it out himself and throwing everything into it. He had the moves and mannerisms nailed so accurately it was as though he'd in­vented them himself. The blast of raw energy rolled from him to the audience, and though it was not the time for it, several stood up and danced in place, unable to hold still.

"What do you think, Gramma?" Frankie asked. The noise levels were such that she had to bellow to be heard. "We're feeding them afterward. Does that work for you?"

Gramma stared, still wide-eyed, at the man onstage and made no reply. Something was off. Maybe she didn't like impersonators, after all, but she'd never once said anything against them.

"Gramma?"

She only shook her head. Not now, she mouthed, and flapped her hand at the show.

Okay, fine, Frankie wanted to enjoy it. If Gramma had a problem, they could tackle things later.

The opening number over, Elvis took a bow. Frankie scanned the crowd, noting amazement on some faces and blatant hero worship on others. The older folks who had memories of the real man seemed the most stunned. The rest, born years after his passing, were apparently realizing what their parents and grandparents had seen in him. She was willing to lay down money that they'd be at a music store the next day looking to add to their CD collections.

He was timeless, and she was suddenly glad Gramma had instilled an appreciation for him in her from an early age.

The man onstage thanked everyone—yes, his speaking voice was the same, too, right down to the melting accent—and launched into the master-of-ceremonies part of his job. He introduced the bride and groom, poked gentle fun at their unique names, and made it seem as though he were close personal friends with them and their respective families.

"Now bachelorhood isn't everything it's cracked up to be, isn't that right, Santiago?" he asked. "That's right; some of your pals have been tellin' tales, tellin' me what it was like for you before you met that pretty lady you're sittin' next to. . . ."

The music swelled and he began singing "Are You Lonesome Tonight?"

The groomsmen hooted—at the groom, who was grinning and nodding agreement to the words. Then he cocked his shaved, tat­tooed head, listening as though he'd never heard them before. He al­most looked somber as the song ended.

"Of course," Elvis continued, "you've had plenty of dates, you're a popular guy, but when you don't find that special gal, there's only one place you can go . . ."

He sang "Heartbreak Hotel."

The small band was inspired; it was as though he had a full or­chestra backing him instead of just a few players and a lot of amps. Frankie had seen her share of wedding singers, but nothing came close to this.

When the applause settled, he continued, "And then one day, if you're real lucky, out of the blue she's there, right next to you as though you've known her your whole life—that one woman you can love forever. And she's precious, man, precious."

Santiago, nodded, looking at his bride as Elvis sang "I Can't Help Falling in Love." Before he'd gotten halfway through, the bride's mother broke down into tears. Her husband put his arm around her. There was a general shifting of several couples as they also reacted to the music and the voice. Frankie felt her own throat getting a lump and glanced around for a glass of water she'd put on the serving table earlier.

"Gramma? You okay?"

Her grandmother was openly crying, a wad of paper napkins in one hand for her tears. She shook her head and waved Frankie off, clearly having a wonderful time.

Said Elvis: "But it's one thing to love a woman, and another to ap­preciate her. You think about it, Santiago: Out of all the handsome men in this whole wide world"—he gave a sly smile—"and I'm sure one of 'em . . ."

The cheering and whistling took up a few moments.

"... Out of all of those guys this beautiful, wonderful lady picked you. Now why do you think she did that?"

Santiago shook his head. His expression had gone serious, as though he truly needed to have the answer.

" 'Cause she loves you, man. You don't ever want to take that for granted. You respect her, you love her, you be there for her, and . . ."

"Love Me Tender" came next, and it was the softest, sweetest ren­dition of the ballad Frankie had ever heard. Elvis came down from the stage so he could sing directly to the couple at their table.

Frankie's lump in the throat came back, and Gramma tore through another stack of paper napkins. Everyone in the place, from the guests, to the servers, to the hard-faced bodyguards keeping out the uninvited, seemed deeply moved by it.

"This guy is beyond amazing," Frankie whispered to Gramma.

"Sweetheart, you don't know the half if it," Gramma whispered back.

When he finished, the couple kissed. It wasn't a planned thing, it just happened, and they weren't the only ones. Frankie abruptly wanted someone to kiss and this Elvis counted for at least twelve slots on her top-ten list for that experience. Yes, he was an illusion, but damn—he was a good illusion, a hot illusion.

He'd returned to the stage, accompanied by the sounds of sniffles and the occasional goose honk as someone blew their nose. Unbe­lievable. The big, tough groomsmen were doing most of it.

"You've found her and she's picked you—now what happens?" Elvis asked, and in reply he sang "One Night" so plaintively, his whole heart so clearly into it, that Frankie had to quell the urge to shout, Yes! and charge the stage to jump on him.

The song proved a showstopper. The guests were wild now, and needed settling. Frankie couldn't make out what he said through it, but the next number was "Hawaiian Wedding Song."

Perfect. The man, whoever he was under the hairstyle and makeup, was a genius. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. They'd remember this wedding for years to come.

"Now I want the new mister 'n' missus to come out on the floor. Don't be shy; we're all friends here."

The couple's first dance was to a reprise of "Can't Help Falling in Love," and Elvis encouraged the audience to sing the chorus with him. Other couples got out on the floor. Frankie was sorry she wasn't a guest as well.

Someone tapped her shoulder. She expected a kitchen crisis, but it was Omar, his arms wide in invitation. In his late fifties and wholly devoted to his large family, he was just playing the polite gentleman with an offer to dance, but apparently the music had touched him as well. She laughed, accepted, and they did a couple of dignified turns in a clear area behind the tables.

Another shoulder tap—this time from Gramma, who wanted some of the action.

"C'mon, kid," she said. "Share."

Omar bowed gravely and took her hand. She liked younger men; she claimed they were the only ones who could keep up with her.

Frankie was delighted. She was drawn back to her catbird view of the dance, getting there in time to see the newlyweds finish out with another kiss. The whole room cheered.

It was wonderful. A bona fide Moment, with a capital M.

And . . . there was something odd about them . . . no . . . changed. What the hell . . . ?

She stared, but there was no mistaking that they were different now. Yes, it was still Santiago and Trinidad, ridiculous names for anyone, but the two people who bore them were giving off a wholly different vibe. They were together, really together, two adults on the same page with common goals and a rock-solid love that would last, truly last. That hadn't been there half an hour ago. Frankie had known that for a fact. Gramma had seen it, too.

Frankie looked at the Elvis guy, her jaw dropping.

Oh no ... no way. That kind of thing only happened in the movies. Someone sings a song and makes everything all better? Sweet, but never in the real world. No way. No freakin' way. . . .

Elvis looked at Frankie across the space, seemed to fix on her de­spite the fact that she was in the dim background of a huge hall. She opened up a little, thinking to catch his vibe and be able read him this time, but it wasn't working the way she expected. She felt his gaze locking on to hers like a searchlight.

Make that a cruise missile.

Her breath caught, her heart leaped again, and every light in the room suddenly flared up too bright to bear.

All the strength left her knees, and her brain spun. She grabbed a chair for balance, but it wasn't enough and down she dropped, taking the chair with her. They made quite a crashing clatter.

Startled cries and an instant later she was surrounded by con­cerned voices and helping hands. By some miracle she'd not cracked her head, nor had she fully lost consciousness, but she'd swooned away like a schoolgirl.

Gramma was there, dribbling water on her face from a dishcloth. Ugh. "It's all right, honey."

When she tried to get up it didn't work. Omar held her shoul­ders, and someone she couldn't see had her feet raised comically high. She was damn-for-sure glad she'd opted for pants instead of a skirt tonight.

"I'm fine," she rasped, struggling. "Lemme up."

"No," said Omar. Firmly. It was his don't-even-think-it tone, usually reserved for inept kitchen help about to be fired.

Okay, she could lie here for a bit longer if it made him not-mad. She would work on making the dizziness go away.

Can I be any more mortified? Frankie thought.

The answer wasn't just yes but hell-yes. Elvis was now one of the people leaning into her view.

Arrgghh. She couldn't think how he'd gotten over here so fast through the crowd, and wished he'd stayed away. Lying sprawled with her legs in the air . . . oh yeah, that would make an impression.

"Lemme through," he said. "I had a little first aid in the army."

No one argued with that soft voice. People parted and he checked her over. She squeezed her eyes firmly shut, hoping that when she opened them this would all be done. Embarrassing as it was, she couldn't help noticing his aftershave again {oh yeah, and the leather), and how gentle he was, murmuring questions on whether this or that hurt. This would have been a fine time for him to cop a feel, but he remained a perfect gentleman.

He ascertained her skull was intact and nothing broken. That pro­nounced, she was ready to get up again, her dizziness gone now that she'd caught her breath.

More embarrassment. As soon as she was helped to her feet a cheer went around the hall. She hung on to Elvis's arm for dear life and wanted to throw a grenade at the genius who had swung the spot square on them.

"You've got that deer in the headlights look, Frankie," Gramma urgently whispered. "Smile and wave like an astronaut."

Those instructions were her solution to a wide number of life's disasters, major and minor. Frankie did as she was told. It worked. Another round of cheers. The best man had shouldered his way over along with the father of the bride, who looked justifiably nervous, probably worried about lawsuits. She smiled, gave them a thumbs-up, still holding on to Elvis with her other hand. He was pretty dang solid under that leather.

Gramma ran interference for her, God bless the woman, saying that the kitchen had been too warm and Frankie had been working too hard. While she held their attention Frankie glared up at Elvis.

"Just what the hell did you do to me, buster?" she snarled.

He returned her gaze, steady, with no excuses, no denials, no what-are-you-talking-abouts. "I'm sorry about that, truly sorry. I'm as surprised as you. I didn't know that could happen."

" What could happen?" She was furious.

"Well—uh—maybe we could talk later? I am truly, truly sorry." He started to pull away.

She held fast. "Who are you?"

An odd expression whipped over his face and was gone, a touch of sadness, a hint of sly charm, then the smile, the shy, sweet smile ex­actly as she'd seen in the movies. "Why, Yummy Cat, I think you know already. No need for me to say."

Frankie's grip went slack as her fingers lost feeling, and he went away to finish his set.

She'd have been happier if the rest of the evening had passed in a nice, foggy haze, but everything was crystalline sharp and seemed to take far too long.

Speeches were made, the cake cut, photographs taken, video shot. The bride tossed the bouquet; the groom tossed her garter, inspiring a violent shouting match and scuffle among four of the groomsmen. It looked ugly for a moment, then turned out to be a wrestling gag they'd cooked up. They all shook hands and did the macho slap-on-the-back/shoulder thumping thing, laughing.

And Elvis sang. They couldn't get enough of him.

The unexpected pause in the proceedings had no effect on the show. Coop's Cool-Cats kept the energy high and moving. Every song was a hit you could dance to and so well done that Frankie felt her anger vanish after just a few bars. That annoyed her. She'd wanted to hang on to her mad so as to have it in reserve for the talk he'd promised. The music wouldn't let her keep that particular kind of momentum.

It has been said that God makes marriages, but the Devil plans weddings. I know this has been said, because I said it. I coined the aforementioned bon mot upon the occasion of my elder sister's third wedding of a career-best total of six. The nup­tial rut that dear Katherine wore into the aisle of St. George's Angli­can is one reason for my own continued bachelorhood. If one cannot learn from the mistakes of others, one might as well become a Democrat.

One would presume that when a woman has gone through the same ceremony so many times (not counting an ill-considered elope­ment with one of the pool boys during her fourth honeymoon on Maui), the mechanics of a wedding, if not the subsequent marriage, would go more smoothly as experience was garnered along the way.

Ah, but when has logic ever refused to defer to human stupidity? Our dear Katherine somehow managed to turn each wedding into an even greater display of obsessive perfectionism, spectacular tantrums, and alienated bridesmaids. By the time she embarked upon Marriage VI she hadn't a female friend left with whom she was on speaking terms, let alone one who would be willing to stand up for her in a cloud of mint green tulle at the altar of St. George's.

Thus my sister made a virtue of Necessity and struck up an in­stantaneous friendship with one Nora Scruggs. La Scruggs was a part-time employee at the florist's shop that had provided Katherine with so many wedding bouquets, boutonnieres, pew decorations, al­tar flowers, and table centerpieces that the proprietor had to be forcibly restrained from falling to his knees and covering my sister's hands with kisses every time they met.

Miss Scruggs was an attractive, well-meaning young woman of gentle mien and biddable disposition. She seemed to have about as much self-determination as a tablespoon of tomato aspic. When, within the space of twenty minutes, my sister took their conversation from, "I'm getting married in May," to, "Your bridesmaid dress fit­ting will be this Saturday at ten A.M.. I'll pay for it, of course," the poor girl was thrilled.

Katherine's sixth wedding proved to be an historic occasion for many reasons, not the least of which being that it was her last. Ap­parently her latest husband, Bryce Calhoun III, took exception to a torrid Internet romance that Katherine initiated in a cybercafe on St. Bart's during their first Christmas together. As they flew home to­gether in one of Bryce's smaller private planes, they had a dreadful falling-out about it. For my sister, the falling-out was quite literal, helped along by a hearty push from her exasperated spouse. By a re­markable stroke of luck, Bryce was both defended (well) and prose­cuted (weakly) by two of Katherine's former husbands, although I hope for our family's sake that there is little or no truth to the rumor that my late sister also had dated nine out of the twelve jurors.

Katherine's hymeneal excesses aside, her final wedding was also significant in that it provided her makeshift bridesmaid, the bewitch-ingly blue-collar Miss Scruggs, with unexpected entree to the higher strata of Society. It happened at the reception, which of course took place at The Club. It was there, in an earthly paradise of scrupulously groomed lawns, tastefully decorated function rooms, and perfectly chilled champagne, that the winsome florist's assistant made the acquaintance of young Frederick Austin-Cowles. The rest was history, as written by Cinderella.

Frederick came from an American lineage so old, rich, and re­spectable that defending its age, wealth, and honor was his parents' sole preoccupation. The burden of nigh four hundred years of an­cestral obligation had made them into blue-blooded martinets of the first order, intent on raising their only child to be nothing more than top-grade mulch for the family tree. The lad spent the first twenty-five years of his life firmly compressed beneath their totali­tarian thumbs. Each aspect of his existence—eating, sleeping, clothing, schooling, playing, and more—was regimented with a strictness to make the ancient Spartans look like fifth-string yoga instructors.

No one but a confirmed masochist or a member of Yale's Skull and Bones club would doubt for an instant how deeply Frederick abhorred his micromanaged childhood and the parents who had en­gineered it. At the age of five he resolved to find some way to put their patrician noses well and truly out of joint the moment that he came into full possession of the trust fund his grandfather had left him. Wisely averse to any act that would mortify his parents but harm himself in the process, Frederick could not take any of the more conventional paths to rebellion, such as substance abuse, sexual excess, decorating his skin with blobs of ink and globs of metal, or mail-ordering a ready-made polyester men's suit from Montgomery Ward. He was at what passed for his wit's end when he met Miss Scruggs and the angels sang.

They sang something by Patsy Cline, to be sure, something so down-home, simple, honest, and salt-of-the-earth as could not fail to send Frederick's parents into fits. Oh, how that thought left him gloating! Moreover, Miss Scruggs herself was so sweet, meek, and pleasing to the eye that it would be no great hardship for him to em­ploy her as his bedmate as well as his implement of vengeance. He put the astonished girl through a whirlwind courtship, a hasty wedding flight to Las Vegas, and got her in the family way before my sis­ter Katherine and Bryce came back from their honeymoon.

