There was no more mention of her, or the halfmoon order. She cursed again, hand hovering over the keyboard. What did she do now? Should she email the owner of the blog? Was that smart? Then again, why not? It wasn't like he would know who she was. She would just be very careful.

On the side there was a form to email the owner of the site, and under that there was a chat box. She debated for a second, and then typed in her user name as "Jane". Her middle name was ridiculously plain, and no one would associate it with her.

She typed in "Is anyone there?" and hit the "send" button, sitting back to take another long sip of hot tea. It was totally unlikely that anyone, especially the owner of the site, would be awake at three in the morning...

Ding!

She jerked upright in her seat. The curser was flashing in the center of the screen, a new name had come up in the chat box.

Bingo: Hi! Welcome to The God Conspiracy!

Alice paused, hand hovering over the keyboard, pulse racing in her throat. What did she say back? Who was "Bingo"? If he was welcoming her to the site that probably meant he was the owner, didn't it?

She typed back,

Jane: Nice blog! Are you the owner?

She fidgeted in her seat waiting for the answer, resolving that if he answered no, she'd find the owner's email address and send him an email instead. She had to find out where he was getting his information from.

Bingo: Glad you like it! Yeah I am. Questions? Comments?

She took a deep breath and typed a quick answer back.

Jane: Do you know more about the Halfmoon Order?

The answer came back almost as soon as she'd hit 'send".

Bingo: That depends on who is asking.

"Crap," Alice muttered. She tapped her fingertips on the surface of the mug. Did she tell "Bingo" who she was? It seemed risky, since he had an article about her on his blog. But then again, judging by the tone of the rest of his blog, he wasn't the god's number one fan either. Maybe she could risk it...

She took a deep breath and typed with shaking hands:

Jane: I know what happened to Epimetheus.

There was a long pause this time, and Alice shifted in her chair nervously. She could see the curser flashing at the bottom of the screen. He wasn't even typing. What was he doing? She wished she knew how he was reacting. Had she judged him all wrong?

"Crap!" She hovered the mouse over the "X" box in the corner, on the verge of clicking out of the blog and logging off before Bingo could magically trace her and her computer or something.

Ding!

She froze.

Can we meet somewhere?

She sucked in a long breath, darting a look at the bedroom door. It almost felt like she was doing something wrong. She knew Altair would be freaking out right now if he could see what she was doing, talking about making "dates" with strange men on the internet.

She typed back: Where and when?

Bingo: I can come to you.

Alice looked around the apartment as she groped for an idea. There had to be somewhere public they could meet...

A flyer on the kitchen counter caught her eye, and she stood up and walked over to the fridge, leaning against the handle as she read it.

It was a book launch flyer. The same one she'd seen advertised on the window of the toy shop. She stared at the flyer, chewing on her lower lip. It was a busy, well-lit place. They would never be alone. The date was next weekend, and the flyer said the launch was held at the community hall. That was far enough away from the shop to feel comfortable.

She sat back down at the kitchen table and typed:

July 23rd, 2:00. Book launch at the Community Hall. Sidney, British Columbia.

She waited for the reply, sure that "Bingo" would protest that it was too far away, or that a week away didn't give him enough time.

The answer came back fast, making her blink in surprise.

Bingo: That sounds great. I'll be there. How will I know it's you?

Alice hesitated. No doubt this person would recognize her if they knew all about Alexie Ambrose. She had managed to stay out of the "Witches" magazine since then, for the most part, but people still recognized her when she just went across the street for coffee.

But it wasn't like this "Bingo" person would know Alice Cunningham was the person who wanted to talk to them.

After a second she typed, I'll wear a red ribbon in my hair.

She snorted as soon as she typed it. A red ribbon? How ridiculous. Like this was some kind of old Russian spy movie or something. She didn't even own a red ribbon for pete's sake...

The reply popped up shortly after that: Okay, I'll approach you. Be on the alert.

She stared at the message, wondering just how paranoid this person was. Maybe she was getting herself in over her head...

Right, as if I'm not already way over my head in...whatever this is. Secret orders and greek gods set on killing her, and now mysterious book launch meetings. Alice sighed. Really, was anything "over her head" anymore? It was one weird thing after the next.

The curser winked out. Bingo had signed off. Alice exited the website and shut her lap top, staring down at the flyer sitting on the table beside her. Best selling author Eric Revol twinkled up at her. He really did look like a toothpaste commercial. She traced one finger over his wide, white smile, wondering what he'd be like. Probably smoozy with women, considering the types of books he wrote.

