Wizard in a Witchy World Read Online Free Page A

mind?"
    He looked skeptical, but the beads of sweat on his brow gave away the pain he was feeling. "Sure, but nothing weird, okay?"
    "All natural. Nothing to be worried about," I said.
    I grabbed a couple of clean towels and a salve I kept on hand for cuts and abrasions. It certainly wouldn't ward off a lycan infection, but he'd feel better for a few hours. Most of all, I wanted to get a good sample of Shaggy's spit, and if I were really lucky, blood. So, sue me. I wasn't just being nice.
    He gingerly pulled the shirt off his shoulder. The wound wasn't deep. He'd held the wolf off heroically, but as far as I knew, there were no small werewolf bites. After cleaning the skin, I liberally applied the white, greasy paste and covered it with a large gauze pad.
    "That feels a lot better. Bueno," he said. "You remind me of Mi Abuela."
    "Is your grandmother a shaman?" I asked.
    "She's Virarica."
    I'd have to look that up later, so I just nodded. I'd been able to save blood and grime from the front of his shirt, so it was time to work on getting Lozano out of my apartment. He was entirely too familiar with my universe and I didn't need him getting curious about where I fit in.
    "I hate to make this all about me, but are you satisfied that I don't have any dogs?" I asked.
    "You're good, Mr. Slade," he said. "You mind if I ask what you do for a living?"
    "Odd jobs, mostly," I said.
    He made a move to stand and sat back heavily as if his legs didn't agree with his desire to leave. I didn't know much about lycan bites, but what I did know told me he was in for a rough ride the next few days. His body would initially fight the infection, but there were only two ways it could go. He would either be dead or he'd recover and turn into a wolf every full moon for the rest of his life.
    "Can I help you down to your cruiser?"
    "No," he said, finally standing and walking to the door. "I'll be fine."

WHYTE WOOD COVEN
     
    I picked up the towel I'd used to clean Lozano and clipped off pieces that contained good samples of his blood, dropping them into a glass specimen jar. It was possible the scraps contained evidence of Shaggy, but I'd have to deal with that later. I sealed the jar with a cork and wrote on the glass with a grease pen using a runic alphabet I'd developed. The words glowed as I etched them into the fabric of the bottle and disappeared once I placed the container onto the nearly empty shelf.
    Needing to preserve the samples I'd gathered, I rooted around and finally found the right spell book. It was a reliable tome given to me by my first mentor, Judy Babcock, an ordinary looking witch who resembled a housewife more than a mid-level earth witch. She'd discovered me when I was fourteen and had just burned down my high school's gymnasium. Apparently, the spell I'd stumbled onto couldn't be extinguished without a counter curse. Fortunately, her coven set things right and she'd taken on the task of overseeing the emergence of a new wizard.
    I missed hanging out with Judy and 'the girls,' as she called them. My recent departure from home in North Carolina was still fresh in my mind. I hadn't even known I was headed to Leotown until I arrived and decided it was where I should be. It made a certain amount of sense. Visiting my old foster family was at the back of my mind, but so far, I hadn’t made the effort.
    The components of the spell were a mix of things I had in stock and others I needed to gather: nail clippings from a raccoon, caraway seeds, ash from garlic stalks and five more things I didn't have. I wrote out the list and stuffed the piece of paper into my pocket, pausing to look up at a staccato tapping on the kitchen window. A large raven was perched on the sill, looking in.
    "Maggie. Hold on, I'm coming." I closed the spell book, slid the window to the side and pulled the screen off.
    "Cawwk." She greeted me as she fluttered through the window and landed on a pile of books.
    She and I both looked around the room for her perch.