Originally Human

couldn't
take
without intercourse?"
    I gaped at Michael, appalled. "I'm sorry. I didn't—I don't know how I did that."
    He shook off Cullen's hand, and ran his own hand through his hair. "It's my fault. I'm supposed to control when I draw. If
she
was watching…"
    "Well." Cullen shrugged. "It's a small node. Wouldn't be easy to spot, even drawing like you were, and I stopped you fast enough. I'd say it's unlikely anyone could have located you, but we don't have guarantees, do we? You'd better not do it again. However…" His eyes gleamed. "We do have an idea. At least, I do."
    He stopped there, dragging it out. "Well?" I snapped.
    "I think I know how to hide Michael's, ah, signature, when he draws. But I want to renegotiate our terms."
    "You want more money?"
    "Money?" He made a disgusted noise. "What use is that? I was going to use what you paid me, Molly my love, to try to acquire more scraps. I don't have to settle for scraps now."
    "What do you want?" Michael's voice was ominously low.
    "As much as I can get, obviously." Suddenly Cullen laughed. "If you could see your faces! I haven't turned into an evil wizard before your eyes, scheming to steal your souls and take over the world. I don't want them, for one thing. For another," he said wryly, "Michael could squash me like a bug if I tried anything. No, I want to learn. I want Michael's time for, say, a month. I want to ask questions, learn from him."
    "I'm not allowed. No," Michael said to Cullen, holding up a hand. "This isn't negotiable. I thought at first that your realm had just drifted apart from the others, but it's more. You're under interdict. I don't know why, or who established the ban. Those pieces are missing. But I am not allowed to give you the knowledge you want."
    Cullen's face tightened. "A week, just a week, then. I could spend a lifetime studying my scraps and not learn as much as I can from you in one week. Do you know what that's like? All right—one day, man!" He was fierce in his need. "Just give me one day."
    "One spell." Michael's face was granite. "One spell, of your choice—within reason. No transformations."
    Cullen spoke flatly. "Not enough."
    "We don't have to deal with you," I said mildly. "If the idea is any good, chances are one of us will think of it, sooner or later. More likely Michael than me, I'll admit."
    Cullen wore an odd little smile. "I doubt this particular notion would occur to him. Even if it does, he'll need help. Because he isn't much at creating spells. Are you?" he said directly to Michael. "You've got more facts lodged in your head than NASA's mainframe, but you don't know much about building from scratch."
    "I wasn't made to create, but I can do it."
    "Well enough to trust Molly's life to a homemade spell?"
    His eyebrows pulled down. His gaze darted to me, then back to Cullen. "Explain."
    "Not until you agree to my terms."
    "Then I suppose we must leave. And then, sooner or later, the Azá will find me. They will either kill Molly, or not. And I will either kill more of them, or not—but eventually they will have me, and turn me over to their goddess. Then she will have access to all that you covet."
    Cullen flung up one hand—a fencer's gesture, acknowledging an opponent's coup. "And civilization as we know it will come to an end? All right, all right. One spell. You'll give me a little time to think of what I want, since I'm to get just the one?"
    Michael nodded. "And your idea?"
    "Is simplicity itself, in principle. Probably not in execution." He threw me a roguish glance. "It's right up your alley, sweetheart. All you have to do is make love."

----
Chapter 11

    IT wasn't simple, of course. Michael and Cullen spent the rest of the afternoon discussing the details, arguing, now and then pausing to draw a glowing symbol in the air. But the premise was fairly basic.
    Not that I understood it. Michael and I would change places, as far as the nodes were concerned. Instead of me drinking from him, he'd draw power through me. Only I'd still be tapping the magic through him, which is what I didn't understand. Somehow, though, the nodes would "read" my pull, not his. And I was mostly human, natural to this realm, so no one would be able to get a fix on me.
    "Your energies are already muddled up together, love," Cullen had told me when I expressed bafflement. "Not that I have a clue how you did that, but that's what I saw when you went into a liplock. It's why you were able to begin feeding short of, ah, the