Kicking It by Faith Hunter, Kalayna Price Read Free Book Online

way at the back—a mistake, really, jammed in with the high-powered attack potions.
    Holly’s Balm: Andy’s calming brew, meant only for bringing peace to troubled souls.
    I grabbed it, uncapped it, and poured the fluid on the surface of the red shield . . . and a white streak ran down where it touched the red. It had a glassy shine to it, and I yelled at Andy and pointed.
    He fired at it, and the hardened shell . . . shattered. Popped like a red blood bubble, leaving spatter on the walls and on our faces, and it smelled foul. I wiped at it with my sleeve, but didn’t pause as I jumped the line.
    Lyons had one boot in his hand and was fitting it on his toes. I almost reached for it, almost, but something stopped me—the memory of that feeling of snakes slithering on my skin. Fangs gleaming and ready to strike. If I touched it, it would own me, too.
    Instead, I shifted my weight and kicked, hard. I broke Lyons’s fingers in the process, most likely; the boot flew off to smack against the far wall. I kicked its mate over to join it.
    When Lyons tried to crawl after it, Andy stepped up, cocked his pistol, and put it to his head. “I wouldn’t,” he said. As always, he sounded way too calm. “Unless you want to see what’s on your mind, friend.”
    Lyons froze, breathing hard, and I grabbed my potion box and ran to the boots.
    They were
moving.
The pointed tips turned to face me, and worked into that battered leather was something living, a reptilian, vile face that stared back at me. Something that needed to go back to hell fast, because I knew it was capable of moving on its own now . . . capable of
touching me.
    And if it did . . .
    I fumbled in my case and found what I was looking for; it felt hot to the touch, and I pulled the cap and threw it like a grenade, straight for the boots that were striding inexorably closer to me.
    The potion ignited on contact with magic, and I reeled back from the fireball as it exploded . . . white-hot, a fury that held power of its own. The color changed, from white to a clear, fierce blue, and inside it the boots jittered, danced, kicked, and turned into snakes that writhed and bit each other in a frenzy of rage as the fire ate them slowly away into tubes of gray, inert ash.
    “You bastard,” Lyons whispered. He was weeping, but it wasn’t in grief—it was bone-deep anger. “You fucking
bitch
. I don’t need the boots. I don’t need
anyone
else to take you down. I’ll burn every witch in this town, every one in this country. I’ll build a mountain out of your bones and
piss on it
—you hear me? I’ll
end you
!”
    Andy took in a deep breath, then let it out. “That turquoise you got there on your bolo? It ain’t demon-touched. Only things you had to give you power were your knife, your boots, and your hate. Guess I’ll leave you the hate. You go out and try to make your case to people without those other things. We’ll see who wins in a fair fight.”
    “You’d better kill me, witch!”
    Andy holstered his gun. “Mister, you ain’t worth the powder it’d take.”
    But he wasn’t above kicking Lyons right in the face when the man tried to lunge for him, and left him moaning in the fetal position on the floor with his broken teeth scattered around him.
    “Fine job,” he said to me, and I smiled at him as I shouldered the weight of the potions box.
    “You might just have to teach me to shoot for next time,” I said.
    “Now, let me keep some advantage,” he said. “What with you not needing me for much else but—”
    I kissed him. “But that?” I wiped some of the rotten red liquid from his cheek. “Never mind. I know what you mean. You’ve got demon crap on you. Maybe later.”
    Lyons was still trying to make threats, but lying there in his blood and picking up teeth, bubbling tears and snot, he just looked like an angry, beaten old man.
    Andy and I walked out into the clean, clear Austin evening, and drove home.
    —
    T he protesters