Hands on hips, Thea said, "When will they learn that witches never wore po inty hats?"
Dani snorted, her heart-shaped face surprisingly dangerous. "You know, mayb e your cousin has the right idea after all."
Thea looked at her, startled.
"Well, they are an inferior species. You have to admit that. And maybe it s ounds prejudiced, but then they"re so prejudiced themselves." She leaned cl oser to Thea. "You know, they even have prejudices against skin."
She held out her arm. Thea looked at the flawless skin, which was a deep, c lear brown. "They"d think we were two different races," Dani said, pressing her arm against Thea"s tan one. "And that maybe one was better than the ot her one."
Thea couldn"t deny it. All she could say, feebly, was, "Well, two wrongs don"t make a right. . . ."
"But three lefts do!" Dani burst out, finishing the old witch carol. Then she dissolved into laughter and led Thea to the patio.
"Let"s see, they should be over there. . . . Oh. Oops."
Oops, Thea thought.
Vivienne and Selene were at a secluded table on the far side. Blaise was wit h them.
"I should have known she"d find them first thing," Thea muttered. From the way the three girls had their heads together, it looked as if trouble were brewing already.
As Thea and Dani approached the table, Blaise looked up. "Where"ve you bee n?" she said, waving a finger reproachfully. "I"ve been waiting to introdu ce you."
Everybody said h.e.l.lo. Then Thea sat down and studied the other two girls.
Vivienne had fox-red hair and looked tall even sitting down. Her face was animated; she seemed sparkling with energy. Selene was a platinum blond with sleepy blue eyes. She was smaller, and moved with languid grace.
Now, how do I politely say, "Please help me suppress my cousin?" Thea wondered. She could already tell it wouldn"t be much use. Viv and Selene seeme d to be under Blaise"s spell already-they turned to her every other second as if checking for approval. Even Dani was watching Blaise with something like fascinated awe.
Blaise had that effect on people.
"So we were just talking about guys," Selene said, twirling a straw languoro usly in her bottle of Snapple iced tea. Thea"s heart plummeted.
"Toyboys," Vivienne clarified in a lovely melodious voice. Thea felt the be ginnings of a bad headache.
No wonder Blaise is smirking, she thought. These girls are just like her. S he"d seen it at other schools: young witches who seemed to flirt with break ing Night World law by flaunting inhuman power over boys.
"Aren"t there any of our kind of guys here?" Thea asked, as a last hope.
Vivienne rolled her eyes. "One soph.o.m.ore. Alaric Breedlove, Circle Twilight.
That"s it. This place is a desert-no pun intended."
Thea wasn"t really surprised. There were always more witch girls than guy s-and n.o.body seemed to know why. More girls got born, more survived to gr ow up. And in some places the ratio was particularly unbalanced.
"So we just have to make do," Selene drawled. "But that can be fun sometim es. Homecoming dance is this Sat.u.r.day, and I"ve got my boy all picked out.
"So," Blaise said, "have I." She glanced at Thea significantly.
And there it was. Thea felt her throat close.
"Eric Ross," Blaise said, savoring the words. "And Viv and Sel have told me allll about him."
"Eric?" Dani said. "He"s the basketball star, isn"t he?"
"And the baseball star," Vivienne said in her beautiful voice. "And the tenn is star. And he"s smart-he takes honors courses and works at the animal hosp ital, too. He"s studying to get into U.C. Davis. To be a vet, you know."
So that"s why he cared about the snake, Thea thought. And why he"s got fla tworms in his notebook.
"And he"s so cute," Selene murmured. "He"s so shy with girls-he can hardly talk around them. None of us have gotten anywhere with him."
"That"s because you used the wrong methods," Blaise said, and her eyes we re very smoky.
Thea"s insides seemed hollow and there was a circlet of pain around her head . She did the only thing she could think of.
"Blaise," she said. She looked her cousin directly in the face, making an op en appeal. "Blaise, listen. I hardly ever ask anything of you, right? But no w I"m asking something. I want you to leave Eric alone. Can you do that-for me? For the sake of Unity?"
Blaise blinked slowly. She took a long drink of iced tea. "Why, Thea, you"re getting all worked up."
"Ism not."
"I didn"t know you cared."
"I don"t. I mean-of course I don"t care about him. But I"m worried about you , about all of us. I think . . ." Thea hadn"t meant to say this, but she fou nd the words spilling out anyway. "I think he might have some suspicions abo ut us. This morning he told me that I seemed so different from other girls.
. . ." She managed to stop herself before she mentioned that he"d guessed sh e had healed him. That would be incredibly dangerous, especially since she d idn"t know who Vivienne or Selene might blab to.
Blaise"s pupils were large. "You mean-you think he"s a psychic?"
"No, no." She knew he wasn"t a psychic. She"d been inside his mind, and he wasn"t from any lost witch family. He didn"t have any powers. He was as much a human as that snake had been a snake.
"Well, then," Blaise said. She chuckled, a rich, rippling sound. "He just thi nks you"re different-and that"s hardly something to worry about. We want them to think we"re different."
She didn"t understand. And Thea couldn"t explain. Not without getting hersel f into very hot water.
"So, if you don"t mind, we"ll just consider my claim staked," Blaise said cour teously. "Now, let"s see, what to do with the boys at the dance. First, I thin k we need to spill their blood."
"Spill what?" Dani said, sitting up.
"Just a little blood," Blaise told her absently. "It"s going to be absolutely vit al for some of the spells we"ll want to do later."
"Well, good luck," Dani said. "Humans don"t like blood-they"re going to run like bunnies from you after that."
Blaise regarded her with a half-smile. "I don"t think so," she said. "You don"
t understand this business yet. If it"s done right, they don"t run. They"re sc ared; they"re shocked; and they just keep coming back for more."
