"What?" I prodded. "Come on, the suspense is killing me."

"It's dark magic," said Aidan.

"Not necessarily," said the fake demon-Spike. "For eons there have always been the Fates."

"Fate like destiny?" I asked.

"No. Fates as in the witches who meddle in people's destinies," said the fake demon-Spike. "But we never know if what we hear is rumor or truth in the Underworld. Even in the Here and Now, the fantastic mingles with reality so closely, it's difficult to know where one stops and the other begins."

The door to the pantry flew open before the conversation could go any further.

"Stop your yammering and help me with this spell." Maggie shuffled over to the kitchen table, dumping two handfuls of things into the pot. She gestured to the shelf. "Bring me the blue bottle."

The real Spike reached for the bottle.

"No! Not that one. The other blue one."

Spike's hand hovered over the one that was two bottles down. Maggie grunted, so he pulled it off and gave it to her.

She took the top off and dumped the entire contents into the pot, making a poof of purple smoke come up to surround her head. For a second I glimpsed another person in the haze - someone younger and much prettier. But then she was gone, and the same old nasty Maggie remained, her hair no better than it had been when we'd first walked in.

"Come here, you two," she said, looking from the real to the fake Spike.

They stepped up to the table, one on each side, the pot between them.

"Take hands," she said, stepping back away from her brew. She went to her shelf and took down a very small gray bottle, one that looked like it was empty but very dirty.

The two Spikes reached over the pot and took each other's hands. They looked like a very ugly couple getting ready to exchange vows over a vat of soup. I would have laughed if I hadn't been so worried that I was about to lose my friend to some really bad fate.

I ran over to the real Spike's side, putting my hand on his arm. "Spike."

He met my gaze, his demon-red eyes looking at me but no longer freaking me out. I could see him in there somewhere, I knew I could.

"Yeah?"

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

He smiled, grinning with his ghastly teeth at me. "What for? This isn't your fault."

"Not about that. About ... you know. Blowing you off or whatever. You didn't deserve that."

"I'll tell you what. If you really feel bad about it, you can make it up to me later." He winked.

I cuffed him gently on the back of the head, smiling. "Same old Spike." I wasn't complaining. There was something to be said for undying affection even in the face of demon possession.

"Always," he said, before turning back to stare at his own face over Maggie's pot. "Dude, you'd better run faster than you've ever run before after this is over, because when this lady's done with us, I'm going to kill you."

The fake demon-Spike shrugged. "It makes no difference to me. I will end up in the same place I have been for altogether too long anyway. Do what you must."

"Don't do that, Spike," I said. "I think this karma thing is more complicated than I realized before. If you kill him, even though he deserves it, I think it's only going to hurt you. Just let him go."

"He told you everything, Jayne." All of Spike's good humor dissipated in the s.p.a.ce of a single second. "He stole my body and my d.a.m.n head. My memories. My secrets!" His voice went hoa.r.s.e and he looked up at the ceiling, trying to gather himself.

I rubbed his back. "I know. Just let it go. He hasn't hurt you or me."

"I find that very hard to believe," he said, looking down and then up again at his enemy. "Run, dude. That's all I'm gonna say."

The fake demon-Spike nodded once, pressing his lips together.

"Get back!" spat Maggie, gesturing at me.

I moved to stand by Aidan and Scrum. The werewolf put his arm around my upper back in a comforting gesture. "Don't worry. Everything's going to be okay."

Maggie moved away from the table too, opening the cloudy jar in her hand as she went. She was muttering things under her breath, but I couldn't make any of it out. She stared at the brew, her lips moving and her eyebrows jumping around. She was like a mad scientist getting ready to raise her Frankenstein from the slab.

She tipped the jar into her other hand, closing her fist around whatever spilled out. Her last words, the ones she uttered just before throwing the contents of her hand into the pot, came across the room very clearly to my ear.

"And so the Fates mote it be!"

