The bar’s parking lot was mostly empty—so much for the lunch rush Sam was talking about. The lot itself looked bad, too—it had potholes and the lines that showed the parking places needed to be repainted. The employee lot was even worse, with grass coming up between the gravel. I could have ripped out all the weeds in ten minutes, five if I went really fast, but Uncle Desmond had said I should be discreet.
I found a tree that would give me a good view of the front window and climbed up. My fab messenger bag had been stocked with a pair of binoculars—sturdy in case I dropped them—so I could do the discreet thing. I could see okay, but not as well as I should have been able to. The window was dirty, and the inside of the restaurant looked grubby.
A couple of parties came in, and the waitress was painfully slow to talk to them—not just by my standards, but by human Southerner standards. When they got their food, both parties called the waitress back over. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but they didn’t look happy. One table took four trips back and forth to get their order right. No wonder Sam wasn’t making any money.
But he was there, not climbing into the wrong bed. I could see him the whole time: drawing drinks behind the bar, bringing out food, answering the phone, wiping tables. Poor guy looked dog tired, too. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to go tromping in the woods to cut down a tree. I kept watch for a couple of hours, and Sam kept on working. He didn’t make any calls, text any pictures of his parts, or do anything else like a man getting some on the side would.
Something was weird.
I thought about calling Uncle Desmond, but he was probably still on the road because he goes like a glacier, and he didn’t like to talk on the phone while driving. Besides, I didn’t have enough to tell him. What I needed to do was to get inside Merlotte’s without Sam knowing it was me.
I put away my binoculars, slipped down the tree, and ran toward town, looking for what I needed. Or rather for who I needed.
There! A car with North Carolina plates had just pulled into the Grabbit Kwik for gas, and I saw a curvy redheaded woman in tight jeans, high-heeled boots, and a short leather jacket scooting for the restroom like she’d been holding it in for hours. I waited a minute before following her in, and was standing at the mirror messing with my hair when she came out of the stall and gave me a sideways look that reminded me of my cousins. I stared her down in the mirror, which made her nervous, and while she was edging out of the restroom, I snatched a couple of her hairs so quick she didn’t even notice.
I went out of the bathroom long enough to make sure she was gone, then went back to lock myself in a stall while I held the hairs in my hand and said the right words. When I came out again, I looked just like the woman who’d needed to pee so bad. The humans at the Grabbit Kwik didn’t even notice that “I” had already left the building once.
Since I looked like I was wearing stupidly high heels even though I was really still in sneakers, I tried to keep it to a normal pace until I was sure nobody was watching, then zipped back to Merlotte’s. Sam looked up when I came in the door, but his stuffy nose kept him from recognizing my scent, which the magic hadn’t changed.
“Just have a seat wherever you like, ma’am.”
“Suresuresure.”
He gave me a look.
“I sure will,” I said, trying to sound like Sookie. I must have been good enough—he went back to wiping whatever it was he’d been wiping and I sat at the bar where I could keep an eye on him. He gave me a menu but his smile was a professional bartender smile, not a come-hither smile. That was one point for Sam.
I ordered a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke, and while I was waiting, I tried to flirt with Sam. Okay, I’m not the biggest flirt around, but I can stick my chest out, make suggestive comments, and give eye-sex. But not only did Sam not respond appreciatively, he seemed too sick to even notice.
Another point for Sam.
At least I was going to get some good food—I’ve eaten at Merlotte’s before. Only when the food came, the fries were cold and greasy, the burger was dry, the lettuce on top was wilted, and I spotted a lipstick stain on my glass. I ate it anyway—I am half demon—but in between bites, I did a little figuring. I couldn’t speak for how long that lettuce had been hanging around, but I’d heard the burger hitting the griddle and smelled the fries while they were cooking. The meat hadn’t cooked long enough to get that hard and dry, and the fries should still have been hot enough to scorch my tongue.
Something was really, really weird. Plus I was catching the scent of something wrong.
I stuck around for a while and kept trying to flirt, but mostly just watched other customers come in and listened to them complain about food that couldn’t have gotten that cold that quick. Not one customer was completely satisfied. One party refused to pay, and Sam didn’t even seem to have the energy to argue with them. Those who did pay left lousy tips.
I also saw the waitress on duty drop two glasses that she had a firm grip on, spill more salt than she managed to get into the shakers she was refilling, and wipe tables that were stickier after than before she wiped.
Around five o’clock, the last party grumbled its way through their meal, and Sam sent the waitress and cook home early for Christmas Eve, even though the place was supposed to be open until six. He gave me a hopeful look, too, but I just asked for another refill on my Coke.
As soon as his back was turned, I ran to lock the door and put up the CLOSED sign. Then I hopped back on my bar stool and whipped off my vest and tank top. Or maybe it was the leather jacket and shirt worn by the woman whose appearance I was using. Magic is weird. The important thing was that when Sam turned around, he wasn’t going to see my boobs, which aren’t that big anyway. He was about to see the boobs of that other woman.
That doesn’t make much sense, but magic is like the Internet—I don’t have to understand how it works to use it.
