Talking Dirty (Pax Arcana) Read Online Free PDF

know if the thing we were chasing could hear really well or not, but I didn’t want to complicate Samuel’s decision-making process with maybes.
    “Why?” If I sounded like a parent, Samuel sounded like a six-year-old, albeit a deep-voiced six-year-old who cast enough shade for a small family to picnic in.
    “Because I’m pretty sure it’s killing a lot of people,” I explained.
    “I killed some people.” I couldn’t hear any emotion in Samuel’s voice. Not fear. Not anger. Not shame. It was there. I just couldn’t hear it. “You didn’t kill me.”
    “You killed some people you shouldn’t have,” I acknowledged. “But they were sort of threatening you, and I think you got confused. You’re going to stop killing people, right?”
    “Aren’t you going to kill this person?” Sam wondered.
    “I…” How the hell was I supposed to answer that? “I’m not sure this is a person, Samuel. It only looks like a person.”
    “I only look like a person too,” Samuel observed. “So do you.”
    Oh, for…He had to start displaying surprisingly developed intellectual curiosity and reasoning skills now ? “I think this thing kills good people, Samuel. It’s mean. Do you know what hypnotism is?”
    Samuel swayed his head back and forth and widened his eyes, letting his mouth hang open slackly. “Uuuuhhhhhh. I’m hypnotized.”
    “Right,” I said. “This thing can hypnotize people. They aren’t hurting her or anything, and she makes them love her and trust her, and then she takes their money and kills them.”
    Samuel didn’t say anything for a long time. Finally, he said. “So, I should kill her .”
    “If she tries to kill you, yes,” I said. “Don’t let her hurt you.”
    “I won’t,” Samuel said, and something dark and mature came into his voice that made me believe him.
    We had been traveling outside Porter proper for most of this conversation. The paved roads became dirt and gravel, and the residential homes became scarcer and older and less well maintained. Stores disappeared altogether except for the occasional gas station, and then the houses turned into trailers or old, faded brown barns with missing boards that hadn’t held livestock in a couple of decades.
    Suddenly, the satellite map turned off. It might have just been that I wasn’t getting a signal any longer, but I didn’t think so. It was energy-sensitive technology, and I had a feeling magic was in the area. If I’d had a cell phone, I might have taken it out to see if it was messed up too, but I’m still hoping cell phones are just a fad.
    Most magic doesn’t have that big a radius of effect, so I turned the truck around and drove a ways until I found an old trail that was chained off and had a peeling NO TRESPASSING sign posted near it. The lock linking two ends of a chain was rusted shut. Most likely abandoned family land that someone had some vague idea of selling if real estate developers ever made it this far out. I yanked one of the wooden posts that the chain was threaded through back and forth until I dislodged it from the earth. No cars came along, but then, that was probably one of the reasons a supernatural predator would choose the area. I pulled my truck up the trail, parked it, got out, and went back and replanted the wooden post again.
    “Come here, Samuel,” I said, fishing in my pocket.
    “What?” he said a little distrustfully. Samuel had followed me out of the truck but was keeping his distance, picking up on how tension and adrenaline had changed my smell.
    “I have some earplugs. I don’t want this thing hypnotizing you with its voice,” I said. They were good earplugs too, foam inserts that started expanding five seconds after being exposed to air. They would seal up an ear canal tighter than a steel weld. Which is why I took care to give Samuel some last instructions before removing the earplugs from their airtight wrapper. “You’re my secret weapon, Samuel. Just follow me and don’t make