He turned his attention to the table in front of them. Two rows of ceremonial knives lay on a bed of green velvet.

Tyler reached for an athame with a jeweled-encrusted handle and held it up to the light. “This is it,” he said softly, gazing at the knife, then at Zane, then back to the knife again.

“Wha-what are you talking about?” Zane stammered. He looked at the athame and shuddered. There was something frightful about Tyler’s eyes. They gleamed in a strange light, and remained fixed on the blade.

“This knife,” Tyler explained, still staring at it. “It has powerful properties, and the double-sided edges are great for hunting. And killing.”

The blade flashed in the light. Zane shuddered again. Not just because of the way Tyler was holding the knife. It was the creepy way Tyler was suddenly talking. He spoke slowly and monotonously, almost as if he was in a trance.

“A witch can never be too careful,” Tyler murmured. “I once knew of a witch who was stalked by a warlock with this kind of blade. He had waited for months, waiting for the right moment to make his move. Then, when the witch was feeling safe, he sneaked up from behind and…”

Zane stared at Tyler, whose eyes still remained on the knife. He doesn’t even seem to be talking to me anymore, he thought. It’s as if he’s lost in another world.

“The warlock rose his knife over the victim,” Tyler breathed. “Like this.” He slowly lifted the knife, both hands grasping the jeweled handle.

“Ty? W-what are you doing?” Zane asked nervously.

He didn’t answer. His eyes glittered strangely.

Zane glanced around the store. It seemed to be empty. Even the woman behind the counter was gone. Where was everybody?

He focused his eyes on Tyler’s hands. They gripped the athame so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Ty--” he said again.

But Tyler wasn’t listening. He raised the jeweled knife over his head, and shot Zane a venomous and demented look. And then his face began to change!

Zane recoiled as Tyler’s chiseled jaw melted away, becoming pointier and more lady-like. His hair grew beyond his shoulders, and the brown dissolved into a strawberry blond. Tyler's mouth stretched open in a silent scream as his chest grew, and his body warped and shrunk.

Zane felt the blood drawn away from his face when the transformation was done.

It was no longer Tyler who was standing in front of him.

It was a woman.

It was Glorificius.

Panicking, Zane tried focusing his powers on the athame in Glory’s hand. It wouldn’t budge. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to astral away, but the weightless feeling he experiences whenever he went astral did not occur. He had been rendered completely powerless.

Zane let out a strangled cry as Glory plunged the knife towards him.

“Noooo!” he wailed.

Zane bolted straight up in the bed, out of breath. Still he screamed, wild with frenzy. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks, and he wiped them off with the heel of his hands.

A dream, he thought. Just a dream. Zane released his breath. He was so scared, he hadn’t even realized that he was holding it.

His shirt stuck to his body, soggy with the smell of sweat.

The nightmare had left his mind sluggish and foggy. He tried to refocus his eyes, and yelped when flames licked at the ends of his toes.

Up ahead a crowd milled in front of the Norrington mansion. TV trucks were parked outside the tall iron gates surrounding the property, and the sidewalk was crisscrossed with cables. A police cruiser was rerouting traffic around the area.

Zack and Zane parked a block away and walked the distance. They walked up to the officer in charge, a friendly-looking sergeant with wisps of white hair showing under his police cap. “We’re friends of Sean’s,” Zack told the man. “Is there any way we can get to see him?”

On the hood of his police car lay a clipboard, Zane noticed, holding a list of names. “See him?” the policeman said with a smile. “He’s been dead for several hours. House beginning to stink. You still sure you want to see him?”

“Well, yeah,” Zack said in a remorseful voice. “He’s, like, our best and true-blue buddy, and we really want to see him for the last time.”

What in the world is he doing, Zane wondered. Lousy liar. And come on, true-blue? That’s just so… last millennium. He zoned in on the paper attached to the clipboard. There were eight names listed. Four of them had checkmarks behind them, the other four without. His head hurt as he squinted harder at the list. Elton Tenors was one of the unchecked names. E.C. Rawlings was another.

“I mean, if he were your best friend,” Zack pushed on, “wouldn’t you want to pay him your last respects?”

The policeman sighed and took up his clipboard, leaving Zane with a blurry smear of print and a throbbing headache. “Names?” he asked.

“I’m Elton and he’s E.C.” Zane cut in quickly. He heard Zack’s startled intake of breath, and then heard him saying, “That’s E.C. for Eric Clarkson.”

The officer raised an eyebrow at Zack. “You’re Eric?” he intoned.

“He’s Eric,” Zane muttered.

“I’m Eric!” Zack gave a toothy smile.

Looking slightly amused and sheepish, the officer cleared his throat. “Okay.” He checked off the names and signaled to a raven-haired young woman cop at the gate. “They’re okay. Let ‘em in.”

“That was too easy,” Zack said suspiciously. “That cop…”

“No, I’m just brilliant,” Zane reassured him.

As they made their way through their way through the throng of reporters and photographers, a grumbling rippled through the crowd. “Hey, that’s not fair. We’ve been waiting here all night and morning. Who are they? Why are they going in?”

A man in Levi’s shoved a mike in Zack’s face, hollering, “You’re a friend of Sean’s or what?” A flashbulb went off, startling him. He saw starbursts of color, the effect of the blinding flash. And then he saw Zane, arms crossed, glaring at the pricey lens of the photographer’s gazillion-dollar camera.

Still, when the explosion came, Zack was shocked.

The lens shattered, spewing glass, and the camera blew up in the guy’s hands. And Zane could not conceal his glee.

Zack could. Or at least he thought he could. He hadn’t even realized that Zane could use his power to blow things up as well. He looked at his brother, amused. “What are you on? Some kinda powerhouse spree?”