Witches' Bane (The Soul Eater Book 2) Read Online Free PDF Page A

drawled. “Shooting the Nameless One will just piss him off.” One of Cujo’s eyebrows arched in a Can you believe it? expression.
    “W-what …”
    I noticed a plastic bag beside his chair and wondered if the smell of blood had lingered on me from Osiris’s gift basket or if it was coming from whatever was in that bag. “Lunch?”
    “Huh?”
    “What’s your name?”
    He swallowed and hesitated, as if telling me his name might give me power. “Er… Kenny. My name’s Kenny.”
    I lowered my hands. Kenny wouldn’t shoot Cujo or me. With a sigh, I stepped forward, plucked the gun from his hand, and showed him the safety. “You might wanna flick that over next time you threaten someone.”
    He blinked too many times to count. I turned my back on him and peeled back the drapes, uncovering Cujo’s backup plan. “And don’t pick a cop to threaten.”
    Cujo had called me out for amateur hour.
    Kenny’s already pale face whitened to the color of milk. “He’s a cop? I just thought… when you wouldn’t take my calls and the coven said to avoid you, I… I checked out the last known site where you were spotted—” I scowled and he swallowed with a loud click. “There’s a website. You can log the Nameless One’s… your… er…your last known sighting.”
    Cujo snorted like he’d never heard of it. He’d probably created the damn thing.
    My scowl hardened.
    “I found some fibers, did a little”—Kenny wiggled his fingers in the air—“and cast a spell to find your strongest connection. I didn’t know this guy is a cop.”
    Kenny’s spell must have been weak to focus on a human connection. Otherwise, it would’ve picked up that my strongest connection was Shu. I would’ve liked to see Kenny break into Shu’s office and put a gun to her head. She probably would’ve used his skin for a new rug. His poor spell-casting abilities had saved him that fate.
    Cujo smiled. “Strongest connection, huh? Love you too, Ace.”
    “You do that often?” I asked the kid. “Go following spells into people’s homes and threatening them?”
    “No. I mean…this witch thing is a hobby. It’s my girl who got me into it. She’s awesome. She has all these achievement awards from the coven. She does way more—”
    I tossed Kenny’s gun to Cujo, cutting off Harry Potter, and moved to the window to check the street outside. I wasn’t expecting trouble, not with the kid’s poor planning, but it didn’t hurt to keep an eye out. As Cujo had so kindly spilled, I’d crossed paths with witches before.
    A cat dashed across the street and disappeared behind a row of parked cars. A suited and booted guy marched up the sidewalk, staring at his cellphone while furiously tapping out a message with his thumb. Nothing unusual jumped out at me, but a slippery uncertainty gnawed away at my insides. The sensation pulled at my thoughts, like a kid tugging on a pant leg, as though I’d forgotten something vital and at any second, it would come rushing back and knock me on my ass.
    “So, Kenny the Witch,” I said. “You have me here. Now what?”
    Kenny ran his trembling fingers through his short blond hair and rubbed at his forehead. “My girlfriend. She’s missing.”
    I crossed my arms and glared across the room at him. “Not my problem.”
    “There are others—”
    “I’ve heard.”
    “We asked for help—”
    “I refused.”
    “But we—”
    “I have a long memory. If you don’t know what happened, ask someone who does. You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have threatened a friend of mine. You’re lucky I’m not carving tiny pieces off you to take back to my pet sorceress.”
    Kenny looked ready to lose his breakfast. He opened his mouth—to beg, to make excuses, I didn’t know and didn’t care. Cujo could have dealt with him without dragging me all the way out here.
    “Ace…” Cujo grumbled. “Ask what’s in the bag.”
    Kenny didn’t wait. He snatched the bag off the floor and clutched it to