Fifth period.� Brian Vaughn passed Mark Orsini on the way to his locker, and shoved him, hard.� "You're dead after school today, Orsini,"� he said.

Mark turned his head and glared at Vaughn.� "You and what army?"

"Don't need an army to stomp on a fucking little worm like you."� Vaughn strutted off to his fifth period class.� "Dead, Orsini.� Remember that!"

No one pushed Mark Orsini around.� Mark closed his eyes and thought to his silent partner, Golden.� Tonight.� You can have some tonight.

*satisfaction*

Vaughn thought he owned FDR Memorial High.� Or at least that he owned Stephanie Pirello, who had gone to a movie with Mark last night.� He was a big, beefy football jock, and he had a lot of big, beefy friends.� Mark, on the other hand, had the wiry, compact body of a soccer player, and his friends were mostly very small.� But then, Mark's friends were considerably nastier.� It wasn't going to be Mark who was dead after school today.

He headed into the boys' bathroom and went into a stall.� Yo. �Golden.

Golden appeared sitting on the toilet seat, a comically grotesque little thing with skin the color of gold metal.� *here*

Take my books, and bring me the ones for 6th period after lunch.� that*

I'm asking you. �Come on, Goldie-- snack tonight.

*resignation* Golden vanished.� Mark left the stall, and went downstairs to lunch.

As he walked into the lunchroom, he located Stephanie, sitting with a bunch of other sophomore girls.� He headed for her table.� "Hey, beautiful.� Mind if I park my tray here?"

She looked at him, and he could see it beginning in her eyes.� The unreasoning fear...� the rejection.� "Uh...� sure, I guess."

"Well, you sound real enthusiastic.� Aren't you happy to see me?"

"Sure...� sure..."� She wasn't.� She wanted him to go away, and Mark didn't know why.� He'd never known why.� No one ever explained it-- they said things like, "It just isn't working,"� or "I'm seeing someone else,"� or "I think we should just be friends."� Maybe he might be able to get one more date out of Stephanie.� Some of her friends were cute, though.� Mark got his lunch, and sat down with Stephanie, but flirted with her friends more than with her.� She was abandoning him, and he had no idea why.� As usual.

As he got up to leave, at the end of the period, he looked up at the senior balcony, and saw a young man watching him.� Mark met his gaze for a few moments, but somehow felt compelled to look away.� Something in his eyes....

Mark aced the test in 7th period math, despite having no mathematical aptitude to speak of, by having Teenybopper sit in his ear and whisper the answers.� Teenybopper wasn't good at math, either, but Teenybopper could go spy on the answer sheet in Mr. Gilman's desk.� No one caught him, as usual.� It was an open secret that Mr. Gilman got blasted every morning, and so even if he had noticed that one of his students appeared to have a deformed little humanoid creature the size of a thumbnail sitting on his ear, he wasn't about to say anything.� Later, in 9th period study hall, a girl passed Mark a note asking if he was free Friday, and giving her phone number.� Then, after school, he went up to the roof and waited.

Sure enough, Vaughn and his bullies showed up.� "Yo, Orsini.� I told you you were dead if you messed with my girlfriend."

Mark was leaning against an antenna aerial, arms crossed in front of his chest, smiling insolently.� "Obviously she wanted to be messed with.� Maybe she wanted a real man for a boyfriend."

"You're not going to smile so much when I break in your teeth,"� Vaughn said.� He started toward Mark.

"Now,"� Mark said.

And all hell-- perhaps literally-- broke loose.

The air was full of demons.� Big ones, like Gargantua and Anthrax; little ones, like Teenybopper and Microbe; and all the ones in between, including their leader and Mark's familiar, Golden.� They swarmed at Vaughn and his friends, who screamed hysterically, trying to beat the demons off them.� Most of the demons fed on terror, among other strong emotions, and Vaughn and the others were certainly producing enough of that.� But most of them fed on other things as well.� Mark had the bigger demons hold Vaughn and his three friends captive while he talked.