Alas for Frederick, he did not live to relish the fruits of his filial re­taliation. He left his pregnant bride in their Central Park West pied-a-terre and was driving hell-for-finest-New-Zealand-lambskin-leather to Connecticut, to drop the proverbial bombshell on his parents, when his Mercedes lost an argument with a lawn furniture delivery truck somewhere east of Greenwich. Hilliard and Margot Austin-Cowles learned that they were childless, in-laws, and incipient grandparents at almost the same time that poor Nora found out she was a widow.

Of course The Club was soon buzzing with the details of what followed, to no one's surprise. The Club is a veritable beehive for ru­mor. My sister's last wedding, Frederick's ill-motivated pursuit of the unsuspecting Miss Scruggs, the new widow's genuine agony at the loss of her beloved young husband, all these juicy morsels of gos­sip quickly shriveled to mere dessicated jerky-bits of tittle-tattle on that crisp October evening when Preston Bedford came rushing into the bar and breathlessly announced:

"They've taken her in!"

And so they had, they being Frederick's parents and she being their pregnant daughter-in-law. This news was startling enough to anyone who knew the Austin-Cowleses' stringent outlook as to who was and was not socially acceptable. (They regarded the Pilgrim Fa­thers as pushy immigrants, the Johnny-Alden-come-lately embodi­ment of all that was dragging America down into the populist mire.) But this was as nothing when compared to what followed, namely, the intense, immediate, and profound change we all observed in Margot and Hilliard the moment that little Wylda Serene was born.

She was a lovely child, for someone who had begun her existence as a means of petty payback. Her mother's reliable bread-and-butter comeliness had given a much-needed anchor to Wylda's father's frailer caviar-and-cabernet attractions. Her infant prettiness was but a faint harbinger of the glorious beauty she grew to be. Fiery red-gold hair, luminous skin, and eyes the color of newly unfurled leaves adorned a lithe and vibrant body of unquestionable appeal. She car­ried herself with the poise and elegance of a young gazelle, and her curves put the corniche at Monte Carlo to shame.

Her besotted grandparents gave her everything. Unlike their be­havior toward their late son, every benefit they conferred upon his posthumous child was innocent of any agenda save her happiness. When she became an articulate being, she had but to voice a wish, however fanciful, and all the social and financial clout of the Austin-Cowles family would be brought into play for the sole purpose of fulfilling that desire.

Overindulgence of the young is a perilous thing. Children spoil more readily than oysters in July. Her grandparents' inexhaustible worship might have caused little Wylda's life to go very bad very quickly if she had entertained any unsuitable desires, but she had none, none! She accepted all the gifts and benefits with which her adoring grandparents showered her, doing so with a quiet gracious-ness fit to make the Queen of England look like a mule skinner by comparison, yet not one of these was ever her idea. She requested nothing.

Shame on that jaded soul who would leap to the cynical conclu­sion that Wylda's behavior was sly in the extreme, that she was mis­tress of the ancient art of acquisition through the Request Indirect. It was not so. She never dropped a hint, never sighed over high-ticket gewgaws, never wondered aloud how much was that doggie, dress, or Daimler in the window. She never so much as wrote a letter to Santa Claus.

If it is truly more blessed to give than to receive, young Wylda was sanctified in spades. Her grandparents gave her worldly gifts, but she gave them something infinitely more precious: the sincere, bone-deep docility that her father had died withholding. She had not a single rebellious bone in her body, neither mutinous heart nor insub­ordinate mind.

In this she took after her mother. The Austin-Cowles manner of living was quite literally stunning to a woman of the former Miss Scruggs's social class. In the twenty-three years between Wylda's birth and wedding, the erstwhile florist's assistant dwelled in nigh-nunlike self-effacement in the shadow of her dynamic in-laws. Apart from the occasional command appearance at family functions, one would hardly guess she was there. This suited all parties concerned admirably.

I awoke on the morning of my wedding with a big fat headache. Most likely the result of too much wine at what we'd jokingly called the rehearsal dinner but had in truth been a security check complete with steaks and cabernet. Then again, maybe the pain in my brain was a reaction to the words "marriage," "wed­ding," and "Jessie McQuade" in the same sentence.

I'd lost my mind, but I wasn't exactly sure when.

Had it been the day I'd told Will I loved him? Or maybe the eve­ning he'd asked me to marry him and I hadn't had the heart to say no again? I'd definitely been long gone when I'd agreed to a cere­mony with all the froufrou nonsense that went with it.

Groaning, I levered myself out of bed and pulled back the cur­tain. Bright June sunlight shafted into my eyes like ice picks, and I let the drape fall over the glass.

"I still can't believe you agreed to go through with this."

I gave a little yelp and spun around, wincing at the movement, then putting my hand to my head so it wouldn't fall off.

"I told you not to drink that last gallon, but you wouldn't listen."

Leigh Tyler-Fitzgerald, one of my few friends left alive, stepped into the room. She appeared too tiny, blond, and cute for this early in the morning. She always did.

"Who the hell gave you a key?"

"Ah-ah-ah." Leigh waggled a Styrofoam cup. "Is that any way to speak to a woman bearing coffee?"

"Gimme."

I held out my hands like a child reaching for candy, and she took pity on me.

I suppose I should clarify why I'm short on friends. Not that I'd had all that many in the first place. Folks who hang around me tend to wind up dead. An occupational hazard. The same could be said of Leigh, which was probably why we'd bonded.

We're Jager-Suckers, which translates to "hunter-searchers," for those of you who prefer English. We hunt things that prefer the night. Werewolves are our specialty.

Hey, I didn't believe it at first, either, but when you're staring death in the face and death has the eyes of someone you once loved, or at least knew, your belief system takes a big kick in the teeth.

The Jager-Suchers are a select, secret group of operatives attempt­ing to make the world safe, if not for democracy, at least for people who don't grow fur under the light of the moon. Unfortunately, the job is never ending. Werewolves not only like to kill; they also like to multiply—as do all their demonic cohorts.

I drank half the cup of coffee before coming up for air. My headache was still there, but it wasn't quite as bad.

"How long do I have until the wedding?"

"Long enough."

"I doubt it."

"You say that as if you're going to a funeral." Leigh sat on the bed. "What gives, Jessie? I've never seen anyone more in love than you and Will Cadotte."

Unless we were talking about her and her husband, Damien, but we weren't. At least not today.

"Love isn't the problem."

"What is?"

"I don't want to get married."

"Then why are you?"

I looked her straight in the eye. "I have no idea."

"You lost me."

"Will's been asking me to marry him for nearly a year."

I hadn't met William Cadotte under the most normal of circum­stances. We were as unalike as two people could be. Will was a pro­fessor with a specialty in Native American totems. I was a cop—or at least I had been then. He was an Ojibwe, an activist, a glasses-wearing, tree-hugging book geek.

He was also hotter than hot. Women's heads nearly twisted off their necks when he walked by. He might like books, but he also liked to work out. He'd been practicing tai chi—a type of martial art that strengthened the mind as well as the body—for longer than I'd been carrying a gun. But what had gotten to me in the end was his sense of humor, if not the golden feather that swung from one ear.

I never had figured out what Will saw in me. Guys like him usu­ally go for a girl like Leigh, but he'd never given her a second glance. I'd have thought he was gay if I hadn't enjoyed multiple evidence to the contrary.

I was a big girl—everywhere. My hair was neither brown nor blond, my eyes more shrewd than dreamy. I suppose I could have made myself presentable, if I'd cared, but I had better things to worry about.

I was tall, strong, in shape, because I had to be or die. I could drill a bullet through the eye of just about anything at a hundred yards. I had a job that I loved and a man I loved, too. Getting married . . . well, that hadn't been on my agenda.

Until the last time Will had asked me and I'd inexplicably said yes.

"I can't count how many people I've known who've gotten along just fine until they throw vows and rings and forever into the mix," I said. "Then bam, two months after the wedding they hate each other."

"That won't happen to you and Will. You'll be together forever."

"Forever isn't very long in our profession."

Understanding spread over Leigh's face. "Is that what's bugging you? That we might die tomorrow?"

"We might die tonight," I muttered.

One never knew.

"We're safe here."

'We aren't safe anywhere, Leigh, and you know it."

She shrugged. "Safer then. No one's going to sneak up on us in this place."

We'd rented out a lodge on Lake Superior in Minnesota. Will wanted to be married at the spirit tree, a twisted red cedar rumored to be three, four, even five hundred years old, depending upon whom you listened to. The tree was sacred to the Grand Portage Ojibwe, of which Will was one.

He'd grown up on the reservation, raised by his grandmother af­ter his parents took off. When she'd died, he'd been passed to a suc­cession of aunts and uncles. Now none of them were alive, either, but Will remembered this place with a great deal of fondness and the tree with a great deal of respect.

Since I had no strong feelings one way or another, Grand Portage was okeydokey with me.

"What if someone does sneak up on us?" I asked.

"Then we know they're werewolves and we blast them into the hell dimension. That's what we do, Jessie."

"I'd prefer we not be doing it at my wedding."

Hell, I'd prefer not to be having a wedding. So why was I?

Because I might be the roughest, toughest Jager-Sucher around, but when it came to Will Cadotte, I had no guts at all. I didn't want to lose him. And wasn't that just the saddest, most pathetic admission of all?

One night he'd blindsided me with a silver band and a moon-shaped diamond. With the bodies of wolves that weren't really wolves surrounding us, he'd pulled the thing from his pocket, slipped it onto my finger, and charmed me into marrying him.

Or maybe I'd just been charmed by the moon. Everyone else was.

"If Edward thinks we're safe, we are," Leigh said, and I knew she was right.

Our boss, Edward Mandenauer, was one spooky old man. But he was the best hunter on the planet. He knew how to set up a secure operation. If he said my wedding would be safe from werewolves, it would be, or he'd die trying to make it so. I trusted him with my life. More important, I trusted him with Will's.

Back in WW 2, Edward had been sent to obliterate Hitler's best-kept secret—a werewolf army. Too bad they'd escaped before Ed­ward could complete his mission. Not to worry, he hadn't stopped trying.

"Want some food?" Leigh stood.

"Gack." I imitated throwing up.

"Lovely. I can see why Cadotte's so enamored of you."

"I can't."

Leigh tilted her head. "You don't think he loves you?"

"I know he loves me. And I love him."

"Then what is your problem?"

"Marriage is an outdated custom that's run its course."

"Oookay." Leigh twisted her wedding ring around her finger.

"No offense," I said.

"None taken."

I threw up my hands. "I can't figure out why I said yes."

"You're just having cold feet."

Hope lightened the weight in my chest. "Did you?"

"Well, no."

The hope died. There was something seriously lacking in me if I was unable to commit to the only man I'd ever loved. But I'd sus­pected that for a long time.

"Maybe you should talk to Will," Leigh ventured.

"I thought it was bad luck to see him before the wedding."

"It's worse luck to get married if you aren't really sure."

She was right, except—

"Every time I see him, I pretty much want to—"

"Do him. I can understand that."

I rolled my eyes. "I was going to say 'agree with anything he says.'"

Leigh frowned. "That's not like you."

"Exactly."

Nevertheless, I needed to make one final attempt to figure out why I was in northern Minnesota with a wedding gown in the closet and an appointment with a justice of the peace at the spirit tree at just after four this afternoon.

There'd been a small amount of trouble obtaining permission to have a wedding there, since the Grand Portage band had bought the tree a few years back. A sanctioned guide was required if you wanted to go anywhere near the place.

I'd suggested a shaman perform the wedding, but Will insisted the ceremony be legal, which was a first.

He'd been arrested for more protests than he'd bothered to count. His activism on the part of the Native American community had put him on more law enforcement watch lists than even I knew about. I'd always found his police record kind of arousing. An embarrass­ment for a woman who'd always played by the rules—at least until I'd met him.

In the end Will had managed to get permission for the ceremony on the grounds that he was a member of the Grand Portage band and therefore part owner of the tree. Sounded like bullshit to me, but Will had always been very good at it.

I brushed my teeth and threw on jeans and a T-shirt; then with a wave for Leigh, I padded down the hall and knocked on Will's door.

No one answered. Maybe he was in the shower.

I used my key, stuck my head in just a little, and murmured, "Will?"

I didn't hear water or anything else. Feeling kind of guilty, I stepped inside.

The bed had been slept in. His wedding clothes were laid out. No tuxedo for him. Instead Will would wear traditional Ojibwe dress— leggings, leather overskirt, a cotton blouse with beaded panels, and a pair of brightly beaded moccasins.

All of his things were here, but he wasn't, and I became uneasy. I wouldn't put it past one of the werewolves that had escaped—and a few always did—to kidnap Will in order to get to me.

I was a hunter, Will a professor. Sure he'd killed a few fanged and furry demons, but nowhere near what I had. Next to Edward and Leigh, I was the most feared Jager-Sucher. There had to be bounties on my head, and those who'd put them there wouldn't flinch at mur­dering the man I loved.

Lycanthropy is a virus passed through the saliva while in wolf form. Until recently the only cure was a silver bullet, which wasn't really a cure, but you get my drift.

Once infected, humans can become wolves whenever the sun goes down. They live to kill, to destroy, to make others of their kind. Their selfishness, their evil, is what we refer to as the demon. It's as close a description as anything else.

There are hundreds, make that thousands, of the beasts roaming loose in this world, walking the streets as human as you and I, run­ning through the night as monsters until dawn. Any one of them could have snatched Will in the hours I'd been asleep.

I hurried to the phone, intending to call Edward, get a search party started. But as I moved past the bed, I noticed an odd bulge in the pocket of Will's wedding shirt.

Being me, suspicious always, I pulled out what appeared to be a medicine bag, though I'd only seen one in a textbook. Some of the Ojibwe kept them, put all that was important inside, but I'd never known Will to have one.

I upended the bag. Herbs, seeds, a piece of cloth, tumbled onto the pristine white sheet. Nothing unusual there. What was unusual was the tiny wooden figurines carved into the shapes of a man and a woman, then tied together.

I'd seen talismans before. Twice now the werewolves had used them to try to rule the world. But those totems had been fashioned into wolves—one black, one white, equally magic.

I had no idea what this carved wooden man and woman might mean. That I'd found them on my wedding day couldn't be good.

I stirred the herbs and the seeds with one finger, then picked up the cloth. A chill whispered over my skin. The scrap appeared to be from my favorite pair of sweatpants. I'd had them since I was in technical school and took them everywhere I went.

Feeling naked without my weapons, I stuffed everything back into the bag and hurried to my room. I wanted to examine my sweatpants.

Leigh was gone, thank goodness. I didn't have time to explain anything now, even if I could.

I set the medicine bag on the nightstand, pulled a silver switch­blade from between the mattress and the box spring, then unlocked my suitcase and withdrew my .44 Magnum.

I'd once had a boss who liked to quote Clint Eastwood. An an­noying trait, however, he had been right about the Magnum being the most powerful handgun in the world. I'd blown a lot of heads clean off. When dealing with werewolves, that was a good thing.

Suitably armed, I opened the closet and became distracted by the wedding gown I couldn't believe I'd bought.

The champagne shade of the satin sheath would make anyone re­semble a princess. Even I looked spectacular in it. So why did the sight of the garment always make me want to punch something?

Just another mystery out of so many.

I left the dress in the closet, dragged out the sweats, then searched for a rip or a hole. The idea that some dickhead werewolf, or worse, had taken a chunk out of one of my favorite things was enough to make me want to kill something.

There. That was more like me.

I didn't find any telltale signs. No hack in the knee, no slash across the butt. How could anyone have obtained a swatch without leaving a clue?

