Flint Lock (Witches of Karma #10) Read Online Free PDF Page B

and pulled a testicle out. I quickly cut it. I thought he was going to pass out as the testicle hit the grass at his feet and bounced. He swayed a little. I could see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed hard.
    I set to the removal of testicle number two.
    “Done,” I announced, glancing at my watch. “Five minutes total. In and out. Bam! That’s what I’m talking about!” I did a little happy dance.
    The stranger stared at the scalpel in my hands. It just had the tiniest bit of blood on it. Nothing, really.
    I thought he was going to throw up. He was starting to look a little green.
    Instead, he thrust the lead rope back to Ms. Abel, who chuckled as he retreated back to the clinic.
    “I think you need a new assistant,” she chirped. “That one’s a bit too squeamish.”
    “He’s just temporary,” I responded, looking in the direction of his swiftly-retreating form. I felt a little bad for the guy. If anyone was having a worse morning than I was, it had to be him.
    Dash started waking up already. I was glad I had finished the procedure so quickly. The little horse snorted uneasily, trying to scramble to his feet. The anesthetic I’d given him made him stagger around like he was drunk. I gave him something to lean on—namely me--as he got his sea legs back.
    All in all, the horse was taking the procedure a lot better than the man, and he was the one that had lost his nuts.
    Ms. Abel payed in cash, bless her ancient heart. I wished all my clients were so good about taking care of their bills. Most of my patients seemed to think I was running a charity clinic—payment optional. If my clients paid at the time of treatment, I wouldn’t be so far into the red.
    Maybe I should stop being a nice person, and send a collections agency after them, but I liked my clients. I didn’t want to lose any of them. And I’d never gotten to feeling comfortable asking people for money, even if I had earned it.
    Vets don’t make money in general, nice vets apparently drowned in debt and overdrawn account notices. No wonder I was on the verge of losing my farm and clinic.
    Nice people get eaten first.
    I showed my stranger how to enter the payment into the computer. Just in case, I miraculously ended up with another paying customer.
    “I see why you keep him around,” Ms. Abel said in that overly-loud whisper of hers, nodding her white head towards the clinic as I helped her load Dash into her trailer. “He’s awfully pretty. And so tall! It’s nice to have some extra eye-candy around.”
    I glanced back, thinking about the man behind my desk. Yep, he was pretty, all right. He was also being devoured by a demon, and had tried to kill himself. Oh, and me.
    I didn’t need that kind of pretty in my life.
    That kind of pretty wasn’t good for anyone.
    My next couple patients were small animals—a pet rabbit having her annual check-up, and a litter of puppies from the same breeder that I’d purchased Jazz from, who were ready for their first set of shots.
    As it turned out, these pups weren’t just from the same breeder, but they had the exact same parents as Jazz, too. Looking at them filled me with a warm kind of nostalgia for her puppy stage.
    At this age, the tiny Border collies were mostly fluffy balls of black and white energy. They squirmed and pounced on each other as I tried to sort them out. It was like trying to sort very large crickets. They made squeaking, inquisitive sounds as they wiggled in all directions.
    I paused to rub the ears of the young male I was working with. He was growling and tugging at the cuff of my shirt as I palpated his abdomen. No doubt imagining that it was a particularly naughty—and small—species of sheep.
    “You’re so cute,” I squeaked in that voice that only appeared around babies—of any species. I looked up at his owner with a smile. “I can’t believe Jazz was ever this small.”
    Mr. M—who had a long name that nobody could pronounce properly—grinned at me. He was a