Pawsitively Dead (A Wonder Cats Mystery Book 2) by Harper Lin Read Free Book Online Page A

host decided that it was close enough? Something had gone wrong with the first resurrection spell. The collateral damage of approximations didn’t come off as too much of a bother for this Unfamiliar.
    “I wish that we could just tell the Maid of the Mist,” I said. “You would think that she’d want to know. Hasn’t she interfered before for less important things?”
    “Less important to us,” Bea pointed out. “She might be Familiar, but she must have different priorities that we can’t understand. We might be a mystery to her too.”
    “We can agree that Unfamiliars like this are bad though, right?”
    “That’s right,” Aunt Astrid said firmly. “What to do about it is up to witches.”
    “Not right now, it isn’t,” I said ruefully, as the audience members returned and the house lights dimmed for the second act.
    Mrs. Park returned with small dumplings on toothpicks for the three of us, which I was sure wasn’t allowed, but she was the producer’s mother. All the tension was making me hungry. I ate too fast and hiccupped most of the way through the second act.
    The main character came back from the grave to face down the queen of the ghosts of women scorned, and in doing so, she rescued the people who had killed her—or one of them. The choreographer must have taken liberties with the original choreography, because I thought we had come to see a ballet. The final dance turned into a collective tap like Riverdance, followed by more modern street dancing.
    “What am I even watching right now?” I mumbled, flabbergasted.
    “Watch your manners around Tommy’s family,” Aunt Astrid said, only because Mrs. Park was sitting with us. She meant that I should keep watching Old Murray and Topher.
    It was a good thing she pointed it out, because I saw Topher stand up and disappear through the curtain behind his balcony seat. Old Murray followed him.
    “I’ve got to be rude and walk out on this,” I said to Bea. “And I might need to run after someone. I won’t take my shoes with me.”
    “I’ll find a way to explain it to Min and Naomi,” Bea said.
    I shrugged and smiled at Mrs. Park’s gaze of disapproval. She always thought that I was too harsh and judgmental. For now, that would be my cover story.

The Escape
    A s I made my way up the aisle, I tried to remember the spell to pull a host apart from an Unfamiliar. The process was often one long and exhausting fight. Being a witch wasn’t like in the movies where they had unlimited power. If we used too much magic, we might get magic burnout, which was very depleting, and it might take days, weeks, or even months to recover.
    As I’d mentioned, as a child, I had almost become a host for an Unfamiliar spirit. My mother tried to explain to me that I had the power to keep it away from myself, but I was too young and scared to really understand how. That was the easiest way to prevent becoming a host for an Unfamiliar though—and the best way. Maybe things would have gone differently if I’d done it on my own.
    Maybe I could simply talk Old Murray into rejecting the Unfamiliar, but I doubted that would work. It hadn’t work for me, and I’d already known the basics of magic and witchcraft. Talking someone through the Unfamiliar rejecting process left too much to chance, especially if they weren’t witches.
    So I had no other choice but to use magic. I could do a binding spell. The Unfamiliar wouldn’t leave the host but simply be bound inside the host so it wouldn’t do any harm. It sounded unpleasant, but what else could I do?
    By the time I decided that, I was in the theater lobby. I caught Diane speaking into her communicator as she made her way up the grand staircase.
    “Area clear,” she finished then looked alarmed when I ran up to her.
    “Not a chance,” I told her. “Topher and Old Murray left the balcony seats a few seconds ago. Where would they be now?”
    “The balcony leads straight to either the west wing or the east wing,”