My adoptive mother and magical mentor used to say "The first rule of Witch Club is, you do not talk about Witch Club.

The second rule of Witch Club is, You Do Not talk about Witch Club!"

She was a little crazy about movies, usually trying to sneak in a quote or two from her faves. Or at least a bastardized version of them, with words transfigured to suit her magical lifestyle. She taught me a lot about spells, choices and the power inside me but liberally peppered it with affection. And just because her impressions were lame, didn't mean that you disregarded what she was actually saying. And not talking about "witch club", is good advice, really good, especially with those "shoot first, ask questions later" Hunters out there. I probably should've heeded it but a set of gorgeous green eyes were my Achilles' Heel.

But I digress, you can't begin a tale at the end, so in my final moments I'll share my story.

* I was born a hereditary witch. Generations before I was a glimmer in daddy's eye, my ancestors had been bending the elements to their will. My bloodline was as old as the Fairies..the Angels maybe..

But I knew nothing about those things. After I had been orphaned as a baby, I bounced around from foster family to foster family, then finally group homes because no one ever wanted to take the plunge and keep me. I was adorable but had a bad rep, even as a toddler, weird stuff just happened when I was around. Pipes burst if another kid picked on me. Stray animals followed me to preschool, sat outside until class let out, and then walked me home again. Things seemed to appear beside me if I wanted them, crayons, a cookie.. someone's car keys..

And if I was punished, they felt every spank, smack or slap.. I didn't know how but the blame was always placed at my tiny feet. And well lets just say this "freakish" behavior didn't make me a very desirable houseguest.

This went on for many years, until I got into junior high school and one of my teachers, Ms. Stevens, started to take an interest in me. Who knows what exactly made her focus on me in a sea of other prepubescents. Maybe it was that I was a great student, or cute as a button, or perhaps it was the field trip where an almost 20 foot long boa constrictor tried to follow me home, by wriggling over my classmates heads, that caught her eye.

Regardless even before she singled me out, I loved her class,. And it wasn't just because she was an amazing teacher and I soaked up knowledge like a sponge. She always had music playing, usually soundtracks from her favorite shows or classic rock. And her science room was filled with posters, and they were not Albert Einsteins, or that "Hang in There!" kitten! I'm talking about Costner's Elliot Ness in "The Untouchables", Chuck Norris/ David Carradine staring each other down in "Lone Wolf McQuade", "Return of the Jedi" with Vader, Luke, Han and slave Leia. The posters changed a lot depending on her mood.. action flicks, comedies, romance.. in fact come to think of it, gold bikini Leia was the only permanent fixture. Yeah Tabitha Stevens was a cool teacher but a little movie obsessed.. See where I'm going here?

Yep kids, this is how I met my mother, and when she became my magical mentor. She saw potential in me, took me out of the group home I was stuck in, and adopted me. She indulged my love of art, music, acting. She taught me self-defense, and made me proficient using various man-made weapons. I was taught the art of blending in, which made high school a lot easier, let me tell you. And she introduced me to who I really was, not someone who left freakish accidents in her wake but a young woman of power.

But, "with great power comes great responsibility.."

Ok, I couldn't help it, she rubbed off on me a little.. Seriously though, she was a great witch who taught me to hone my craft, and that above all else, that there are choices out there, nothing is set in stone.

There are people out in the world like me, who are born with magical powers. They have uncontrollable or weird experiences too. But most of the time it doesn't get recognized, as there's always a ready excuse for why something might have happened. De ja vu, static electric, or plain old denial. These people go through their lives completely unaware that they could have helped turn the tide. Raw, natural talent? The people born with it, they have a choice. See, most of your garden variety witches have to accumulate powers by making deals with demons..

I know right!? Demons? Seriously? Yeah as far-fetched as it seems, there's a lot out there that goes bump in the night and you don't want to get within a few miles of it.

Well unless you enjoy having the flesh stripped from your bones, I've heard some do, but I'm not one of them. Not like I protest if things get a little rough mind you, like if a hard bodied, scruffy jawed man is pinning me up against the wall with his green eyes devouring me. Grinding his hot arousal into my hip, flashing that devil-may-care grin before lowering his lips to m...

Sorry, sorry got a little lost in the moment, that part comes later.

Ok. Where was I? Yeah, choices.

Well most choose to ignore their magical destinies. I guess it's easier for some people to suppress their true selves, but I couldn't, regardless the costs. And using magic always has a price.

After I graduated both from high school and from magic "school" I was given a couple sets of options. The first, go to college, become an artist and perhaps have a shot at a normal life, or embrace my true purpose, take what I'd learned and start fighting. .. Which leads me to the other set of choices.

Pick a side Good or Evil..

Well that doesn't seem hard if you're not a Complete Psychopath but..

See, it isn't all black and white, there is a lot of gray areas, some darks some lights.. Evil can make itself pretty tempting, sometimes it can be downright sexy to go a little dark side.

But it gets presented like this,

Go bad and you can Do anything, Have anything or Anyone you want. You make your deal with the devil and your powers grow immensely, overnight.

Or choose to fight for good and you can suffer through years of hard work, self-sacrifice, blood, tears, and putting everyone else, and the greater good before your own needs..

Wow, both sides make such tempting offers. They make it so hard to choose, right?

Well those freaking' movies must have warped my fragile little mind cause I choose to be an instrument for good.

And even though she knew what I was born to do, I know my mom was hoping I'd pick the safe college option, but if you believe a girl can't get a hero complex you would be wrong..

