Witches' Bane (The Soul Eater Book 2) Read Free Page B

turn your insides into your outsides.
    “What’s that?” she asked. Her top lip curled, revealing perfectly neat and white little teeth that made the heat in her glare all the more dramatic.
    “Don’t ask.”
    “Is that the tablet that got stolen from the Met last night?”
    She had to ask. She couldn’t just let me pass. I sighed, resigned to the fact that I wasn’t getting past her. “Is this a conversation for the hallway?”
    “Do you have to answer every question with a question?”
    Narrowing my eyes, I replied, “Do you?”
    “You said you’d be here.”
    “What are you, my wife?”
    She blinked—probably for the first time since I’d arrived—and lifted her head, rearing to strike. “I’m worse than that. I’m your business partner, and we’re at risk of being tossed out if we don’t pay the rent.”
    Like she cared. This business was like the countless other businesses we’d set up in the hundreds of years we’d been stuck together. She was the number cruncher, and I was the muscle. She was the con artist; I was the closing strike. The lure and the net. And that usually worked fine for a few decades, until it was time to move on. We’d been in New York a lot longer than a few decades and in this building for at least ten years, helping those who’d had the misfortune of crossing the gods. Shukra didn’t care about this business, or the last ten, or the fifty before that. All she cared about was staying in the curse’s prescribed safe zone and keeping me alive so she didn’t get yanked back to the underworld, where the demons would tear her body and soul to pieces. This wasn’t about helping anyone but herself.
    Why, then, was she looking at me like I owed her an explanation?
    “Do I have to say the magic word to get into my office?” I could. I had a few spellwords I could throw her way. Almost had them balanced on my tongue. Usually, it took considerable forethought to stir up my magic, but today, it was alive and hungry. Restlessness —the same feeling I’d experienced during the unveiling at the museum right before the snakes and theft had distracted me. I didn’t really want to throw down with Shu in the hallway over a missed appointment. Or did I?
    She must have realized that whatever she wanted from me she wasn’t about to get, because she stepped aside.
    “We need to up our prices or do more.” Her voice followed close behind as I stomped down the hallway. Shu’s office was to the left. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d ventured in there. She locked it when she wasn’t in, and I tried to avoid her when she was.
    “How can we do more? Either the clients are there or they aren’t. It isn’t as if we can advertise. God steal your firstborn? Supernatural plague of locusts in your backyard? ”
    “You could look into the missing witches. They’d pay.”
    “No,” I replied on reflex. Dime-a-dozen witches playing with what they didn’t understand weren’t my problem.
    “By Sekhmet , why not? You’ll take cash from almost anyone, why not them?”
    “We don’t get along.” I flashed Shu a raw smile, casting a flick of magic because I could. It had been waiting in me, coiled, waiting to strike, and I wanted to push her back from asking her irritating questions.
    She recoiled, like I’d intended, but the confusion that crossed her ink-dark eyes—like maybe my small magical flick had hurt her—hadn’t been part of the plan. That couldn’t be right, because nothing hurt Shu. Anyone that had in the past, she’d hanged, drawn, quartered, and eaten, storing the leftovers for later. Demon sorceresses don’t let anything go to waste.
    I opened my office door to the sound of Shu’s heels hitting the floor like nails being driven into a coffin and found a black cat sprawled across my new desk. “Scram, feline.”
    The tip of the cat’s black tail twitched. It lifted its head and blinked lazy green eyes at me, daring me to shoo it out the door. I’d given up