Silence followed. Then someone coughed, someone else sniggered, and finally Mede spoke. “I like a man with ambition.”

Sparkle saw hero worship born in Jerry’s eyes.

“You believe me?” Jerry sounded hesitant for the first time.

“Sure. You remind me of myself back when. Tons of power waiting to be unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Those were the good old days.” Mede winked. “Never liked limits put on me, though.”

Jerry nodded his agreement. “I don’t want to be Jerry anymore either. I want a cool name like Ganymede.”

Mede frowned. “Yeah, okay, we’ll get you another name. Yours doesn’t mean much without the Ben half of it anyway. See Sparkle about that. She’s good with names.” He glanced at her. “Don’t you have any wise words to say about our planet destroyer here?”

Sparkle didn’t think. She said the first thing that popped into her mind. “Dark of hair, dark of heart.” She widened her eyes. Where had that come from? She looked to see if Jerry felt insulted.

Jerry seemed pleased by her words. He met her gaze and smiled a wicked smile that said she’d nailed it.

When no one had anything to add to that, Holgarth took over. “Yes, well now that we’ve finished with our after-dinner chat we need to help Mistral clean up in the kitchen. Blue and Jill, you can help—”

Sparkle interrupted before he could impose a sexist regime. “Excuse me, Holgarth, but I think since Mistral cooked our meal, he shouldn’t have to do any cleaning up. All of our students can take care of clearing the table and washing the dishes. I’m sure Mistral will supervise this first time to make sure they do it correctly.” She smiled her most insipid smile at the wizard.

Jerry wore his rebellion like a black cloud. “I don’t clean up after meals. I have more important things to do.”

This one would cause trouble. But Sparkle had spent thousands of years handling difficult males. “You’ll help if you expect a ‘cool’ name. I don’t assign amazing names to slackers. And don’t think you can just give yourself a name. It wouldn’t have the power of my fabulous reputation behind it. You couldn’t brag that you had a designer name from Sparkle Stardust. Ask Orion how he likes his name.”

Orion gave him a thumbs up.

Jerry’s glare said she’d won this round, but he wasn’t finished. He slammed his chair back, almost knocking it over, and then grabbed plates from the table. She wondered how many would reach the dishwasher in one piece.

Everyone had risen and was starting to move away from the table when the doorbell rang. Sparkle watched Mede grow still, focusing his attention on whoever was outside his house. Then he relaxed.

“The Big Boss is back from his cookie organizing.” He headed for the door.

Sparkle waved everyone toward the parlor. Whatever Bourne had to say should be said in front of all the creator’s victims. “Forget the dishes. Grab a chair if you don’t want to sit on the floor.” This was a gorgeous home, but it didn’t have a room large enough to accommodate Mede’s growing army. She thought longingly of the Castle of Dark Dreams’ great hall.

A few minutes later, Mede returned with Bourne in tow. The Big Boss pulled four boxes of cookies from the plastic bag he carried. He tossed them on a chair. The kids fell on them like piranhas. Once everyone had settled themselves—Bourne sat alone on the couch—Ganymede asked his question.

“Tell us about our maker.”

The Big Boss studied the room’s ornate ceiling. “Love the ceiling. They don’t make ceilings like that anymore.” His gaze drifted down to where Ky was feeding a cookie to Momo. “Amaya is a sneak. She made me somehow, and she left a note explaining her connection to the government. She’ll be back tomorrow with a pile of forms for me to fill out. You can never trust a kitsune.”

“Tell us about our maker.” Mede repeated his demand louder this time.

Ky interrupted. “Why did you ring the bell? Why didn’t you just teleport into the dining room? I sense your great power. You could light up the sky if you chose.”

Bourne smiled. “I like to save my energy for the important stuff. Besides, sometimes I like to feel…ordinary.”

Sparkle didn’t miss the wistfulness in his voice. Ordinary. She and Mede living in some small town. Doing the things humans did every day—a regular job, dinner in front of the TV, kids, housework, and mowing the lawn. Long pause for thought. Nope. Not her thing. She’d die of boredom in a week. She needed excitement, gorgeous shoes, perfect nails, and lots of sensual challenges.

“Tell us about the damn creator.” Mede speared everyone in the room with a stare that said the next person not named Bourne to speak would have their atoms scattered across the universe.

Sparkle smiled. She loved when Mede got all assertive.

Bourne leaned forward. “I’ll show you.”

Suddenly, the room disappeared. Everyone sat under a tall spiky tree that was definitely not native to Earth.

“My planet of origin, Effix, is in a galaxy far, far away, and even farther than that.” Bourne waved his hand.