She threw the stuff into the brew and jumped back, either on her own power or from the concussion that came out of the pot, I didn't know which. Aidan, Scrum, and I were thrown back too, landing squarely on our b.u.t.ts, enveloped completely in a cloud of dark gray smoke.

"Holy s.h.i.t!" I yelled. "Way to warn us, Maggie."

I stood up coughing, pulled to my feet by Aidan who was already there, standing ready and almost wolfing out. I could tell by the panting he was doing and the rumbling sounds coming from his chest.

"Hey, wolfman, chill. I don't want to see your dangly wolf parts here in Maggie's house." I gripped his thick upper arm and shook it for emphasis, trying to break him out of his wolf-spell. "That'd be just too many wrong things in a day filled with wrong things, know what I mean?"

He nodded his head once and then stretched his neck out in two different directions. The cracking sounds that came from the motion made me slightly queasy, but I noticed his hair looking less fluffy right away, so I took it as a sign that the wolf had gone dormant again.

Scrum stood off to the side, just taking everything in and saying nothing. I wasn't sure if he was stunned or just supremely cool about weird s.h.i.t going down all around him.

I turned my attention back to the table. The smoke was clearing and the pot was coming into focus again.

"Spike?" I said, looking for his form in the mist still hanging over the table.

The door opened and slammed shut one time and then quickly a second time. The next thing I saw was Maggie's hand coming up to grip the table and then her s.h.a.ggy gray-black hair peeking up above the edge of it. Her eyes soon followed and then the rest of her. She used her elbow on the edge of the table to leverage herself slowly and painfully to her feet.

I stood there with my hands on my hips, surveying the wreckage that used to be her house. "Where are the Spikes?" I asked, looking around the kitchen.

She shrugged, shuffling over to her shelves. "They left. But they are back to rights. Now get out of my house. I have a lot of cleaning to do."

"Pfft. You have a lot of explaining to do is more like it," I said.

Aidan grabbed my arm and pulled me to the door. "Thank you, witch. We will leave you to your work."

Maggie grunted but didn't even spare us a glance. She disappeared into her pantry where I soon heard boxes being kicked around.

"You're just going to leave?" I asked.

"Would you rather we stay and help her clean?" asked Scrum.

I thought about all those poor creatures in her pantry. I felt bad for them, but not so bad that it overwhelmed the sense of foreboding that I got, that I knew was a.s.sociated with going near them. "No."

"Then I suggest we go," said Aidan. "We're all losing sleep that I'm pretty sure we're going to wish we had tomorrow." He glanced over at the pantry when he was done speaking, so I knew there was more to what he was thinking, but he wasn't going to say it. The firm set of his jaw made that clear.

I sighed. He was right. "Fine. Lead the way, brave werewolf guy."

He gestured for me to precede him out the door. "After you, my lady."

"Tppbbttt!" No way did I feel like any kind of lady today.

He winked at me, totally not taking my raspberry seriously.

The three of us walked together in companionable silence back to the compound, seeing neither the real nor the fake Spike. When we reached the door to my room, I finally spoke. "Where do you guys think Spike went?"

Aidan answered first. "Somewhere to nurse his wounds."

Scrum said, "Or possibly to the ends of the earth, chasing a demon. Your guess is as good as ours, though."

I had kind of hoped that Aidan would have smelled what was going on, but apparently not. "Thanks for the escort. I'll see you two later."

Scrum waved and walked away down the hall, but Aidan just shook his head no.

"No?"

"No. I will stay in your room with you."

"Uhhhh, no you won't." I half smiled, but I was dead serious.

"This is not optional. The wolf demands it." He stood firm in my doorway, looking neither threatening nor wimpy - just determined.

I was too tired to fight with him. "Okay, Mister Bossypants Wolf. You can stay in my sitting room, but not my bedroom."

"Good enough," he said, dipping his head slightly.

I pushed open the door and walked through the foyer, stopping short when I saw Ben sitting in one of my chairs and Tim standing on the nearby table, glaring at him.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.

