Dream Girl

Well, it's been a long time coming and it's taken a lot of work, but here it finally is, Part Two of my first story, Dream Girl.

Unfortunately, the story is still not complete. At this point, I have no plans to complete the story either because I have stopped writing (I'll explain more at the end).

Otherwise, enjoy the story.

Phil Stevens Phil_stevens@bigfoot.com

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For those that can't quite remember, here is a brief reminder of the main characters in the story.

Michael: The poor guy that's been transformed into his own sexual fantasy.

Tina: The woman that accidentally transformed him whilst trying to turn herself into Michael's dream girl. Michael saved Tina's life several months earlier.

Mary: A friend of Tina's family. She was running the show and clearly has authority within the witches.

Andrew: Tina's brother, whose life was also saved by Michael.

Sarah: Tina's mother, whose life was also saved by Michael.

Richard: A detective sergeant in the LAPD and a member of the witch community.

A few years back, Michael gained telekinetic powers from a car accident, which killed his wife. Over the following years he kept these powers secret from everyone around him as he practiced and refined them.

Some years later Michael uses his powers to save the life of a family. Unknown to him, the family is part of a group of witches. The daughter, Tina took a particular shine to Michael and she wants to thank him personally. The witches are completely unaware of Michael's telekinetic abilities.

When Michael takes a short trip to San Diego to visit Tina and the family, Tina decides to transform herself into Michael's sexual fantasy. Unfortunately, things don't go to plan. Instead of Tina being transformed, Michael is transformed into his own sexual fantasy (a blonde bombshell with a very blatant body).

He runs off in shock. There then follows a race against the clock to transform Michael back before the change becomes permanent. During this time, Michael experiences some of the highs (an orgasm) and lows (an attempted rape) of what it is like to be a woman.

Eventually the witches do catch up with Michael, but literally seconds before he is due to be turned back, the spell becomes permanent. The story ends with Michael being injected with some tranquilizer and falling asleep.

Dream Girl ==========

Part Two

Chapter Six ===========

Michael started to wake up. "Damn, that was a weird dream," he thought. He had a strange dream that Tina was some sort of witch and that she transformed him into a buxom babe of a girl. He remembered that it wasn't too bad at first because he fingered himself to a female orgasm. Slowly the dream began to turn into more of a nightmare when he was almost gang raped. But worst of all, when the dream ended, he was stuck as a woman.

Michael could hear muffled voices, but he couldn't make them out clearly enough to recognize. He started to open his eyes. Just as his vision was coming into focus, he felt himself fall back into sleep.

The woman put the syringe back onto the side table. Mary walked up to the bed and looked at Michael's beautiful female form as he slipped back into a deep sleep. She softly stroked his head.

"How long will that keep her knocked out," Mary asked the woman standing nearby, referring to Michael as a "she".

"A few hours. How much longer do you want me to keep her like this? We can't keep her out permanently."

"Well, don't give her any more. We have a Council meeting shortly. At least then I'll have something to tell her when she wakes up."

The woman nodded. Mary then walked up to the only window in the large room. As she looked outside, she could see the sun beginning to rise above the trees in front of her, marking the start of what was going to be a long day. She took the opportunity to check that the window was fully locked and secure.

Internally, she felt that placing Michael in such a secure room was unnecessary as far as security arrangements went, but other Council members had insisted on such precautions. Satisfied with the window, she walked out of the room.

The three men and five women were seated around a large oval oak table. Mary was just finishing her explanation to the group of people about the sequence of events that happened two days ago, which led to Michael being permanently transformed into a beautiful woman.

Two days previous, they had all battled stop Michael's transformation from becoming permanent, so he didn't have to live his whole life as a woman. They failed in that battle, but already, a new battle was emerging.

It was a few hours since Mary had been in Michael's room. The entire Council was convened. Judging by the usual speed of decisions from the Council, Mary knew that it was going to be long day.

"...So after I had convinced Michael to come back to us, I sent Richard to pick him up from the point where he had been almost raped. At the same time, Tina prepared the spell which would delay his magical protection kicking in."

Mary looked down, remembering the defeat of the entire situation, "But as we got Michael back into the house, his magical protection kicked in half an hour early. We think it came on early because of the situation. He probably felt threatened and we know that anxiety tends to bring on the final part of the transformation into a witch. Afterwards, he was in complete shock, so we gave him a tranquilizer and knocked him, or rather her out."

Mary finished her story, then looked around the table to try to judge the reaction. There was a slight pause before one of the women spoke, "Are you sure the magical protection has kicked in fully."

"Yes. Over the past day, we've tried all sorts of spells on her. Apart from the healing spells to heal the injuries she sustained from her attack, we couldn't get any spell past her defenses. There's nothing else we can try; she's Kithra now. We can't turn her back."

"How is... she now," asked the same person not sure whether to refer to Michael as he or she.

"Physically no problem. She has a perfect body. We've healed all her injuries. But mentally, well, who can say. She's been forcibly transformed into a woman. She was nearly gang raped and now she's stuck like that. I'm no analyst, but the psychological scars could run very deep."

"So where is she now," asked the same person.

"She's over at the mansion," interrupted another woman. "We have her locked up in one of the secure bedrooms."

A man interrupted, "Hang on. Those secure rooms are where we put enemy Kithra to stop them from casting any spells. Surely you don't think she'll be casting her own spells already. None of us were casting real spells for months after being transformed." The man's words brought a concerned look on some faces.

"No. I guess she probably won't ever be able to cast spells, period. But we put her in there because the rooms are very secure anyway and the circumstances involving her transformation were completely unique, so we're not taking any chances."

"I agree," replied a man. Mary recognized the voice as Hank's without even looking. If there was one thing she knew for certain, it was that she would have trouble from Hank. She just didn't know, at that stage, how much trouble Hank would cause.

"We shouldn't take any chances," Hank continued. "You all know our rules. No outsider must be allowed access to magic at any cost. We should follow them to the letter. She should be..." he paused, looked around the table, then completed his sentence, "executed"

The was a prolonged silence before Mary spoke out, "Hank. Even you're not that cruel. How can you even suggest that." Mary acted shocked, but she knew from the moment Michael was exposed to the full Transformation spell that it could always be a distant possibility. They all tried to put it out of their minds at the time and concentrate on getting Michael turned back, but now, they were faced with the hard cold realities.

"It's been done before. Even in our lifetimes," Hank replied.

"Yes. When people try to take our magic secrets from us. But Michael never asked for this. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. He's not to blame," Mary said, stating her case early.

"It doesn't matter," Hank retorted. "This is our most basic law, laid down by our ancestors. After the sacrifice they made for us, the least we can do is follow their first rule, that normals can NEVER be allowed access to magic," he paused before speaking again in a sterner voice, "regardless of the cost."

Again, there was silence so Hank continued, "Look, I don't like it any more than you, but we don't have much of a choice. I'm only speaking out because no one else has the balls to. It's written clearly. No normal can have access to magic."

"But he isn't a normal anymore," Mary stated.

"No, but he was. He doesn't know our ways. He hasn't followed our teachings from birth. To allow him access to magic could destroy us. We can't take that chance."

Michael slowly began to wake up again. He had an itch on his face just underneath one of his eyes, so brought his hand up to scratch it when his nail poked into his eyelid.

"Ow," he thought. He didn't realize that his nails were that long.

In an instant, the memory of his dream flooded back to him. He opened his eyes with a shot and sat bolt upright in bed. One look down at his hands and his prominent chest confirmed his worst fears. He grabbed the large mounds on his chest, took a gasp of breath, gave the faintest of cries, then flopped back down onto the bed.

Over the next few minutes, Michael remained perfectly still as all his bodily sensations returned to him. Each new sensation only served to confirm his worst fears. "It wasn't a dream," he thought. "It was all real. I'm a fucking woman."

He looked down at himself, no herself again. As if it wasn't bad enough that she was now a woman, Michael could see that she was wearing a pink satin nightgown. She felt her emotions build up as the urge to cry swept through her. She fought back the tears as hard as she could. She did more crying yesterday than she had in the past few years.

After a few minutes, she looked around the room trying to work out where she was. It was a lavish bedroom about thirty feet squared and she was in a large luxurious bed. Feeling the need to find out where she was, Michael pushed the bed covers aside and jumped out of bed. As she tried to take a few steps forward, the room started spinning, due to the combined effect of the drugs and her new balance. She had to reach out to one of the bedposts, before she fell over.

Michael remained there, clutching the bedpost for several minutes as she attempted to regain her co-ordination. Eventually, the dizziness subsided slightly and she felt the confidence to let go of the bedpost. Carefully, she released one hand, then the other. When she was satisfied that she could stand, she slowly walked over to the only window in the room, having to look down and literally put one foot in front of the other to avoid falling over.

When Michael reached the window, she looked outside. There were no other buildings in sight and just some trees about forty feet in front of her. She guessed that she was in the grounds of a mansion. Michael also assumed from the height that she was roughly on the third floor, maybe the second if the ceilings on the floor below were high.

As she looked out, she noted that it was an overcast day, probably around midday. Michael could also feel that the general temperature was cooler than before and it was obvious that she was nowhere near San Diego anymore. The window had a lock on it, and was tightly shut. Michael knew in that moment, that the room, however lavish, was little more than a comfortable prison.

She tried to sense her telekinetic powers, but they didn't seem to be working, which wasn't too unusual. Her powers were never that strong in the morning. Michael had long guessed that the part of her brain that enabled her to move objects with her mind, required extra time to wake up. She knew that it would be at least an hour before Michael could use them to any real degree, just like yesterday.

Michael felt a pressure in her bladder and she knew that she had to go to the bathroom. As she looked around, she saw what appeared to be a private bathroom set aside. Her co-ordination had now returned to an acceptable level, so she walked inside the bathroom and turned on the light. Again, the room had lavish fittings. Michael thought that in many ways she would have preferred a dirty concrete cell. At least that would have been honest accommodations.

She pulled up her nightdress and quickly relieved herself on the toilet. She shook her head slowly in realization of her situation as she was forced to wipe herself. As she stood up, she was ready to flush the toilet when she caught her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Pausing slightly, she carefully walked over to it.

She looked straight into the bathroom mirror and stared for about a minute. Although she saw the same reflection as she did yesterday, it was slightly different now. The expression was more saddened and her long hair was in a mess all tangled up behind her. She still couldn't believe the beautiful creature staring back was really her.

Her mind started to fill with the events of yesterday. She could feel a rage building inside her. All she could think about was Richard's words to her when he said that they couldn't turn her back and that she was now stuck like that. Her mind was yelling that she couldn't spend the rest of her life like this, she just couldn't. There had to be something she could do.

The rage within Michael built further as she clenched her fists. Her long nails dug into her palms, causing her pain, but the pain was dulled by her rising anger. Something clicked inside her as her telekinetic powers awakened. Had she been in a calm mood, she would have noticed that it was very unusual so early after waking up, but in her enraged state, it was just an outlet for her anger. She concentrated hard, focusing her power. Soon, the bathroom mirror shattered into a hundred pieces as she gave out a loud roar.

Mary was talking to Andrew and Sarah in a large hallway. She had been hoping for something better, but the initial meeting with the Council had gone pretty much as she had expected. They had adjourned for lunch, and because their historical meeting place was only a short distance from the mansion, Mary had taken the opportunity to check up on Michael.

"How's Tina?" Mary asked Sarah.

"Okay. She's still taking it hard. We've kept her busy this past day, but what she really needs is some good news about Michael."

"I'm doing the best I can, just like I said I would. But you know how strict our rules are. We're convening again shortly after lunch. I just popped over here to see how things are."

Mary could fully understand what Tina was going through. Tina had known, from the very beginning, about the problems that would be faced if Michael's transformation had become permanent, and although the threat of harm to Michael was remote, Mary could see that even the slightest possibility of Michael being harmed, terrified Tina and her whole family.

However, Mary wasn't going to let Hank have his way. She had known at the start of the day that Hank would cause trouble. His views were among the most extreme within their group and although he did have his supporters, they were few in number.

But Mary also fully realized that allowing Michael to be released wasn't going to be a formality. Hank was completely correct when he quoted the groups' rules. They were very specific in saying that no normal could ever be allowed access to magic. However, Mary was sure that the majority of their group were decent people. They wouldn't allow any harm to come to Michael as long as Mary played the situation right.

As Mary was about to say something more, their conversation was broken a piercing scream that rang throughout the whole mansion. The scream was definitely that of a woman although it was more of an attempt at a roar than a scream.

"Michael," Mary and Sarah said together.

They all ran up the stairs to the room where they knew Michael was being kept. Outside the room, Mary could see a woman looking through a small peephole in the door. They could hear crashing sounds emanating from inside the room.

"She's smashing the room up," the woman yelled as she saw Mary approaching.

Three more people arrived quickly, two men and a woman.

"Get some tranquilizer," Mary yelled to the woman at the door.

The woman ran to a small table beside the door, injected a needle into a small bottle and started drawing liquid into the syringe.

"Quickly," Mary called just as Michael started kicking the door with her foot. With the extra boost from her telekinetic powers, she was making the door shake on its hinges surprising everyone outside the room.

Mary saw that the woman had finished preparing the syringe. "Right. You three hold her down," she said to the men, before turning to the woman, "While you inject her." All nodded.

They could tell that Michael had stopped smashing against the door, but they could hear a new smashing sound inside the room. Not wishing to waste any time, Mary opened the door as Andrew and the other two men rushed inside.

As soon as the door opened, they saw that Michael was smashing a chair against the window, attempting to break it, but fortunately for them, the glass was very strong and had not yielded and the only thing being broken was the antique chair.

Michael however, was in a state of complete rage. After breaking the mirror with her powers, she had attempted to break out of the room. However, she quickly discovered that her powers were not strong enough to break out. Something was wrong.

As she saw the three men rushing towards her, she instantly tried to knock them down with her powers, but again something wasn't right. She couldn't project her power like she usually could. It had taken a full minute of sustained concentration to break the bathroom mirror. Somehow, she couldn't lash out at her attackers with her powers.

However, she instantly realized that she could still use her powers to increase her strength, so acting on instinct, she rushed forward towards the first man, her hands outstretched and grabbed him by the throat, catching him completely off guard.

Michael had one hand on his throat and the other on his face as she pushed him back against the wall.

Andrew and the other man grabbed Michael's arms and pulled them away from the shocked mans face, but not before Michael's long nails dug very deep into his face, scratching him.

Andrew and the other man tried to wrestle Michael down onto the bed, but they were completely unprepared for the fight she was going to give them. Remembering the tactics she used yesterday, she kicked Andrew in the groin, winding him slightly. She couldn't seem to project the force like she did yesterday so her kick did not cause as much damage as she had intended, but it was enough to make Andrew let go. At the same time, she was able to free herself from the other man's grip.

Now that she was temporarily freed, Michael made a run for the door. She could see Mary, Sarah and two other women in the doorway, but she easily knocked them aside, gaining freedom from her prison cell.

Michael ran down the hallway as fast as she could, which wasn't as fast as she would have liked due to the fact that she was wearing a full nightgown, which serve to hinder her every step. As she turned a corner, she saw someone open a door and run out into the hallway. Michael summoned all her strength and prepared to knock the person over. She didn't care who she had to go past in order to be free.

But as she closed in on the person, she stopped suddenly. She recognized her. It was Tina.

"Michael," Tina called out as the recognized the beautiful female image that she had transformed Michael into.

Michael was frozen. She searched her feelings. Standing right in front of her, was the person responsible for transforming her into a woman. An angry part of her told her that she should knock Tina's head off where she stands. But she couldn't. After all that had transpired, she couldn't bring herself to hurt Tina.

As Michael stood there, temporarily frozen, she was grabbed from behind and pulled over. As she fell, her body twisted so she landed face first on the floor. The man who had grabbed her then sat down on top of her pinning her down as Tina screamed, "Let him go, you're hurting him."

The man pushed Michael down but she tried to push herself back up with the aid of her powers. Amazingly, she found that her powers were now working fully again, so she started to push up even with the guy on top of her, much to the man's amazement. She was about to reach out with her powers and throw the guy off, when Andrew, now recovered from Michael's blow, crouched down and pulled Michael's arms out from under her causing Michael to fall back down again, this time with her head twisted to the side.

"Fucking hurry up," Andrew shouted to the woman with the syringe as he twisted Michael's arm behind him while the other man pressed his knee down on Michael's back.

The woman rushed up, squeezed past and injected the needle into Michael's arm depositing the tranquilizer in her bloodstream. Michael never even felt the needle enter her body because of the intense pain of being held in that position. Tina then tried to intervene, to somehow help Michael, but Andrew held her away, while at the same time, lending assistance to the man on top of Michael.

At that point, the man whose face had been scratched was also back to help. The three men then held Michael down using any means they could until the tranquilizer began to work. It wasn't long before Michael stopped struggling, but they continued to hold her for over a minute, until they were finally convinced Michael was truly unconscious.

As they slowly released Michael, Mary and Sarah walked up. Mary knelt down to Michael, while Sarah walked up to her crying daughter and embraced her. Tina was incoherent in her crying. Sarah carefully led her back into her room.

Mary, now satisfied that Michael was fully unconscious, walked up to the man whose face had been scratched. He was softly putting his hand to the scratches assessing the damage to his face and pride. Mary could see the cuts were fairly deep.

"Well, I see she's already learned how to use her claws," Mary remarked as she examined the scratches on his face. She concentrated hard and used her magic to heal over the cuts, although she didn't finish the task completely, because she had other things to worry about. "Go and get that seen to," she said. The man soon walked away.

Andrew and the other man carefully carried Michael back to her room and placed her on the bed. Sarah and Mary joined them.

"Damn, she was strong," Andrew said still regaining his breath. "Now we know how she beat up those rapists. I don't think I've seen someone so strong with such a figure. She doesn't seem to have the physique for it. I thought she was turned into her own sexual fantasy."

"She was. I suppose that must have been what Michael's fantasy was. A super strong babe," Mary said as she checked Michael for any signs of injury. She would have some bruises from the short struggle, but those could be quickly attended to, although it would mean removing her from the room temporarily.

"Weird fantasy," the other man said, equally surprised that Michael had put up such a strong fight.

"Well, it's not as if it's her conscious fantasy. It's probably just buried deep in her subconscious," Mary said. She then walked up to the man and said, "Take her into the hallway and heal the bruises on her. Then I want you to restrain her. I don't want her smashing the room up again when she wakes up." The man nodded.

Mary played it down, but she was worried about what she had seen. Michael seemed far too strong for a woman with her figure. Mary had seen some strong women before, but never when the woman had a body designed for sex. Initially, she wondered if Michael's strength had been somehow magically enhanced, but she couldn't see how for two reasons. Firstly, Michael would not be able to cast any spells for some time and secondly, even if she could cast spells, her room was designed to hold even the most powerful of Kithra. No spells could be cast in that room.

She concluded that the only explanation was that Michael's transformation left her with abnormal natural strength, despite her soft appearance. She sighed as she realized that she would have to increase security arrangements.

As Andrew picked up Michael and carried her into the hallway so their magic could work on her bruises, Mary looked around as she surveyed the devastation in the room. The damage wasn't as bad as it first appeared. It looked as if Michael had just thrown things around. Mary walked over to the window and examined it. Michael had clearly attempted to break it to escape, but it the glass was super-toughened.

Then Mary walked into the bathroom and saw the broken mirror there. Mary guessed that Michael probably woke up and freaked out when she saw her reflection in the mirror. However, she noted that Michael hadn't broken either of the mirrors in the main bedroom though.

Mary also wondered how Michael had broken the bathroom mirror because there didn't seem to be any displaced objects in the bathroom. She was about to cast a Vision spell to find out, but she remembered that it was impossible, not only because of the room, but also because Michael was now Kithra and would be immune. Vision spells could only be cast on an area if a normal person was in the room at the same time, to leave a psychic record of what happened.

She cursed herself for not approving the plans for installation of video cameras in the secure rooms. It was synonymous of their group, preferring not to use technology unless absolutely necessary.

However, lacking a definite record of what happened, Mary made the assumption that Michael probably smashed the bathroom mirror with an object in the main bedroom. She wasn't bleeding anywhere, so she couldn't have used her hands.

Anyway, she concluded that it seemed such an irrelevant point to worry about, so satisfied, she walked back into the main room. As she did, she saw that Andrew was carefully laying Michael back down on the bed, after having been healed in the hallway. Mary saw that Andrew took a long lingering look at Michael to admire her natural beauty.

"Okay, that's fine. The girls can finish off," Mary interrupted. She knew that she had to get the guys out of the room as quickly as possible before Michael's chemical attractions got a full hold.

As the two men filed out, Mary followed and said to the two women, "Clear all this up and make sure she's restrained. I'm going back to the Council meeting. Let me know the instant she wakes up again."

Chapter Seven =============

Mary was back at the Council meeting. News of what happened had already been reported back and certain sections were already playing it to their advantage.

"Quite an incident then," Hank said.

"She woke up early and she smashed up her room, that's all," Mary replied nonchalantly, hoping to play it down.

"That's all," Hank replied, clearly trying to play it up. "It looks like we have a violent person here. If you ask me, that's even more reason for us to apply the rules strictly. The last thing we need is a violent witch."

"She's not violent," Mary retorted.

"Really. I understand she put three people in hospital back in California."

Mary was getting annoyed at Hank. She knew Hank had no care for Michael and she couldn't completely blame him for that, but she was getting increasingly angry that he was continuing to try to twist the facts to his angle. Mary knew that Hank was fully aware of that incident.

"Yes," Mary replied, looking straight at Hank with a piercing stare. "They dragged her into an alleyway, ripped off her clothes and then tried to rape her. What was she supposed to do. Call Triple-A."

Hank and Mary locked their eyes at each other for a brief few seconds before Hank eventually shrugged in concession realizing that he had lost, at least on that point. He knew he should save his arguments for when he had a better chance of winning.

"One question Mary?" the leader asked. "Why do we only have two women guarding her. If she is into martial arts, then surely they would be no match for her now."

Mary paused slightly, before saying, "Well, there's a problem there." Mary saw Hank roll his eyes. "When Michael was transformed, Tina included some enhancements to what would have been her own body. The first was to make the new body horny. As a result, Michael will find it difficult to keep her hands out of her panties for the next week or so. Actually, that might make it easier for her to accept her new body.

"Anyway, the other enhancement was to make her new body chemically irresistible by including pheromones. That's why she was nearly raped. Those guys couldn't help themselves. They simply had to fuck her. The two women guarding her are purely straight. They'll be immune to her pheromones."

"But hang on just a minute," Hank interrupted. "Her room is supposed to be a magic-less environment. Besides, we should all be immune to her magic." He deliberately used the words 'her magic' to invoke a little more fear.

"But it's not magic," Mary retorted. "At least, not any more. These pheromones were caused by magic, but when the spell became permanent, they became purely biological. The enhancements are not permanent, but it may take some days or even weeks for them to drop. They've already dropped off a bit, but until they go completely, it will have to be straight women that guard her."

The leader interrupted, "So you're saying that none of us guys can get near her, without wanting to... screw her?"

"It's not that bad," Mary said. "We could develop a spell to provide us with specific protection against them, but I don't see the point, since they'll soon be down to a manageable level. In the meantime, I'll get Tina's mother, Sarah to guard her as well. I've held back from doing that because of her emotional attachment to the situation, but she is a straight woman and I think three are better than two."

Hank was about to speak, but the leader interrupted, "Fine. Lets move on. Now what about Tina, how is she coping."

"Well, understandably upset. When we decide what to do with Michael, we should also think about Tina. If we end up hurting Michael, we might as well do the same to Tina. She's devastated over this. Michael saved her life and now Tina has ruined his. If any... harm comes to Michael, it could... kill Tina."

Mary knew she wasn't exaggerating on that matter. Tina was very distraught and Mary feared just as much for Tina's safety as Michael's. However, she thought that playing that card might help. It was a sad fact of their society that the life of a Kithra counted more than the life of a normal.

