Jerrold stood in a long line of others dressed like himself, perhaps thirty men. Before them were a number of brass cooking pots arranged on gas stoves, each containing bubbling, liquefied chocolate. The cooks, of which there were a dozen, one for each pot, were Charlotte's friends. Each had flesh the color of bone and wild white hair that hung to their waists.

Rebecca was one of the twelve, stirring her pot with a long wooden spoon. Occasionally, she'd stop, dip her finger within and lick it clean.

What were all these people doing here? If he could ask the robbed figures, would all thirty of them have stories similar to Jerrold's own?

But he couldn't speak. Nor could he move. Several times he tried to break for the door, but as soon as he did the words would whisper in his ear once again: Magic stronger than death.

The words held him, bound him in place as if hundreds of invisible, child-sized hands gripped him. Little fingers held his arms, and wrapped his legs. It was magic, true magic, the power of a Voodoo priestess or spirits. The horrible truth was that he understood, in some mysterious instinctual way, how it worked. The spell fed on hope, his own hope in the pale woman's promises. Against his better judgment, he had to stay to find out whatever truth her promise of a power beyond death contained.

Double doors opened on the far side of the kitchen, letting in streams of orange light from a hearth beyond them. Jerrold blinked against the brightness but strained to see who or what was entering. A woman's silhouette eclipsed the flame, casting her long shadow across the tiled floor as she strode forward.

The white women raised their voices. "The Queen of Covens approaches! Greet her mortals."

All the robed figures, Jerrold included, spoke, "All hail the Queen of Covens."

Without willing it, he bowed towards the shadowy figure.

After taking only a few steps, the door swung shut and she disappeared in darkness once again. Only the clicking of her shoes on the tile marked her presence. Jerrold strained his eyes. His vision still swam with bright spots from looking into the fireplace. When she reached the outer edge of the candlelight, she paused, a ghostly and indistinct presence. Something flashed near her waist.

"All hail the Queen of Covens," Jerrold repeated in chorus with the others.

There was a pause, then the men on either side of Jerrold made muffled, frightened sounds and shook as if fighting against bonds. What? What had they seen?

The woman took two more steps, pausing. Though she was brighter, she was still indistinct, wraith-like, but the long knife in her hand was at last visible. A muffled gasp escaped Jerrold's lips. She raised her free hand, beckoned, and one of the men stepped forward. Shaking and struggling, shivering like a man in the depths of winter, he raised his arm above one of the cook pots and pulled back his sleeve.

The wraith-like woman stalked forward, her blade raised. When she stepped into the light, Jerrold saw mad eyes and a malice-filled smile. It was Charlotte as he'd tried to paint her. When he saw that she still wore her wedding ring, his heart leaped and another sound escaped him, high pitched, almost a yell.

Charlotte squinted at him across the intervening dark.

When he made no further sound, she took the outstretched hand of the man before her and slashed the wrist. Blood poured into the bubbling pot. Charlotte raised her voice, chanting in a low alto that echoed through the cavernous room.

From your decades and years,

From your joy and from your tears,

From the nights you have rested,

From your days oh, so bless-ed,

From the long hours you work,

From the minutes you shirk,

A donation you make,

A sweet gift that we take,

The witches of death,

Ladies without breath,

Undying, eternal,

Unliving, infernal,

With sweetness enfolding,

The blood which is flowing,

New life we are molding,

To savor and eat,

To make us complete.

Several seconds later, she leaned in and kissed the wound. At once the bleeding stopped, and Charlotte flicked her tongue around in a circle, wiping the blood from her lips. Despite her effort to clean herself, however, the widely smeared stain on her moon white skin was all but luminous.

A dozen of your years,

And the same from your peers,

Forget all that you've lost,

Never think of the cost.

Charlotte grinned. She looked as if she were a child who'd tried to use red finger paint for lipstick.

"The cutting has begun, my ladies!" Charlotte howled. "Finish your work!"

A dozen trembling men stepped up to the witches and their cook pots, stretching out their arms and rolling back their sleeves. When the first set of men had made their donations, they left. Most of them running. Many tripped on their way out. A few stopped to glance backward. Jerrold saw glimpses of wide white eyes beneath the brown hoods.

Jerrold glanced between the lines. He was in line to step up to Rebecca. He felt the compulsion moving his feet. Charlotte, however, was cutting the men one line over. Gritting his teeth, he struggled, pushing with all his will against the invisible hands that held him in position. To his surprise, they gave way, allowing him to walk to the end of Charlotte's line where he stopped, content to remain where he was.

"What is wrong with that one?" Charlotte asked, pointing to Jerrold.

He wished to raise his hands to throw back the hood, but he was again held fast.

Rebecca glared menacingly at Jerrold. She approached him with her bloody knife in her fist. Scarlet drops still ran from her lips, the result of the last two wrists she'd kissed.

No! He would not give his blood to this one, only to Charlotte. He was only too happy to prolong his wife's life by sacrificing some of his, especially if she would bake for him again. And how could she not? Wasn't twelve years of a man's life worth a dessert or two? All the desperation and longing of the past three years blossomed inside him like a kind of fire, pushing the ghostly hands away. Suddenly free, he reached up, threw back his hood and shouted, "Charlotte! It's me, Jerrold!"

Rebecca was on him at once, her fingers twisted in his hair pulling it back, the point of her bloody knife pressed against his throat.

"What are you doing, Rebecca?" Charlotte demanded. "Jerrold's one time donation of twelve years is already mine."

This last word reverberated with possessiveness and power.

"I found your weakness," Rebecca said. "Relinquish the power of the coven to me and he will live."

Charlotte took two more steps forward. In response, Rebecca pressed the knife against Jerrold's throat, making a shallow break in the skin.

"You have found your own death!" Charlotte screeched.

She leaped in the air, her fingernails glittering like icicles.

As she descended, Rebecca shoved the blade into Jerrold's throat.

The world disappeared. There was no Charlotte or chocolate or men in brown robes. No sights nor smells. There was only darkness and the lack of air, the panicked struggling, the flailing of Jerrold's hands as he tried to find something to grab onto. He jumped, trying to reach the surface of whatever horrible pool he was drowning in. Again he leaped, but when he did the world tipped sideways and he lost track of which way was up.

The tile floor crashed into him, seeming to fly up and strike his head and shoulder with an alarming and painful crack. Only then did his rational mind reassert itself. He wasn't drowning in water, but in his own blood which poured from the wound in his neck. He opened his eyes as wide as he could, hoping to see Charlotte one last time before he died.

He saw her at once, startlingly close. Her face was pale, white and smeared with blood. Her face fell to his neck. At once the pain ceased, replaced almost instantly by a cool tingling sensation.

Jerrold laughed, surprised to hear sound coming from his mouth. He sucked in a breath and the air cooled his burning lungs.

Charlotte's lips moved against his throat, kissing him repeatedly. He reached up with both hands, grabbed her by the hair and lifted her mouth to his. She grunted in surprise as her cold lips locked onto his warm ones. Passion rose inside Jerrold with sudden urgency, a desire, a need, a ticking bomb inside him that longed for destructive release. With strength that surprised him, Charlotte put her arms under his body and lifted him.

Bestial rumblings sounded in her chest as she carried him across the tile floor toward the door from which she made her entrance. The portal flung open at her approach, as if in fear of her. She set Jerrold in a shallow depression in the floor, a hole several inches deep filled with dirt. As she tore open her robes, the fire flared in the hearth. Charlotte's eyes caught the flame and reflected it with a predatory gleam.