Rowan glanced into the room with a look of concern on her face.  “Why did he run away screaming?”

Donna sighed.  “His mind was under such heavy controls he doesn’t even know what he has done or where he is.  Plus I think seeing the kind of power I can throw around terrified him.  Both, most likely.  He’s flagging down a police car outside the club right now... yeah, not my problem any more.  Agent Mackie warns me against vigilantism every time we talk.  Let CSIS handle this one.”

“Fair.  You should probably call and tell him what you know.”

Donna nodded and slipped an ancient looking flip-phone out of a pocket that hadn’t been there a moment ago.  The number she called rang twice before picking up.  “Hey Mackie.”

“What happened this time.”

Donna rolled her eyes.  “Can’t I just call for a friendly chat?”

“On the night of the full Moon you’d rather be dancing or transforming people into wild and wonderful things.  Does Cherry still have cybernetic limbs?”

“Yeah, I haven’t talked to her yet.  I’ll tell her you asked after her.”

“And?”

Donna sighed.  “Yeah, there was this guy with a fancy briefcase and the heaviest mind controls I’ve ever seen.  No subtlety at all, and when I got rid of it he didn’t have any clue where he was, ran off screaming.  I’ve got a little crystal following him.  He’s currently trying to persuade the police of some cockamamie story about being kidnapped.  Maybe you could step in?”

“I’ll take care of it.  More ghouls?”

“No, this was definitely lunar magic.  Someone with more power than sense.  Is there anyone else in Canada working at that level?”

“Not that Argent Division is aware of.  We’ll see if we can track him back to a source.”

“That’d be great.  Thanks.  Sorry to spoil your night.”

Agent Mackie chuckled.  “I block out full Moon nights just to be safe.  All kinds of crazy stuff goes on under the full Moon, haven’t you heard?”

Donna giggled.  “Yeah, I know.  And not all of it is my fault.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Faulkner.”

Donna dimpled at the formality.  “Goodnight, Agent Mackie.”

Gwen was bouncing beside her.  “C’mon, time to dance.”

“Haven’t you danced yourself out yet?”

“Never!”

Donna laughed and let herself be dragged along with Gwen.  As they approached the stage she summoned up some normal-looking clothes, making it look like she belonged on the Crimson Kitten side of the building with a family of four, not on stage.  Gwen giggled at the sight, and reiterated one of their old routines, teasing and dancing with the playfully reluctant Donna as she stole one piece of clothing after another.

In the end, when Donna was down to just a plain-looking bra and panties, Gwen shook her head as if to say “this will not do”.  She reached up to the multicoloured lights streaming over the stage, pulled a rainbow fabric out of the air, and spun it around Donna.  When the brilliance dissipated, not only had Donna’s plain underwear become a rainbowed confection of fluttery fabric, so had her hair.

Donna settled into a slightly more conventional routine after that, prowling the stage with a rainbow tail swishing behind her, and ears perking up through rainbow hair.  By the end, she appeared to be more rainbow than not, and at the close of the last song she flickered and vanished.

Gwen darted offstage and grabbed Donna in a hug.  “Showoff.”

Donna grinned.  “Too much for this early in the night?”

“Did you hear the crowd?  That’s definitely opened the floodgates for fantasies...”

“Cool, Duncan was looking forward to those.”

“Not the dancing?”

Donna shrugged.  “He’s a little more shy than I am.  He’s watching and feeling everything, but he doesn’t think he knows how to dance like we do.”

“Yeah, he needs to loosen up.  Give over.”

Duncan chuckled softly.  “Going to drag me up on stage, next?”

“We have to let the others have their turns.  I’m dragging you out into the crowd.”

Once Duncan realized Gwen was serious, she replaced her discarded top with one made of shining steel, patterned to resemble moons.  A shimmering cloak of rainbows wrapped around her shoulders, and she smiled at Gwen for the assist.  “Thanks.”

“Thank Ettie.  She’s the cloak.”

Duncan chuckled warmly, and patted it.  “Having fun?”

A corner of the cloak raised itself in front of Duncan’s face and nodded.

“She won’t be human until moonset, will she?”

Gwen giggled.  “Ettie has specifically requested that I never turn it back to human shape.  Forward, not back.  It has embraced crystal existence far better than you or I have, I think.”

“It?” asked Duncan.

“Ettie is currently an inanimate object.  Inanimate-ish, anyway.  It likes being called ‘it’ when like this, doesn’t it?”

