Page 57 of Strike It Witch

Fennel bounded out with me then curled up on the roof of the Mini and closed his eyes. No way was he going into a bar full of roided-up canines unless he had to.

“Keep a low profile,” I said.

“Meow.”

I strode to the swinging front door and slammed face-first into an invisible barrier. I tried again. Same thing.

It made no sense to barricade the front door of a bar. How would the customers get in? Seemed a fast track to bankruptcy. Unless it was selective about who it kept out…

Thatasshat.

Floyd must’ve had someone put an anti-Betty ward on his bar. My guess was the coven he had on retainer.

If I wasn’t magically and physically compromised, I’d have taken the ward down in such a way that the coven would regret ever doing it in the first place. But I was using a ton of energy keeping my ownhealingandpaincharms powered up.

Sometimes you had to do things the crude way.

“Hey, if I don’t come out right away, head over to Ronan’s, okay? He’ll help you out.” An odd suggestion with Beau just a few streets over. Beau would take care of Fennel. Why was my first thought to send him to Ronan?

What the hell, Betty?

I shook the thought aside.

“Fennel, do you think they only spelled the door or the entire wall?”

“Meow.”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter.”

I dug into my bag, extracting the Mara blade. It was also known as the “dagger of confusion,” and was reputed to have been powered by the death of a fifteenth-century monk. Its power was in the disruption the blade caused. It confused blood cells, and brain waves, and even the spirit itself. But more than that, if used with a specific spell, it confused magic.

The trick was using the right spell.

It took me half a block’s walk to find a spot with deep enough soil to work. The geranium inside this particular planter was hanging onto life by a thread, but that was due to overwatering rather than from being ignored the way the planter by Wicked had been.

Glancing around to make sure I was alone, I dipped the blade and my fingers into the soil and fed magic into it. While I was at it, I regulated the drainage, allowing the water rotting away the roots to evaporate. The geranium visibly perked up, and I received a nice jolt of magic and some powered-up soil.

A fair exchange.

I tucked the dagger close to my body on my way back, careful not to dislodge the soil clinging to the blade. At the front entrance, I pointed it directly at the door and stepped into the ward again. There was a moment’s resistance, and then I was pushing through it like a hot blade through a wolf’s belly.

I kicked open the front door and stepped out of high-noon sunlight into the comparatively dark interior of Alpha Floyd’s bar.

A faux-twang modern country song played on the sound system. Fried food and booze scented the air. The air conditioner clicked on, and chilled air from a vent above my head blew my hair into my face.

No one inside reacted.

Okay, it was an upscale shifter bar, but I’d expected at least a shocked gasp. Maybe a growl or a “How didyouget in here?” from the staff.

I wended my way through the tables, peering at every patron. Noses twitched—likely from the scent of blood drying on the back of my head—and recognition lighted in glowing eyes, but no one said a word. A couple of the shifters present had been customers of mine a time or two, and that wasn’t somethingthey’d want their alpha leader to know, so they avoided my gaze and pretended nothing was amiss with the situation.

In the back of the room, beyond the dining area, lay a short hallway that led to the bathrooms, storerooms, and Alpha Floyd’s office. I’d been here before.

I was met with absolutely no resistance. Not from the servers, the bartenders, or anyone else on staff. Damn. I’d geared myself up for a confrontation. The whole thing was a little disappointing. They’d taken the time to put up a ward. Shouldn’t they have at least yelled at me a little?

“How didyouget in here?”

A well-dressed male wolf with carbon black eyes and russet brown skin sprang out in front of me. He hooked a muscle-banded arm around my throat and dragged me into a storeroom across from Alpha Floyd’s office door.

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