TIM FLEW IMMEDIATELY OVER TO me, getting all up in my face. I had to lean back, using Aidan's arm as support to keep from falling over backwards.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was?!" Tim shouted. He continued without waiting for my answer. "Very! Very worried, Jayne! If you were my child I'd spank your bottom right now!"

I smiled. "I guess we're both lucky I'm not your child then, because if you tried to do that I'd lay you out in about two seconds flat."

Aidan smiled.

Without hesitating, Tim zipped over and slapped my cheek. It felt like a small mosquito biting me. "Don't talk to me like that!" he screeched, panting he was so upset.

I held out my hand in front of me, seeing that he was in some kind of weird freaked-out parent zone that normal reactions weren't going to work with. "Tim, relax. Just sit on my hand for a second and get a grip on yourself before you blow a gasket."

Tim floated down to stand on my hand, but he refused to sit. "Abby's even upset. And w.i.l.l.y? Forget it. He's been crying for hours. Do you have any idea how nerve wracking it is listening to a baby cry like that? He thought his polly ball cave and spider nakie partner was lost forever!"

I couldn't help but feel a little bit loved. It made the grin on my face impossible to erase. "A little stressed are we?" Looking out towards the garden, I didn't see any other pixies, but that didn't mean they weren't there. Poor little Baby Bee. No more giant nostrils to mess around with. Little f.u.c.ker.

"You have no idea. You absolutely cannot disappear like that on me ever again. My old heart just can't take it." He rested his hand on his chest for a second before he lifted it up to fix his hair.

I shook my head at Tim's reaction. He was going totally outer limits. Not only was he berating me like I was a little kid, but his hair was a complete mess. I knew how important his look was to him. And it's not like I'd been gone all that long. "Tim, you just need to relax, dude. I was only gone for a little while; and besides, I had Aidan and Scrum with me."

"And I knew that, how? Because of our psychic connection? Oh wait ... no. We don't have one of those. I forgot."

"Okay, I get it. You were worried. I'm sorry, alright? Next time, don't have a tantrum and leave a meeting. Then you can go with me."

"Go with you where?" he asked, hands on his hips, obviously demanding answers.

But I wasn't in the mood to share with Ben so close by so I said, "I'll tell you later." I flicked my hand up to throw Tim into the air, and walked over to sit on my couch. "So, what's up, Ben?"

Tim buzzed out to the garden over to his table, disappearing for a few seconds into the plants before coming back over to sit on the back of the couch to my left.

"I came to talk, but you weren't here. Where have you been?"

"Out and about. What did you want to talk about?"

He glanced at Aidan and Tim. "Something private. I think it's about time, don't you?"

"Yeah, definitely. But no way is the wolfman going to let it happen just the two of us." I shrugged, looking at my bodyguard. He was just a little bristly right now, but I knew it wouldn't take much for him to get super fuzzy. All Ben had to do was act just a tiny bit angry, and it was going to be dangling wolf parts in here for sure. I wasn't complaining, though. Ben's moods were totally unpredictable, and I didn't trust them or him.

"He can stand just outside the door, but what I have to say does not concern him, so I do not want to share it in his presence."

I looked at Aidan and he shrugged. "That's fine with me," he said. "I will smell your anger before it manifests itself anyway." He looked at me. "I'm confident I can get to his throat before he is a danger to you."

I smiled, trying not to look too happy at the idea of Aidan chomping down on Ben's neck. "Excellent. Let's do this, then. I'm tired, and we have a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

Ben stood and gestured to the door connecting our rooms. "After you."

"What about me?" yelled Tim, still standing on the couch.

"Hang with Aidan. This won't take long," I said over my shoulder.

I heard the buzz of his wings and knew he was following behind us.

"I'm going to pixie his b.u.t.t if he so much as lays a finger on you, Jayne. A pixie can only take so much stress in one day."