Satan's Sword (Imp Book 2) by Debra Dunbar Read Free Book Online Page B

imagine Wyatt doing that sort of thing with his computer, but people did all sorts of stuff with video games now. What a fucking boring way to spend an entire Saturday though.
    “What do you need my help with?” Wyatt smiled, unaware that I was mentally deriding his life’s work.
    “Can you use your tablet and check all the pet stores in a twenty mile radius to see if any of them have birds?”
    Wyatt looked at me quizzically. “Don’t you have enough animals already?”
    “It’s for a project,” I told him.
    “Just go to PetSmart and pick one up.”
    I squirmed. “They won’t allow me in PetSmart anymore. Boomer was not very well behaved the last time we were there.” I liked to blame it on Boomer. He made a good fall guy.
    “Okay. Let’s see if there’s anywhere on the east coast you haven’t been banned from.”
    Wyatt waved his fingers around the tablet’s screen. “There’s a place in Frederick with a nice African Grey. It knows eight words and is a steal at two thousand, although I see you as more of a raptor kind of girl. Maybe a falcon?”
    “It doesn’t need to talk, just breathe. Actually I want a canary,” I decided. The miners always seemed to have used canaries and I didn’t want to take a chance that this was a species specific kind of skill.
    “How about love birds? Or doves? There are a ton of places that have doves. It’s all the rage to set a bunch of them free at weddings.”
    “No, it’s gotta be a canary.”
    There were no canaries to be had in Frederick except for the ones at the forbidden PetSmart, but Wyatt worked his magic and found a pet store in Glen Burnie with one.
    “Do you want to go pick it up?” he asked.
    I had no desire to drive to Glen Burnie so I asked him to have it delivered to my house.
    “Is this canary destined to be stuffed in a bug zapper?” Wyatt asked, referring to a mouse incident this past summer.
    “No, although I need it for a project.” I thought for a moment. “Maybe I should get a few. Just in case things go terribly wrong.”
    Wyatt shook his head. “They only have the one. There’s a place in Northern Virginia that has a few. I can have them ship one, but I’m not sure how fast it will get here.”
    I mulled the situation over. If this canary died, there was no way I was going through that gate. Maybe I’d hold off on the others until I saw what happened with one. I really didn’t want to get stuck with them, and I was pretty certain that a dozen mangled, dead birds wouldn’t reveal any more than one.
    “Nah, let’s just see what happens with this one first,” I told Wyatt. It was a testament to the strength of our relationship that he didn’t pester me about what the bird was for, or lecture me about torturing, and probably killing, cute, defenseless animals.
    I snagged a hot wing and munched on it wondering if the buffalo sauce would be good on canary. I’d failed in my attempt to master the Sharpsburg gate today, and although the rest of my day had been wonderful, that hung over my head like a black cloud. Maybe if I tried something else I’d been working on it would cheer me up.
    Looking around the bar, I thought of hot wings. I envisioned the smell, the taste, and the bite of the sauce, the texture of the crunchy, spicy skin and hot juicy meat, and the orange color. I bundled the whole experience together and sent it out into the room, pushing it gently into everyone’s minds. Want. Want. Want. Then I waited.
    Now, how to gauge my success? I watched the waitresses bustle around and began to count the hot wing baskets coming out of the kitchen. It was no use. I was sure I’d missed some, and I couldn’t tell what the hell was on those big trays of food.
    “Wyatt? Can we find out how many hot wing orders have been requested in the last twenty minutes?”
    Brenda laughed when he asked her. “Is this a prank? We ran out of the things. I’ll tell you almost everyone in the place ordered them, although some tables placed