Dani looked shocked herself-and still fascinated. "But why do you want to hurt them?"
"We"re just doing what comes naturally," Blaise purred.
I don"t care Thea thought, it"s none of my business.
She heard herself say, "No."
She was staring at a pile of squashed napkins in her hand. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Blaise"s exasperated expression. The others might not know what Thea was s aying no to, but Blaise always understood her cousin.
"I asked you before if you wanted him," Blaise said. "And you said you did n"t. So now you"re changing your mind? You"re going to play him?"Thea stared at her wad of napkins. What could she say? I can"t because I"m s cared? I can"t because something happened between him and me this morning an d I don"t know what it was? I can"t because if I keep seeing him I have this feeling I might break the law, and I don"t mean the one about never telling humans that we exist; I mean the other one, the one about never falling in love. . . .
Don"t be ridiculous.
That sort of thing is out of the question, she told herself. All you want is to keep him from ending up like Randy Marik. And you can do that without ge tting involved.
"I"m saying I want him," she said out loud.
"You"re going to play him?"
"I"m going to play him."
"Well." Instead of snarling, Blaise laughed. "Well, congratulations. My little cousin is growing up at last."
"Oh, please." Thea gave her a look. She and Blaise had been born on two di fferent days-just barely. Blaise had been born one minute before midnight, and Thea one minute after. It was another reason they were so connected-b ut Thea hated it when Blaise acted older.
Blaise just smiled, her gray eyes glinting. "And, look-there"s lover boy right now," she said, feigning elaborate surprise. The a followed her nod and saw a figure with sandy hair and long legs at the othe r side of the patio.
"What luck," Blaise said. "Why don"t you just walk over and ask him to the dance?"
CHAPTER 4.
At that moment Thea almost hated her cousin.
But there was no choice. Four pairs of eyes were watching her: Blaise"s gra y eyes, Vivienne"s emerald green, Selene"s dear blue, and Dani"s velvety da rk ones. They were waiting.
Thea got up and began the long walk across the patio.
She felt as if everyone was watching her. She tried to keep her steps measure d and confident, her face serene. It wasn"t easy. The closer she got to that sandy hair, the more she wanted to turn and run. She had tunnel vision now: e verything on the sides was a blur; the only clear thing was Eric"s profile.
Just as she got within earshot, he glanced up and saw her coming.
He looked startled. For a moment his eyes met hers: a deeper green than Vi vienne"s, more intense and more innocent.
Then, without a word, he turned away and walked quickly down a path bet ween two buildings. He was gone before Thea knew what was happening.
She stood rooted to the ground. There was a huge amount of empty s.p.a.ce inside her, with only her uncomfortably pounding heart trying to fill it.
Okay; he hates me. I don"t blame him. Maybe it"s good; maybe Blaise will s ay we can all forget him now. But when she went back to the shady table, Blaise was frowning thoughtfully.
"You just don"t have the technique yet," she said. "Never mind. I can coach you."
"Viv and I can help, too," Selene murmured. "You"ll learn fast."
"No-thank you," Thea said. Her pride was hurt and her cheeks were on fire.
"I can do it myself. Tomorrow. I have a plan already."
Dani squeezed her hand under the table. "You"ll do fine."
Blaise said, "Just make sure it"s tomorrow. Or I might think you don"t really want him."
And then, to Thea"s immense relief, the bell rang.
"Hawthorne, yarrow, angelica . . ." Thea peered through the thick blue gla.s.s of an unlabeled jar. "Some kind of nasty powder . . ."
She was in the front room of her grandmother"s shop, deserted now because i t was closed for the evening. Just being with all these herbs and gems and amulets gave her a feeling of comfort. Of control.
I love this place, she thought, looking around at the floor-to-ceiling shelves of bottles and boxes and dusty vials. One who le wall was devoted to trays of stones-unpolished and polished, rare and s emiprecious, some with symbols or words of power engraved on them, some di rty and fresh from the earth. Thea liked putting her hands in them and mur muring their names: tourmaline, amethyst, honey topaz, white jade.
And then there were the good-smelling herbs: everything you needed to cure indigestion or to call a lover; to soothe arthritis or to curse your land lord. Some of these-the simples-worked whether you were a witch or not. Th ey were just natural remedies, and Gran even sold them to humans. But the real spells required both arcane knowledge and psychic power, and no human could make them active.
Thea was whipping up a real spell.
First, heartsease. That was good for any love charm. Thea opened a canister and fingered the dried purple and yellow flowers gently. Then she dropped a handful of them into a fine mesh bag.
What else? Rose petals were a given. She unstopped a large ceramic jar and got a whiff of sweetness as she sprinkled them in.
Chamomile, yes. Rosemary, yes. Lavender . . . she twisted the cork out of a small vial of lavender essence. She could use some of that right this minute . She mixed it in her palm with a teaspoon of jojoba oil then dabbed the fra grant liquid on her temples and at the back of her neck.
Blood, flow! Headache, go!The tension in her neck started to ease almost instantly. She took a long br eath and looked around.
Some bones of the earth would help. Rose quartz carved in the shape of a he art for attraction. A lump of raw amber for charm. Oh, and throw in a lode- stone for magnetism and a couple of small garnets for fire.
It was done. Tomorrow morning she"d take a bath, letting this giant tea bag in fuse the water while she burned a circle of red candles. She"d soak in the pot ent mixture, letting the smell of it, the essence of it, seep into her skin. A nd when she got out, she"d be irresistible.
She was about to walk away when a leather pouch caught her eye.
No. Not that, she told herself. You"ve got a mixture here to promote interest and affection. It"s plenty strong enough just to get him to listen to you.
You don"t want anything stronger.
But she found herself picking up the soft pouch anyway. Opening it, just to l ook inside.