The Devil You Know by Mike Carey Read Free Book Online

with Mrs. Bailey’s most excellent apple butter.
    After Mrs. Bailey left, Morgana gave me a funny look. She stood behind the counter in one of her sheer, flowy lavender gowns, big gold half-moon earrings dangling from her ears. She looked like a very beautiful gypsy . . . except for the frown on her face.
    “She’s an old woman,” I said with a shrug as I set the angel dolls in their tissue paper down on the counter. “What can it hurt?”
    I unwrapped the dolls. “Any chance you can take a look at these? Maybe identify them? They might be nothing, or maybe some kind of talisman. I’m not sure.”
    Morgana glared at me.
    “Look, what’s the deal about Mrs. Bailey?”
    “Not that. That .” She pointed at the floor where I’d tracked in some muddy footprints. Then she turned to the backroom and I swear to God a mop just flew into her hands. She handed it over to me. “Clean it up, Mr. Wizard.”

    After I’d cleaned the shop, I showered, shaved, and put my muddy, Brownswick-musky clothes in a laundry bag—I couldn’t decide if I should wash them or burn them. Then I changed into a woolly white pullover and a fresh pair of jeans and, looking human again, went down to relieve Morgana for the night. There were more customers than usual, mostly locals looking for little additions to their upcoming Samhain and Halloween parties later this month. I made a note in the ledger we keep in the kneehole to order additional Ouija boards and black candles. They seemed to be selling out.
    Around eight o’clock, Morgana swept back into the shop. She was wearing a very becoming while silk dress with Celtic embroidery around the sleeves and collar. Her long silvery blond hair was crimped and glittering and she wore her favorite rose crystal around her neck.
    I wolf-whistled. “Hot date?”
    “Anton is taking me to see Clannad at the Old Opera House,” she told me. She leaned over the counter and wrote down the hours she expected to be gone. It had become a routine with us. Our safety net, so to speak. At eleven, when the concert was over, she’d leave a message on my cell if she planned on spending the night at Anton’s. I did the same for her. Sadly, Morgana was leaving many more messages on my phone than I was on hers.
    “You and Anton getting pretty serious?” I asked, leaning on the counter and cradling my cheek as I talked to her. Call it brotherly concern, but I liked to keep track of who was keeping time with Morgana. She did the same for me. That way, we knew who to hex next.
    She shook her head, her moon earrings flashing. “I’m not sure, to be honest. He’s nice enough. Older.”
    Anton McGinley was the high priest of the Morristown coven, a nice enough fellow, if you liked dry academics with receding hairlines in tweed and glasses. “You’re just spoiled, being with a stud like me,” I teased.
    “Maybe,” she said with a deep grin. She leaned in close so I could smell her flowery shampoo. She looked deep into my eyes. “You have that whole scruffy, burned-out detective thing going on, Nick. It’s hard for guys to compete with that.”
    “Prince of Darkness. Don’t forget that.”
    “As if I could.” She kissed my cheek and tousled my hair. “At least you shaved.” She picked up her purse, settled it on her shoulder, and started for the door, then stopped. “Oh . . . I researched the dolls and marked the pages in the books upstairs. Take a read. Some interesting things.”
    After Morgana left, some punks came in and started going through the DVDs, disappointed to find no horror movies or porn. Then they stepped up to the counter and asked to see the wands in the open box in the display case. “You got any like Harry Potter?” one of the punks asked.
    I showed them the wands. “They’re not toys,” I warned.
    “So they do actual magic?” the one girl with them asked with genuine interest.
    “They only do what you want them to do,” I told her. “No more, no less.”
    The boy with her,