A Girl's Guide to Vampires

was nodding sanctimoniously and petting Davide.

'Promise me… no, swear to me that you won't ever cast your rune stones in public again! Not after the last time!'

I looked back at the witch. 'But—'

'Swear!'

'Miranda, that was just a fluke. It could never happen again—'

'SWEAR!'

'I'm not the least bit psychic, remember? You told me that everyone had some sort of psychic ability, even if it was buried deep where the person wouldn't recognize it. Everyone but me, that is. You told me that! You said I hadn't even an atom of psychic ability, so you can't possibly blame the… the… happenings on me and my innocent little rune stones!'

'Swear you won't cast them again or I will ask the Goddess to remove her protection! Without her blessing, you will not be successful at any task you undertake.'

I pulled my hands from hers. 'Well, I don't think that's very nice of you, and I just bet your Goddess doesn't like to be used like a revolving door. Besides, I don't know what you're complaining about. That earthquake had nothing to do with my casting. It was just a very odd coincidence that the stones suggested Lydia would bring down the wrath of Odin if she continued to ignore the warnings sent her.'

'You said the earth would tremble with Odin's wrath if she didn't heed the warnings,' Roxy piped up. I frowned at her.

'You are not helping matters, missy. What I told Lydia was standard rune stone-reading talk. Everyone says stuff like that. It's in all of the books.'

'Joy, you predicted that Lydia's courage would be shaken if she didn't alter her course; you didn't say the earth would tremble under the entire northern California coast!' Miranda looked grim.

'Well… Odin was very strong. I guess his wrath just kind of spilled out…'

'And the fire? What about the fire? Miranda, ask her about the fire!'

I raised one eyebrow and ignored both of them to look out the window in silent contemplation of the blue- black clouds racing across the face of the silver crescent of moon. There were times when it was simply best to say nothing at all.

'Loreena,' Roxy nudged Miranda. I sent her a silent cease-and-desist semaphore with my eyebrows that she summarily ignored.

'I haven't forgotten that,' Miranda said slowly, her gaze holding mine. 'That was your first reading, wasn't it? You predicted that Loreena Bronze would be cleansed and reborn just as the phoenix was… rising from the ashes.'

I couldn't help myself. I pursed my lips and twisted my fingers together. It had been an odd coincidence that I had seen fire in the leader of Miranda's coven's future. Still… 'Stranger things have been known to happen.'

Miranda took a calming deep breath, stretching her arms to the side as she inhaled, crossing her wrists gracefully over one another as she exhaled. Roxy plopped a pillow down on the floor next to her and dropped onto it. 'Don't forget the rainstorm, the one that struck the North Shore. You do remember that nice couple who you predicted would be taking a long journey by water?'

'Well, they did.' I stared at my fingers. They suddenly looked fascinating. There was a whole world of entertainment to be found in cuticle gazing.

'Their house slid off the cliff into the ocean!'

'That's a journey by water in my book. How either of you can blame a rainstorm on my rune stone reading —'

'Joy, you cast your stones for eleven people that day, and of those eleven castings you saw disaster in ten, four of which involved natural disasters that manifested within three weeks,' Miranda said firmly. 'The Womyn's Magyck Festival Council has forbidden you ever to cast your stones within their domain. They would have banned you completely except they knew how much you help out at the Shoppe.'

'And how much you donate each year in support of the Council,' I muttered darkly.

Miranda waved a hand. 'Exactly. So no rune stones! I might have been a little hasty in suggesting you don't have any psychic ability. You do seem to have one.'

I looked up from cuticle watch, shooting a smug glance at Roxy to make sure she was listening. 'Oh? What do I have? Precognition? Clairvoyance? The ability to leap tall buildings in a single bound?'

She ignored my attempt at humor. 'No. I think you're cataclysient.'

Huh? 'Cataclysient? Is that a word?'

'What does it mean?' Roxy asked.

Miranda closed her eyes, breathed in deeply the scent of the herbs bound into the invocation candles, and traced an ancient symbol of protection in my general direction. 'It means when you cast your rune stones you have the dangerous and uncontrolled ability to call down cataclysmic disasters.'

Roxy snickered. I was stunned by Miranda's outrageous, and patently false, claim. I stood up, saying, 'You're making that up. There is no such word as cataclysient, and even if there was, I'm not it. I'm just a simple woman trying to do you a favor, and I resent the fact that you can think something so ridiculous about me. Sheesh!'

'Oh, I don't know,' Roxy started to say. I mouthed that I'd get her later. She just grinned and continued on. 'There's just something about you that shrieks cataclysmic disaster. I think Miranda's dead on.'

'You would.'

'Ladies!'

We stopped sniping and looked at our friend. She shook her Invocation candle at us. 'I don't know what exactly the Goddess chose to reveal to your eyes, but I do know this—you are taking her gift far too lightly. There is purpose behind everything she reveals, and if you do not take careful heed of her warnings, you will suffer.'

'Are you trying to scare us?' I asked.

'If she is, she's doing a good job,' Roxy muttered sotto voce. I agreed wholeheartedly.

'Yes, I am, if that's what it will take to bring you to your senses. The Goddess did not share her vision of your future with me, Joy, but this I sense: If you continue down the path you have started, you place your life, your very soul, at risk. Please keep the Goddess's words close to your heart, and make no foolish decisions.'

It wasn't so much Miranda's words, but the almost tangible sense of fear surrounding her that remained with me, still palpable almost an hour later as we drove through the winding roads toward the small town on the southern Oregon coast where we lived.

'What are you going to do?' Roxy asked.

'About what?'

She shot a fast glance at me out of the corner of her eye as she turned down the street where I lived in a tiny studio apartment. 'About our trip. I know you think I'm an idiot to spend my two weeks in Europe hunting down a Dark One, but I was hoping you'd come with me because I think we'd have a lot of fun. Now… well, now you have a really good reason to go to Paris instead.'

I shrugged. 'You know, I like Miranda a lot, she's a very kind and giving person, but I have to tell you—it just rankles when someone tells me not to do something. It makes me all that much more determined to do it. And this whole business with the 'child of darkness,' and a soulless wonder—well, you have to admit it sounds like it's straight out of a book. And not a very well-written one, either.'

Roxy pulled into the driveway leading to my apartment. 'So you're going to come with me, then? You'll help me find a Moravian Dark One?'

'No.' I levered myself out of her car, making yet another mental promise that I'd never ride in that car again without first losing twenty pounds. 'I won't help you find a make-believe being that doesn't exist anywhere but in the world of fiction; however, I will go with you to the Czech Republic, but only because it's an historic area that sounds interesting, and because you have absolutely no ability with foreign languages. I'd never be able to live with myself if you ended up in some Czech prison because you inadvertently propositioned some policeman rather than asking him where the nearest toilet was. I'll come with you, but don't expect me to pander to your idiocy over vampires and others of their ilk.'

She grinned, her eyes shadowed in the flat glow of the overhead light. 'Dante's castle is next door to the