Strange Brew

"I am a bad witch," I said. "I've spent the last three summers in Inverness with my aunt Maggie, who hates me, and the best we've accomplished is to give me enough control over my magic so that things don't blow up or burst into flames anymore. Even Maggie thinks I'm a bad witch. And possibly evil."

"She doesn't hate you, darling. She's just afraid of what you are, and I think she's also a bit jealous."

"Of me? For the love of the Goddess, why? She's got more magic in her little finger than I could even think about calling."

He stopped kissing the side of my knee and looked up at me. In the candlelight, his cheekbones stood out in sharp relief, making his beautiful face look more than a little dangerous.

"Not more magic," he said, "and not better magic. I've seen your magic, Cin, and your aunt ca

I smiled and reached down, pushing a lock of dark blond hair off his forehead. "But what if I never figure it out, Michael?" I asked softly. "I have all this power, I can feel it inside me, but I just can't seem to get it to work the way it's supposed to. My spells are a disaster and only work a fraction of the time. The rest of the time I have to be careful that I don't accidentally…"

"Turn someone into a weasel?" he asked.

And, yes, I had done that once. I groaned and flopped down against the pillows.

"Cin, sweetheart, love of my undead life," Michael said as he trailed kisses up the inside of my thigh, "it's only been three years. You're the first witch anyone's ever heard of who's been turned into a vampire and still kept her powers. We have eternity ahead of us. Have some patience, and it will come to you."

I snorted. "You know very well that I'm the least patient person—"

"Are you going to talk the entire way through this?" he asked as his breath caressed the most intimate part of me. I shivered as his mouth hovered there, almost touching but not quite, and everything I was about to say went clean out of my head. "Because I have more interesting things you can do with your mouth, mo ghraidh."

I giggled and raised my arms over my head, grasping the headboard, stretching my body across the decadent satin sheets to display my curves and valleys to their best advantage. "Oh, no," I replied with a wicked grin, "I'm finished. Please continue."

He lowered his head, and I heard the wood under my fingers crack as I called his name.

Sometimes i have premonitions. It's a gift I inherited from my father, as I inherited my magic from my mother. What I feel is never a solid knowledge of what's to come, but a nebulous feeling of unease that something is wrong, or about to be. It happens sporadically enough that I know that just because I don't feel that I'm in danger, it doesn't mean I'm not. On the other hand, whenever I do feel it, I know without a doubt not to ignore it.

I woke with Michael's body curled against my back, his right arm slung over me. I blinked several times, wondering what had pulled me from my sleep, and then I felt it. My stomach dropped, as if I'd just fallen from a great height, and chills broke out along my skin. I threw the covers off and jumped from the bed. I checked the lock on the door, then starting tossing clothes at Michael.

"Michael, get up. Something's wrong," I said, and threw his boots at him.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know," I replied, "it's only a feeling, but I'll be damned if I'm going to get caught naked in bed by a bunch of vampire slayers. I have no wish to repeat what happened in Austria last year. Fighting naked is just awkward."

I struggled into the leather riding breeches I'd had on last night. Getting into them was not easy, but the only things I'd unpacked thus far were dresses. I would rather not fight in a dress if I had a choice in the matter. Actually, I would rather not be fighting at all. Michael and I, along with our companions Devlin and Justine, spent most of our undead lives hunting and executing rogue vampires but this trip to Venice was supposed to be a holiday. As a human, I had always wanted to see the city and it was one of the places Michael had promised to take me when he'd turned me into a vampire three years ago. Pushing down all thoughts of romantic gondola rides, I pulled my boots on. I had just reached for my dagger when the first blow hit the apartment's door. I winced and hoped that Devlin and Justine had heard the crash from their rooms down the hall. If it came to a fight, I certainly wanted our friends at our backs. Michael grabbed his claymore and stalked from the bedroom, wearing nothing but his pants and boots. I hastily pulled his shirt on over my head, tucked the dagger into the waistband of my breeches, and followed him.

The third blow cracked the frame, and the door swung drunkenly in on one hinge. Five men and two women swarmed into the room. I choked on the smell of sulfur and blood. Witches, then. Ones who practiced dark magic. Michael glanced at me, and then pulled the great claymore from its scabbard. A tall man, apparently the leader, stepped forward. The wizard wore dark clothes and a black cloak. He might have been handsome, even with his slightly receding hairline and a nose that was too large for his face, if it hadn't been for the fact that evil and dark dealings radiated from him like heat from the sun. The tip of Michael's claymore came to rest at the man's throat.

"Cosa volete?" Michael asked. "What do you want?"

Despite this invasion, Michael would be reluctant to run the man through. The Dark Council and the High King himself frowned on vampires killing humans, and the wizard had not offered us violence. Yet.

The man never spoke. He simply raised his right hand to his mouth, palm up, and blew across his palm. A cloud of pink powder swirled into the air and, before I could shout a warning, Michael's sword clattered to the floor and he collapsed beside it. I rushed forward, falling to my knees next to him. I turned Michael's face to me, and brushed his hair away, ru

I glared up at the man, fear squeezing my heart. "What have you done, wizard?"

The man smiled, and it was not a nice smile. I lunged for Michael's sword and had just wrapped my fingers around the hilt when the wizard's companions fell on me like a pack of wolves. Fingers dug into me from all directions as I rose to my feet. The four men had taken hold of my arms and one of the women had grabbed me around the waist. The other woman had attached herself to my legs, trying to pull me back down. I threw my weight backward and the women fell to the floor in a tangle of skirts and limbs. Pulling my sword arm in front of me, I forced the two men holding my right arm to stumble forward and I brought my knee up into one man's groin. He released his grip on me, falling to his knees in a howl of agony. I jerked my arm from the other one's grasp and slammed my elbow into his nose. Swinging Michael's claymore in a wide arc toward the other men, I smiled as they released their hold on me.

"Codardi!" one of the women shrieked as the men stumbled back in fear.

She stood, with her steel-gray hair disheveled around her face and a maniacal look in her eyes, and raised her hands toward me. My Italian wasn't good enough to follow what she was saying, but the slow, deliberate cadence of her voice certainly made it sound like a spell. I was not about to give her the opportunity to finish it. I called up my own magic, feeling it build within me, and hoped that just this once it would do as I bid it.