"I hate to seem callous," Hank said and Mary detected just a hint of sarcasm in his voice. "But Tina only has herself to blame over this. She should have never cast the full Transformation spell on Michael. Had she used the reduced one for use on normals, Michael would not have become Kithra, he would not have gained magical protection and we would have been able to turn him back. I feel sorry for Tina, but she is at fault."

"Well, we've had a chance to look at that," Mary said. "You have to remember that Tina was transforming herself, so she had to use the full version of the spell. Also, she didn't actually cast the transforming part of the spell on Michael, just the part that seeks out a person's ideal form."

"Yes, but she shouldn't have tried to adapt the full version of the spell", Hank retorted. "You all know that we have a special version of the spell, designed specifically for transforming oneself into another person's dream lover. I use it regularly."

"Well, YOU might use it regularly," Mary said. "But Tina never has. This was the first time she'd tried something like this and she didn't have her spell book with her." Mary neglected to mention the fact that Tina's book was at her house at the time.

There was a slight pause, so Mary took the opportunity, "Oh. Come on; don't tell me you've never done the same. I'm sure we've all be out somewhere, seen someone good looking and wanted to turn yourself into their fantasy. And I'm prepared to bet, when you can't remember the reduced version, you've used the full version."

Mary looked around the table and most of them shifted in their seats slightly, including Hank.

"Of course you have. We've all done it at one time or another because it never does any harm... only this time it did."

"That raises an interesting point," interrupted the leader. "How did this get screwed up so badly?"

Mary just shrugged, "We don't know. We've checked it over. Tina didn't do anything wrong in the execution of the spell, so it must be something to do with Michael. Had Michael been re-transformed we could have done some discreet experiments to find out, but now we can't cast any spells against her. I've asked my investigator, Richard to check into it. He's in New Jersey right now"

For the third time, Michael found herself regaining consciousness. Only this time she knew exactly what she was. She opened her eyes slowly and just stared at the ceiling for a minute.

Then she turned her head slightly and saw a woman sitting in a chair beside her bed reading a book. The woman quickly noticed that Michael was now conscious again.

"Oh. You're awake. Feeling better?" she said with a faint smile.

At first, Michael was going to snap back at her, but she just nodded in defeat.

Michael tried to move her arms to examine herself, but her arms wouldn't move. She looked up and saw that both her arms were handcuffed together round a bedpost.

"Hey. Why the fuck am I handcuffed," Michael yelled, still surprised at her own high pitched sexy female voice. She kept tugging furiously at the handcuffs causing her breasts to bounce around on her chest. Her telekinetic powers were gone, so she felt completely helpless.

"To make sure you didn't hurt yourself again," the woman said as she got up from her chair. She mentally added the words, "and me as well."

She walked over to Michael. Michael at first tried to pull away, but she knew there was little she could do. She was completely at the woman's mercy.

"It's okay," she said holding her hands up reassuring Michael as she saw the terror in her eyes. Her fear of Michael eased a little. She could now see that Michael was just scared and frightened.

The woman placed her hand on Michael's forehead, feeling her general temperature. She walked into the bathroom and returned with a glass containing a liquid which Michael assumed to be water. She held it up to Michael's mouth but she refused to open her mouth.

"Come on. It's only water. You must be really thirsty."

Michael was very thirsty so she quickly relented and opened her mouth taking a large gulp of the water, with some of it spilling down her neck.

"Why are you doing this to me?" she said to the woman as soon as he could.

"We're trying to help you." she replied. She knew Michael probably wouldn't understand that.

"Help me. Then let me go. Mary said I could go free yesterday. Why I being held here?" Michael demanded, giving another tug on her handcuffs.

"Well, she didn't say anything to you yesterday," the woman replied. "It was the day before. We kept you asleep all yesterday. I'll tell Mary you've woken up. I'm sure she will explain everything to you," the woman said as she walked to the door and banged on it.

"It's me. Open the door," she called out.

Michael heard the door being unlocked before it was opened. The woman walked through, before the door was closed and locked again, leaving Michael all alone once more.

Michael was left to contemplate her thoughts. She tried to consider the facts, but she could only come to one brief conclusion... that Mary had lied to her.

She thought that they never intended to turn her back. She could only grimace at the thought of what they were going to do with her now. She still couldn't shake the fact that she was going to be sold as some sort of sex slave. Whenever she looked at her new form, sex was about the only thing that sprang to mind.

Back at the Council meeting, it was now late afternoon. The tone of the meeting had changed slightly.

"So, how well did we keep it down in California," the leader asked. "Do the other groups know about this. If they do, it throws a completely different light on it. We may not be able to protect her even if we want to."

"Well, I think we managed to keep a lid on it," Mary replied. "No-one outside our group knows for sure what happened, but I'll bet that rumors are flying around. I don't think we'll have too much trouble from the Kestrels. It's the Hawks I'm more worried about."

"What about the Ravens," someone interrupted. "If they knew she even existed, they'd be outside the door demanding her head on a platter... and knowing the Ravens I mean that literally."

"Yeah, but the Ravens are mostly holed up in Vegas. The West Coast is my patch and it's my job to know exactly what's going on. To my knowledge there are no Ravens living in California, unlike the Hawks which have quite a showing."

The leader paused and then looked to another woman, "If knowledge of this got out. How would we stand? Could we petition to make her an exception to the rules, based on the circumstances."

The woman thought for a moment, "The Ravens would definitely go against us. I think the Eagles would be okay, but I'm not sure about the Hawks and the Kestrels. It would be a close call and I wouldn't want to bet someone's life on it, which is what we would effectively be doing."

The opening of door interrupted the meeting. Everyone looked around to see a woman approaching the table.

"Hello, sorry to interrupt," the woman said nervously. Interrupting a Council meeting was a serious matter. "But Mary wanted to know as soon as Michael woke up again. I've had a call from the mansion and she just did."

Mary looked at the leader and said, "I really should go and talk to her right now."

The leader nodded his head. "I agree. But take another Council member as well," he said as he looked around, his facial expression asking for volunteers.

"I'll go," Hank spoke out. Mary's initial thought was, "anyone but Hank, anyone..."

"Okay," the leader said, before turning to Mary and instructing, "Don't tell her any more than you have to. Explain to her what's happened, but don't let her know what she is, right," Mary nodded. "Okay, we'll adjourn until they get back. Oh, Mary. Bring Tina back as well. I think we need to hear from her now."

Michael was still lying in bed with her arms handcuffed round the bedpost. She had constantly tried to shift and shuffle her position to make herself more comfortable.

At first, she struggled to remember what had happened yesterday, now that she had been informed that her transformation took place two days ago. Parts of it had come back to her. She could remember voices and being moved around, but she had been far too drugged to make any sense of it. All she knew was that she was somewhere else, probably hundreds of miles from San Diego.

Strangely enough, she started to feel her telekinetic powers slowly wake up. "Huh, that's unusual," she thought. Her powers often took a while longer to wake up. It only then occurred to her that her telekinetic powers also woke up early last time. She had broken the bathroom mirror with her powers.

But something felt odd. Although her powers were working, there was something different. She seemed to have a very hard time projecting her powers across the room.

This had never been much of a problem for her. Basically, her powers were line of sight. As long as she could focus them properly, there seemed to be hardly any limit on distance.

Michael carefully remembered back. She recalled that it had taken all her power just to break the bathroom mirror. When she was male, she could have easily broken the mirror. Afterwards, she had tried to break the bedroom window with her powers to escape, but the glass was simply too tough for her.

Also, when she had been fighting with Andrew and those two other guys, she found that although she couldn't use her powers to lash out directly at her attackers, she could use them to increase her general strength. It was as if there was some sort of barrier that prevented her from projecting her powers.

But the really weird thing was that when she was briefly outside the room, it didn't seem to be a problem. The apparent barrier only seemed to exist in the bedroom.

Michael wondered if her transformation had something to do with her powers being different. Her powers seemed to work fairly normally two days ago when female, but it also occurred to her that her transformation wasn't permanent then.

Michael tugged at the handcuffs, then a thought crossed her mind. She slowly reached over with one hand to the opposite lock. She placed one of her fingers over the keyhole to try to open the handcuff with her powers. As she did this and she saw her new slender fingers with the long pointed nails, she was again reminded of her predicament.

She reached out with her mind to open the lock. She discovered long ago, that if a part of her body was close enough to the target, then she didn't need line of sight to use her powers. She focussed on the lock, but the barrier was weird. She had to really concentrate hard, but after a few seconds, she released the ring of steel around her right arm.

She felt a brief emotion of elation, which soon settled down into a suspicious feeling. She carefully looked around the room for any cameras or things like that. It only just occurred to her that maybe they were watching her so she pushed the handcuff back tight again. At least she now knew that she could escape whenever she wanted to. Just the mere fact that she knew she could escape reassured her immensely. It helped to dampen the feelings of enclosure.

Her curiosity then started to get aroused. "What the hell is going on?" she thought. What did actually happened two days ago? What is she now? Is she really stuck like this for life? All these questions bounced around in her mind. But one burning question began to rise to the surface. Do these people know about her telekinetic powers?

Michael had always kept her powers a secret for several reasons. Firstly, she wanted to make sure she was never treated like a freak. But secondly, she knew that powers like hers could be very dangerous in the wrong hands. She thought that maybe what happened to her could be duplicated and anyone could conceivably be trained to have telekinetic powers. After much soul searching, she concluded that what happened to her was an accident and that mankind was not yet ready for such a responsibility.

But clearly, such powers already existed. She had no idea who these people were, but their powers seemed incredible. She was always amazed and in awe of her own power, but hers paled in comparison to theirs.

But if these people were aware of her powers, then they wouldn't have simply handcuffed her to the bed. They would have done something more drastic as well, like blindfolding her and using proper hand restraints. This would have made it much harder for her to focus her power.

Michael wondered if she had given away her secret during her fight with them. She struggled to remember the details but it all happened so damn fast. That barrier seemed to stop her from lashing out directly with her mind in the bedroom. In a way, that was fortunate for them because in the rage that she was in, she could have easily broken their necks in an instant. Once she was in the hallway and her powers were in full force, she was about to use her power to lash out, but she was in too much pain to concentrate after Andrew pulled her arms away and the guy fell on top of her.

Michael also noted just how much of a rage she had been in. She had always suffered from mild claustrophobia, although it had never caused such rage before. Somehow, the feeling of being stuck in a female body combined with the feeling of imprisonment had tipped her over the edge. She felt she simply had to escape. When she initially discovered that her powers didn't seem to work properly, this only served to increase her enclosed feeling and make her claustrophobia worse.

Michael then thought that if these people didn't know about her power, should she tell them? A part of her said that she should reveal her power to these people, but an even larger part wanted to maintain an advantage. She hated the feelings of helplessness and if she told them about her powers, they could be easily negated. She decided that she would keep them secret until she had further information. So far, they hadn't told her a thing, so she saw no reason why she should volunteer information to them.

Sarah was waiting in one of the side rooms of the mansion. She had spent the past few hours consoling her daughter. It was bad enough what happened, but for Tina, the sight of Michael being chased down the hall, pulled to the floor and sedated, sent her daughter hysterical again.

Sarah tried to understand what Tina was going through. Tina had always been a strong person, but all her mental stability had crumbled under the strain of the past few days. She genuinely feared for her daughter, physically and mentally state.

Sarah also realized just how bad the timing had been when Michael escaped. Of all people, Tina had been the one to effectively stop Michael. Although it would have made little difference because the mansion was so remote, she knew that it might make it so much harder for either of them to accept.

As she was thinking, Sarah noticed that both Hank and Mary had arrived at the mansion. She rushed to greet them.

"Mary. I hear Michael's woken up again," she said.

"Yes. We're going up to see her right now. In fact, I want you to come with me. A friendly face might help to calm her down."

Sarah smiled, happy that she would be allowed to see Michael again. The three started walking up the stairs to Michael's room, "Also, we're going to take Tina back with us to the Council meeting."

Sarah stopped. "What for?" she asked Mary.

"Don't worry. The Council just wants to ask her some basic questions. It's nothing to worry about," Mary re-assured; although she wished she could have re-assured herself over that same point.

Sarah's worry now turned from Michael to her daughter. Sarah knew that Tina would have to face the music over her actions and her punishment could be quite severe. But she didn't think it would be so quick.

Chapter Eight =============

Michael was studying the room she was in. Again, she noticed it was very luxurious. Michael saw that amongst the other items of furniture, was a full-length mirror and a dresser. However, both now had pieces of cloth draped over them, covering up the mirrors. Michael guessed that they didn't want her to freak out and break any more mirrors.

After studying the room for the fourth time, her attention was eventually drawn to herself again. She was in bed, with the covers over her and her hands handcuffs round a bedpost. However, she could move her head slightly, so she looked down at her new body. As she stared at her chest and saw the two large protrusions, she still couldn't resolve the fact that she was now a woman.

She thought back, this time in more detail, to what happened two days ago. She remembered standing naked in front of a mirror. "Boy, was I cute," she thought. She also remembered how weird it felt when she fingered herself. Afterwards, she remembered how she thought that she might never get another chance to find out what it felt like. She now knew that she would probably get every chance.

As she looked down again, she could feel her nipples hardening at that thought. Her nipples were long and thick and, just like her old cock, they betrayed her inner feelings.

Michael tried to shift her position to try to relieve some of those feelings. Her hands were still handcuffed around the bedpost. For a brief moment, she considered releasing herself from the handcuffs so that she could provide some relief to those feelings. She instantly shook herself as reminded herself that her first priority should be finding out exactly what had happened to her, not sexual pleasure.

However, she was quickly reminded of the fact that two days ago, when in her hotel room, masturbating had proved more important than getting back. In fact, after she started playing with herself, she found it impossible to stop until it was over. Michel was beginning to wonder if the transformation was more than just physical. Was she mentally turning into a sex-starved bimbo? Her whole body shivered at that mere thought

As Michael's patience was quickly wearing away, she heard the door unlock. When the door opened, she saw Mary, Sarah and a man who she had never seen before enter the room. Michael flushed with anger. Mary was the person who had promised that she would be released and had then subsequently ordered for her to be sedated. Michael's mind considered her to be the enemy.

But before anything was said, the very first thing that Michael noticed was how young both Mary and Sarah looked. Two days ago, they both had the appearance of being around thirty-five, but now, none of them looked to be older than twenty-five at most. In fact it just occurred to Michael, that everyone she had seen so far, was in their twenties.

"Hello there," Mary said to Michael, smiling slightly. "Are you feeling better now."

Michael just nodded, not wanting to upset the situation. She felt so vulnerable.

"This is Hank," Mary said motioning to Hank. "We just want to ask you a few questions. Also, I bet you want to know what has happened to you.

"Oh no. I'd prefer to know how my stocks are doing right now," Michael replied with obvious sarcasm, which Mary found to be understandable given the circumstances.

Mary sat down beside the bed. "Well, you've been turned into a woman," Mary started but Michael cut her off.

"No shit," she interrupted. "And I thought these things were fake," she said with even more sarcasm nodding down to her new breasts. She tried to hold back, but her anger and bitterness at how she'd been treated prevented her.

Mary paused briefly. She could understand why Michael was being so sarcastic. After all, she had no other defense. But she wished Michael would back off a little, at least while Hank was there. Then she remembered the tactics she used two days ago to bring her round.

"Michael. You're not helping. Do you want me to tell you what's happened or not. I can always come back tomorrow," as she got up to leave.

Michael didn't want to concede to Mary, but after all the time waiting, she was just dying to know what was going on. She couldn't wait another day to find out.

"Okay. I'll listen," she conceded. "But can't you release these handcuffs. It's so uncomfortable like this," she said in a slightly pleading tone. Everyone in the room could see how uncomfortable it was for Michael. It wasn't only the physical discomfort, but also the fact the she was forced to lie down in such a demeaning position while they talked to her.

"Release her," Mary said to Sarah throwing her the keys.

"Actually I'd prefer it if she was kept locked up," Hank interrupted. Mary glared at Hank making no secret of her contempt for his policy.

"Well, what about releasing one hand," Sarah suggested. "That would be much more comfortable." Hank eventually gave a conceding shrug.

Sarah used the keys to free Michael's left wrist and immediately handcuffed that part round the bedpost again. She then helped Michael to sit up in bed slightly before she took a seat beside the bed and held her left hand in hers tightly.

"Thanks," Michael said, feeling much more comfortable. As well as being physically more comfortable, she also felt emotionally better because she was able to sit up and face Mary and Hank.

Mary sat down on the other side of the bed. "Right. Let's continue. Physically you're now a woman. The changes in you are one hundred percent complete. Every cell, organ and chromosome in your body is now female. You will have periods and you can even get pregnant. Over the next few weeks, even your DNA will rewrite itself to your new appearance."

"Am I stuck like this now... forever," Michael asked. Although she wanted to know everything that had happened, that was the one question she wanted answering first.

Mary paused, not quite sure of the best way to answer the question. Although becoming a man again was possible, it was unlikely. So, Mary decided that a firm answer might prove the best for Michael to accept. "I'm afraid so," she replied.

Mary's answer was not what Michael wanted to hear. She clenched her fists tightly and scrunched her eyes up as an intense urge to burst out crying swept through her. She fought the urge with all her willpower. She felt helpless enough as it was, but she felt that she couldn't allow herself to start crying in front of these people

"Why," Michael pleaded after she had regained some composure, although her voice wavered a little. "Why am I a... girl." Now that she had been told of her fate, she now wanted to know exactly why she was cursed to live her whole life as a female and who was truly responsible.

Mary took a deep breath; "Two days ago, Tina wanted to... thank you for saving her life. So she wanted to turn herself into your ideal sexual fantasy. Unfortunately, something went wrong. We still have no idea how it went so badly wrong and well... you were transformed instead."

"But why," Michael repeated.

"Like I said, she wanted to thank you for saving her life," Mary said, slightly annoyed that she had to repeat herself.

"No. Why transform herself. I would have happily made love to her as Tina instead of... this."

Mary paused again. She didn't think Michael could handle being told that Tina wanted to get pregnant by Michael. "It's complicated. We will explain everything in time."

Michael felt that she hadn't been given a satisfactory answer but she also guessed that Mary was not going to elaborate. Her attention was now turned towards whom these people were. "Mary, Who are you? I mean, what are you people?" Michael asked. She wanted to find out exactly whom she was dealing with.

Mary paused for a second. She had been ordered not to reveal anything to Michael, but she could tell that Michael was very frustrated, so she decided she would tell her just a little to ease her mind. Ultimately, she would only tell Michael what she could probably work out herself anyway.

"I can't tell you everything, but to put it simply, we are witches. We call ourselves the Kithra. Our group has existed for a long time and we try to stay out of human affairs."

"What can you do?" Michael asked.

Mary knew for a fact she couldn't tell her that so she brushed the question aside, "Quite a few things. But one thing we can't do is turn you back."

Michael wanted to snap at Mary for refusing to answer her question again, but instead she just conceded the fact that Mary wasn't going to tell her what she wanted to know.

Michael stared blankly ahead for a minute trying to digest what little had been said to her. "So... I've become my own sex fantasy," Mary nodded. "But... I don't like girls like this. I'm not into bimbo's. I mean... I... I... " Michael stuttered as her own words betrayed her thoughts. She couldn't bear to think that she was really a bimbo now.

"It's okay," Mary reassured her. "First, you're not a bimbo, you're a very beautiful young woman, and second, you haven't been turned into your ideal woman. This body isn't the sort of girl you'd want to get married to, or the sort of girl you'd take home to meet your parents. Try to imagine the kind of girl," Mary paused to make sure she phrased her next words very carefully, "that you would most like to... sleep with for one night."

"So you're telling me that it's my fault that I look like this," Michael blurted out, her voice wavering. It was obvious that Michael was on the verge of crying. Michael thought that it was bad enough that she had to exist like that, but to be told that she was responsible for looking such a beauty was too much for her to bear.

"No. No. That's not what I mean. Your mind picked the form, but it's our fault entirely that you have to be like this."

"But I don't want to," Michael cried out as tears formed in her eyes. "I don't wanna be like this," she bawled out as her emotions finally broke.

"There, there," Sarah said as she leaned over and gave Michael the literal shoulder to cry on. "Come on, let it out. Have a good cry."

Michael cried her eyes out for several minutes, completely unable to stop. It was the ultimate humiliation for her. She was even crying like a girl. Everyone remained silent until she regained her composure, which took several minutes.

"So why am I being kept prisoner," Michael eventually said as she gave a further tug on her restraint. "Why can't you just let me go? You told me I could go free."

"I know it's hard and I can't explain it all to you right now. If we'd been able to turn you back, we would have let you go, just as I promised. But we couldn't."

"So, why don't you let me go," Michael called out, getting increasingly annoyed that Mary simply wasn't answering her questions.

"Michael," Mary started. "After what we put you through two days ago, you don't deserve this. Believe me, when I say that I don't want to do this, but I don't have a choice. You see the changes in you are more than just physical. Before we can release you, there are some things we need to," she glanced over at Hank, "be sure of. But I do understand what you're going through."

"How could you," Michael said sternly finally snapping at the fact that Mary was continuing to dodge her every question. "How could you even begin to understand what I'm going through."

Mary smiled, "Michael. There are..." Mary paused as if counting in her head, "twelve people in this house. Every one of those twelve people has changed their gender at some point and of those twelve..." again she paused as if counting, "three are still of the opposite gender, four including you.

"S-So, this... has happened before then," Michael said slowly.

"Yes. It's not that unusual. Only a few of us decide to permanently change our gender, but all of us have tried it at some point on a temporary basis. The point I'm making is that we all know what it feels like; because we've all been through it ourselves. We're all curious and we've all given it a try."

Michael looked ahead blankly, still stunned so Mary continued again, "You know Sarah's daughter Andrew used to be a girl, called Andrea. She and Tina were sisters until Andrew decided to be a man."

Mary finally decided that she had seen and said enough. She actually found that she was having a hard time keeping her eyes off Michael's body. She could tell that her eyes kept drifting down to Michael's new chest, despite her attempts to stop it. Michael's nightdress did a terrible job of hiding her ample breasts and Mary simply couldn't help but get aroused by them.

Mary guessed her uncontrollable attraction was down to Michael's pheromone enhancements. After all, Mary was bisexual and Michael did have a very sexy body, but it was very troubling to Mary that these pheromones were affecting her so badly.

Although the use of pheromone enhancements were common within their group, it was the first time that Mary, or any of them had felt the effect of such pheromones directly, because up until now, any such transformations including pheromones, were either on normals, or were temporary transformations on Kithra. In neither case, would these pheromones affect another Kithra. But this situation was unique. Michael was the first person to have these type of enhancements included in her transformation.

It also occurred to Mary that Michael had extracted more information out of her than the other way around, "Look, you need some rest. We're going to leave you now. But we'll be back later, okay."

Without saying anything more, Mary got up and motioned for Sarah to leave with them, but Michael held Sarah's hand even tighter, not wanting to be left alone again.

"Do I have to leave," Sarah pleaded with Mary.

Mary thought for a moment before speaking, "Michael. Do you promise to behave from now on."

Michael thought for a few seconds, then nodded slowly, "Yeah. You won't get any more trouble from me."

"Okay. Then I'll allow Sarah to remove your handcuffs. But, if you're thinking of trying to escape Michael, then forget it. This mansion is too remote and if you misbehave again, we can soon get the handcuffs out again."

Mary turned to Sarah; "I need to speak to you outside first, Sarah."

Michael let go of Sarah's hand. Sarah, Mary and Hank left the room, leaving Michael all alone again.

As soon as they were out of the room, Mary turned to Sarah.

"Okay Sarah. She seems to be most comfortable around you, so I'm making it your job to take care of her. Are you okay with that."

"I'm fine with it," Sarah replied. She was thrilled that she was entrusted with taking care of Michael. It was not going to be easy for Michael, but she thought she was best qualified to help Michael through it.

"Good. Here are the keys to her handcuffs. Be nice to her, but don't let your guard down. I'm also going to post two big guys on the outside of this room permanently in case there's any trouble. You are not to remove her handcuffs until they're in place, understand."

