Free Strange Brew by Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Jim Butcher, Karen Chance, P. N. Elrod, Rachel Caine, Faith Hunter, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclane, Jennifer van Dyck, Christian Rummel, Gayle Hendrix, Dina Pearlman, Marc Vietor, Therese Plummer, Karen Chapman

lot of décolletage who had clearly been expecting someone else.
    “Who are you?” she stammered.
    I flashed her my laminated consultant’s ID, too quickly to be seen. “Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, ma’am,” I said in my official’s voice, which is like my voice only deeper and more pompous. I’ve heard it from all kinds of government types. “We’ve had a report of tainted beer. I need to check your bar, see if the bad batch is in there.”
    “Oh,” she said, backing up, her body language immediately cooperative. I pegged her as somebody’s receptionist, maybe. “Of course.”
    I padded into the room and went to the bar, rifling bottles and opening cabinets until I found eleven dark-brown bottles with a simple cap with an M stamped into the metal. Mac’s mark.
    I turned to find the blonde holding out the half-empty bottle number twelve in a shaking hand. Her eyes were a little wide. “Um. Am I in trouble?”
    I might be. I took the beer bottle from her, moving gingerly, and set it down with the others. “Have you been feeling, uh, sick or anything?” I asked as I edged toward the door, just in case she came at me with a baseball bat.
    She shook her head, breathing more heavily. Her manicured fingernails trailed along the V-neck of her blouse. “I… I mean, you know.” Her face flushed. “Just looking forward to… the game.”
    “Uh-huh,” I said warily.
    Her eyes suddenly became warmer and very direct. I don’t know what it was exactly, but she was suddenly filled with that energy women have that has nothing to do with magic and everything to do with creating it. The temperature in the room felt like it went up about ten degrees. “Maybe you should examine me, sir.”
    I suddenly had a very different idea of what Mac had been defending himself from with that baseball bat.
    And it had turned ugly on him.
    Hell’s bells, I thought I knew what we were dealing with.
    “Fantastic idea,” I told her. “You stay right here and get comfortable. I’m going to grab something sweet. I’ll be back in two shakes.”
    “All right,” she cooed. Her suit jacket slid off her shoulders to the floor. “Don’t be long.”
    I smiled at her in what I hoped was a suitably sultry fashion and backed out. Then I shut the door, checked its frame, and focused my will into the palm of my right hand. I directed my attention to one edge of the door and whispered, “ Forzare .”
    Metal squealed as the door bent in its frame. With any luck, it would take a couple of guys with crowbars an hour or two to get it open again—and hopefully Bubbles would pitch over into a stupor before she did herself any harm.
    It took me three more doors to find one of the staff of Worldclass Limited—a young man in dark slacks, a white shirt, and a black bow tie, who asked if he could help me.
    I flashed the ID again. “We’ve received a report that a custom microbrew your company purchased for this event has been tainted. Chicago PD is on the way, but meanwhile I need your company to round up the bottles before anyone else gets poisoned drinking them.”
    The young man frowned. “Isn’t it the Bureau?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “You said Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. It’s a Bureau.”
    Hell’s bells, why did I get someone who could think now ?
    “Can I see that ID again?” he asked.
    “Look, buddy,” I said. “You’ve gotten a bad batch of beer. If you don’t round it up, people are going to get sick. Okay? The cops are on the way, but if people start guzzling it now, it isn’t going to do anybody any good.”
    He frowned at me.
    “Better safe than sorry, right?” I asked him.
    Evidently, his ability to think did not extend to areas beyond asking stupid questions of well-meaning wizards. “Look, uh, really you should take this up with my boss.”
    “Then get me to him,” I said. “Now.”
    The caterer might have been uncertain, but he wasn’t slow. We hurried through the growing