Ravenous

night changed everything.'

Holly hiccupped, a strangled sob dying in her throat. 'Then you just noticed that I'm a witch? If that's the case, it can't be so very shocking.'

Ben rallied. 'That's just what I mean. We can sort this out with a little effort. I'll give notice at my place. You sell yours.'

'Oh, no.' Holly dropped her hands so they dangled uselessly at her sides. He wasn't hearing anything she said.

'Listen: We can start over together, be normal people someplace new. Someplace equal and fair. You can go to school. I can teach.'

'Equal and fair?' Holly shot back. You mean humans-only.

He had the education, the money, and the rich relatives. They were nice, good, generous people, but they had so much. All she had was herself and her magic. They were one and the same. If she gave that up, small-M, big-M, or economy sized, nothing would be hers. Even the pain was precious, because it was her own.

Ben raised a hand, palm out. 'No. Don't say anything. Just think about it. I'll call you tomorrow. Maybe we can have breakfast and talk it over.'

'Sure,' Holly replied, forcing her eyes open wide so she could hide the first threat of tears. 'Breakfast would be great.'

'Good.' Ben kissed her one last time, a peck on the part of her hair. 'Your hands are shaking.'

Holly opened her mouth, closed it, pressed her fingers together. They were cold, but her cheeks burned red-hot. 'Last night was hard on me, too.'

'Of course it was.' He gave her hand a quick squeeze. He smelled like soap and old wool, scents that reminded her of all the afternoons they had spent lying on the lawns of the campus. I'd bring him lunch. We couldn't wait till the end of the day to see each other.

He left, the back door clicking shut behind him.

Fear changed people.

Holly was panting, short, ineffective breaths. The house felt empty, all the lazy, lawn-sprawling afternoons, past and future, suddenly gone. I saved his life. He saw what I could do. He freaked.

Breakfast would never happen. Breakfast was a metaphor for avoidance. He'd forget to call. Something would come up. Not his fault. Didn't mean to. This was his way of making a graceful retreat.

It wasn't fair.

There was something dead in her chest where her emotions usually lived. In a while the pain would catch up with her.

Then it would hurt like hell.

Holly went upstairs, peeled off her clothes, and ran a hot bath. Her entire future had just been derailed. She deserved some comfort before figuring out her next steps.

Unobtrusive, Kibs followed her upstairs and curled up on the chair by the old claw-foot bathtub, there if she needed company. She added bubble bath to the running water until the foam reached the lip of the tub. Watching the steam condense and trickle down the high, narrow windows beneath the canted ceiling, she soaked.

It would have been pure and absolute bliss if her mind slowed down, but it didn't. One bad thought led to another.

First came the business. What had been a thriving family enterprise had dwindled to just Holly, the last Carver in the biz. Difficult jobs like necromancy made more money, but she was hobbled by pain. As a result, she had to work twice as hard at small, bread-and-butter contracts to make the agency pay. Insurance investigations. Lost pets. Imp exterminations. Over time it was exhausting.

It would have been different if she weren't alone, but her family was scattered. After Holly's parents died in a car accident, Grandma had raised her. Holly's sister had moved away when Holly was a child. Holly's half brother, born from her father's first marriage, had never been part of her life. That left her to carry on the family legacy by herself.

And now Ben had bailed, condemning the very heritage that defined her. Ben was wrong. Damaged or not, her power had come through and beaten the Flanders monstrosity. She had saved lives. Go, me.

She wished she felt as brave as that sounded.

The cat sat up, stretching, ears alert. He looked up at the ceiling, his great yellow eyes echoing the fading light. 'Mrow,' he commented in anxious tones.

She sat up with a slosh, probing the quiet house with her mind. What had alerted Kibs? She couldn't sense anything, but sitting in water mucked up her reception. Feeling paranoid, Holly got out of the tub and dried off. A flannel nightgown hung on the back of the door, left over from her last chick-flick mood. She pulled it over her head.

With her hair wrapped in a towel, they tiptoed down the hall, Kibs for once moving with the silence of a cat. Holly's damp feet left footprints on the hardwood. At the bottom of the stairs to the third floor, Holly hesitated, one hand on the newel post. What's up there?

She shouldn't have felt so worried. This was her self-cleaning house, a magical abode, the impervious Carver homestead. Yet her instincts had gone into the red zone.

Why? This is foolish. Nothing should be wrong. Calming herself, she began to ascend. Kibs stayed close to her heels, his tail a bottle brush of angst.

Holly reached the upstairs landing before she felt it. Something barely tangible—the quality of the dusk, the air pressure—changed as if a door in the ether had opened. Her nerves tingled, the sensation of a zillion ants crawling over her skin and into her nose and mouth. Then the feeling stopped as the door shut again. A breathless moment passed. Kibs inflated to twice his size and hissed like a cappuccino machine.

The third-floor hall ran the length of the house. Mostly empty, the old bedchambers had just a few pieces of antique furniture gestating dust bunnies. The middle room on the left side of the hall was the nursery, and from that doorway spilled a pool of pale light.

There were no lamps in that room.

Crap. Holly took a step forward, Kibs tracking her movement like a furry ankle bracelet. The sodden towel in her hair, warm and wet, listed with the motion until she pulled it off, releasing a mass of long, dark, dripping tendrils down her back. With the towel clutched to her chest like a security blanket, Holly scuttled forward until she could see into the room.

Kibs was down the stairs with a wild scrabbling of claws, his scampering backside flashing white in the dusk. Holly's breath catching in her throat, she turned her head to the nursery door. Her jaw fell open. What she saw was Kibs's worst nightmare.

Mice were cute when they were little. When they were six feet long, hostile, and glowing, they lost their appeal. But, hey, it wasn't slime.

The dirty white creature spotted her and snarled. Its whiskers, thick and sharp like coat hanger wire, quivered and fanned out as it bared fangs as long as her shin. Its rump went up in the air like Kibs's before he pounced. This was going to be short and painful. She took two gulps of air and tried to stop the short, sharp gasps of her breath. Think!

After the fight with the hell house, her magic was all but fried. What she could summon would have to be conserved, used for a single killing blow. She'd try something else first.

Holly beamed happy thoughts with every psychic muscle. 'Hi, sweetie,' she cooed.

Sweetie hissed, scummy yellow teeth thrust out, mouse spit spewing across the hallway carpet. Something in the slow, snakelike motion of its tail was lascivious, wrong. It snarled again, a ghastly, openmouthed rattle. She was so screwed. In some bizarre homage to Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide, all she had to work with was a towel.

Holly flung it. 'Terry eleison!' she cried, making the spell up on the spot.

The towel left her hand, spreading as it flew. Heavy with water from her hair, it landed flat across the mouse's snout with a smack. Holly tried to run. She tripped and fell on the hem of her gown, but hauled herself up, ripping the cotton as she scrambled to her feet. No wonder superheroes wore unitards.