Sarah nodded her agreement. Mary and Hank started walking down the hallway, on their way to Tina's room, finally relieved that she was out of Michael's sexual attraction.

"Taking a bit of a risk giving Sarah full access to her, isn't it," Hank said to Mary, also feeling relieved that he was out of the room. It had not been easy for him either. All the time, he had been trying to demonize Michael in his mind, but he was finding it harder and harder to do as his cock got progressively harder and harder. He was equally troubled by the fact that he could be so badly affected.

"Oh, come on," Mary replied. "What's Sarah gonna do. Organize a jailbreak. Michael might be trying to act brave, but we both know that she's half scared to death and so far, about the only person she hasn't lashed out at is Sarah."

The pair continued their argument until they reached Tina's room.

Tina was lying on her bed consoling herself. She had barely been able to stop crying since they found out Michael's transformation had become permanent.

Early the next day, they all traveled to the mansion. During the trip, Tina just couldn't look at Michael without breaking into tears. All the time, she kept thinking, "What have I done?"

Tina also thought back to how Michael had stopped right in front of her as he tried to escape. Although she knew that he would not get far because the mansion was so remote, she felt yet more blame that she had been the one to stop him. She wondered if Michael would ever forgive her for what she had done.

A knock on the door broke her state of sorrow. She jumped off the bed and quickly made sure her face was dry before calling out, "Come in."

The door opened and Tina could see Mary and Hank walk through. Tina walked over to Mary and they hugged.

"How are you?" Mary asked.

"Okay," Tina replied. "Have you seen Michael. How is he?" was Tina's first question.

"SHE'S fine," Mary responded, putting the emphasis on the fact that Michael was now female.

"Can I see him, I mean her," Tina asked.

"Not now," Mary replied. She knew that such a meeting would be far too emotional for both of them. "We need to take you back with us. The Council wants to have a few words with you," she said.

Tina gulped. She knew this was coming, but she didn't expect is so soon.

"Don't worry," Mary reassured her, seeing the fear in her eyes. We just want to talk to you.

Michael was lying on the bed again thinking all over what she had been told. She still hadn't been given the full picture. In fact, she knew there was still a lot they were hiding from her, but at least she had found out something.

Sarah had briefly re-entered the room and made sure that Michael was all right. She then left, saying that she needed to get some clothes for her to wear. For Michael, Sarah couldn't get back fast enough. She hated the pink nightgown she was wearing at the moment.

Michael glanced over to the window. It now appeared to be daytime, probably in the afternoon. Assuming it was still the same day, Michael guessed that they must have knocked her out for a good four hours.

Michael felt much more comfortable now that only one of her hands was chained to the bed. It left her free to stretch around the bed in more comfort.

To pass the time, Michael slipped her hands under the covers and attempted to seek out the contours of her new body. She started with her waist. It seemed so impossibly thin compared to the wider hips. Her whole body was incredibly firm. There wasn't an ounce of fat to be found anywhere.

Eventually, her hand managed to find her way it's way up to one of her magnificent breasts. Michael couldn't believe how firm they were; yet at the same time, they were so soft to touch. They were two large balls of mass that sat so high on her chest. As she looked down, she could see them rising and falling with her breathing.

As if on it's own accord, her hand then moved to cup the breast and slowly caress the nipple, which instantly made it go hard. She felt both shocked and excited. She felt excitement at the pleasure her actions were providing, but shock at the fact that she was doing it. Even worse for her, she was actually beginning to think about putting her hand inside her nightgown.

Before she could decide, Michael heard the door being unlocked again. She quickly returned her hand to her side. Soon afterwards, Sarah opened the door and entered the bedroom. The door was then closed and locked. Michael could see that Sarah was carrying a bag stuffed full of what Michael guessed to be clothes.

Michael was pleased that she would soon be out of the nightgown. She tried to shuffle her position, hoping that Sarah wouldn't notice her very erect nipples through her nightgown.

"Hi," Sarah smiled. "Let's get those handcuffs off you."

Sarah moved to the side of the bed, produced a key and freed Michael's right hand. She glanced down at her body and saw her nipples poking straight upwards. She smiled to herself, but pretended not to notice. She knew it was going to be something very embarrassing and private that Michael would have to deal with by herself.

As soon as her hand was released, Michael smiled her gratitude at Sarah before rubbing her right wrist. Yet again, she was reminded of her predicament when she felt that her wrist was smaller than it was two days ago.

Sarah knew that she had a momentous task ahead of her. Although she was reasonably confident that the Council would allow Michael to live, Sarah was also fully aware that they would want to see very fast results because they couldn't keep guarding her for long without arousing suspicion within the other groups. As she helped Michael to get out of bed, Sarah motioned her to sit back down on the bed. Sarah then sat down beside her.

"Right," Sarah said, taking a deep breath. "What name do you want me to call you by from now on?" She knew that going straight in and saying such a thing would be very tough for Michael and Sarah hated herself for having to do it, but in her own mind, she knew it was completely necessary. Michael had to adjust very quickly indeed. At worst, her very survival could depend on it.

"What's wrong with Michael?" Michael protested; annoyed that Sarah's very first question was about her name.

Sarah didn't say anything, but instead just waved her hand at Michael's new body indicating how inappropriate the name Michael is now.

"I've gotta pick a girls name, haven't I?" Michael said in realization. She didn't like the idea one bit, but deep down, she knew it was necessary. "What do you suggest?" she asked dejected.

"Well you used the name Michelle in the hospital. What's wrong with that?" Sarah suggested.

"I didn't use the name Michelle. I used the name Mickey. The doctor must have guessed I meant Michelle. I... err... wasn't sure if I was really a guy or a girl then, so I... err... picked a name that applied to both," Michael winced as she remembered just how spaced out she had been in those first few moments.

"It's okay," Sarah reassured, sitting on the bed and putting her arm around Michael's shoulder, realizing just how painful the memory of two days ago must have been for Michael. "Well if you don't like Michelle, you can pick any name you want. It's your choice."

Michael thought for a moment. "No. Michelle sounds fine," she replied in an even more dejected tone, before she brightened up very slightly. "I suppose the French pronounce Michael as Michelle, so I guess I'll just have to imagine I'm French from now on," Michelle joked with a small laugh.

"Michelle it is then," Sarah smiled, pleased that Michael, now Michelle was able to dig some humor out of it all.

Sarah pulled some slippers out of the bag she had been carrying. They were pink fluffy slippers and Michelle wasn't too thrilled about wearing them, but Sarah pointed out that there were probably still some shards of glass on the floor and carpets, so Michelle put them on.

Michelle stretched around the room while Sarah was preparing a shower. After stretching her new limbs, Michelle walked over to the window. She took the opportunity to examine the window that she had been unable to break earlier. As Sarah was busy with the shower, Michelle decided to get a closer look at the window lock. Although it was an expensive lock, Michelle guessed that she wouldn't have too much trouble in opening it, given the fact that she was able to open the handcuffs.

This served to reassure her further. She still had no idea what was going on, but she felt the need for an escape plan, if necessary. As she looked out of the window, she again she got the feeling from the temperature than she wasn't in California anymore. It was the middle of summer, yet the climate wasn't the scorching heat it should have been. The time of day was now late in the afternoon.

"Where are we?" Michelle asked as Sarah entered the main bedroom again.

"We're at a remote mansion, a few hundred miles from Boston, Massachusetts," Sarah replied.

"Massachusetts," Michelle replied in shock. From San Diego, that was literally the other side of the country. "How did we get here?" Michelle said wondering what kind of magic or device could get them all across the country.

"We hired a jet and flew over yesterday. You were probably too drugged up to remember."

"Oh... a jet," Michelle said, mentally kicking herself for not thinking of the obvious things first.

"What," Sarah smiled, half guessing what Michelle was thinking. "Did you think we 'beamed you up' or something like that," Sarah said laughing slightly. "We're not that powerful."

"Powerful enough," Michelle said as she laughed back and looked down at her female body indicating just how powerful these witches were. If she ever doubted exactly how powerful, then she had two very large reminders right in front of her.

Although Sarah had been very blunt in forcing Michelle to accept a female name, there was something about Sarah's manner that made Michelle feel very warm to her. Michelle was also pleased that she had been able to glean some information from Sarah. She guessed that teleportation was beyond the power of the witches, which also pleased her. After all, the less powerful these witches were, the more even the odds were.

"Come on," Sarah smiled. "Let's get you showered."

Chapter Nine ============

Back at the Council meeting, Mary was about to deliver her report. They had left Tina in a side room. Mary had tried to reassure her, but Tina seemed even more scared than Michael about the whole thing.

"Okay Mary. How is she?" the leader asked.

"She's just a scared and frightened young woman now. She's lashing out physically and verbally because she's afraid."

"What did you tell her?"

"Not much. I told her that she was a now full woman and that the change in her body was permanent. She wanted to know why she was being held, but I refused to tell her. I've posted two guys outside her door permanently. I've also allowed Sarah to look after her. She seems to be less hostile toward her."

The leader nodded, then turned to Hank, "Hank. What's your assessment?"

Mary looked over at Hank, as he seemed to think before answering. Mary thought that she might have divulged a little too much information to Michelle and she prayed that Hank would not bring this up.

"It's hard to say," he said eventually. "She didn't end up saying much. Mary did most of the talking."

Mary sighed in relief slightly. Hank could have said a lot worse, but she realized that Hank couldn't say much to his advantage. Mary was just pleased that Michael hadn't said anything disastrous in front of Hank. Apart from Michael's outburst when she smashed up the room, things were going alright for her.

Michelle was standing in front of the full-length mirror, her knees still weak from the sight that stood before her. She was staring at herself wearing a red summer dress, stockings and heels with her hair beautifully brushed back.

She couldn't believe Sarah had talked her into wearing those clothes. In fact, Sarah hadn't talked her into it at all. Instead, she had cajoled and manipulated Michelle into wearing them.

Sarah had done it all so carefully that Michelle didn't realize what was happening until it was too late. First, Michelle had taken a shower. It had been an exhilarating experience for her. The play of the water drops of her new sensitive breasts had a very erotic feel to it. She felt a desire to touch herself again and she may have done so if it wasn't for the fact that Sarah was waiting outside.

Afterwards, Sarah dried her hair while Michelle stared at herself in the dresser mirror, still trying to get her head round the fact that she was now a blonde bombshell. As her hair dried, it's wavy texture returned. This wavy feature of her hair seemed to make her hair spread out across her shoulders as it tumbled down her back to her waist.

As Sarah was drying her hair, Michelle could clearly see how young Sarah looked. Michelle attempted to ask why it was that Sarah was now a woman in her twenties, but Sarah refused to answer, simply stating that all her questions would be answered in time.

It was when it was time to get dressed that Michelle realized how well it had all been planned. She learned that they had measured up her while she was asleep so all the clothes would fit. Michelle shuddered a little when she found out that someone else had their hands all over her new body.

The first items out of Sarah's bag were a white bra and panties. Up until that point, Michelle had been half expecting to be wearing just a pair of boxer shorts. She was hesitant about putting on such feminine underwear, but she instantly realized that she was a woman, so she relented.

Sarah helped her to fasten the bra, before Michelle stretched around to get the feel of it. It felt weird on her. She had expected it to be a miracle cure for bouncing boobs, holding them tightly in place. However, although Michelle decided in the first few minutes that wearing a bra was better, it wasn't that much better. It was comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time, if that made any sense.

Michelle also discovered that she was a 38DD cup size. It wasn't quite as bad as Michelle had feared. Somehow, she thought her breasts were bigger than that. Sarah explained that because her breasts were so perfectly shaped and firm, they seemed bigger.

Michelle also discovered just out how lucky she had been for her boobs to be only 38DD. Sarah informed Michelle that whenever they cast the spell to turn themselves into a guy's sexual fantasy, 38DD is usually the minimum breast size. Michelle could have easily ended up with a pair of 46HH's.

Then Sarah pulled some stockings out of her bag. Michelle protested slightly but Sarah managed to quietly convince her to wear them. Eventually, Michelle rolled them up onto her legs, just as she had seen her wife do it. Fortunately, they held themselves in place, because Michelle had no intention of wearing a garter belt.

When Sarah pulled the next item out of the bag, Michelle almost fell over in shock. It was a bright red summer dress. Michelle swallowed hard when she first saw it. She couldn't believe that Sarah had to audacity to even suggest that Michelle wear it.

"Sarah. There's no fucking way I'm wearing that. I don't care if I am a girl now. I'm not wearing it, period," Michelle remembered saying. Although she knew that she would probably end up wearing a dress in time, she felt that wearing one in her first real hour of living as a woman was very extreme.

But then Sarah did something very strange. She walked up to Michelle and whispered in her ear. Sarah told Michelle that if she wanted to get out, she had to wear the dress. At first, Michelle took that as a threat, but when she looked in Sarah's eyes, she saw slight fear. Sarah looked round to the door and kept her voice very quiet as if she didn't want anyone to hear her say that.

It made Michelle feel very edgy. What was so important about wearing such a blatant dress? She tried to ask Sarah, but she wouldn't say anything more, just that it was important for her to wear the dress. Eventually Michelle felt that she had no choice but to comply.

As Sarah helped Michelle into the dress, Michelle didn't think it would hold her bust. The straps of the dress looked like thin pieces of string that barely covered her bra straps. As Sarah zipped it up, Michelle looked down at herself, to see that the dress seemed to accentuate all of her curves.

As she continued to look down, she felt her pussy tingle slightly as her eyes saw a big breasted woman wearing such a garment. She was instantly disgusted as she realized that she was getting turned on by looking down at her own body.

She shook herself and tried to walk up and down the room. Walking around in the dress wasn't too bad for Michelle. It was about knee length and it wasn't too tight around her legs, but she felt humiliated that she was actually wearing it.

Finally, Sarah pulled some shoes out of the bag. After the humiliation of being forced to wear such a ridiculous dress, Michelle was just happy that the heels, although an inch high, didn't have a pointed heel. Her will to fight had been systematically sapped away by the successive items of women's clothing, so she sat on the bed and allowed Sarah to slip them on her slender feet.

As she walked up and down the bedroom, she felt a weird sensation. She was now the same height as before. Her transformation had left her very slightly shorter than before, but with these heels on, she was back to the same height. Walking in the shoes, although awkward, wasn't too bad. At least they weren't pointed stilettos.

Then Sarah applied some light red lipstick to her full lips, clipped on some earrings and then stood Michelle in front of the mirror. As she pulled off the sheet covering the mirror, Michelle's knees went weak at the sight before her. Sarah moved to her side to steady her.

Michelle stared hard at the gorgeous creature in the mirror as her head started spinning. She had seen herself in the mirror two days ago and she thought she looked stunning then. But now, with all the clothes and makeup on, she easily looked twice as good. Yet again, tears began to form in her eyes. She wondered if she would ever be able to stop crying.

"I don't know if I can do this," Michelle started sobbing. "I can't live like this. I just can't."

"Yes you can," Sarah said firmly with her arm around her, looking her straight in the eyes, via the reflection in the mirror. Sarah's reassurance eased Michelle's urge to cry.

"Why did you make me wear this dress?" Michelle said quietly. "I look such a slut in it."

"No. You're not a slut. You're beautiful," Sarah said softly to her whispering. "Look, I can't explain, but if anyone asks, make out that you don't mind wearing these clothes. Don't go over the top and say you love it because they're not stupid, okay."

Michelle was getting ever frustrated because no one was telling her anything. She was fast losing her patience, but she held back against Sarah. Although Sarah had just dressed her up like a Barbie doll, Michelle felt that she trusted Sarah and she thought that Sarah might be the one person actually on her side.

Michelle thought carefully then said, "Okay, I'll do whatever you say. But first, tell me one thing. Was Mary telling the truth about this change being permanent? Can I become a guy again?"

At first, Sarah was going to lie to Michelle. She knew that becoming a guy again was the least of Michelle's worries now, but as their eyes locked, Sarah realized that she wouldn't be able to lie convincingly.

"Sarah. I REALLY need to know," Michelle said softly.

Sarah thought painfully before answering, "It is possible, but it's unlikely."

"But possible?" Michelle asked.

Sarah could see what was happening with Michelle. She was clinging on to the mere possibility of becoming male again. Sarah wanted to tell Michelle to forget about being Michael again, but she could see that her emotional state was very fragile. She needed a reason to live and if that reason was to become male again, Sarah decided to use it to her advantage.

"Look, being a man again is a long way off. You've got to take thing in small steps and right now, wearing this dress is the first step."

Michelle hung her head low, before shrugging, then nodding her head in agreement. Standing in front of the mirror only made her more convinced that she didn't want to stay like this forever.

Sarah smiled to herself gently. Earlier, when she had fetched the bag of clothing and discovered the blatant dress inside, she was shocked. She complained, but was politely informed, that it was those clothes or nothing and if Sarah couldn't get Michelle to wear them, then someone else would. That person was someone that owed Hank a favor had Sarah realized Hank was starting to collect.

At first, Sarah was going to refuse, but she couldn't bear to see someone else doing the task. Sarah hated herself as she used every trick she could think of to entice and coerce Michelle, but deep down, she knew that quick adjustment was essential not only for Michelle, but for their group as well.

As Sarah watched Michelle examining her new look, her smile broadened. She knew that Michelle didn't like wearing those clothes, but she also knew that she would play along. Things were going to be okay.

Tina entered the Council room very nervously. As she looked ahead, all the eyes of the Council were upon her as she walked towards the table. All the Council members had shuffled their chairs round slightly and an extra chair was waiting for her.

Without a word being spoken, she carefully stepped up to the table and took the empty chair. Her body was shaking slightly as she looked up to face her elders.

Although her magical powers were only average and well below the usual level of power for Council members, she had always looked forward to the day when she might someday serve on the Council in years to come. But none of that mattered now. She was here to be chastised for what she did.

"Okay, Tina. Why did you do it?" one person asked. The leader had elected for one person to question Tina. He didn't want Mary or Hank to do it, because they would be either too easy or too hard on Tina respectively.

"I-I-I," Tina stuttered. "I didn't think it would do any harm," was her reply. Mary noted that it was an excellent reply given the circumstances. She hoped that Tina could keep this up, but before another question was asked, Tina spoke again blowing away Mary's hopes.

"But it's all my fault. I'm to blame not Michael. I take full responsibility."

The questioning continued. At each question, Mary felt as if a crushing blow was hitting her. She could see what Tina was attempting to do. She was trying to shift all of the blame onto herself in order to deflect it from Michael. It was understandable given the circumstances. Michael had risked her life to save Tina's and now Tina was trying to do the same, but it was hopeless because Tina's punishment and Michael's fate were two completely separate things. Tina was simply digging herself into a hole.

Mary had known Tina for some years and she had always considered Tina to be a strong willed woman, but it was pitiful to watch Tina's spirit being crushed by this interrogation. As the spokesman asked another question, Mary finally spoke out.

"Look, this isn't fair on Tina," Mary said interrupting the questioning. "Tina's in such a state right now that she'll admit to the Lincoln Assassination."

"No Mary, I'm to blame," she called out trying to stop Mary. However, in the process, she only served to prove Mary's point.

"I agree with Mary," the leader spoke. "This isn't the time. We can do all this another time. Do you have any questions Tina," the leader asked.

"Can I see her?"

The leader looked at Mary who answered, "Not yet, Tina. I don't think the time is right. But I've left you Mom to look after her. She's in good hands. We'll take you back shortly."

Michelle was sitting down on the chair beside the bed. Sarah told Michelle that she needed to go away for a short time. What Michelle didn't know was that Sarah needed a break to calm herself down sexually. Despite being a heterosexual woman, it appeared that even she wasn't completely immune to Michelle's sexual attractions.

But a brilliant idea hit her just as she finished dressing Michelle. Although a protective spell against the pheromones would take several days to develop, by which time it probably wouldn't be required anymore, Sarah had thought of a way around it. Instead of providing direct protection, she had just cast a spell, which would deaden her sex drive for the next few days.

Hopefully this would allow her to stay much longer with Michelle without succumbing to her chemical attractions. She decided not to share the idea with anyone else, because she didn't want to be removed from her position helping Michelle.

Now that she was alone, Michelle was pondering over what she had learned. Although Sarah had clearly been instructed not to reveal anything to her, Michelle had managed to glean some information from her responses.

Firstly, Michelle couldn't decide exactly how powerful the witches were. The mere fact that they transformed her seemed to indicate enormous power, but it wasn't quite so clear. Michelle had discreetly asked Sarah why Mary hadn't saved their lives three months ago, instead of Michael having to do it. Sarah replied, saying that Mary and the others were not capable of helping them at the time. Michelle wasn't sure if that meant that they lacked the power to help them or not, but it clearly showed some limitations.

Michelle shuffled her position in the chair, attempting to make her poise more ladylike. It became immediately obvious as soon as she sat down that she was going to have to get out of the habit of keeping her legs open.

She hated the notion that she actually had to start acting like a woman, but it was obvious from Sarah's actions that Mary and the other's were clearly seeking some quick adjustments from Michelle and that was why Sarah had coerced her into wearing the summer dress. Michelle decided that for now, she would play along with what they wanted, although she wondered how far she was prepared to go.

Michelle then turned her attention to the future and to consider her options. Her biggest dilemma was whether she should inform them about her telekinetic powers. She walked over to the window again and briefly examined the lock. Although there seemed to be something odd with her powers, she knew that she could easily open the lock. Again, she realized that her powers gave her an escape plan, should she ever need it, but only as long as they were unaware of her powers.

Michelle also thought about Tina. According to Sarah, Tina was having a very tough time of things, blaming herself completely for the whole situation. Although she couldn't be sure, Michelle suspected that her telekinetic powers were at least partially responsible for her spell being screwed up.

If that was the case, then maybe Michelle owed it to Tina to let her know it wasn't all her fault. She felt a little guilty that she was allowing Tina to blame herself. But another part of her said that she should put herself first and if she did tell Tina about her powers, then her escape plan would be completely useless as they would obviously take precautions against it.

But Michelle wondered what she could do even if she did escape. She guessed that she could easily get out of the room and the mansion, but what then? Where would she go? What would she do? She was now a sexpot of a girl, with no legal identity.

At least Michelle did have some resources, although they were back in Las Vegas. Ever since she had been swindling casinos, she always had a backup plan, by putting a stash of money away, buried in the Nevada desert. When she buried the money, she had several scenarios in mind as to why she might need it, although they were mostly limited to the casino bosses finding out about her powers. Being turned into a girl wasn't something she had considered.

But escaping and running to Nevada had to be a last resort, although it quickly occurred to her that there were no other options open to her. None of her friends and family would be prepared to help her because they wouldn't believe who she was. The thought of family brought a slight tear to her eye. But it also reminded her that she had been due to phone her Mom several days ago, which was long overdue. As Michael, she had long been independent of her parents, but her Mom was a real worrier for her son. It wouldn't take long for them to alert the authorities about Michael's disappearance. What would happen then?

Mary and Hank returned to the mansion with Tina. Although the journey was only ten minutes, Mary was beginning to get fed up of the constant travelling when so little was being done about Michael. As Mary saw the sun beginning to set, it occurred to her that they had debated all day, but they didn't appear to be achieving anything.

However, Mary didn't want to blow it. Things were going reasonably well. Mary could tell she was winning the battle. She knew, from the tone of the rest of the Council, that they were just looking for an excuse, any excuse to spare Michael. Hank's views were sounding increasingly that of an extremist who wasn't getting his way.

Andrew greeted her sister as soon as they entered the mansion. Sarah soon came running down the stairs. Sarah was about to go back to Michelle now that her spell to remove her sex drive had taken effect, but stopped as soon as she saw that her daughter was returning.

"How's Michael doing?" Mary asked Sarah.

"Fine," Sarah replied enthusiastically. "She's taken the name Michelle and I've got her dressed. I think you should see her; she's adjusting quickly."

"Can I see her," Tina butted in. Mary looked at Tina; slightly annoyed that she wasn't getting the message. It was the third time she asked.

"Tina. I don't think it's a good idea. Your Mom said that she's adjusting. If that's the case, then you don't want to blow it by upsetting her, do you."

