Black Magic Woman Read Online Free Page B

hiding a curse behind the heavy glass. He continued to watch as the imp led the woman to a small table just two removed from his and the two of them settled down to watch the crowd. Hoping the uneasy feeling sliding along his spine owed more to ingrained pessimism than his Guardian-born spidey-sense for trouble, he nonetheless turned his acute hearing in their direction. Just because she was a human in a situation no human should put herself in didn’t mean she needed his help. Hopefully, he’d hear enough to reassure him of that so he could finish his drink and be on his way.
    What was it the humans did for luck? Cross their fingers?
    “I’m a little disappointed,” he heard her say to her companion as she scanned the crowd around them. “It looks just like any other club. I thought it would be more … I don’t know … exotic.”
    The imp shrugged, his shoulders bobbing up just over the edge of the table. “What, you expected black robes, flaming torches, and a sacrificial goat? It’s just a bar. Folks don’t come here to entertain the tourists; they come to unwind.”
    “I guess so. What is that group over there? Are those scales?”
    “Shh! Don’t point, for satyrs’ sake! Do ya want to get our faces eaten? Who taught ya yer manners?”
    “My parents,” the woman shot back, lowering her hand and raising an eyebrow. “But I don’t think they covered what to do in a room containing a contingent of lizard people.”
    “Oy, yer gonna get us killed. They’re not lizards. That’s a lamia and her court. And for your information, they usually only shed their own skins, but if you tick ’em off bad enough, they’d be happy to shed yours, too.”
    Asher followed their glances across the room to the table near the bar. The imp was right. Saskia Rughal had the sort of temper that fitted her rattlesnake cousins. Even Asher himself was inclined to give her wide berth.
    “Lamia? What’s a lamia?” the woman demanded, her expression fascinated. “Is that some kind of snake person? I mean, snakes are the ones who shed their skins, right?”
    In that moment, a shout of raucous laughter burst from the group of patrons in the opposite corner of the bar, obscuring the imp’s answer. Asher had to fill it in from his imagination. If it had been him doing the educating, he’d have pointed out that far from being simple “snake people,” the lamia had once been worshipped as fierce, blood-hungry goddesses. In fact, he was aware of at least two modern cults whose members still did, hence Saskia’s devoted entourage; he was also aware that people didn’t decide to worship you unless you had some pretty damned impressive powers to inspire them. The human woman would do well to keep that in mind.
    “‘Snake person,’” the imp mocked, burying his face in his chubby red hands. “Damnation, how you humans have survived as a species I will never understand. Yer like retarded puppies—constantly getting yerselves into trouble and then lookin’ confused when something bigger than you smacks ya over the head with a roll of newspaper.”
    The woman fixed the imp with an impressive glare. “You try to smack me with anything, little man, and I’ll show you the kind of self-defense moves that make it safe for a woman traveling the world on her own.”
    “Ya see, yer provin’ my point. Ya think that just because yer bigger than me, ya can just stomp on me without any problem. You humans are always lookin’ at the surface of things. Ya never bother to think about what’s underneath. That’s just stupid. Didn’t anyone ever tell ya that size isn’t everything?”
    “Sure,” the woman said with a shrug, “but I told him to put his pants back on and go home.”
    Asher winced and buried his involuntary chuckle in his beer. That she was stupid was not one of the impressions he’d gotten of the attractive human. She might be naïve, and she was clearly out of her element—and probably out of her depth—but she