"Now these are my demons,"� Mark said.� "Lots of them, as you see, and they don't like it when you mess with me.� They want a piece of you now.� And each of them feeds on something different."� He began to describe each demon's preference in graphic detail.� The four teenagers screamed and struggled in terror.

"But,"� Mark said, when he'd finished, "I might be persuaded to be merciful--"

"Oh, please!"

"We didn't mean anything by it, man! We were just messing around!"

"I didn't even want to be here, Vaughn made me come--"

"Please, please, I'll do anything, anything!"

"All right, then."� Mark gestured, and Golden flitted to each of the boys, biting each of them on the forehead and lapping up some of the blood.� Golden fed on emotion and on blood; normally, Mark's own was sufficient, but every so often, Mark gave him and the other demons a feast, a reward for faithful service.� "He's marked you now,"� Mark said.� "Everything you do, everything you say, Golden will know.� And if you ever mess with me again-- or if you ever tell anyone what's happened here-- Golden will summon all the rest of the demons, and they'll carry you off to Hell and have fun with you."

"I won't say nothing.� Ever!"

"Me neither!"

They babbled protestations of fear and loyalty until Mark released them.� The demons all returned to wherever it was they came from-- maybe it was Hell, Mark didn't know-- and he himself walked home.

There was a note on the fridge from Mrs. Orsini.� "Mark-- come to my study when you get home.� Mom."�

In her study, Mrs. Orsini was at the typewriter, tapping out yet another recipe.� She was a reasonably famous cookbook writer.� "Hello, Mark.� How was school today?"

"All right,"� he said listlessly.� He could see it happening in the way she avoided his eyes.� The uncertainty, the fear.� The rejection.� "What did you want to see me for, Mrs. Orsini?"� As if he didn't know.

She wouldn't look at him.� "Well...� the government is cutting back on the stipend for foster parents,"� she said.� "I'm afraid Chris and I can't afford to keep you anymore.� We've put in an application for you to be transferred, and as soon as they find a new family for you..."� Now she looked at him.� "Of course, we're not turning you out into the street, Mark.� Until they've got somewhere else for you to go, you'll stay here, okay?"�

He had to say it.� "Are you giving up Amelia, too?"

Her face changed.� "Amelia's much younger than you, Mark...� For one thing, she doesn't cost as much.� We can afford to keep her.� And you'll be an adult soon."

"What if I got a job and paid you the difference myself?"

"You're only 15, Mark...� you couldn't work enough to make the difference, not legally."� She looked away.� Disappointment and fury curdled in Mark's belly.� "You understand, don't you?"

"Sure.� I understand.� It's okay,"� he lied, and turned away quickly, keeping his voice casual.� "I'd better go get my homework done."

"Yes.� Yes, that's a good idea."� She turned back to her typing as he left.

He hurled himself onto the bed in his room...� no, not his room.� The room the Orsinis gave him to use.� There wasn't anyplace that was his.� Mark clenched the bedsheets in fury.� They were keeping that bratty little girl, who alternated between busting his chops and avoiding him in terror, and they were sending him away.� But what did he expect?

Since his mother had committed suicide, a week after he was born, he had been in and out of a series of foster homes all his life, never staying anywhere longer than a year.� He didn't understand it.� He tried to be a good kid...� but there was something in him that chased people away.�

He had never had any trouble making friends for a month or two.� Then they found someone else to play with, or hang with, and they left him alone.� Girls were always hot to go out with him, then ditched him within the month, sometimes after a single date...� like Stephanie.� He had a reputation as a playboy, and it wasn't true.� He wanted to have a steady girlfriend.� He wanted‑‑

He wanted someone to belong to.� But it had never happened.� None of the people in his life stayed longer than a year.� Even pets ran off, after a few weeks.� The only beings that had stuck with him were his demons.

