Devil's Punch Read Online Free PDF

prudent.”
    He muttered something that sounded like
Fuck prudent
, but I just grinned. “Speaking of which, it’s time for me to head out.”
    â€œI’ll walk you home.”
    Dating Chance was turning out to be unexpectedly sweet.

Bad News Travels Fast
    Like berries fermenting on the bush, that sweetness couldn’t last, of course. But it wasn’t Chance’s fault.
    With disbelieving eyes, I read the words:
    Save the girl or claim your crown. Either way, you’ll come to us
.
    Whoever had sent this must be talking about Shannon. Visceral fear crackled like lightning in my veins.
Please let this be someone’s idea of a joke.
But since it was in English, not Spanish, it probably hadn’t been written by one of Tia’s
bruja
friends. Those witches didn’t like me, but they weren’t pranksters, either.
    Shannon had a new life in Laredo. The crown…This was a guess at best, but when I’d defeated the Knight of Hell, Caim, he’d called me
my queen.
So maybe it had to do with that. Demons. Leaving a note. But they wanted a meeting, or wanted to lure me somewhere. If they had Shannon, this was a damn effective strategy. Even knowing it was a trap, knowing it would be stupid and suicidal, I’d go for her. I’d go.
    I read the note a second time and then glanced down the street both ways. There was little through traffic this way; the streets climbed higher and higher, until they just…stopped. I’d discovered that the hard way. After backing down a narrow mountain road for half a mile,I figured my skills behind the wheel were better than average. But today there were no drivers at all, bad or otherwise. The sidewalk, cracked and uneven, stood empty.
    A chill wind blew over me, and I fancied it carried a hint of brimstone. Telling myself I was being stupid, I plucked the parchment from Tia’s front gate and studied it. Expensive paper. It had a thick, quality feel, like the posh stationery someone who came from money would use. The ink, too, wasn’t simple ballpoint or even gel tip. From the swoops and curves, it had an old-fashioned look, calligraphy more than simple cursive. I flipped it over and found a set of coordinates. Longitude and latitude? Or maybe GPS. I couldn’t tell where somebody wanted me to go just by looking at the numbers, but it occurred to me I should get off the street. Though I’d taken care of the problems with Montoya, it didn’t mean I had no enemies left. They could find me.
    Obviously, someone had.
    It unnerved me to think of unseen eyes, watching, but that was a fact of life once you accepted magick was real. I unlocked Tia’s front gate and stepped into her courtyard. Immediately, I felt safer, though it was a psychological response at best. As I knew, magick could get behind walls to strike you if the practitioner was determined. There were ways to undermine the wards. With that in mind, I checked Tia’s protections. I didn’t touch them, as that would weaken the runes, but they yielded a strong, satisfactory glow to my trained eye.
    But there were always loopholes. Hell,
I
could do it with simple spells, given sufficient time and planning. That knowledge unsettled me. Around me, the courtyard shivered with life, wind rippling gently over leaves and petals. Flashes of color—vert and crimson—reassured me. There was still a faint, mossy crack in the clay. Nothing had changed, even if someone had left me an inexplicable note on the door. Though it couldn’t mean anything good, I would deal with whatever new problem was about to level my life.
    I let myself in and found Tia in the kitchen, makinghomemade corn tortillas. She greeted me with a smile and a lift of one gnarled hand. “
¿Tienes hambre?
”
    Well, I had been hungry. Not so much anymore. I had a coiled thing in my stomach that belched and swelled like a toad. Certainly, it was dread. Everything had consequences. To