Swift (Strangetown Magic Book 1) Read Online Free PDF

while their significant other shopped, taking the opportunity to chat, smoke, or both.
    I grabbed a trolley and gave my belly a sound talking to as it was getting me some odd looks.
    Munching on an apple, I tried to focus on the task at hand, but the hell of a morning kept clamoring for attention. Not the house, not Mack and his rather impressive true form, but the vampire. I couldn't shake it, that sight of an immortal human being getting stomped.
    I've seen more than my fair share of death, even been the one doling it out on occasion, but it never gets easy, that reminder of how fallible we are. That all we are made of is delicate meat, with blood flowing around our body so close to the surface that a little nick with something sharp on the side of your leg, at your neck, or wrists, and a few minutes later you are gone, on the other side and wondering who invented such a fragile body for a sentient being to inhabit.
    I wasn't overcome with grief—I hadn't known the guy that well—but that doesn't mean I wasn't sad, because I was. The loss of life is always a terrible thing, a precious gift to lose, and there aren't many people in this world that deserve to go out like that.
    Houses and things? Whatever, they can be replaced, but life, that's so rare and sacred. Maybe I shouldn't have been sad, after all he was a vampire who'd had nine hundred years of experience, would have killed endless people in his time before they found a better way to continue their lifestyle. But regardless of the extra years, it saddened me the same as it always does.
    Trying to get myself out of the funk, I focused on my shopping.
    There were a number of new aisles and the meat counters seemed to expand exponentially each time I visited as the supermarket chains got up to speed with what the new clientele wanted.
    As well as the usual beef and pork for sale, there was a dedicated ghoul counter, with a misshapen butcher standing behind the rows of putrid flesh, talking animatedly with a long line of customers waving their tickets around and clamoring for service. Human flesh, rotten and rancid, oozing and green, they can't get enough of it. They are kind of like human beings but extended in weird places, faces dripping like molten plastic, arms and legs deformed, either short or grossly elongated, but nice enough, as long as you are still alive. Yes, I know. Human flesh? WTF? You should see how much it cost. People signed over their bodies to help their families, rather than be buried or cremated.
    I loaded up on the basics, grabbed another apple from my trolley and let the sweet flavor settle my stomach as I did a detour to avoid the Lava Land section—big business and their branding have been the first to embrace wholeheartedly our new neighbors. The heat from the massive cauldron was intense, but it didn't stop the demons swatting at each other with forked tails or savage claws as they got a ladleful poured directly down their throat—after they'd paid, of course.
    All of this was quite normal now, and it's surprising how quickly you get used to new stuff, so I didn't bat an eyelid at the Yeti in a pink pinafore behind a small stand offering free samples of imported Norwegian snow—what's that all about?—or even slow to stare as I passed the packed aisle of fae, selling teeth to the goblins, who downed them in one and stood like zombies—yes, they are catered for too, have been for years—as the magic high of childhood innocence took them to a place they could never otherwise reach.
    I just grabbed a box of budget corn flakes and carried on about my business.
    Trolley as full as I dared since I had to carry the lot home, I piled it all on the conveyor belt and chatted with the zombie a little as she rang me up.
    "Nice day for it," I said.
    "Brains."
    "Yes, lovely. Been busy?"
    "Love brains."
    "Oh, really? Well, that's nice."
    "Get brains soon."
    "I bet. Shift nearly over is it? Got anything planned for the weekend?"
    "Brains."
    "Great,