Mark didn't really know what they were, or where they came from; he called them demons because they looked demonic, like gargoyles.� One day when he'd been barely 13, Mark had fallen from his bike in an abandoned parking lot and ripped open his knee.� Golden had appeared to him for the first time, then, looking at him plaintively.� For some reason, Mark had not been shocked at the little creature's sudden appearance; he had instinctively thought of Golden as a potential pet.� Without quite knowing why, he had placed his finger to his bloody knee, and presented the finger to Golden, who had delicately licked the blood off.� Then Golden had inched forward and licked Mark's knee clean of blood, healing the wound.

From that day forth, Golden had arrived whenever Mark needed him, and had brought other demons as well, to be introduced to Mark.� All the demons served Golden; by feeding them each a single drop of his blood, Mark had made them all personally loyal to him as well.� He often wondered what the connection was-- something about him scared people off, but was attractive to demons.� What?

Was he evil?

He tried not to be.� It was tempting to abuse the power-- to send the demons after the people that had rejected him-- but he wouldn't do it.� Except in dreams.� Mark had nasty, violent dreams all the time in which he did whatever he liked.� He raped girls who had rejected him, tortured former friends and foster parents who had thrown him away, while knowing that it was only a dream and he wasn't going to be hurting any real people.� Or getting caught, for that matter.� He wondered sometimes about that-- what sort of person could he be, to have such horrible fantasies? But everyone's dark side surfaced at night-- as long as he did nothing during the day, nothing except defend himself at any rate, he wasn't evil.� He clung to that.

Only, what was it that turned people off to him? It wasn't his looks; they were considerably better than average.� With no modesty whatsoever, Mark knew that most people, including himself, considered him incredibly good-looking.� As a child, he'd sometimes been mistaken for a girl, with the ethereal body and girlishly-pretty face he'd had.� Since then, he'd worked out enough to get a good body for a 15-year-old boy-- medium height and compactly muscular, with the build of a soccer player.� He had golden-brown skin, milk-chocolate-brown hair, and odd blue eyes.� They were the most striking feature of his face, and made it impossible to precisely place his ethnicity.� Though they had a vaguely Asian cast to them, they seemed simultaneously to be unusually large, and very intense.� They were also an unusual shade, as deep and brilliant blue as the summer sky.� He had overlong, pretty eyelashes, and a teen idol's face.� Probably it was his looks that attracted people to him in the first place.� What drove them away again?

His personality wasn't so repulsive, was it? He was no nerd, incapable of handling a social situation-- in the beginnings of his relationships with people, he seemed very socially adept, the life of the party.� Why did people turn from that, and from him? And why did he see in their eyes uncertainty, anxiety, fear?

He didn't know.� He'd never known.� And he did have homework to do.� With a sigh, Mark unpacked his books and set to work.

That night he had one of his nasty dreams again.� He was on a date with Stephanie, and she rejected him, telling him he was evil.� So he decided to prove it to her.� He had his demons hold her down while he did everything he wanted with her, and then he gave her to his demons to play with.

It made him shudder, when he awoke.� He remembered Stephanie begging and screaming, and the pleasure that gave him.� How could he have enjoyed her pain and humiliation so? Why did the memory still stir something within him, even through his disgust? Only an evil person would--

--no.� He hadn't really hurt anybody.� He would never hurt Stephanie in real life, even when she inevitably rejected him.� As she probably would today.

He was waiting outside a class for the people inside to leave, along with several other sophomores, including Stephanie.� "Hey, Steph.� How's it going?"

"I'm tired,"� she said.� She looked at him, then nervously glanced away.� "I had a dream about you last night."

"Really! That sounds encouraging.� What was it about?"

"I don't remember.� All I remember was it was a nightmare, and it had you in it."� She looked back at him, and again away.� "Did you beat Brian up?"

"Why do you ask?"

"He told me it was okay by him if I wanted to date you.� He sounded scared of you.� And there's a bruise on his forehead."

"Do you? Still want to date me?"

Stephanie looked away.� "I just..."� Abruptly her gaze was caught, and she began to stare.� "I don't believe it!"

"Don't change the subject, Steph!"

"No-- that guy! I had a dream about him, too!"

