It was ironic. Everyone seemed to think she was a witch. Michelle just wished she knew how to use the powers, if indeed she had any. She was certainly no match for Omar.
The professor of the occult, Vincent Middleton, said her powers would come out in times of great stress or need, an emergency. But all Michelle knew was that sometimes she just knew things; like having a vision of the dress Heather would be wearing tonight.
She had managed only once to use the gift locked away inside of her. She had managed to subdue Omar for a little while. It was enough time for her friends to disable him until the police arrived by helicopter to the island of Kauai, where they were stranded.
Michelle felt a little shiver, thinking of what Omar would do if he was released from jail on bail. He believed Michelle was the one person he needed to complete his legacy. She smiled. All she had to do was produce a psychic child with him, by giving up a tiny part of herself; eggs from the one ovary she had left. He said his witches would be implanted with an egg after it had been fertilized with his own sperm, so she wouldn’t even have to carry the children.
Omar’s plan could only mean disaster on a huge scale. Michelle had seen a preview of one of the children in a kind of psychic hallucination; the child had been beautiful and evil, just as Omar was.
Chapter 2
Heather stood in front of the mirror. Damn, the diamond necklace was spectacular, and it went perfectly with her gown, which was silver satin and form fitting almost to the bottom, where it flared out around her calves and ankles. She was a tiny woman so the diamond went well past her cleavage and lay at the middle of her chest. She smiled and thought everyone would be staring down her cleavage if the chain was shorter...which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it wasn’t a message she wanted to send on her first date with Mike.
Heather was still fussing with her straight blond hair when her cell phone rang. It was the front door and she punched the number to unlock it so Mike could come in. She felt her heart pick up, a nice double thump, in anticipation. It was unusual she would be so excited, she thought, but she really, really liked him. Michelle, perceptive as usual, had noticed immediately; she hadn’t even had to use her unusual abilities to tell this man was special to Heather.
She went to the door and opened it, standing in the doorway, waiting for the elevator. Then Mike was swiftly moving down the hallway toward her. She admired the black shaggy hair, the way his dark eyes lit up. He was wearing a formal tux. It was so unlike him, she thought. When he’d visited her in the hospital he had always dressed casually in jeans and a tee shirt. Tonight, even his thick, jet black hair, seemed slightly tamed.
“You have to move back.” Mike stopped in the hallway, a few feet away. “No, further still. Keep backing up.”
Heather was backing up into her apartment. She didn’t know what was wrong. “Why?”
“You’re so totally dazzling, I’ll go blind if I come within that brightness surrounding you,” Mike said, laughing. He followed her in, slowly walked toward her, and finally took her hands. Shaking his head, like he was surprised, he said, “It seems like everything’s okay. I didn’t get struck down by the brilliance.”
“Too much?” Heather asked, laughing.
“You could wear a garbage bag and still be totally gorgeous. Tonight, you’re absolutely spectacular.”
“Well, the last time I saw you I was wearing one of those tacky hospital gowns. Almost anything would be an improvement. And I must say, you look spiffy in that tux.”
“Let’s go. We’ll knock ‘em dead.”
Heather took his arm and they went to the elevator.
“I liked the hospital gown,” Mike said on the way down to the lobby. He grinned mischievously, “I kept wishing you’d get out of bed and turn around.”
“Aren’t you bad! There I was, struck down by a bolt of lightning, and you wanted a peek at my backside?”
“Well, yeah,” Mike said. “Sorry. I know you were in a lot of pain, with the broken rib and everything.”
He looked a little sheepish when she glanced up at his face, so Heather changed the subject. “We just passed my best friend’s apartment. It was her boyfriend, Rod, who gave me the broken ribs. It happened while he was giving me CPR, after I was struck by lightning. The lightning knocked me out and stopped my heart. Rod probably saved my life. I saw Michelle for the first time in two weeks a few minutes ago. She just got back from a trip to California with Rod.”
“Is she tall, with black hair?”
“How’d you know?” She wondered with alarm if she was going to be surrounded by people with supernatural abilities.
“The first time I came to see you in the hospital, all the patient’s rooms seem to have the doors open. They have viewing windows, too. I didn’t mean to violate anyone’s privacy, but anyway, I thought the Information Desk gave me the wrong room. I’d heard you were in a coma, and there was this cute little blond sitting up in the bed, laughing and talking up a storm, with another woman with black hair. So I thought you couldn’t be the person struck by lightning. I went back to the Information Desk to make sure. Then, when I got back, your friend had left.”
“Michelle loaned me this necklace.”
Heather held the gem up, so he could see it.
“Geology and meteorology’s my thing. You have to know how mountains and rocks are formed, for predicting the weather. It’s beautiful,” Mike said as they exited the condominium and went outside. “May I
