Embers by Laura Bickle Read Free Book Online Page A

shape in the floor, the shape she’d seen at the three other arson sites. She vowed to unravel its meaning, even if it meant crossing that intellectual line into her nocturnal work.

    CHAPTER THREE

    IN THE FAIRY TALES ANYA had read as a child, witches stuffed screaming children into ovens and ate them without bothering to peel them. In those stories, witches did not run their own bakeries specializing in wedding cakes and novelty pastries. Nor did they advertise the use of organic flours and cruelty-free eggs.

    As dawn reddened the horizon, Anya parked in front of Wicked Confections, a bakery tucked in a tidy row of shops in suburban Ferndale. This early in the morning, parking was easy to find; only the delivery trucks were parked at the curbs, parking lights flashing. She fed the meter, then peered inside the front plate-glass window displaying an orgy of cakes. Fondant icing as smooth as skin, sugar leaves, and frosted vines covered tiers of pastry balanced on vintage glass cake stands. The cake featured in the center was a meticulously decorated white vintage Ford Thunderbird, complete with fins. A miniature “Just Married” sign leaned in the back window of the car, and tiny gumdrop cans were tied to the bumper with ribbons of licorice. Inside the car, a marzipan bride and groom made their getaway, the bride waving to an unseen audience like a beauty queen. Anya’s stomach rumbled. She knew that the cakes in the window were merely frosted Styrofoam, for display purposes only, but. . . damn, did they look good enough to try.

    When she opened the door to the shop, a bell jingled overhead. Inside, stainless-steel counters were strewn with books of sample cake designs. A glass case behind the counter was full of pirogis, pinwheel pastries, paczkis, and cookies.

    Katie came from the back room, her apron dusted with flour. Her hat was primly perched atop her head, no tendrils of blonde hair leaking from it. “Anya. Welcome back to my den of culinary wickedness.” She made a flourish that puffed flour from her apron and nearly knocked the hat from her head. “Can I get you some breakfast?”

    Anya grinned as she climbed onto one of the retro red stools before the counter. “I need some chocolate. Hit me.”

    Katie pulled a white cardboard box from under the counter. “Just for you.” She pulled the lid aside to reveal a writhing mass of marzipan people, contorted and bent. “They didn’t set up properly. The grooms are all dipped in dark chocolate. The brides are white chocolate.”

    Anya peered into the box of tangled bodies. She plucked up a groom and delicately bit his feet off. “Yum. I feel like Godzilla grazing on a mosh pit.”

    Katie broke the head off a blonde bride and thoughtfully crunched her skull. “Yeah, this one was a bitch. I’ve had to do them over a half-dozen times because the bride says they don’t look enough like them.”

    Anya rolled her eyes. “Did you get them finished?”

    “Yeah. I just threw out their engagement photograph and worked from a Disney animation cel of Cinderella and Prince Charming. She thinks it’s perfect now.” Katie smirked. “I did make her butt a bit bigger for revenge, though.”

    Anya snorted. “I love your sense of spite.”

    “Hey, don’t mess with the woman who’s preparing your food.” Katie put her chin in her hand. “So. . . what brings you here at the ass-crack of dawn?”

    Anya looked away. “Work calls. My day job, I mean.” She’d been reluctant to spend time even with Katie, for fear that disentangling herself from DAGR would grow even more complicated. She hadn’t found a good way to explain that while she yearned for a connection with the group, the use of her powers as a Lantern made her feel even more of an outsider. She was a freakish tool in DAGR’s arsenal, something to be used when what Jules considered “conventional methods” failed.

    Katie reached out and touched Anya’s sleeve. “Look, I’m worried about