The Dark Glamour (666 Park Avenue 2)

slack face when she pressed it into his grimy palm. ‘I have to go now,’ she told him, backing away again and staring hard at the ring.
Not mine any more,
she thought firmly, for good measure.
Not connected to me at all.
‘But this is yours now, and I’ll be back to visit as soon as I can. You’re a really good friend.’
    As she heard herself say the words, she realized that she meant them. She ran lightly down the back stairs with her box, which she could hide just outside the back entrance and pick up later without being seen. She knew from experience that no one at 665 Park Avenue ever bothered with the stairs.
    And then all I need to do is survive the rest of the party,
Jane reminded herself cheerfully. Being glared at by witches and suffocated by André still wasn’t her idea of a pleasant evening, but it suddenly seemed a lot more bearable.

Twenty
    J ANE RUBBED THE worn grey fur of the toy rabbit with one thumb. The box and the rest of its precious contents sat on the floor beside the closet, and she crossed her legs on her down comforter and tried to keep herself from bouncing in excitement. She had been so eager to examine her prize that she hadn’t even bothered to change out of her black dress, although she had kicked off the glittery shoes at the earliest opportunity.
    It had been even harder to shake off André after the party than it had been during it, but as soon as she had returned to the atrium, she had repeated the words ‘food poisoning’ in every context and combination she could think of, and finally he had given up.
It couldn’t be that hard to believe, after I’d run up and down all those stairs,
she admitted to herself. When they’d reached the mirrored hotel elevator, she saw just how thoroughly she’d failed to touch up her hair and makeup before hurrying back into the Dorans’ party.
No wonder he let me off the hook; I wouldn’t want to sleep with me tonight, either.
But all she could feel was giddy happiness: nothing was going to stop her from finding Annette now.
    She dropped the rabbit gently onto the comforter, where it stared at her with one glassy black eye.
Can I do this myself?
She hesitated briefly.
Maybe I should wait.
After all, the first time she had done this spell, she’d had two Wiccans, tons of crystals, and a vial of tasteless but potent goo. But she was keyed up and nearly bursting with magical electricity. There was no way she would be able to sleep tonight. As the power buzzed through her veins, it whispered to her that, as long as she had enough magic, everything else was just props.
    She closed her eyes, counted seven deep breaths, and let her mind drift towards the small stuffed toy. Feeling slightly foolish but wanting to re-create what little of the original spell she could, she held her arms up, creating a circle around the rabbit with her hands meeting each other on the far side. She held the magic inside of that, spinning it around the circle’s edges like water in a funnel. She couldn’t remember what Misty had chanted, so she substituted a meditation mantra of Dee’s, focusing on the rhythm rather than the meaning.
    Although her hands remained raised, after a few minutes she could physically feel the synthetic fur, the plastic whiskers, the black glass of the eyes. She could very nearly feel the oil left behind in Annette’s invisible fingerprints from every time the girl had picked up, hugged, or carried the bunny. Jane sent her mind along their tight whorls, following them to an identity.
Tell me where she is. Show me Annette.
    A buzzing noise so low that she hadn’t noticed it at first intensified until she wished that she could cover her ears, and then her consciousness was wrenched violently away from her body. Although she had prepared herself for the pain this time, it seemed to have multiplied.
Should’ve drunk the goo,
she gasped mentally, wishing she were still in her body so she could be sick. But there was nothing she could do except wait for the pain to pass, because wherever she was, it was no longer the Lowell Hotel.
    So where am I? Where is she?
Jane tried to look around, but felt frustrated all over again by her inability to so much as twitch of her own volition. She had to wait for Annette to move, turn, hear, look.
At least this time I know whose body I’m in,
she reminded herself. Without the confusion and then the shock of discovering that she had mistakenly inhabited the body of a girl who was supposed to be dead,