Serpent's Storm Read Online Free Page B

future in a productive way, I spent my days at work in my cubicle silently stewing in my own juices as I answered e-mails, took phone calls, and fervently wished my boss would get run over by a bike messenger.
    I knew it was a mean thing to wish on anyone, but I couldn’t help it. I was a wuss.
    And so, these were the myriad reasons why I hadn’t made good on my overdue promise to introduce Jarvis to Hyacinth, a promise I really did need to fulfill—and soon—or else the faun might take things into his own hands, and then where would my future job prospects be?
    “Okay, there has to be a smart way to do this,” I said. “There has to be a legitimate way to introduce you guys without her having a freak-out and firing me.”
    “And pray tell, why would she freak out?” Jarvis asked testily.
    “Oh, I don’t know why she would freak out, Jarvis. Maybe it’s because you’re a midget with the hoofs and private parts of a goat,” I shot back.
    “Such terrible parenting these days,” the arthritic old woman on the other side of the bench said as she raised her newspaper between us like some kind of homemade cootie barrier.
    “Excuse me?” I growled at the business section of the New York Times , but the lady didn’t even twitch.
    My suspicions aroused, I turned my attention back to Jarvis.
    “What kind of glamour did you put on yourself?” I said, peeved.
    He just grinned at me.
    “Tell me!” I said, grabbing him by the lapels of his blue suit coat.
    Suddenly, a man in white coveralls and a baseball cap, who had been quietly minding his own business across the aisle, stood up and lumbered toward me.
    “I dunno how you treats yo’kid in da privacy of your own home, but if you go touchin’ him again on dis’ train, I’m gunna show you what’s what.”
    I gaped at the man, trying to process what it was exactly he was saying to me because apparently I wasn’t fluent in what was either Brooklyn- or Long Island—ese.
    “Mean it,” he sputtered at me as he returned to his seat, giving me the stink eye, for all that was worth. I was more frightened of his giant, hamlike fists.
    “Did that guy just threaten me?” I growled out of the side of my mouth at Jarvis.
    “I suppose it could be categorized as a threat.” Jarvis shrugged, all nonchalant in a way that made me want to slap him upside the head.
    “You just had to spell yourself to look like a little kid, didn’t you?”
    Jarvis gave me a happy nod, and for the first time I caught a glimpse—by way of his reflection in the window across from us—of the glamour he’d put on himself. No wonder Mr. Brooklyn-ese thought I was a Grade A, primo jerk. Jarvis had chosen the most angelic-looking child in the whole of the free world to spell himself into. With big, blue button eyes, a shock of white blond hair that came to a swirling cowlick at the crown of his head, and two missing incisors right in the front of his mouth, Jarvis was unimpeachable. I would lose every battle we got into as long as he continued to look like Dennis the Menace on steroids.
    “Ah, it does give one pleasure to see you under the gun, Miss Calliope.”
    “Jarvis,” I started to hiss at him, then thought better of it, modulating the sound of my voice so as not to appear aggressive with the child . “They think you’re my kid, don’t they.”
    It wasn’t a question.
    Jarvis giggled gleefully.
    “So not fair,” I added, still keeping an eye on the guy across the aisle. He’d pulled out a tattered MAD magazine, but was only pretending to read it.
    “Not my kid!” I said, pointing at the top of Jarvis’s head. “Seriously, not mine .”
    The guy continued to ignore me, but a few of the other people on the train openly stared at my outburst. Just at that moment, thankfully, we hit a bump in the track, and the whole car was jostled sideways, so trying to remain upright took precedence over staring at Jarvis and me. Besides, I’d long since stopped being embarrassed by all