Her mom's a witch. Her dad's a demon. And she just wants to be ordinary. I batted at the curl of smoke drifting off the tip of my candle and tried not to sneeze. My heavy velvet cloak fell in oppressive, suffocating folds in the closed space of the ceremony chamber, the cowl trapping the annoying bits of puff I missed. I hated the way my eyes burned and teared, an almost constant distraction. Not that I didn't welcome the distraction, to be honest. Anything to take my mind from what went on around me. Being part of a demon raising is way less exciting than it sounds. Sydlynn Hayle's life...

A Multiple Drink Kind of Night Why was it fancy Valentine's Day drinks were always tinted red? Reminded me more of gore and mayhem than anything to do with romance. Which said a lot, I suppose, for my state of mind when it came to relationships and dating. No bitterness in Fiona Fleming toward the opposite sex or anything. I sipped carefully at the mimosa the bartender smilingly handed me and shrugged off the sweetness. It had alcohol in it, so I guess it would do. A few of these and I might even find a way to enjoy myself tonight. Yeah, right. Fiona Fleming would rather be home, at her bed...

An Insulting Kind of Day I skipped around a small stack of pylons while my deputy cousin unloaded more of the same from the back of the sheriff's pickup. I beamed at Robert Carlisle, not because I adored him. Quite the opposite. I couldn't stand the wretched little piece of loathing with his seventies-esque bush of a black mustache or his pompous superiority that he got to be a cop and I didn't or his growing beer belly and hideous leer he liked to aim at any woman under the age of fifty. No, I grinned and waved out of sheer delight at his less than enthusiastic expression as he grunted his...