I had three separate mental lists in my head concerning the secret letter. It had to be someone who knew about Ken Art, obviously, but seeing as I-Spy.com had published the video under my name that didn't exactly narrow it down. It had to be someone who knew about Athame and that within itself implied that it was someone who also knew about, or at least suspected, my unusual proclivities.

Amy Jules definitely knew about Ken Art and might very well have over time picked up on the rest, but somehow this level of subtly didn't seem to fit her. She seemed more inclined to completely flip out or totally ignore it.

Frida McFee? Knew what I was, and assuming she was following the case it would be easy for her to put two and two together, but why the thinly veiled threats of blackmail when the Halo already had a whole community of people eager to beat vampires into a self-hating submission?

That left another vampire as the most likely suspect, but in that case exactly who would be impossible to determine until the letter sender made another move.

“Who are you text messaging?” I leaned over Lily's shoulder as the subway zoomed above ground through groups of messy brown and gray outer borough buildings. He crinkled his nose as he pulled his cellphone close to his chest and slid his hands over the screen.

“No your business,” came the half serious reply.

“Ooooooooooh. It's your other girlfriend is it?”

“Yes and she is prettier than you.”

“That's not humanly possible.”

He stuck his tongue out at me and went back to texting. I might never have even noticed if it didn't take him five minutes to type out a single word, a clear sign that he was texting in English instead of Russian.

One of his fingers finally landed on the 'Send' button and he returned to the real world with a stretching roll of his shoulders and a shake of his head.

“So you're not going to tell me then?” I said.

“Nope.”

“Is it a secret?”

“No.”

“Then why won't you tell me?”

“You have very much nose--” and by this I can only assume he was trying to say I was too nosy. “Don't be. I do not ask you where you go. Who you see.”

“Do you want to know where I'm going?”

“No.”

“Do you want to come with me? We're already on the train together.”

“....No.”

But I could see he was curious. He was fiddling with his phone and waiting for me to look away so that he could study me and determine whether he should be worried about where I was going or who I was seeing. Poor Lily, he was not as in control of this relationship as he would like to pretend.

“I'm going to see the witches,” I said. His eyes widened to reveal only a little more white around beady gray irises.

“Witches?”

“Yeah.” I smiled. “What you believe in vampires, but not witches?”

He stared blankly at me, his cellphone cradled like an egg in his hands-- remembered by the delicate twitching of tendons held stiff but forgotten in his mind. It was black, nondescript, with no straps or stickers or even a soft protective shell in a bright color or pattern. Lily's one indulgence in the world of shameless identity displaying was a wide collection of ringtones for each specific person.

I was, unironically, Stealers Wheel's Stuck in the Middle with You.

His mystery contact was Maroon 5's Harder to Breathe.

Hard drums-dum-da-dum... How dare you say that my behavior is unacceptable So condescending unnecessarily critical... just like that with sharp guitar beats injected in between his aggressive words.

“Your phone,” I nodded towards the black clam shell in his hands as it buzzed unnoticed. “Your other girlfriend.”

Well it wasn't really a love song, I guess, but what were the odds Lily even knew what they were singing about?

“AH!” he jerked, the phone hopping comically in the air and landing back down in his hands like a bar of soap. He flipped it open quickly and stared at the glowing screen.

I tried to ignore the flicker of amusement I caught on his face as his eyes scanned over the words and he bit his lips and carefully started to plot out his response.

“So ... do you want to come?” I said, the tip of my tongue catching on the roof of my mouth as I tried to keep my tone level.

“Nuh-uh.” He shook his head, but seemed to be barely listening. “I go ... meet friend.”

“...You're really not going to tell me who this friend is?”

“Nope.” He smiled.

“You're being mean on purpose.”

Lily nodded. “You like secrets. Keep you interesting.”

..................................

Fetching Hexing is closed on Tuesdays, which is fortunate because I really didn't want to go through the rank and file with their Egyptian Ankh tattoos and copper penis statues (or whatever) to have a short, extremely passive-aggressive conversation with someone I didn't like.

So it seemed like a good idea at the time, but the scene when I got there made me reconsider. The street itself was eerily quiet for such a normally bustling part of Manhattan. There were no other pedestrians on the sidewalk and only a few scattered cars parked nearly a block away. The lights in the apartment above were off and the windows were all closed tight, the curtains drawn. There was no hint of movement.

For a moment my curiously dramatic side got the better of me and natural disasters, evacuation fantasies danced through my mind. Where was everyone?

