Hotter Than Helltown: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Preternatural Affairs Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

other times, the witches responsible would drug the lucky sacrificee so that they wouldn’t be able to fight back.
    At least, that was what the handbook for aspides said about ritual sacrifice.
    Yes, the test I was studying for apparently had questions about magical murder. Fun.
    “No magic narrows down our list of possible perpetrators, though,” I said.
    Suzy snorted. “Sure. Instead of being one of the thousands of witches within Los Angeles city limits, it’s one of the thousands of demons. Now we just have to find which one.”
    A knocking at the door. It swung open and Director Fritz Friederling stepped in. “She’s here.”
    Isobel Stonecrow entered behind him.
    If the morgue was a fifties diner, Isobel was the pinup model on the chef’s calendar in the kitchen. The most morbid pinup girl I’d ever seen.
    Her glossy brown hair was twisted up into a half-up, half-down style held in place by clips of animal bone. Judging by the fact that she was wearing Fritz’s suit jacket over a loincloth of coyote fur, she was probably topless underneath—her idea of what a death shaman should wear.
    Fritz had pulled her off the job to help us out.
    When she stepped into the room, the jacket gapped a few inches, letting me glimpse her beaded necklaces and the curve of breasts underneath.
    Yep, topless.
    There’s something about hips like hers that render me stupid. Doesn’t matter that I’ve seen her a few dozen times by now. The amount of meat on this woman is always shocking in the most pleasant way possible, and it redirects all my blood flow from the brain in my skull to the less useful brain below the belt. Add in a glimpse of her breasts…
    It was a good thing I had Suzy to do all the thinking about the case, because I was going to be pretty useless around her.
    “Hello,” Isobel said to Suzy, all cool courtesy. Her tone heated when she addressed me. “And to you, too, Cèsar.”
    Somehow I managed to say, “Hey.” Articulate as ever.
    Cèsar Hawke: ladies’ man, melter of loins, consummate poet.
    I caught Suzy rolling her eyes when she thought my back was turned.
    “Who is this guy?” Isobel’s eyes roved over the body, lingering on his facial wounds, the gaping hole under his ribs. Then she fixed her gaze on the floor, eyebrows knitted.
    Unlike Suzy, she wasn’t comfortable with the mutilation. She usually worked with cadavers that were six feet deep. She didn’t have to see the blood and bone.
    Must have sucked to be a death witch who wasn’t comfortable around the dead.
    “His name is Jay Brandon,” I said. “We found him in—”
    “Why don’t you tell us?” Suzy interrupted. “You’re the necrocognitive.”
    Isobel frowned. “I need his name to summon him, at least.”
    “And now you’ve got it.”
    “Cool it, Agent Takeuchi.” Fritz’s BlackBerry buzzed in his pocket. He checked the screen and then went for the door. “We don’t have the funeral home for long. Make this fast, Belle.” He slipped into the hallway to answer his phone call.
    “Need anything?” I asked Isobel. “Latex gloves? Drink of water? Actual clothing?”
    She didn’t seem to hear me. She was staring at his empty chest, the hard lines of muscle smeared with blood, the concave plane of his stomach.
    Suzy stepped back next to me, leaning on the counter at my side.
    “Here we go,” she said with a smirk.
    I felt the magic rising a heartbeat later. It filled the room like an invisible tide, climbing up my thighs, clutching my chest in its grip until it became hard to breathe. The back of my throat itched.
    Isobel stretched her hands over the body, palms down and fingers spread. Most witches needed a ritual in order to build power for their craft. Not Isobel. She didn’t need circles, chanting, or herbs. All she needed was a name.
    “Jay Brandon,” Isobel intoned, “rise up and speak to me.”
    Magic surged. I sneezed into my sleeve.
    Suzy was already holding a tissue up for me.
    “Thanks.” Blowing my