Tina nodded then looked down so Mary continued, "Look. If Michael, err... Michelle is calm tomorrow, then I'll ask her if it's okay, right."

Tina nodded her concession. All she wanted to do was say sorry to Michelle and beg her forgiveness, but she finally realized that she wasn't going to see Michelle today.

"Are you coming up to your room," Sarah asked.

Tina was initially hesitant. Somehow, the thought of going upstairs, but being forced to go to her room, while everyone else went to see Michelle didn't feel right.

"No," Tina responded taking a small step back. "I wanna go for a walk outside. I need some fresh air. I wanna go to the hill"

Mary looked at Tina. She hadn't been outside in virtually three days. It would do her some good. But it was getting dark and Mary still wasn't sure of Tina's mental state.

"Okay, but take Monica with you," Mary said as the motioned for Monica, who was standing nearby, to come over.

"But I wanna go on my own. I don't want Monica to go with me," Tina said. "No offence Monica," she said, realizing Monica could have been offended by her words.

"Tina. You're too distraught," Mary said. "I'm not allowing you to go outside by yourself."

Again, Tina was forced to nod in concession. She felt bad about the situation, but it wasn't bad enough for her to do herself harm, although she could understand Mary's concerns.

Tina watched her mother, Mary and Hank climb the stairs and head to Michelle's room. Tina felt a tinge of jealousy that they were all going to see Michelle and she wasn't.

As they moved out of sight, Tina and Monica left the building. Monica had to first recover her car keys from a secure point. To stop any possibility of Michelle escaping, Mary had insisted that all keys to any vehicles were safely secured.

As Monica was driving away, Tina looked back as she saw a light in Michelle's room. She could just make out a figure walking around in the room.

Chapter Ten ===========

Michelle was beginning to get horny again. Her nipples were hardening and she could even feel damp down below. She couldn't understand why this was happening to her. After everything that had transpired, why would she possibly feel horny. She was walking up and down the room, trying to get some relief from these feelings.

It was nearly evening now and although she had only been awake for a few hours, she had been getting more sexually frustrated as the day wore on.

She had spent every available moment on her own to practice any aspect of being a woman. Although it disgusted her to do it, she found herself standing in front of the mirror and working on her standing poise.

She was currently practicing the way girls flick their head to throw their hair behind them. She was failing miserably. On the rare occasions when it worked, she would simply cause some more hair to emerge on the other side.

Suddenly she heard the door being unlocked and Sarah walked inside.

"Hi. How are you," Sarah asked.

"Okay," Michelle replied, pleased for the company again.

"I've got Mary and Hank outside. They want to see you again," Sarah said. She then walked up to Michelle and whispered, "Put on a good act for them."

As Sarah pulled back, Michelle nodded. She didn't like it, but she realized that her only ticket out of here was to play the game they wanted her to play. She carefully attempted to assume one of the feminine poises that she had practiced in front of the mirror.

Mary and Hank entered the room again. Both were visibly shocked when they saw how Michelle looked. Even Hank, who had previously been so hostile toward her, couldn't help but smile at the beauty presented before him. Even before Michelle's pheromones could take effect, he already felt a physical attraction for her.

Mary glanced over at Sarah, smiled and gave her a "well done" look.

"How do you feel?" Mary asked, which was the same question she had asked earlier in the day.

Michelle paused for a moment before answering. Internally, she felt completely humiliated at being paraded before them like that, but she intended to tell Mary what she thought they wanted to hear. But Michelle knew she couldn't go over the top. What she said to Mary had to sound good.

"A bit silly," she said slowly. "I still can't believe I'm really stuck like this."

Mary was pleased with that answer; it seemed to be genuine. She strongly suspected that Sarah had somehow coerced Michelle into wearing those clothes, but as long as Michelle was accepting them, it didn't matter. "You'll get used to it," she said.

Michelle's first instinct was to snap back, because she didn't want to get used to wearing a dress. But she bit the inside of her lip as she realized that she couldn't say anything. Sarah had impressed upon her, the need to at least appear that she was adjusting to life as a woman.

"I'm afraid that I still can't tell you anything or let you go, but is there anything you need, then ask. Can I get you something?" Mary asked. Although there was very little she could actually do, she didn't want to appear to Michelle to be the complete enemy that Michelle had obviously cast her as.

"What about my family. I was due to call them on the day that... this happened. Sooner or later, they'll get worried. What are they gonna say when they see me like this. They'll laugh."

"That's not something you'll have to worry about," Mary replied.

"How?" Michelle asked. "What are you gonna make them think that I was always a girl?" Michelle said. Somehow, she doubted that they had the power to make all her friends believe that Michael had always been Michelle, but given the fact that she was currently wearing a bra, panties and a dress, she couldn't rule out anything.

Mary paused. She hadn't been planning to tell Michelle about this just yet, but she guessed that Michelle could handle it now, based upon how well she was adjusting so far. "No, you see, Michael Curtis is dead. He died in a hang gliding accident two hours ago."

"H-How," Michelle asked as her body trembled at this news.

"One of our members transformed themselves into your old self. He went to a hang gliding club in California today. Soon, your destroyed glider will be found. A body will be found. The fall will have damaged the face beyond recognition, but the coroner will make a positive identification based on medical records."

Michelle had to sit down in a chair before she fell over. This news was even more shocking. They had effectively killed her off. Sarah walked to her side and held her hand. Both Mary and Hank decided to keep a distance from Michelle to minimize the effects of her pheromones.

"Whose body?" Michelle asked.

"I think we 'borrowed' one from the morgue that was similar to you," Mary responded. "As of today, Michael Curtis is officially dead."

"You can't do that," Michelle called out. She knew that she should have remained quiet and accepted it, but she couldn't. They had taken everything she held dear. The only thing she had left was her friends and family. But now, they had taken that from her as well.

"We had to," Mary responded. "We couldn't have questions about your disappearance."

"But what about if I become a guy again. How can I go back home if I'm already dead," Michelle called out without thinking. As soon as she said it, she realized she had made a mistake. She wasn't supposed to know that it was even possible to return to manhood.

Both Mary and Hank instantly realized Michelle's blunder as well. Mary glared at Sarah who could only look away.

"Sarah. I need to talk to you... OUTSIDE," Mary said sternly. Sarah just looked up, nodded and walked towards the door.

"No, look. You can't do this," Michelle shouted as she stood up. "You've taken away everything I have. First my body, then my freedom. Now you've taken the only thing I had left, my identity. You can't do this to me. You don't have the right," Michelle virtually yelled.

Michelle walked forwards. Mary took it as a very threatening move.

"Stand back Michelle," Mary said sternly, looking Michelle in the eye.

Michelle thought for a minute. Her frustration had burst and she couldn't take any more. She wanted to break out of the room right now. But she knew deep down that this wasn't time for it. Grudgingly, she took a step back.

Mary knocked on the door and Sarah, Hank and Mary left the room. As the door was opened, Michelle briefly thought about breaking out, but she could see three more people on the other side, including two guys. She knew that it was hopeless.

"What the fuck was that," Mary yelled at Sarah as soon as they were outside. After having placed her trust in Sarah, she was furious with her at divulging such information.

"M-Mary. I'm sorry," Sarah apologized.

"Sorry. You had no fucking right to tell her that. What else did you tell her."

"N-N-Nothing," Sarah replied.

"Nothing," Mary replied. "You tell her our secrets and you call it nothing."

"It wasn't like that," Sarah defended herself. "I didn't actually tell her anything."

"Well it didn't sound like that," Hank chirped in, his voice extremely sarcastic, which annoyed Mary immensely. "I'm taking this to the Council."

"Oh, shut up Hank," Mary snapped at him. She was fed up of his constant moaning. It seemed as if he was twisting every opportunity to his advantage.

"No. Mary. I won't shut up," he retorted, raising his voice. "In fact, I've had enough of your crap. When we get back, the first thing I'm gonna do is push for her to be executed. You know damn well that we can't take care of her. It's taking up all our resources just to keep her locked up."

"Shhhhh. Be quiet you two," Sarah interrupted. "Any louder and she'll hear you," she pointed out. They were still only just outside the door.

They both realized their mistake and ushered Sarah down the hallway to continue their argument. Mary prayed that Michelle hadn't heard the argument. Although it wouldn't make much practical difference, because she was their prisoner anyway, it would make it much more awkward if she really knew the full picture.

But it was already too late. Michelle's ear had been at the door. As soon as she heard the door lock and the argument begin, she moved over to the door. She didn't catch the start of the argument. All she heard was Hank talking about killing her.

When the argument was over, Michelle stumbled backwards and fell back onto the bed. Her breathing rate increased. "They're gonna fucking kill me," Michelle internally shrieked. She couldn't believe it. Up until now, the worst she had feared was that she would be turned into a sex slave, given her current body, but it now appeared that she was destined for a worse fate.

Her breathing increased further, but as hard as she breathed, she couldn't seem to get air into her lungs. She was hyperventilating. Her feelings of claustrophobia were sent skyward.

She silently jumped off the bed and paced up and down the room several times trying to calm down.

Michelle thought about what she could do; what her options were. She instantly reached a conclusion; there was only one option. If they were going to kill her then she had to get out of the mansion, NOW. She had an escape plan, so she quickly decided that she should use it.

She ran over to the window. Although her escape plan had been meticulously planned, she was now in a state of panic. All she knew was that she had to get out, in case they returned early to carry out their sentence on her.

She put her hands on the window and attempted to smash it with her powers, but the same block on her powers was still there. Although she could still summon her powers, she couldn't produce anywhere near the force required to break the toughened glass.

Then she remembered the exact details of her escape plan and turned her attention to the window lock. Without thinking, she put two fingers near the lock and reached out with her mind. It was tough because of the barrier, but within seconds, the lock was opened. Michelle hurriedly opened the window.

She tried to lift one leg up to get out of the window, but her dress stopped her. She nearly fell over but she just managed to steady herself with her powers. She knew that she couldn't make any noise or they would look through the peephole in the door and see she had opened the window.

She calmed down slightly and carefully sat on the window ledge and lifted both of her legs over. She could now see that she was on the third floor and it was a sheer drop to the ground. Her powers still were not working fully. She didn't think she could float to the ground, but maybe she could break her fall. Without thinking too much more, she took a deep breath then jumped.

As soon as Michelle jumped from the window, she felt her powers kick in properly, so she guided herself down, landing gently on the gravel floor seconds later. Instinct then took over as she just ran as fast as she could straight ahead for the trees.

It was the second time that she had cause to run for her life as a woman, but this time it was different because she was dressed as a woman. Her boobs still bounced around and she realized that the bra, although not perfect, was at least helping to control them. Her dress and shoes, on the other hand, were proving a terrible hindrance. Several times, she nearly tripped over, having to steady herself with her powers.

After she had reached the trees, she carried on running. She quickly saw a large metal fence in front of her. Undeterred, she ran straight at it, leaping into the air about ten feet beforehand. Although the fence was some twelve feet, she easily managed to clear it in a single jump, using the extra force generated from her mind.

She continued running away from the mansion until she could run no more and she stopped against a tree, collapsing as she tried to regain her breath. At that point, she realized that her new body was not designed for running. A brief shudder passed through her body as she reminded of the one thing that her body was designed for.

Michelle slowly started to come down from the high that she felt from escaping. She glanced up and could see the stars that were beginning to appear in the evening sky. She gave out a soft cry of elation.

Over the next few minutes, her blood oxygen level returned to normal and the adrenaline levels began to calm down. Although it was the middle of summer, it was a very cool evening and her body was already starting to shiver slightly. Michelle noticed that her soft skin seemed more sensitive as she could feel a cool night breeze on her body. As she began to calm down, she was beginning to question the wisdom in running away.

Her mind was racing with the various options that presented themselves. Although she had made a rash decision in escaping, Michelle knew that she had to put all that behind her. All that mattered now was the future. She knew that she had five minutes in which to make a decision. She could go back and hope that either they didn't notice she had gone, or she could run.

Her heart wanted to run. Her primal urge to be free consumed her. A part of her was yelling that there was no way she could go back. Although things might turn out all right, she knew that her life would be in danger, so she couldn't take the chance. While she was running, she was completely in control of her own destiny.

But she instantly realized that there was a heavy price to be paid in running away. Michelle knew, quite clearly, that she would also be turning her back on her male self. If she ran, the chances of becoming a man again would fall away to practically zero.

Initially Michelle felt that she couldn't leave and that she had to go back, so she could be become male again. But it soon dawned on her, that it was better to be a living woman than a dead man. If she went back, she faced death.

Michelle couldn't believe it. How could they possibly think of killing her after all she had done for them? She saved Andrew, Sarah and Tina lives. In return, Tina transforms her into a sex icon and now they actually want to kill her! What had she done to warrant that? Her emotions were starting to turn to anger. Her treatment was causing fury to build inside her. What sort of insane monsters were these people?

Michelle began to wonder if there was another explanation. Perhaps she misheard Hank when he said that he wanted to kill Michelle. Perhaps they were somehow testing Michelle; seeing if she actually had the ability to escape. If that was the case, then she played right into their hands.

She thought for a few more minutes, but she couldn't make up her mind. Each side of her was tugging furiously, trying to win the argument. Eventually she reached one conclusion. Whatever else had happened, she couldn't go back now. She had to run away, consolidate her position and then try to find another way to be turned back into a man.

Michelle thought to what Sarah had said when she admitted to her that it was possible for her to be male again. Even if she did run away, perhaps maybe Sarah might help her return to manhood. Michelle realized that she was going to have to forget about the possibility of being Michael again for the time being, but perhaps in a few weeks, Sarah might help her.

With her mind finally made up, she took a brief sigh; then she started walking briskly in a direction away from the mansion. She had no idea where she was. She had no money, no identity and was dressed in the sort of clothes that make heads turn and jaws drop. But against it all, she couldn't go back to a possible death.

Michelle remembered that Sarah had told her they were near Boston, Massachusetts. Even if she did escape fully, she wondered where she could go. At first, she thought about going back home to New Jersey. Her heart wanted to go there, but her head was saying no. It would be the first place they would look for her. Also she had nothing to go back to. Her friends and family would soon be grieving over Michael's death and she could never ever convince them of whom she was. As much as it hurt her deep inside, her family were now lost to her.

She knew that the only place she could go was Las Vegas. She had a hidden stash on money there. But even better, it wasn't an obvious place for the witches to look, since Michelle had taken extreme precautions to hide her visits there.

But all that was in the future. At that precise moment, things were still grim for her. She had to find her way to civilization, get some presentable clothes and find some way of getting across the country. She was only five minutes into her journey and she was already beginning to realize that she had a very long journey in front of her, in more ways than one. The physical journey to Las Vegas could take several days. The emotional journey, if she was truly unable to become male again, could take a lifetime.

Chapter Eleven ==============

Tina was walking slowly through the woods. By now, it was nearly dark. Monica was following close behind, keeping a watchful eye on her. Tina would have preferred to be alone, but she knew that it just wasn't possible. She could understand why Mary had insisted that she be accompanied.

They were about five miles away from the mansion. If she wasn't going to be allowed to see Michelle tonight, then she wanted some peace and solace. They had just left the car and Tina was going to climb to the top of a hill. It was a place that had always been a favorite of hers years ago when they lived in Massachusetts. It allowed her to relax and think clearly.

It was when doing these things, that she realized how much she missed Massachusetts. Because of their lack of aging, they had to keep moving around the country to avoid suspicion. When her sister was turned into Andrew and she was turned into the new Tina, they had to move away and the only other places in the country where fellow Kithra of their group resided were San Diego and parts of South Carolina.

San Diego seemed a good idea at the time, but Tina never did manage to settle there. She longed for time when she could return to Massachusetts permanently, but that wouldn't be for at least fifteen more years, to avoid awkward questions being asked. However, she had been made fully aware when she accepted the transformation into Kithra, that she would be stuck with her new body for the rest of her long life and all of the problems it would create.

As she was walking, thinking about Michelle, she heard something moving in the distance. At first, she thought it was a rabbit or a fox, running through the forest, but the sounds were too rhythmic in their stride. As she listened, she saw a person come into view. At first, all she could see was a dark red figure stumbling forward. As it came closer, she could see it was a young woman with a mass of blonde trailing behind her. The person stopped about ten feet in front of Tina.

Tina looked ahead. There was a partial recognition. "No. It can't be," Tina thought to herself as she stared at the person in front of her. They each took a few steps forward.

"M-Michael. Is that really you?" Tina called out, completely shocked, partially believing that she might be hallucinating.

"T-Tina," Michelle replied as she was equally shocked to find someone else out here. They were now only several feet apart.

As their eyes locked, a silent unseen communication took place between them. Michelle felt a sense of anger as she saw the person responsible for her predicament. Tina felt a sense of immense sorrow as she saw the results of her failed attempts to get pregnant by Michael. Neither person quite knew what to do, but at the same time, they flung their arms around one another.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Tina sobbed as she held Michelle tightly.

Monica came running up to Tina. She had tried to give Tina some space, but she heard some commotion; "Fuck," was all she said when she saw Michelle standing there.

"Michael, what are you doing here," Tina pleaded as she pulled back from their embrace. She was overjoyed to see Michael, but she couldn't work out what she was doing all alone, several miles from the mansion.

"I-I-I ran away," Michelle said, not sure if she should tell Tina what she was doing. "Tina. They said they were gonna k-k-kill me. Why would they do that? I've never hurt them. What did I do wrong?" Michelle pleaded

Monica moved to try to tackle Michelle. As she moved closer, Michelle simply glared at her with a piercing stare. Monica stepped back. She had heard about Michelle's strength and didn't want to experience it first hand. She thought about using magic against Michelle, but she knew that that would be a futile move. Michelle would be immune to any spell she cast.

"B-But where are you going," Tina pleaded with Michelle. She couldn't believe they were actually going to kill her. The rules were just talk. Tina was only just beginning to convince herself that Michelle would be safe and that no-one would hurt her.

"I-I don't know," Michelle said as she realized that she had no idea where she was going. "I just had to get out of there before they... they..."

Michelle glanced over at the woman accompanying Michelle and noticed that the she was just standing still, with her eyes closed, concentrating.

"What's she doing?" Michelle asked.

"She's calling for help, sending out a message," Tina replied.

"Shit," Michelle cried out. That was all she needed. She had been hoping to get a good head start on the witches. But she was only a few miles from the mansion. They would be there within minutes. Things were getting increasingly desperate.

Michelle pulled away from Tina completely and was about to start running again, but she knew that it was virtually hopeless. She was miles from anywhere and they would arrive very quickly. She briefly though about using her power to hurt the woman that was calling for help.

"Michael, err... Michelle," Tina called out, before Michelle could make up her mind. Tina wasn't sure which name to use. "Did they really say they gonna kill you."

"Yes," Michelle replied, hands on her head, trying to think of a way out.

"Are you sure?" Tina asked. She couldn't believe they would actually do that. Although Tina knew it was possible, she was convinced that Mary would find some way round it.

"Of course I'm fucking sure," Michelle shouted at Tina. "I overheard that Hank talking about it."

Tina shocked doubled as Michelle shouted at her. Michelle's words cut straight through Tina soul like a knife. As soon as she realized that Hank was involved, her worst fears were aroused. In those seconds, she guessed that the Council were doubling crossing her. She decided instantly that she had to do whatever was required to prevent Michelle from being harmed.

"Follow me," Tina said as she grabbed Michelle's arm and led her away. Michelle stumbled as Tina led her back to Monica's car. As soon as Michelle saw the car, she knew that it was her ride out.

Tina jumped in the driver's seat. She had remembered that Monica had left the keys in the car. The area was so remote that it would never be stolen.

Tina reached over and opened the passenger door for Michelle, but Michelle just hesitated as Tina beckoned. Michelle tried to think why she should trust Tina. She might just drive her back to the mansion.

"Get in," Tina called.

Michelle hesitated, still unsure. After all, Tina was the person responsible for her current predicament.

"Look. They'll be here in less than five minutes. Do you want me to help you or not."

Michelle's mind was finally made up. She looked at Tina and something told her that she could trust Tina. She quickly climbed in the passenger seat. Tina then drove away, spinning the wheels as she did so.

Hank and Mary were continuing with their interrogation of Sarah, attempting to determine the amount of information that Sarah had disclosed to Michelle, both consciously and subconsciously.

For Mary, it was a huge disappointment. She had taken a risk in allowing Sarah to look after Michelle and it now appeared that her plan had backfired. Her job now was damage limitation.

They had established that Sarah had coerced Michelle into wearing all those clothes and had impressed upon her the need to appear to be adjusting. It wasn't quite as bad as Mary had feared. At least Sarah didn't say why it was so important for her to appear to adjust, or divulge anything really vital. But the real problem now, was that they wouldn't be able to tell if Michelle was ever truly adjusting. Even if Michelle did start to genuinely accept her new life, Hank would simply say that she was faking it, just to be reprieved.

As Mary looked over at Sarah, she realized that she couldn't blame her for what she did. Michelle after all, saved the lives of her family. It was obvious that Sarah would do whatever was necessary to protect Michelle. Mary blamed herself for this oversight, although she realized she had little choice at the time. The other two women assigned to Michelle were not that sympathetic to Michelle's cause.

Mary was about to ask Sarah another question when she heard a call. She noticed that both Hank and Sarah heard the call as well. But she knew that the call wasn't an ordinary call. She could hear it inside her head. It was a telepathic call for help. She instantly placed the source as Monica, the person who accompanied Tina.

Mary, Hank and Sarah slowly walked into the hallway. They could see that others were gathering. They had obviously heard the telepathic call and were questioning what it meant.

Mary called out to a man, "Go and check on Michelle," she said. The man rushed upstairs.

By now, they could all recognize exactly what was happening. Although it was a telepathic call, it wasn't a cry for help as if a person was in danger, but more of a call for assistance. Mary guessed that the source was several miles away.

"Oh my God, what's happened to Tina," Sarah cried, as she realized that the call came from Monica, the person escorting Tina.

"Go and help her," Mary called to several people. They all retrieved their car keys, ran outside and climbed into their respective cars, none of them sure what awaited them.

The man who Mary had sent up to check on Michelle quickly appeared at the top of the stairs. "It's Michelle. She's gone," he shouted.

Mary was utterly stunned. She couldn't believe it. How could Michelle be gone? She ran up the stairs as fast as she could and along the corridor to Michelle's room. The door was wide open. When Mary ran inside, she saw the three guards looking around bewildered. She instantly saw the opened window.

"Get out there and fucking find her?" Mary shouted.

Tina continued to drive at record speed. She knew the roads to take in order to get away the quickest. Tina knew that getting away quickly was very important, because her group might be able to use some magic against her. Although her own magical protection prevented any Kithra from casting spells against her, there were other methods that could be used, but only at a close range, so she knew she had to get out of the immediate vicinity.

Once they were on the interstate, Tina guessed that she was finally out of range and she slowed down to a normal pace, so as not to attract attention.

Michelle glanced over at Tina. She felt a mixture of emotions. Sitting beside her was the person responsible for her being female. It was because of her that she was transformed into a sex object. But although she hated being female, she found that she couldn't hate Tina for it. She knew deep down that Tina hadn't intentionally done it to her. It was, after all, an accident.

For Tina, it was equally difficult. She knew the possible fate that awaited Michelle. But everyone had assured Tina that it just wouldn't happen. The vast majority would not allow Hank and his supporters to hurt Michelle. But when Michelle told her that they were actually going to do it and Monica telepathically called for help, instinct took over. In that moment, she had to do everything she could to help Michelle.

However, the consequences of her decision were now beginning to sink through to her. She was in enough trouble for transforming Michelle in the first place, but the punishment for helping Michelle to escape would be very severe indeed. Tina knew that the pair of them could be on the run for the rest of their lives.

She wasn't even sure if they could escape. No one had ever successfully left their group. But up until now, no one else had experienced the enormous need to leave that Tina was feeling.

Tina knew that she was making a hell of a commitment going with Michelle. Even if they were not caught, she would lose all her friends and family forever. But Tina also realized, that because of her own actions, Michelle had lost all of her friends and family as well. She also remembered that Michelle had risked her life to save her entire family. In that instant, she decided that she would give her own life to help Michelle, so running away with her was a comparatively small favor.