The cloak swirled around Duncan, fluttered happily against Gwen’s side, then tugged toward the door to the club floor.

Laughing, Ducan followed where it led, and strode out into the crowd.  Once she’d relaxed a little about remembering names, she found that it was fun to chat with the patrons.  She even started to realize that most of them were at least a little intimidated by her, and used that realization to push herself to talk to those who could barely meet her gaze.  “I won’t bite,” she promised more than one.  “Unless you ask me very nicely.”

One of the shyest looking ones smiled brightly at that.  “And if I did ask nicely, what would you do?”

Duncan chuckled warmly.  “On nights like tonight, anything is possible.  Though if it needs a little privacy, you should fill out a slip at the bar.”

“Could you really turn me into a werewolf?” he asked.

Duncan considered the problem.  “That depends on what you’re looking for.  Slavering beast ravaging the community... perhaps best if we don’t go there.  But the sexy female furry that’s dancing at the back of your mind?  I can give you a skin that turns you into her when you wear it under the full Moon.”

The man’s eyes practically glowed.  “Oh!  That would be amazing.  How did you know?”

“Because you want it so very much.”  Duncan held out a hand, and cupped in it was the dancing figure of a tiny wolf-girl, matching the image that was so clear behind the eyes peering at it in wonder.

“That’s her.  That’s Theira.  How...”

Duncan giggled happily.  “Magic.  Say the word.”

“Please.  I’ll do anything you ask.”

The wolf-girl grew larger, then folded in on herself.  In a moment, Duncan was holding a small bundle of pelted fabric.  “Here.  It is a gift.  Take it and spread more joy in the world.”

The man bobbed his head as he accepted the bundle.  “I know just the thing.  My girlfriend has been so supportive, and she told me she wanted to meet Theira.”  His eyes went wide with realization.  “She told me to come here tonight.”

“Then she probably already knows about magic.  But just in case...”  Duncan added a slim cylinder to the pile of fabric.  “Something for her.  It’ll stick anywhere, but only on the night of the full Moon.  Be warned – both the suit and that can only go on this night, but if you are wearing them at the Moon’s setting, you’ll be stuck until the next moonrise.  Or longer, should you choose, up to a week.”

“We’ll be careful.”

Duncan shook her head.  “Don’t make promises you won’t keep.  Have fun, don’t worry.  Take a sick day if you have to.”

Gwen watched Duncan’s beneficiary dart out of the club, and favoured her friend with a broad smile.  “You’re a romantic softie at heart.”

“Shh, don’t let people know.  It’ll ruin my image.”

Gwen giggled, and then sighed.  “Rowan’s waving.  Time to go pay the bills.”

Duncan followed, snickering.  “Neither of us do this to pay the bills any more.”

“True, but the club still does.  Hopefully we’ve got some creative fantasies tonight.”

Duncan nodded.  “Best part of the night, really.  Even ahead of the healing.”

“Softie.”

Duncan growled at Gwen playfully, then chased her the rest of the way to the green room.  She pulled up short when she saw the crowd.  “Woah.  What’s up?”

“We’ve got a lot of fantasies, and even more volunteers than usual.  The private dining areas in the Kitten have been locked off tonight, so we can use them as extra rooms if someone’ll be so kind as to set up some back doors and extra soundproofing.”

“Dibs!” called Duncan, making Gwen chuckle.  “Okay, we can work on it together.”

With the power of the Moon backing the two of them, and Ray’s presence to guide them, the requested alterations were done in a few minutes.

Once that was done, Rowan started handing out fantasies.  Gwen and Duncan both kept busy setting up the transformations for the volunteers – all of them wanted real changes, instead of using the headband-controlled bodies like usual.  As always, Vanessa got the singing roles.

“Nothing for us?” Duncan asked Rowan once the various dancers had gone off to this private room or that.

“There’s a request for a Donna Special at the Crimson Kitten.  Family of five.  I believe the name was O’Brien?”

Donna grinned eagerly.  “Oh!  I need to dial back the curves, then go see what I can do to soothe his wife’s fears.”  Her breasts shrank from Blue Vixen sized to something a little closer to what she sported when playing nurse, and her raucous outfit became much more sedate.

“Off you go, then.  Ray can handle the next round of changes.  He’s gotten pretty good at not shrinking them away to nothing before changing them.”

