Part 44 (1/2)

With Ballard teetering on the precipice, Locke was even more of a thorn in my side.

When I got home, my landlady was in a funk. ”Not you too?” I said. She eyed me beadily.

”You have new hallway person,” she said, ”living down hall.”

”You mean a new Housemate?” I said.

She nodded, but there was something calculating in her look. Like she was waiting for me to do something. I decided to effect my escape forthwith, before my landlady could criticize me further. It was at the vending machine I saw her... This new person...

She was exiting the door beyond the hall, with her back to me, pulling at a handcart, when she turned, facing me. It happened in slow motion.

One second, I was getting an energy drink, the next I saw a bunch of cardboard boxes, and was just about to say h.e.l.loperhaps go over the do's and don'ts of the place, such as do avoid the landlady, do not look too directly at herwhen I saw who it was... Vittoria... Her forehead creased. ”You,” she said. She looked at me, menacingly.

I saw her look at my Wiccan Mark. Luckily, it was concealed underneath my sleeve.

”Me,” I concurred.

”What are you doing here?” she asked. ”You don't mean to say you live here?”

”For a while now. Why?”

”That's just perfect,” she said.

I wanted to know where she had beenwhat she was up to; if she was any nearer to figuring out this whole Wiccan thing? If, in fact, it required kowtowing to the likes of Ravenseal?

”None of your business,” she said.

We stared at each other for a full five seconds. Finally, I nodded, and turned the key to my room. ”You suck, Vittoria,” I muttered underneath my breath.

It was important I emanc.i.p.ate myself. Seeing Vittoria thereremembering how she had done it, I sat at my desk, removing the stationery from my desk drawer. Next, I fished out the brochures from when Vittoria and I had been Initiates, during the whole recruitment phase. I flipped through some of them. All the Initiates had swapped brochures like trading cards. London looked magnificent. Old, otherworldly. But it was Prague which stopped my eye. The brochure for Ravenseal was ornate. I found its address. A letter addressed there would reach her, I was sure. Veruschka Ravenseal.

Someone had written on the stationery before me. So I pulled off a few pages with the ghosts of scribbles on them, and began afresh.

To Whom It May Concern... Though privately I knew it would go directly to Veruschka...

I was flattered when I really enjoyed meeting I thank you for your interest in selecting me I need more time to sort out certain of my affairs.

Obviously, I wrote, that means a delay in when your man should be sent. Why SHOULD he be sent? I don't NEED I decided to begin again: Dear Veruschka.

It's me, Halsey. I'll be there later.

In Prague, I mean.

My friend is getting married.

I want to be here, for the ceremony.

Don't send your man. Just don't.

Halsey.

That would have to suffice. I didn't sign it Rookmaaker. At this point, whatever happened would. If Veruschka Ravenseal was coming for me, so be it. I sealed it and flipped through the brochures some more, looking for a way out.

The fact was, Rome was home. I didn't want to go anyplace else. Perhaps I was becoming like Lia. Set in my ways.

Prague scared me. I didn't know why.

In fact, I did know why.

It was almost like they thought they could do whatever they pleased, in Praguewith the Hunters and somesuch. Hadn't Ravenseal ever heard the word no before?

The delay was dishonest, but I didn't care, I had things to do. For starters, it had become imperative I find my Wiccan House immediately.

Chapter 4 Il Gatto.

Our sleek heads broke through the cover of cloud, going up the mountainside in the ski lift, Lennoxlove strapped to his Burton. I had never seen him in the sun before. ”I didn't know vampires skied,” I said.

”s...o...b..ard, actually,” he corrected.

Below us I could just make out the tiny figures of Dallace and Camille. It was a moment before I realized Camille had also been a Wiccan (as if it could go away). There was more to her story; I chided myself for never having asked it, the question I needed to have answered. She and I were practically family.

I watched as she pulled off a spectacular McTwisting something-or-other, backside quadruple whatever. Straight into Dallace's arms.

Lennox looked happy.

I felt the chairlift ticking below me: we were high up. And then, I don't know how this happened, it was like he was controlling it. Lennox pulled a lever and we stopped.

And we swung, high up, between the sheer sides of a plummeting gorge.

Lennox said, ”We never let anyone come this far who hasn't first committed to going all the way.”

I a.s.sumed he meant me.

”Lennox... I reallyI don't know what you mean...” I said, beginning to shake, and looking over the side of the lift. He had just warned me against something. What? Dallace and Camille's smiling faces were gone. Instead, I was hanging over an abyss.

And then the large metal cable which supported us began to give way, giving that eerie whine of taut tearing steel. And ”Lennoxlove...” I said.

We began to fall.

I woke from the dreamsweating profusely, tearing myself away from the memory of it. He had reached out for me, when the wind had whipped us apart. I could still feel his fingertips grasping for my own.

And then I looked around, groggy-eyed and confused, for I had just heard him. Here in my bedroom. Lennoxlove. And I thought for a moment he had come out of my dreams, a kind of hallucinatory experience I had not had since I was a child, when the world held a kind of charm which could only be interpreted as magical.