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.

My eyes refused to focus. I continued to stare around in a confused sort of way. It was almost like raven song. It put me in mind of some fabulous dream; but I was awake, I couldn't be dreaming. I saw him standing there, on the edge of my balconythe French doors leading into my bedroom. I smiled incoherently, one of those lush smiles, when the things of your obsession seem to be on the brink of being yours. But also realizing that something was not quite right.

I felt my hair and did a quick breath testmy heart knocking uncontrollably.

Still, I was angry at Lennox for taking so long. He could've at least written to me. Becca and Mistress Genevieve had, and they were thousands of miles away. Yet with Lennoxlove, nothing.

"I invite you," I said.

He stepped into my bedchamber, all hair and silhouettes. First his eyes, which were glowing like lavender lanterns, followed by the rest of him. The hallucination vanished; I was left staring at my hands in the dark.

The scene shifted. Lennoxlove was staggering over the hard and cracked earth. Everything about him, all the land and sky, had been scorched. Destroyed. The earth consumed in a poisonous fume. They were fighting. I could see witches and wizards, werewolves and vampires, and other things, besides. Flame erupted from the earth. There was shouting. Bodies moved through the smoky black murk. Vittoria... her eyes shining contemptuously from out of the dark... stared at me. It was like I was seeing from a great height. A terrible and ravaged plain. This would come to be.

This is what the world will be.... The vision changed. I saw the Hunter entering upon a heatha dark ball of light shining in his hand, until I woke, gasping for air, feeling the bed springs creak. My mind exploded in a rush of stars. What was going on?

I crawled out from under the covers that had twisted themselves around me, still laying on my bed, fully dressed in my jeans and black sweatshirt, and fitted on my boots, listening to the sounds in the hallway.

Shadows crawled along the ceiling of my room. Headlamps roved along the walls. It was the middle of the night. It was a moment before I realized where I was at.

I heard motorcycles outside. Voices. Lots of them. Revving their engines.

My head was spinning. I felt outside myself. If I didn't move, it was almost like I wasn't here.

In a trance, then, I fetched my helmet and got out of bed, walking to the door. I opened it just as Ballard was preparing to knock. "Surprise!" he said. "We thought you might be up for a little late-night skullduggery." A pair of watchful, dark eyes, looked out at me from the doorway, down the hall. Vittoria was standing there, wondering what was going on. Ballard did a double take. She was dressed in her nightgown. Maybe he could sense she was my enemy. I told him to "c'mon."

"Keep it down, will ya? Some of us are trying to study! Enjoy your dog walk," she said, slamming the door.

Ballard again exhibited his strange connection to my landladyshe didn't threaten him at all. Instead, just smiled. "I like you," she said. "You good boy. Yes."

"I just love her," he said.

"Ballard, she's insane. This place is insane." I fit right in.

Vittoria What was she studying for?

I felt guilty. I should be levitating things. Instead I needed to buy more lightbulbs.

When I got down on the street, they were all there. Paolo and all of them... Gaven and Lia and Liesel and Leander and the rest of the wolf pack. Alphas and betas, commingling. All on their motorcycles. I looked for Locke but he was nowhere to be found... There must've been thirty of them, all in their helmets, astride their bikes, or else standing around, striking poses. The six nine of the six nine. It was inevitable in so much awesomeness I feel out of place. I stowed italong with my uneasy feelings about my new neighbor. Vittoria living down the hall from me was just too much of a coincidence, didn't I think? I wondered what she was up to. Then, about what it was about Vittoria that I did not like.

I settled on the fact that she had a flower-Mark, like mineexcept it was onyx not silver. Was it that we had things in common, that I did not like? Vittoria's virtue was either Grace or Goodwill, after all, the same as mine. Could anyone whose virtue was either one of those two things really be that bad? Yes, I decided.

I did a little whathaveyou, twirling so Lia could see me decked out in my rider's garb; it pleased her I had become so biker-ish. "There she is. There's Halsey Rookmaaker," she said. Liesel was on hers. I could hear it running fast and steady, thanks to Ballard's ministrations.