So Sam turned around, blinked, and backed away with his hands held up as if I was aiming something a lot more lethal than a pair of C cups. “Ma’am, I think you should leave now.”
“Seriously? I’m nearly naked and you’ve got something better to do than jump my bones?”
“I’m a married man, ma’am. Now, why don’t you put your top on and head home?”
“You sure? I’m not looking for a commitment. You give me a quick ride and I’ll be on my way, no questions asked.”
“I’ve got a wife and two kids at home, and they’re waiting on me to come put up our Christmas tree. I’m not interested in any quick rides.”
“Oh. Okaythen. MerryChristmas.” I grabbed my stuff off the floor and headed for the door. “Wait, I haven’t paid my check.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “It’s on me.”
“No, no, you’ve got that wife and kids.” I reached into my pocket to pull out a couple of twenties and put them on the bar. It was Uncle Desmond’s money anyway.
“Ma’am?” Sam said as I was unlocking the door.
“You change your mind?”
“No, I just thought you might want to get dressed before you go outside.”
“Yeah, good idea.”
As soon as I was out the door, I zoomed off and ducked behind a tree before Sam could notice that I didn’t have a car in the parking lot. He locked the door pretty emphatically, and a few minutes later, I saw him come around the back, look around nervously, then get into his truck and drive away. I didn’t bother to follow him to make sure he was going home.
Before I put the rest of my clothes back on, I’d caught a glimpse of my reflection in the window—or rather that other woman’s reflection—and I looked pretty damned good. If Sam didn’t want a piece of that, then Sookie didn’t have anything to worry about.
But something was still hinky at Merlotte’s. I broke my spell so I would look like myself again and started sniffing around the parking lot. Uncle Desmond says m
y sense of smell is better than most weres, which can be good or bad depending on what’s around to smell.
The edges of the parking lot were okay other than a couple of spots where drunks had decided to pee before they got into their cars, but the closer I got to the building, the worse it smelled. There were whole layers of stinky, but it wasn’t just the garbage in the Dumpster.
Somebody had cast a curse on Merlotte’s. Worse! They’d cast a crapload of curses.
I moved away before I barfed up that burger and started counting out the number of curses I thought had to be in effect. First up was something to make food go bad quick. Another must have made clean surfaces sticky even after cleaning. There was also either a clumsiness spell, or a spell to make waitresses tired enough to be clumsy. Maybe something to make people cranky, too, but that could have been a side effect of the other spells. Plus I spotted a colony of rats living around the foundations of Merlotte’s that hadn’t been there when I’d visited before, and I didn’t think it was just because of the bad food. Finally, something was keeping Sam sick enough that he couldn’t smell the curses or the rats.
That was somewhere between five and seven curses, and there might be more I hadn’t caught. It would have taken days for a witch to cast all those spells, which was bad luck for her. It meant she would have left her scent around. I cast around for a while but with weather and normal outdoor smells, it was too diffuse outside. I was hoping I’d have better luck inside, and fortunately for Sam’s windows, one of the other presents in my Christmas bag was a set of lock picks that were better than my old ones and maybe a little enchanted. It didn’t take me any time at all to get inside the back door, and I was glad to see I’d flustered Sam so much he’d forgotten to set the alarm.
It took over half an hour of sniffing to finally isolate the scent of a person who’d been around a lot but that didn’t match any of the stuff in the employee lockers. On the good side, it gave me the chance to catch a couple of overconfident rats. It had been a long time since lunch.
Once I had the scent clear in my head, it was time to go hunting. If the witch hadn’t been local, I’d have been out of luck, but I was betting that any witch who came to Merlotte’s over and over again had to be in Bon Temps. So I ran up and down all the streets in town, one by one. It was nearly ten by the time I caught the scent in a cheesy split-level house with yellow vinyl siding at the end of a cul-de-sac.
The name was on the mailbox, so I used my smartphone to access Uncle Desmond’s private database of info about supes. It gave me everything I needed to know about Ms. Marietta Singleton.
There were no lights on in the house, but I rang the doorbell until I heard somebody stomping down the stairs. I’d have picked the lock, but I figured a witch might have house protection spells so nobody could screw her the way she’d screwed Sam. Marietta opened the door only as wide as the door chain allowed. “Who’s there?”
“I need a witch.”
She cursed under her breath, but it was the four-letter-word kind, not the turn-me-into-a-toad kind. “It’s Christmas Eve.”
“I know—I want to buy somebody a spell for Christmas.”
“Right now?”
“Well, duh. Santa Claus comes tonight.”
“It’s going to cost double.”
“So?” I said, as if I didn’t care. Which I didn’t, since it was Uncle Desmond’s money.
She started to unhook the chain. “Just so you know, I’ve got protection spells that’ll blast you to dust if you so much as pull my hair.”
“Understood.”
Marietta was dinky, but that didn’t mean she didn’t pack a nasty punch, spellwise. According to the database she was in her thirties, but she looked younger in the cutesy-poo flannel sleep pants with kitty cats on them and an oversized T-shirt with still more kitty cats.
“Come into my consulting room,” she said.
She’d converted a spare bedroom into what looked like a low-rent doctor’s office, complete with flimsy wood paneling and beige shag carpeting. Beige! It was a good thing she had those spells to protect it all—I wanted to rip it up to keep from having to walk on it.
