The Last of the Red Hot Vampires - By Katie MacAlister Page 0,6

my finger down the spells. "Magicus circulus contra malus, evoco aureolus pulvis, commutatus idem dominatio aqua...oh, for heaven's sake, how hokey can you get? I bet this isn't even real Latin - "

A glimmer of something caught the corner of my eye. I turned my head to look at it, thinking someone had dropped a penny or bit of glass on the ground that had caught the sunlight, but there was nothing.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, as if something that posed a threat was approaching.

"Honestly, Portia, how pathetic is it that you're letting Sarah's chat about magic get to you?" I rubbed my arms against a sudden prickling of goose bumps, and gave myself a mental lecture about allowing someone's enthusiasm to sway my common sense.

A little flash of light in midair had me whipping around to look at it.

There was nothing.

"Oh, this is ridiculous. I'm spooking myself, and over what? Figments of an overactive imagination..."

Directly in front of me, something twinkled in the air again, just as if tiny motes of metal had reflected the sunlight.

To my astonishment, the twinkling continued, growing thicker until the air around me seemed to collect, flashing like a thousand tiny, nearly imperceptible, lights.

"I'm hallucinating," I said, closing my eyes. "It's the sun. I'm sun blind, or having heatstroke, or the fungus in the faery ring is a hallucinogenic."

I opened my eyes, sure I would see only the top of a sunny hill, but instead gawked as the twinkling lights gathered themselves into an opaque form.

"It's got to be the fungus," I said quickly, getting to my feet and backing up out of the ring. "It's from the peyote family or something - "

As I backed away, I stumbled over a lump in the grass, falling onto my butt. My mind came to an abrupt stop as the form turned into a person. I shook my head, blinking rapidly to clear my vision. "All right. Time to get some medical aid. This silliness has gone on long enough."

"Oh, there you are!" the hallucination said as it turned to me. "Thank heaven you called me. Quickly, we don't have much time. I must pass on the Gift and be on my way before they find me."

The hallucination - in the form of a woman, slightly shorter than me, with long black hair and brilliant blue eyes - stood over me with her hands on her hips, an exasperated look on her attractive face. "Merciful sovereign, are you faery struck?"

"Don't be ridiculous," I answered, my voice coming out as a croak. I cleared my throat. "There are no such things as faeries. Oh, man, what am I doing? I'm talking to a hallucination?"

The woman - I couldn't help but think of her as such when she looked so real - rolled her eyes for a moment, then startled me by grabbing my arm and hefting me to my feet. "Don't tell me they didn't conduct the preliminaries with you? You passed the trials, yes?"

"That must be some serious fungus," I answered, brushing the bits of grass off my butt as I looked at the faery ring. "I could swear I felt someone touch me."

"Hello! Can't you hear me? I'm talking here!"

"It's amazing, absolutely amazing. I'm going to have to get a sample for the nearest lab to analyze. This could be dangerous if children came across it - who knows what sort of thing they would hallucinate." I dug through my pockets, hoping for a plastic bag or something I could use to hold a sample of the earth. Unfortunately, I had nothing on me other than a package of gum. "Damn. I'll just have to wait for Sarah, then pop back to town to get something - "

"Are you deaf?" the woman in front of me shouted, waving her arms in the air. I watched her, amused at the lengths my imagination would go to under the influence of a delusionary drug. She looked quite normal, dressed in a tight pair of green pants and a chunky tan and green sweater. She was frowning, clearly unhappy about something.

"I suppose I could humor my brain," I said, eyeing her. "At least until Sarah gets here. Hello."

"What is wrong with you?" the woman asked, slapping her hands against her legs. "Didn't you hear me? We don't have time for you to stand here and be strange!"

"You'll have to forgive me. I've evidently been poisoned by hallucinogenic fungus spores. What did you