A tall column of white light spun into being a few feet away. Sparkle shaded her eyes with her hand.

Bourne explained, “My baby picture.” Another column of light popped up beside him. “Your creator.”

Jill called out, “You both look the same.”

“Yes, well, energy beings tend to do that.” Bourne sounded regretful.

Holgarth made an impatient sound. “Nice illusion. All of this is precious, but I have a schedule to keep, and if you don’t speed things up I’ll be working until midnight.”

Sparkle sighed. “You don’t have any schedule to keep yet. Stop being a nag. This is interesting.”

The wizard’s humph was his only answer.

“Your maker and I were born on Effix as pure energy. The woman about to come out of that house you see is my mother. Notice that she looks human. Once we reach adulthood, we can take any physical form we choose. My mother always felt affection for Earth. She passed that on to me. But there’s a catch.”

“There always is,” mumbled Mistral.

“Once we choose a form, we can never return to pure energy. Our physical form is powerful, but not as powerful as our energy one. Most of our people choose a physical form so we can enjoy our senses to the fullest.”

Mede looked thoughtful as he watched the very normal looking woman open the door and step into the sunlight. “A mother. Who would’ve thought? That seriously lowers your godly street cred, O Powerful One.”

Bourne threw him a hard stare as the scene slowly faded, and they were once again in the parlor.

Bourne continued, “Most of our people are pretty laid back, but your creator was always obsessed with being the greatest at everything. He had enough power to deliver a serious beat down to anyone who dared face him. Except for me. That ate at him. He challenged me at everything, never letting up, hammering away, and hoping for that magic moment when he’d kick my butt. It never happened, and I finally got fed up with him. I took human form, then came to Earth. The people of Effix live for millennia, so many of them were alive and remember when I was there. They still whisper behind his back that I was the strongest of them all. Your maker can never claim that title. He hasn’t gotten over it yet.”

Jill interrupted again. “How do you know that if you’re here and he’s there?”

Bourne smiled at her. “He’s sent spies to find me. Sometimes I found them instead. They were eager to tell me all they knew.”

Sparkle held her breath, hoping no one would ask why they were so eager. She wasn’t about to explain the Big Boss’s interrogation methods to the wide-eyed young among them.

“What happened to them afterwards?” Orion’s voice.

Bourne shrugged. “They went away. Forever.”

Blue spoke for the first time. “Where did—”

Sparkle stopped what could become an endless string of questions. “Is this a tale of jealousy and revenge?”

He nodded. “Your creator thought he would mess with my happy world. You guys would either destroy me or destroy the planet. He wasn’t too fussy about how it happened as long as I was gone permanently. He couldn’t come here after me, because he’d have to leave his energy form behind and take a physical one here. It would make him weaker. He rules Effix now. He needs all his power to control the people. So he stole you from your homes, forced you into human forms, and then instilled in you the need to create chaos. He put a little of his own energy into each of you to add to your natural power before ripping your memories from you. Finding and molding a whole new bunch of troublemakers takes time, so he can only release each group into this world every seven Earth years.”

“But he didn’t get what he wanted, did he?” Mede’s grin was wickedly satisfied.

Bourne returned his smile. “No. The troublemakers didn’t destroy the world, and I didn’t have to destroy you. I was able to control you enough to keep your destructive tendencies in check. You still do bad things, but they’re not planet-ending things.”

Mistral interrupted. “So why does he keep sending more of us? He has to know by now it isn’t working.”

Bourne raked his fingers through his hair. “I wonder if he’s even sane anymore. The spies I’ve interrogated say he’s paranoid. He believes I’ll return to Effix one day to take the planet away from him. He knows I’m still alive because his spies managed to hear stuff from a few troublemakers. So he just keeps sending you guys in the hope that one of you will be so powerful you’ll either destroy Earth or take me out.” He speared Jerry with a hard stare. Unspoken message: don’t let it be you.

Jerry met his gaze. He nodded.

Sparkle scanned the room. Three of the new troublemakers were angry, but beneath the anger she sensed sorrow and yes, fear. Jerry went beyond all those emotions right to hate. Ky was confused. Holgarth stared at his watch. His almighty schedule waited for no evil energy aliens. She could barely see Lucinda. The former owner of the house looked horrified. The ghost must wonder what nightmare had invaded her beloved home. When Sparkle turned to glance at Mistral, she found him staring back.

“Ready for war, Sis? Because that’s what Ganymede is bringing to this big pink house.” He wasn’t smiling. “He can count me in, though. I’m going to use that little bit of power Evil Daddy gave me to help kick his ass. How about you?”