She handed me a pen and a clipboard with a piece of paper already on it. “If you’ll just fill out this form.”
“Are you shitting me?”
“This is how I work. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine.” I grabbed the thing, read the form, and in the section that said Service required—be specific and use back of form if needed, I wrote, TAKE ALL THE CURSES OFF OF MERLOTTE’S NOW. Then I handed it back to her.
As soon as she saw that, I could feel her starting to pull magic to herself. So I said, “I work for Desmond Cataliades.”
She knew the name, and she paused, but started up again.
“I’m his niece.” And I smiled. My teeth aren’t as sharp as an elf’s, but they’re sharp enough to show which side of the family I’m on.
That stopped her. For one, everybody who knows anything about Uncle Desmond knows that he takes vengeance very seriously, and for another, spells don’t always work right on demons.
“I didn’t know Merlotte’s was under Cataliades’s protection,” she whined.
“Now you know. I want every single spell, hex, curse, or hidden talisman taken off. Tonight.”
“It’s not that simple. I signed a contract to keep those spells maintained for six months. A blood contract.”
“Then I’ll get the contract canceled. Who’s the client?”
She looked prissy. “I guarantee confidentiality.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a knife with a serrated edge that Uncle Desmond had given me and smiled again.
“I can’t tell you,” she stammered. “Confidentiality is part of the contract.”
Crapcrapandmorecrap. Even if I tortured her, she wouldn’t be able to tell me. I could have called Uncle Desmond and asked him what to do, but when he gives me an assignment, he expects me to carry it out. He doesn’t get mad often, but when he does . . . Hoo boy.
Who had it in for Sam, anyway? Sure, there’d been trouble when the shifters and weres first came out, but that was old news. Besides, if it had been any kind of human motive, Sookie would have winkled it out with her telepathy. That made it a supe, but then what? I knew for a fact Sam wasn’t in the local were pack, but he had good connections with it. The local vampires left him alone because Sheriff Ravenscroft had told them to. Another witch would have cast the spells herself and not hired Marietta. Who did that leave, and how could I get any more information out of the witch when she was bound by a blood contract?
Blood contracts were powerful—both parties had to sign in blood and the penalties for breaking them usually meant a lot more blood. The only way to break a blood contract was for both parties to agree or for both of them to die. I didn’t have a big problem with killing Marietta after eating that awful cheeseburger, but I wasn’t sure I could work around all her protection spells and I didn’t know who the other party was. But I had an idea.
“Hey, a blood contract can’t be done over the phone or the web, can it?”
“Of course not.”
“So that means your client came here?”
She nodded slowly, as if she weren’t sure if the contract would stop her.
“Into this office.”
She nodded again.
“Then don’t move, don’t cast any spells, don’t call anybody, don’t text anybody.” Then, because it was Christmas Eve, I said, “You can take a nap if you want.” I didn’t expect her to take me up on it, but at least I’d made the gesture.
Sookie had said Sam got sick around Thanksgiving, which meant Marietta’s client been at that house less than a month earlier. So I was hoping that the witch wasn’t a very good housekeeper and that she hadn’t had a holiday rush of clients needing spells. I started sniffing my way t
hrough the office, starting with the guest chairs, then going down the hall to the front door and even onto the front stoop. There was something, something kinda familiar, but I couldn’t get enough to ID it.
I went back to the office and saw that Marietta hadn’t moved, which was a good thing for her front teeth. I was trying to think of a question she’d be able to answer when she asked me one. “Do you need to go to the bathroom? I keep one just for clients. It’s the first door on the right.”
“Marietta, you are officially forgiven for this carpet. And the sleep pants, too.” I went to a door I’d gone past before and went into the bathroom. The first thing I noticed was that I’d forgiven her a minute too soon. The bathroom was in beige—even the toilet was beige. The second was a scent that was entirely too familiar.
I grinned and went back to the office. “I’m going to go now and make a phone call. A little while after that, you’re going to get a call from your client, and she is going to tell you to cancel your blood contract. You can do that part over the phone, right?”
She nodded.
“Good. As soon as that contract is canceled, I want you to go to Merlotte’s and wipe all those curses clean. And throw in a heavy-duty protection spell while you’re at it.”
“I have to have you here for a blood contract.”
“Don’t need it, and don’t need this kept confidential. In fact, I want every supe around to know that Desmond Cataliades is paying for this. You send him a bill and it’ll be taken care of. Got it?”
She nodded.
I thought about offering a fist bump to seal the deal but didn’t think she’d take it the right way. “I don’t think it’s going to take long for your client to call, so you better get dressed so you can get right to work.” I let myself out because she still hadn’t moved from her chair.
I called Uncle Desmond while I ran back to Merlotte’s, and even though his voice didn’t change exactly, I could tell he was so mad I wouldn’t have been surprised if my phone had caught fire. What I should have figured out as soon as I found all those spells is that there aren’t many people who can afford to pay for that much magic. Of course Uncle Desmond could—he’s rich. And so are Eudokia, Kallistrae, and Myrrine.
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