I'm about to tell Dani to just concentrate on not getting knocked off her broom instead of rambling on about long underwear, but we're already heading lower toward the meeting spot and the wind is easing up.

I tilt my broom down, careful to clear the tall pines surrounding the opening in the woods.

"s.h.i.t!" Dani yells.

I look back and see her foot tangled briefly in a treetop. She tugs it out and her broom lurches forward. I stifle a laugh as she lands ahead of me missing a shoe.

"c.r.a.p! Mud! My foot is soaked." She points her hand toward the base of the trees we just cleared. "Return!"

"Geez," she says when the shoe doesn't return. She points up higher in the trees. "Return!"

she says louder.

I hear branches breaking, and then a clog comes flying toward us, just missing my head before hitting the ground behind us.

"You're wearing clogs on a broomstick?" I ask incredulously. I pick it up, careful to avoid the mud covering it, and hand it to her.

"Sorry, I wasn't exactly thinking straight at one o'clock in the morning. My mother was at me to get going so I just grabbed these."

She slips it on her foot and we walk over to some benches surrounding a stone fire-pit, a short distance from a lean-to. Empty beer bottles litter the ground, and I'm guessing the last people here were partying rather than camping.

"We're the first ones," I say, scanning the sky for anyone else.

"I hope they get here soon-it feels like winter already," Dani says. "What do you think it'll be tonight, vamp or wolf? I hope it's not a demon. What with that ring Connor gave you and that stupid vest you reminded me of, I don't feel like dealing with them tonight."

"How about a ghost? We haven't done one of those in ages.

Dani looks around the campsite and shakes her head. "I doubt there's any ghosts here, but we don't usually have to hunt them because they don't typically kill people. We just go after them when ..."

"Dani."

"I'm doing it again, aren't I?"

I nod. "Yeah. I know why we don't usually go after ghosts."

"Well, I thought we'd have a hunt tonight. Look." Dani pulls her necklace out and holds up the star, its center swirling with light. "It started just before I got to the coven house for Sascha's initiation. But then we went home, and my mom came home, so I thought I could actually get a decent night's sleep before my quiz tomorrow." Dani rubs her hands together, and then pulls them under her cape. "I'm beginning to think our birthdays are bringing us bad luck," Dani adds.

"Maybe it's your chem quizzes. But my necklace didn't do anything tonight-maybe it needs a recharge. Did you notice Margo hasn't been wearing hers? I guess we are oh-for-three on her birthday presents."

"Yeah," Dani says. "I can't believe she couldn't at least pretend to like the lavender stuff. I mean, it's totally rude to tell people the stuff they gave you smells like c.r.a.ppy, old-lady perfume."

"Ha!" I say. "Maybe she figured out we only got it for her because she's such a b.i.t.c.h, and lavender is supposed to calm you down."

"Maybe she likes being a b.i.t.c.h."

"Look, here comes someone," I say, pointing up. As the figure comes closer, I see it's Z.

Suddenly Margo comes streaking past her and lands on her feet running. "I win!"

Zahara lands and walks toward us. "I wasn't racing you, Margo," she says, sounding p.i.s.sed.

I can hear her stud clicking against her teeth in a steady rhythm.

Margo smiles. "I still win." She blows out a thin line of breath that freezes and then breaks up over her head. "No birthday girl yet?"

"I'm here," Sascha says behind us and we all jump.

"G.o.d," Dani says. "Have you been here the whole time?"

Sascha walks out into the clearing, taking a long swig from the flask. "Wolf tonight," she says. "Gotta be quick about it," she says in a singsong voice. "She's supposed to meet here for a payoff." She takes another long drink. "Oops," she says, giggling. "I don't think I was supposed to tell you uninitiated people that!" She throws an arm around Margo and hiccups. "But you can know!"

Margo pushes her away and Sascha falls to the ground.

"Hey!" she giggles. "That wasn't nice. Are you afraid someone's going to get-"

"Shut the h.e.l.l up!" Margo yells. "Are you insane?"

Dani, Z, and I exchange looks. Frosty breath puffs out from our open mouths.

"Are you okay?" I ask as I help Sascha up.

"I'm fine," she says, brushing mud and leaves off her hands. "Just a happy hunter."

"Will someone tell us what's going on?" Z says. "All this cryptic s.h.i.t is totally getting on my nerves."

Sascha laughs. "Isn't it annoying? But guess what? Our mothers weren't just being tools about all the cryptic s.h.i.t- there really is a good reason why they wait until our birthdays to dump a s.h.i.tload of s.h.i.t on us."

She raises the flask to her lips again, and Margo s.n.a.t.c.hes it away. "Just shut up, okay? Just shut up and I won't tell anyone what you just did."

"Did they tell you what happened to my dad, Margo?" Sascha whispers.

"Just stop," Margo pleads.

"Why? My big mouth doesn't affect you!"

"It might! You don't know."

"Guys!" I interrupt. "Cut the c.r.a.p and tell us what's going on."

Sascha tilts her head at Margo and sways a bit. "We can word it carefully. You don't honestly believe we can't-"

"Look," Dani says, "someone's coming."

Headlights work their way up through the trees along the dirt road.

"s.h.i.t," I say. "She's here-what are we doing?"

