Shady Lady Read Online Free Page A

useful. Do you know if it’s meant only for you, or will it work on anyone who touches it?”
    I glanced at Kel, who answered, “It’s keyed to Corine.”
    Wonderful. From my mother—who had been a witch—I knew such specificity required sophistication and finesse in the casting. In most cases, it also required a personal effect or some physical tie, like locks of hair, blood, or nail clippings.
    Damn. I probably shouldn’t get my hair done at the salon until this is over.
    “I would rather not test that,” Tia said with a grin creasing her weathered cheeks.
    She stood up and headed for the kitchen. A few moments later, she came back with a tray, including a crystal bowl, salt, a cup of mixed herbs, and a slender stick carved out of green, fragrant wood. She was also wearing a pair of long black satin gloves, perhaps a remnant from an old Día de los Muertos costume of La Calavera Catrina , which came from a zinc etching by José Guadalupe Posada in 1913. It had since seeped into Mexican celebrations, a feminine skeleton in silk and tulle—death all dressed up.
    I gathered she was taking no chances with poor Eros. Given my track record in romantic relationships, I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a warning in the form of the would-be instrument of my death: Love will be your doom. Smiling at such hubris, I watched as Tia perched on the edge of the sofa and arranged the items.
    First, she rimmed the bowl with salt and then sprinkled the remainder into the water. Next, she scattered the herbs, and finally, she stirred the mixture with the stick, all while whispering what sounded like broken fragments of a prayer.
    I caught snippets, like “ en espiritu sancti ” and “ el buen Señor ,” but mostly, it was too soft for me to understand. When she finished chanting and mixing—the water was a cloudy pool by this point—she picked up the white box, opened it, and—with one thumb holding Pysche in place—she tipped Eros into the bowl.
    With a hiss, the herb-and-salt-infused water turned black as ink and it roiled as if a thousand tiny snakes swam in its depths. Tia cupped her hands, guiding the liquid, which solidified into a substance that resembled black Jell-O.
    Gross.
    Beneath the permanent suntan, her face paled as she worked, air-sculpting the lines into something she saw only in her mind’s eye. Before long, the thing in the bowl began to look human; she was crafting a viscous bust of the spell caster.
    Holy crap, all Booke can do is tell us what the person’s astral sigil looks like.
    It wasn’t a perfect image, of course, but I would most likely remember this face, if I saw him—and it was most definitely a man. Kel stood up and, without bothering Tia, went looking for a pad of paper. Shortly, he sat down and started sketching in quick, bold lines—good on him; there was no telling how long this spell would last.
    As he was putting the finishing touches on the drawing, the creation wavered. Tia swayed, and then Eros came spurting out of the thing’s mouth, landing in a wet, slimy spatter on top of the tray. Now we just had a disgusting saltshaker and a bowl of dirty water. My friend looked worse for the wear, so I made her a cup of tea. I had been to her house often enough to know to manage.
    When I returned, she seemed a little stronger, but her voice was hoarse. “Magia negra, muy negra.” Bad magic, very dark : as if I couldn’t have guessed that by the reaction to the water she’d blessed. “Magia sangrienta.”
    Blood magick.
    That actually helped. Certain voodoo traditions used blood, and so did the darkest hermetic traditions. Practitioners like my mother never used blood; neither did Tia. I also knew of a few shamans who used it, but in sympathetic magick, not baneful.
    Most would laugh at the idea of magick and hexes. The world was divided into three groups: practitioners, those who wanted to believe in the paranormal, and those who scoffed at it. Skeptics comprised the vast