Free Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison Page A

hesitated, looking over my music discs carelessly dumped into my largest copper spell bowl.
    I nodded, slumping against the wall and sliding down until my rear hit the floor. My clothes, my shoes, my music, my books… my life ?
    “Oh no,” Jenks said softly. “They spelled your disc of The Best of Takata. ”
    “It’s autographed,” I whispered, and the hum from his wings dropped in pitch. The plastic would survive a dip in saltwater, but the paper folder would be ruined. I wondered if I wrote to Takata if he would send me another. He might remember me. We did spend a wild night chasing shadows over the ruins of Cincinnati’s old biolabs. I think he made a song about it. “New moon rising, sight unseen, / Shadows of faith make a risky vaccine.” It hit the top twenty for sixteen weeks straight. My brow furrowed. “Is there anything they didn’t spell?” I asked.
    Jenks landed on the phone book and shrugged. It had been left open to coroners.
    “Swell.” Stomach knotting, I got to my feet. My thoughts swung to what Ivy had said last night about Leon Bairn. Little bits of witch splattered all over his porch. I swallowed hard. I couldn’t go home. How the hell was I going to pay Denon off?
    My head started hurting again. Jenks alighted on my earring, keeping his big mouth shut as I picked up my cardboard box and went downstairs. First things first. “What’s the name of that guy you know?” I asked when I reached the foyer. “The one with storage? If I give him something extra, will he dissolution my things?”
    “If you tell him how. He’s not a witch.”
    I thought, struggling to regroup. My cell phone was in my bag, but the battery was dead. The charger was somewhere in my spelled stuff. “I can call him from the office,” I said.
    “He doesn’t have a phone.” Jenks slipped off my earring, flying backward at eye level. His wing tape had frayed, and I wondered if I should offer to fix it. “He lives in the Hollows,” Jenks added. “I’ll ask him for you. He’s shy.”
    I reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. Putting my back to the wall, I pushed aside the sun-faded, yellow curtain to peek out the window. The tatty yard lay quiet in the afternoon sun, empty and still. The drone of a lawn mower and the whoosh from passing cars was muffled through the glass. Lips pressed tight, I decided I’d wait there until I heard the bus coming.
    “He likes cash,” Jenks said, dropping down to stand on the sill. “I’ll bring him by the office after he’s locked up your stuff.”
    “You mean everything that hasn’t walked off by itself in the meantime,” I said, but knew everything was reasonably safe. Spells, especially black ones, were supposed to be target specific, but you never know. No one would risk extinction for my cheap stuff. “Thanks, Jenks.” That was twice now he had saved my butt. It made me uneasy. And a little bit guilty.
    “Hey, that’s what partners do,” he said, not helping at all.
    Smiling thinly at his enthusiasm, I set my box down to wait.

Five
     
     
    T he bus was quiet, as most traffic was coming out of the Hollows this time of day. Jenks had left via the window shortly after we crossed the river into Kentucky. It was his opinion the I.S. wouldn’t tag me on a bus with witnesses. I wasn’t ready to believe it, but I wasn’t going to ask him to stay with me, either.
    I had told the driver the address, and he agreed to tell me when we were there. The human was skinny, his faded blue uniform hanging loose on him despite the vanilla wafers he was cramming into his mouth like jelly beans.
    Most of Cincinnati’s mass-transit drivers were comfortable with Inderlanders, but not all. Humanity’s reactions to us varied widely. Some were afraid, some weren’t. Some wanted to be us, some wanted to kill us. A few took advantage of the lower tax rate and lived in the Hollows, but most didn’t.
    Shortly after the Turn, an unexpected migration occurred when almost every