"Wonder drunk is supposed to have all the details," Margo hisses as we slowly retreat toward the forest's edge.

Sascha giggles again, and Z grabs her cape. "Get it together and tell us what the deal with the wolf is," she says through clenched teeth. "Is it just one?"

Sascha pushes Z off her. "Yeah. It's just one lone wolf, and she's expecting to meet someone for a payoff. We get her, and then Connor cleans up."

My heart skips a beat.

"What about Michael-won't he be here, too?" Dani asks.

"Tonight it's just Connor." Sascha points toward a lean-to just off the dirt road. "He's already over there waiting."

I see the van parked. As the other car-some sort of sports coupe-pulls up toward it, Connor flashes his lights a few times. Connor is the person she's meeting?

"Is there anything else we need to know?" Margo asks.

Sascha heads over to the car. "Nope-just some little detail I need to take care of-I'm sure they're testing me." She looks back and gives Margo a big, cheesy smile. "And don't worry, Margo, I'll make the inner circle proud."

Margo rushes up to Sascha. I strain to hear what she's saying, but the wind roars past carrying her words away.

Sascha pulls out her star necklace, and wraps her hand around it. Her whole body goes rigid for a second and then she breaks into a run.

" What is going on?" Dani whispers to me as we hurry after her.

"I don't know."

Connor gets out of the van and holds up a white envelope. "All set for you, Diane."

A tall woman with long, white hair opens the car door. "Great," she says. "And you tell your mom it's been a pleasure doing ..."

"Silence!" Sascha screams, running at her. A bolt of white light streaks from her palm and hits the woman in the head knocking her down. "We bind you to the earth!" Sascha throws a binder, and the mud and debris on the ground coil up and pin her down on her back.

"Nice work," Connor says.

I hope he didn't mean that.

I purposefully avoid making eye contact with Connor, and join in the circle around our wolf. I hold my palms toward her and gasp. The woman's mouth looks like it's been sewn closed with thick, black thread. Normally a silencing spell would just keep someone from talking, but for whatever reason, Sascha decided to put a little more effort into this one.

The woman's eyes bulge, and her nostrils flare as she struggles to open her mouth. A wave of nausea hits me as Kelsey's voice echoes in my head.

Do you always torture your vics?

I hear the van door shut, and know Connor has headed back away from the scene.

Coward.

The second the thought pops into my head I immediately feel guilty, but the word lingers.

"Are we ready, people?" Margo yells.

I nod, wondering if everyone else was as stunned by Sascha's spell as I was.

"Reveal!" we all yell.

The ball of light forms over the woman's head. I fix my eyes on her face to see if the transformation will break the thread tying her mouth shut. Part of me hopes it does. Her face draws out into the snout of a wolf, and I see the string magically threading itself through her white fur to keep the new, longer mouth shut. I turn away as bile rises in my throat.

"Jules!" Dani yells.

I swallow and take out my gun. I turn back toward the wolf, aim at her heart, and fire.

The wolf's body flinches once, and blood stains the white fur. She starts to change back and I'm relieved to see the thread crumble and fall from her face.

Connor gets out of the van, and whistles a bit from a song as he lays the body bag next to her.

"Connor!" I say. "Stop that."

"What?" he asks looking puzzled.

"The whistling!"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you have a soft spot for wolves."

"I don't have a soft spot-it's just, it's just disrespectful!"

He holds his hands up in the air in front of him. "Okay-sorry."

"Never mind that," Z says. "How is it you were the person the wolf was going to meet, and what the h.e.l.l was up with your silencing spell, Sascha? That was a bit much, don't you think?"

"Yeah," Dani says softly. "Her mouth-it. . ." Dani brings her fingers up to her lips and doesn't finish her sentence.

Sascha looks around at all of us, visibly shaken. "I-I didn't mean to do that-honest! I was so scared and it came out stronger than I'd wanted." She grabs the chain of her necklace with a shaking hand. "When I touched the stone I had a vision. It was horrible. I didn't want it to come true. I had to stop that lady from ..." She turns to Margo. "Did you know I'd see the meetinghouse? Is that why you told me to hold it?"

"I wasn't sure if you'd be able to see anything, but I was hoping you would," Margo says.

She sounds tired. "I wanted you to stop running at the mouth-so it wouldn't come true. All of us have to do exactly what we're supposed to-"

"Because if we don't," Sascha says, "one of us is going to h.e.l.l."

10.

I shiver in the cold and wish the wind wasn't sucking away all the heat from the small blaze we have going in the campsite's fire-pit. We're all looking at Sascha, waiting for her to talk, as the wood crackles and pops trying to warm the night air.

"All I know," Sascha says, "is when I grabbed the stone in the center of the necklace, I saw a demon in the meetinghouse-like it was right in front of me. And then everything speeded up and I only saw s.n.a.t.c.hes of faces. I can't even say who exactly was there because the whole thing was over in a second or two. But there was a demon and it took someone, that I'm sure of. I heard screaming and then I was overwhelmed with a feeling of loss. I knew that someone had messed up and someone had been taken." She bites her lower lip. "I could even smell brimstone."

I look at Connor on the other side of the fire. He fidgets his feet in the dirt and I wish I could apologize for snapping at him before. I wish he were sitting next to me, with his arms around me making me feel safe, instead of pretending we aren't together.