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average woman, who perhaps could use the burning intensity of her powers to whittle away the pounds she’d packed on since living in the city on Automat food and whatever came to hand to chase down the booze. It was fashionable to be skinny and flat but Sophia could thank both her mother and her Grams for giving her a generous bust that she had to tape down to look anywhere near decent in a modern dress. And her hips, well, there was just no way to cover those up except for dancing fast enough or getting drunk enough that everything became a blur. Average brown eyes, average brown hair. Average height, average smile . Average .
     
    She hadn’t thought there was much wrong with average, until she’d been stared at by green eyes deep enough to swallow her . Maybe he’d just been high on dope. Maybe he was mentally unstable. But unless she’d invented Irene and Mary’s little visit out of the recesses of her overactive imagination, it hadn’t sounded like he was the type to indulge in the more risqué habits of the city, or that he was missing any marbles.
     
    There was nothing special about her, except for the fact that she could feel the life’s blood running in every living thing. Every leaf, every cockroach, every geranium, every lapdog and every thug in this city she could sense if she let herself. It used to be that she’d have to concentrate to feel anything at all and now she had to concentrate not to feel everything in fifty miles. She closed her eyes again, broken for a moment.
     
    Damn him! He’d done something to her. He’d broken through some barrier she hadn’t wanted busted. At least not yet. Not for a good long while…maybe a lifetime or two.
     
    The worst thing was, she should hate him. She should want to sic the police on the whole sorry crazy lot of sun worshippers, gathering in the park to greet the quarter day sun. But she couldn’t, not when his face still swam hazily before her eyes, looking at her like she meant something to him. Not when she wanted him so badly it blocked out all the stray feelings until she could do nothing put picture him taking her hard on the cold floor, her legs wrapped around his thighs and that glorious hair shielding her from anything but the smell and taste of him. She opened her eyes and saw the flush of desire pink on her skin, her nipples hard from cold and want all at the same time, her fingers playing with the skin of her hip, longing to dip in to play with herself in a sad imitation of what she craved.
     
    Shaking her head at her own folly, she picked up a washcloth to bathe herself in the cold air and hurried to finally cover herself with stockings and bloomers and a warm comfortable wool dress. It was Sunday after all. She’d take a day of rest. No work today anyway and no parties until she got her head back on straight. And no more thinking about dark-haired magicians and their powers of seduction. If she saw him or any of his band again, she’d just simply run away. Manhattan was a damn big island and New York was the biggest city in the whole world. She was certain she could hide from him, even if she had to give up this apartment.
     
    The problem was, she was somehow equally certain that if she put her mind to it, she’d always be able to find him.
     
    Like a moth drawn to a flame.

 
    Chapter Four
     
     
     
    Sophia made it all the way to Thursday before she caught a spy. Somebody was checking up on her that was for certain. She’d felt a presence near her door, over her shoulder, even once on the way to work but she hadn’t mastered filtering her powers enough to recognize if it was the same person each time, or different ones. Still, Sophia couldn’t picture the haughty Irene or the elderly Mary being stealthy enough to manage to break into her apartment repeatedly and leave gifts of rolls or cookies. And neither of them was burly enough to chase off the idiot Capone kids who were trying to snatch her purse as she crossed Lafayette