The Witch: Book Two of The Sorceress Saga by Taliesin Govannon (important books to read .txt) 📕

to me in a time of need almost a year before, and we had hardly gotten a chance to know each other before his Fae blood kicked in and made him spend much of his time in animal form.  If he could spend some time in the Fae lands he might stand a chance of learning to control things, but the Fae forbade their kind to mate with humans and banned their offspring from ever entering their realm.

                An idea, origin unknown, entered my head.  “Can I try something?” I asked, my hands held up as if to say yes, I'm talking about magick.

                He looked at me warily.  I couldn't blame him, in that his animal shape was the end result of his human form not being able to handle the Fae magick that was a heritage of his non-human side.  “Does it involve any strange drugs or potions?”

                “Not at all.”

                “Well, I'll let you try it anyway.” he sighed, trying to sound disappointed.

                I placed my hands on either side of his head and closed my eyes.  I could immediately feel the Fae energy, which I saw as a purple mist, slowly rising.  I could also see his human energy pushing back against it.

                “That purple fog is a bitch.” he said cattily.

                “Let me show you something.” I replied, grinning.

                I reached with my senses through him to the ground and started drawing pure white light from the Earth up into his body.  The Fae energy, under assault from both sides, slowly started to weaken and fade.  Soon it was gone entirely, even though I knew that it would return.

                I opened my eyes and saw Starr's face, beaming, looking back at me.

                “That was seriously brilliant!” he said, wonder in his voice.  “Can you teach me to do that?”

                “I can give it a shot.” I replied, my smile matching his own.

                “I think I'm going to use some clothes now.”

                “That's not a bad idea.”

                                                                                                *                *                *

                I set Starr up in a spare bedroom where he could practice his meditation while I tried to rustle up some clothing for him.  He said that he might take a literal cat nap, so I threw an extra fluffy blanket over the bed to make it a suitable cat nest and shut the door to give him some privacy.

                I was looking through one of Angelique's many stashes of wardrobes she had accumulated through the centuries when Evelyn Hawkins walked in the room.

                “Hey there!” I greeted her.

                “Hello.” She replied.  She looked around at the copious number of chests lining the walls, each stuffed with clothes of various eras and styles.  “Are all of these filled with clothes?”

                “Yes, and this is only about ten percent of the collection housed here.  Other locations have even bigger stashes.”

                “And Trevor tries to accuse me of being a clothes horse!” she said, rolling her eyes.

                I smiled.  “I've heard that Angelique's really bad, and she's had sixteen centuries to accumulate stuff!”

                I would have said that Angelique definitely had something for her, but I had no idea just what Evelyn's 'off the clock' fashion sense was.  I had only seen her in her self-described 'work clothes', a skin-tight leather bodysuit that left nothing to the imagination when it came to her curvy figure.  Her long blonde hair was in its usual ponytail, and her boots were just as snug as her clothing.  The only thing missing from her being mistaken for a dominatrix from a bad Hollywood movie was the fact that her boots were flat, with no tall heels.  "Only stunt twats fight in heels!" she had already proclaimed in her brief tenure at the mansion.

                Jack had tried to flirt with her in his usual nerdy manner their first night here, of course, but quickly gave up when she announced that she was into women exclusively.  Her body looked a little like Angelique's when I knew her in Ancient Greece, and I could see why she probably didn't lack for dates.

                “I wanted to thank you,” I said, breaking the silence, “you and your brother, for coming out to lend us a hand.  It's looking like we'll need all of the help we can get.”

                “Yeah, well,” she said, looking a little uneasy, “ about that.  I mean, we're happy to help, but... we didn't volunteer.  We were hired.”

                “Hired?  By who, Vincent? Angelique?”  I was seriously thrown by her admission.

                “Neither, actually.”  Evelyn settled down on a closed chest near where I was sitting.  “You see, it wasn't just the vampire duo who knew that your time as the Sorceress was coming.”

                “I know that some weren't happy.” I said, remembering the attacks on this and my Mom's houses just before and after my graduation.

                “It's not about not liking that there's a new Sorceress, it's also about being afraid.” she explained.  “While there are few who have ever encountered a Sorceress, there are lots of stories, and few of them good for various supernatural creatures of the malicious and cruel varieties.  If you go bad before the settling is done, then a lot of good guys are threatened.  Your existence threatens a lot of people, in their minds.”

                “And did one of the good guys hire you?”

                “They're the only ones we would have taken the job from.  Partly because we're not stupid enough to attack someone under the protection of a vampire as powerful as Angelique, but also because I believe in giving everyone a chance to prove themselves.”  she said with a smile.

                I smiled back, her attention making me feel... I don't know, lighter somehow.  Then the smile faded.  “If I do go bad, what are you supposed to do?”

                “Officially? Report to our boss on this job.  Unofficially?”  Her own smile faded.  “Probably join with Angelique and Vincent to stop you.”

                The thought didn't do much to help.