Hotter Than Helltown: An Urban Fantasy Mystery (Preternatural Affairs Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

look over the rim of his coffee tub. His expression was less than intimidating with the broomstick-riding cartoon witch painted under the snarky text. “Well, look at the time. Seems I have to get to a phone meeting.” He hadn’t even checked his watch.
    But hey, Aniruddha was gone, and I opened Craigslist again feeling just a few degrees more dispirited.
    I’d been using the website to keep tabs on Isobel over the past few weeks, even though we weren’t talking. She never posted her ads in the same section twice. I’d found her posting in the farm and livestock section once, which was just about the last place I’d ever think to look for a necrocognitive.
    She wasn’t in the farm section today, or community services, or anywhere else on the Los Angeles site. I actually found her posting on the San Francisco boards this time. In the women-for-men personals section.
    “Home of diseased escorts and death witches,” I muttered.
    Her advertisement just said, “Lost a beloved family member or friend? Have unfinished business? Call me to find peace.” And then a phone number I didn’t recognize. No other contact information.
    Don’t ask me how she ever managed to get any business with vaguely worded messages like that, but I know that she did pretty well for herself. We’d only crossed paths because Fritz had hired her to talk to his late wife in the first place. Or maybe she’d been talking to his grandfather. They kept changing the story on me, and I didn’t know which one was true.
    I peered over the walls of the cubicle farm to make sure Aniruddha was nowhere in sight. Then I called the number on the ad.
    A woman picked up on the third ring.
    “Hello?” Her voice was musical and pleasant. Not the way I’d expected husky, melodramatic Isobel to sound on the phone.
    “Izzy?” I ventured.
    “Who’s Izzy? Oh. Isobel. No. I mean, yes!” The girl’s voice dropped to a mysterious undertone. “You’ve reached the shaman named Isobel Stonecrow. How may we lay your troubles to rest?”
    I glanced at the computer monitor to make sure that I’d called the right number. “Uh…who are you?”
    “I’m blessed to be in training with the shaman.”
    Jesus, Isobel . She’d picked up a fucking intern. “Look, can I just talk to Isobel? Tell her it’s Cèsar.”
    “We don’t interrupt the mystical vibrations surrounding Shaman Stonecrow until the appropriate phase of the moon. Phone calls are incredibly disruptive to her gods-granted powers. But I’d be happy to take a message for you.”
    What bullshit. Isobel was about as attuned to the phase of the moon as my desktop computer.
    My magic was pretty traditional, hooked into the Earth and sky and seasons. It was summer—bad time to brew strength potions. The moon was waning, too, which meant I hadn’t been able to replenish my supplies in over a week. I knew moon cycles. It was a big part of my witchcraft.
    Isobel had no clue what the moon did to magic. Her talent was more like a psychic power. It was definitely not gods-granted and did not require meditation.
    She didn’t need anything to raise the dead but a dead body.
    I couldn’t tell if Ms. Perky knew any of that or was just feeding me a line, so I said, “Just tell Isobel that it’s Cèsar.”
    A long pause. “I don’t know where she is.”
    “She’s missing?” I couldn’t keep the hard edge out of my voice.
    “No, on the road to meet a client. I couldn’t leave town for this one. I’d miss too many classes.” Ms. Perky had turned to Ms. Sulky just like that. “I don’t know where she arranged to meet this guy.”
    “But she’s on the road. So she’s really in San Francisco?”
    “I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be talking to you,” she said.
    Fuck me . “No, wait—”
    “Don’t call me back. I’ll have the shaman call you.”
    The phone was already shuffling, making those telltale “I’m going to hang up on you” noises. I raised my voice, as if that would help. “It’s