Orlando’s eyes popped open, the rich English accent still ringing in his head. Sunlight blasted through the dusty wooden blinds of his incommodious room. It stung his chocolate brown eyes. Dazed, he squinted against the glare.

He was drenched in sweat. His wavy, nut-brown hair was soaked. His heart thudded, pumping fiercely against the now-soggy T-shirt he’d worn to bed.

The sheet beneath him was tangled. It gripped his ankle.

Where was he? Who needed him? Who was he supposed to help?

Then he heard the strangled gasps, the wheezing, and he realized who needed him. He smelled coffee brewing and the earthy smells of comfrey tealeaves. A teakettle whistled. And Orlando knew he was home.

Home for Orlando Bloom was now a sorority apartment that he shared with three real witches, and not the sprawling classic Victorian mansion that he’d shared with this beloved dog, Maude, back in good-old Los Angeles. He figured that he was at least five miles from what passed for civilization in Westchester, New York – the nearest nightclub, P3.

"Zane! Are you all right?" Orlando called. Then, sitting up abruptly, he smashed his head against the shelf above his narrow, built-in bunk. He threw his hands over his head and ducked as books and magazines rained down, along with a couple of ornaments and a clatter of CDs.

"Orli—I mean, Mr. Bloom," Zane coughed, a chuckle in his slightly raspy voice. "Did you get beaned by the shelf again? Are you okay?"

In the heaps of books and bedclothes, Orlando laughed. "I asked you first," he hollered, then frowned, as his new friend’s gut-wrenching cough started up again. He grabbed his lighter, lit a smoke, and jumped out of the entangled mess of a bed.

Zane Warren was standing at the four-burner stove, scrambling eggs. And coughing. He had no idea what was wrong him. Ever since he’d came round from being an entity of vengeance, Zane’s health has been spiraling downwards.

He watched as Orlando sauntered into the kitchen and stepped up beside him, peering at the sizzling pan of omelets. Zane wrinkled his nose at the bitter fumes of the actor’s first cigarette of the day. "I thought you said you were gonna quit," he said shrewdly.

"And I thought I told you not to call me Mr. Bloom," Orlando quipped. "Anything but that." It was obvious that he was trying to veer from Zane’s choice of topic for their morning small talk, but Zane was not fooled.

He stared at him, frowning, wishing someone or something could get the man to quit smoking.

The burning tip of the cigarette suddenly flared into a white-hot incandescence and instantly reduced what was left of the cigarette to ash. The ash fluttered down into the frying pan, sizzling.

"What in the world?" Orlando gasped. Then, glancing suspiciously over his shoulder at Zane, trying to hide a smile, he said, "Very funny. Now cut it out."

"Don’t look at me, I didn’t do it," Zane vowed. Although it was exactly what he’d been thinking of doing, yanking the butt out of the actor’s mouth and disintegrating it. He coughed again.

Orlando looked upon him in concern. "What’s the time for your appointment?"

"With the doctor? Around three, I think." Zane tossed a handful of comfrey into a ceramic teapot and poured some boiling water over them. He then grabbed the crumpled dishtowel lying on the kitchen counter and used it as a potholder.

"I see." Orlando sighed. He tucked his long brown fringes behind his ears and bent over the frying pan, trying to separate the eggs from the cigarette ash with a fork. A shout from the living room sent him on full alert. His head shot back up, and his body went cold with fear. "What was that?"

"Zack." Zane deadpanned, setting the teapot down. He and Orlando stared at each other. Another shout brought the both of them out of the kitchen and into the living room.

Zack lay sprawled on the floor, struggling with a scaly purple creature with pimply skin and drooling yellowed fangs. Three other of the purple figures dodged the energy balls that Zoe launched as quickly as she could create them.

Orlando’s heart pounded as he took in the scene. Zack and Zoe were battling a quartet of demons!

A glowing energy ball zipped past his ear, sizzling his hair and grazing Zane’s arm.

"Ow!" Zane let out a yelp of pain and looked up at the creature that had lobbed the magical missile at them. "You son of a bitch!" He held out his palm, concentrated, formed a fireball and hurled the flaming grenade at the demon. It exploded on impact, taking out the scaly thing.

"Zane!" Zack cried out.

Glancing around frantically, he saw the demon that had been pinning his brother to the floor was now gripping him from behind, grabbing Zack’s arms so that he couldn’t neither freeze nor blow up any of them.

"Idiots. You’ve messed the wrong witches." Zane growled, seething. He paused a moment to let the implications sink in. He closed his eyes and held his head high. From his body, three distinct streamers of flame slowly emanated, whirling sinuously around him like the fearsome salamanders of medieval tales.

One shot right, the other left, and the third burned its way to the demon that had Zack trapped in a bear hug, striking him head-on, with force enough to hurl him backwards and scorch him alive.

Orlando stood rooted to the spot. The attack was so sudden and shocking that even the remaining two demons didn’t know how to react. They couldn’t believe that a witch was capable of doing this.

With the two streamers he’d manifested, Zane sent them streaking toward the last of the demons, scorching and trapping them in a cyclone of flame so thick and hot that they’d become crispy critters even before the flames died down.

Zack straightened back up. "What the hell was that?"