I turned over the elastic band at the bottom of each leg and found a tiny notch in the excess fabric on the right side.

"Bingo," I murmured.

But what did it mean?

I had no idea, but I would find out. After I found Will.

I spun around and would have shrieked if I were the shrieking type at the sight of a man just inside the door. Instead I drew my gun.

Luckily I didn't follow Jager-Sucher procedure and shoot first, worry about identity later, because the man was Will.

"What the hell are you doing here?" My chest hurt as my heart tried to thump its way out.

I was both thrilled to see him alive and annoyed he'd snuck up on me. He did that a lot.

"You left the door open."

"Oh."

His dark gaze lowered to my .44. "You know I love it when you point guns at me. Takes me right back to the night I first saw you."

As I'd said, we hadn't met under the most normal of circumstances.

"Ha-ha." I lowered the weapon. "Where have you been?"

"Doing tai chi."

Since he was wearing only loose cotton pants and nothing else— though he did have a shirt crumpled in one hand—I should have fig­ured that out for myself.

His smooth, cinnamon skin gleamed with a light sheen of sweat that should have been unattractive but wasn't. The sheen only em­phasized the ripples and curves of a well-honed body.

In the year we'd been together, he hadn't cut his hair, and it hung nearly to his shoulders, the blue-black strands playing hide-and-seek with that feather.

Maybe we could skip the wedding and head straight for the honeymoon.

He craned his neck. "Is that your dress?"

"Back off, Slick; you're not supposed to see."

Typically, he ignored me, kicking the door shut, then crossing the room, stopping so close I could have sworn I felt steam rising from his skin.

"I'm not supposed to see you wearing the dress until the wedding—"

"I don't think you're supposed to see me, either."

He brushed my hair from my cheek and whispered, "I couldn't stay away."

When he said things like that, I could deny the man nothing. Not my heart, my body, or my future.

At the moment, I wanted to promise Will everything all over again.

Sure marriage scared me, but so had the werewolves once. I'd got­ten over it.

My panic attack was understandable given my upbringing. My father had taken off right about the time I'd started to talk—can't imagine why—and I hadn't seen him since. My mother had never really liked me.

Seriously. She hadn't. She'd waited until I turned eighteen, and then she'd taken off, too. Oh, she'd left a forwarding address, but she'd invested in caller ID and rarely picked up the phone on the few occasions I'd gotten drunk enough to call her. She hadn't bothered to respond when I'd left a message about my wedding.

Of course she was of the old school—Indians and whites did not mix; they certainly didn't match. That I was marrying one had prob­ably gotten me taken off the speed dial, if I'd ever been on it in the first place. Which was just fine with me.

The only family I had was in Grand Portage with me now. The family I'd chosen, and that was as it should be.

"You're thinking too much again."

Will's hand slid around my neck. His lips brushed the frown line between my eyes, the tip of my nose, then settled against mine. I sighed and let him remind me of the only thing that mattered.

Us.

He pulled me closer. Our bodies aligned just right. They always had. He was tall enough so I could lay my head on his shoulder. Not too short that I couldn't wear high heels if I was of a mind to, not that I'd ever be that out of my mind. He was strong enough to pick me up, sling me around, kick my ass if I let him. Everything about Will was perfect, except his uncharacteristic desire for a wife.

He tasted like a winter wind in the middle of the summer heat. I gave myself up to the lust. From the beginning we'd wanted each other, and that desire had never weakened. Sometimes I wondered if we were truly in love or only dazzled by the sex. Then again, there were worse things to be dazzled by.

The backs of my knees hit the bed, and I tumbled onto the sheets, grunting when he landed on top of me. Something jabbed me in the shoulder. My wiggling only served to rub my T-shirt against my nipples. They hardened at the contact, poking against Will's bare chest.

If his low-voiced murmurs and the sudden thrust of his erection were any indication, Will believed the wiggling was encouragement.

I considered ignoring the pain, focusing on the pleasure, until Will tugged at the button on my jeans. The resulting shift of his body weight made me say, "Ouch!"

Will's fingers stilled. "Ouch?"

"Get off a minute, will you?" Without question he rolled to the side.

I reached behind me and came up with the medicine bag. Before I could explain, he snatched it from my hand and leaped off the bed.

"Hey!" I protested, but he was already picking up his forgotten shirt from the floor and removing his glasses from the pocket, before pouring the contents into his palm.

For a minute, I was transfixed by him. Besides the earring, his glasses really did me in. That absentminded-professor thing always made me want to jump him.

"Love charm," he muttered. "Ojibwe."

"What does it do?"

"Uses magic to make one person love another."

"You believe that?"

He tilted his head. "Don't you?"

Something in his voice made my eyes narrow. "Wait just one damned minute. You think I made this? I don't know jack about Ojibwe love charms. Besides, smart guy, I found it in your shirt."

"Mine?" He patted his chest, realized he wasn't wearing anything above the waist, and frowned. "Huh?"

"In your wedding outfit."

He froze. "You were in my room?"

He said it as if I'd stolen his diary and read the good parts on CNN.

"Is that a problem?" I asked. "You have something to hide?"

Although I was angry at his accusations, I was starting to get un­easy, too. Maybe Will did have something to hide. Like a love charm.

I'd wondered why I'd been so damn agreeable lately to every­thing he said. Sure I'd joked about being charmed by the moon, but I'd never considered a literal love charm. Really, I should have.

"If I'd concocted a love charm, I certainly wouldn't leave it around for you to find. I also wouldn't be studying it like I'd never seen one before. Which I haven't."

He was working up a good head of steam. Usually Cadotte was calm as still water, but when he got mad even I trembled.

"Sorry," I muttered. "I see your point."

"If this were my medicine bag," he continued, with deceptive tranquillity, "you shouldn't go rooting through it like you'd found my secret stash of Godiva chocolate."

"That was only once, and you said they were for me anyway."

He ignored the excuse now as he had then. "In the old days the Ojibwe hung medicine bags outside in a tree for safety. Even chil­dren knew not to touch them. They're to be opened with great ceremony, only by the owner. They're never to be touched by a stranger."

"Stranger?" My voice had gone high and squeaky as my own anger—fueled by nerves and uncertainty—returned. "Do you want me to slug you?"

He sighed and looked away, slowly removing his glasses and set­ting them aside. His chest rose and fell in a rhythm I'd come to rec­ognize. He was doing his tai chi breathing. Gee, I guess he wanted to slug me, too.

I'd consider that foreplay if I wasn't so furious.

"Let's just calm down," he murmured.

"You expect me to calm down when you accuse me of using a love charm to get you to marry me? You asked me, Slick. More than once."

"I know."

"I've been wondering why I said yes. Why I've been so damned easy to get along with lately."

He snorted. "You're a lot of things, Jess, but easy isn't one of them."

I jabbed a finger toward the closet. "I bought a dress for you. If that isn't the result of magic, I don't know what is."

"Wait a second." Will frowned at the herbs and seeds. "There should be a scrap from the clothing of the beloved."

"I found a piece of my gray sweatpants."

Will's eyebrows shot up. "Uh-oh."

He knew what those things meant to me.

Will dug a finger into the bag and came up with the fuzzy scrap. He carefully set all the items on the nightstand, then took me in his arms, leaning his forehead against mine.

"I swear I didn't do this. I want you to marry me because you want to, not because you're compelled to."

In his arms my anger left me. "I shouldn't have accused you."

"You had pretty damning evidence."

"I found the medicine bag, but then I couldn't find you. Considmany condominiums they could build on the shores of the lake, or maybe the Ojibwe had found better lawyers. These days it was preferable to fight injustice with an attorney instead of a tomahawk. Although I kind of liked the old way better.

Will slowed when we reached the community of Grand Portage where the tribal buildings and most of the homes were congregated. Several old men lounged on the front porch of a weathered gray ranch. Will stopped the car and stepped out.

"Nimishoomis." Will addressed the man who appeared the oldest by the respectful tide of "Grandfather." "I'm William Cadotte. I lived here as a boy. I am of the wolf clan."

In Ojibwe culture each family is believed to have descended from a clan animal. Those of the same clan are related, so even if a man was of the Grand Portage band and a woman of the Lac du Flambeau, if they're both wolf clan they're of the same blood and can't marry.

That Will was wolf clan and theoretically descended from the wolves I hunted had caused no small amount of trouble when the truth had been revealed. The memory of that trouble lay in the bullet-shaped scar on Will's arm.

"I have a question for your shaman," Will continued.

The man pointed, never saying a word. We followed the direction of his slightly crooked finger to a wigwam just visible past a brick house surrounded by towering evergreens.

"Thank you," Will said, and we headed in that direction.

"Did you see the wigwam when we drove up?" I murmured.

"Nope."

"Was it there?"

He slid a glance toward me, then away. "What do you think?"

"I hate it when you ask me that," I grumbled, and didn't bother to answer.

Had the wigwam materialized when we requested the shaman? A year ago I'd have laughed myself sick at the idea. Since then, I'd seen so much weird shit, nothing surprised me anymore.

Of course the day was young.

We stopped in front of the domed structure that measured about ten or twelve feet in diameter. The underlying branches were cov­ered with birch bark, keeping the inhabitants dry during the summer rains and warm in the winter snows.

"Nimishoomis," Will called. "I'm Will Cadotte of the Grand Portage wolf clan. My weedjiwagan and I have a question."

"Your what?" I snapped.

"Partner in the path of life."

Well, that was true enough—at least until we discovered whether what we felt was real or manufactured. The idea that all we'd shared, all I'd believed, had been a lie made me want to commit violence, but then a lot of things did.

"Come in," called a voice from the other side of the leather flap that served as a door.

I shouldered Will aside and, with my hand on my gun, ducked into the surprisingly cool interior of the wigwam.

Light streamed through the smoke hole in the roof. The ground was bare except for the woven mats around a cold cooking fire.

On the opposite side of the structure sat a very old man. From the looks of him, he'd wandered the woods with this wigwam on his back in days long before the white men screwed everything up. Nevertheless, his eyes were clear, his gaze lucid.

White hair hung past his waist, braided and wrapped in cloth. He wore leggings and a buckskin tunic, the everyday dress of the old times. No beading, no porcupine quills, his moccasins, too, were plain.

The sense of having traveled back in time was so strong, I was tempted to step outside and make certain we hadn't been trans­ported to another age along with the wigwam.

"You have trouble, my brother?"

The old man motioned for us to sit. I took the mat that allowed me to see both him and the door. Habits became habits for a reason.

He wasn't holding a weapon that I could see, but I didn't relax my guard. Monsters often lurked behind seemingly innocent faces.

"You're wolf clan?" Will asked.

"Yes."

Will quickly explained what we'd found and why we'd come. The shaman, who'd introduced himself as Thomas Bender, held out his hand. Will put the medicine bag into it. Instead of pouring everything out, Bender held the charm tightly and closed his eyes. "What is it you wish to know?"

"Who did this?" Will asked. "Why? How can we break the spell?"

"You want to break the spell?" Bender glanced back and forth be­tween us. "But she is your weedjiwagan."

"Because of the charm, or because she truly is?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes," I said.

The old man sighed. "The only way to know the truth is to ask the spirits."

"How?"

"Sit on the water beneath the spirit tree."

"Sit on the water?" I blurted. "Do I seem like much of a walking-on-water type to you?"

Thomas Bender's gaze was bland. "Use a canoe."

"Oh."

Will laid a hand on my knee—his way of telling me to put a sock in it.

"Ask the spirits to reveal the truth."

"Thank you, Nimishoomis."

As we drove away, I glanced back. Where I'd thought the wigwam had been, instead there stood a white birch. I hadn't seen any birch trees when we'd arrived.

I faced front, muttering, "Must be the angle. Wigwam's just hid­den by the house."

Will looked in the rearview mirror. "Sure it is."

We headed back the way we'd come. Will parked the car and to­gether we climbed out, staring at the gnarled limbs of the spirit tree reaching toward the sky. By all rights the ancient icon should have tumbled off the stone ledge and into the water long ago. But magic trees so rarely did.

"You think it's going to speak to us?" I asked.

I had a sudden flash of the apple trees from The Wizard of Oz. They'd always scared the crap out of me—before I'd discovered so many better things to be afraid of.

"I have no idea," Will murmured.

The wind picked up; the branches swayed and creaked. What if the tree suddenly yanked up its roots and began to walk around like the ones from Lord of the Rings? I hadn't liked them, either.

I caught the scent of rain. Dark storm clouds tumbled across the western horizon.

"If we're going to do this," 1 said, "we'd better do it."

Will followed my gaze and frowned. "That's a thunderstorm."

"So?"

"We shouldn't be on the water if there's lightning."

"We shouldn't do a lot of things, Slick, but we always do."

For an instant I thought he'd refuse. Instead he shrugged. He knew me well. I'd only go alone if he wouldn't go with me.

"We'll need a canoe."

"You're sure we can't do . . . whatever from here."

"On the water means on the water, Jess."

"I thought Ojibwe ceremonies were vague."

"The legends are vague; the ceremonies are pretty specific. When an elder says sit on the water—"

"We sit on the water. Fine. The lodge rents canoes."

Will followed me down a set of steps to a shack not far from the water.

The attendant, obviously a surfer wannabe—though why he was in Minnesota I have no idea; despite the ten thousand lakes, there aren't any waves worth riding—was tying down the canoes so they didn't fly off in a high wind.

"No more rentals until the storm passes."

Understandable. If a tornado could pick up a cow—and it could—a canoe, or twenty, would be no problem. Nevertheless . . .

"DNR." I pulled out my badge. "There's trouble on the lake, and I need a canoe. Now."

He snapped to. Must be from around here. Though the Depart­ment of Natural Resources—better known as the hunting and fish­ing police—was not well liked in the north woods, they were respected. The kid rented me a canoe.

As we glided onto the lake, the tourists raced in the other direc­tion. By the time we'd paddled to the area just below the spirit tree, the water was deserted, the storm bearing down on us.

"Isn't rain on your wedding day good luck?" I asked.

"Sure," Will answered.

"Are you just saying that to shut me up or do you actually know?"

"To shut you up."

"That's what I thought."

Thunder rumbled. The clouds cast shadows across the water, dis­turbing the fish, making them dart about beneath the surface as if they were crazed. The wind whipped my hair into my face and made Will's earring dance madly. The lighting flashed and I shivered.

"You want to go inside?" Will asked. "We can do this tomorrow."

"Our wedding is today."

"We can postpone it."

"No. I can't go through another night without knowing."

Though it was awkward, Will leaned across the canoe and kissed me. "Then we won't."

The storm and the current had dragged us a few yards away from the tree. We paddled until we were in front of it again.

"Now what?"

"According to the shaman, we ask the tree for the truth."

"So ask."

Will shrugged. "Spirit tree, we seek the truth."

The wind howled. The tree bent and swayed. We got nothing.

"You try," Will said.

"You're the wolf clan dude."

"Which is irrelevant for once. The charm was made for you. Maybe you have to ask."

"Hey!" I shouted. "How about some truth!"

"Nice."

"That's me."

Once again, nothing happened.

"Maybe I need to hold the charm or something," I ventured.

Surprise spread across Will's face. "Good idea."

"Why are you so shocked? I'm not a complete magic moron."

I'd had too much on-the-job training.

Will pulled the medicine bag from his pocket. As I reached for it, the water sloshed, the canoe dipped, and our hands smacked together with the talisman in between.

A mighty flash and a thunderous crack were followed by the scent of brimstone. Flames shot toward the sky.

"Uh-oh," I muttered.

