Deadly Sin (Cassandra Farbanks) by Sonnet O'Dell Read Free Book Online

like a balloon. I was just tired.
    “Please let me out of the car now.” My voice was very calm and quiet, but I knew he had no problem hearing me with his werewolf senses. I heard the click as the pins shot up again. I climbed out of the car and held the door open for a minute.
    “Thank you for driving me home. Goodnight.” He gave a cursory nod, in deep thought himself. I shut the door firmly on both the car and that conversation. From the steps, I watched as he drove away before I headed into the building and my office. Trinket greeted me with a pile of mail.
    “How was the wedding?”
    “It was very,” I looked down at my dress, “yellow.”
    Trinket smiled and it always amazed me how quickly the little cogs moved to create her facial features. Trinket was a clockwork doll, a mix of alchemy, engineering and magic. Her personality was operated by a soul trapped inside by a spell, attached to a power source that could run out at any moment in the next five to six years. She picked up all the day shifts at Grimoires and worked for me at night to pay for her upcoming trip.
    She manned the phone in the office so that I didn’t have to. This allowed me to get much more sleep than I had been, which I enjoyed, and if anything interesting came up she could just take the elevator upstairs and wake me. I flipped through the mail, an assortment of bills, a check for the retrieval of a missing cat which would pay those bills and a buff colored envelope. I examined it and put the rest down on my desk. The stationery was expensive, and when I flipped it over, a golden orange pumpkin grinned at me obscenely. I pulled up the flap and pulled out a stiff piece of card with a cartoon wolf man along one side howling at an embossed moon on the opposite side.
    “What is it?” asked Trinket, trying to peer around my elbow to see what I was holding. She wasn’t tall enough to look over my shoulder.
    “I’ve been invited to the werewolf community’s annual Halloween party.”
    You’d think because of the traditional concepts of Halloween – candy and costumes – that a preternatural group like the werewolves would shun it. Halloween has become an excuse to wear slutty costumes and consume massive amounts of candy, rather than a festival of the dead where the veil between worlds is at its thinnest and spirits have the most power all year. Mediums and full on ectomancers hole-up on all hallows eve to save themselves some grief. I thought the vampires, faced with the prospect of thousands of fake fangs and Dracula impressions, hole-up as well, but they open as normal and tolerate the few who, in the spirit of the holiday, come dressed in unflattering costumes.
    The werewolves, however, hold a full-blown Halloween party every year by invite only. Simian told me about it once, but I never warranted an invite before. The card was signed by Leroy Craven, the local pack leader. They referred to him as king because of that Shangri-Las song Leader of the pack . Under the elaborately styled signature was a small note in brackets, costumes are mandatory. Back when I thought I was a witch, I dispensed with the whole costume wearing, hunkered down to watch a selection of horror movies, and avoided the streets. I didn’t want to see people with fake warts, green skin or worse, people who drew lightning bolts on their foreheads with red sharpies.
    “You should go. It might be fun,” said Trinket with definite encouragement in her voice. Trinket tends to be a mother hen. She always wants me to go out, meet new people, and try new things.
    “I don’t know.” On one hand, it would be nice to spend my first Halloween as a preternatural creature with others of a similar mindset. On the other hand, I was comfortable with my whole hide and watch movies routine. Plus, I already bought the popcorn. “I’ll think about it. Right now I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Chapter Three
    My alarm went off an hour before sun up so that