"Was it exciting?"� Mark deadpanned. �Stephanie flushed.

"Not that kind of dream!"� Mark tracked Stephanie's gaze.� A group of seniors across the hall were also waiting for a class to let out.� Most of them were clustered in groups, but one guy stood alone, the same one who'd been staring at Mark in the lunchroom.� This time Mark stared back.�

The young man was of an ambiguous age-- anywhere from 16 to 22-- tall and very handsome, in a flamboyant fashion.� His hair was dark red, and his skin as golden as Mark's.� His eyes, however, were the strangest-- pale gold, like a cat's, and large, but with a strangely Asian cast to them.� Mark found those eyes disturbing.� He stared into them, and heard words in his mind, as he heard when he spoke to one of his demons: *Tonight.� I challenge you tonight.*

Challenge me? To what?

The classroom doors opened, and the young man smiled and stepped inside, without answering.

The next chance he had alone, Mark asked Golden to check up on the guy.� Golden couldn't transmit complex information when he wasn't in Mark's world, so he sent another tiny demon, Microbe, to report in 6th period study hall.

*GoLdeN SaYs hIs nAme'S andrE dEs DeMangEs, HE's a NeW sTudEnt, AnD dON't meSs wITh HIm, bOsS.� He's Got pOwer.*

Power? What kind of power?

Microbe sounded uncomfortable with the question. �*dUnNo, boSs.� S'wHAt goLdeN SayS.*

And he wasn't going to be able to hold a coherent conversation with Golden till the next time he went to the bathroom.� Mark cursed silently.� As soon as the period was over, he beelined for the boys' room, and summoned Golden to his stall.� What do you mean, power?

*what what?* Golden was being deliberately dense.

I mean that guy.� Andre des Demanges.� Microbe said you said he had some kind of power.� What?

Golden shrugged uncomfortably.� *don't know*

What do you mean, you don't know? line-height:200%; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>You said it-- you have to know!

*just a feeling from up the line*

Up what line?

*some people are more powerful than you, boss*

And with that, Golden disappeared, and all Mark's summoning wouldn't bring him back.

The question of Andre des Demanges plagued Mark all the rest of the schoolday.� Who was he? What sort of power could he have? And what had he meant when he'd said he "challenged"� Mark tonight? Mark had never seen the guy before, and besides, he had the distinct feeling that this went beyond fooling around with someone else's girlfriend.� If that had really been a challenge Mark had heard, then this wasn't a fight between boys.� This would be a war.

After school, he had a rehearsal.� He didn't want to go. �Normally he loved acting, but not tonight.� Something in him feared Andre des Demanges and his challenge, and he just wanted to get home and away from the weirdness.

But if he missed a rehearsal, Mr. Alfredo might consider that sufficient cause to throw him out, or give his part to someone else.� And he couldn't afford that.� So he went to drama.� They were doing "Twelve Angry Men", and while he'd started out with the lead, the noble Eight, somehow things had happened, and he'd ended up as the villainous redneck Three.� Mark was� annoyed-- he'd liked Eight.�

However, it was a fun rehearsal, and helped Mark put the question of Andre des Demanges mostly out of his head.� Afterwards, he went up to his locker, deciding to get his books himself rather than have his demons do it.�

Something was standing in front of his locker.� A tall being with an androgynous, beautiful face, skin so white it was almost blue, and hair and eyes the color of ice stood wrapped in a dark cloak.� A woman, perhaps-- but not any kind of human woman.� Something else.� Mark backed up a step, startled, and turned.

Andre des Demanges stood, leaning against the wall.� "Time's up, mon ami,"� he said, smiling.� He had a faint French accent.� "It's time to go home."

"Go home?"� Mark felt terribly, irrationally afraid of him and the dark womanshape to his back.� He began to slowly circle, trying to bring both of them into view.� His tongue was thick in his mouth, and it was hard to speak.� "Home where?"

"Silly demange.� You can't fool me. �Sharro Var�nas, City of Demons and Angels.� That's where you come from.� Or have you forgotten?"