The tree had stood for centuries unharmed. One day near me and it was on fire.

"Did someone request the truth?"

The voice seemed to whisper on the wind, but I recognized it anyway, and my heart sank. Of all the possibilities in heaven and earth, the universe had to send her?

"Figures I'd smell hellfire just before she arrives."

"Jess," Will admonished. "Remember last time."

I remembered all right, which was why I wasn't too happy to see Cora Kopway standing on the ledge next to the flaming spirit tree.

A high-ranking member of the midewiwin, or the Grand Medi­cine Society, a secret religious fellowship devoted to healing through knowledge of the old ways, Cora Kopway had spent her life studying dusty texts and communing with the spirits in her visions.

She'd once taken away my voice with a mere flick of her wrist and some weird purple powder. The woman was quite powerful.

She was also quite dead. Had been for about six months now. That hadn't stopped her from sticking her nose into Jager-Sucher business at least once.

Better make that twice.

Cora looked the same in death as she had in life—tall, willowy, with flowing black hair that held only a trace of gray.

"For a dead old witch, she's surprisingly pretty," I mumbled.

Will gave me a glare that would have melted silver. I stared at Cora, who'd begun to walk . . . right across the water, stopping a few feet in front of the canoe.

"Isn't that blasphemous?" I asked.

Her eyes narrowed. "I silenced you once; I can do so again. Per­manently."

The woman had a stick up her butt a mile wide, but since Will liked her, I did my best not to annoy Cora too much.

Unfortunately, my best was never good enough. I was a cop—or had been when I met her—a white girl, and a smart mouth. The top three sins on the Cora Kopway sin-o-meter.

"Why are you here, N'okomiss?" Will asked.

"I was enjoying my time in the Land of Souls."

Aka Ojibwe heaven.

"I would have preferred not to be torn out of it to help you." She wrinkled her nose in my direction. "But I had little choice."

"So head back to Deadville. If I'd known you were coming, I wouldn't have asked."

"We want the truth," Will snapped. "What difference does it make where we get it?"

"Can we trust her?"

"She's never lied to us."

There was that. As annoying as Cora could be, she'd been truthful, as well as helpful. Alive or dead, she knew more about Ojibwe woo-woo than anyone.

"Fine," I muttered. "But I don't know why the spirit tree couldn't just tell us."

"That's not the way things work," Cora said. "You wanted the truth, and I'm the only one who knows it."

"How's that?"

"I made the talismans."

All I could do was blink at her.

Why on earth would Cora use magic to make me fall in love with Will? Unless she'd meant for me to love him, but he'd never love me back.

Ha! That had backfired on her ass.

The storm was coming in hard; whitecaps formed in the center of the lake. We needed to finish chatting and get off the water or we might just join her in the Land of Souls much sooner than we'd planned.

It probably seems odd that I believe in the afterlife. I admit that before I became a Jager-Sucher I hadn't. However, I'd come to the conclusion that if there's evil, there's good; if there are demons, there are also angels. And if Satan walks this earth—and he does, in the guise of more horrible beings than you can even dream of—then God has to be out there, too.

"I made the talismans," Cora said, "so you'd fall in love."

Hovering just above the swirling water, she wasn't transparent as a ghost should be. If not for the floating issue—and the DNA test that had identified her body—I'd think she was alive.

"Again, I gotta ask why?"

She made an exasperated sound and threw up her hands. "Haven't you learned anything?"

"Why don't you clue me in?"

"Love is stronger than hate, more powerful than evil. Together you're more than you could ever be apart."

Will and I exchanged glances, then returned our attention to Cora.

"Okay," I said. "Still don't get it."

"I knew your talent with weapons of destruction, combined with Will's intelligence, would make you a nearly invincible team. All you needed was something to bind you together forever. I gave it to you."

"But the charm was to make me love Will. How could you be certain he'd love me back?"

She frowned. "I said 'talismans.' Plural."

"Yeah." I held up the man and the woman. "Two of them."

She shook her head. "There is another."

"Have you been watching too much Star Wars?"

"In heaven? I don't think so."

"There's no Star Wars in heaven? I'm not going."

"I doubt you are." Cora sniffed. "But that's beside the point."

I scowled, and my fingers curled around the little man and woman.

"Take a big breath," Will murmured.

"You talk to her, Slick. I've had enough."

He sighed, though I wasn't sure if he was disappointed in me or in her—probably both of us.

"N'okomiss, you're saying there's another medicine bag?"

"One for each of you."

I couldn't speak, even without the magic powder. It had been bad enough wondering if I truly loved him, but to know that he didn't truly love me . . .

I felt lost, uncertain, alone, as if everything good in my life was a lie. Probably because it was.

"We found one medicine bag in my ceremonial dress."

"There's another in her makeup case."

Will did a double take. "You've got a makeup case?"

"Not that I use it or anything."

"Obviously," Cora drawled.

I ignored her because something else was bothering me and I couldn't quite get my mind around what it was. My focus had been shot to hell by an overwhelming sense of sadness, as if someone I loved had died.

My gaze wandered over Will's beloved face as the memories of all we'd shared filtered through my mind. The analogy was more apt than I cared for.

"You're saying you hid a medicine bag in each of our things to make us fall in love with each other?" I clarified.

"Yes."

I forced myself to concentrate, to isolate the kernel of informa­tion that was poking my brain like an annoying thistle in the thumb.

"We didn't meet you until after we fell in love."

My hope that this was all a big mistake, an April Fool's trick a few months too late, the Ojibwe idea of a practical joke, died at her shrug. "Time's not the same in the Land of Souls. We aren't on a lin­ear plane."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means," Will interjected, "that she was able to go back to a time before we were in love and plant the talismans."

"Which makes no sense."

"You're looking at things with human eyes."

"That's all I got, Slick."

"And a human brain."

"Ditto."

"The other world follows different rules than this one."

"I'll take your word for it." I turned my attention to Cora. "How could you make the love charms if you're a ghost?"

"Who said I was a ghost?"

"What are you then?"

"Midewiwin."

Which was so helpful. Not.

"She was powerful in life, Jess. In death there's no telling what she can do."

Cora smiled, and the expression reminded me of a big snake watching a little mouse.

Terrific.

Lightning flashed again. Rain began to fall. The flames on the spirit tree hissed and sputtered. Cora glanced to the west as if some­one had called her name. "I have to go."

"Ke-go-wcty-se-kah," Will murmured.

At my glare he translated, " 'You are going homeward.' We be­lieve to the west lies the Che-ba-kun-ah, the road of souls."

AC/DC began to sing "Highway to Hell" inside my head. I sti­fled the music lest Cora could hear it, too. I wouldn't put it past her.

"One more question," I said. "How do we stop it?"

"Stop what?"

"The love spell."

"You want to make the magic go away?" Her forehead creased. "Isn't love better than hate?"

"Yes. But truth is better than a lie."

She tilted her head and contemplated me with a bemused expres­sion. "Maybe I've been too hard on you."

"You think?"

Her eyes narrowed as her be-ringed fingers stroked the pocket of the same colorful skirt where she'd once kept that silencing purple powder.

"Leave well enough alone, would you?" Will muttered.

I tightened my lips and refrained, barely, from slapping my hands over my mouth for good measure.

"The choice is yours," Cora said. "If you wish to live in the world the way it would be if I hadn't interfered, all you need do is crush the icons beneath your feet."

"That's all?" Will asked.

"That is all."

Thunder crashed. I blinked, and she was gone. Will stared at the place where she'd been.

"Did I flip out and see something I shouldn't?"

"Cora was here," Will said. "Or as here as a dead woman gets."

Lightning split the sky directly above us. We put our paddles to the water and headed for the shore as warm summer rain tumbled down.

After turning the canoe over to surfer dude, we climbed into the car. Luckily the seats were leather, because we were both dripping.

Will slowed to a crawl as we reached the spirit tree; then he stopped completely. We both peered through the windshield.

No smoke, no blackened limbs, there wasn't a sign of the flames we'd witnessed from the lake. The tree was exactly as it had been when we'd left, except for being as wet as we were.

I was beginning to doubt everything I'd seen. What else was new?

"The tree was on fire, right?"

"Right." Will put the car into gear and drove the rest of the way to the lodge.

Leigh wasn't in my room. Neither was Edward. There wasn't any note, and no voice mail, either. Apparently, no one had noticed we were gone.

"You're cold," Will murmured.

I hadn't realized I was shivering.

"Why don't you get out of those wet clothes? Take a shower?"

I opened my mouth to invite him to join me—he was shivering, too—then snapped it shut again. If we shared water, we'd share a lot more. We always did.

I couldn't bear to make love to him now and find out it had only been sex later. Even if all the love of the past year turned out to be nothing but lust, and maybe not even that much, I wasn't going to compound the pain by adding more of the same.

"Let's just get this done," I said, and yanked my makeup case from the closet.

Shiny pink vinyl. I'd torn off the Barbie emblem only last week. I'm not sure why I'd kept the ghastly bag, except it was one of the few things my mother had given me besides an inferiority complex. I remembered very clearly how she'd come home from work one bright summer day when I was twelve and handed me the gift.

"Try being a girl," she'd ordered.

I'd tried, but I'd never been very good at it. After one pathetic at­tempt to use the powders and potions inside, I'd picked up my pellet gun and gone squirrel hunting. Gotta stick with your strengths.

"That's awful small," Will observed. "How could you have missed seeing a medicine bag in there?"

"I never open the thing. I only brought it along because . . ."

I shrugged, not wanting to admit I'd planned to dazzle him on our wedding day. A dress, jewelry, makeup, and a hairdo. He wouldn't have known what hit him. He probably wouldn't have known me.

I yanked on the zipper and upended the bag on the bed. Two lip­sticks, one blush, mascara, and a trial tube of base tumbled out along with a second medicine bag. Inside were figurines that matched the others, the same herbs, similar seeds, and a tiny swatch of stone-washed denim.

Will fingered the cloth. "I wondered how I put a hole in those pants."

"Ready?" I asked.

Grim determination came over his face, and he gave a sharp nod. I stuffed the figurines, cloth, and other items into the bag, then tossed it onto the floor and lifted my foot.

"Wait."

Will dropped his talisman next to mine, then grabbed me around the waist. His lips were soft, his hands hard, and as always, when he touched me I could think of nothing but him.

From the beginning we'd felt more for each other than two people should so quickly. I'd shoved aside the unease, convincing myself we'd been under stress, fighting for our lives. We'd almost died. Of course what we felt was intense beyond all reason.

Once the danger was over—or as over as it got for Jager-Suckers— I'd continued to delude myself, rationalizing that we were lucky to have found each other, thereby avoiding the whisper in my head that insisted I was the lucky one. I shouldn't question or probe because Will might come to his senses and see that he could do so much bet­ter than me.

In a few minutes he would come to his senses, and while I couldn't bring myself to get naked with him one last time, I also couldn't deny myself one last kiss.

He lifted his head, brushed his thumb across my cheek. He was so beautiful he made my eyes ache. What had he ever seen in me? Nothing that hadn't been put there by magic.

"We'll destroy the talismans," he murmured. "But I'll still feel the same."

I smiled softly and took his hand, then touched my lips to his knuckles. "I doubt that, Will."

His eyes flickered. I so rarely used his first name. When I did, life was about to get serious.

I moved toward the talismans. He held on tight. "Let's throw them in the lake."

"What?"

"I love you. You love me. Cora was right. Love is stronger than hate. We're better together than apart. I don't want to lose you, Jess."

"You don't want to be with someone you don't really love." I took a deep breath. "I know I don't."

"We'll love each other even without the magic."

"Then it won't hurt to destroy the talismans."

Silence fell between us as he considered my statement.

"Okay," he said at last. "If that's what you want."

What I wanted was him and me together forever. I saw that clearly now; I couldn't believe I'd doubted it before. Why do we al­ways have to lose something to know how much it means to us?

Oh yeah, human nature.

I took another deep breath. "It's what I want."

"All right," he said. "On three. One, two—"

We lifted our feet.

"Three."

And brought them down on the medicine bags. The little wooden people crunched beneath the sole of my hiking boot. I winced at the sound, like tiny bones breaking.

The earth rumbled, lightning flickered, and a chill wind swept through the room, ruffling my hair, making Will's earring twirl.

I glanced at the window. Not only was it shut, but the sun was shining. I waited for a sense that something had changed inside of me.

Our gazes met, and I realized that something had. I loved him even more.

I held my breath, terrified Cora had wreaked her last vengeance, leaving me to desperately love a man who couldn't abide the sight of me.

"Jess," Will said, and in his voice I heard everything I'd ever dreamed of.

Or at least I thought I did. Being me, I had to make sure.

"How's the heart, Slick? Any changes in it?"

"Not a one."

Was that good or bad? My confusion must have shown on my face, because he tugged me into his arms and held on. His lips brushed my temple. I hate to admit it, but I clung.

My eyes were drawn to the window again as a shaft of sunlight beat down on the spirit tree, turning the arching dark limbs a bur­nished gold.

"Look," I whispered.

"I think that's an omen," Will murmured. "Don't you?"

I'd always known that the love of my life was Will, but I hadn't truly believed the opposite was true. I did now.

"Yes," I answered.

From his smile he understood I was saying yes to more than just that question.

"How do you feel about kids?" he asked.

I choked.

Ah, hell. Kids were not an option. Not in a world where anyone could turn into a monster at any time and everyone we loved was considered wolf bait. Will could take care of himself, but a child—

I couldn't do it.

"If you want kids, Slick, you're gonna need a bigger charm."

"My thoughts exactly."

"You don't want children?"

"Not in our world, Jess. I wanted to make sure you didn't."

"Can you see me as a mother?"

"Actually I can, or I wouldn't have asked.''

I shook my head, amazed. "You always think more of me than I could ever be."

"No, I don't."

Another reason I loved him.

He tugged on my hair. "We can skip the wedding if you like."

"I thought you were set on making an honest woman of me."

"You're the most honest woman I know."

A definite compliment from an Indian. They'd been lied to enough.

"Besides," he continued, "for the Ojibwe, living together for a year is as good as a marriage license."

My eyes narrowed in mock fury. "You couldn't tell me this before I bought a thousand-dollar gown?"

He shrugged sheepishly. "We don't need the wedding. In my heart we've been married from the first day we met."

"You are so full of it."

"I know." He took my hand again. "But I only want this if you do."

"A hundred werewolves couldn't keep me away," I whispered.

I put on the dress, the shoes, even the makeup. I let a stranger do something froufrou with my hair; then I walked out of the lodge and into the sunlight.

I let an ancient wolf hunter walk me down a gravel-strewn path to the spirit tree, and put my hand into the hand of an Ojibwe wolf clan member. Hard to believe, but then most things in my life were.

"You will take care of her," Edward said.

"I can take care of myself," I snapped.

"Then what are you marrying him for?"

I stared into Will's eyes. "I can't help myself-"

Edward snorted and joined the others—hunters all. My wedding looked like an armory had exploded, weapons, weapons everywhere, and silver bullets, too. The justice of the peace we'd hired from Duluth appeared ner­vous in the midst of all the guns and ammo, but he managed. "I now pronounce you man and wife." Funny, that didn't sound right. "We're weedjiwagan," I said. And Will answered, "Partners in the path of life."

LORI Handeland is the author of the bestselling Nightcreature novels. The first in the series. Blue Moon, won the RITA Award from the Romance Writers of America for Best Paranormal of 2004. Lori lives in Wisconsin with her husband, two teenage sons, and a yellow lab named Elwood. She can be reached through her Web site: www. lorihandeland.com.

