Mark of the Witch Read Online Free PDF Page B

groggy, rolled over in bed and pried one eye open
to look at the clock. There was a cigarette, a white filtered Marlboro Light
Menthol, lying in front of my little alarm clock, pristine, unsmoked, waiting
for me. Had the nicotine fairy visited last night?
    Then my foggy eyes focused on the illuminated red digits.
11:11. I’d slept way late, which was totally unlike me. My brain reminded me
that my shift at Pink Petals, the flower shop sixteen blocks from my apartment,
started at noon today, and that, more than anything,
set a fire under my ass. I bounded out of bed, took a record-speed shower and
toweled down in front of the mirror. A handful of mousse and a quick finger
comb, and my hair was done. Easy breezy. I was still tugging its natural
crimp-curls into shape as I gave my mirror image the once-over, but I stopped
moving with one hand still tangled in my hair. My forearm was sporting a
black-and-blue mark the size of a pizza slice.
    Frowning, I lowered my arm and looked down at my body. Small
boobs, still hanging where they ought to, no marks on what I’d always considered
a rather boyish figure. I was kind of straight—slender, but straight—long waist
that was nice and lean, but no flaring out at the hips. No booty in the back. I
was small everywhere. Delicate and slight. I turned and looked back over my
shoulder, spotting a good-sized slate-colored blob on one shoulder blade and a
maroon one on my butt cheek. Legs looked okay in back. I looked down and cringed
at the way the second littlest toe on my right foot was all bent out of shape
and discolored. Looked broken. Felt it, too.
    I turned back and met my own eyes in the mirror. “What the hell
happened last night?” Damn. I was a mess. And that was about the time it hit me
that I didn’t remember how I got home. In fact, I didn’t remember anything
except standing in the subway, trying to hold on to the here and now, while
something else was trying to suck me in. I remembered the punks and the old guy.
I remembered one of them with a knife, and another with a mouthwateringly
good-looking smoke in his hands. I remember lunging toward them.
    And then…nothing.
    And now there’s a mouthwateringly good-looking smoke on my
nightstand. Coincidence? Or not…
    I went back to the bedroom, picked up the cig, looked it over.
I wanted to smoke it almost more than I wanted to know how I’d gotten home and
into bed last night, but I couldn’t. God only knew what might be in it. Punks
like that, you just couldn’t tell—assuming that was where I got it, which was
impossible to know.
    I picked it up, drummed up every ounce of will in my entire
body, took it to the bathroom, dropped it in the toilet and flushed it away.
    I almost cried.
    I grabbed my towel off the floor, hung it up to dry and rubbed
some witch hazel on my bruises. Then I dressed—leggings and a pretty little
white camisole with lacy straps, long minty-green sweater over that, with a wide
enough neck that it could hang off one shoulder. I added a wide pale brown
leather belt that matched my short, kick-ass boots right down to the big gold
buckles.
    Then I wielded my makeup brushes like magic wands, and in
another five minutes I was ready to face the day. Heavy eyeliner, dark shadow,
luscious long lashes. I was still wearing my pentacle from the night before, and
I decided to keep it on. Hell, it couldn’t hurt. And it might help. It had my
birthstone, an amethyst, in its center, and ivy vines made of silver twisting
around the circle that enclosed it. Each leg of the star was made of a tiny
broomstick. I liked it, lapsed Wiccan or not.
    Giving one final glance in the mirror, I headed out of my
apartment. My boots protected my sore toe so I didn’t even limp. None of my
bruises showed. No one would ever know what had happened last night.
    Apparently not even me.
    Sixteen blocks was a good brisk walk, and I loved it. I walked
to work most of the winter. I walked it in the rain, when it wasn’t