Free Fallen Stars (The Demon Accords) by John Conroe Page B

creates a path from the witch to the, er, victim.  Paths run both ways.  If it were me, I’d send a little something-something back along the psychic phone line.”
     
    “A counter spell?”
     
    “In my case, yes.  A nasty beat-your-ass kind of spell for attacking me in the first place.  But if Mr. Hottie has half the abilities you seem to think he does, a little burst of power sent back might just destroy the hair or fingernail that she’s working with.  He needs to concentrate on a strand of his own hair, then push some Power back along the link.  I could show him, but I’m not there.  Plus, I’ve seen his photos, remember?  You don’t want me getting ahold his hair or I might be the one screaming his name!”
     
    “Yeah, I wouldn’t trust you within a hundred feet of him,” Stacia said, giving me a wink. “Thanks, Mitzi!”   Stacia covered the phone and pointed at the safe with the book, giving me a raised eyebrow look.  I shook my head.  Asking yet another witch about the book seemed like a really bad idea.  Someone was already after it and it wasn’t twenty-four hours out of the Pack house.
     
    “ My pleasure, Bitch!”
     
    “Back at ya, Witch!”
     
    She hung up.  I looked at her with raised eyebrows.
     
    “She’s a handful, but we get along.”
     
    “So that was a joke, the part about her with my hair?” I asked.
     
    “No, she’d chain you to her bed in a New York second.  I’d have to kill her,” she said with a shrug, patting 'Sos on the head as she sat back down.  She meant it—the whole thing.  Her so-called friend would try to enslave me, and Stacia would kill her.  The Vermont girl had a whole new edge to her that I hadn’t really seen before.  She was, after all, a werewolf now.  Werewolves kill things; it’s in their nature.
     
    “The book is going to be a big problem, isn’t it?” she asked.
     
    “I suspect so.  Information is power.  Apparently, someone already wants it bad enough to try and rough you up for it.”
     
    “Yeah, thanks for the help by the way,” she said.
     
    My turn to snort.  “You were about to rip their arms off in full view of the public.  You didn’t need my help.”
     
    “But you would have helped if I’d needed it?” she asked.
     
    I frowned at the memory. “I had all I could do to stop Grim.  Two humans watching and all.  But if it’s any consolation, he ran at least ten options by me.  His favorite was pretty bloody.”
     
    She smiled a self-satisfied smile.  “Nice to know you got my back,” she said, turning and giving me a view of said back.
     
    “Stop that!  It’s not helpful,” I said.
     
    “You know?  You’re right.  Taunting you while you’re under a spell, or as close as you get to being under a spell, isn’t fair.  I’ll stop,” she said, serious.  “So why don’t you see about busting it because I find that I like taunting you?”
     
    I went into the bathroom and pulled a hair from my brush.  Easier than pulling a hair from my almost-brush-cut head.
     
    Eyes closed, breathing deep and even, thoughts focused on my center, the spot two inches or so below my navel.  Picturing a swirling sphere of violet energy pulsing with power, I opened my eyes and stared at the strand of hair.  I pushed energy out of my stomach and through my right hand, which was holding the hair, into the black line of witchy cobweb leading off to the northeast.  The hair in my hand vanished in a puff of smoke just as several loud pops came from the bathroom and the pillow on my bed.  Stacia jumped up and rushed into the bathroom, coming back out immediately with a smoldering plastic mess that moments before had been my brush.  She dumped it in the empty waste can by the desk and looked at me, eyebrows raised.
     
    “It’s gone,” I said after looking with my Sight. The spiderweb from hell had vanished. My phone buzzed on the bed. Caller ID was for Copper Top Cabins.
     
    “Hello?”
     
    “