Kate Daniels 02 - Magic Burns

book against the wall. Found a good goddess to worship. “Bestoloch.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Julie asked.
    â€œIt means ‘imbecile’ in Russian. Looks like your mom’s coven worshipped Morrigan. She isn’t a nice goddess.”
    She thrust her book in front of me. “What’s wrong with him?”
    On the page, a giant of a man swung a huge sword. Gross bulges broke all over his body, the monstrous muscles swelling above one shoulder, threatening to envelop his head. His knees and feet twisted backward, his colossal arms could’ve brushed the ground, his mouth gaped open, and his left eye thrust out of its orbit. A glow, indicated with short strokes of the ink pen, radiated from his head.
    â€œThat’s Cú Chulainn. He was the greatest hero of ancient Ireland. When he got really mad during battle, he went into frenzy and turned into that thing. It’s called warp spasm.”
    â€œWhy is his head shining?”
    â€œApparently he got very hot during the spasm and after the battle people had to dump water on him to cool him down. In one story he jumped into the cauldron filled with water and the cauldron broke…”
    I stared at the cauldron in the middle of the room.
    Julie tugged on my sleeve. “What?”
    â€œHold on a minute.” I approached the cauldron and took the iron handles.
    â€œToo heavy,” Julie said.
    I grunted, picked it up, and moved it aside. The lid shifted a little, spilling the rancid broth, thankfully not on me.
    Under the cauldron lay a small pit. Narrow, barely large enough to permit passage to a small animal, maybe a dog the size of a beagle. The edges were smooth, the circumference perfectly round, as if sculpted with a knife. I looked into it and saw darkness. The odor of earth and the cloying stench of decay rose from the gloom.
    Déjà vu.
    Julie pried a clod of dirt from the ground and headed for the pit. I caught her.
    â€œBut I want to know how deep it is.”
    â€œNo, you don’t.”
    She dropped the clod with a sneer. I obviously plummeted a few notches on her cool people meter.
    Three small impressions marked the sides of the pit forming an equilateral triangle—the tracks from the cauldron’s three legs. Just like the tracks at the coven’s meeting place. The big pit in the Gap was missing a cauldron. And a huge one at that.

CHAPTER 8
    BRYCE AND CO. HAD DECIDED AGAINST THE REMATCH , and we left the Honeycomb unmolested, carrying Esmeralda’s books. Custer had wisely chosen to make himself scarce. From Trailer twenty-three to the chain link gates, we didn’t see another living thing.
    It took a good hour to cut around the Honeycomb through the Warren to where Ninny still patiently waited for me by a pile of mule poop. I loaded Julie onto the molly. White Street was only fifteen minutes away, but she looked tuckered out.
    â€œWhere are we going?” she asked.
    â€œHome. What’s your address?”
    Julie clamped her lips shut and stared at the front of Ninny’s saddle.
    â€œJulie?”
    â€œThere is nobody there,” she said. “Mom’s gone. She’s all I have.”
    Oh boy. Could I turn a momless, hungry, tired, filthy kid loose on a street with night approaching? Let me think…“We’ll swing by your house and see if your mom made it home. If not, you can bed with me tonight.”
    Mom wasn’t there. They had a tiny house, tucked in a corner of a shallow subdivision branching from White Street. The home was old, but very clean, all except the kitchen sink full of dirty plates. Originally it must’ve been a two bedroom, but somebody, probably Julie’s mom, had built a wooden partition, sectioning off a part of the living room to make a tiny third room. In that room sat an old sewing machine, a couple of filing cabinets, and a small table. On the table rested a half-finished dress, light blue, in Julie’s size. I touched the dress gently. Whatever faults Julie’s mother may have had, she loved her daughter very much.
    Julie brought her picture from their bedroom: a tired woman with loose blond hair looked back at me from the photo with brown eyes, just like her daughter’s. Her face was pale. She looked sickly, exhausted, and a decade older than thirty-five.
    I made Julie help me with the dishes. Under the plates I found a bottle of Wild Irish Rose. White label. It stank like rubbing alcohol. It