She sighed and stood up, realizing just how tired she was now. It was four thirty in the morning, and she still had to wake up early for the new shipment tomorrow. It was time to go back to bed and try to get some sleep.

But the chat box seemed to have burned into her retinas, and Alice kept seeing the name "bingo" come up in the dark, her head swimming with thoughts. What would he look like? Was this a bad idea? Would he be as paranoid as he sounded? Should she bring someone with her?

Probably...

She finally felt herself drifting off, and thought briefly before she did, that she would rather dream about her mysterious dream man, then the paranoid "Bingo' thank you very much.

The next morning Alice found herself too busy to try to remember her dreams, though she was fairly certain she hasn't dreamt about the skittish Bingo, or the mysterious masked man. She remembered something about using magic, and she'd woken up with a tingling sensation in both hands. Was it possible to "sleep magic"? People had conversations or went for walks in their sleep all the time, was it possible she'd taken magic into her hands while she slept?

She glanced down at the knuckles on her hands, only half listening to the fairy who was complaining at the desk in front of her.

"...and it faded away after only a half hour!"

"What?" Alice cleared her throat and tried to sound a little less rude, even though she was feeling seriously annoyed at just the sight of this particular fairy. The fairy woman had on a long, torn dress that bagged out at the hips, and her wings fluttered behind her in an agitated fashion as she complained, stirring the signs on the shelves behind her. Alice wondered nervously, if the woman would work up the wind to knock breakable objects off the shelves if she got really upset. Last time the "bottled emotion" had got out it had been a disaster. Two customers had gone to counseling for depression and a third had to be sedated because they couldn't stop laughing.

"Look, it's a love potion," she said patiently. "It's meant to wear off. Love potions that don't wear off are illegal. It's meant as a joke, or something you take to enhance the relationship you already have. You don't drug people with it."

The fairy looked this way and that, suddenly shifty. "Can't you tweak it for me? Can't you make it...last?"

Alice glared at her. "It's illegal."

The fairy threw one hand to her brow dramatically and wailed loud enough for the entire store to hear, "HE DOESN'T LOVE ME ANYMORE."

"I can't imagine why." Alice gritted her teeth. She was unimpressed to see Altair leaning in the doorway with a mug of coffee in one hand, grinning as if he thought the situation was particularly amusing. Gabriel, who was helping a child pick out a tiny hippopotamus from the miniature animal display, looked over at Alice in dismay. Alice shrugged helplessly as the woman continued to thrash about in front of the desk, stomping her feet and flapping her wings so fast she began to omit a high buzzing sound and carry herself nearly a foot off the ground.

"No flying!" Alice cried. "No flying in the store! No, you mustn't..."

There was a resounding crash as the fairy flew sideways into the stand of "rat attracting reed flutes" and dancing shoes. Several of the shoes went off and started doing a fast tap dance on the wooden floor boards, and one shoe's spell was torn slightly out of place, and the shoe began to jump about wildly, kicking Gabriel in the shins.

"Owch!" The elf retreated behind the shelves, pulling the child behind him. "Alice!"

"Oh...shit." Alice ran forward, pushing her way past the fairy, who was already creeping for the door with a bottle of potion clutched in her hands. Alice reached up and grabbed a handful of threads, tossing a network of shining threads over the dancing shoes to make them stop. Once they were under control, she make a quick lasso out of a shining blue thread and tossed it around the fairy just as she was about to leave the store.

"I don't think so..." Alice hauled the fairy backwards, who shrieked in alarm and struggled to get away.

"You can't do that! You can't hold me here! Help! I've been kidnapped!"

"Oh, give me a break." Alice snatched the potion out of the woman's hands and let the threads binding her go slack. She blinked in surprise when suddenly the threads soaked into the fairy, and it was as if a bucket of water had been splashed over her head.

The fairy stood there in shock, spitting water out as she sputtered through chattering teeth, "T-that's freezing! Why'd you do that?"

The thread that Alice had snatched so quickly had obviously had the potential to be water, and she hadn't noticed it. Alice snickered, not feeling the least bit bad. In fact, it looked like she'd done it on purpose, so she decided to go with it, reaching up, she pointed to the sign above the store's arch way. "That applies to you, my dear. You don't steal from the shop."

The fairy flounced out, shoes making squelching, slurping noises as she walked. She slammed the door behind her and Alice sighed and retreated to the desk.

Gabriel and his young charge emerged from behind a display of self-writing pencils, and the little boy looked at Alice with big, reproachful eyes. "You said a bad word."

