Stefan shook his head. “This has nothing to do with your mother, Sarafina. Not directly, anyway. It’s not a game we’re playing here.”

She swallowed hard against her dry throat and mouth, a result of the drugs, she was sure. “What’s going on? What do you want from me? What was that crap you pumped through my body?”

“We want to help you realize your potential, Sarafina. Nothing dark or sinister. We simply want to tell you who you are. Like many of our kind, you’ve slipped through the cracks of your heritage.”

Sarafina turned to face him. “What are you talking about? Tell me who I am? I know that already. Anyway, if you’re going to try and convert me to some cause, why not just ask me out for a nice cup of coffee? You have to resort to kidnapping?”

“If we had asked you for coffee and revealed this truth, you would have caused quite a scene and probably called the police. That’s why we don’t do it that way.” He held out a hand. “We hope you’ll forgive the kidnapping, Sarafina, once all is revealed.”

She shook her head. “I want to go home. I want my dog and I want—”

“Data entry, Sarafina? No self-respecting fire witch would ever work in such a mundane field. What are you thinking? I can make your life so much more meaningful. I can provide a way for you to make lots of money so you can live the life you were meant to live.”

The words fire and witch in the sentence made her vision dim. Her knees went weak and she caught herself on the back of a chair. “What did you say?”

“Don’t pretend ignorance, Sarafina. Even if you don’t know, you know.”

She studied him. “The only thing I know is that you’re crazy, as bat-shit crazy as my mother was.”

Stefan smiled and took a step toward her. “Your mother was crazy, Sarafina. I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry your father went AWOL, too, because he would have raised you correctly. As it happened, your mother, your only living blood relative, went insane and torched herself before she could teach you anything. That’s a pity for you.”

Her mother, a highly religious woman, had raised Sarafina alone in a modest middle-class subdivision just west of Bowling Green. Every Sunday her mother had dragged her to church to cleanse the wickedness from Sarafina’s soul. Every day her mother had told her she was sinner, a tool of Satan. For a while Sarafina had even believed her.

Sarafina’s mother had said hell would be Sarafina’s punishment for being a witch, her watery light blue eyes narrowed in accusation. She’d pointed a thin index finger and declared, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!