The Inquisitor's Apprentice by Chris Moriarty Read Free Book Online Page A

her throat delicately and looked at the only chair in the room—the one Sacha was sitting in. Sacha leaped to his feet as if someone had lit a fire under him.
    "Thank you," the girl said. But she didn't sound thankful. She sounded like she thought giving up his chair for a lady was the rock-bottom least a civilized male could do—but still probably more than you could expect from someone like Sacha.
    To his surprise she shook his hand before sitting down. "I'm Lily Astral."
    Lily
Astral?
Sacha's chin almost hit the floor.
    Her pale eyebrows rose in amusement. "According to the rules of polite society, I think you're supposed to tell me
your
name now."
    "Uh ... Sacha Kessler?"
    She peered at him curiously. "The walking witch detector?"
    "I guess." Why did everyone here seem to know all about him? And why did they all give him the same look he was seeing in Lily Astral's big blue eyes? The one that made him feel like he belonged in a Coney Island freak show.
    "You guess?" Lily Astral asked. "Don't you know? And how
do
you see witches, anyway?"
    "I just do. I can't describe it. People look different when they're doing magic."
    The blue eyes narrowed. "But only when they're
doing
magic?"
    "Well ... yeah."
    "And the rest of the time they just look normal?"
    He nodded reluctantly.
    "Then you can't really see witches at all, can you? You can only see magic." She sat down, crossing her prim little white-stockinged ankles. "That doesn't sound nearly as impressive."
    Right then and there, Sacha decided that he hated Lily Astral.
    But just as he was beginning to list to himself all the reasons why, the door to the inner office burst open and Inquisitor Wolf appeared.

CHAPTER SIX
Inquisitor Wolf
    T HE FIRST THING Sacha noticed about Maximillian Wolf was the first thing everyone noticed: nothing.
    In a city like New York, charm was cheap. Any shopgirl or salesman could buy a little glamour to help win the next sale or just get that extra edge it took to get ahead, and most did. It wasn't exactly legal, but it worked. And New Yorkers were too ambitious to turn down anything that worked.
    But Inquisitor Wolf didn't seem to think he needed that kind of help. In fact, he seemed to go to great lengths to be as unglamorous and unmagical as possible. His long, lanky legs were encased in baggy trousers that had never seen the inside of a tailor's shop, let alone a fitting spell. His jacket hung off his bony shoulders like a scarecrow's sack. His hair looked like it hadn't been brushed for weeks. His spectacles were covered with smudges and fingerprints. And his dishwater-gray eyes wore a sleepy, absentminded look that seemed to say he was still waiting for the day to bring him something worth waking up for.
    As far as Sacha could tell, the only remotely interesting thing about Maximillian Wolf was the extraordinary collection of food stains on his tie.
    "Er ... hmmm," Wolf said, looking at Sacha and Lily as if he was trying to find a polite way of asking them what they were doing there.
    "Your new apprentices," Payton prompted.
    "I thought they were supposed to start next week."
    "This
is
next week."
    "Did I miss another weekend? What was I
doing?
"
    "Working. What else?"
    "I don't even know why I ask anymore," Wolf sighed. He thumbed through the case files on Payton's desk, slid one out of the middle of the pile, and drifted back into his office looking like he was well on his way to forgetting about his new apprentices all over again.
    "Don't just stand there!" Payton urged, shooing them across the room and through Wolf's door. "Go in!"
    Wolf looked surprised to see them, but he waved vaguely toward the two straight-backed wooden chairs in front of his desk. Then he wiped his glasses on his tie, opened the case file, and settled in to read it as serenely as if the two of them weren't going through agonies waiting for him to say something.
    Sacha and Lily stared at each other. Lily gave a little shrug as if to say she didn't know what