"So, you grew up around here then?" Michelle said after a few minutes, trying to get some conversation going.

"Yeah," Tina replied. She had wanted to say something more, but just couldn't think of anything appropriate.

"Is that... when Andrew was a girl," Michelle said. She glanced over and saw the surprise in Tina's face.

"Y-You know about that," Tina replied.

Michelle nodded, "Mary told me."

"Yes," Tina nodded. "Andrea turned into Andrew and I was turned into the Tina you see now, so we had to move away. I never liked living in California. I've always thought of Boston as home," Tina remarked smiling.

"So why do it, if you didn't want to move away," Michelle questioned.

"It's a long story," Tina replied.

Michelle sighed. "Tina," she said with the tone of her voice a little sterner. "Ever since I woke up today, no one has told me a damn thing. Everyone tells me they're acting in my best interests, but no one says anything. When will someone tell me what's going on."

Tina was silent for a few seconds. Disclosing their secrets to an outsider was one of the worst things she could possibly do. But things couldn't get much worse for her than they already were.

"What do you want to know?" Tina said.

"Everything," Michelle replied, her hopes raised that finally she might find out some real information.

Tina nodded, "Okay. I'll tell you want you want to know," she said, before speaking aloud, "Now where to I start?"

"How about the beginning," Michelle suggested.

Tina thought for a few seconds, then nodded, "Yeah. I'll start from the very beginning."

Tina took a deep breath. It was going to be a long story. "Okay. We're called the Kithra. We're witches and our kind has been around in some form or another for longer than anyone can remember, but I'm going to start the story a few centuries back. Back then, we never had any real powers to speak of, but we were always persecuted and ridiculed. When the New World was discovered, our ancestors moved to the Americas in hope of finding some peace."

"Things didn't work out though. The Salem witch trials are a part of history. But the really sad thing was that most of those killed were innocent and had nothing to do with us."

Tina took a pause. She was telling the story very slowly, "The big problem back then, was the amount of time it took for a Kithra to train. I'm not talking about a few years, but decades, and even after that, they didn't have as much power as we do today. You see, the hardest part about magic is learning how to channel magical energy. It could take a lifetime to learn.

"Anyway, back then they found a shortcut. Records are patchy, so we're not completely sure what happened, but a very old witch managed to develop a magical spell, which would physically transform a person so that their body could channel magic as easy as if they'd be training for years. It would make their body a superconducter for magical energy.

"It made a huge difference. The new breed of witches learned magic faster than anyone before them because their bodies were so much more receptive to it. They still looked the same, but under the hood, their bodies were capable of channeling magic far better than ever before.

"Now, what happened next is important, but I'm going to skip it for now and tell you why you're now a woman and why can't you be turned back?"

Tina took a long pause for the first time in her story. What she had just said was recited to her when her mother first told her about witches. The next part wasn't going to be so easy to explain.

"Our parents tell us about witchcraft from a young age, but it's always in a joking nature. In a way, they're secretly training us and preparing us, but they keep the actual magic a secret from us. When we're over eighteen, they tell us the whole truth.

"We're then given a choice if we want to become a true Kithra. The only real way to become Kithra is to have our bodies transformed so that we can channel magic. There are two versions of the Transformation spell. There's the reduced one, which we use whenever we transform anyone normal. It just transforms the body, nothing else. Then there's the full version of the spell, which also changes a person's body so that they can channel magic.

"You see, once we've had the full version of the Transformation spell cast upon us, we are stuck with that body for life, so beforehand, our parents give us the option of changing our physical appearance as well. They transform us a couple of times using the reduced version of the spell, so that we can make an informed choice.

"A few of us decide to change their gender at the same time. My sister, Andrea was always butch and she jumped at the chance to become a guy, so she was turned into Andrew just before she was exposed to the full version of the spell. But most of us want to stay roughly the same, so we pick an improved version of our own body, just like I did.

"Anyway, two days ago, I was trying to transform myself into your sexual fantasy. Because I was transforming myself, I had to use the full Transformation spell; the reduced one just doesn't work on myself. Now, whenever I cast it on myself, all I have to do is visualize the form I want. But because I wanted to be your dream girl, I had to cast that part of the spell on you. That's when things went wrong."

"I didn't just turn you into a woman. I turned you into Kithra, just like me. That tingling sensation you felt when we got you back. That was your magical protection kicking in. You're now immune to everyone else's magic and you can't be turned back." Tina finished.

Michelle listened carefully to every word. Although Tina had told her ten times more than everyone else had, it still did not explain a few vital facts.

"But why did you have to try to transform yourself. Like I said to Mary, I would have preferred to make love to you as you are, not as... this," she asked. This was something Mary had refused to answer.

Tina started to reply, but she stopped herself. She knew that Michelle would not like the answer.

"Tina, why?" Michelle pressed.

Tina relented. She would have to tell this to Michelle eventually, but she decided to start with some more background information and ease into the answer gently.

"There are less than a hundred members in our group. We are banned from having loving relationships outside our group. We can be friends, even sexual partners, but never lovers. It just doesn't work. So we tend to interbreed a lot, but some of us still choose to have... children from... other sources."

Tina took another deep breath. That was enough background information. Now she had to tell Michelle; "That's why I was transforming myself into your sexual fantasy. I wanted you to... get me pregnant. You would never have remembered making love to me. You would have remembered making love to... well," Tina said as she waved her hand at Michelle's body.

Michelle's jaw dropped open, "So you just wanted a stud to get you pregnant. Is that all I was to you." It was hard on Michelle. Being told that she would have to spend the rest of her life as a sex kitten just because Tina wanted a baby wasn't easy to take.

"NO," Tina called. "You mean much more to me than that. That was the problem. I couldn't make love to you because I didn't know if I could make you forget about it."

Michelle hung her head in defeat. Neither person spoke for several minutes as Michelle digested in her mind what Tina had told her.

"But that still doesn't explain why I was being tied up back in that house and what's all this magical protection for?" Michelle eventually asked, now wanting to know everything.

"I know," Tina replied. "That's the bit I missed out. I'll explain that later, but first, let's find somewhere and pull over," Tina explained. It wasn't easy attempting to tell a story while driving.

"Okay," Michelle said. "But Tina, tell me one thing. Why are you helping me now?"

Tina looked over again, "Michael... Michelle, look at yourself. I DID this to you. You saved my life and now I've ruined yours. I don't think I can ever make it up to you, but I'm gonna do whatever it takes to protect you and if that means I have to run away with you... I'll do it."

Michelle glanced over at Tina and saw that she was telling the truth. She instantly felt a little guilty. Sarah was right when she said that Tina was blaming herself, but Michelle knew that she was also to blame because of her powers. Tina drove on, looking for a rest point.

Chapter Twelve ==============

Mary was in Michelle's room along with all of the Council members. They were all there to inspect, for themselves, how Michelle had been able to escape from such a secure room.

"How the fuck did this happen," asked one member. "This room is supposed to be secure. Even a Kithra can't escape from this room."

"That's why she escaped," Mary stated as she examined the lock on the window. "This room is designed to hold witches by negating their magical powers. If you take away a Kithra's power, they become useless. But Michelle is no Kithra, or at least not one with any powers. She obviously has other skills, like lock picking. We've underestimated Michelle's normal abilities."

"Why wasn't the window alarmed," the leader asked one woman whose responsibility it was for the rooms.

"Because it doesn't need to be," the woman replied. "I mean, the glass is bombproof and the lock is... almost pickproof, so what do we need an alarm for."

The leader nodded, accepting the explanation. It was a long running debate within their society about the over or underestimation of normals and their over reliance on witch powers. They had clearly made a mistake in putting Michelle in a room designed for Kithra.

Another member moved to the window to examine the lock, "We are assuming that she picked the lock. I mean, what if someone handed her a key? Sarah perhaps? She was in the room here."

"No," Mary interrupted. "That's what I thought at first. But I've checked and all the keys are accounted for."

"Mary," the leader asked. "Without being too crude... who the fuck was this guy?"

Mary was slightly shocked. It was so unlike their leader to openly curse, but she could understand his frustration. After escaping from a seemingly inescapable room, Mary was beginning to question exactly who Michael Curtis was. She just shrugged.

"Have we tried casting a Vision spell to see what happened outside," another person asked.

"It won't work," someone pointed out. "She's Kithra remember. You can only cast a Vision spell when at least one normal is present."

"So what do we do?" yet another person asked.

"Simple," Hank chirped in. "We get out there, we find her and we kill her."

Tina and Michelle were now at a secluded rest point. Tina knew that they were now well out of range of her group's ability to use magic against her, which allowed her to stop and explain things better to Michelle. Tina had just started the rest of her story.

"When our ancestors discovered the secret of magic, things began to improve. They were able to develop their powers. They could use them to hide and to make people forget what they saw. It was a turning point. The persecution against us stopped.

"Over the years, they refined all of their spells, including the Transformation spell. Today, it not only allows a witch the ability to channel magic, but also does a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff. Even if a new Kithra never learns magic, their body doesn't age or grow old.

"But a few decades later, as our numbers grew, we ran into a big problem. The powers of all witches started to slowly diminish. It took a few years for them to work it out, but it turned out that only a limited number of people in the world could be Kithra. It seems that there's a well of magical power and like any normal well, if too many people drink from it, it dries up. The maximum amount of witches at the time was around four hundred.

"The only solution was to strictly limit the number of witches. Now that's easier said than done, but there were already too many Kithra. Because of the huge power that a Kithra had, it wasn't something that any of them wanted to give up willingly.

"A civil war followed. Most of this went completely unknown to the rest of the world, but hundreds of us were killed in a matter of a few months. Straight away, the number of Kithra dropped to below four hundred so all their powers returned to full, but the killing didn't stop. Because, in the future, Kithra numbers would have to be strictly limited, the fighting continued as to whom would have control over this. We split into four factions.

"The war continued steadily over the years, with each faction developing more deadly spells to use against each other. The older witches found that they were able to defend themselves against offending magic fairly easily, but new members had no protection. Numbers were dropping even further. We were nearly making ourselves extinct because all new Kithra were being picked off almost instantly.

"Then, one year, a neutral member developed an addition to the main Transformation spell. When cast for the first time to transform someone into a witch, it would grant them innate magical protection. They would become immune to all other witches spells from the very first minute of being Kithra. It would protect that witch from virtually any spell, with healing spells about the only exception. He gave the secret to all of the factions at the same time.

"The war continued for a little longer, but all sides realized the new problem. Since they couldn't use magic against one another, they had to resort to conventional means to kill one another. Somehow, they realized just how silly they had all been. A truce was soon declared.

"However, the addition that grants a new Kithra innate protection has always remained even to this day. This means that once a person it turned into Kithra, they can never go back. They are stuck with that body for life.

"The factions settled down. They agreed that each group should be responsible for maintaining their own numbers and each group must keep their numbers below one hundred. The original factions were called the Falcons, which is our group, then the Eagles, the Kestrels and the Hawks, all the names of birds of prey.

"Sometime later, another hard line faction split away, The Ravens. But by then, we had managed to use our magic more efficiently, so the total number of witches could now be five hundred. So each group must still keep their numbers below one hundred with no exceptions."

Michelle had listened intently while Tina told this part of the story, but now interrupted, "So are you saying that your group is... full up. Is that what the problem is?"

"No." Tina replied. "There are ninety members of the Falcons. The truce that had lasted for so long broke down about twenty years ago. Over thirty members of our group were killed, including my father. Only now have our numbers returned to normal levels."

"I'm sorry," Michelle said. She had always been told that Tina's father had died in an accident.

"It's okay," Tina reassured. "It happened when I was young and I'm told that his death was the most meaningful. It brought in the Eagles, who helped us out and saved us. But after it all ended, our group was the hardest hit."

"So if there's room in your group, what's the problem then?" Michelle asked.

Tina took another deep breath; "It was also agreed long ago, that this secret must never come out. We might not all agree on everything, but all the groups are agreed on one thing... we must protect our secret... at any cost."

"So, they agreed that no person that hasn't been raised with magic in mind from birth, must NEVER be allowed access to magic... whatever the circumstances. All the groups must follow this to the letter."

"So what are you saying?" Michelle asked.

"It's simple. You're Kithra now. In less than a year, you'll be able to transform people. You'll be able to create new witches and those will be able to create more. If you do that, then the magical well will dry up. If that happens, you could end up destroying our very society."

Michelle was now just beginning to understand what was going on. "B-But I wouldn't do that," she stuttered.

Tina looked deep into Michelle's eyes, "I believe you. I really do and so do many people in our group. But it doesn't matter. Our laws say that you should... be... killed..."

Michelle gasped. It was fortunate that she was sitting down because her whole body trembled and went weak. Although she had guessed that her life was in danger, to hear this from Tina was the final straw.

"You're not serious. Can't you... make an exception," Michelle suggested.

"Not according to the laws. They're absolute. No 'normal' can ever be allowed access to magic. No exceptions."

"B-But that's evil. That's murder," Michelle protested.

Tina just nodded. "I know. But they don't think it's evil. You see we live a VERY good life. We can use our magic to give us all the money we need. We never grow old. We're always young and beautiful and we hardly ever die below one hundred unless another witch kills us. Basically, we have heaven on Earth and most of us will do anything to protect that," Tina paused, "and if that means allowing an innocent person to die... they'll let it happen."

Michelle hung her head low. Tina just said nothing, allowing Michelle to think about what she had said.

"So, what does all this mean for me. Can I ever be a guy again?" Michelle asked after a prolonged pause.

"It's possible," Tina replied which caused Michelle's mood to brighten up, "but it's unlikely," which shattered it again.

"Explain," Michelle demanded.

"Okay, there are two ways to become a guy again. The first way is to learn magic. You'll still need training, but that's not hard. After about six months, you'll be able to transform yourself, just like I can."

"But there's a catch," Tina said. Michelle guessed that there had to be. Tina continued, "If you were to transform someone else, the transformation would be permanent, but if you ever transform yourself, it's purely temporary. Because your ability to channel magic is keyed to this physical form, then as soon as you deviate from this form, any powers you have will start to diminish. Once your powers disappear, you'll revert back to this form again and your powers won't return for months. So you can transform yourself, but not for long."

"How long?" Michelle asked.

"It depends on how far you want to go. If you want to turn yourself into another woman, you should be able to maintain it for days, maybe even weeks, depending on how radical the change is.

"But what if I want to be a guy"

Tina looked down and sighed, "To be a... genetic male, you've got to change your whole body. It takes enormous power just to maintain that form. If you don't cast any other spell, you can probably be a guy for five or six hours per week."

"Six hours per week," Michelle shouted. "That's no fucking good to me," she snapped, thinking that perhaps she could have become Michael again semi-permanently. But six hours was virtually useless if she wanted to live an entire life as a man. However, she quickly realized that she shouldn't get so cross with Tina, "Sorry. It's not your fault," Michelle said.

"No. You're wrong. It IS my fault. You'll probably hate me for life."

"Oh Tina," Michelle called as she put her hand on Tina's, "How could I ever hate you. I know this was an accident now. I don't blame you," she reassured Tina. Michelle began to feel even more guilty as she guessed that her own powers were responsible again.

Tina smiled, happy that Michelle bore her no malice, although she doubted that she would ever be able to forgive herself for the pain she had inflicted on Michelle, regardless of whether Michelle blamed her or not.

"What's the other way?" Michelle asked interested. She had a feeling from the way that Tina was talking that the second option wasn't much better than the first.

"There is a holy time for witches. Call it Halloween if you will, when the power of witches reaches a peak. We call it the Spectacle. At this time, it's possible for witches to link together strip away your magical protection. Then we could turn you back into Michael again permanently. It hasn't been done in decades, so I'm not sure if it will even be possible now, but it's the only other option."

Michelle immediately brightened up a little, "Well, Halloween is only a few months away. I think I can live like this for a few months."

"No," Tina interrupted. "31st October is the time normals celebrate Halloween. It's not the real Halloween for us."

Michelle was again brought back down to Earth with a thud. She cursed herself for thinking that it could have been that easy. If it had been that easy, Tina would have mentioned it earlier, "When is it then?" she asked. She had an awful feeling that Tina was going to say something like "last week" and she would have to wait a full year.

"It doesn't happen every year. It's based on an astronomical event."

Suddenly a year was starting to look much more appealing to Michelle, "When is it then?" she repeated.

"It happens around every eighteen months," Tina stated.

"And when is the next... occurrence?" Michelle asked. She could tell from the torturous way that Tina was drip-feeding the information that it would not be any time soon.

"Well, you know when you saved our lives three months ago. We were on our way to celebrate the event then. I'm sorry, but the next Spectacle is fifteen months away, ironically around Halloween next year"

Michelle just hung her head in defeat again. That meant that Michelle would be forced to live as a woman for over a year.

Michelle said nothing, so Tina continued, "To make things worse, it has to be done at our holy site where the other groups would be present. So, we would have to tell the other groups about you. If we do that... your life might be put in danger."

"What a fucking choice," Michelle said. "Eternal womanhood or risk death just for the chance of being a guy again. I wish I'd never asked."

There was another lengthy pause as Michelle's mind attempted to digest the new information. Again, Tina remained silent allowing Michelle to think.

"So what happens. If I can't be a guy again and your bunch want to kill me, what do I do now?" Michelle asked.

Tina thought carefully for a moment as she tried to think rationally. Tina was beginning to question that her group really intended to hurt Michelle. Doubts were creeping into her mind that running had been the best thing to do.

However, Tina knew that the past could not be undone. They had made a split decision and now they both had to live with the consequences.

"That's up to you," Tina eventually replied. She was trying to leave the full decision with Michelle. Tina felt a little cowardly at that, but realized that it was a decision that only Michelle could make fully. "We can go back to the mansion and I'll try to smooth things over, or we can... run."

Michelle started ahead blankly for a few minutes, attempting to balance all the arguments. She spoke after a few minutes. "I'm not sure I can go back, even if things are okay. That Hank said he wanted me dead. But how will I manage on my own," Michelle complained, realizing that she had very few options.

"You won't be on your own," Tina reassured as she took Michelle's hand. "I'll be with you all the way. I'll take care of you and I won't let anyone hurt you."

"Won't they be able to track us down using magic?" Michelle asked.

"Not easily. We should be safe as long as we stay well away from them," Michelle replied.

Michelle thought for a moment. Running away like that hadn't been what she'd planned. But as she tried to contemplate everything that had happened, she realized that she had little choice but to keep on running.

"I can't go back," Michelle decided, then paused slightly. "It looks like I'm a girl on the run now," Michelle said as she smiled slightly.

"Come on, we need to put some more distance between Boston and us," Tina said as she started the engine and drove back onto the interstate.

"Mary. I SWEAR I had nothing to do with it," Sarah begged to Mary.

"Then how else did she escape," Mary interrupted.

"I don't know," Sarah pleaded.

Mary looked closely at Sarah. She could see from the look in her eyes, that she was telling the truth. She might have revealed some information to Michelle, but Mary was reasonably sure that she didn't help her to escape.

Mary sat down beside Sarah sighing, "I don't know. This whole situation is getting worse. Why the fuck did she try and escape?"

"Do you think it's because I forced her to wear that dress," Sarah confessed. She was feeling guilty that she had pushed Michelle so hard, but at the time, she though it was the best thing to do. After all, there was nothing Michelle could do; she had to accept things. Escape was impossible, or so everyone though.

"No, it's nothing to do with that dress. She heard us talking in the hallway. When she thought we were going to kill her, she escaped," Mary concluded, answering her own question. "I would have done the same," Mary pointed out.

However, Mary was aware that although she would have done the same as Michelle, she wouldn't have been able to break out of the room, despite being a very powerful witch. But if Sarah didn't help Michelle, then how did she escape. The locks on the windows were the best money could buy. Was Michael Curtis some sort of expert jewel thief? No architect could have picked those locks.

"What are the others saying," Sarah asked. She knew that Michelle's escape would not have earned her any new friends within the group.

Mary sighed again, then replied, "Hank's loving it. Up until now he was restrained, but now Michelle's given him all the ammunition he needs. He's now calling for her to be shot on sight."

"B-But they wouldn't actually do it would they?" Sarah pleaded. "I mean, all this about killing her. It's just talk, isn't it?"

Mary looked Sarah in the eyes and said, "Before she escaped, yes it was just talk. Hank was just blowing hot air. Even when we were outside Michelle's room and he called for her to be executed; he was just kicking up a storm. But now that she's escaped right under our noses... it's put people on edge. I still don't think we'll hurt her, but... it's made other's think twice."

"I won't let that happen," Sarah called out defiantly.

"Neither will I Sarah," Mary reassured her. "It'll be okay as long as we get her back quickly. If you know anything Sarah, please tell me. It's for the best."

"I'm sorry Mary. I wish I could help, I really do..."

Chapter Thirteen ================

Tina drove for several more hours, until late into the evening. They soon passed out of Massachusetts and into New York State. Michelle kept seeing road signs that she recognized. She knew that New Jersey was only a few hundred miles away. There was a part of her that wanted to force Tina to drive there now, so that she could be with her family.

But she knew, deep inside, that such action was impossible. New Jersey would be the first place the Falcons would look and also, there was nothing there for her. Although her family were now probably grieving over the loss of Michael, Michelle knew that if she turned up, they would never believe her. They would simply call the police, believing she was a mad woman.

To pass the time and attempt to forget about her home, Michelle kept continually digesting everything that had been said to her. It was a lot for her to take in all at once, so she asked Tina some more supplementary questions for confirmation.

To sum it all up, she was now a witch, just like all the others back at that mansion. But because of some ancient law, her mere existence as a witch posed a threat to all other witches. Therfore, some of the groups, although not completely evil, were definitely hard line and were quite prepared to sacrifice Michelle in order to safeguard their lifestyle.

She also found out, that Tina's group, were for the most part sympathetic to Michelle's cause, especially since she had saved the lives of three of their members. However, a certain section of the Falcons, namely Hank and his supporters, felt that they couldn't afford to attempt to protect Michelle, because their numbers were still suffering from a battle some decades ago. If the other groups discovered that the Falcons were harboring an illegitimate witch, it would give them both the excuse and desire to wipe them out.

Apparently, Hank had been the person whose fighting actions saved the Falcons from being killed off twenty years ago, so although the majority of the Falcons do not share his opinions, they all feel indebted to him and he is given a certain amount of leeway in his actions. His very presence, on the Council of Falcons tends to make the other groups think twice and all of the Falcons know that. He's considered a loose cannon that no-one wants to fix.

Michelle had also gained some basic knowledge of the internal politics of the witch culture. Tina's group, the Falcons were fairly liberal. The Eagles were peace loving and wouldn't hurt Michelle, but the other three were a serious problem because they were increasingly hard line, especially the Ravens. Although none of these groups went looking for trouble and tended to stay out of the way, they were ruthless in their actions and would consider killing Michelle to be an obligation.

She also discovered that the witches tended to live a good life. They didn't get involved in the affairs of normals, preferring to enjoy themselves. Although they could use their powers to dominate and rule, they usually didn't do that, mostly because they didn't actually gain anything, except possible exposure.

Michelle had also asked supplementary questions about being a man again. Apparently, she would, after a time gain the ability to turn herself back into a full male, but only for a few hours per week, assuming she cast no other spells.

That wasn't much good, but there were alternatives. She could simply transform parts of her body, in effect remaining female from the waist down but just having a male appearance. However, because her current appearance was so completely feminine, even that change would be quite radical, so Michelle would be lucky to spend any more than two days per week in a male body.

There was also more bad news. Her ability to channel magic was keyed to her current physical form. The main Transformation spell was designed to make sure that a witch's body never deviated from that form, in any detail and that included things like hair and fingernail length.

If she attempted to cut off her long hair, it would merely grow back to waist length within a few days. The same would apply to her nails and everything else. Although she could attempt to continually cut her hair and nails everyday, it would be a huge sap on her magical power and would severely hamper her ability to channel magic.