I'm going because I can't believe I've lived to see it," Dahlia said. "Also, I'm a bridesmaid, which is an honor. I have an obligation." She widened her eyes at her companion, to em­phasize the point. She had big green eyes, so it was a vivid effect.

Glenda Shore choked on her sip of synthetic blood. "You're kid­ding," she said faintly. "You think this is an honor? Well, bite me. Being a bridesmaid means we have to mingle with the nasty things. Like that party tonight, at the Were bar. Taffy called me specially, but I put her off. I won't do it! It's bad enough, all the teasing I've got­ten. Maisie called me 'Fur Lover'; Thomas Pickens gives wolf howls whenever he sees me. It's just humiliating."

Dahlia gave her head a practiced toss to flip her long wavy black hair back over her shoulders. She glanced down to make sure her strapless burgundy cocktail dress was still in place. There was a line between being adorably provocative and simply tacky. Dahlia was an expert at treading that line.

"I've known Taffy for maybe a couple hundred years," Dahlia said quietly. "I feel that I have to go through with this." She kept her voice casual; she didn't want to sound smugly superior. Glenda hadn't even been alive that long—or dead, rather. Neither had the other two females Taffy had asked to act as bridesmaids.

Glenda was a very young vampire, a flat-chested flapper who'd been turned during the Al Capone era in Chicago. To Dahlia's dis­taste, Glenda still liked wearing clothes reminiscent of the ones she'd worn while she was living. Tonight she was wearing a cloche hat. Conspicuous.

Oh, sure, it was legal to be a vampire now that the synthetic blood marketed by the Japanese had proven to satisfy the nutritional needs of the undead. But there was more to surviving as a vamp than slug­ging down TrueBlood or Red Stuff in all-night bars that catered strictly to vamps, like this one. There were pockets of humans who snatched vamps off the streets and drained their blood to sell on the black market.

There were other cults who simply wanted vamps dead because they'd decided vamps were evil blood-sucking fiends.

You had to learn discretion.

Besides various fringe groups of humans, you had to add to the list of vampire haters the Werewolves, whose ongoing feud with the undead occasionally flared into out-and-out war. Thinking of Weres brought Dahlia back to the subject at hand, her friend Taffy's wedding.

"Taffy and I nested together for a decade in Mexico," Dahlia said. "We were quite close. We went through the War of 1812 together; nothing cements a relationship like going through a war. And we've nested together at Cedric's for the past, oh, twenty years?"

"Where could Taffy have met such a creature?" Glenda asked, fin­gering the long, long string of pearls that dangled to her waist. Her eyes glinted with relish. This was as much fun as discussing a previ­ously unencountered sexual perversion.

Dahlia beckoned to the bartender. "Taffy was always . . . adven­turous. She lived with a regular human for ten years, once."

Glenda looked pleasurably horrified. "Do you think she'll wear white?" Glenda asked. "And our bridesmaid dresses... I bet we'll have pink ruffles."

"Why would it be pink ruffles?" Dahlia's mouth was suddenly pressed in a grim line. Dahlia took her clothes very, very, seriously.

"You know what they say about bridesmaid dresses!" Glenda laughed out loud.

"I do not," said Dahlia, her voice cold enough to goose an icicle. "I was turned before there was such a thing as a designated attendant for the bride."

"Oh, my goodness!" The younger vampire was shocked. And then delighted at the prospect of introducing her superior friend to the cer­tainty of an unpleasant ordeal. "Then let's go find a church and watch a wedding. Well, maybe not a church," she added nervously. Glenda had been a Christian in life, and churches made her mighty twitchy. "Maybe we'll check out a country club, or find a garden wedding."

Glenda actually had a sensible idea, Dahlia decided. It would help to know the worst. And though all the bridesmaids were due at a party in honor of the happy couple, if she and Glenda hurried, they wouldn't be late.

"The big mansions on the lakeside," she suggested. "It's a June weekend. Isn't that a prime time for weddings in America?" Dahlia had a vague recollection of seeing bridal magazines on the shelves at newspaper kiosks when she'd been buying her monthly copy of Fang.

"That's a keen idea. Let's go!" Glenda was eager. The worst en­emy of a vampire was ennui. Any new diversion was worth its weight in gold.

Since they were both gifted with flight (not all vampires possessed this skill), the two were able to reach the most imposing mansions in the city quickly. Glenda and Dahlia hovered over them to detect an outside celebration that might prove to be a wedding. At the VanTreeve place, they struck nuptial pay dirt. Tiffany VanTreeve was marrying Brendan Blaine Buffington that very night. The two vamps landed unobtrusively behind a tent set up on the grounds.

Dahlia eyed the scene critically, taking mental notes. The vampire sheriff of her area in the city of Rhodes, Cedric Deeming, was wor­ried about giving a proper wedding in such a hurry. Though lazy and lax in many respects, Cedric was a stickler for protocol. He'd urged all the vampires who nested with him to bring home details of modern wedding proceedings.

Dahlia obediently began making mental notes. Close to the house, there were two long tables loaded with food and a huge cake, though the food was discreetly covered with drapes for the moment. There was a cage full of doves, with an attendant in coveralls. Per­haps these were intended for a ritual sacrifice? There were two pha­lanxes of white chairs on the lawn, arranged facing a large white dais adorned with banks of pink flowers. A long red carpet ran between the two sections of chairs, right up the steps of the dais, where a minister in a sober black robe stood waiting.

Note to self: Find some kind of priest. Wasn't Harry Oakheart some kind of Druid? Maybe he knew a ceremony.

A string quartet was playing Handel. (Note to self: Find musicians) Not only were all the seats full, but there was a standing crowd at the back.

"What a swell spread," Glenda whispered, eyeing the buffet tables. "I guess the wolves'l1 need food. Looks like we're expected to feed them. The sheriff won't like that. You know what a tightwad he is. At least Cedric won't have to provide food for half the guests." She winked at Dahlia, as if it were very funny that vampires didn't eat food. "And we'll need liquor for the Weres, and we'll need a big stock of blood. Maybe we could nip off the guests?"

Dahlia looked daggers at Glenda. "Don't even say it as a joke," she told the younger vampire. "You know what'll happen if we even suggest that to a breather. Follow the rules. Only from a willing adult!"

"Spoilsport," Glenda muttered.

"Cedric has already hired a caterer, a man who says he can do the whole thing, flowers and all. Cedric is so cheap, he took the lowest bid. No sit-down dinner, just. . . finger food." Even Dahlia could not suppress her smile at the term, and Glenda laughed out loud. A few of the guests turned to see who was so being so boisterous, and Dahlia slammed Glenda in the ribs with a sharp elbow. Everyone else present was being properly solemn. "But we have to do it properly," Dahlia said, in a whisper inaudible to the humans around her. "We can't be found wanting. It would shame Taffy, and the nest."

Glenda gave it as her opinion that the Weres should be grateful they were even being allowed in Cedric's mansion. "I'm surprised Cedric will acknowledge the wedding," she said.

The music gave a final flourish, and the guests rustled expectantly.

The two vampires watched the ceremony unfold: Glenda with a sentimental tear or two (tinged red) and Dahlia with fascinated hor­ror. The groom, looking as though he'd been hit over the head with something large, took his place in front of the minister and stared down the strip of red carpet rolling between the two fields of white chairs. His groomsmen lined up on his side of the dais. At a signal that was invisible to Dahlia, who was stretching up on her tiptoes to see, the traditional music began.

"Here's the most interesting part," Glenda whispered.

One by one, the bridesmaids emerged from the white tent. Some were tall and some were small; some were buxom and some were slim as reeds. But the seven girls were all united in costume. Dahlia, the most elegant and particular of women, closed her eyes in ap­palled horror.

All the bridesmaids were wearing matching floor-length lime green silk sheaths. If you could strip the dress down to its basic essentials, it wouldn't be too bad, Dahlia thought. But the dresses were accessorized with lace gloves and tiny veiled hats pinned to each lacquered head. Worst of all, there was a gigantic bow perched atop each girlish butt. The waggle of each passing lime green rear end made Dahlia feel like weeping, too, along with some of the female guests—though Dahlia assumed they were crying for a different reason.

Glenda gave an audible snigger, and Dahlia despaired of ever teaching the girl manners. Dahlia herself was maintaining an appro­priately pleasant wedding guest face despite the dreadful possibility that she'd have to wear such a monstrous ensemble. Though the prospect was a blow, Dahlia conscientiously remained to note the en­tire procedure. She was disappointed when the doves were simply re­leased into the sky at the climax of the ceremony.

Long after Glenda had lost interest, Dahlia traced all the events of the wedding back to their human director, who was hovering at the rear of the gathering. Though the poor wedding planner was quite busy, Dahlia was ruthless (in a charming way) in getting the answers to several astute questions. She garnered information that made her feel that (if it had been beating at all) her heart would now burst.

"The groomsmen—those men up there on the husband's side— they'll be from among the groom's friends," Dahlia said, her hand gripping Glenda's shoulder.

"Well, sure, Dally," Glenda said. "Really, you! Didn't you know that?"

Dahlia shook her raven head back and forth. "Werewolves," she moaned. "They'll all be Werewolves."

"Ewww," said Glenda. "We'll have to let one touch us, Dally. Did you see that each bridesmaid took the arm of a groomsman on their way out of the . . . the . . . designated wedding area?"

And for the first time in her long, long life, Dahlia Lynley-Chivers said, "Ewww."

To cover her shame, she added quickly, "If you call me Dally again, I'll tear your throat out."

When Dahlia said something like that, it was smart to assume she meant it. Glenda said, "Well, I'm sure not going to any stupid Were party with you now."

Dahlia had to back down, something she was unused to doing. "Glenda," she said stiffly, "neither Cassie nor Fortunata will go, and I was relying on you. It's your duty as a bridesmaid to attend this party. Taffy said so."

"If you think we'll be greeted with open arms by a bunch of stupid Weres, you can think again, Miss Perfect. Open jaws is what they'll have." Glenda disappeared behind the tent to conceal her liftoff, and Dahlia watched her companion disappear. No doubt, Glenda would describe the bridesmaid dresses to any vamp who would listen.

With her little jaw set grimly, Dahlia Lynley-Chivers made her way to a part of Rhodes she seldom visited. This time, she took a cab. Humans became very upset when they saw her fly, and she was determined to do her best by her friend Taffy. Taffy had been born Taphronia, daughter of Leonidas, centuries ago. She'd been calling herself Taffy for the past forty years. Taffy and her fiance, Don Swift-foot (of course that was his pack name—his human name was Don Swinton), were celebrating their forthcoming nuptials at a bar in the Werewolf part of town. The whole wedding party would be there; at least, the whole wedding party was supposed to be there. Since the other bridesmaids had dropped the baton, Dahlia feared she'd be the only vampire in attendance. She had a wide range of curses at her disposal since she'd lived so long, and she voiced a few of them on the drive through the city. Luckily, the cabdriver spoke none of the languages she used.

Dahlia got out of the cab a block away from the bar. This area of Rhodes was a bit run-down, a bit seedy. The sidewalks were crowded, even this late at night, with bar-hopping humans, who didn't realize they were just on the safe side of the moon cycle. Of course, no one who lived in Rhodes realized they were partying in an area that had a high concentration of Werewolves. Humans didn't know about Werewolves yet. The two-natured had to retain their human faces on their nights out.

The bar, called Moonshine, was practically buzzing with energy and magic. Any humans who wandered in uninvited developed se­vere headaches, and went home early, as a rule. Moonshine was closed three nights out of the month.

Dahlia made sure her cocktail dress was smooth over her hips. Since she was representing her nest, she put on a little lipstick and brushed her rippling hair before she entered the bar. It was marked by a blinking neon sign formed in a white circle—representing the moon, if you had a lot of imagination.

"Tacky," Dahlia muttered. She read the notice taped to the door: Closed tonight for private party. Because she was a little anxious about entering a Werewolf-infested bar, she stood a little straighter on her spike heels—which brought her height all the way up to five foot one—held her head proudly, tucked her tiny flat purse under her bare arm, and marched inside, her haughtiest expression fixed on her heart-shaped face.

A chorus of so-called wolf whistles met her entrance. Of course, in their wolf forms, these guys couldn't whistle for diddly-squat; but they managed just fine in their human guise. Dahlia pretended to be deaf as she scanned the tiny bar for Taffy.

Really, you can't expect any better, she told herself. After all, true Weres were generally guys and gals with a keen interest in motorcy­cles and monster trucks. All the Weres in this bar were pure Weres, with two full-blooded parents. (Even Taffy wouldn't expose her friends to mongrels.)

Dahlia couldn't spy Taffy among the people, mostly male, crowd­ing the bar, so she began to make her way to the only doorway not marked: Restroom.

A very tall and very athletically built male stepped in front of her. "Sorry, lady, this bar is closed tonight for a private party."

"Yes, I read the sign on the door."

"Then you're pretty slow taking a hint."

Dahlia looked up (and up) at the bright blue eyes in the broad face. This Were had thick, curling brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and he was clean-shaven. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, a bit to her surprise, and a tight T-shirt and jeans . . . the jeans, now that she came to take a look, were pretty damn tight, too. And boots. He had on big boots.

Dahlia shook herself (mentally, of course). The rude jerk was waiting for her reply. "I am here seeking my friend Taffy," she said coldly, meeting his eyes squarely.

They stood stock-still for a long minute.

"A vamp," he said, loathing replacing the admiration in his voice. "Damn, I knew we shoulda put some new lightbulbs in this place. Then I woulda noticed how pale you are. What do you want with Taff? You gonna try to talk her out of marrying Don, too?"

If it was possible to get any stiffer, Dahlia did. "I am going to . . . actually, what I want with Taffy is none of your business, Were. I re­quire an audience with her." Dahlia was so rattled by the Were's anger that she became colder and stiffer and caught herself reverting to former speech patterns.

"Oh yeah, and we're supposed to bow and scrape for the little madam?" he said. "You should get that stick out of your ass and be­have more like Taffy. She doesn't act so snooty and superior. After all, what you got on us? We live longer than humans, and we're stronger than humans, and we can do all kinds of things that humans can't do."

"Excuse me," Dahlia said frigidly. "I am so not interested."

"I'll show you interested," the huge monster growled, reaching down as if he was actually going to pick Dahlia up and give her a shake. The next instant, he was looking up at her from the floor and his friends had leaped to their feet, their eyes glowing. Snarls issued from several male throats, and one or two female ones.

"No," called the man from the floor, just as Dahlia prepared to free her hands for fighting by tucking her tiny evening purse into the gartered top of her hose (a process that distracted the males for a few long seconds), "she's in the right, guys."

"What?" asked a blond man built like a fire hydrant. "You gonna let a vamp get away with putting you on the floor?"

"Yeah, Richie," said the man, getting up. "She did it fair and square after I provoked her."

The rest of the Weres seemed disconcerted, but they backed away a foot or two. Dahlia felt a mixture of relief and regret. Her fangs had extended as she readied to fight, and she would have enjoyed re­lieving the tension by ripping off a few limbs.

"Come on, little highness," Brown Ponytail said. "I'll take you to Taffy."

She nodded curtly. He turned to lead the way, and she followed right behind him. The crowd parted along the way rather reluctantly.

"Cold-blooded creep," said one Were woman. She was built like an Amazon, broad shouldered. Dahlia would have loved to flash out a hand and bury it in the Were's abdomen, but ladies didn't do such things—not if they wanted the truce to hold.

