Finally, we stood, facing each other over the mirror. Put my hands on his shoulders, hesitated a minute, lowered them to around his waist. Shyly, he did the same. Careful there, boy, or we'll be conjuring by a fiercer majik before you know it.

"Center. Which is us." Damn. For a fucktoy, this one was pulling some unusual things out of me. I knew, as I pulled his hips closer to mine, that we already had an energy linkage at that level. I didn't so much expect the one I felt leap out from my chest.

Stepped away then, breaking it. Roughly, but - well, it was broken. At least then. Too early to see what his eyes might have held, so I didn't look.

I debated a moment, but decided to put the fire in the south. There was already a charge at that center point, and we had the mirror to hold it. So the kindling tipi went behind the flower line. That put it opposite the blankets under the pine. Good. I liked that; symmetry.

"You think that firewood's going to last us all night?" Jamie asked dubiously, eyeing the two little bundles we'd scored earlier.

"Not if you make a white man's fire, no," I chuckled, and pushed back my sleeve to reveal a forearm, warm and brown from the sun. My car tan. "But I only marginally qualify as one of those. And you're my guest tonight, so we'll let it slide."

By that point I was starting to notice - things. Little lights, mostly, dancing just out the corner of my eye.

"So now what?" he asked me, when the fire was lit.

"'Sit around the fire - sit and laugh - sit and laugh and wait for it to begin,'" I quipped at him. No recognition. Hell, he was probably still in gradeschool when Jane's Addiction was big.

"Now - we wait. Make coffee. Wait. Not much else to do." He wasn't seeing the lights yet, then.

I started to recognize some of them as the devas from this afternoon. Sent them the picture of me naked in the sunlit circle, just in case they didn't notice me under the clothes. A couple of them alit in the grass behind me, out of the circle of firelight.

"Whoa," Jamie sucked in his breath. "Are those fireflies?" He pointed to my little acquaintances.

"Welcome to the spirit world, kid," I smiled thinly at him. Not always a comfortable place to be. "Those are devas, plant spirits. I made their acquaintance this afternoon, while you were gone."

"Oh." And then, "I think I've seen them out here before. Some nights."

"OK - " I thought about that. "What else have you seen, kid? Stuff others didn't, I mean."

"Oh, I donno." But after a long moment, "Once, when I was in the back of the car with my folks, I saw a coffin, covered with a flag, just out in the woods. Right by the road. Like that?" Not quite, but I nodded, letting him go on.

"And another time - was out cruising with my buds.. Heading down Route 2 towards the city, you know. And I saw this dude." I waited.

"He was just sitting there, next to the median strip. Real tall, skinny guy. Bald, I think. Barefoot, maybe no shirt. And he looked seriously freaked yanno? I mean, stick me out in the middle of traffic, maybe I'd freak too. But he looked really scared, like he was crying."

"But nobody else in the car saw a thing."

We watched the fire for a little bit. I measured out coffee then, while it still meant something to me, and filled the pot with water.

I knew there was more. Had to be. Sent the lightest probe I could, found a big, locked door marked "No go. The Bogeyman." Knew the rest was behind it. Watched him wince as I came up near it.

"You feel that, don't you." Not a question - statement.

"I feel - something, yeah. Kinda creepy." He looked a little green. "That's you?"

I nodded. "That's me."

I got up, sauntered back to circle center. Got as comfortably cross-legged as I could, far side of the mirror from the kid. Gestured him down opposite me. Scoot a little, knees touching.

"Tell you what," I offered. "Why'n't you see if you can do it to me. Reach out, with your mind. Towards me. And gently - touch."

And there he was, pow. I suddenly understood the line from that old Loop tune: 'Like I was shot. With a diamond bullet. Right through the forehead.' And I heard him cry out -

"Ohh!" I didn't have to ask to know he was seeing wings again; I could feel them burst out my back. Unfurling, reaching for the sky. Well, okay then. I swept them back and forth, once, twice. The third time, the tips met something cool. I opened my eyes just as he clamped his closed.

"Welll." I grinned. I'd say I'll be damned, but it's way too late for that. Blessed, maybe? Saved? Ugh. Stick with damned.

At any rate, my little protege had unfurled a pair of his own. Not flame, like mine, but crystalline, cool and blue. Maybe this story was starting to make a little more sense to me now.

"How long you had those, eh, boy?" He opened his eyes again, slowly, squinting against my flame brightness.

"Whaa - ?" He hadn't figured it out yet. Or maybe the ten hits were coming on. Nah, he could see me; it had to work both ways.

"Your back feel strange at all? Like cutting teeth, say?" I arched mine forward a little, touched tips to his again. All done with the mind; of course there were no solid wings, nor muscles to control them.

Jamie craned his neck back, slowly, wonderingly. Got a glimpse of his blue pinions arching overhead, to meet my burning ones. And fainted dead away.

Cursing myself for not being sure he'd eaten today, I gathered the kid up (the wings winked out when he did). Carried him over to the blankets. Got him curled into one. And turned to face the night.

More precisely, where the darkness was, she stood. Stood? Towered. I'll grant the doses had kicked in at this point, but she could eyeball any birdies cowering at the top of that pine. Twenty feet? I donno.

I know I'm not telling you much about her. To say 'her' might even be stretching it, though I had that impression from her - when she - from the way she communicated to me. I can't say spoke, because I'm damn sure no voice was involved.

I know you're disappointed, so let me throw you this: I didn't walk into that circle your humble narrator, even your humble narrator plus wings. When I turned, I was in full form - whatever the fuck that means.

The wings you know about. The eyes - well, I had three of them now, two where you'd expect, the third in the middle. Set the long way, pointy end toward the bridge of my nose. The other two at forty-five degree angles from center, and all three with slit pupils, like a cat, or a lizard. And fuck yes, I could see out of all three.

My skin had gone grey, like, DARK grey. Close examination would reveal claws, and fangs; though neither were obvious. I think nearly vestigial, somehow. Ears were pointed, longer, able to swivel like a cat's. Stuck up through my hair, which somehow was exactly the same.

I was glad Jamie was unconscious. I don't know how two doses and his Sight would interpret this. Probably better not. I can't tell you what the fuck I was at that point - gargoyle? three-eyed invader from Sirius? - and I can't tell you whether I still am that, on some level, or always was. I suppose it might explain some things, though.

So I turned to face her. Not five seven anymore either, I don't think, though I still had to look up to meet her gaze. I think now how far out over the lake she must have been when I saw her, to appear to me then as roughly human size.

I said she didn't speak, and she didn't; and if she had, I can guarantee she wouldn't use English. But I shit you not, if the first thing I heard from her didn't translate out as,

" 'The fuck you doin', boy?"

I might have been an eight foot anthropomorphic lizard angel with wings of flame, but I had just been called on the carpet, in no uncertain terms. And I was on the defense.