Gaven said, "What's up, Halsey?" He didn't look like he was suffering the ostracization described by Ballard. In fact, he looked happy. The rest as well. Maybe riding did that. I always felt happy when I rode. Free-like. As always, when I looked at Gaven, my mouth watered. "We just thought you'd like to take a spin," he said. "We're having a partyat my place."

Pretty soon, we were all on our bikes, Ballard riding a generic one. "The blue moon will ride again," he promised, referring to the monocoque of his other oneof a blue moon breaking through the storm clouds.

"But the race," I said.

"I'll figure something out," he said. It was clear he thought little of the spare: a jumble of tubes and wires under a coat of primer paint, so that he looked like a grey wolf.

Gaven's place turned out to be La Luna Blu, The Blue Moon, a werewolf-friendly tavern, in Trastevere. It was centrally located, in the heart of the anti-vampire movement. Any time here, I felt like I was split in two, in due, as the Italians say. My Lennox-allegiance at odds with all of them. But so be it. When it mattered, Gaven could be clear-thinking, solid, leader-likeand work for the interests of all. But he was no longer Head Wolf. He existed in a state of semi-retirement. His perpetual alertness somehow diminished, subdued, as if his coolness had somehow mellowed out and he had become even more super awesome.

Lia and them were racing while I drank my Succo del Gatto. It banged in the back of my throat. A caffeine kick plus something extra.

I was on my Gambalunga, listening to its peculiar whine: a rapid throaty rise and fall: thinking about my addiction memoir. For so the Wiccan Diaries had become for me, a place I wanted to exist in entirelywith Gaven and all of them; and with Lennoxlove, wherever he was at.

Not Prague. Not Ravenseal. Not being told what to do. No. I realized I was too old to ever again be under anyone else's thumb. If that made me eclecticso be it, I was eclectic. Bada.s.s and whatever.

Liesel's cycle fired; she and Lia were going toe-to-toe.

The other racers whooped, cheering them on. It was just a straightaway, at the end of which they circled back, neither having outmatched the other. But I heard a rip-tear and suddenly Lia disappeared.

It was quite something watching her maneuver her bike into a standing wheelie. A trail of acrid smoke whomped into the air.

They were blowing off steam, like the smoke which issued from Lia's rear tire. The werewolves were relaxing.

For them that meant doing things which were reckless. After all, endangering themselves on two-wheelers was nothing compared to the Cold War they seemed to be in with the other supernatural enclaves around this world.

Lia banked into a group of guys and was off her motorcycle in no time, coming over to talk to me. I could remember being jealous of her. Now I had only admiration for Lia. Maybe I was being unfair to Vittoria. Judging her.

Judging her correctly... I said to myself...

If I could have, I would have said Lia walked with a cert.i.tude belying the fact that she was so screwed up. We both were. After all, how many times had we changed? She into a werewolfand us both into Wiccans. Lia was the only one I could talk to about magic. Simply because she was the only one I talked to who was magic. What Vittoria and I did wasn't talking. It was showing off. Warning each other to stay away. Whereas, Lia and I were friends.

The requisite looker-on deposited into her hand a fresh Succo del Gatto. Lia popped the top, and said, coming over to my Gambalunga, "I've always loved this bike. It was Risky's, didn't Ballard tell you?"

My Gambalunga hummed some more. Ballard... I had no idea... Lia could tell it on my face. "He lied to me," I said.

"That's my little bro. He does things like that," she said. "Seemed to think you deserved it."

If he lied to me about my Gambalunga, what else had he lied to me about? If I couldn't trust Ballard, who could I trust?

"Lia. Race for Il Gatto," I said.

She eyed me.

"That may not be wise," she said. "But it may be fun."

The exhaust snorted.

"It's Il Gatt-o, not Il Gatt-a, Halsey. O not A. Masculine, not feminine. The Head Wolf is usually a guy," she said, as if I didn't already know that.