"Shhh! Someone will hear you." I stopped abruptly and bent down to fuss with Jim's collar. "The newspaper had my passport picture! Right on the front page!"

"Oooh, cool. Let's get a copy for my scrapbook."

"You don't have a scrapbook, and we arenot getting a copy. Come on. The sooner I get off the street, the hap-pier I'll be."

We made it to the apartment on the Rue Ponthieu, which surprised me by being just a few steps away from the Champs-Elyse'es and all the luxury shops. The sisters' apartment was two floors above an upscale bakery. After being buzzed in, we took the elevator up and were ad-mitted immediately into an apartment that left my jaw hanging around my knees. Amelie's modern taste in art and furniture surprised me, but the glorious Louis XTV antiques of Ophelia and Perdita's apartment left me speechless. Beautifully worked Persian rugs dotted an in-laid parquet floor, two rose-and-cream-satin embroidered Baroque chairs complemented the matching rose-colored couch, a huge brown marble fireplace dominated one wall, while an intricately molded ceiling bearing a de-tailed Rococo mural fought with the museum-quality tap-estries on the walls to hold the eye. They were all so gorgeous, so elegant, and not at all the sort of things with which pagan Wiccans would be expected to surround themselves.

"What a beautiful place you have," I gasped, trying to look everywhere at once. I felt incredibly gauche show-ing up with my demon and my plastic bag of clothing.

"It's home," Ophelia said with a shrug. "Come, let me show you to your room. I hope you don't mind sleeping in our workroom. "

"Not at all," I said, my eyes huge as she paused to point out the bathroom (the tiles lining the shower unit formed a lovely Turkish mosaic) and separate toilet be-fore sweeping into a well-lit room done in a pretty yellow-and-green floral pattern. The bedspread matched the hand-knotted rug, which matched the upholstery on the armchair next to the window, framed between lace and yellow-and-green matching curtains. On the far wall was a large bookcase that contained a number of books, sev-eral glass jars like Amelie's that I assume held the sisters' Wiccan herbs and such, a variety of candles, a set of aro-matic oils, a couple of chalices, three different-size bells, and several items in bone that I did not recognize. I turned back to the rest of the room. It was feminine, light, attractive, and made me feel even more like an interloper. "I can't thank you enough for being so kind to me, and I hope that I won't have to stay here more than a day, or two at the most. I need to … er … conduct a ritual, if you don't object."

"Well, you are a Guardian," Ophelia said with a know-ing smile. "We would be surprised if you did not practice your arts. Oh, but you cannot do it today!"

"I can't?" I shot a quick frown at Jim as it sniffed around the bookcase.

"No, the room hasn't been cleansed yet."

I looked around. It was cleaner than my apartment back home, much cleaner. This apartment looked like dust wouldn't dare settle anywhere. "Oh?"

"Yes, indeed. We would never allow you to work in an uncleansed room."

"Ah," I said, gathering the cleansing was some sort of Wiccan ritual. "But I'm not going to be doing the sort of magic that you and Perdita do, so the cleansing isn't nec-essary—"

"It is," Ophelia said firmly, moving over to the bed to pull out my clothing stuffed into the bag. She shook out the dresses and hung them in a rosewood armoire, saying as she did, "We would never be able lo live with our-selves if some negative energy from the uncleansed room interfered with your ritual. Perdita will cleanse it tonight, when the Moon Goddess blesses us with her light."

I gave in. What choice did I have? I was going to have to walk very carefully as it was since I would be sum-moning a demon into their home, an event I had a feeling they would not be terribly happy about, but I had little choice. I had thought to do the ritual that night while Perdita (and hopefully Ophelia) would

be at G & T, but it looked like Bafamal would have to wait until the follow-ing day.

Perdita returned from doing some grocery shopping (which made me feel even more guilty since I had little money left to reimburse them) and sat down with Ophe-lia to hear my story. I told them about finding the Venediger’s body, reassured them I didn't kill him, and sidestepped the issue of Drake altogether. I trusted Amelie just as I trusted Ophelia and Perdita, but in the wake of Drake's betrayal, my faith in my ability to deter-mine who was trustworthy and who wasn't was shaken. It was just better, I told myself, to not involve them that deeply in the situation.

"The V got what he deserved," Perdita said as I con-cluded my tale. I stared at her for a moment, surprised by the strong emotion in her voice. There was almost a gloating element to it. She must have noticed the question in my eyes because she added, with a light laugh, "That sounds terribly wicked of me, doesn't it? But the truth is, he was not a nice man. More than once he fell victim to his desires and used the dark powers to gain that which he wanted. Oh, yes, a dagger in his heart was a justified end for the likes of him.'"

"Perdy, that's a bit harsh, surely? No one deserves to be murdered," Ophelia gently chastised her sister. She nodded toward me. "You forget our guest is the one who discovered the Venediger's body. I'm sure Aisling would prefer to forget that horrible experience."

"I…" I chewed my lip for a moment, trying to think of how to ask what I wanted to ask Perdita without it sounding offensive. "I was told that you were employed by him?"

Her chin lifted in challenge to my question. "Yes, I was, but that did not mean I was blind to the man's sins.

By using the dark powers, he wronged not only the peo-ple who make up the Otherworld, but the Goddess and nature itself." She slid a quick glance toward a fretting Ophelia. "That is why I took the position. We had hopes that we would be able to bring the Venediger back into the light, but he …" Her lips twisted.

"He mocked her and refused her offer to baptize him into the Old Religion," Ophelia whispered, placing her hand over her sister's and giving it a squeeze. "He was a bad man, Perdy, but he is gone now. He is paying for his sins. The Goddess has seen to that."

"Yes," Perdita said, collecting herself. She leveled a firm blue-eyed gaze at me. "He was a very bad person, but he will not taint Paris any more. The Goddess's will has been done, just as it will be done to every member of the Otherworld who ignores the True Path and gives themselves over to the dark powers."