Hunter had taken the rejection well but found a reason to be on her way as I started crossing the Covenstead. Johnny walked to the front of the stage and turned to check the backdrop and the scene from an audience viewpoint. His arms were crossed over his chest.

Pausing beside him I said, "You patch things with Erik?"

"Theo checked on the contract. You were right."

"If it's what you guys want…"

"He's not sure now that he knows the vampire connection. Feral's not sure either."

"What do you want?"

He turned and took a good look at me as if he hadn't realized I was in costume until then. "Wow." His awareness lingered in my chest area too. "More of what I already had."

My cheeks flushed. "Would you settle for a dozen or so of your remaining kisses?"

"Wanna see my tour bus, little girl?"

After glancing at the front of his pants, I said, "Didn't I already take a ride on your bus?"

He laughed, low and hungrily. "Well, the one parked out back is almost as big."

"Almost?" I laughed.

He grabbed my hand and led me around the stage to the south doors and out. "I stopped at the Rock Hall and retrieved your blazer."

"You did?"

It wasn't a bus, but a box truck that sat with the back open like a black, gaping mouth. "That's what a good boyfriend would do, isn't it?"

"B-boyfriend?"

The Covenstead door clanged shut behind us, and he grabbed me into an embrace. "Yeah," he whispered. His hand was hot on the back of my neck as he held me and kissed me with an intense passion. I felt as if I were melting. When he finally broke away he said casually, "You know, ma'am, I'm eager for the position and I think I'm very qualified to do a satisfactory job."

"Yeah," I said. My semi-molten brain wasn't up to witty rejoinder.

The night was bright with the just-past-full moon to light it and the air was cool as it swirled around us, lifting the cedar and sage smell of him to my nostrils. My ears gave a little pop like a bubble bursting. It reminded me of Aquula's bubble in the grove—

The protrepticus rang again.

Johnny broke off. "You got a cell?" he asked, incredulous.

The ringtone wasn't antique phone this time; it was something else.

"And your ringtone is an old Black Sabbath tune?"

I heard lyrics about fairies wearing boots.

Fairies. Oh Goddess.

Hearing a muffled scream, I pulled away from Johnny and moved around the box truck. I heard Johnny right behind me.

Beyond the parking lot, in the grass of the Covenstead grounds stood three short, costumed teenagers, and one of them was restraining Beverley, still in her mermaid costume.

They weren't teens. They were fairies.

The brunette male growled as Beverley struggled against him. She almost slipped away, but his slightly elongated fingers stayed fastened over her mouth and he jerked her roughly against him. I saw that his dark vest glinted with gold embroidery as did his breeches. A large jeweled brooch gleamed against a lacey cravat.

The female stepped forward. "We've lost our mermaid. So we took yours." Even in the distorting illumination I could tell her skin was red and her hair a shade of the same. She wore a wreath of tiny flowers in her hair and a gossamer tunic dress that matched her coloring.

"Release her!" I demanded. Johnny, standing just behind my shoulder, gave a low growl.

"Come and make us," the red fairy said.

I didn't exactly know how to stop fairies. My mind blanked.

She answered my hesitation by saying, "Cerebrosus, the honor is thine."

The third fairy, a light-haired male with yellowish eyes that afforded him an air of uncontrollability, stepped up beside the female. He wore breeches with a shirt under a brocade surcoat. He leered at me as she offered him a sheath.

Suddenly, many things happened at once. My mind registered the weapon and Beverley's danger. I started forward. Though running, time seemed to slow, and all sounds became muffled. The yellow-eyed fairy pulled the dagger from the sheath. The southern doors opened behind me… I felt the air current of their movement. I felt Johnny at my heels. I heard Menessos's voice, chanting, loud through the fog that had filled my ears. The yellow-eyed fairy turned and raised the gleaming dagger, ready to strike Beverley.

I was too slow. I could not speed myself up. I would not make it to Beverley in time.

The fairies suddenly blurred toward me, like ink smearing in water. Lines of color slid over the cars separating us.

Beverley fell to the soft grass.

I was there, picking her up. "Beverley, honey, are you okay?" A second later, Johnny was beside us.

"Yes." She hugged me so tightly. "I was so scared. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for."

"I took it off. The necklace Demeter gave me. I didn't wear it because of my costume. And the fairies took me, just like in the story."

Johnny put his hand on my back and we both sighed with relief.

But it was too soon.

The sounds of fighting came from behind us.

Menessos, Goliath, and Aquula were fighting the three fairies.

Aquula?

And then I understood. Menessos had used his bond with them; he'd called them all to him as if to guard a circle. He'd done it to remove the threat to Beverley.

Aquula's blue tail flipped and caught the red fairy in the jaw, sent her up in the air twenty feet. Wings shot from her back and she laughed, producing another dagger.

"Stay with Beverley," I said to Johnny and was up, running across the lot. Putting the toe of my boot on the fender of a sedan, I charged up and across a car, launching myself into a flip even as the red fairy dove down. From the side, I collided with her. The dagger tumbled from her grip and she crashed into the fairy with the vest and cravat.

"Persephone," Menessos said, giving me a hand up. His crown was missing and his tunic was ripped.

Beyond him, though, I saw the fairy named Cerebrosus bolt away from Goliath to the south doors, and into the Covenstead.

I was moving again, running after him.

Inside, screams and shrieks erupted. I charged around the stage at a run, but pulled up short. This fairy had sprouted wings as well and, fluttering, they held him perhaps fifteen feet above the floor.

Xerxadrea was just arriving and being guided through the entrance aisle. He swooped down to hover in front of her. "Where is it?" he demanded, his hands—yellow, I could now see, as was all his skin—pawing at her robes.

He backhanded her raven, knocked her staff from her hands, and lifted the ancient Eldrenne into the air. She screamed. Her raven fluttered about, pecking and clawing at the fairy, but the fairy twisted Xerxadrea this way and that to block the bird. "Where is it?" he demanded again.

Flying backward toward the stage, Xerxadrea in his clutches, he snarled, "It will be the end of all witches!"

I eased up the stage-left steps.

"Ha!" he said, dropping her even as the stage came under her feet. Lucky for her too. Instead of falling six feet down, it was as if she merely stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

"Ha, ha! I have it!" he shouted to everyone, shrinking as he spoke. "The end of the witches is at hand! Or is that at handkerchief?" he asked, laughing and waving a black cloth at the throng staring at him.

I darted forward, grabbed the handkerchief, and ran for stage right.

Behind me, the fairy growled angrily, wings flapping to pursue me. Nearing the edge of the stage, though, I remembered here there were no steps like there were on stage left. I went down and slid like a baseball star aiming for home plate. The fairy shot past over my head. I jumped up and ran back across the stage to the steps.