Fire Water Read Online Free PDF Page B

thing.” His eyes sparkled with mischief that belied the no-nonsense tone. But before I could question him more, he reached around me. The old screen door screeched like a banshee. The dog wasn’t impressed.
    Inside, the bait shop smelled like rotten fish parts, old beer, and mold. I scrunched up my face, but Cap’n stilled and pulled a deep breath through his nose. “You ever fish, Prospero?”
    â€œOf course not.” I’d grown up in the Cauldron with a single mother. My uncle Abe was the most likely person to take me fishing, but instead he’d taken me under his wing in the potion-cooking game.
    He shook his head. “Kids these day aren’t raised proper.”
    Considering I’d spent a lot of my childhood committing petty crimes and wanting to grow up to be the leader of my coven, I couldn’t exactly argue with him. But I did make a mental note to be sure to take Danny fishing at some point. “What kind of project are you working on, exactly?”
    At that moment a tarp-covered door to the shop’s back room crinkled open. The man who emerged looked like an extra from Deliverance . His sun-weathered arms extended from a sleeveless T-shirt advertising a brand of motor oil. He wore a mesh cap on his head, and a toothpick jutted from his lips.
    â€œWell, hell, Marty didn’t know you was coming around today!” The man smiled, exposing sepia-colored teeth earned from years of smoking the cigarettes he pulled out of his pocket. He had the accent of a transplant from below the Mason–Dixon. I wasn’t a linguistics expert, but I knew redneck when I heard it.
    â€œHad a little time in my busy schedule,” Cap’n said. For some reason, both men started cackling. Bored, I looked into a case of hooks and lures.
    Once they sobered, the owner of the shop nodded at me. “Who’s this you got with ya?”
    â€œThis is Prospero,” Cap’n said. “She’s stuck with me for the week.” His tone implied he considered himself the one who was stuck.
    The owner lifted a cigarette to his lips and squinted as he lit the tip with a Zippo in his left hand. This told me he was most likely an Adept, which meant he’d been born with ability to turn Mundane ingredients into magic potions. Whether he actually used those talents was still up for debate. Not all Adepts chose to go through the training necessary to work magic. He exhaled the drag slowly as his gaze crawled over me like the maggots in his bait fridge.
    I’d quit smoking a couple of years earlier, but, like most former smokers, I still craved the feel of smoke in my lungs. Seeing the cloud of nicotine emerging from under his mustache, though, turned my stomach.
    â€œYou must be Earl?” I said.
    His eyes squinted. “How’d you know that?”
    I pointed toward the door. “Sign outside.”
    He didn’t crack a smile or relax his posture. Those two black eyes stayed on me as he spoke to Cap’n. “I got that stuff you wanted, Marty. Come on out back.”
    Cap’n turned to me. “I’ll be right back.”
    I started to ask him what was going on, but he shot me a look that promised retribution if I got too nosy. With a sigh, I leaned a hip against the counter.
    Without another word, the pair of men disappeared through the tarp. I heard their shoes on creaky wooden boards and low-toned discussion, but I couldn’t make out any words. Pushing off the counter, I looked around the store. Several large fish were stuffed and mounted on the walls with brass plaques bragging each specimen’s weight and the date it was caught. A drinks cooler along one wall offered six-packs of beer, sodas, and bottles of water. There were even a few shelves filled with snacks and convenience items someone might need on a fishing trip, like sunscreen and foam coolers.
    In other words, it was really boring. I looked to the right and spied a cloudy window