“Mmmmmm… You smell good.”

“Thanks…You don’t smell so bad yourself.”

Clouds of her loose auburn curls floated about her lightly freckled face as she looked at me with drowsy, jade green eyes. She was a perfect picture of her own Irish-American heritage, and the Celtic lilt in her voice tied the package together. While normally a singsong note simply underscoring her words, she needed only to spend a few short hours with her family, or be tired as she was now, to re-kindle a heavy brogue that even included occasional lapses into Gaelic.

“So what time is it now?” she cooed, rubbing cat-like against me and nibbling lightly at my earlobe.

“About eight.”

“I don’t have any clients scheduled this morning…” she whispered, referring to her profession as a freelance photographer.

“Good for you.”

I was feigning ignorance of what she implied, but she continued undaunted. When Felicity had set her mind to something, there was little I knew of that could stand in her way.

“…And you’ve got some free time,” she breathed.

“Uh-huh.” I was rapidly starting to melt.

“I’m loving you a whole bunch right now…”

I wasn’t exactly late, but it was close. I didn’t arrive at the Saint Louis city police headquarters until five minutes to ten.

CHAPTER 2

“Really. Trust me on this,” I said in a calm but very firm tone. “Witches DO NOT have lurid orgies by the light of the full moon for the purpose of spawning demon children. I don’t care WHAT that newsletter says.”

The bulk of the lecture was finished and by all accounts had gone very well. For the better part of ninety minutes, I had outlined the philosophy of WitchCraft and the Wiccan religion. Taking great pains to stress their benevolence, I recited the Wiccan Rede and focused on its most important covenant- An it Harm None, do what ye will.