Read Online Armageddon Rules by J. C. Nelson - Free Book Online Page A

spells?” asked Beth. She was actually taking most of this well.
    “Yup. We’re here on business though. Just making a pit stop. This place is like a hardware store. You ever need something magical, you get it here. We use her because her bindings are the strongest of all the witches.” I pointed to an eight-page contract framed in the window.
    “There are more?” Her voice had a tremor this time.
    “In Low Kingdom, yes. You don’t go to Low Kingdom. Ever. You need something magical, you come here.” I’d get her a map of Kingdom before we left and mark out all the bad places to eat.
    Beth stood rock-still, staring at the ground. “Is that where I was going, back where the world went away?”
    I leaned against a newspaper machine. “Yeah. Out of curiosity, how many times have you eaten human flesh in the last year? The limit’s once if you want to enter High Kingdom.” Her stare told me she hadn’t eaten at any hot dog vendors for quite a while. “Okay, no human flesh. So you’ve had it pretty rough. You can be evil, or you can be sad. Either will open the underpass to Low Kingdom.”
    I took her hand and led her inside. Her look said she didn’t really want to go. Even I didn’t really want to go, but business was business. I opened the door to the witch’s shop and motioned her in. Inside, the humidity was at least one hundred percent, and at the temperature inside, I could bake a chicken in my pocket while I browsed.
    “Who enters my home?” asked the witch. The counter wasn’t visible from the doorway, so I took Beth and led her over to the corner where a huge crystal vat held dozens of frogs.
    The witch saw me, Beth saw the witch, and that’s about when the screaming started. I walked over to the counter and nodded. “How’s business?”
    “Is your pet going to do this the entire time?” The witch pointed to an engraved plaque that read “No Screaming.” The one below it read “No Shoes, No Shirt, No Soul, No Service.”
    The witch leaned across the counter. “I’ll make an exception in your case.”
    “Nah, she’s got to get over this. Beth, come here.” Beth didn’t move, so I went and moved her. Also, I might have clamped my hand over her mouth, you know, to move her. And she might have bitten me twice. “Beth, this is the Isyle Witch. Witch, this is Beth. Beth’s going to be a piper.”
    Beth took a break from screaming to stutter, “Her eyes.”
    The witch grinned, wrinkled lips pulling back across toothless gums. “I see as well as you do, child. Better, when it comes to the spirit world.” The witch stared at her, showing sickly yellow eyes, like someone had removed her pupil and iris, leaving only diseased white in their place.
    “It’s the witch mark. She’s got the witch mark. I’ve got the handmaiden’s mark.” I held up my hand to show my rose scar. I looked at the witch. “Is there a piper mark?”
    The Isyle Witch shook her head.
    I looked back at Beth, trying to make sure my face said “I care about your problems” more than “gut up and deal with it.”
    “Well, you’ve still got a lovely tattoo of a dinosaur on your shoulder. So we’re all friends with weird tattoos on our eyes, or hands, or shoulders. Now, will you please stop screaming?”
    Beth shut her mouth but did her best to hide behind me.
    Which gave me the chance to actually do some business. “Got any new frogs since Ari was in? I’ll take them if you do.”
    The witch reached behind the counter and brought out a trident.
    “Alive.”
    She sighed and handed me a net and a plastic bag. I took Beth (who maintained a death grip on my shoulder) over and fumbled in my purse until I found a cracker in a plastic wrapper. I pointed to the frogs. “See, some of these are amphibious normalcus . That’s your garden-variety frog. Some of them, however, are most likely royalty.”
    Beth stopped giving me a bruise on my shoulder to look at the hordes of frogs swimming back and forth. “How do you