God damn movies and a lot of pride in my own abilities, had me packed up, in my Mom's sweet 1965 Ford Mustang( that she'd gifted me for graduating) and ready to save the world in minutes. She came with me for a while, more for maternal concern than practical assistance. I began noticing how strained she looked after the first few battles. I told her I'd be fine on my own, and after protesting for a few days she finally relented. Before she left to go back home, she once again made me promise to be careful and warned me never go up against a Hunter. They didn't care to find out who was good and who was bad, she said, they just killed everything that didn't fit their limited definition of normal. Wonderful.

So the life of a good witch kinda sucks...

I'm usually a broke, beaten, bloody mess (but you should see the other guys, or you could if they weren't on a one way trip down the Highway to Hell..)

And it's an almost completely thankless job. I have to stay one jump ahead of the lawmen, and the Hunters. So just enough time to save the victim, and then I gotta blow outta town.. No parades, no thank you cards.. Which I'm fine with, I would just like to stick around for a little while, to see the fruits of my labors. To live vicariously and see other people enjoy what I gave back to them, what I can't have for myself, because I'm always heading off to save the next person.

Anyways because of the constant danger, I barely sleep, and if I happen to catch a few z's, it's almost always in run down motels.

My diet consists of whatever I can shove down before passing out, mostly eating out of dive diners. Not the healthiest of options but screw it, after a long day of trying to kick evil butts, I deserve a burger. You hunt the things that give your nightmares' nightmares, and go settle for a salad, not me!

But wait, you might ask, why is it so hard? Don't you have Magic?

Well no shit, Sherlock..

So do the bad guys, and they don't have to wrestle with trying to get the job done with as little exposure or casualties as possible. If innocent people die, well that's just frosting on the cake for them...

With this job, the plus side is helping people, reuniting families, saving lives..

The negative? Wow its hard to narrow it down but mostly that Good doesn't always win, like in the movies.

In real life, you sometimes lost people, good people, people you love, because they shouldn't be brought into this life or because you weren't fast, smart or talented enough. It hurt, down deep but you couldn't even take time to grieve because if you stopped hunting for a second.. you just lost more.

I used my magic, or cache of weapons, to try to stop anything with murderous intent. After awhile the months bled into years of the constant battle.

I was still calling up Mom to check in after fighting whatever demons, werewolves, vamps, evil witches or whatever else I had fought that day. She was always happy for me and interested. She had me send her pics of the stuff I'd sketched on stakeouts, or in my rare down time. After a close call taking out a nest of vamps where this deranged dark Hunter almost caught me, she changed her tune. She started to talk about wasting my artistic talents and telling me i should quit hunting and go back to school. It was a strange and abrupt, and I wondered what had changed.

After a few more of these calls, I finally found out why, and why it was the Hunters Mom worried about the most.

She was sure that the Hunter that had spotted me was one that had tracked her for years. She would be in a town trying to help people, he would stalk her and try to take her out. Since she would on the job, they would stumble into the big evil situation while he was trying to kill her. My mom would help as much as possible to stop the vampires, werewolves or whatever else was trying to kill him and then bolt the second it was over and the innocents were safe. The last time they had met up he left her to die, and that was even after she used her own body to deflect a blow from a demon that would've killed the hunter.

The demon cut his losses and blew out, and the God Damn Hunter? He sauntered out with a "Good riddance Bitch!". Ungrateful Jerk!

By sheer will, she crawled out of there, barely breathing. She eventually healed and hid herself, but doing so cost her a great deal of her magic. She quit hunting, got her teaching degree, met me and the rest, as they say, is history.

I rushing through cleaning up the salt and burn job I had just completed and then immediately started to drive the 408 miles back home.

She called my cell about an hour into the drive, saying he had found her. She was begging me not to come, to go into hiding but I kept speeding to my mom's aid. She commanded me to stop, and my beautiful, traitorous Mustang just pulled over and shut off. I started begging her to let me help, to not do this but she had already put a binding spell on me, and I couldn't move.

"Mom please, you've given me everything, let me do this for you!" Tears rushed down my cheeks.

"The greatest gift and honor, was having you for a daughter." My beautifully brave mother was trying to comfort me, quoting from Mulan while waiting for her killer to come. Didn't I tell you she was amazing?

She then told me that the Hunter would try come after me, and I was forced to swear not to go after him, that she was using the last of her magic to hide my presence from him. No matter how I cried and begged she wouldn't let me go. She whispered "Remember I love you..." And then I heard glass shattering and wood busting. My mother's voice called out weakly "Gordon Walker, you old so-and-so! How 'bout those Dolphins.."

A dark voice came laughing out of the cell phone.

"You are one stupid woman, I thought you were dead, I just went on until these familiar patterns started cropping up. At first I just thought it Must be some other Demon Whore, but the same spells, the same MO's, the same fake ids using the names of movie characters... I knew it was you! You shoulda stayed dead..you dumb bitch.."

"Well you know...There's three ways to do things, the right way, the wrong way and the way that I do it." She sounded cocky and defiant throwing out movie quotes in the face of death. But I knew now, this was my fault, he had stumbled on to my trail, and it led him to her.

"Shut it Witch, time to die, and this time I'll make sure you stay dead!"

I tried to shout out forgetting my mouth was now affected by the spell and I could only silently cry as I listened to a real monster kill the only mother I had ever known. The phone call ended and the binding spell wore off moments later. The Mustang turned on and started down the road in the opposite direction. I raged in my car as I realized that her final spell not only hid me from him but also made me unable to continue home to get justice for my mother, thus hiding him from me.

Her last thought had been to keep me safe, but this Gordon person should pray he never crosses my path. *