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Mists rose froe and the couple who stood upon it Melissa stared through the risingresemblance to Alexander Quinn, except that he wore black ritual robes and an inverted pentacle of solid gold with dia at each of its five points The wo white dress dancing in the olden hair was damp with the kiss of the moist air Melissa couldn&039;t see her face, but she knew the woh his lips neverfrom his pocket, a small white-robed doll with hair like the wo
The woman climbed over it
"No," Melissa whispered "No, wait"
But neither of them could hear her It was as if she weren&039;t really there
The man moved closer to the rail, held the doll out over the water As he did, a pair of hands, strong astral hands, attached to nothing and no one, appeared behind the wo above her shoulders
The woman turned, as if suddenly aware of the presence, and Melissa gasped as she saw her face It was al into athe doll over the rail
The hands closed on the woman and pushed her
She fell silently, her white dress wafting behind her Like an angel cast from heaven, she spiraled doard The water opened where she plunged into it, then closed around her, sing her down
Melissa screamed
The sound of her own voice shocked her awake, and she found herself sitting bolt upright in her own bed Her skin was da, as she looked around the room But it was real She was there, in the beach house, and the rest had just been a drea else - a prophecy, or a- it was too vivid to be just a dreahtstand The clock read 2:00 a roonized the fa machine Somehow, she&039;d been too deep in the vision to have heard the telephone ringing Sighing, she got out of the bed, padded into the living room, hit the playback button, and then shivered at the sound of Alexander Quinn&039;s deep voice
"We&039;re , Melissa Ten AM, nal the end of the h her hair, she wondered if she should just quit now and have it over with She wandered through the living room, toward the table in the back where she&039;d dropped the script he&039;d given her the day before As she did, she looked up, through the glass doors
And she saw soolden hair and a flohite gown
Her heart tripped and she lunged forward, hands pressing to the glass, eyes straining What the hell ?
There was nothing there Maybe it had just been a reflection, a trick of the lass doors But she couldn&039;t quite shake the feeling that she&039;d just seen the wo in the sacred space of Melissa&039;s own circle
She checked her locks, just in case Then she picked up the manuscript and took it with her, back to her bed, where she felt safe
She wanted to do this job right - and for more reasons than just the money She&039;d made a promise to her Goddess that if she could land this job, she would do it justice, set the record straight on prime-time network television For her Craft, for her fellow Witches, for all those who&039;d died due to ignorance in the past
She couldn&039;t quit Maybe all of this was so Alex and that troubling drea on with hiut, and she never ignored her intuition It was usually dead-on She was as afraid of him as she was drawn to him She knew he felt that attraction, too The air between them practically sparked with it when he was close to her
What was the drea? Was Alex to become her lover or her killer? Or both? Or was the dream just a manifestation of her own fears of failure and of this sudden, potent desire?
She couldn&039;t dismiss him or the questions froh for her to do her work She spent the rest of the night with her copy of the season&039;s story arc, a stack of episode-by-episode breakdowns, and a red pen, which ran out of ink, so she had to finish in blue
She wasn&039;t exactly fresh when she finished at 7:45 AM She spent a half hour doing yoga, fifteenritual before she had to begin the transfor her wild hair into a nice neat bun, corralling her breasts within the confines of a bra, putting on panties and nylons and a nice, civilized-looking outfit that included an ivory-colored silklike sleeveless blouse, askirt, and a pair of pumps with two-inch heels She flat-out refused to wear heels higher than that
Then she drove her beloved li prayers of protection to keep fro tactics co at one minute before ten The others were already there, seated in comfortable overstuffed chairs androoray hair, white at the temples, three-hundred-dollar suit, way too thin for a s had shown up, a young, pale woether Melissa wasn&039;t sure if it was as obvious to everyone else as it was to her, but as far as she was concerned they n The director, Karl Stone, was there But one presence dominated the room Alex
He was as potent to her senses as a shot of adrenaline Dark hair, killer s black eyes that see jeans, a tank-style undershirt, and a short-sleeved button-down shirt, unbuttoned All black As her gaze slid over him, it froze on his chest
He wore a pendant that rested there An inverted pentacle with dia at its five points
Melissa&039;s blood went cold It was the saaze froot stuck there, captured If he saw the fear in her eyes, he didn&039;t show it He s she didn&039;t, then rose from his chair until she sat in one of her own
Karl Stone said, "What do you want, Mel, coffee? Tea? A soft drink?"
