An Imperfect Witch by Debora Geary Read Free Book Online Page A

one.  And then eyed the woman who had always been straight with her.  “Out with it.”
    -o0o-
    It was so tempting just to duck and leave Lizard happy in the life she had.
    But bosses who had eaten a whole plate of chocolate cake didn’t get to be cowards.  “You talked yesterday about hearing a ghost.  When you were with the Cohens.”
    Lizard frowned.  “Yeah.  Too much sugar, not enough sleep.”
    Maybe.  “There’s a ghost in the graveyard.”
    “Usually are.”  Lizard’s brain snapped into gear.  “Wait.  You think your paperweight was trying to tell you that I’m hearing freaking ghosts?”
    Oh, for a GPS with a sexy British voice to navigate them out of this mess.  “Honestly, I have no idea if any of this is related or if it’s just a weird coincidence.  But if so, it’s a creepy one, and I don’t like it.”
    Lizard leaned back.  Thinking.  And then she reached for her fork, mind suddenly clear.  “No way.  No dice.  I’m not ruining really good chocolate cake by worrying about something I maybe heard in a house.  Tell your crystal ball to go pick on someone else.”
    If only.  “I’ll get on that.”  So far, the conversations had been decidedly one-way.
    Lizard grinned.  You’re a world-class negotiator—convince it to get chatty.
    They hadn’t covered hunks of glass in realtor school.  And “chatty” didn’t seem like all that good an idea, either.
    “Look.”  Lizard waved her fork around for emphasis.  “I get that Moira talks about respect and responsibility and all that, and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.  But it’s her thing, you know?  It’s how she deals with magic.  You’re always telling me to figure out my deal—how does Lizard Monroe sell houses, right?  So how does Lauren Sullivan hang with the talking orb in her life?”
    Lauren stared at her young associate as some often-repeated advice came full circle.  “You really think I should negotiate with it.”
    Lizard grinned.  “There’s no one better.”
    Huh.  It wasn’t a bad idea.  Once you got past the other side being a giant marble, anyhow.
    She’d negotiated with far weirder things than a little hocus-pocus.
    -o0o-
    Devin was pretty sure this rated as a bad idea.  He looked at the grinning face of his youngest nephew and figured the kid knew it too.  “I’m thinking we have frog pus for brains, kiddo.”
    “Not yet.”  Aervyn looked at the gunk bubbling in the pot.  “It doesn’t look green enough.”
    It might never look green.  “You know I’m the wrong witch for potion-making, right?”
    “It’s not a potion.  It’s just gross stuff.  And Uncle Jamie says boys do gross stuff the best, but Auntie Nat doesn’t like it so much when we make a really big mess in her kitchen, so I came to you.”
    Devin rolled his eyes.  Lauren was going to be issuing similar proclamations as soon as she got home.  Making gross stuff wasn’t a neat process.  “You’re sure Ginia puts the gelatin in before the water’s hot?”
    “Uh, huh.”  Superboy looked very serious.  “I watched her really carefully and I saw exactly how she did the spell and everything.  And then she adds her healer stuff, but we won’t do that part, cuz we aren’t going to make anyone take it for medicine.”
    That was for damn certain.  Devin peered in the pot.  Things smelled kind of burnt.  “I think we’re doing something wrong, kiddo.”
    “No way.”  Aervyn looked offended at the possibility.  “I got the spell part exactly right.”
    Devin was way more concerned about the basic cooking part of this particular concoction.  “It sounds like you paid a lot of attention to the magic, but maybe we put stuff in the pot in the wrong order or something.”
    His minion chef’s face fell.  “Does that part matter?”
    Probably, but guys wanting to make frog pus didn’t run around asking.  He pulled the pot off the burner.  Definitely something turning crispy in there.