"I've-- I've never heard of such a place.� Where...?"

"Don't try to play stupid, demange.� You haven't been that long away from home.� I know you haven't.� Now, it's time to send you home."

Andre made a gesture with his hands, and Mark's fear sprouted into terror.� He was going to send Mark away, banish him somewhere-- No!

"Golden, come on out and bring all your friends!"� he shouted.

And the air was thick with demons.� He heard Andre cry out as Mark sent them to attack him.� "Amour!"

The woman-thing in the black cloak flew in front of Andre, throwing her cloak out.� The first demon to hit the cloak bounced backward, stunned.� Then she shot criss-cross bolts of light from rapidly moving hands, constructing a web of magical light.� Mark staggered backwards, feeling Golden's pain as he hit the barrier.� Andre pushed past his partner's cloak, standing next to her behind the barrier.

"Name of the Trickster! Name of the Moon-queen! Name of the Trinity!"� He stood, beginning to glow, with arms thrown out, as if channeling electricity through his body.� "I call on Hermes and on Aphrodite, I call on Hecate of the Crossroads, I call on the One who made them all! Three Who Are One, He Who Is She, That Which Is Three, guide me and guard me, and see that those I command obey by Your holy laws!"

The air crackled violently with energy.� The incantation seemed to go through Mark like an arrow of cold blue light, exploding in his core.� He felt and saw his demons cower back, chattering in terror.

"Legion of Thirty-three,"� the magician called to the demons in a strange cold voice.� "Your home is Absavaras.� I and the names that stand behind me command you to return there. �Darastofiel!"� Golden quivered, and Mark knew, without knowing how he knew, that that was Golden's true name.�

Behind Andre, the boys' bathroom door loomed dark, like a portal to some unimaginable Hell.� Perhaps it was.� "Go, Darastofiel! Return to Absavaras, and bring with you the Legion of Thirty-three! Bring Baranyx, and Morth, and Hlaitung, and..."� As Andre recited each demon's name, it flew at the dark gate, helplessly flailing.� Mark watched, paralyzed by fear, as each of his demons disappeared.� It was happening so fast.� There had to be more time...

Fire lanced from the cloaked one's hands, sketching what Mark easily recognized as a pentagram around him.� He flinched as the light bolts seared close to him.� Then he was standing in a ring of fire, paralyzed.� No time left for him...�

"Demange, called Mark Orsini,"� Andre des Demanges called to him, and Mark felt a hole open up in his mind.� Gibbering terror clawed at him, dragging his mind into a black pit within himself.� Andre was going to send him to that dark, hellish place.� No, please! "You come from Sharro Var�nas.� Your roots are there, buried in darkness.� I command you to return, by the power of Those whom I have called upon, and by the power of your true name!"� The magician turned to the dark figure.� "Amour, give him his name and let's send him home!"

--He hasn't got a name.-- The voice of the one called Amour was a faraway gong in his mind.�

"What?"� Andre turned, startled.� The anticlimax was draining the power from the air.� Slowly Mark was regaining the ability to move.� "He's got to have a name, Amour."

--None that I know.-- The pentagram was fading.� --Each demange knows the name of every other demange.� I know not his.--

"So what're you saying?"

--He is not a demange.--

And Mark could move and speak again.� He started to call Golden, but something inside advised him to use the other name.� "Darastofiel!"� he shouted.� Golden popped into existence.

Amour turned and fired those rays of brilliant fire again, trying to pin Mark in a pentagram again.� He leapt free, dodging out of the pentagram before it could fully form, and started to tell Golden to attack Andre.�

But Andre was faster.� "Stop!"� he shouted, putting out his hand.� There was such power in his voice that Mark came to a dead halt.�

"Looks like I've made a royal mess of this one,"� Andre said.� "Let's call a truce, shall we? It seems I was wrong about you.� Send your familiar back."

