PATRICIA COULDN’T GET that image out of her head: Laurence dropping out of the sky and waving money around, boasting that he would Save the World by writing off the planet. Even if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, the video clip was all over the net afterward. Patricia shouldn’t be surprised that Laurence had turned into an entitled yuppie. This was what he’d always wanted, wasn’t it? To be admired, to have everybody get his name right. Patricia kept feeling annoyed, until she realized maybe she was jealous. She spent so much energy keeping her good deeds secret, it was hard to watch someone else show off. Lately, the other witches were always on her case about Aggrandizement, no matter how hard she tried to be humble.

Patricia found herself still obsessing about Laurence as she slid on knee-high leather boots and a black babydoll dress with red sparkles and went to an Irish bar in the Financial District to put a curse on someone.

Patricia sucked at walking in spike heels, and kept almost wiping out as she strode inside the stuffy, blaring pub and tried to recognize Garrett Borg from the picture Kawashima had e-mailed her. In person, Garrett looked like a once-hot Alpine ski instructor gone to seed, with very fair hair and a blue double-breasted suit that camouflaged his pudge. He was halfway passed out at the bar, drooling into the Guinness towel but still raising his head to pour more high-end Scotch into his mouth with his free hand every few moments.

In theory, Patricia shouldn’t need to know why she was hitting this guy—Kawashima had ordered it, and that ought to be enough for her. But Kawashima had included some other pictures along with Garrett’s head shot: the coroner’s photos of the teenage girls he’d left buried in an old culvert along the I-90, nearly matching bruise marks on their necks and inner thighs. So Patricia was properly motivated when she slid onto the leather-top stool next to Garrett and whispered in his ear. “I bet you’ll have one hell of a hangover tomorrow. But you know what? I know the best hangover remedy there is. This shit will cure anything.” She made it sound miraculous, but also sexy and illicit. He popped both the pills she gave him without hesitation. Then she helped him into a cab, and he went home to Pacific Heights, to sleep it off. She hadn’t lied: The shit she’d given him would indeed cure anything.