There was an alley on the side of the building that led into the backyard. A typical New York City backyard-- mostly concrete, stone, with ivy, weeds and the occasional tree passing for nature-- where the sounds of feet shuffling, happy chatter and the distinctive whiff of burnt wax wafted from.

I carefully moved the garbage cans out of my way and slipped through the narrow channel of brick to where the sunlight pierced through civilization.

Inside the courtyard formed by a hole in a cluster of buildings, five or six people stood in a circle. Their bodies stretched out, heads thrown back, eyes closed in concentration ... or maybe bliss. They were dressed normally, that is to say there were no robes or period costumes like I always assumed there would be at something like this. Actually it looked quite different than I thought it would, starting with the strange fact that instead of performing their sacred rights in a clearing awash in moonlight in the middle of a dark heavily wooded forest they were doing it in broad daylight within full view of a man standing at the window of his third floor apartment in his underwear.

I stayed quiet and still as they appeared to be finishing. I may not feel 100% comfortable around  witches for various personal reasons, but that doesn't mean I don't respect their routines.

Frida cracked an eye open long enough to spot me lingering by the edge of the building. Her surprise was quickly consumed by annoyance, which I suppose I get. I certainly wouldn't want to catch sight of her out my window when I'm fooling around with Lily.

She was wearing what looked like a headband made of thin silver metal with a purple gem stone in the middle, sitting over her third eye. It was actually quite pretty.

As the group broke up and began to form loose migration patterns between cleaning up ritual supplies and snacking on communal refreshments, Frida slipped off to the side.

She hissed as she approached.

“What are you doing here? We're closed.”

“I know,” I said calmly. “I came to cross you off my list.”

“What list?”

“Of people who might have sent me this...”

I produced the envelope and held it up a few inches from her face. What she was going to say wasn't particularly important, I was more interested in watching her eyes and scanning the outer perimeter of her shield for reaction.

Witches like Frida McFee-- especially like Frida McFee-- are careful to maintain basic psychic shields to prevent people like me from fucking around with them. They were effective, but just because I would have had to work a little bit harder to get in didn't mean I couldn't feel the shift in energy that recognition would have caused.

Faces and words can lie, energy is almost always honest.

By the wave of confusion that mingled and intensified her annoyance I could deduce that Frida was telling the truth when she said “I've never seen this before ... what was inside?”

“That's not important.” I folded the envelope up and shoved it back into my pocket. “Sorry to disturb your ... well, what were you doing anyway?” I asked even though I knew I had no right to ask. I was surprised when she answered without a snipe or any sarcasm.

“It's a full moon.”

She pointed to the sky. It was still daylight, but-- yes-- you could see the faint silver orb and all its craters and details. The color was musty, like the blue in our sky was a fog of tangible pigment in the air keeping us from seeing the heavens.

“Oh...”

“Was that all you wanted to know?”

Maybe it was the full moon, maybe the movements of the planets do have influence on us, because I felt a lot more serene than I ever figured I would feel standing at the mouth of a dirty alley with my least favorite person in the world.

“Hey ... can I ask you a hypothetical question?” I said.

There was a quick flare up of suspicion at the request. “What kind of hypothetical?”

“Advice ... I guess, I want some advice.”

“You want advice from me?”

“I'd take it from anyone at this point.”

She hesitated, took the priestess crown off her head and ruffled her hair out of its matted, stiff state. “I suppose so.”

“I'm guessing you get silly teenagers looking to be initiated into your order all the time, right?”

“... Of course.”

“What do you do with them?”

“What do you mean 'what do we do with them'? If they're under-18 we won't even talk to them without their parent's written consent.”

“I mean the legal ones. Suppose you have a kid who want to study witchcraft but you really think he isn't ready. What do you do?”

The alley way nipped at me feet. My imagination running a little bit wild behind the scenes , the dirt and grime coming to life and pulling at my clothes, looking for holes and micro-tears. I was trying to hide my discomfort from Frida, for fear she might actually invite me in. As much as I hated the city stenches burned into the brick walls flanking me, hospitality actually sounded worse.

“Depends, sometimes we just tell them to get lost and if that doesn't work usually we just give them something to do as 'training'. They'll either give up or grow into someone who is ready soon enough.”

“Hmmm...” It was not exactly the answer I wanted-- I was hoping for some kind of 'stop being a dumbass' spell or a 'what you want is crazy!' charm-- but it might still prove useful advice.