"Why should I?"�

"Well.� I could say, because I have sufficient power to keep banishing him over and over, if need be, and that would be very unpleasant for him.� Or, I could say, because my familiar is several orders of magnitude more powerful than yours, so one little demon won't do you a lot of good.� However, what I will say is that I've called a truce.� We need to talk, and your familiar's not comfortable on this plane.� So, send him home."

"Talk about what?"

"Who and what you are."

Reluctantly Mark turned to Golden.� He had to know.� Andre was too powerful for him to deal with anyway, and he really didn't want Golden to be uncomfortable.� "Go on home,"� he told his demon softly.

*relief-- thanks, boss*

Mark turned back to Andre.� "All right.� Talk."

"Not in the middle of the hallway."� He gestured at a classroom door, and opened it.� Moonlight spilled out, hard and cold, far brighter than Mark had ever seen it.� Amour slipped through the door, a shadow disappearing into the light. �Andre gestured.� "After you."

"Where is it?"� Mark asked, uncertain.

"The Gateworld of Moonlight.� A good, secure place where we can talk-- and you needn't worry that I'm going to lure you away and kill you.� I could kill you much more easily right here.� Now, come on."

As Mark stepped into the moonlit realm, Andre closed the classroom door, and it vanished.� Suddenly there was no visible sign of a doorway at all.� All around, the ground was white as snow, and glittering transparent structures like stalagmites of ice thrust up from the ground, but there was no noticeable sensation of cold.� Everywhere there was brilliant white moonlight, throwing the scenery into harsh relief, while both Mark and Andre had turned unnaturally pale, as fair as the moonlight itself.�

"I see you've noticed the affinity we have for moonlight," �Andre said, leaning on a stalagmite.� "It brings out something of our true natures."

"Our true natures?"

"Both of us, yes.� We're halfbreeds-- half-human, half-demange.� I thought at first you were a demange, because your energies resonate on a similar frequency.� But it turns out you're not.� I couldn't send you to Sharro Var�nas, any more than I could go myself, because you don't belong there.� Your human blood binds you to the human world.� And your human birth made your name a secret."

"What's a demange? Where is Sharro Var�nas? And who are you?"

"Sharro Var�nas is the home of the demanges.� I'm a mage, whose job it is to send them back there.� And what they are...� Amour.� Take off your cloak."

The inhuman being obeyed.� Naked, "she"� was revealed to be sexless, but still impossibly beautiful.� "Amour is a demange, one of a race of supernatural beings that prey on humanity.� Thousands of years ago, the demanges lost a magical duel with a group of human sorcerers, who drove them out of the Natural World.� Since then, the laws of the Natural World have changed, making it somewhat inimical to their kind, and their leaders have sealed the gates of Sharro Var�nas.� Demanges are forbidden to come to the Natural World."� He looked over at Amour, and smiled.� "Not that that necessarily stops them.� In the Natural World, demanges are vampires, feeding on blood, or souls, or dreams, or other things.� Some are also succubi/incubi, that feed on sex.� These can breed with humanity.� One of those was my father, and likely one was yours too."

"So why were you after me?"

Andre sighed.� "I'm a mage of the path of balance.� It requires self-knowledge to hold the power I do, and it also takes a vow.� Because of...� various things I don't really want to get into, I took the job of sending demanges back to Sharro Var�nas as my vow.� I thought you were a demange, so I went after you.� It turns out you're not-- so I have something totally different to offer you."� He looked away for a second, and then back at Mark, straightening up.� "How would you like to be a mage?"

In fantasy novels Mark had read, people always spent precious minutes or even days doubting the existence of the magic they'd seen.� Perhaps his experience with his demons predisposed him to believe, but Mark did not doubt for a second that Andre was truly a mage.� And to have such power...� If he were a mage, people wouldn't run away from him.� He could make them like him.� He could make them stay with him...

"No.� You couldn't."

Mark stared at Andre.� "You-- read my mind?"

