Deep Wizardry-wiz 2 by Diane Duane Read Free Book Online Page A

Dairine,” her mom said. “Up to bed with you. Nita, we’ll take you and Kit with us the next time; but your dad really wants to get out today.”
    “It’s okay, Mom,” Nita said, dropping what was left of the smile (though it now really wanted to stay on). “I’ll keep an eye on the runt.”
    “Don’t call me a runt!”
    “Dairine,” her father said again. Nita’s little sister made a face and left, again at half the usual speed.
    As soon as she could, Nita slipped into Dairine’s room. Her sister was lying on top of the bed, reading her way through a pile of X-Men comics; she looked flushed. “Not bad, huh?” she said in a low voice as Nita came in.
    “How did you do that?” Nita whispered.
    “I used the Force,” Dairine said, flashing a wicked look at Nita.
    “Dair! Spill it!”
    “I turned Dad’s electric blanket up high and spent a few minutes under it. Then I drank about a quart of hot water to make sure I stayed too warm.” Dairine turned a page in her comic book, looking blase about the whole thing. “Mom did the rest.”
    Nita shook her head in admiration. “Runt, I owe you one.”
    Dairine looked up from her comic at Nita. “Yeah,” Dairine said, “you do.”
    Nita felt a chill. “Right,” she said. “I’ll hang out here till they leave. Then I have to find Kit—“
    “He went down to the general store just before you got up,” Dairine said. “I think he was going to call somebody.”
    “Right,” Nita said again.
    There was the briefest pause. Then: “Whales, huh?” Dairine said, very softly.
    Nita got out of there in a great hurry.
    The sign on top of the building merely said, in big, square, black letters, TIANA BEACH. “ Tiana Beach’ what?” people typically said, and it was a fair question. From a distance there was no telling what the place was, except a one-story structure with peeling white paint.
    The building stood off the main road, at the end of a spur road that ran down to the water. On one side of it was its small parking lot, a black patch of heat-heaved asphalt always littered with pieces of clamshells, which the gulls liked to drop and crack open there. On the other side was a dock for people who came shopping in their boats.
    The dock was in superb repair. The store was less so. Its large multipaned front windows, for example, were clean enough outside, but inside they were either covered by stacked-up boxes or with grime; nothing was visible through them except spastically flashing old neon signs that said “Pabst Blue Ribbon” or “Cerveza BUDWEISER.” Beachgrass and aggressive weeds grew next to (and in places, through) the building’s cracked concrete steps-The rough little U.S. Post Office sign above the front door had a sparrow’s nest behind it.
    Nita headed for the open door. It was always open, whether Mr. Friedman the storekeeper was there or not; “On the off chance,” as Mr. Friedmam usually said, “that someone might need something at three in the morning ... or the afternoon...” Nita walked into the dark, brown-smelling store, past the haphazard shelves of canned goods and cereal and the racks of plastic earthworms and nylon surf-casting line. By the cereal and the crackers, she met the reason that Mr. Friedman’s store was safe day and night. The reason’s name was Dog: a whitish, curlyish, terrierish mutt, with eyes like something out of Disney and teeth like something out of Transylvania. Dog could smell attempted theft for miles; and when not biting people in the line of business, he would do it on his own time, for no reason whatever—perhaps just to keep his fangs in.
    “Hi, Dog,” Nita said, being careful not to get too close.
    Dog showed Nita his teeth. “Go chew dry bones,” he said in a growl.
    “Same to you,” Nita said pleasantly, and made a wide detour around him, heading for the phone booth in the rear of the store.
    “Right,” Kit was saying, his voice slightly muffled by being in the booth. “Something