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 Page A

crowds to one of the workrooms that his company was using as a staging area. A lot of people in white shirts were hurrying all over the place with carts and armloads of everything from crackers to cheese to bottles of wine—and a dozen of Mac’s empty wooden boxes were stacked up to one side of the room.
    My guide led me to a harried-looking woman in catering wear, who listened to him impatiently and cut him off halfway through. “I know, I know,” she snapped. “Look, I’ll tell you what I told Sergeant Murphy. A city health inspector is already here, and they’re already checking things out, and I am not losing my contract with the arena over some pointless scare.”
    “You already talked to Murphy?” I said.
    “Maybe five minutes ago. Sent her to the woman from the city, over at midcourt.”
    “Tall woman?” I asked, feeling my stomach drop. “Blue-black hair? Uh, sort of busty?”
    “Know her, do you?” The head caterer shook her head. “Look, I’m busy.”
    “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks.”
    I ran back into the corridor and sprinted for the boxes at midcourt, drawing out my blasting rod as I went and hoping I would be in time to do Murphy any good.
     
    A few years ago, I’d given Murphy a key to my apartment, in a sense. It was a small amulet that would let her past the magical wards that defend the place. I hadn’t bothered to tell her that the thing had a second purpose—I’d wanted her to have one of my personal possessions, something I could, if necessary, use to find her if I needed to do it. She would have been insulted at the very idea.
    A quick stop into the men’s room, a chalk circle on the floor, a muttered spell, and I was on her trail. I actually ran past the suite she was in before the spell let me know I had passed her, and I had to backtrack to the door. I debated blowing it off the hinges. There was something to be said for a shock-and-awe entrance.
    Of course, most of those things couldn’t be said for doing it in the middle of a crowded arena that was growing more crowded by the second. I’d probably shatter the windows at the front of the suite, and that could be dangerous for the people sitting in the stands beneath them. I tried the door, just for the hell of it and—
    —it opened.
    Well, dammit. I much prefer making a dramatic entrance.
    I came in and found a plush-looking room, complete with dark, thick carpeting, leather sofas, a buffet bar, a wet bar, and two women making out on a leather love seat.
    They looked up as I shut the door behind me. Murphy’s expression was, at best, vague, her eyes hazy, unfocused, the pupils dilated until you could hardly see any blue, and her lips were a little swollen with kissing. She saw me, and a slow and utterly sensuous smile spread over her mouth. “Harry. There you are.”
    The other woman gave me the same smile with a much more predatory edge. She had shoulder-length hair, so black, it was highlighted with dark, shining blue. Her green-gold eyes were bright and intense, her mouth full. She was dressed in a gray business skirt-suit, with the jacket off and her shirt mostly unbuttoned, if not quite indecent. She was, otherwise, as Burt Decker had described her—statuesque and beautiful.
    “So,” she said in a throaty, rich voice. “This is Harry Dresden.”
    “Yes,” Murphy said, slurring the word drunkenly. “Harry. And his rod.” She let out a giggle.
    I mean, my God. She giggled .
    “I like his looks,” the brunette said. “Strong. Intelligent.”
    “Yeah,” Murphy said. “I’ve wanted him for the longest time.” She tittered. “Him and his rod.”
    I pointed said blasting rod at Meditrina Bassarid. “What have you done to her?”
    “I?” the woman said. “Nothing.”
    Murphy’s face flushed. “Yet.”
    The woman let out a smoky laugh, toying with Murphy’s hair. “We’re getting to that. I only shared the embrace of the god with her, wizard.”
    “I was going to kick your ass for that,” Murphy