"Nothing so obvious.� I knew what you were thinking because I thought the same thing myself, once.� It doesn't work that way."� He turned away, beginning to walk away from the stalagmite.� "We are preternatural beings, we half-demanges. �Nothing so alien as a full-blood, like Amour here--"� he stroked the beautiful creature's skin lightly, and it shivered at the touch-- "but alien enough.� Humans sense the danger in us.� They're attracted and repelled at the same time.� Over a short term, the attraction is powerful enough to overcome the revulsion-- they can love us then.� But it doesn't last.� They see the predator in our eyes, and they run away, every time.� If you were a mage, you wouldn't have any better luck with people than you do now.� What you'd have is knowledge, power, maybe a small community of peers, and maybe a sense of purpose in your life."� He turned sharply to face Mark.� "Or there's another alternative.� You could become human."

"How?"

"Symbolic magic.� I can strip you of the blood of the demange.� You'd be an ordinary human, with better than average looks.� You'd lose your native magic, though-- your rapport with your familiars.� Or, you can take the other path, and become my apprentice."

"Your apprentice?"

"Sure.� I'm qualified to take an apprentice.� So.� Magic or humanity.� What will it be?"

Mark swallowed.� Now he knew why everyone had always abandoned him.� It wasn't his fault, but that didn't make him feel any better.� There was only one way to change it, and that was to give up his demons.� Give up any hope of a destiny beyond humanity.

"Why do I have to choose now?"� he asked.� "Why can't I wait until I'm older?"

"You're doing too much damage."� Andre's eyes were hard.� "Do you know what you did last night?"

"What do you mean?"

"Last night, you visited Stephanie Pirello's dream.� There you raped and brutalized her dream-self and gave her to your demons.� And she wasn't the first, either."

"Those were dreams! No one got hurt-- I can't control my dreams--"

"Wrong, mon ami.� They were dreams, but more than that, because you touched other people's minds.� You caused terrible psychic damage to many people, fueling their nightmares for the rest of their lives.� And you can control your dreams-- so you'd better learn.� At least I was able to find Stephanie in time, and spare her the suffering you'd caused."

"How'd you do that?"

"Never mind how.� I'm not the issue here.� You are.� Either I take your powers away from you now, before you hurt anyone else with them, or else I teach you how to channel them properly.� There isn't any other choice."� He seemed strangely tired.

"What's the catch? If I chose magic?"

"Catch? I'm telling you you'll never have a normal relationship with a human being, and you want to know the catch?"� Andre shrugged.� "The catch is that once you're a mage, your life is not your own.� You'll learn your own secret name, which means others can learn it too, and get power over you.� And you'll have to make a vow, to build your power on, and it will rule your entire life.� That's the catch."

He could have friends, girlfriends, perhaps foster parents who wouldn't abandon him.� He could be part of human society at last.� But he'd have to abandon his only friends, his demons.�

Or he could have power.� He could reject human society and live outside it, in the world of the preternatural, for all of a very long life.� He would have no friends from humanity-- but perhaps other preternatural beings, other magicians, would accept him.� And he would have his loyal demons, and he would have power.

It wasn't really a choice.� Mark had never had human acceptance, and couldn't quite make himself believe that he would ever get it, even if he gave up his preternature for it.� He could believe, after everything he'd seen today, that he could learn magic.� And the price didn't seem very high.� "I want magic,"� he said.

"You're sure? Do you want to reject any chance you might ever have to be part of humanity?"

"I've survived this long without being part of humanity; why change now?"� It was too deep in him, the difference.� He almost hated Andre for offering the option, because he knew, somehow, that it had never really been one of his choices.�

"Good,"� Andre said, and smiled.� "Well, let's go, then.� We've got a lot of work to do."

"What about Mrs. Orsini? If I disappear, won't she--"

"She won't miss you, Mark.� No one will.� You know that.� That's why you chose what you did."� He turned and began to walk away, across the white snow under the moonlight.� "Come on."

For a second Mark hesitated, wondering if he'd chosen correctly, as Andre headed for a patch of darkness in the moonlit realm.� Then he ran to catch up with the older man, his feet leaving no footprints in the snow.