After she had learned magic, she could transform herself to make her hair and nails shorter and these changes could last for a while, but it would still be a temporary measure.

Apparently, any deviation from a witch's 'natural' form puts a drain on their magical energy and such energy can only be recharged in their natural form. Sarah, Mary and Tina's grandparents still look like twenty-five year olds for most of the time, but because Sarah is supposed to be a mother to Tina and Andrew, she ages herself while in the company of others and reverts to her natural youthful look while alone.

Tina said that the Council had been going over plans for daily haircuts to limit Michelle's potential power, but had held back for the time being as there was little point, because Michelle would not be casting spells for several months at the earliest.

At that point, Michelle had to ask Tina a question. She wanted to know how old Tina was. After learning the information that Kithra do not age, Michelle was wondering if Tina was really an eighty-year old woman. However, Tina reassured Michelle that she was, in fact in her mid twenties, as her appearance dictated. It was usual, in their society, for new Kithra to live as normal lives as possible, with parents still fully on the scene, up until around thirty-five. After all, they had plenty of time.

Then Michelle diverted her attention to her own powers. She thought that she really should tell Tina about her telekinetic abilities, but something was still holding her back. After three years of keeping them secret from everyone, it was so ingrained within her personality to keep them secret, even from Tina. She though that she should keep Tina on a 'need to know' basis. But, she decided that if everything panned out over the next day or so, she would reveal her power to Tina.

There was one awkward moment, when Tina asked Michelle how she had escaped. Michelle stuttered slightly, before saying that the window hadn't been locked fully and that Michelle had been able to open the window and climb down. Michelle could see that Tina didn't completely believe her, but didn't want to call her a liar. Michelle knew that this point would come up continually unless she thought of a better explanation.

Eventually Tina suggested that they find a motel for the evening. Tina had to do this, because Michelle's chemical attractions were driving her wild with desire. Tina had deliberately put the air-conditioning on to keep the car cool and thus reduce the effects, but she was beginning to smell her own sex and she knew that Michelle would soon guess what was happening.

Even without Michelle's pheromones, Tina knew that she would have no trouble making love to Michelle in her current form. Although she was mostly interested in guys, like most of the Kithra, she had become bisexual since her transformation because she now had the ability to become male for short periods of time. But she felt that making love to Michelle now would be taking advantage of her situation and that Michelle wouldn't have much choice in the matter. It would be like raping her. So she made a promise to herself that she wouldn't let it happen until Michelle was ready for it.

As it turned out, Michelle could detect the smell of sex in the air, but she believed it was her own. Ever since she had first awakened that day, she had felt a mild sexual excitement running through her body, which seemed to grow throughout the day. But since escaping, the feeling of excitement had grown into a light sexual craving. It was beginning to worry her because she couldn't explain it. After all that had happened, how could she possibly feel horny?

She wasn't sex starved or anything like that. She didn't feel like a sex craved nymphomaniac, but she felt a definite desire for something, more like a hunger. She continually tried to cross her arms and inconspicuously attempt to knead her nipples to provide the relief they ached for, but it did little good. If anything, it just made her feel more frustrated. She was very relieved when Tina suggested they find a motel, so they pulled into the next available one.

As they pulled into the parking lot, Michelle allowed Tina to sort out the room details. At first, she was afraid that Tina might telephone the Falcons and report her position. She instantly realized that she had to stop such feelings of paranoia. She knew that she would have to start trusting someone eventually and if she couldn't bring herself to trust Tina now, she might as well give up.

When Tina returned with the room key, Michelle discovered that she would have to walk some thirty feet to the door of the room. Dressed as she was, that thirty feet seemed like a hundred miles. There was a diner across the parking lot and as soon as she closed the car door and started walking, she was sure that she could feel some eyes upon her.

When they were inside the room, Michelle felt the first thing she had to do was get out of her dress. She hated wearing it. She tried to reach behind and unzip it, but she couldn't manage it. Seeing her frustration, Tina stepped over and unzipped it for her. As the garment fell to the floor, Tina found that she was unable to tear her eyes away from Michelle's body.

Whenever a prospective person is transformed into Kithra, they effectively get to choose their own body, right down to the small details. However, they are given very strict warnings about going over the top because they will have to live with their new body for the rest of their lives. They spend many hours, going over the fine details with the person that will transform them. Therefore, they all good look, but none of them look as stunning as Michelle.

Tina was no exception to this. Before her transformation, she was a very ordinary nineteen-year-old girl with glasses. At the time of her transformation, Tina preferred the refined look, so her new body was slightly fuller with 36C breasts and a much more athletic body. Tina had been perfectly happy with the new self.

Over the years, Tina had occasionally turned herself into a sex goddess with a voluptuous body, much like Michelle's. She knew it could be fun for a few days, watching all the guys drooling over her, tripping over themselves and rushing to open the door for her. But she couldn't begin to imagine the problems involved in living like that permanently where the guys look no further than the bust line. Tina knew this was a problem Michelle would have to get used to by herself. Tina could only offer her support in that matter, but little else.

Tina's thoughts were broken when Michelle walked away and turned around. Tina looked at Michelle in her underwear, which only made her own arousal grow. She could see that Michelle was looking down at her breasts. Suddenly Tina noticed that Michelle's nipples were poking straight out. Even her bra couldn't hide the fact they were rock hard.

"Tina," Michelle asked looking up with an awkward expression on her face. "I have a question."

"Yes," Tina replied.

"Erm... it's err... kind of embarrassing," Michelle said, finding it difficult to phrase the question.

"What?" Tina asked.

"It's... err... just that... I-I've been so... horny today," Michelle said embarrassed, going slightly red.

Tina's eyes widened slightly. Although she remembered the pheromone enhancements, the other enhancement had slipped her mind. Because these enhancements were only temporary, she was hoping that she wouldn't have to tell Michelle about them. It seemed one thing too many for Michelle to handle. But Tina realized that it was bothering Michelle.

"Yeah. That's normal," she replied, thinking quickly. She thought that brushing it off might be the best approach. She didn't want to hide anything from Michelle, but she believed that it was in her best interests. She could understand that being turned into a woman was bad enough, but finding out that she would be a horny sex magnet would probably be too much.

"Normal?" Michelle asked.

Tina nodded. "It's a side effect of the transformation," Tina said truthfully, although she neglected to mention that she was responsible for that particular side effect. "You'll be horny for the next week or so. But after that, you'll be fine. You'll have a normal female sex drive."

"S-So I'm not turning into a bimbo then," Michelle said, seeking reassurance.

"No. Aw, did you think you were," Tina said, walking up to Michelle until she stood right in front of her. She could now understand why Michelle was so worried about feeling horny.

Michelle nodded, "Yeah. I err... thought that maybe because I looked so good, that I err... might be turning into a slut."

"No. It's just a side effect, nothing more," Tina said, taking her hand.

"So... err... what do I do now. I mean, how do I... err... stop feeling horny?" Michelle asked.

As Michelle was asking that question, she was half thinking that Tina would suggest taking an aspirin or something. But as soon as she completed her question, she realized that there was only one way to truly satisfy sexual cravings and Tina knew it as well. Their eyes locked together in silence. They were standing right in front of one another, less than a foot apart and an invisible force pulled their lips closer together until they finally touched.

The next few minutes were a complete blur to both Tina and Michelle. Before either of them could even think, they were both on the bed tenderly kissing and touching one another.

Before she could do anything, Michelle found herself lying on her back as Tina straddled her stomach. Tina's hands found their way to Michelle's bra and her palms rubbed Michelle's hard nipples through her bra.

Michelle groaned involuntarily. Her body had been strained to the point of sexual frustration. She had no idea what Tina could do to help her, but at that point, she didn't care. She just wanted Tina to keep doing what she was doing.

Tina sat up and slowly unbuttoned her blouse. Although Michelle was in her underwear, Tina was still fully clothed. Tina took her time with each button, teasing Michelle to the limit. Michelle had been long dreaming of the time when she would finally see Tina in all her naked female glory. She never imagined that she would also be a naked female

In a matter of minutes, they were both naked and cavorting on the bed. Tina was in awe of Michelle's sexual body. In all her years as a witch, she had only made love to other Kithra. Because of that, her partners could be in several guises and she had often made love to the bodies of various movie stars and other famous people. But there was always something special about making love to another Kithra in their natural form.

Tina also had to marvel Michelle's natural form; with her soft curvy body, her full lips and incredible breasts. Her body was truly perfect.

Tina resumed her position of straddling Michelle's stomach. Smiling devilishly, she put her right down to Michelle's groin. After a little more teasing, she inserted first one, then a second finger into Michelle's wet hole, relieving the craving Michelle ached for.

She then rested her own groin on the back of her hand, then slowly, Tina started pumping her whole body in and out.

Michelle, who was lying on her back, could do nothing but allow Tina to finger fuck her. Each thrust from Tina elicited an involuntary gasp of pleasure from Michelle.

As Michelle's hands moved to caress her breasts, her pleasure level was sent skyward.

"Oh God," she cried as Tina ruthlessly pumped her as Michelle's groans grew louder. Michelle tried to stay quiet, but she couldn't. It was like a reflex reaction. Every time Tina's fingers pushed into her hole, she felt compelled to gasp.

"Oh God," Michelle repeated a few minutes later as she felt a familiar sensation; a sensation that she had felt two days ago in her hotel room.

"I think I'm gonna come," Michelle cried as she felt an approaching orgasm. Part of her wanted to resist, not wanting to accept that most feminine thing. But although she easily had the physical strength to stop Tina, she couldn't do it. Her body wouldn't let her. She had to let Tina fuck her.

Tina didn't let up. In fact, she pushed harder and deeper, using every method she could to push Michelle over the edge.

"Oh God," Michelle cried one last time as she reached a peak and the first wave came crashing down upon her. Michelle's whole body shook as she cried out. Michelle tried to stop herself from screaming, but it was impossible. She couldn't control herself.

Tina still did not let up. She continued to fuck Michelle relentlessly, thrilled that she had been able to provide such pleasure for Michelle. Just as Tina saw that Michelle was beginning to come down from her heights, Tina renewed her efforts and pushed further, forcing Michelle to climax hard again.

After what seemed an eternity, Michelle came down from her second successive orgasm. Tina finally slowed her pace and eventually stopped. Michelle was relieved. She didn't think she could take any more. The jerk off in the hotel room two days ago had been good, but it didn't even begin to compare to what she'd just felt.

Tina eventually withdrew her soaking wet hand. She then moved up the bed, finally straddling Michelle's face, with her pussy just inches above her mouth.

"Your turn," Tina said.

Michelle hesitated for full second, before her head lifted up and her tongue darted out of her mouth and into Tina's waiting pussy.

After the extreme pleasure that Tina had enforced upon her, Michelle felt obligated to repay the gesture.

Michelle licked tenderly on Tina's pussy, sucking and probing her enlarged clitoris. Finger fucking Michelle had left Tina so sexually frustrated that she had to have her own relief. As she looked down and saw Michelle eating her out, she knew that her own climax would not be far away.

"Yeah. Bring me off," Tina whispered.

Michelle had never quite known what to do when performing oral sex on a woman, but right now, she knew that she was doing something right, so she simply pushed her tongue in deeper.

Tina orgasmed soon afterwards. Although Tina's body shuddered and she gave a loud moan, Michelle instantly noticed that Tina's climax had been nothing compared to her own. Michelle continued to lick away at Tina's juices until Tina came down completely from her peak.

"See," Tina said when it was finally over as she lay beside Michelle. "Being a woman's not so bad."

Michelle just smiled back; not saying anything because she felt embarrassed that she'd enjoyed it so much. They were just lying on the bed as Tina continued to stroke Michelle's body.

Tina felt a little guilty. She had promised to herself that she would not give in to the pheromones that compelled her to make love to Michelle. But when she was standing in front of Michelle and she told Tina that she was equally horny, Tina found that she simply couldn't hold out. Her body didn't act fully under her own control.

Still, it appeared to work out all right. Michelle, although embarrassed, had clearly enjoyed it and it did solve her horniness.

"God that felt good," Michelle said after a pause. "Why did it feel so good?" she asked Tina.

"Because that's what your body was designed for," Tina replied.

"But I thought you said I won't turn into a bimbo," Michelle said, with the tone of her voice showing some concern.

"You won't," Tina replied. "I told you that you'd be horny for the next few weeks. But your body was designed for sex. It's very... sensitive in those places. You won't always be horny, but you'll always... enjoy sex."

"B-But if I'm gonna enjoy it so much, what's to stop me from turning into a slut anyway?" Michelle asked, worried.

Tina swallowed, worried about that very fact, but she did her best to hide it from Michelle. "A lot. Nothing's changed up top. It's still you in there," Tina said as she tapped Michelle's forehead. "There's a big difference between a girl that's horny and a girl that enjoys sex. Right now, you're both, but it'll be okay."

Michelle relaxed again, assured by Tina's comments, but Tina was still very anxious, because she knew that even after Michelle's hormone level dropped to normal levels, she would still be left with a body that was designed for one thing in mind - sex. That sex session had just confirmed one of Tina's fears. Michelle's body was extremely sensitive in certain places. Tina saw that Michelle could do nothing but allow Tina to please her. She was helpless.

Because of that, Tina also knew, that if Michelle did ever allow a man just to touch her in those areas, she would probably find her heart melting quicker than an ice cube in Arizona.

What frightened Tina was the fact that if Michelle did start to enjoy sex so much, she could so easily become addicted to it. Tina, like all the other Kithra, had the ability to increase her own body's sexual sensitivity so she knew how addictive it could be. The only thing that held back those addictions was the fact that such sensitivity could only be temporary.

However, for Michelle, such sensitivity was permanent. If she ever learned magic, she could decrease her sensitivity temporarily, but by that time, she might not want to. In short, although Tina had denied it, she knew that it was possible that Michelle could end up as a slutty bimbo over time.

But in the end, Tina knew that all she could do was guide Michelle and help her. She wanted to try to avoid it, because if Michelle did up end as a bimbo, Tina would feel as if she killed Michael by transforming him. Tina knew that the old Michael was already gone forever and a gradual change was inevitable. However, Michael would continue to live on in Michelle and Tina wanted to try to ensure that as much of Michael's personality remained intact.

"So how long will that satisfy me for?" Michelle eventually asked in a joking nature, breaking Tina's thoughts.

"I don't know," Tina replied. "Like I said, your horny nature is a side effect of the transformation," again, Tina neglected to tell Michelle that she was completely responsible for that particular side effect. "But it'll settle down in time, say about a week."

Michelle didn't exactly like the idea of being a horny female for week, but she felt reassured that Tina was there to help her through it all.

"What would happen if you weren't here to satisfy me?" Michelle asked.

"You'd probably end up screwing a guy," Tina joked back, which made Michelle look very nervous. The mere thought that she could ever have sex with a guy was very unnerving for her.

"Hey, that was a joke," Tina reassured but she could see from the look on Michelle's face that she was far from being totally assured. "Look. You don't ever have to have sex with a guy if you don't want to. You can spend the rest of your life being a lesbian if you want."

"But it's no unnatural being a lesbian," Michelle complained without thinking. She stopped herself instantly as she realized she arguing for herself to sleep with a guy. A very insecure feeling swept through her.

"Don't worry," Tina reassured. "You'll be fine. If you want to sleep with a guy, then go ahead. If not, then don't. And if you do ever want to try it, you don't have to go and pick up a guy. I can always grow a cock for a short time if you want," Tina paused allowing Michelle to think, "it's not a problem. Take your time."

Michelle was slightly reassured. Although Tina had transformed her, she still trusted Tina. She felt that Tina would never allow her to come to any harm.

"So Tina. If I ever become a full witch, what powers will I have? I mean what can you do?" Michelle asked. Although she was still thinking from the tactical point of view, Michelle was asking it more out of curiosity now.

"Well, we're very powerful, but only in a narrow field. You see, apart from a few exceptions, our powers only affect living things. We can transform people. We can heal our bodies, so we never get sick or ill and we can keep a youthful appearance."

"So, will I ever die then," Michelle interrupted.

"Yes. We're not immortal. If you walk outside and a truck knocks you over, you'll die. We can't heal fatal wounds, just as we can't prevent death. When your time comes, that's it. But we can prolong it. You'll live until you're at least ninety and anything up to a hundred and fifty without aging a single day unless you want to."

"So what about other things, say..." Michelle paused, "telekinesis."

"No. That's beyond our power" Tina replied, which shocked Michelle. "Like I said, we can only affect living things. We can hurt people if we want to. We can create illusions in people's mind and we can even make ourselves invisible to normal people. We have limited mind control and telepathy, but we can't turn lead into gold or anything like that. We can't affect anything inanimate."

"So... in the wider sense, you're not all that powerful then, are you?" Michelle pointed out.

Tina shook her head, "No and against other witches, even that power becomes useless. But the power we have gives us an edge in life. We all live very comfortable lives and because of that, a lot of us will... do anything to protect our lifestyle."

Michelle fully understood was Tina was trying to say. Her own telekinetic powers gave her a different, but equal edge in life and although her own powers were minor compared to theirs, Michelle could live an extremely comfortable life with the aid of her telekinetic powers.

However, the news that the witches did not have the power of telekinesis was shocking. Michelle would have been prepared to bet that her telekinetic powers had something to do with Tina's witch powers, but that hypothesis was starting to look very shaky.

Michelle was just beginning to feel that maybe she might have found a new home with these witches. She was even thinking about telling Tina about her powers, believing it may help her cause to be accepted. But when Tina told her that telekinesis was not possible, Michelle withdrew from her plan.

As Michelle turned to look at Tina, she noticed a small circular pendant on her neck. Although she hadn't paid much attention to it before, it had the engraving of a bird on it, which Michelle guessed was a falcon.

Tina noticed where Michelle's eyes were concentrated. "It's the symbol of our group," she said as she picked it up in her hand.

"Here, you wear it," Tina suggested.

"Oh no, I couldn't," Michelle replied. She could tell that the pendant was dear to Tina's heart.

"No. I insist. I can always get another one," Tina said as she unfastened the chain.

Michelle relented so Tina fastened the chain around her smooth neck. "You're one of us now," she said as she kissed Michelle gently on the neck. The couple continued to cuddle one another, finally falling to sleep in each other's arms.

Chapter Fourteen ================

Mary was slumped over her desk as she woke up very early in her small makeshift office at the mansion. Despite intensive searching, they had been unable to track down Michelle or Tina.

Mary was all too aware that their resources were spread very thinly. Because they couldn't arouse any suspicion within the other groups, Mary knew that she could only bring in a limited number to help with the search. In total, she knew that she only had around thirty members at her disposal, with another ten flying in from California.

The airport and train stations had been the first to cover. But even so, Mary knew that Michelle and Tina could have been on the road all night. They could be at least five hundred miles away. As Mary was studying a map, she realized that it would be an impossible task to cover all the roads. It was obvious that Tina would do everything possible to attempt to evade detection.

It would help Mary a lot if she could guess their likely destination. Mary only had two possible guesses, namely New Jersey and Canada. Therefore, most of the personnel had been sent to either New Jersey, or the Canadian border.

Mary put down the map and rubbed her eyes. Even now, she still couldn't work out exactly how Michelle had escaped. She also couldn't decide whether she had been helped. At first, the facts appeared to indicate that Tina and Sarah had collectively sprung Michelle, with Sarah unlocking the window and Tina waiting for Michelle in the woods.

But after Mary had interviewed Monica, she was beginning to rethink things. Monica said that Tina had seemed genuinely shocked to see Michelle there. Furthermore, the only key to the window in the room had been accounted for. It seemed that the most likely explanation was that Michelle managed to pick the window lock, climb down to the ground, clear the perimeter fence and accidentally meet up with Tina. It seemed far-fetched, but so far, it was the only explanation that managed to fit the facts.

Mary held in her hand a small smooth stone. She knew that stone would be the key to recovering them both. It was because of such stones that no member had ever successfully left. Although their powers could not affect inanimate objects directly, their most powerful members had the ability to enchant inanimate objects with vast quantities of magic, in effect creating a magical battery. This energy could then be used a later stage. They only had a few of these power stones.

The stone Mary was holding had been an ordinary beach stone, until a few years ago when it was enchanted with the ability to incapacitate a witch, even with their magical protection and furthermore, it's enormous power meant that it could be used at a distance. Ever since the main transformation spell included magical protection, all the groups had done extensive research into spells that could somehow break through that protection, as it would give them a tremendous edge. So far, a power stone was the only thing.

But it still had strict limitations. Unfortunately for Michelle, no such stone could transform a witch. Also, this particular stone could only be used against a member of their own group and only then, if activated by someone emotionally close to the target.

That meant that it couldn't be used against Michelle, because none of them were emotionally close enough to her. However, it could be used to disable Tina. Mary guessed that without Tina, Michelle would find it impossible to survive and they would pick her up very quickly. Furthermore, any such Kithra attacked with this stone would be magically highlighted for some time afterwards so they could easily be tracked down.

Although Mary was close to Tina, the only two people really close enough were her mother and brother. At that point, Mary wondered how she could convince either of them to co-operate.

The second problem was that although it could be used at a range, it's range was still limited to less than ten miles, so currently, getting Sarah or Andrew to activate it was a moot point, unless they could get a lead on Michelle and Tina's position.

She put down the stone and considered the possibilities. She could see that the whole situation was threatening to rip their group apart. Divisions were already starting to appear. Michelle's escape had just entrenched each side in their positions. Ever since her escape, Sarah had been busy mobilizing support for Michelle within the group.

Hank's supporters were saying that Michelle's escape proves how dangerous she is and that she should be shot on sight. On the other hand, Sarah's supporters were citing that Michelle's escape was simply due to the terrible way that they had treated her since her transformation and anyone else would have done the same.

Both sides were in a minority. In the middle was the bulk of their group, who were decent honest and caring people. Mary knew that when the crunch came, they would not allow Hank to carry out his aim as long as Michelle was in their custody. However, she also knew Hank's actions twenty years earlier allowed him some extra leeway and Michelle was no longer in the relative protection of the mansion.

Mary knew that Michelle's best chance of survival lay with her quick recapture. Keeping her locked up may seem inhuman, but it really was the safest place for her. Hank and his gang were out there looking for her with the other teams. Despite strict orders from the Council, everyone knew that Hank was on a search-and-destroy mission and if he found her first...

Her concentration was broken by the sound of her cellphone ringing. She picked it up and answered it.

"Hello."

"Hi there, Mary. It's Richard. Sorry it's early, but you told me to ring first thing in the morning."

"Oh, yeah," Mary replied, remembering the fact that Richard was in New Jersey investigating Michael Curtis's background. "Where have you been. I've been trying to get hold of you all night?" Mary asked.

"I lost my cellphone with my luggage at the airport. Why? What's wrong?" Richard asked, detecting something wrong it Mary's voice.

"It's Michelle... err Michael. She escaped last night."

"Escaped," Richard half yelled, the shock in his voice obvious. "How?"

"Well it looks like she picked the lock in the secure room and escaped that way. Then it looks like Tina found her and they escaped together. We think they might have gone to New Jersey. I've got ten people on their way to you. They should be with you in a few hours."

"Shit," Richard replied.

"Yeah. I know," Mary stated. "Richard. What have you found out about Michael Curtis? Who the hell was he? So far, we discover he's a martial artist, master lockpicker and God knows what else. I mean who was this Michael Curtis, fucking James Bond."

"Huh, funny you should say that," Richard said. "I've been thinking the same myself."

"Why?" Mary asked.

"Well, remember back in California. She really beat up those rapists. She even broke bones."

"Yeah," Mary stated. "That was weird. But she is into martial arts. Those guys weren't expecting a fight back and she got lucky," Mary pointed out, not quite sure what point Richard was trying to make.

"Then why can't I find any indication of martial arts in her house. I've looked right through. There's no trace of any medals, trophies, no colored belt, no Karate robe and no telephone numbers of any clubs. If she was into martial arts, there isn't a trace of it in her house."

Mary was silent. She thought back to the fight she witnessed earlier. It then occurred to her that Michelle didn't fight like someone trained in martial arts. In fact she just kicked and flailed around like a girl and it was only because of her apparent strength that temporarily allowed her to flee.

