Read Online Strange Brew by Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Caine, Faith Hunter, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclane, Jennifer van Dyck, Christian Rummel, Gayle Hendrix, Dina Pearlman, Marc Vietor, Therese Plummer, Karen Chapman - Free Book Online Page A

bad in a couple of hours around me.”
    She frowned. “Like everything electronic does. So?”
    “So if Ms. Bassarid has Caine scared out of his mind on magic…” I said.
    Murphy got it. “Why is she using a credit card?”
    “Because she probably isn’t human,” I said. “Nonhumans can sling power all over the place and not screw up anything if they don’t want to. It also explains why she got sent to Caine to get taught a lesson and wound up scaring him to death instead.”
    Murphy said an impolite word. “But if she’s got a credit card, she’s in the system.”
    “To some degree,” I said. “How long for you to find something?”
    She shrugged. “We’ll see. You get a description?”
    “Blue-black hair, green eyes, long legs, and great tits,” I said.
    She eyed me.
    “Quoting,” I said righteously.
    I’m sure she was fighting off a smile. “What are you going to do?”
    “Go back to Mac’s,” I said. “He loaned me his key.”
    Murphy looked sideways at me. “Did he know he was doing that?”
    I put my hand to my chest as if wounded. “Murphy,” I said. “He’s a friend.”
     
    I lit a bunch of candles with a mutter and a wave of my hand, and stared around Mac’s place. Out in the dining area, chaos reigned. Chairs were overturned. Salt from a broken shaker had spread over the floor. None of the chairs were broken, but the framed sign that read accorded neutral territory was smashed and lay on the ground near the door.
    An interesting detail, that.
    Behind the bar, where Mac kept his iceboxes and his wood-burning stove, everything was as tidy as a surgical theater, with the exception of the uncleaned stove and some dishes in the sink. Nothing looked like a clue.
    I shook my head and went to the sink. I stared at the dishes. I turned and stared at the empty storage cabinets under the bar, where a couple of boxes of beer still waited. I opened the icebox and stared at the food, and my stomach rumbled. There were some cold cuts. I made a sandwich and stood there munching it, looking around the place, thinking.
    I didn’t think of anything productive.
    I washed the dishes in the sink, scowling and thinking up a veritable thunderstorm. I didn’t get much further than a light sprinkle, though, before a thought struck me.
    There really wasn’t very much beer under the bar.
    I finished the dishes, pondering that. Had there been a ton earlier? No. I’d picked up the half-used box and taken it home. The other two boxes were where I’d left them. But Mac usually kept a legion of beer bottles down there.
    So why only two now?
    I walked down to the far end of the counter, a nagging thought dancing around the back of my mind, where I couldn’t see it. Mac kept a small office in the back corner, consisting of a table for his desk, a wooden chair, and a couple of filing cabinets. His food service and liquor permits were on display on the wall above it.
    I sat down at the desk and opened filing cabinets. I started going through Mac’s records and books. Intrusive as hell, I know, but I had to figure out what was going on before matters got worse.
    And that was when it hit me. Matters getting worse. I could see a mortal wizard, motivated by petty spite, greed, or some other mundane motivation, wrecking Mac’s bar. People can be amazingly petty. But nonhumans, now—that was a different story.
    The fact that this Bassarid chick had a credit card meant she was methodical. I mean, you can’t just conjure one out of thin air. She’d taken the time to create an identity for herself. That kind of forethought indicated a scheme, a plan, a goal. Untidying a Chicago bar, neutral ground or not, was not by any means the kind of goal that things from the Nevernever set for themselves when they went undercover into mortal society.
    Something bigger was going on, then. Mac’s place must have been a side item for Bassarid.
    Or maybe a stepping-stone.
    Mac was no wizard, but he was savvy. It would take more