Free Last Breath by Debra Dunbar Page A

from stupid-girl-looking-to-buy-drugs label I’d had previously.
    “I’ll let you know what I think once I do some research. I’ve got an early shift at the coffee shop, but hopefully I can get a few hours in before I head off to sleep.” There was no need to tell him I’d probably pull an all-nighter on this one. I’d been pulling a lot of those in the last few weeks. It’s not like I’d be able to sleep with all this running around in my brain. I was one of those people that couldn’t rest until I got the answers I was looking for.
    “The coffee shop on Pratt.” The detective consulted his notes. “What is your current home address?”
    I told him, then gave an exaggerated yawn. “Well, better get back home if I’m going to be digging through books before bed.”
    I headed toward my car, with the detective keeping pace beside me. “Books? Wouldn’t the internet be easier?”
    “Yeah, if I wanted to sort through millions of wacky, fake-magic sites and video game references. Most of the real stuff isn’t on the internet.”
    “Isn’t everything on the internet nowadays?” He’d stuffed the little notebook in his back pocket.
    “No magic user is going to put his carefully crafted spells up on the internet for a bored Goth teen in Cleveland to perform. Would you want some novice trying to summon a lesser demon, or in this case performing death magic? It’s irresponsible to throw stuff like that out there for the uninitiated to mangle with potentially deadly consequences.”
    He paused by my car as I fumbled in my pocket for my keys.
    “So you really do know how to do this stuff? You’re a wizard who just happened to stumble upon this because she was meeting a hot guy?”
    I unlocked the car. “I’m not a wizard, I’m a Templar with minor skills in certain areas of magical practice.”
    I knew enough to be dangerous. And based upon my last attempt at summoning, dangerous was exactly what magic was in the hands of anyone below an adept level. Which included me. Simple wards and illusion, that’s what I was going to stick to from now on. No more demonology for me, and definitely not anything remotely close to death magic.
    “You’ve got a sword in your car.”
    Crap. I did. Trusty was on the front seat, close enough for me to grab if I needed it. And I thought it very interesting that Detective Tremelay noticed the sword even with the look-away spell. Very interesting.
    “I… I do reenactments.” I did. Sort of.
    He leaned in and squinted at the foam sword and plastic armor still in the back seat of my car. “You wouldn’t have happened to have been at the park this afternoon where that reenactor guy got hit by lightning, were you?”
    Double crap. My name was on the police report, so there was no sense lying about that one. “Yes. I was with another person during the storm and we were the ones who found him.”
    “What an amazing coincidence.” His eyes met mine, and I felt like a bug pinned to a board. “I look forward to your call tomorrow morning to update me about the results of your research, Miss Ainsworth.”
    I started my car. “Aria. I’ll call you. And in the meantime you might want to see if there are any photos from the crime scene of the lightning strike death this afternoon. You might be very interested in the burn pattern under the body.”
    I pulled away before he could respond, a smirk curling up one corner of my mouth. This was fun, taunting the somewhat slovenly Detective Justin Tremelay. He might still think I was a bit off my rocker, but at least he was willing to consider information from all sources when faced with a ritual murder. And he hadn’t hauled me off to jail.
    And he was interesting, in a rumpled, middle-aged sort of way.

Chapter 8
     
    I N SPITE OF my poo-pooing the internet, that’s exactly where I went to try to identify the bone. I might have a library’s worth of books on mythology, various supernatural beings, and magical spells, but when it