"Then there's his past," Richard said, now referring to Michelle in the male sense. "It's all shaky. He hasn't done anything in the past three years, but he has lots of money in the bank from cash deposits. I'm wondering if this guy is CIA or something like that and his accident three years ago is just a cover story. Maybe the real Michael Curtis did die and this new person took over his place. I'm beginning to wonder if they are even his real family."

"How will you know," Mary asked.

"Well as soon as the body is discovered in California, I'm going to accompany the police officer that goes to his parents house. I'll try and scan them and see what I can find out."

"Right. Keep me informed. Right now any information helps."

"Okay", Richard agreed. "How did they actually get away from the mansion then?" Richard asked.

"We're still not sure how Michelle escaped from the room, but Michelle and Tina escaped in Monica's Mercedes. We haven't been able to trace either of them since. They could be anywhere now."

There was a slight pause from Richard before he said, "Don't you have any idea where they are?"

"No. All we know is that they're in Monica's car. She had her cellphone in the car and I've tried ringing it just so that I can speak to them and plead for them to come back, but there's no response. Monica thinks she put it on vibrate mode. Either that, or they've got rid of it."

There was another lengthy pause from Richard. "Did you say that they've got Monica's cellphone with them."

"Well, yeah," Mary replied, unsure of Richard's questioning.

"And it's definitely switched on?" he asked.

"Yes. I just tried to ring it a short time ago, but there was no answer. Like I said, Monica thinks she left it on vibrate mode earlier today and forgot to switch it back. Why? What are you driving at?"

"Well, I'm thinking of the 911 control center in San Diego. You do know that cellphones can be traced," Richard stated.

"I know you can trace the number, but we need to know where it is," Mary said.

"That's what I mean. You CAN trace a cellphone," Richard tried to explain. "Look, I'm not sure how they do it, but the cellphone company can do some sort of triangulation on the nearest base stations to the phone as long as it's switched on. We use it in the force when we get someone needing help, but they don't have any idea where they are. It's still in the trial stages and the it'll take some convincing, but it can be done."

Tina awoke early the next morning. Almost immediately, she began to feel the pull of Michelle's chemical attractions. At first, she tried to resist them, but she quickly retreated from that policy as her hands started straying towards Michelle's soft body.

She initially felt guilty at her actions, but she quickly reconciled her conscience by convincing herself that Michelle needed some sex to relieve her horniness, so in a way, Tina would be doing Michelle a favor by making love to her.

Michelle was facing Tina and she could see that Michelle was still asleep. Tina reached over and picked up some of Michelle's honey hair and pulled it in front of her. As Michelle began to wake up, Tina gently pulled the hair taught and teased Michelle's nipple with the strands of her own hair.

The nipple quickly hardened as Michelle opened her eyes. As Michelle realized what was happened, Tina saw a look of lust of her eyes.

Grinning slightly, Tina pushed herself down the bed and twisted her body. She carefully parted Michelle's legs and gently pushed her tongue onto the edges of Michelle's vaginal lips. Michelle, seeing Tina's legs at her end of the bed, couldn't resist the opportunity for a sixty-nine position.

Over the next half-hour, they continued to lick, suck and probe with their fingers. Tina's actions, brought Michelle yet more incredible pleasure as she cried out frequently. Tina noticed that Michelle's orgasms were very pronounced. There was nothing half-hearted about her climaxes. Tina guessed that this was yet another side effect of her sexy body.

Later, Tina helped Michelle to brush out her long hair, then weaved it into a long braid. It was a strange sensation for Michelle. It felt like a long tail hanging down from her head, but it was considerably easier than the mane of hair it had been earlier. It made her think that perhaps living with long hair wasn't quite as bad as she first thought, although she knew that she had a long way to go before she could ever accept it.

As Tina was finishing her hair, it gave Michelle an opportunity to for solid reflection of the facts. Yesterday had been full of emotion, but today her head was much clearer.

"What are we gonna do then?" Michelle asked Tina, now thinking about the future. Although she still hated it, she was beginning to accept the simple fact that she would have to spend a good part, if not all of the next eighteen months as a blonde bombshell.

"I've been thinking about that," Tina responded. "First, we need to get some money. It'll take a little time, but I can use my magic to help us there. Then we need to leave the country so they can't track us down. We can go to Europe. Most of witches have remained in the States, so we should be safe there. Then I'll teach you everything you need to know. First about being a woman, then about being a witch. I'll teach you all the magic I know."

Tina was gesturing with her hands for extra emphasis. Michelle noted that Tina seemed so much more energetic and bubbly, "You see, I've been thinking. The reason why people will want to kill you is that they see you as a threat. If we can somehow show them that you're not a threat; that you're a responsible person with magic, even the Raven's might accept you."

"So you're saying that I need to prove myself as a witch, then I might be accepted," Michelle said. At that moment, she wondered about her telekinetic powers. Although she now knew that the witches didn't posses that power, she believed she had used them wisely so it may help her case.

"Right," Tina said interrupting Michelle's thoughts. "That way, we could return home and maybe even get you turned back in fifteen months if that's what you want."

"What do you mean 'if that's what I want'. Believe me Tina, I WANT TO," Michelle stated.

"Michelle," Tina started. "I know that right now you'd probably do anything to be a guy again, but you've gotta realize that fifteen months is a long time. Your reasons for going back just won't be as strong and you might be settled by then. Next year, going back might not be the most important thing in your life."

Tina didn't have the heart to tell Michelle that even after fifteen months, her chances of being turned back were not certain. But like her mother, Tina could see the need for Michelle to have something to cling to, so she remained quiet on that point.

As much as she hated to admit it, Michelle was forced to agree partially to what Tina was saying. Although it was only three days into her life as a woman, she could see that her old life was already gone. Even if she could go back in fifteen months, she knew that she would have no friends or family, since they were now already lost to her.

Mary was sitting with Sarah in the back seat of the chopper as they sped to their destination. As soon as Richard had informed Mary that cellphones could be traced, she immediately instructed him to do whatever it took to find Tina's location.

Richard had visited the New York Police Department and used a mixture of his contacts as a Detective and magical influence to get the police to contact the cellphone company and track down Monica's cellphone.

The trace on the phone wasn't completely accurate, but still accurate down to a few miles. It had given the location of the phone as being in a town a few hundred miles West, in New York State, and also, in a stationary position.

From the location, Mary didn't believe that they were headed for New Jersey. Instead, Mary guessed that Niagara was their most likely destination. She had diverted as many persons from surrounding areas as she could to converge on those two areas. However, at the same time, she wanted to keep some people in reserve, just in case they had already discarded the cellphone and the reading they received was completely false.

Mary was using the chopper to go ahead, but because they wanted to be sure of recapturing both Tina and Michelle, Mary needed to wait for backup to arrive as Tina could be alerted by the presence of a number of incoming witches, especially those within her own group.

Tracking down another Kithra was not nearly as easy an operation as most people thought. Mary knew that Tina would have plenty of options at her disposal to evade detection. They needed to make sure that they covered all the bases before going in.

Mary held the power stone in her pocket. This was the break they needed to recapture them. All they had to do was get close enough to Tina to use the power stone. Sarah could then use it to incapacitate Tina until they reached her. Once they had negated Tina, recapturing Michelle would be an easy matter.

Mary had insisted that Andrew was kept at the mansion under guard. Mary had to convince Sarah to use the power stone against her daughter. She gave a brief glance over at Sarah, who had remained silent throughout the entire journey.

Mary's hopes were raised. All she had to do was make sure that they were both recaptured with very little fuss. It would prove to all those neutral members within their group that Michelle was no threat to them and is, in fact simply a person who desperately needs their help.

Chapter Fifteen ===============

Michelle relaxed as she floated two feet above the bed. Tina had gone out briefly to get some shopping, hopefully to get some clothes for Michelle to wear. Michelle had initially attempted her feminine poise again, but instead, when her powers woke up early again, she decided to use the opportunity to relax in that most unique way.

Michelle loved doing this. As well as being able to create a force with her mind, her powers also allowed her to negate forces, particularly gravity. The feeling of floating and weightlessness was exhilarating, like no other. It also allowed her to partially forget what had happened to her. For the first time in three days, she could no longer feel the weight of her large boobs on her chest, although she could still feel the sensations from them, largely because she had a bra strapped to her chest.

Michelle had stripped down to her bra and panties to float in the air because her dress was too restrictive. She decided that she would have to get rid of that dress as soon as possible. As she looked down at herself and she saw her long tail of hair floating in front of her face, she couldn't help but get slightly aroused again, despite the fact that Tina had relieved those feelings earlier. Tina had told her she would feel very horny for the next few weeks, but she had no idea just how horny.

Michelle couldn't believe how much she had enjoyed making love to Tina. It had felt far better than any sex she had experienced as a man. Tina explained to Michelle that this was perfectly normal because her body was designed for sex. Apparently, any of the witches could transform themselves and make their bodies equally enjoyable for temporary periods, but for Michelle it would be the other way around.

Tina also explained that if Michelle learned magic, she would be able to turn herself into a guy, with an equally sensitive body, which interested Michelle. The mere thought of having a cock that was as sensitive as her new groin made her get all wet.

As Michelle began to slide a hand down to her sex and have a gentle play around, she suddenly heard a sound at the door, which broke her concentration. As soon as her concentration was disturbed, Michelle felt the force of gravity began to return as she gently fell toward the bed. Although she could have easily remained airborne, she allowed herself to gently land on the bed. She sat up as she heard a key being inserted into the lock before the door was opened and Tina entered the room.

"Hi. You were quick," as Michelle walked over to greet her still in her underwear. She was expecting to have much more time.

"Well I didn't want to leave you alone for too long," Tina said.

"Hey, I've been feminized, not crippled. I can take care of myself," Michelle stated, although she could understand Tina's worry. They hadn't traveled all that far yesterday and they were still in "enemy territory".

Tina looked up and down Michelle's body noticing the fact that she wasn't wearing her dress anymore. Michelle saw where Tina was looking and struggled to give an explanation.

"Oh. I was err... you know..." Michelle said as she felt her face flush red slightly.

"It's alright. I understand. I told you you'd be horny for the next few weeks. Don't feel embarrassed about it," Tina said believing Michelle had been playing with herself on the bed, although Tina was slightly concerned that Michelle was playing with herself so soon after she had made love to her.

"So what did you get," Michelle asked, changing the subject and interested to see what Tina had bought.

As Tina emptied the bag containing an assortment of items, Michelle instantly saw a small box and picked it up. She had seen these items many times before, but she never had any use for them.

"Tampons. Are these for you or..." Michelle's words trailed off.

"You," Tina replied. "My periods not due yet. We want to be prepared, don't we."

"Yeah. Sure," Michelle replied, with an obvious lack of enthusiasm for having a period. "When will my first one be then."

"Anytime in the next month. You see guys have their own menstrual cycle as well, but they just don't have any symptoms. If you get the timing wrong, it's possible to get transformed straight into a period."

Michelle put down the box. The thought of actually having a period made her physically shudder.

"Oh, I even got us some new wheels," Tina said as she held up a set of keys. "See that Chrysler in the parking lot. That's our new car."

"How did you manage that," Michelle asked.

"A little mind control with the owner. I gave him the Mercedes. Tomorrow, when it wears off, he'll wonder how his Chrysler turned into a Mercedes, but that's not our problem," Tina giggled. Although Tina was generally very honest and did not use her powers for such gain, it was an emergency. They needed to swap cars.

"Didn't they have any clothes?" Michelle asked, feeling a little exposed in her underwear.

"Sorry. It was only a small store. I thought about going into town, but I didn't want to leave you for too long."

Michelle nodded, slightly dejected, "I was hoping I wouldn't have to put that damn dress back on again," she said as she walked over and picked it up. "I know I'm a woman now and I know I should wear dresses, but just... not yet."

"I know how you feel," Tina said sympathetically. "I'm sure Mom only made you wear it because she thought it was in your best interests. We'll get you some pants later. You'll feel more comfortable in them. But we can't go crazy with shopping. I only have two hundred dollars and that has to last us for a while. I can use my magic to get us all the money we need, but that will take a little time."

As Michelle was putting her dress back on, she thought about her emergency stash in Vegas. If anything counted as an emergency, her current situation did. That money could be very useful. "Well, I think I can help there."

"How?" Tina inquired as she helped to zip Michelle's dress back up.

"I have some money hidden away. Money that no one knows about. We can use that."

"Michelle. We can't go back to New Jersey. I know you want to go there, but it's the first place they'll look," Tina said. She knew that it would be hard for Michelle to accept the fact that she had lost her friends and family and going back to New Jersey would be very dangerous and emotional.

"It's not in New Jersey," Michelle stated. She would have dearly liked to go back, but she was only too aware of the dangers. It was the first place they would look for her.

"Oh, well then sure. Where is it?" Tina asked, her curiosity aroused.

Michelle realized that one answer was leading to another question. If she went any further, she knew she would have to tell Tina about her telekinetic powers. In the following few seconds, Michelle decided that the time to tell someone about her powers had finally come.

"Tina," Michelle started. "I've got a few things to tell you. Things you don't know about me. In fact, I've got a secret, a big secret. Why don't I make us a morning coffee and then we can sit down and talk about it."

Tina had a puzzled look on her face, but she just smiled and nodded. Michelle turned and walked away to make a coffee. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly as she poured the hot water into the cup. In three years, Michelle had never told a soul about her powers. At first, she wanted to tell everyone and share it with the world, but after a time she got so used to keeping it secret that it became so natural to her.

She was also nervous as to how Tina might take the news that she had telekinetic powers, because right now, Tina was quite prepared to throw her life away in order to help Michelle, mostly because Tina believed that she was entirely to blame for what happened.

But Michelle wondered how Tina would she feel if she knew that the reason for her spell being screwed up was Michelle's fault. Their feelings for one another ran much deeper than that and Michelle guessed Tina would fully understand, but she couldn't be sure. A part of Michelle told her that she should keep it secret from Tina.

But as risky as telling Tina might be, Michelle knew that she couldn't keep it a secret from Tina any longer. If Tina was prepared to go on the run with her for what could be the rest of her life, then she had no right to withhold that information. It was the time when she would finally reveal her power to another person.

Michelle returned with the coffee mugs. She placed her own mug on her side of the table, but as she was about to hand Tina her mug, she thought that the best way to explain her powers would be a demonstration.

"Hey, look at this trick," Michelle said.

Michelle placed the whole mug on the tip of her finger and spun it around slowly in the air with her other hand. The mug was spinning on the tip of her long fingernail.

"Huh, cool," Tina replied, impressed that Michelle had such amazing co-ordination with her new nails. The mug just seemed to be hovering on her fingertip.

"Now, this is the secret I have," Michelle said. She then lowered her hand completely, leaving the mug spinning in the air.

Tina's jaw dropped open about as far as it would go as she looked over at Michelle who appeared to be faintly smiling back. She tried to speak but she was completely lost for words. She couldn't utter a single sound.

Michelle carefully lowered the mug onto the table with her powers.

"H-How did you do that," Tina eventually asked. Her mind was now racing with the possibilities of how Michelle had seemingly done the impossible. Was it some sort of trick? Even a witch couldn't do what she just did.

"Sit down," Michelle said. "This may take a while to explain."

Sarah was mulling over her possibilities as she saw another fleet of cars pull into the rendezvous point. The plan was for them to circle around and close off all the possible exits. Sarah would then use the power stone to incapacitate Tina and they would then move in to capture them both. Although Michelle was the primary target, everyone knew that without Tina, Michelle would be easy pickings.

"Sarah," Mary said, walking up to her. "I can promise you that Tina will come to no harm and that I'll do the best I can for Michelle. But if we don't get them both, I can't give you any guarantees. You don't want either of them to be hurt, do you?" Mary said. She was playing a bit of emotional blackmail to get Sarah to go along with the plan.

"Fuck you Mary," Sarah shouted back surprising Mary as Sarah's coarse language. "How dare you say something like that. I don't want to see anyone hurt."

"I know this is hard for you," Mary said.

"No you don't," Sarah retorted. "When was the last time someone saved your life and then you had to deliver them so that they might be harmed. You've got no fucking idea what this is like," Sarah snapped back. She remembered Michelle saying something similar about what it felt like to be turned into a woman. She was beginning to see her side of the argument now.

"We don't know for sure what will happen to Michelle," Mary pointed out, thinking perhaps she misread the situation slightly. She truly couldn't imagine how hard it was for Sarah; being asked to aid their recapture, especially when Mary couldn't give absolute guarantees as to what would happen.

"Mary, why don't we just let them go," Sarah pleaded with Mary. "They won't hurt anyone."

"Sarah. You know it's not that simple. Even if they don't cause trouble now, what will happen in twenty years time when they have their own children? They'll want to transform them and make them witches. Then what will happen twenty years after that?" Mary stated. Although what she had said was very rhetorical, there was a very serious side. The Ravens had started out as just a single couple leaving the Hawks. Since then all groups had applied strict rules that no-one could ever leave unless they were first stripped of their powers at the time of the Spectacle.

"I need to pee," Sarah stated, not wanting to continue the conversation further, mostly because Mary was making a good argument. She headed for the washroom. Mary insisted that an escort go with her. Although she didn't believe Sarah would attempt to alert Tina, she couldn't afford to take the chance.

"How long till we've got them caged in," Mary asked a man.

"We've just finished briefing the final teams. They've now gotta circle round. It'll be an hour before all the roads are blocked off." Mary nodded.

Tina was still partially reeling from the shock of what she had been seen. Michelle had carefully described how she obtained her powers of telekinesis and how she had refined them over the years.

The new information explained a lot of things to Tina. While Tina couldn't be sure, she already suspected that it was the reason why her spell went so badly wrong. It also explained how Michelle had been so strong, despite having a body to the contrary.

However, it raised just as many new questions. What exactly was Michelle? How could she, through an accident gain the sort of power that no Kithra was capable of? Was she some sort of Kithra herself? These questions and others immediately sprang to Tina's mind.

Tina had asked Michelle some questions about her powers to try and work out if they were just a derivative of her own powers. She listened to Michelle's descriptions of her powers and noted some striking similarities. Michelle told Tina that her telekinetic powers were line of sight, unless she could find some other way to focus her power. It was an accurate description of how Tina's witch powers worked. Kithra also needed line of sight to direct their powers, unless they could telepathically link with their target, which could only be done if they had a close emotional link with the person.

However, there were other aspects about Michelle's powers that did not sound similar, like the way Michelle actually used her power. Firstly, although her powers was intermittent, Michelle appeared to have limitless use of them while they were working, seemingly able to use her powers all day long. This was in stark contrast to Tina's own powers, where she only had a limited amount of magic at her disposal.

Also, Michelle needed to constantly maintain her concentration when she used her powers, whereby Tina's magic had a sense of permanency about it. Even when doing temporary things, like transforming herself, all she had to do was concentrate at the start and then forget about it until she wanted the spell to end.

The final thing to consider was the fact that Michelle had been able to use her powers in her room, despite the fact that no spells could be cast in that room. No witch would have been able to use their power in that room, yet Michelle had.

Considering everything, Tina couldn't make up her mind if Michelle's powers were just a different type of witch power or... something completely different.

Michelle also told Tina how lonely she had felt after gaining her powers. Tina could sympathize with her there. After she was turned into Kithra, she had to effectively say goodbye to all her old friends who were not part of the witch community. But Tina gained new friends to compensate. Tina couldn't imagine the loneliness Michelle would have felt, not being able to share her experiences with others.

"So... why didn't you tell everyone about this yesterday?" Tina asked Michelle.

"I was scared," Michelle replied honestly. "I didn't know what was going on. No one was telling me a thing and when I overheard them saying that they were gonna kill me, I used my powers to escape. Will it make a difference now? Will they accept me if they know about these powers?" Michelle asked.

Tina thought carefully about the internal politics, "They might. It would definitely make it easier for the Falcons to accept you. Technically, you might even be a witch already if that's what these powers are," she said before thinking. "But, if they're not the same as witch powers, they might just perceive you as an even bigger threat than before, because you can do something they can't. You have a power they don't. The other groups definitely will think of you as a threat."

"That's kinda what I thought," Michelle nodded. "So what do we do?"

Tina kept thinking, "Same as before," she concluded. "We'll still leave the country and hide. Then we can experiment and see if this telekinesis is like my magic. At the same time, I can sound out the ground back here. I'm sure we'll be able to work something out."

Michelle nodded smiling. For the first time, she could actually see where she was going. As an architect, Michelle always liked to see a full game plan before setting out and it was being kept in the dark that made her so frustrated over the past few days.

"Michelle. You didn't tell me about this last night, so why are you telling me now?" Tina asked.

Michelle paused before speaking. It was now her time to feel guilty from a question. "Well, I didn't tell you last night because I was sort of afraid that you might not help me because this was all my own fault. But when I saw that you were going to throw away your life to go on the run with me, I just... had to tell you," Michelle said meekly.

Tina stood up and walked over to Michelle. "Michelle. This isn't your fault," Tina stated, amazed that Michelle could think to blame herself.

"But it isn't your fault either," Michelle pointed out.

Tina opened her mouth to speak when she suddenly realized what Michelle was trying to say. Tina had spent the past few days trying to work out what she had done wrong. Everyone had been telling her she did nothing wrong, but deep down she just didn't believe them.

Now she realized that she didn't do anything wrong. The problem was Michelle's telekinetic powers somehow interfering Tina's witch powers. But that didn't make it Michelle's fault either. It was an accident, pure and simple. Tina could finally see that.

Michelle stood up as she reached the same conclusion. They hugged one another tightly. Tears formed in both of their eyes as they shed the strong emotions.

"No more blaming ourselves, okay," Tina said, crying slightly.

"Agreed," Michelle replied, also beginning to cry.

The couple remained in that position for several minutes.

Hank was standing by his car as they prepared to move out. They were waiting for the final confirmation that the net was closed around Tina and Michelle, then they would go in and recapture them both. At least that was the official plan.

Hank however, had other ideas. He knew that Michelle unwittingly threatened the Falcon's very existence. Deep down he didn't want to do anyone any harm, but he had a strong belief that the few should be sacrificed for the welfare of the many. He vowed that he would gladly give his own life to protect the group. What he was not prepared to do, was give up the group to protect an individual.

However, he knew that the vast majority of the Falcons did not share his views. They didn't have the stomach for the tough decisions. He knew that the reason why he existed on the Falcons Council was to make those very decisions that no-one else dared consider.

Twenty years ago, the Falcons had faced extinction. They were vastly outnumbered by the other groups and the situation was grim. The rest of the Falcons wanted to keep their morals intact. Hank however, simply wanted to keep the group intact. No-one had been fully aware of just how far he had gone to secure their survival and he would lay awake at night for years afterwards wondering if he had done the right thing.

Eventually his conscience became numbed to the guilt and he finally convinced himself that he had had been right. He also vowed to do exactly the same again, if the situation arose. That situation was here.

He wasn't sure exactly how to proceed. He had a number of ideas in his head, but he hadn't decided on which path to take. As he noticed the signal that the final team was nearing it's position, he opened the car door and sat down, mulling over his plans.

Chapter Sixteen ===============

Tina and Michelle were laughing and joking together as Tina was driving down the interstate. Michelle thought that it was a little strange having the air conditioning on full, but Tina didn't want to get too horny just yet.

For both of them, they felt as if an enormous burden of weight had been lifted from them. They had each blamed themselves for the events of three days ago, yet they both now realized that what happened was a pure accident and they were equally to blame.

They were also beginning to feel even closer together because they were in a very similar situation. They had both lost all of their friends and family and they right now, they both needed each other more than anything.

"Will my powers make it easier for me to be a witch then?" Michelle asked as she was studying a map that Tina had bought from the store earlier.

Tina just shrugged, "I don't know. It might make it easier. It might make it harder. Until we find out exactly what this power of yours is, I can't say."

Tina took the turnoff to get onto the interstate. As she did so, in the corner of her eye, she could swear she saw someone she recognized on the far side of the road going in the other direction, some six lanes away.

