Sophie looked around once the chores were done. She was keenly aware that deep inside her heart of hearts disappointment coiled like a serpent ready to pump its deadly poison into her psyche if she let it. Despite her best efforts to contain her optimism, she had wanted the cream to work. It would have elevated her in the human world, something from which Sophie had always felt separate and apart. It would have been her entrée into a world of celebrity and acceptance. She would have been welcomed and sought after because she could offer what no one else had ever been able to—a veritable fountain of youth. It would—
“My god, how long am I going to have to listen to this drivel?”
The voice was right at Sophie’s ear. She started and yelped in surprise and shock. She whirled around, fists at the ready, a curse of protection on her lips.
She was alone.
How could that be?
Her heart seemed ready to burst from her chest. “Who’s there?” she yelled, adrenaline making her voice fierce and harsh. “I am a powerful witch. If you don’t show yourself, I’ll send you to Hades in a million broken pieces.”
There was a chuckle. Once again, right at her ear. “I’m afraid you’ve fixed it so I can’t show myself. However, if you look in that mirror over there, we might be able to figure this out.”
The voice was masculine, authoritative, with a hint of a British accent.
Sophie didn’t move. She was afraid it might be a trick. There were, after all, lots of invisible beings in the spirit world and not all of them were friendly. In order to battle one, however, she had to know what she was dealing with.
“I have no idea what I am now,” the voice replied rather snippily, as if divining her thoughts. “You’ve fixed that, too. Now go over to the mirror. I’d like to know even if you don’t.”
Then, through no effort or will on Sophie’s part, her feet moved toward the mirror. She tried to stop, digging in her heels, grasping at the counter with both hands. It did no good. Her feet trudged onward, and some invisible force broke her grip. She was being inexorably drawn to the mirror like a puppet responding to a master’s tug on her strings. Her temper flared. Whatever this was might get her to the damned mirror but it couldn’t make her look.
She squeezed her eyes shut, even pressed the palms of her hands against her eyelids, refusing to give in.
“Oh, for the love of everything evil and unnatural in this world and the next, will you stop behaving like a child? You’re the one who did this. At least allow me to see what kind of hell you’ve trapped me in.”
Sophie began to panic. The voice was right. Whatever it was had taken up residence in her body. How is that possible? She knew of possession. But whatever this was did not feel like a devil, exactly. And she wasn’t levitating or spewing invective—
“Not yet anyway,” the voice said. “But if you don’t open your eyes in ten seconds, you’ll be spewing more than invective, I promise you.”
Sophie swallowed hard and took a deep breath. Okay. Let’s get this over with.
She opened one eye.
The other flew open all on its own.
Ye gods. What was she seeing?
She rubbed her eyes and raised them again to the mirror.
“What the—”
The voice managed to sound both amused and horrified at the same time.
Sophie’s right hand reached up and grasped her chin. It turned her head to the left and right and back again.
“You’re a girl.” This time the voice held only horror.
A girl.
Sophie couldn’t ignore the thrill that swept over her. The face in the mirror was hers. But not exactly. She looked twenty again, but not the twenty that had been her reality. This young woman’s perfect skin stretched smooth and unwrinkled over high cheekbones. Her lashes were long and luxurious, her lips full.
She stepped back a bit, to see the rest. A body that was lush, perfect. A body she had seen before. The body in her dream.
Sophie gasped. The cream had worked!
“Cream? What cream? What is going on?”
Sophie’s excitement morphed into irritation. The voice’s intrusion into her thoughts brought with it a wave of emotion different from her own. The voice had its own power over her feelings. She had two separate and distinct personalities inhabiting this one perfect body. And she knew who the second personality belonged to.
“Mr. Deveraux?” she whispered.
“You know who I am?”
She nodded at the mirror. “I think this is my fault.”
“Think?” This time the voice thundered. “What did you do, witch?”
Sophie’s shoulders slumped a little as she told him. She felt his anger and frustration and they flooded her with guilt. When she finished explaining, though, a shift occurred. His fury dissipated to be replaced by cold amusement at the absurdity of his predicament.
“So this is the result of a science experiment gone wrong?”
Sophie bristled. “Not gone wrong. Gone right, actually.”
“Oh? I am trapped inside the body of a girl witch. This is the way it was supposed to be?”
Sophie shrugged. “Well. Not entirely. You see, you were supposed to make me…” She pirouetted in front of the mirror. “Like this. But you weren’t supposed to come back. I mean, the mental part of you.”
Mr. Deveraux snorted. “How like a woman. Only wants a man for his body.”
Sophie felt color creep into her cheeks. “That’s not what I meant. I thought your ash—”
“Which is another thing you have to answer for,” he interrupted with an impatient huff. “What did you think you were doing, letting my wife handle such a dangerous thing as a blazing cake? What kind of caterer are you? Was this your first vampire affair?”
It was Sophie’s turn to interrupt with an indignant huff of her own. “Now just a minute. I warned her about the danger. Even offered to bring the cake in myself. She wouldn’t hear of it. In fact, she insisted it was her surprise and she wanted to present it.”
As soon as the words were spoken, Sophie and Mr. Deveraux were hit by the same thought. While Sophie’s reaction was shock, Mr. Deveraux’s was something quite different. Rage scorched through Sophie like an inferno.
“It was no accident.”
They spoke the words as one, not aloud but like an echo that bounced from one consciousness to the other.
Sophie was half afraid to ask the next question but felt she owed it to herself as well as Mr. Deveraux to find the answer.
“Why would she do such a thing?”
Mr. Deveraux did not answer. Sophie could sense a tornado of emotion emanating from him and ripping through her. A deep sadness gave way to disappointment and then surged again to fury before settling into an ominous sense of betrayal.
Through her memories of the night, Mr. Deveraux saw and interpreted his wife’s actions, and through his, Sophie felt the cart being thrust deliberately and firmly into his back. Mrs. Deveraux had not tripped, and when her husband turned, his coat on fire and fear stark on his face, she had smiled and turned away to stand in the shelter of the arms of a young man who had reached out to her.
Now another emotion, the desire for retribution, made bile rise in the back of Sophie’s throat.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
That brought a chuckle that sent gooseflesh racing up Sophie’s arms. “You mean what are we going to do, don’t you?”
She shook her head. “I can’t be a part of malefic evil,” she said firmly. “I am a good witch.”
Mr. Deveraux grew quiet, Sophie grew uneasy. At last, Mr. Deveraux said, “Where are we anyway?”
His abrupt change of subject made Sophie suspicious but she decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. She turned so that her eyes swept the area. “This is my home.”