Dahlia was proud of herself when she didn't meet the woman's eyes in challenge. Instead, Dahlia kept her gaze focused forward. Which is no hardship, she had to admit to herself, as she examined the curve of the butt moving in front of her. It certainly was a prime one, packed into the worn Levi's in a most attractive way

Dahlia winced, realizing that she'd actually caught herself admir­ing a Were.

Her guide stepped aside, and Dahlia was relieved beyond measure to see Taffy sitting in a padded booth behind a round table with Don cuddling close to her right and another Were to her left. Dahlia barely kept her upper lip from drawing back in distaste. It was like seeing a racehorse cavorting with zebras.

"Dahlia!" shrieked Taffy. Her auburn curls were piled up on top of her head, and she was wearing a halter top and blue jeans, as far as Dahlia could tell. Oh, really, Dahlia thought, exasperated, remember­ing the care she'd taken to dress correctly. Taffy looks like a real hu­man. Probably trying to blend in. As if she could.

"Taffy," Dahlia said, thrown seriously off track, "can we have a talk?" She didn't even want to acknowledge Don. He was as red­headed as Taffy, but his hair was short and rough looking, like the coat of a terrier.

"Hey, beautiful!" Don said expansively.

Dahlia gave Don a stiff nod of greeting. She was no barbarian.

Don had a beard, and bright filaments of red stuck out from the neck of his golf shirt. Dahlia shuddered. She was glad to look back at Taffy.

"You still got that cold bitch thing goin' on," Don observed. "Doesn't she, Todd?"

"She's got it down pat," agreed her guide. "Didn't even bother to introduce herself." Dahlia realized, with a pang, that the Were was correct. "She's a brave little thing, though," the Were went on. "Knocked me ass-backward."

Don grinned approvingly. "People should do that more often, Todd. It seems to soften you up."

While Dahlia tried to estimate how long it would take her to kill them all, Taffy was extricating herself from the booth, which seemed to involve a lot of unnecessary brushing against Don, with wriggling and kisses strewn in for good measure. This was the source of many teasing comments and much laughter from the assembled Weres.

I seem to be the only one who's in a had mood, Dahlia thought, and then without meaning to, her eyes met the tall Were's again. Nope, Todd was less than happy, too. Dahlia wondered whether it was the engagement between Don and Taffy or her own intrusion that had triggered Todd's irritation.

"This is my friend Dahlia Lynley-Chivers," Taffy announced to the crowd of Weres. "She's my maid of honor."

There was a smattering of polite response. Dahlia inclined her head civilly. She couldn't force a smile.

"Snotty-nose bitch," muttered the other Were sitting in the booth. He had dark curly hair and a pugnacious attitude. "Having one in the bar at a time is enough."

Dahlia's tiny hand darted out and dug into the Were's throat.

He gagged, his eyes going wide with shock and fear, and the at­mosphere of the bar went into high gear.

"Dahlia!" said Taffy. "He didn't know what he was saying, Dahlia. Please, for me."

Dahlia released the dark-haired Were, and he collapsed against the wood of the booth, breathing heavily. There was an uneasy stirring among the denizens of the crowded bar.

"Thanks, honey," Taffy murmured. "Let's take this out on the sidewalk, okay?"

Her back as straight and her head as high as ever, Dahlia followed Taffy out of the bar, looking neither to the right nor to the left, ig­noring the growing chorus of growls that surged in her wake.

"Smooth move, Dahlia," Taffy said, the words bursting out as soon as they were on the sidewalk.

"You were the one who invited me! If you weren't the one en­gaged to that. . . that dog man ... do you think I'd go inside such a place?"

"Where are the others?" Taffy lost her anger and looked a bit lost. Maybe she hadn't been quite as comfortable as she'd seemed, being the only vamp in a crowd of Weres.

"Ah, they couldn't make it." Dahlia couldn't think of any way to cushion the rudeness of Taffy's other bridesmaids and her sheriff, Cedric.

Taffy sighed. "I didn't think it was too much to ask, coming to a party in our honor to wish me well." Dahlia's cheeks would have flushed if they could have; she was embarrassed at the poor manners of her sisters. "I guess it's a measure of our friendship that you came inside to see me," Taffy admitted. "I know we're buddies. Please, help me get through this wedding with peace between our people. I want you there on my wedding day, and I want my other friends there, too, and the last thing I want is a bloodbath between the two tribes, us and the Weres, right there in Cedric's garden."

Cedric had offered the garden of his mansion as the locale for the wedding, to everyone's surprise. Cedric had told Dahlia, in his lan­guid way, that he had been sure Taffy would cry off before the day actually arrived. Now that the wedding was fast approaching and still a reality, the notably lazy Cedric was scrambling to get the grounds ready and also calling in markers in an effort to assemble some of the more levelheaded vamps to act as security for the big night, which was shaping up to be the scandalous social event of the season in the supernatural world.

Ignoring the Weres who were peering out of the bar, Dahlia and Taffy began to stroll down the street, arm in arm, an old-fashioned habit that drew a few stares.

"Taffy, I'm worried."

"What about, Dahlia?" Taffy asked gently.

"You know that Cedric's mansion is in a turmoil of preparation," Dahlia began, trying to think of the best way to voice her concerns without sounding like a complete alarmist.

"I heard." Taffy laughed, her throat tilted back. "That old bastard! Serves Cedric right for making a promise he had no intention of keeping."

"Taffy, you've been with the Weres too much. Don't disrespect the sheriff so boldly."

"You're right," Taffy said, sobering quickly enough to satisfy even the worried Dahlia. "So, Cedric's in an uproar. What of it?"

"The Weres and the vampires aren't the only ones who may have heard of this wedding," Dahlia said. She was voicing something she'd not told anyone else, and her voice wasn't completely steady. "Since the Weres haven't come out yet, to the world it must look as though you're illegally marrying a human."

Vampires didn't have the legal right to marry in the United States, not yet anyway. Dahlia couldn't have cared less about her legal rights, since she knew how transitory governments were, but there was no denying it was sweet to be able to walk the streets openly, admitting her true nature, and to know that if she was killed, her death would be state-avenged.

Well, maybe, under certain circumstances.

The point was, society was moving in the right direction, and the backlash from this affair might knock all of them sideways.

"Who in the mundane world knows?"

"It won't make a difference if humans know it afterward; we can explain it wasn't a true wedding at all. Cedric can get reporters to believe anything. But if it becomes common knowledge beforehand, there'll be human reporters all over the place, and protesters, and who knows what else."

"Cedric's gardeners are human," Taffy said slowly. "The florist is human." Her face was utterly serious now, and she looked like a true vampire. They turned back to return to the bar.

Dahlia nodded, silently, knowing her point had been taken. She was thrilled to see Taffy looking like her former self, until she real­ized that though the familiar calculation had returned to Taffy's face, something had been taken away: the lighthearted joy that made the ancient vampire look so renewed.

"So, you're saying that we might need more security than Cedric's thinking of providing," Taffy continued.

Dahlia cursed inside. Her point had been that Taffy should call off this insane ceremony. But Taffy had simply not considered it for a moment. "Sister," Dahlia said, calling on the bond of the nest-mate. "You must not go through with this wedding. It will bring trouble on the nest, and . . . and . . ." Dahlia had a flash of inspiration. "It may bring the Weres out into the open before they are ready to be known," Dahlia said, confident she was playing a trump card.

"This is a big secret," Taffy whispered, and not even a gnat could have heard her whisper, "but in the next month, the Weres are voting at their council about that very issue."

It had taken years of worldwide secret negotiations to pick the moment for the vampires: months of coordination, selection, and a carefully composed text that had been translated into a myriad of languages. The Weres would probably slouch in front of the televi­sion cameras with beers in their paws and dare the world to deny them citizenship.

"Then delay the wedding until then," Dahlia urged, trying to ig­nore all these side issues and stick to the main point.

"Sorry, no can do," Taffy said.

It took Dahlia a minute to grasp the meaning of Taffy's words. "Why not?" she asked. She made her lips manufacture a smile. "I know you're not pregnant." Dead bodies, however animated they looked, could not produce live children.

"No, but Don's ex is." Taffy's face was grim as she looked down at Dahlia's stunned face. "We have to get hitched before she has the baby, or she can appear before the Were council and demand they re­instate her marriage. Don hasn't had a child with anyone else, and you know how the Weres are about the purebloods reproducing with each other."

Dahlia could not do something so gauche as gape, but she came close. "I've never heard of such a thing," she said weakly.

"None of us knows much about the Were culture," Taffy said. "Our arrogance keeps us ignorant." The two stepped off the curb to cross the mouth of the alley. The bright lights of the bar were only half a block away.

Dahlia brightened. "I'll kill her," she said. There, she'd solved the problem. "Then you can hold off on your marriage, or cancel it al­together. No need to get married, right? What does this bitch look like?"

"Like this," said a sweet voice from the shadows, and a young woman leaped out, the knife in her hand glinting in the streetlight. But as fast as the Were stabbed at Taffy, Dahlia jumped to intercept it. She deflected it with her bare hands, but not quickly enough. It lodged between Dahlia's ribs, and the strong Were woman began to twist the blade. Just in time, Dahlia gripped the Were's wrist, and neatly broke it before the gesture could be completed.

The woman's screams drew an outrush of Weres from the bar. They circled Dahlia, growling and snapping, sure that the vampire had attacked first. Dahlia herself was standing very still, trying to keep from shrieking. That would have been unseemly, in Dahlia's opinion, and she was a vampire who lived by a code.

Taffy was so shocked that she didn't react with the speed one ex­pected of a vampire. Between trying to explain to her fiance what had happened and positioning herself to slap away the hands that would have struck Dahlia, Taffy was too occupied to evaluate Dahlia's plight. Oddly enough, it was Todd who calmed things down by silencing the crowd with a yell that was perilously close to a howl.

Into the hush he said, "Keep all humans away, first of all." There was a flurry of activity as the few humans who'd been drawn by the ruckus were hustled off, diverted with some story that would hardly make sense when it was reconsidered.

"What happened?" Don asked Taffy. Several female Weres were kneeling on the ground around the moaning ex-wife. The Amazon­ian Were called, "The vamp bitch attacked Amber and broke her arm!" A chorus of growls swelled the throats of the werewolves.

Dahlia concentrated on her breathing. Though vamps healed with amazing speed, the initial injury hurt just as much as it would any other being. The blood dripped from her hands, but it was slowing. She held them out in the light, and the crowd murmured. Taffy ex­claimed, "She did this for me!" and then became quite still. Her voice shaking with a very unvamplike quiver, Taffy said, "Dahlia pro­tected me with her life. Not exactly in the bridesmaid description."

Don was clearly conflicted between the woman on the ground (whom Dahlia could see now was what she thought of as medium pregnant), his distraught fiancee, and Dahlia.

"Dahlia, what do you say?" he asked harshly.

"I say, the fucking bitch stabbed me," Dahlia said clearly. "And would someone please pull out this damn knife before I heal around it? I mean, just any old time will do, unless you want to moan some more over Little Miss Homicide there." It was convenient that none of them had heard Dahlia offer to take care of Don's ex a few mo­ments earlier. It gave her the definite moral high ground. Pregnant women, after all, were revered by almost everyone, both supernatural and human, and Dahlia needed all the leverage she could get. With­out moving, because the pain was so intense she might fall down, Dahlia scanned the ring of Weres blocking the group from the view of passersby. "Todd, would you do the honors?" she asked, biting her lips with the pain. "You might even enjoy it."

Todd looked like there was nothing he'd enjoy less.

He bent down to look into Dahlia's green eyes, narrowed with the effort of sustaining her dignity. "I salute your courage," he said, and then he put one hand against her abdomen and yanked out the knife with the other.

Dahlia would have collapsed to her knees (terribly embarrassing) if the big Were hadn't caught her.

The next few minutes were a dim blur for Dahlia. She heard Don's stern voice, even deeper than usual, ordering Amber to tell the truth. Amber, a medium-sized blonde with a large bosom, wept co­pious tears and told her own jumbled version of events. In this ver­sion, she just happened to have a knife with her, in fact, ready in her hand, when Dahlia had jumped her. As to why Amber happened to be there in the first place, she whined that she'd just wanted to catch a glimpse of Don. Even the Weres didn't believe that.

"An attack on the packmaster's wife is an attack on the packmas-ter himself," Todd said.

"Then this vampire is as much at fault for breaking Amber's arm as Amber is for trying to kill Taffy," said the Amazon, trying very hard not to smile. "Since Amber is Don's wife."

" Was Don's wife," the packmaster himself corrected. "Before the state and the pack, I divorced Amber. Her attack on Taffy counts as an attack against me."

"Does not," argued the Amazon. "You haven't married Taffy, yet."

"Oh, for goodness' sake," Dahlia muttered. "Bore me to death, why don't you."

She felt Todd's chest shaking, and realized he was laughing silently. The wound in her side was almost healed, but she took her time pushing away from the Were's support. He was warm, and he smelled good.

She looked down at herself, taking stock. Her dress was ruined. Ruined! And she'd just paid off her credit card bill! "My dress," she said sadly. "At least make her pay for my dress. Did blood get on my shoes?" She hobbled over to a streeylight and held out a foot in an at­tempt to survey the damage. "Yes!" she said, going from grief to outrage in an undead minute. The shoes were brand-new and had cost more than the dress. "Okay, that does it." Her head snapped up and she glared at Don. "Amber pays for my dress and my shoes, and she doesn't come within five miles of Taffy for a year."

She was speaking into a chasm of silence. At the sound of her crisp voice, all conversation had ceased. Everyone was staring at her, even the whimpering Amber.

Don blinked. "Ah, that sounds fair," he said. "Honey?"

There was another embarrassing moment when both Amber and Taffy believed this appellation referred to them and began to respond simultaneously. Don gave Amber a look of withering contempt, which prompted a fresh burst of noisy tears.

Taffy said, "That seems a very moderate sentence, to me."

Dahlia knew from her friend's mild tone that Taffy thought Am­ber should be drawn and quartered, no matter what her condition.

"Amber, do you agree?" Don asked.

"What about her paying my hospital bill? I have to get this wrist set, after all."

"That's stupid, even for you," Todd said, into the general silence. "Amber, one more offense and the whole pack will abjure you."

Dahlia didn't know what being abjured consisted of, but the mere threat was an effective deterrent. Amber was shocked silent.

Two of the Were women loaded Amber into a car and headed off, presumably for the hospital. The rest of the crowd dispersed, leaving Todd, Dahlia, Don, and Taffy on the sidewalk.

Dahlia held up a hand to examine in the light. The slash across the palm had completely healed, and when she touched the wound in her ribs, she only felt a slight tenderness. "I'll take my leave," she said. She wanted to divest herself of her ruined clothes, shower, and knock back a few pints of synthetic blood before dawn.

"I'll walk you home," Todd said. It would be hard to say who in the little crowd was the most surprised by this statement.

"That's not necessary," Dahlia said, after a second's recovery.

"I know you can carry me over your shoulder like a sack of potatoes," Todd said. He looked down at Dahlia. "And I'm not saying I'm happy about my packleader marrying a vamp, legal or not. But I'm gonna walk you home, unless you fly away."

Dahlia's brows drew together.

"After all," he said, "I'm in charge of security for the wedding, and I'm the best man. Since you're the maid of honor, I understand, you'll be responsible for security on your side? We should talk."

Dahlia turned to Don and Taffy, who were standing hand in hand, looking shell-shocked. "I will see you tomorrow night, Taffy," the vampire said formally. "Don." She nodded at the packleader, still not able to think of a formal pleasantry that would suit the unsuit­able alliance.