She tried not to gri, thanks, I&039;m fine" She opened her briefcase, pulled out the story arc and breakdowns, and stacked them on the coffee table in front of her
Merl Kinney leaned forward, brows drawing together at the red , he drew the stacks toward hioodness," he said "Had I knoas in need of a ghostwriter, I&039;d have hired one myself"
The roo of so a breath, Melissa called up her courage "These are only suggestions I wouldn&039;t dreaht the places where I found technical inaccuracies The notes in the aze fro it with hers "I&039;ve won an Oscar and three Eic, Mr Kinney"
Their gazes held
Alex broke the silence "Merl, Melissa was hired to tell us where ere getting it wrong, as far as the Witchcraft stuff goes All she&039;s done here is exactly what I hired her to do" He drew the h "Keep in estions or leave the to have to quit," she said, addressing Alex now
He blinked at her as if she&039;d suddenly levitated or sprouted a wart on the end of her nose "I don&039;t follow"
"I&039;d prefer not to have the entire Pagan community think of me as a traitor, much less an uninformed poser, Alex I don&039;t want to deal with the aze to the head writer&039;s again, she went on "And I don&039;t mean to tell you what to write, or horite Only what&039;s accurate And Alex is right: you can take it or leave it"
Kinney frowned and leaned back in his chair But the tense, offended body language remained "Why don&039;t you nutshell so her lips, wishing she could snatch the script back frorossed And she found it easier to concentrate when his eyes were not on her, so she decided to let it be God, she so wanted to keep this job But she ht very well be fired or forced to walk on her first full day
"Just as a for-instance," she began, choosing her words carefully, "the spells When a Witch casts a spell, there&039;s a lota couple of lines froic The Witch is"
"So hoould you go about casting a spell?" Alex asked, lifting his gaze fro her with it It burned There was so in his eyes both attractive and intense It shook her right to the core And those da to her discooal, then do a divination to deterot the okay, then I&039;d calculate the best possible ti for the spell Best day of the week, ical correspondences, best time of day, and so on I&039;d determine what herbs or scents, crystals or colors should be used, picking ones whose energies and vibrational frequencies oal I&039;d compose the words of the spell, and they would be very i from the rhyme sche I&039;d decide hoanted to raise energy Then I&039;d do yet another reading to ensure every precaution had been taken"
Kinney raised his eyebrows "It sounds like we&039;re going to need longer episodes This le week"
"Even if you just refer to the preparation involved, it would help," Melissa said "A throay line or tould be enough Just acknowledge there&039;sthe lines"
He nodded "Doable, I suppose But boring This is entertainment, Mel Not a documentary"
"I understand that And naturally there will be tiency situation and have to act instantly"
"What about the actual spell-casting part?" Alex asked "I e of his chair, leaning forward, eyes glued to hers, except when they veered south every little while, to slide over her body, down her legs like a caress She could feel his eyes when they touched her that way
"Yes When the tiht, I would create sacred space and cast a ritual circle I&039;d invoke the forces and entities I had chosen towould involve raising energy by dancing or chanting, dru, or any nuy reaches its peak, the Witch releases it froives thanks and releases any forces or entities she has invoked Finally, she takes up the circle"
"So instead of a thirty-second scene it&039;s a half-hour scene," Kinny said, his voice dripping sarcas scene to me," Karl Stone said It was the first coine the special effects we could put in there? Tell ic circle visible to the naked eye?"