Malediction: An Old World Story Read Online Free

block of Pico, a hole-in-the-wall place with great beer and surprisingly tasty nachos. The majority of the city’s werewolves were there nearly every night, driven by their need to be with the pack, and although the general public were always welcome guests, most of them tended to avoid the place. There was something a little too “clubby” about the regulars.
    He took a parking spot a couple of streets east of the bar, once again missing his police parking privileges. As he approached the place, he noticed that Will, the pack alpha and bar owner, had installed a new door for the main entrance. The old one had been heavy glass, but this one was thick, solid wood on cast-iron hinges, tough to pull open and a hell of a lot tougher to break down. Jesse approved.
    Inside, there was a square bar in the center of the room, surrounded by a smattering of tables. A hallway in the back led to the owner’s office and a back room with pool tables. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in pictures of canines, but Jesse barely noticed them anymore. And then he saw her.
    Scarlett sat at the bar, perched easily on a stool with a soda in front of her. Her long fingers swirled the straw in lazy circles as she chatted with the bartender. To his relief, it wasn’t Eli but a short female werewolf he’d met once or twice—Esmé, he thought. Scarlett threw her head back and laughed at something the other woman had said, and Jesse felt a rush of … something. Wistfulness, maybe. It wasn’t even romantic, exactly, he just … missed her.
    Esmé looked over at him, as did a couple of the other werewolves scattered around the room, and Scarlett followed her gaze. “Hey, Jesse,” she called out, grinning. Her bright green eyes sparkled with good humor, and she was wearing her dark hair down, which was rare. She’d gotten it cut, Jesse noticed, so it hung just past her shoulders and had some layering. “How’s tricks?”
    “Hi.” Jesse propelled himself over to her. He was two feet away before he caught the slightest hint of movement in the darkness near her feet. “Oh,” he said in surprise. “Hey, Shadow.” He squatted down to pet Scarlett’s “dog”, which was not a dog at all, but a bargest—an ink-black monster of legend that was spell-made to hunt and kill werewolves. Shadow had been a dog once, though: 180 pounds of the ugliest dog Jesse had ever seen in his life. She was some kind of mixed breed that included Peruvian hairless, pit bull, and maybe some wolf. Or, he thought, squinting at her, maybe some jaguar. After giving him a quick, threat-assessment once-over, she thumped her club tail and didn’t bother getting up. He scratched first her furry ear, then her hairless one.
    “I didn’t know you were bringing her,” he said to Scarlett.
    “Corry’s my usual dog-sitter, but it’s a school night for her. I could have left her with Eli,” Scarlett said wryly, “but he’s terrified of being left alone with her, not that he’d ever admit it. I don’t think she’d hurt him without the command, but we’re still working on, um … rehabilitation.”
    Jesse bent closer to the bargest so Scarlett wouldn’t see his smirk. Eli was a werewolf, and Shadow had been bred to kill his kind. The year before, a killer witch had brought Shadow to LA with the intention of wiping out all the werewolves in the area. That witch, Petra Corbett, was now in prison for Remus’s murder, but the bargest was too rare and valuable to give away, not to mention nearly impossible to kill. Scarlett’s bosses— partners , Jesse corrected himself—had asked her to adopt it.
    “And Will doesn’t mind you having her in the bar?”
    She snorted. “I think he likes it, actually. She never leaves my side, obviously, but the werewolves are all scared of her. It keeps them on their best behavior when we’re around.”
    He scratched the bargest’s mostly hairless back until she craned her head around to give his hand one regal lick of thanks.