The big Were and the little vampire walked side by side for a few blocks. Everyone they met stepped off the sidewalk to give them room, and the odd pair never even noticed.

"You're quite articulate for a Were." Dahlia's voice was cool and steady.

"Hey, some of us have even graduated from high school," he said easily. "Myself, I made it through college without tearing up one single coed."

"I shared my brother's tutor until my parents decided that, as a girl, I didn't need to learn any more," Dahlia said, to her own sur­prise. To cover her confession, Dahlia launched into a discussion of the security measures for the wedding. The vampires would guard the doors to the mansion; the only people on the premises should be the invited guests and the catering staff.

"Are all the vampires living in the mansion invited to the wed­ding?" Todd asked, trying to sound casual.

"Yes," Dahlia said, after a moment's consideration. "We're all nest-mates, after all."

"How's that work?"

"Well, we live together under Cedric's rule, since he's the sheriff of this area. As long as we're nest-mates, we protect each other and come to each other's aid."

"And contribute to Cedric's purse?"

"Well, yes. If we stayed in a hotel, we'd pay for lodging, so that's fair."

"And do his bidding?"

"Yes, that, too."

"A lot like the pack does for the packleader."

"I had assumed so. What part will the Weres play in security?" Dahlia asked. Todd was asking entirely too many questions.

"There should be a Were at every door, too, along with a vamp. We need to make sure that one or the other knows everyone who comes into the mansion that day. This wedding isn't popular with anyone, vamps or Weres, and though Don is totally not worried, I am."

"None of the vampires are worried, except me," Dahlia con­fessed. They'd arrived at a side door to the huge house on a street in the heart of the haughtiest section of the city. Cedric had had cen­turies of savings to use in purchasing this prime piece of Rhodes real estate, and though having a vampire among them hadn't made the wealthy neighbors happy, the city's Freedom of Housing ordinance had reinforced the vampires' right to live where they chose.

Todd said, "Good night, dead lady."

"Good night, hairball," she said. But just before the door closed behind her, she turned to smile at him.

Isn't it great?" Rafael Santiago wasn't a religious man in any sense of the word, but as he read the short story Jeff Brinks had published in the SF magazine in his hands, he felt a deep need to cross him­self. . . .

Or at the very least, club the college student over the head until he lost all consciousness.

Keeping his expression carefully blank, Rafael slowly closed the magazine and met his Squire's eager look. At twenty-three, Jeff was tall and lean, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. He'd only been a Squire to Rafael for the last couple of months, since Jeff's father had retired. An eager young man, Jeff had been good enough at re­membering to pay bills on time, run Rafael's business, and help to protect his immortal status from the unknowing humans. But the one thing Jeff had wanted more than anything else was to publish one of the stories he was always scribbling on.

Now he had. . . .

Rafael tried to remember a time when he'd had dreams of grandeur, too. A time when he'd been human and had wanted to leave his mark on the world.

And just like him, Jeff's dreams were about to get the boy killed. "Have you shown this to anyone else?"

Damn, but Jeff reminded Rafael of a cocker spaniel puppy want­ing someone to pet his head even though he'd just unknowingly pissed all over his owner's best shoes. "Not yet, why?"

"Oh, I don't know," Rafael said, stretching the words out and try­ing to mitigate some of the sarcasm in his tone. "I'm thinking the Night-Searcher series you're starting might be a really bad idea."

Jeff's face fell instantly. "You didn't like the story?"

"Not a question of liking it really. More a question of getting your ass kicked for spilling our secrets."

Jeff furrowed his brow, and by his baffled look it was obvious the boy had no idea what Rafael was talking about. "How do you mean?"

This time there was no way to keep the venom out of his voice. "I know they say to write what you know, but damn, Jeff. . . Ralph St. James? Night-Searchers? You've written the whole Dark-Hunter/Apollite vampire legend, and I really resent your making me a Taye Diggs clone. Nothing against the man, but other than the oc­casional bald head, the color of our skin, and a diamond stud in the left ear, we have nothing in common."

Jeff took the magazine from Raphael's hands, flipped to his story, and skimmed a few lines. "I don't understand what you're talking about, Rafael. This isn't about you or the Dark-Hunters. The only thing they have in common is that the Night-Searchers hunt down cursed vampires like the Dark-Hunters do. That's it."

Uh-huh. Rafael looked back at the story again, and even with the magazine upside down his eyes fell straight to the scene. "What about this, where the Taye Diggs look-alike Dark-Hunter is con­fronting a Daimon who's just stolen a human soul to elongate his life?"

Jeff made a sound of disgust. "That's a Night-Searcher who found a vampire to kill. It has nothing to do with the Dark-Hunters."

Yeah, right. "A vampire who just happens to steal human souls to elongate his life as opposed to the normal Hollywood variety where they live forever on blood?"

"Well, that's just cliche. It's so much better to have vampires who have really short lives and are then compelled, against their wills, and by a hatred fired by envy, to lash out at the human race. Makes it so much more interesting, don't you think?"

Not really. Especially since he was one of the people caught up in that battle. "That is also the reality we live in, Jeff. What you just de­scribed is a Daimon, not a vampire."

"Well maybe I borrowed from the Daimons a little, but the rest is all mine."

Rafael flipped to the next page. "Let's see. What about the cursed Tyber race that pissed off the Norse god Odin and is now damned to live only twenty-seven years unless they turn vampire and steal hu­man souls. Substitute 'Apollite' for 'Tyber' and 'Apollo' for 'Odin' and again you have the story of the Apollite race who turn Dai­mon."

Sighing, Jeff crossed his arms over his chest. He shook his head in denial.

"And what about this part here where the Night-Searchers sell their souls to the Norse goddess Freya, who is a vibrant redheaded femme fatale dressed all in white, to get revenge on whoever caused them to die?"

"No one is going to figure out that Artemis is Freya."

Rafael growled at him. "For the record, unlike Artemis, Freya happens to be a strawberry blonde. But you were right about one thing. She is gorgeous and highly seductive. Definitely hard to say no to her."

"Oh." Deepening his scowl, Jeff looked up. "How do you know all that?"

Rafael grew quiet as he remembered the night he'd met the Norse goddess and she had tempted him well. That had definitely been one hell of a day. . . . "Freya's the goddess who hand selects warriors for Valhalla. Or in the case of myself, she wanted to take me off with her to her own hall and add me to her harem."

Jeff gaped. "And you chose to fight for Artemis instead, what kind of stupid are you?"

There were times when the kid could be eerily astute. "Yeah, well, in retrospect it was a bad bargain on my part. But at the time Artemis was offering me vengeance on my enemies it seemed so much more appealing than being Freya's love slave . . . which gets back to Freya being Artemis in your story."

"But you just said she's not Artemis and she comes after warriors, too. So it could happen. She could make a bargain like the one I wrote about in my story."

And icicles could grow on the sun. Freya collected warriors, she didn't send them back to the mortal plane to fight Daimons/vam­pires. Artemis did that. But not willing to argue the point anymore when it was obvious Jeff didn't see it, Rafael moved on to the next similarity. "And what about this? Ralph—Jesus, boy, couldn't you come up with something better than a bodily function to name me—was a Caribbean pirate, son of an Ethiopian slave and Brazilian merchant. . . ." He glanced down to read the description: "At six six, Ralph was one to intimidate anyone who saw him. With his shaved head that was tattooed with African tribal symbols given to him by a Shaman he'd met in his travels, he walked the earth as if he owned it. But more than that, the black tattoos blended at times with his dark brown flesh, making the two of them seem indistinguishable from each other as if he bore some kind of alien skin."

Unable to read another word of the description that was so eerily close to himself that it made him want to choke his Squire, Rafael let out a disgusted breath. "While I'm both flattered and highly offended, I can assure you, this won't win you a Hugo or Nebula nomination."

Jeff pulled the magazine out of his hands again in a high-handed manner. "I resent that. It's a great story. And you don't exactly have those tattoos, either, now do you?"

Rafael's right eye started twitching from the aggravation. "I have intricate scroll work tattooed up my neck to the base of my skull and like Ralph"—he growled the word—"I have them on both arms. They're close enough to what you describe. No matter how you dis­guise this trite bullshit, it's my life, Jeff. Penned in an awkward man­ner. It's things I didn't want to see in black-and-white print. You're lucky after three hundred years that I've mellowed. In my human days, I'd have slit your throat, pulled your tongue through the open­ing, and left you tied to a tree for the wolves to eat."

"Ew!"

"Yes," he said, taking a step toward the overgrown adolescent, "and effective. Trust me, no one betrayed me twice."

"What about the guy who killed you?"

Rafael's eyes flared as he fought his urge to kill the boy. It was a damn good thing that he liked Jeff's father and the man had served him well for over twenty years. Otherwise Jeff would be meeting with an "accident" right about. . . oh, now.

Taking a deep breath, Rafael asked in a tone that belied his anger, "I only have one more question. What's the circulation on this rag?"

Jeff shrugged. "I don't know. About one hundred and fifty thou­sand worldwide, I think."

"You are so dead."

"Oh, come on," Jeff said, dismissing the very real danger he was facing. "You're overreacting. No one is going to care." The best place to hide is out in the open. Haven't you ever heard that? Step out of the Dark Ages, Rafe. Everywhere you look there are vampires and a whole counterculture dedicated to them. Open your mouth to a woman, show her your fangs, and she'll beg you to bite her. Trust me. I have a fake set I wear to parties and use frequently. Nowadays being undead doesn't get you killed. It just makes it easier to get laid."

Rafael shook his head. "That argument has reached a whole new level of lame."

"Please, spare me that, old wise one. There's a whole new school of thought going around about how best to protect and hide you guys. If we start telling people about the Dark-Hunters, but make them think it's a book series or some urban fantasy thing, when they actually meet one of you, they'll just think you're either actors or roleplayers. Or at the very worst, they'll think you're insane, but never will they believe you're real."

He was seriously considering getting Jeff a CAT scan to make sure the kid still had a brain. "What Einstein came up with this?"

"Well. . . originally it was Nick Gautier."

"And the poor man is now dead. Shouldn't you guys be following someone else's ideas?"

"No. It makes perfect sense. Get out of the basement, Rafe, and hang with the new generation. We know the 911."

Rafael snorted. "It's 411, Jeff, and you don't know shit. But you are going to need 911 once the Council learns about this."

"I'll be fine, trust me. Nick and I aren't the only ones who think like this these days."

Those words had no sooner left his mouth than Rafael's cell phone started ringing. He checked the ID to see "Ephani." An an­cient Amazon who'd crossed over almost three thousand years ago, she was definitely an acquired taste. But even so, he liked her a great deal. Pulling the phone off his belt, he answered it.

"What's up, Amazon?" he asked, stepping away from Jeff while his Squire continued to admire his story in the magazine.

The kid had no sense of self-preservation.

"Hey, Rafe. I-um . . . I'm not sure how to break this to you, but do you know what your Squire's been up to lately?"

Deciding to play it cool, Rafael cut a glare at Jeff. "Writing the great American novel, what else?"

"Uh-huh. Have you ever read one of those novels he's been working on?"

"Not until today. Why?"

She let out a long sigh. "I'm assuming you have a copy of the Es­cape Velocity magazine with his story in it, right?"

"I do."

"Good, then it won't come as a shock to you to know that my Squire just left and she's heading over to your house to have a talk with Jeff. If I were you—"

"Say no more. He's leaving the country even as we speak. Thanks for the call, Eph."

"No problem, amigo."

Hanging up the phone, he narrowed his eyes on Jeff. "That was Ephani warning me that you're about twenty minutes from dying."

Jeff's face turned stone white. "What?"

He nodded. "Her Squire, Celena, Ms. Blood Rite, I-kill-anything-that-breaks-formation, is on her way over here to have a word with you. Since Celena isn't real big on conversation, I'm taking that as a euphemism for 'kick your ass.' "

Rafael paused as those words conjured one hell of an image in his mind—Celena kicking his ass in that pair of stiletto corset boots she often wore. And in his mind she was wearing nothing but a thong. . . . Yeah . . . that was something he definitely wouldn't mind.

A native of Trinidad, Celena had the most perfect mocha com­plexion he'd ever seen. It was so smooth and inviting that it begged a man to taste it.

And her lips . . .

Angelina Jolie had nothing on her. She moved slow and seductive like a cat and he'd spent more than his fair share of time wanting her to rub that lean, curvy body of hers up against his.

But unfortunately, she was a Squire and he was a Dark-Hunter. By the rules of their world, she was off limits to him, and though Rafael didn't give two shits about most rules, Celena lived for them.

It was a crime against nature in his opinion that a woman that fine couldn't be corrupted.

"What do I do?" Jeff asked.

"Well, not to insult a man who looks like a rocket scientist in comparison to you, but. . . run, Forrest, run."

"But I didn't do anything wrong. It's a new era where—-"

"Do you really want to argue that point while someone, who is only a few minutes away, is speeding over here to most likely kill you?"

Jeff paused for a single heartbeat before common sense finally seized him. "Where should I hide?"

If it wasn't for the fact that as a Dark-Hunter Rafael was impervi­ous to illness, he'd swear a migraine was starting right behind his left eye. "Get to the basement and hide there. Don't make a peep and don't leave until I tell you it's safe."

Jeff nodded before he ran for the door. Two seconds later he was back. Rafael watched him with a frown as he searched around the room until he located the baseball bat he'd used yesterday at the bat­ting cages. He picked it up and cradled it to his chest before he headed back toward the basement.

"What are you doing?" Rafael asked.

"Protection."

Yeah, right. Celena was highly trained and deadly. A whack with the bat would only piss her off an instant before she jerked it out of Jeff's hands and beat him with it, but far be it from him to tell Gomer that.

"Hide well," Rafael said, exaggerating his voice.

Jeff nodded again before he dashed down to where Rafael's bed­room and living area were.

Pressing the heel of his hand against his brow where the imagined pain seemed to be located, Rafael glanced around the parlor of his Victorian house to make sure that Jeff hadn't left anything like his underwear lying about. The boy was a good Squire in that he kept up the appearance that someone lived in the house who actually aged but seriously sucked when it came to general housekeeping.

At least for once the place was decent. Except for the Xbox that Jeff had left stretched from the plasma TV to the leather sofa. Rafael had just turned the game off and put it away when he heard a fierce knock on his front door.

Rafael straightened his shirt before he sauntered over to answer it. He could already see Celena's curvy outline though the frosting on the glass. The porch light highlighted her medium brown hair that she wore pulled back from her face to trail in a ponytail of small braids from the crown of her head.

Her lips were perfect and outlined in dark red glossy lipstick. She had catlike almond-shaped eyes and an attractive mole right above the left arch of those lips.

Damn, she was the finest-looking woman he'd ever seen. Open­ing the door, he gave her the sexiest smile he could. "Hi, Celena."

But she was all business. Her dark brown eyes didn't even glance his way. They went straight past him, into the house.

"Where's Jeff?"

"Don't know."

That finally succeeded in getting her to look at him, but then she quickly glanced away and continued to search the house with her gaze. "What do you mean, you don't know? After dark, a Dark-Hunter is always supposed to know the whereabouts of his or her Squire."

"Ah, c'mon," he teased. "You don't really tell Ephani every place you go after dark, do you?"

"Of course I do."

She tried to step past him, but he quickly blocked her way and kept her outside on the porch.

"So what do you want with Jeff?" he asked in a nonchalant tone.

"That's Squires' business."

"Really? I thought anything that concerned a Hunter's Squire also concerned the Hunter, since he's my partner, in a purely platonic sense."