Donna tried to hand Ettie back to Gwen as they headed to the restaurant next door to the club.  Gwen shook her head, and turned Ettie into a professional looking suit jacket that matched the blouse and skirt Donna had given herself.  As they entered the Crimson Kitten, Gwen vanished, reappearing as a diamond pendant on a golden chain around Donna’s throat.  Donna touched it briefly.  “My guiding star, hmmm?”

“You’ll need it.”

Donna found the comment odd, then she saw O’Brien’s family.  In addition to his wife and two young boys, a rebellious-looking woman in her early twenties was sitting with them.  The latter was already glancing up at her, and their eyes locked briefly.

Donna smiled at her as she approached the table.  “I hear someone’s asking for a Donna Special?”

O’Brien smiled patiently.  “Hello Donna.  This is my wife Carol, our boys Daniel and Tony.  And my daughter Kelly.”  The family looked like it was dressed for a nice evening out, except for Kelly who was wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans.

“Pleased to meet you,” replied Donna, offering a hand to Carol.

Kelly eyed Donna skeptically.  “All this fuss for you?  What makes you so special?”

Donna tapped the table in front of Daniel, and a small robot dog appeared.  Kelly snorted.  “Nice sleight of hand.”

Donna just grinned and tapped in front of Tony.  Instead of a toy, a bright point of light appeared in front of him.  It traced out sleek lines, which then shimmered and solidified into a shiny red car with fan turbine wells instead of wheels.  Both boys immediately started playing with their new toys.  The other three at the table stared in wonder.

“How did you do that?” asked Kelly.

Donna favoured the suddenly less sullen young woman with a smile.  “Magic.”  She nodded to the inverted pentagram pendant Kelly was wearing on a black cord.  Then she rapped the table in front of Kelly, and a slightly larger pendant appeared there.  It looked like the face of the full moon, with a subtle pentagram pattern picked out in the craters.  A red silken cord was already threaded through the hoop, and when Kelly picked it up the pendant hung so that the pentagram’s tip faced up instead of down.  Her eyes went a little wider when she realized the red cord was the exact same shade as her dyed hair.

Donna turned to Carol.  “You have questions?”

“You’re the Donna that Colin talks about visiting the hospital on the worst nights?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Magic can do more than summon trinkets out of the air.  It can heal.  Everybody in the ICU tonight will be going home within a week.”

Carol digested that for a moment, then her eyes widened.  “No wonder there’s a board of inquiry.  Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Not my story to tell,” replied her husband.  “That, an’ if ye haven’t seen it for yourself, nobody can tell you about magic.”

“How odd.”

“So I can’t tell my friends?” asked Kelly.  She was settling the moon pendant around her neck, and the old one was nowhere to be seen.  “That sucks.”

“If you approach it obliquely, you can talk about it.”

“I already tell them there are powers in this world, patterns that can only be seen if one is open to...  Wait, wait, that’s really how it works?”

Donna nodded.

“Tell me more.  Tell me everything.”

“This might not be the right place or time for that,” suggested Doctor O’Brien gently.  “We’re here for a lovely dinner.  Carol, do you have any other questions for Donna?”

“Just one.”

Donna smiled at her.  “Ask away.”

“Can I have a gift, too?”

Donna chuckled and nodded.  “It would only seem fair.  Youth and energy?”

Carol’s eyes widened, and she glanced briefly at the boys then back to Donna.  “You can do that?  I love them dearly, but keeping up is getting difficult.”

“I am well aware of how demanding young children can be.  And how looking ten years younger might assuage fears of wandering eyes?”

Carol looked over at her husband, and smiled.  “I do like to be pretty for him.”

Donna set a hand-mirror on the table, and Carol picked it up.  “Oh!  It’s subtle but...”

“I can be less subtle.”

Colin snickered at that.  “No, really?”

Donna stuck her tongue out at him, making Kelly giggle.  “Here.”  She tossed a small remote on the table.  “It’ll work for the next week, while the Moon is in the sky.  Figure it out between the two of you.”

Carol snatched it up, and her eyes widened at the text above the buttons.  “Seriously?”

Donna added a couple cup-sizes to her bust.  “Don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it.  There’s a few options there, Colin’s been cagy about his... interests.”

Carol smirked.  “Not to me he hasn’t been.  We’ll have some fun with this tonight.”

“La la la la, can’t hear you!” cried Kelly.