“Sure. I’m in.” She would be where Mede was.

“What’s the bastard’s name? He never told me. I had to call him Master.” Mede’s smile was grim. “I should at least know what to shout at him as I send his ass to hell.”

“Zendig.” Finished with his explanation, Bourne leaned back. He put up a hand to stop questions being hurled at him. “Hey, give me a rest.” He looked at Mede. “While I was putting cookies away I contacted two people who can help us. I told them to come here. One of them can teleport the other, so they should be here any moment.”

“Why are you getting involved?” Mede’s voice was hard.

“Because that lunatic cheated every troublemaker out of a home and family. And he did it to get at me. So I owe you guys.” He glanced away. “Maybe I should’ve done it sooner, but I didn’t want to have to wrestle control of the portal away from him and then fight him on Effix. Bourne finally met Mede’s gaze. “The truth? I didn’t want to mess with my comfortable life here.”

Mede rubbed a hand across his face. “Look, I’m going outside for a while. I need to think about things.” He didn’t wait for Bourne to comment. He strode from the room, heading for the back door.

Sparkle didn’t hesitate. Mede shouldn’t be alone right now. He needed someone with him he could depend on, someone who would sympathize with his anger and frustration. And if he wanted to yell, he could yell at her.

Mede didn’t turn to look at Sparkle as she followed him out to the deck. He sat on the top step staring out at the garden. There was a full moon tonight, and its light bathed the flowers in a soft glow. Their scent filled the night. And in the background, she could hear the soft swish of the waves and feel the sea breeze cooling her. Sparkle could smell the ocean behind the flowers’ strong perfume. Closing her eyes, she pictured her Castle of Dark Dreams in the moonlight. There, the waves she’d hear would be from the Gulf of Mexico. Sighing, she opened her eyes.

She walked to the step, and Mede moved over so she could sit beside him. “I miss the Castle tonight.”

He was silent so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then…

“Me too.”

Sparkle didn’t make a big deal of his words, but inside something cold warmed just a little. “There’s an hour’s difference in the time, but right now everyone would be preparing for the night’s role playing.” She smiled at the thought.

“Yeah.” He didn’t say anything else for a while.

Sparkle waited, allowing the night to soothe her, to calm the fears the Big Boss had raised.

“Nothing is going the way I thought it would.” He didn’t look at her. “I figured I’d have more time. I didn’t think Bourne would want to help. Hell, I didn’t know any of what went down between him and our crea… No, I won’t call him that anymore. It gives him too much power. He’s Zendig from now on.”

Sparkle couldn’t help herself. She reached over to put her hand on his thigh. She massaged his tense muscles and felt them relax beneath her fingers. Sparkle tried not to think about how much she loved touching him.

He continued. “And the kids. They’re not ready. Zendig would destroy them.”

“You’re right. You’ll have to find a way to leave them behind when you battle Zendig.”

Mede snorted his opinion of her comment. “Good luck with that. Did you see the expression in Jerry’s eyes? He’s ready for war.”

“We’ll find a way.” She infused all the confidence she could into her words.

“And you.” He finally turned to meet her gaze. “I don’t want you anywhere near Zendig. You and the kids need to be far away when the time comes.”

Sparkle didn’t answer him. Arguing with Mede when he got something in his head was useless. But when he went to war, she’d be with him. “Things will work out, Mede. We’ve been in tight spots before, and we’ve always come through fine.” Together. This time wouldn’t be any different. They were a team, and Mede better damn well accept that.

Just then she heard the sound of the doorbell and raised voices from the front of the house. She sighed. Their peaceful moment was over. “Sounds as though Bourne’s guests have arrived.”

Reluctantly, he stood. Then he reached out and took her hand. She was afraid to breathe for fear he’d withdraw it. She’d missed the warm strength of his grip for what seemed forever. Now that she had it back, she’d kill to keep it.

Inside, Mede led her toward the parlor where everyone was still gathered. And just like he had when he’d seen Bourne there, he stopped dead. This time she didn’t waste any time slipping around him.

Sparkle knew there were two men standing behind the Big Boss. The first was only a blur. The second was the one who mattered. He was tall and powerful, with long, almost-black hair that framed a wicked face with brilliant blue eyes that only Mackenzie vampires had.

He smiled. “We’ve missed you, Sparkle.”

No, no, no. Not now. She forced a smile to her lips. “Hey, Thorn.”

Behind her, Mede’s voice was so cold she suspected if anyone touched her right now she’d shatter, raining shards of iced Sparkle all over his expensive oriental rug. He said only one word.

“Viking.”