She shook herself as she realized that she was feeling paranoid. She knew that every single shadow would be suspect to her now.

As she picked up speed, Tina was agreeing to herself that they should go and recover Michelle's stash of money near Las Vegas. At first, she was hesitant about the idea because a number of the Ravens live in Vegas. However, they didn't have much choice because Tina's own magical powers were getting low and she needed to keep some in reserve for emergencies. Getting a new car had been the last time she would be able to use her powers effectively for the new few days.

But Tina guessed that they should be safe going to Vegas, because they wouldn't actually go to Vegas itself, but just into the Nevada desert. Even if they did meet up with some Ravens, they would have no reason to suspect that Michelle wasn't just a member of her group. Over the new few days, Tina would coach Michelle in the ways of the Kithra, so she could easily pass off as a member of the Falcons. Her pendant would help, but she needed to know the phrases. Tina thought that it was best not to worry Michelle about the fact that they would be going into Raven territory, at least not just yet.

"Tina. Are you sure you want to go on the run with me?" Michelle asked in a tone that surprised Tina.

"What sort of a question is that. Of course I do," Tina stated.

"It's just that you don't need to. I mean, I can take care of myself. If you want to go back to your family, you can. I don't want you to stay with me just because you feel you need to protect me."

Although Tina could see that Michelle was now much more capable of protecting herself and Tina's burden of blame had been substantially lifted, Tina also felt an obligation to help Michelle. She did, after all, save her life and regardless of why her spell went so badly wrong, she wasn't just about to leave Michelle at this critical point.

"No, Michelle. I'm not leaving you," she stated emphatically.

"But what will they do to you if they catch you. I mean, I know they'll kill me, but what about you."

Tina could see what Michelle was attempting to say. She didn't want to be responsible for causing any harm to Tina if she felt she could do it alone. It was a sweet gesture, but although Tina now realized that Michelle wasn't the helpless female that everyone believed, she would still find it incredibly tough on her own. Michelle still needed Tina and Tina was not about to desert her, especially now.

"Look Michelle. They're not after me; they're after you. Yeah, they'll be pissed at me for helping you and if they ever do catch me, they'll punish me. But they won't hurt me. If there's ever a time when they close in on us, I'll let myself be caught so you can escape."

Although Tina wasn't completely sure that she would come to no harm and couldn't rule out the fact that she wouldn't be killed herself, she believed that she stood a much better chance of escaping execution than Michelle.

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Michelle said, before Tina could think any more.

"No. I mean it. I'll do whatever it takes to defend you Michelle. You still saved my life and I'll do whatever it takes to protect you and if I'm ever caught, I'll never reveal your secret to them, no matter what. Not until I'm sure that it's for the best."

In the short time since leaving the motel, it allowed Tina to think about Michelle's telekinetic powers. Although her own group would probably welcome the news of Michelle's telekinetic powers, Tina was getting concerned that even the Falcons may consider Michelle's powers to be a threat. She wasn't sure how to proceed and it would take a lot of careful thought as to whether revealing Michelle's powers to the Falcons would be the right thing to do.

Tina's words however, greatly eased Michelle's worry that she might be tearing Tina away from her family. Michelle thought that there was no need to ruin another life. However, she saw from Tina's responses, that she had no intention of changing her mind.

"I'm sorry Mary. I can't do it," Sarah said as tears were in her eyes.

"You've got to," Mary replied sternly as she was trying to hand the stone to Sarah.

"I can't," Sarah stated.

"Sarah, listen to me. They're already caught. We've surrounded them. Monica's car is still there. They're gonna be caught either way, but this way, Tina will be all right. Do you really want Hank's stormtroppers going in there first."

"But it'll hurt Tina," Sarah pleaded, knowing that an attack from a power stone could cause intense pain in the victim.

"Yes, it will cause her some pain and it might put her into a deep sleep, but it won't cause her any harm. She'll be alright."

Sarah shook her head again.

"It's your choice Sarah. But if you don't do it, I'm sure Hank will go in, shooting to kill. I don't know what he's planing, but I'm sure it isn't pleasant."

Sarah couldn't take the emotional torture anymore, "Forgive me Tina, please," Sarah whispered as she took the stone

Michelle was finally beginning to relax as Tina was driving them further away, now approaching the Pennsylvania border. Tina had suggested that they drive all the way to Las Vegas. Although they could attempt to get a plane or train, Tina didn't have much money left and didn't want to use her magic unless absolutely necessary.

What Tina didn't tell Michelle is that she also couldn't risk putting Michelle in an enclosed public place until her pheromones had calmed down because she would have hundreds of guys hitting on her within minutes. Constant attention from guys was something that Michelle would have to get used to, but now wasn't the time for her to start learning.

Tina also realized that it might do them some good to be on the road together for several days.

Suddenly Tina felt a little uneasy. She felt her chest becoming very tight as if a huge weight was pressing against her. Tina screamed in pain as Michelle nearly jumped out of her seat. Tina clutched the steering wheel hard and the car swerved across several lanes as Tina's body spasmed, narrowly avoiding contact with several other vehicles.

Michelle grabbed the wheel and pulled them over to the side. She tried to reach her leg over to hit the brake, but her dress prevented her. Thinking quickly, she looked down, reached out with her mind and applied pressure to the brake pedal. The car stopped quickly at the side of the road.

"Oh my God, they've found us," Tina screamed as she realized what was happening. They had gotten close enough to use a power stone on her. How did they find them?

"What, what can I do," Michelle shrieked in panic. She had no idea what was happening to Tina.

"Michelle, t-they've found us," Tina called. Through the pain, her mind was racing with the possibilities. If they were using a power stone against her, it would also mean that they could track her down like a bloodhound because her spirit would be magically highlighted.

"L-Leave me Michelle. R-Run Michelle. Leave M-m... " Tina's words trailed off as she slipped into unconsciousness.

Michelle rushed into the small hospital, carrying Tina in her arms.

"Help her, please," she cried out.

A couple of nurses ran up, bringing a hospital gurney with them. Michelle placed Tina on the bed. The nurses took her away. Michelle tried to follow, but another nurse held her back.

"We need to know what's wrong with her," she asked.

"I-I err... don't know," Michelle replied. She knew she couldn't tell them that she had been subjected to a witch attack.

"Has she taken anything?" the nurse asked.

"Err... No. She just collapsed and screamed," Michelle replied.

The nurse went away, leaving Michelle all alone. She slowly walked into a waiting area. She could instantly see a few open mouths as she took an empty seat, attempting to find a seat which left the greatest distance between herself and any man in the room.

As she looked around, she could see that everyone was starting at her, some very blatantly. All of the guys were physically drooling and most of the women were looking at her with stares of jealousy; some nudging their partners, demanding that they not stare at her.

It was the first time Michelle was out in public dressed as a woman and she could see that it was going to take a lot of getting used to. When one of the nurses returned with a clipboard wanting to ask Michelle some questions, she was only too glad to finally get out of the waiting room.

"Hi there. Can I ask you that woman's name", the nurse asked.

"S-sorry," Michelle stuttered. She had been in this position before, when she had been asked her own name three days ago. But this situation was different.

Michelle knew that she couldn't give them Tina's real name. If she did that, it would alert her group to where they really were. But right now, Tina needed help. Michelle was no doctor, but she knew that whatever they did to Tina was very severe. She had screamed in pain and begged Michelle to leave her.

"Her name?" the nurse repeated.

"Brenda Simmonds," Michelle responded, making up the name on the spot.

"Address?" queried the woman.

Michelle paused, then made up an address. She knew that the nurses would soon discover that she hadn't given them the correct information, but it would at least buy her some time.

After the nurse asked a few more questions, she asked Michelle to take a seat, but Michelle couldn't sit down. Instead, she just paced up and down the corridor, thinking about her options. As she was thinking, several guys walked up to her, asking if they could help her. Michelle turned them all down, knowing the kind of help they really wanted to give her, but some of them wouldn't take no for an answer. Eventually a security guard came to her assistance.

Michelle knew that she couldn't stay for long, because the witches were obviously close. In fact, Michael realized that she only had a few minutes in which to make up her mind. She knew that she had two possible choices. She could either barge into the ER and take Tina away, or she could leave on her own. Either way, she couldn't afford to stay for much longer than a few minutes.

The reason she had brought Tina to the hospital was so that she could receive help. But now that she was there, she realized that the only people that could help her, were the Falcons.

Michelle also noted that Tina had requested that Michelle leave her and run away. "How could Tina suggest that," Michelle thought to herself. There had to be a reason for it.

She knew that she had to leave, but the big question was whether she should take Michelle with her. Although she thought that she could take care of herself, Michelle realized all those guys started hitting on her, that she had a lot to learn.

She really needed Tina, but she had to put Tina's best interests first. Taking Tina away might be what's best for Michelle, but it might not be what's best for Tina.

Hank walked into the small hospital with three other men. As soon as Sarah had used the power stone on Tina, they all knew that something was wrong, because they couldn't locate Tina within their net. It quickly occurred to them that Tina and Michelle had already left the motel, obviously in another car, but they were still close enough for the power stone to work, albeit at a lesser degree.

Tracking down Tina had proved difficult. A power stone attack usually highlights the victim, making it very easy to locate them. Obviously because Tina was on the limits of it's range, their ability to locate her was made all the more difficult. They had already been to two false readings on Tina's position, but this time, it seemed to be more definite.

Hank also couldn't believe his luck at the fact that no other team was in the area. His team was completely alone. None of the other search teams even knew that they were at the hospital. As far as everyone else was concerned, they were still out looking.

"Hi, have you had two young women brought in here recently," Hank asked one of the nurses. "One's a tall blonde and the other a medium sized brunette."

"Huh, how could we forget," the nurse replied.

"Well," Hank asked impatiently.

"Yeah, well the blonde woman carried in the brunette a couple of hours ago. We took the brunette, a Miss Simmonds or something into the ER. After we asked the blonde girl some questions, she just vanished. It was really weird."

"Damn," Hank thought. He was really after Michelle, not Tina. "So, the brunette's still here then," Hank asked. At least capturing Tina was better than nothing, Hank considered.

"Yeah. We've put her in a side room to monitor her. Her pulse is very weak but we can't find anything wrong," the nurse replied.

"Can we see her?" Hank asked.

Michelle was in Tina's hospital room, gently holding her hand. Although she had thought about leaving Tina, she found that she just couldn't do it. Every time she attempted to start the engine of the car and drive away, her body refused.

Eventually, she realized that she couldn't leave Tina and that she had to go back. She decided to execute her second option, which was to take Tina away with her. She located another entrance to the hospital, then found a way to get into the suspended ceiling area. Using her powers to float along, it allowed her to get to virtually any room in the hospital.

At first she hovered above the ER, listening to the doctors around Tina. She was shocked to hear them saying how ill Tina had become. Although she was no doctor herself, she could tell that Tina's situation was grave, with her low pulse and blood pressure. Michelle knew, in that instant, that she couldn't take Tina away because it might kill her.

Eventually, after the doctors thought Tina's condition was stable, they moved her to an intensive care room, with various monitors. Michelle was able to float above the room and use her powers to close the blinds to the room. She then removed one of the polystyrene ceiling panels and entered the room properly, so that she could be with Tina.

Every five minutes, one of the nurses or doctors would come into the room to check up on Michelle. In order to remain hidden, Michelle had to use her powers to jam the door shut, until she was completely hidden from view.

As Michelle looked at Tina, she begged to know what the Falcons had done to Tina. They had almost killed her. A deep burning rage was filling the void of Tina's loss. Already, she was promising to make sure those responsible would pay if Tina did not recover.

Chapter Seventeen =================

Hank and the three others were walking down the corridor with the nurse to Tina's room. Two of the men had made themselves invisible, so as not to attract extra attention. They had the ability to make themselves invisible to the human eye, though they would still show up on video cameras and other detection devices, which could not be affected by their magic.

When they reached the room and the nurse attempted to open the door, she discovered the door would not budge.

"Oh, not again," the nurse commented.

"What?" Hank asked, worried.

"This door keeps getting jammed," she said.

The nurse gave another strong push against the door, but it would not yield.

"Here, let me try," Hank volunteered, wanting to get into the room as soon as possible. The nurse took a step back as Hank moved in front of the door and pushed it. The door opened with surprisingly little effort.

As soon as the door was opened, all five people walked inside the small room, to see Tina lying on a bed, hooked up to various monitors. Hank breathed a sigh of relief. Although they could detect Tina was nearby; there was a thought at the back of his mind, that Tina might not be there.

One of the young men escorted the nurse out of the room again, to ask her some more questions. Everybody else just looked at Tina lying on the hospital bed.

Up above, in the ceiling, Michelle was straining to make sure that she didn't make a single sound as she floated above the suspended ceiling. In those situations, it seems that every sound is amplified a thousand fold. Her breathing seemed like jet engine and her bones appeared to creak loudly at every minute movement. Even her dress and her bra seemed to strain as they expanded with every breath she took.

Michelle was carefully watching what was going on below. She had been careless in replacing the ceiling tile, but it allowed her to peek down and observe the three people around Tina.

Michelle saw one of the men lean over Tina. At first, she though he was going to hurt her. Michelle was about to intervene, when he leant up.

"She'll be okay... as long as we get her back. She'll be in a coma for the next week though," he said to Hank.

"Are you sure she's okay? These numbers look pretty bad," the other man commented as he looked at the monitors.

"Yeah, this is what happens if they fight the attack," he pointed out. "It leaves them in a deep sleep for days. I know it looks bad, but she'll be fine as long as we get her back. If we don't get her back quickly, she could be stuck in this state for months."

At that point, the man who had been talking to the nurse returned. "I've asked around. Michelle disappeared about ninety minutes ago."

There were several groans of frustration around the room, that even Michelle could hear from her vantage point above. Michelle then felt a slight lurch as she fell a few inches toward the floor. She struggled to remain silent, but she was in near panic as she realized what was happening. Her telekinetic powers were weakening. If she stayed much longer, she would end up falling through the ceiling, straight into their hands. However, she used all her mental strength to try to stay as long as she could.

"Well, we had better secure the area, then get after Michelle," one man said.

At that point, Michelle felt that she couldn't hang around any longer. She used her powers to float directly forward, until she found a comfortable point from which she could rest.

"Yeah. Let's get after her," Hank said dejected. He knew that a ninety-minute head start would put Michelle well out of their range and probably into another search team.

"Hang on a minute," Hank said to the others as he reached the door. "I have a better idea."

An hour later, Michelle was speeding down the highway as a single tear rolled down her face.

Although she had wanted to stay around, she realized that events had moved faster than she thought. She had briefly thought about taking Tina with her, but there were four of them, with obvious re-enforcement's on the way. Had Tina been in a fit state to travel, Michelle might have attempted it, despite the long odds. But with Tina still in a bad way, Michelle was forced to concede that she was now in their hands.

Michelle felt a mixture of emotions. She was pleased that Tina would finally receive the help she needed. Michelle no longer feared for Tina's life.

However, her feelings were slowly turning to anguish at Tina's long term plight. She noted that Tina would be unconscious for the next week, which bought Michelle a little time. Although Tina had reassured Michelle that the Falcons would not hurt Tina, Michelle wasn't completely convinced.

Michelle knew that the situation had significantly moved on and that what Tina said couldn't be taken for granted. The Falcons might try to force Tina to reveal where Michelle was heading, or Tina may be forced into revealing Michelle's secret.

Although Michelle had complete trust that Tina would never do such a thing willingly, she was also aware that the Falcons may become increasingly desperate and might also use various methods to extract the information they required.

However, Michelle knew that she had a week with which to formulate a plan. She wondered what she could do in that week. She felt a longing desire to turn and drive to New Jersey and home. She wanted to run into her parent's house and throw her arms around them.

Her anger at the way the Falcons had harmed Tina, also left her with the feeling that she should go back, with all guns blazing, use her powers to the fullest effect, grab Tina and ride off into the sunset with her.

At that point, Michelle cursed herself for not finding out whether her powers could be used offensively against another witch. That was one of the many things which Tina had briefly discussed as they started their journey earlier and Tina promised that they would perform a quick experiment later in the day to find out.

But Michelle was no wiser. If her powers couldn't be used against another witch, then going back now, without a plan would be virtual suicide for her. If they were prepared to do what they did to Tina, it showed that their attitude to Michelle had hardened. They would be certain to kill her.

Michelle was forced to realize that the only viable plan she had left was to travel to Las Vegas all on her own and retrieve her money. Even after Michelle freed Tina, they would still need money. A round trip car journey would take approximately a week, which was exactly how long Tina would be incapacitated.

Tina was lying in a barn; her body still racked in pain. She didn't remember much. In fact, the whole day was a complete haze. She could remember escaping with Michelle yesterday and making love to her last night. She could briefly remember waking up with Michelle, but everything became hazy after that point.

She had no idea how she ended up in barn in the middle of a field. After thinking, she guessed that the Falcons must have found them, used a power stone on her and somehow Michelle and Tina became separated.

Tina guessed that it must have been a very hard decision for her to make, but she realized that Michelle had little choice. Her life would have been in grave danger had she remained.

What Tina couldn't work out, was why she had only been knocked out for a few hours? She had checked her watch and unless she was mistaken, it was the morning after Michelle and Tina ran away.

A power stone attack usually leaves the victim in a coma for at least a day and anything up to a week if the victim fights the attack. The only conclusion that Tina could reach was that something had gone wrong with the power stone attack, causing her to be only unconscious for a few hours.

Her thoughts turned to Michelle. She tried to remember where Michelle might be going. Surely they would have made arrangements to meet up in case they were separated, but Tina's memory was too hazed to remember.

But oddly enough, Tina knew deep down that Michelle could take care of herself. She couldn't work it out because Michelle was now a helpless female, but some part of her was telling her that Michelle was more than capable of looking after herself.

All the same, she also felt the Michelle was heading into grave danger, which even she couldn't handle alone.

Tina now began to wonder why the Falcons hadn't been able to track her down. An attack from a power stone magically illuminates the victim, allowing them to be easily tracked down, which was why it was very difficult to ever leave the group. Tina had been expecting them to turn up any minute, but so far nothing.

Michelle found that her face was impossible to keep dry. She had quickly crossed into Pennsylvania and had continued on the route that she had planned to go to Las Vegas.

At each exit, she literally had to grip the steering wheel hard and grit her teeth to avoid turning back to Tina or to turn toward New Jersey.

Although her heart was almost tearing her to go back, Michelle knew that such a tactic would be virtual suicide. Even if her powers could affect other witches, she realized that she was still only one person. She was hopelessly outnumbered.

Michelle glanced over to the empty seat beside her, that should have contained Tina. As well as an empty passenger seat, Michelle felt a huge void inside her soul as if a part of her had been ripped away. Last night, when they made love, Tina had taken a small piece of Michelle with her and now that piece was missing from Michelle.

Earlier today, for the brief period of half an hour, Michelle had felt complete. She had finally revealed her secret to someone that understood. Even being a woman didn't seem so bad in Tina's company.

But her euphoric feeling was now shattered. Again, she looked down at her gorgeous body and felt a feeling of disgust that this body had caused her so much pain in such a short time.

As she drove onwards, Michelle vowed that she would never abandon Tina, because at that point, Tina was all she had to live for. She had lost everything and everyone else. If she couldn't be with Tina, then Michelle didn't think there was much point in carrying on. She would travel to Las Vegas, retrieve her money, then return and attempt to free Tina. Michelle worked out that in the time it would take for her to get to Vegas and back, Tina would awaken from her deep sleep.

Michelle would then use any method at her disposal to free Tina and if anyone got in her way, she wouldn't hesitate in hurting them. They could then be together again. In their short time together, Michelle never said one particular thing to Tina. Although she had only known Tina for three short months, most of which had been over the phone and the Internet, Michelle only now, realized how much she loved Tina.

As she attempted to overtake another car, she checked all of her mirrors several times, for signs of pursuit. She hated this feeling of intense paranoia, but she knew that it was a feeling she would simply have to get used to.

Sarah was waiting at the rendezvous point, when Hank and Mary returned several hours later.

"So What happened?" Sarah asked.

"We couldn't find them," Mary replied.

"What?" Sarah said shocked. Although using the power stone hadn't gone according to plan, she thought that their capture would still be a formality.

"Nope. Can't track them either. They got away," Hank said.

"What about Monica's cellphone?" Sarah asked.

"They switched cars earlier today. We found her car at some motel where they stayed. Monica's phone is still in there, stuffed down the side of the seat. They probably never even knew it was there."

Sarah sighed heavily at the news, before saying, "Oh, well, let me know anything else." They both nodded. Sarah then turned around. Mary walked after her to provide some comfort.

Hank waited until Sarah and Mary were out of hearing range and then she turned to his associate and said, "Are the arrangements made."

"Yep. Apart from the us four at the hospital, no-one knows that we even found Tina. We've adjusted the memories of the nurses and doctors at the hospital. It was a kludge doing all those memories, but it should work as long as it isn't questioned too much."

"Where's Tina now?" Hank asked.

"Still in that barn, where we put here. Are you sure no one else will be able to track Tina?"

"Yes," Hank replied. "As long as we know exactly where Tina is, I can divert the other search teams away from her so they don't pick her up," Hank said. "Are the two guys are up to the job of tracking Tina?" Mary asked.

"Yeah. Now that they've "locked onto" her, they shouldn't have a problem. They'll track Tina right up until she meets Michelle. Then they'll deal with the problem," he said smugly.

Hank nodded his approval, then the man turned and walked away. Hank then returned to his car and sat down to consider what he had done. He fully understood that others had cast him as an evil maniac because he called for Michelle's sacrifice. Instead, he thought of himself as a realist. He genuinely believed that what he was doing, was for the good of their group.

He pondered over what had happened at the hospital. After he realized that his main target, Michelle, had left, it occurred to him that Tina and Michelle must have arranged a rendezvous point somewhere, or at the very least, Tina would have known where they were heading.

Then one of his men reported that Tina was showing signs of emerging from her coma and with a little help could be brought out quickly. Although the usual knockout time was a week, Hank guessed that because Tina had been on the limits of the range of the power stone, her coma would be considerably shorter.

Hank was then faced with a tough decision. He knew that Tina would never reveal to him where Michelle was heading. Even Hank was aware that Tina could be a stubborn bitch when the wanted to be and if he tried to force any information out of her, she could easily call for help magically.

Then, a point of brilliance hit him. They removed Tina from the hospital, then placed her in a remote barn. Two of his men were now discreetly tracking her.

He genuinely felt sorry for both Michelle and Tina. Deep down, he felt that they probably didn't deserve what he had planned for them, but none of that mattered. The only priority on his mind was the welfare of the group. He felt passionately about his group and he would do anything to protect their interest, including the sacrifice of one of it's members.

After all, it wasn't the first time he had to do it. Unknown to everyone else, he had to sacrifice one of the Falcons twenty years ago to secure the help of the Eagle's to prevent them from being wiped out. He smiled gently in the irony. That person had been Tina's father and now, twenty years later, her family line would have to grieve again in order for the rest of the group to survive.

Tina was walking along the highway into the town ahead of her. It had been an hour since she woke up in the barn and there was still no sign of the Falcons or Michelle. Seeing a small town in the distance, Tina decided to set about walking there.

Her state of concern was starting to turn into panic. She had soon discovered that her powers were completely gone. She guessed that she had used up her last reserves of magic to fight off the power stone's effects. She could no longer cast a single spell. It would be weeks; months even before her powers returned in full.

Tina really needed her powers. Without them, she was useless. But she didn't only need them for herself; she needed them to protect Michelle.

Her panic started settling into a deep-seated fear that Tina had never felt before. Ever since being an adult, she had always had some amount of magical power to call upon, which guaranteed her safety. Now she was completely helpless and worse, she had no idea where Michelle was.

End of part Two.

As I said at the start, I have no plans to complete this story. From the very start, it was envisaged that the story would be three to four parts long. Because I have had to stop writing, I do not know when (or even if) I will complete the story, sorry.

Phil Stevens. Phil_stevens@bigfoot.com