The edges of her lips twitched as if she found something funny about his words.

He couldn't explain it, but he really wanted to see a full-blown smile from this woman. "What?"

One corner of her mouth lifted into an attractive grin, but it still wasn't the smile he wanted to see from her. The kind that would light up her eyes and make her laugh. "I was just thinking about Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash—the pirate's credo."

He laughed at that even though he should have been offended. "Jeff is too hairy for my tastes. I much prefer a woman's smooth skin . . . the softness of a female body. I never was one to cuddle a porcupine."

Celena swallowed at the seductive tone in Rafael's deep voice. The sound of it had always reminded her of James Earl Jones, except Rafael's was marked by a heavy Brazilian accent. One that sent a chill down her spine.

She knew she had no business even looking at him with anything remotely similar to lust, and yet the man set her hormones on fire. Especially that wicked scent of masculine power tinged with Brut aftershave. It was a deadly combination.

Not to mention the fact that he was wearing a tight black V-neck sweater that only emphasized how perfectly formed he was. It clung to every dip and bulge of the muscles on his body. How was a woman supposed to keep her mind straight when a man like this was in front of her?

Clearing her throat, she forced her thoughts back to business. "Where is he?"

A devilish glint taunted her from the midnight depths of his eyes. "Tell me what you want with him and I might tell you where he is."

Narrowing her gaze, she found it difficult to maintain her out­raged anger while he looked at her with that playful air. And that se­riously annoyed her. "I'm here to take him into custody and deliver him to the Council."

"Well, that sucks." Even though his tone was sincere, she could tell he was mocking the Council and their orders. "Bank robbery, handing out the passwords for the Dark-Hunter Web site, carjacking, mugging, cats mixing with dogs, and now this . . . writing a short story. High crimes all. You get the rope and we'll hang him for it. God forbid the whole twelve subscribers of that magazine should ac­tually read a fictional story and think it real."

She glared at him. How dare he make light of this. "It has a sub­stantial readership."

"And Jeff used a pseudonym for not only us but himself as well. As the kid says, what better place to hide than under people's noses?" Even as he said that, he couldn't believe he was backing Jeff's story. But then that was what friends should do for each other. "It's noth­ing to worry over."

"Nothing?" She was aghast at his light tone. How could he write this off as if it were nothing more than a simple hangnail that both­ered them? "He's exposed us."

"No, Talon getting filmed in the middle of a hissy fit in New Or­leans exposed us. Zarek getting caught on tape exposed us. This is minor. I mean, damn, Acheron was able to cover up all the others with little incidence. This, too, shall pass."

Not bloody likely. "This is entirely different."

"I agree. Jeff is mortal and only has a handful of years left to him, whereas Talon and Zarek have an eternity to continue being stupid. Let's not shorten the kid's life any more than we have to, shall we?"

He did have a point, but she hated to admit that. Besides, that didn't matter. She was here to do her job. Rafael didn't control her. She was a representative of the Council. "What happens to him isn't my decision. It's the Council's. I'm merely here to collect him."

"He's just a kid."

"He's only two years younger than I am and he's certainly old enough to know to keep his mouth shut."

"Haven't you ever done something you knew you shouldn't and then regretted it?"

She didn't hesitate with her answer. "No."

"No?" he asked incredulously. "You've never once broken a rule, lied, or got away with anything?"

"Only once in junior high when my sister came home late, be­cause I didn't want to get her into trouble. Then one week later, she did it again and was injured in a car wreck, trying to get home be­fore dawn, which taught me the value of lying to help someone. Since then I've never told another one and I don't intend to start now. I have integrity."

"Wow. You have one boring life."

"I resent that."

Those dark eyes teased and tormented her with a mixture of amusement and pity. "Resent all you want, but it's true. How have you managed to live such a perfect life?"

And that she resented even more. "It's not perfect. It has mo­ments of. . ." She paused as she realized what she'd almost let slip. There were times when she really hated how uptight she was. But every time she'd ever tried to do something that was even remotely fun or even the least bit dishonest, she'd paid for it in the worst sort of way.

Like the time in high school when her sister had talked her into skipping school. They'd no more than driven down the street when her sister had plowed into the side of a Mercedes. Or the one time Celena had cut a man off in traffic only to get a flat tire immediately.

She had bad karma, which kept her perpetually toeing the line. If she'd been Jeff, the moment they published that story she'd have probably died of ink poisoning or something equally as bizarre.

But this wasn't about her. It was about a man who'd broken his Squire's oath, and he needed to be reprimanded.

Rafael tilted his head as he waited for her to finish her sentence. She was thinking of something, and from the darkness of her eyes and the furrow of her brow he could tell it was painful for her. "Of?"

Her expression turned blank. "Nothing."

Rafael gave her his best smile as he considered a way to save Jeff and to get him the one thing he wanted most. . . more time with a woman who tempted him.

"C'mon, Celena. Learn to live a little."

"I have rules to follow and a job to do. Surely even you can ap­preciate that."

"But don't you want to break free and have some fun just once in your life?"

She didn't answer, but by the look on her face he could tell that he was getting to her.

"Look," he said, trying to weaken her even more, "let's make a deal. Give me a week and if I can't get you to break one single Squire's rule, I'll hand Jeff over and let you hang him. . . . Hell, I'll even buy the rope. But if I do get you to break a rule . . . one teensy little rule, you'll let him go."

She shook her head. "It'll never work. The Council won't wait a week."

"Sure they will. Tell them you can't find him and that you're looking for him."

Her face hardened. "I can't do that. It's a lie."

She was a tough one. He'd never met anyone with so much re­solve to do the right thing before. But then again, he'd been a pirate in his mortal life and high moral fiber wasn't exactly something they had a plethora of. In fact, those possessed of that madness usually found themselves killed off fairly quickly.

It was part of what he found so fascinating about her. How could someone live her life as she did? He didn't understand it, and a strange part of himself wanted to.

It was the same part of himself that wanted to know more about this woman other than the fact that she looked edible in those black jeans and crop top.

"You know," he said playfully, "it's not a lie. You really don't know where he is, and I can make sure that he runs from you for eternity."

She let out a tired breath as if she were suddenly tired of fighting him. "Why are you doing this?"

For once, Rafael was honest. "Because as stupid as he is, Jeff is a friend of mine, and I'm not going to hang him out to dry."

Celena had to admire that. Many Dark-Hunters could care less what happened to their Squires. To them a Squire was a servant, plain and simple.

"C'mon, Celena." He gave her a wink. "It's the only shot you have at getting him."

"And if I don't break a rule in a week's time?"

"I'll hand him over."

She cocked her head as she considered that. Rafael wasn't exactly known for keeping his word. "You swear?"

"Every day."

She hissed at him. "That's not what I mean and you know it."

For the first time, his handsome face turned completely serious. "On my word as a pirate who died defending his crew, absolutely."

He said it with such conviction that she found herself actually be­lieving it. Besides, he was right. If he wanted to hide Jeff, there wasn't much they could do to reclaim him. And knowing the two of them, Jeff and Rafael would probably rub all their noses in it, too.

"Okay. I'm going to trust you. In seven days, I'll be back to col­lect him. Have him here and waiting."

She turned to leave only to find Rafael's hand on her arm, pulling her to a stop.

"Whoa, wait a sec, love. You don't think it's that easy, do you?"

"How do you mean?"

That devilish gleam returned to his midnight eyes. "There can be no faith without doubt. No strength without temptation. In order for this bargain to stand, you have to be here so that I can oversee your behavior myself."

She stiffened at his implication. "My word is gold."

"And usually mine is pyrite. At the moment, though, to see this through, I want you here to serve me. It's only fair anyway, since you're the reason I'm being deprived of Jeff's service, such as it is."

"Who will look after Ephani?"

"Call in a substitute. That's what you would've had to do to find him anyway, right?"

Celena was beginning to hate this man. "You can't be serious."

"Quite. Now is it a deal, or not? Think quickly before I change the terms again."

And he probably would, too, just to annoy her. "Fine, it's a deal." And yet even as she said those words, she had the sneaking suspicion that she'd just signed her soul away to the devil.

Author's note: This story is set in an alternate Victorian England, Albion, where magical talents, like land and titles of the peerage, are inherited or "entailed" among the Albian aristocracy. Commoners may sometimes manifest "knacks" or minor Residual Talents,

. . . Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. Therefore if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else here­after for ever hold his—"

"I have cause!"

The bishop's mouth dropped open, showing a full set of crooked teeth. The congregation in the pews twisted around with like expres­sions of shock, and a deadly hush fell over St. Bertram's-in-the-Fens.

The man who had spoken stood at the rear of the church, fists clenched in defiance. Though he wore respectable-enough clothing and his hair was neatly combed, his accent was that of the Eirish commons, and it was immediately clear to Lady Olivia Dowling that he did not belong in this exalted company of Albion's most noble patricians. Lord Edward Parish, still kneeling at the altar, glared at the intruder with such ire that he seemed very apt to display his Lucifer-ian powers and start a fire right then and there.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

The unwelcome guest faltered beneath several score hostile, un­wavering stares and then gathered his courage. "My name does not matter," he said, his voice booming up to the buttresses. He looked directly at Lady Emma, bride-to-be and daughter of the Earl of Wakefield. "If only you had told me the truth. I would have under­stood. I—"

He broke off, his ruddy skin going pale. Olivia frowned and stud­ied him more carefully, sinking deep into her Talent as an Anatomist. The man's body betrayed him. His heart had begun to beat very fast, his palms to sweat, his eyes to widen with violent alarm. Olivia glanced again at Edward, who still stood at the altar. Lady Emma swayed, and Edward caught her against him.

The bishop finally found his voice. "Who are you?" he echoed. "You have interrupted a most solemn ceremony. What have you to say?"

When it was over, Olivia could not have said precisely what she had felt before the man bolted. It was rather as if she heard some­thing through his ears, an eerie wail that could not have come from a mortal throat. She knew that the stranger was consumed by such dreadful fear that it seemed that his heart must burst from his body.

He spun about, fell to one knee, scrambled to his feet, and charged for the doors, keening in despair.

A woman screamed. Everyone rose in a rustle of long skirts and the shuffle of polished shoes, and a trio of guests at the rear of the nave pursued the intruder out into the watery London sunshine. Olivia heard a rough, masculine cry of sheer terror, and then silence. A moment later one of the guests returned, his expression set and grim. He started for the altar, where Lady Emma trembled in Ed­ward's arms.

"I beg your pardon," Olivia said to her nearest neighbors as she squeezed past them out of the aisle. She looked about for Kit and, not seeing him, strode for the doors.

A flood of wedding guests poured out of the church, crowding about Olivia as she paused at the top of the steps. A woman at Olivia's elbow gasped, and a gentleman cursed under his breath.

The stranger lay at the bottom of the steps, his body twisted, his head bent at an improbable angle. One of the guests crouched by his side. Christopher Meredith—"Kit" to his dearest friends—was par­ticularly handsome today in his wedding clothes, his unruly black hair tamed into a semblance of order and no whiff of the Black Dog about him, though he wore his smoke-lensed spectacles to hide the crimson glint in his eyes.

Olivia remembered the third guest who had followed the unfor­tunate stranger and searched the crowd of gawkers that had gathered in the square to point and gossip. She caught a glimpse of a gentle­man's well-cut suit, an impression of aristocratic features, just before the man turned and vanished into the mob.

Olivia lifted her skirts and rushed down the steps with indecorous haste. Kit looked up as she joined him.

"Lady Olivia," he said, inclining his head with grave formality. "I'm afraid he has passed on."

Olivia knelt beside him, calling upon her fickle Residual gift and praying that this time it would obey her summons. In an instant she knew that Kit's diagnosis was correct.

"He appears to have died of a broken neck," she murmured. "What do you suppose he was running away from?"

"Probably thought better of his dashed interruption in a church filled to the rafters with Talent and a bridegroom capable of frying him in his boots."

Olivia clucked. "This is no time for levity, Kit. He was terrified before he fled the church, as if he'd seen a . . ."

A what? she asked herself. Unless one of the guests was an Illu­sionist or an extremely rare Conjuror, it was highly unlikely that the man could have seen an apparition invisible to the guests. And yet. . .

"There's a stink of magic in the air," Kit said more seriously, "but I can't identify it. It isn't human, that's certain."

"Then he was driven to his death by supernatural means."

Kit frowned. "It's possible. But just as I arrived, I saw a man in wedding clothes departing the scene. It wouldn't be difficult to trip someone fleeing down the stairs in a state of mortal terror."

"And if this man was murdered . . ." She bit her lip. "Who would want to silence a man with objections to a marriage?"

She and Kit exchanged glances. The motives were obvious when one wished to protect the reputation of one's daughter ... or fiancee.

"Lord Wakefield wouldn't stoop to such an act, even if he antici­pated this disturbance in time to arrange the murder," Olivia protested. "And as for Edward . . ."

"Impossible," Kit agreed. "But whatever or whoever contributed to this man's end, the devil's in it now. The police are on their way, although I'm sure that Lord Wakefield will arrange to keep the mat­ter quiet. The bishop will call a halt to the proceedings pending an investigation . . . and as the subject is dead . . ."

"Poor Emma. What an odious thing to happen on one's wedding day." She shook her head. "Will you see Edward?"

"Yes. He'll be distraught, but Emma . . ." He sighed. "You should go to her, Livvy. Her mother will be having a fit of the vapors, and her other relations won't help in the least."

"Of course." She touched Kit's arm. "I'll see you later, then."

She hurried back up the stairs and continued on through the nave to the vestry, where Emma sat surrounded by her family and a most agitated clergyman. Emma's sister was weeping, Lord Wakefield was pacing furiously, his wife the countess lay prostrate on a settee, and Edward was nowhere to be seen.

Olivia went straight to Emma and took her icy hands. "Are you all right, my dear?" she asked gently.

Emma met Olivia's gaze, her eyes great wells of misery. "Edward is furious," she whispered. "The wedding must be postponed. And I hear that the young man is dead. . . ."

"Hush." Olivia stroked a loose strand of hair away from Emma's face. "Don't trouble yourself about that now. I want to help you, Emma. Can you answer a few questions?"

"I . . . believe so."

"Good girl. Have you ever seen that man before?"

Olivia felt Emma's heart jump, but her answer was swift and ve­hement. "No."

"He is of Eirish descent. You know no one from that country?"

"Only servants, and they would have no cause—" She broke off and raised her handkerchief to her mouth, stifling a sob.

She was clearly in no state to cooperate in any investigation, so Olivia comforted the thwarted bride with every reassurance she could muster. "Don't worry, my dear. I will do whatever I can to help you."

Emma sniffed but didn't answer. Olivia took her leave and went back outside, where the guests were finally beginning to disperse. The police had come and gone, taking the body with them.

"Any luck?" Kit asked, coming up beside her.

"None. Apparently Emma didn't know the man, although . . ."

Kit arched a brow. "Although what?"

"There is something very peculiar about the entire situation."

"And you naturally wish to get to the bottom of it."

"Naturally. Emma is in a great deal of distress. If the investiga­tors determine that the stranger was in fact made to fall, suspicion could descend upon Emma's family. This could be a scandal of epic proportions—"

"And you could never contain your curiosity in any case."

Olivia wrinkled her nose. "Don't tell me that you have not re­solved to take action yourself."

"But of course. I am Edward's friend, after all." Kit offered his arm, and they walked in the direction of Olivia's waiting carriage. "But I would never dream of doing so without you at my side."

"Or you at mine." They smiled at each other, content in the per­fect understanding of a long and durable friendship.