Alice rubbed her temples. "I know, I shouldn't have said that. Don't ever say what I did, okay?"

The little boy nodded gravely. "Okay, I won't. My mom wouldn't like it. Can I buy this now?" He held aloft the miniature hippo, which had fallen over in his palm and was waving tiny grey legs in the air.

"I'll ring him through," Gabriel told Alice. He glanced over at the wide puddle on the wood floor boards. "Looks like you have a small lake to mop up."

Alice sighed and went for the closet in the back, hip-checking Altair on the way past.

"Hey!" he protested. "You nearly made me spill my coffee."

"Well you can just add it to the swamp on the floor then."

"Make the elf clean it up." He suggested.

"Wouldn't you like that?" Alice nudged him against, this time poking him with the handle of the mop she'd just retrieved from the closet. "Maybe he's busy. Maybe I should make you do it."

Azura's voice floated in from around the corner, where she was seated at the desk doing paperwork. "Quit flirting, you two. Especially you, Altair. I'm not above putting you to work."

Altair straightened up and leaned back to put his mug on the counter. "She sounds serious, I better go."

Alice frowned. It was his lunch break, but she'd thought they would go down to the deli at the end of the street. "Where are you going? I thought we'd do lunch again. Watch that crazy old wizard feed the seagulls at the end of the pier..."

"As much fun as that sounds, I have an appointment." Altair leaned down and brushed his lips across her forehead. "I'm meeting that friend who called a couple days ago. He's in town, but he's sort of a bumbling idiot, and I don't think you'd like him much."

"Hey, I'm not judgmental," Alice protested. "You could bring him home to meet the family."

Altair snorted. "I'd be worried that you'd dump a bucket of water over his head...if you know what I mean."

Alice narrowed her eyes at him. "So you're saying he's a...past friend. One with sticky fingers..."

He shrugged. "What can I say. We go way back to our days on the street. I can't just cut him out of my life..."

She held up her hands at his protests. "I didn't say you had to. Go, have fun. Don't let him get you into trouble." She poked him with the mop handle again, and he hurried towards the door.

"Geeze, I better go before you become violent with that thing. Aw, crap. I stepped in the puddle of water..."

She shook her head, watching him as he made his way out of the shop and down the sidewalk, still looking down at his pant leg, lips moving. He was definitely cursing a blue streak, and she was glad the little boy was gone, even if you couldn't technically hear what Altair was saying...

She walked over to the puddle on the floor and stuck the mop in it, sighing at how huge it was. She really might of well have dumped an entire bucket on the floor. This could take awhile...

She glanced over her shoulder. The shop was quiet. Gabriel was at the far end dusting shelves, and Azura was emerged in paperwork. She could hear the low murmur of Shakra and Maya talking by the fire place just out of sight. Probably teaching Maya more magic.

Alice stared down at the puddle. There was a far easier way of doing this...

She reached up and let the magic drift down onto her palm. Letting her barrier down was effortless, and the magic slipped inside her skin with a feather light touch, sending warmth tingling through her. She shut her eyes and smiled for a minute, just savoring the feeling. Then she darted one last look over her shoulder and nudged the door open a crack with her foot. It was just a few inches from the floor to the sidewalk outside. It wasn't going to be hard.

She let the magic pour out of her fingertips, the magic was in liquid form now, binding with the particles of water, flowing out through the crack in the door as she directed it. The puddle on the floor of the shop began to get smaller and smaller, and a large puddle began forming on the sidewalk outside. A few seconds, and the floor inside the shop was completely dry.

Alice released the last of the magic and shut the door, feeling a rush of satisfaction. That was easy.

Gabriel's voice made her jump guiltily. "Alice? Did someone come in?"

He'd heard the bell and was poking his head around the side of the shelves. Alice noticed he had a smudge of dirt on the end of his nose, and one on his cheek. "Uh, no," she stammered, holding up the mop in her hands like it was evidence. "Just letting this drip outside."

"Oh gotcha," Gabriel disappeared behind the shelves again, and Alice let out a breath. He hadn't seen that the mop was still perfectly dry. She turned to put the mop back in the closet, wondering why she was so jumpy. Why did she feel like she had to be alone when she took magic in? What was the big deal? She was a witch, it was what she did.

I'm just still learning. It's a bit embarrassing. That was probably why. And if she showed Azura, no doubt the older witch would tell her to take it easy, or say she shouldn't be doing that in case a God showed up or something. But it was just hear and there. It wasn't like she did it all the time.