Free The Wild Side: Urban Fantasy with an Erotic Edge by Mark L. Van Name Page B

richness of the vibrations.”
    “I don’t want to let our customers down,” I said, managing to cause only a couple of pops. “In fact, I can’t talk long—the store is so busy today.” Fortunately, Ennis couldn’t smell a lie over the phone.
    “Well, if you’re there anyway, you can take care of that herb delivery from Rodric.”
    “He hasn’t brought them yet.”
    “Well, duh! He can’t come to the shop—he’d have to cross ley lines, and that would diminish his powers for a week! You have to go pick them up and get instructions for storage.”
    Slight crackles. “You said he’d call when he had the order ready. He hasn’t called.”
    “Bother! He said it would be this week.”
    Since it was only Wednesday, it was hardly reason for concern, especially since Ennis was going to be gone for another week and a half. “Anything else?”
    “Don’t forget that we’re setting up the circle tonight, which means we’ll shut off our cell phones and—”
    “I know what happens in a circle,” I said. Just because I had no power to add to the ritual didn’t mean I hadn’t seen plenty. I’d even enjoyed them—it was the rest of the retreat that I dreaded, when people talked about techniques and methods that were meaningless to me or, even worse, stopped talking about them whenever I came near. Of course, even that was better than when I was a teenager, when the Elder Sisters of the Kith took turns trying to coax an Affinity, any Affinity at all, out of me.
    “Of course you do,” Ennis said in that soothing tone that made me want to pull every hair out of my head or, far more satisfying, hers. “I just wanted to remind you that you won’t be able to get in touch with us by mundane means, and since you can’t use magical methods, I don’t know what you’ll do in an emergency.”
    “I think the Salem Police, the Massachusetts State Police, the National Guard, the Coast Guard, and the Girl Scouts will be able to take care of anything that arises,” I said.
    There was a pause as she tried to figure out if I was joking. “Well, I suppose you could send somebody to find us, but that would disrupt our—”
    “I’ll be fine.” Despite my best efforts, there was a particularly loud pair of pops. “I better let you get to the circle.”
    “One other thing. Aunt Hester asked me to give you a message. She had a premonition, something about a man wanting your help.”
    “Seriously?”
    “I know.” Ennis giggled again. “Her record isn’t very good when it comes to you, is it? But you know Aunt Hester—she insisted that you needed to be told.”
    The phone line crackled ominously. As far as I knew, the only one of Aunt Hester’s predictions that had ever failed to come true was the one about my Affinity. She still insisted that I was destined for great power some day. Not even my mother believed her anymore.
    Ennis went on. “Anyway, she said you should do your best for him. Which is silly. Even if somebody did ask for anything important, you’d know better than to get involved. I mean, what could you do?”
    “Bite me, plant girl,” I muttered, wincing at the resulting sound effects from the phone.
    “What? There’s a lot of interference.”
    “Just trying a new chant. Anything else?”
    “No, that’s it. But if anybody does ask for help, just take his info and tell him somebody like me will be in touch after the retreat. You stay out of it, okay?”
    The phone crackled so loudly I had to pull it from my ear, and I said, “Gotta go. There’s a customer waiting.” Then I slammed the handset down before it started sparking. If we ended up needing a new cordless phone, Ennis could pay for it. Did she have to be so freaking superior? Sure she had one of the most powerful Affinities of our generation. Hell, she could make plants do anything for her short of dancing the lambada whereas my only talent seemed to be destroying telephones, modems, and anything connected to them. Did that really