Magic Burns

Page 31

 

 

 

“The hero? Humility is a virtue.”

 

“So is patience. And if you’re patient and lucky, you might just be the girl I bed on my last night in town.”

 

His hand squeezed my ass. I spun about, intending to punch him in the nose. The hangar lay empty, except for the gossamer trail of mist. It lingered for a long breath and then dissipated into the breeze.

 

I battled a very strong urge to kick something.

 

Julie stared at me from the crates. “He went poof.”

 

“Yes, he did.”

 

“He likes you. He grabbed your butt.”

 

“Next time I see him, I’ll cut his arm off. We’ll see if he can grow it back.”

 

I glanced to where the skeleton once hung. The bolts were missing. How the hell did he manage that?

 

All my precious evidence was gone. I didn’t even have a chance to m-scan the scene to get a fix on what kind of magic was used. All in all, this had not gone very well. I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on, and I’d just had a conversation with the guy who could explain everything and learned absolutely nothing. Except for the fact that I had a shapely ass. Healthy self-esteem is a good thing. If I didn’t have any, I’d be beating my own stupid head against the first available hard surface.

 

“Are you leaving now?” Julie asked from the crates.

 

Hell no. Nothing that involved several women missing, a bottomless pit ringed in blood, and an inhuman skeleton could possibly amount to something benign. And Mr. Grab-ass apparently wanted to keep me as far away from it as possible. I wondered why.

 

“You want to find your mom?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Do you want my help?”

 

“Sure.”

 

“You know who was the head witch in the coven?”

 

“Esmeralda.”

 

Esmeralda. Oh boy. “Where does she live?”

 

“The Honeycomb.”

 

This just got better and better. “Climb down. We’re going to pay her a visit.”