Read Online The Undead Pool by Kim Harrison - Free Book Online

match.”
    Al took the still-hot crucible up in his bare hand. “You’re missing the point, itchy witch,” he said, tossing the entire thing into the fire. “Once you know a person’s aura, you simply tune yours to it as if it was a ley line and pop in.”
    He was smiling with a wicked gleam in his eye, and I sat up, seeing the beauty in it. “That’s how you always find me,” I said, and his devious expression blanked.
    â€œStop!” he said, hand up. “Don’t even think to try it. You or your gargoyle don’t have the sophistication to differentiate between auratic shades to that degree. Line jumping is one thing, jumping to an aura is something else. It’s like saying the sunset is red when it’s thousands of shades.”
    I could see his point, but hell, I knew Ivy’s aura pretty well. And Jenks’s.
    â€œStudent!” I started as his hand hit the table inches from me, and irate, I looked up. “What did I say?” he asked, leaning over me, his smile nasty.
    â€œNot to think about it,” I said calmly, but I was, and he knew it.
    Back hunched, he spun away. “Fine,” he grumbled. “Go ahead and burn another line into existence. Let me draw up the papers to annul our relationship first. I’m not paying for another one of your life lessons . Have you seen my insurance premiums? My God, you’re more expensive than a seventeen-year-old working on his third car.”
    I had precious little ever-after income from my tulpa at Dalliance—which went to Al, incidentally—but he’d never mentioned insurance before now, meaning it had to be embarrassingly costly. “I’m not thinking about it,” I said softly, and he looked at me over his shoulder, slowly spinning to gather the rest of the spelling equipment and lovingly set each precious piece back in its proper spot.
    â€œSo if the ball wasn’t an assassination attempt and I did the diversion charm correctly, then why did it misfire?” I asked as he slid the curse book away and locked the cabinet.
    â€œIt didn’t.” He slid the key into a pocket, and I felt a tweak on my awareness as the little bump of fabric vanished. “It was overstimulated, not misfired.”
    My lips pursed as I saw the news reports in a new way. Not misfired, but overpowered? “But I’m better than that!” I protested.
    His back was to me, and he lined his chalk up with the rest. “Yes, you are.”
    It was a soft murmur, and I crouched before the fire to pull the crucible out before it tarnished too badly—since I was the one who’d probably have to clean it. “Then why? Al, we had thirty misfires over a twenty-mile stretch in the span of an hour. Ivy worked it out. Whatever it is, it’s moving almost forty-five miles an hour.”
    â€œIvy, eh?” he said. “I’ll take that as a fact, then. Perhaps whatever disturbed the energy flow is gone.”
    My gut hurt, and I set the fire iron aside. “Al, the misfires are coming from Loveland.”
    There was a telling instant of silence, and then Al turned away, his shoes scraping softly. “Your ley line is fine.”
    â€œWhat if it isn’t?” I stood, afraid to tell him that my aura had gone white. If it was overstimulation, then probably everyone’s had.
    â€œYou fixed it.” Eyes averted, he sat in his chair, fingers steepled. “Your line is fine!”
    I pulled his coat from the bench, the crushed velvet smooth against my fingers. On the mantel, Mr. Fish swam up and down, his nose against the glass, ignoring the pellets. I didn’t say a word. Just stood there with his coat over my arm.
    â€œYou want to go look at it?” he finally asked, and I held his coat out. “Okay, we’ll go look at it,” he conceded, and I quelled a surge of anxiety. This close to sunset, there’d be surface demons, but I was more