A green-furred catgirl arrived then with plates of food, and Donna took a step to one side, placing herself right beside Kelly.  Kelly was staring wide-eyed at the way the waitress’ ears and nose were very visibly non-human, and not a headband like the other waitresses.  Once the food had been served, she tugged at Donna’s sleeve.  “How?  That’s not a costume she’s wearing, her tail was way too...”

Donna chuckled softly.  “It is, in a way.  The whole body is the costume, and the waitress is sitting in a back room with a headband on her head that makes it feel like she’s inhabiting that body.  The best part is the headbands work whether or not the Moon is up, so the Kitten has catgirl waitresses every night, but they can still go home without magic censorship forcing them to hide.”

Kelly’s eyes fixed on the robot dog beside her brother’s plate.  “Wild.  I wish...”

“Sssh.  No using the w-word,” chided Donna.  “Magic likes it a bit too much.”  She patted the younger woman on the shoulder.  “But this time I’ll let it slide.  Hold the pendant and imagine yourself behind its eyes.”

After about ten seconds, the robot dog perked up, and looked around in bewilderment and wonder.  Then it stilled once more and Kelly breathed a happy sigh.  “That is incredible.  Thank you so much.  This’ll make babysitting way more fun.  Does it work on the car, too?”

“It does now,” said Donna.  “You are an interesting one.  You’d probably get a kick out of meeting Unit Kate.”

“Unit who now?”

“Nice woman I turned into a robot.  I think I spotted her in the green room earlier.”

“Donna,” cautioned Colin.  “No corrupting my daughter, please.”

Donna smirked at him.  “Oh, I’m not the one doing any corrupting here.  This one has some interesting ideas.  She’s old enough to make her own decisions, yes?”

Colin winced and nodded.  “She’s twenty one.  Almost done with University.  Don’t throw that away, sweetie.”

Kelly rolled her eyes.  “I’m not your little girl any more, Dad.  I’m going to go next door after dinner and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

Colin’s shoulders slumped.  “No, I suppose there isn’t.  Not if a father’s disappointment won’t do it.”

“Daaad,” whined Kelly.  “Please?”

Colin fixed Donna with a look.  “I can’t control her.  Can you?”

Donna studied the fractious woman.  “I could turn her into an obedient little robot.  But nobody wants that, do they?”

“I do,” murmured Kelly, so softly only Donna could hear it.

“I can promise this much,” offered Donna.  “Nobody will see your daughter’s face on the stage at the Blue Vixen.  I won’t keep her from dancing, but she’ll be someone or something else.  I’ll also have Rowan talk to her about the business – the good and the bad.  Fair enough?”

Colin nodded slowly.  “You’ve given me cause to trust you in the past.  I just want her to be safe.”

Donna inclined her head to her friend.  “Of that, you can be certain.  Other clubs have their issues, but the Blue Vixen on a full Moon night is the safest place on the planet.”

“I suppose it might be at that,” Colin conceded.

“Enjoy your meals.  And your gifts.”

Donna headed back to the club, conscious of Kelly’s eyes boring into her back the whole way.  “You were right, Gwen.  Definitely going to need some guidance.”

Gwen chimed cheerfully, and spun herself back into a glittering human form as they entered the club.  “She’s going to be a handful.  And yes, Unit Kate is here.  She’s even done a couple turns on the stage, though the audience was a little unsure about her.  Not quite the show they’re here for, if you get my drift.”

Donna smirked.  “I can imagine metal spheres don’t cut it as breasts.  We have ways to fix that, why haven’t you?”

“Kate doesn’t want it.  I danced with her for her second set, using her as a pole and a prop, that worked way better.”

“That must have been a sight.  Have you danced with Ettie?”

“Every time.  It loves being my outfit, or props or... well, anything.  Everything.”

“And when you’re not at the club?”

Gwen smirked.  “She or he will be human enough for me, though never fully so.  We fit well.”

Rowan approached them.  “Ready for more fantasies?  I’ve got a real doozy for you.”

Gwen and Donna shared a grin, then nodded.  “Let’s do it.”

“Well, it involves a mermaid, an octopus, several sharks, and a lost prince.  Want to do it in the fish tank, or one of the private rooms?”

“How is that a doozy?”

“First, it’s a couple.  Second, they want to be the shark and the octopus.”

“And the octopus wins?  Now you’re talking...  They don’t want the mermaid to be an Ariel clone, I hope.  I can never get her to look right.”

“Nope.  They want the mermaid to look like his ex.”

“Oooh, better and better...”