Wolfsbane and Mistletoe (Charlaine Harris) (Kitty Norville 2.50)

The herbs were bad enough, but grinding up wolf hair and eating it? Yuck.

Tom could probably dig up a wolf pelt somewhere, but what if hair from a dead wolf didn't work? Worse, what if it turned him into a dead wolf at moonrise?

Not that I necessarily believed the spell would work. At least half the herbs needed for the powder were strong hallucinogens. A few sprinkles of the stuff and you wouldn't need to be a werewolf to howl at the moon.

Too many sprinkles would kill you. And annoying as he could be, I didn't really want Tom dead.

Phil, now.

Okay, it was a crazy idea, but I decided to take Phil as my guinea pig. I'd use a nonlethal dose of the various toxins, so if the spell didn't work, the powder would give him only a few stomach cramps, and I could tell Tom I told you so.

And if it did work, it wouldn't be Tom hauled in by Animal Control and maybe waking up in a cage.

Sunday afternoon I gathered my ingredients. Most of them I had to get from a pair of ex-students who'd dropped out during the sixties and now ran a highly unconventional herb farm out in the mountains twenty miles from town.

Sunday evening I mixed the powder and baked it into some brownies - one of Phil's favorites as well as Tom's. Mixed up a few other useful-sounding concoctions from the grimoire while I was at it. If the werewolf spell worked, I'd give some of them a try.

Once the brownies had cooled, I wrapped them up in some paper with jolly Santa Clauses all over it and attached a gift tag that said, "Merry Christmas, Professor Phil!" I made the dots over the i's into hearts. He'd probably think some lovestruck coed had left them on his porch in the middle of the night.

When I got back from my late-night delivery, I cleaned up all my herbs and tools and hid them in Mrs. Grogan's garage. In her late husband's fishing box, which hadn't been opened in a decade.

I kept the radio on nonstop for the next few days, so I'd hear right away if the campus station reported a popular young medieval history professor succumbing to food poisoning. But all I heard was the usual endless carol marathon.

Christmas Day arrived, and with it the full moon. Though moonrise wasn't until 4:52 P. M. I'd checked. The hours crawled by.

At least I had some distraction. I'd invited Tom for dinner. I fixed the traditional spread - turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, the works. I was hoping Tom would be too focused on the food to nag me about whether I'd made progress on his spell. But if not, I'd tell him what I'd done. Maybe enlist him to go over with me to Phil's neighborhood later, to see if the spell worked.

But Tom was strangely distracted. Twitchy. He kept shifting in his chair and scratching his arms and legs. He wasn't even eating much.

"What's wrong with you anyway?" I finally asked.

He shrugged.

"Don't feel so great," he said.

"Do you want a beer?" I asked. "Or a Coke?"

"Maybe some water?"

If Tom turned down both hops and cola, he really must be ill. I went out to the kitchen and filled a glass with ice and water.

When I came back, Tom was writhing on the floor.

And howling. The pieces fell into place.

"You've been visiting Phil, haven't you?" I said. "You went over there and ate some of the brownies. "

He must have felt really awful. He didn't try to lie - just nodded, and clutched his stomach.

"It serves you right," I said. "I was going to test your stupid spell on Phil, to see if it worked before letting you try it. "

Even through his pain, I could see his face brighten.

"Is that what this is?" he gasped. "I'm turning into a wolf?"

"Not exactly. "

He convulsed one more time, then screamed as his body contracted and flowed in strange ways. I winced and closed my eyes for a second.