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sweeter.
    “Tom?” Moira sounded lost.
    “Tom’s fine,” answered his brother’s rusty voice. He’d talked himself hoarse. “You just sit there until he calms down a little. You all right, lady?”
    Tom lifted his head and looked at his witch. She was huddled on the ground, looking small and lost, her scarred face bared for all the world to see. She looked fragile, but Tom knew better, and Jon would learn.
    As the dead man under his claws had learned. Kouros died knowing she would have killed him.
    Tom had been willing to give her that kill—but not if it meant her death. So Tom had the double satisfaction of saving her and killing the man. He went back to his meal.
    “Tom, stop that,” Jon said. “Ick. I know you aren’t hungry. Stop it now.”
    “Is Kouros dead?” His witch sounded shaken up.
    “As dead as anyone I’ve seen,” said Jon. “Look, Tom. I appreciate the sentiment, I’ve wanted to do that any time this last day. But I’d like to get out of here before some of those kids decide to come back while I’m still tied up.” He paused. “Your lady needs to get out of here.”
    Tom hesitated, but Jon was right. He wasn’t hungry anymore, and it was time to take his family home.
     
    Patricia Briggs is the author of the number one New York Times bestselling Mercedes Thompson series. She lives with seven horses, a dog, three cats, snakes, birds, kids, and a very awesome and tolerant husband in a home that resembles a zoo crossed with a library. The horses live outside.

Last Call
Jim Butcher
    All I wanted was a quiet beer.
    That isn’t too much to ask, is it—one contemplative drink at the end of a hard day of professional wizarding? Maybe a steak sandwich to go with it? You wouldn’t think so. But somebody (or maybe Somebody) disagreed with me.
    McAnnally’s pub is a quiet little hole in the wall, like a hundred others in Chicago, in the basement of a large office building. You have to go down a few stairs to get to the door. When you come inside, you’re at eye level with the creaky old ceiling fans in the rest of the place, and you have to take a couple of more steps down from the entryway to get to the pub’s floor. It’s lit mostly by candles. The finish work is all hand-carved, richly polished wood, stained a deeper brown than most would use, and combined with the candles, it feels cozily cavelike.
    I opened the door to the place and got hit in the face with something I’d never smelled in Mac’s pub before—the odor of food being burned.
    It should say something about Mac’s cooking that my first instinct was to make sure the shield bracelet on my left arm was ready to go as I drew the blasting rod from inside my coat. I took careful steps forward into the pub, blasting rod held up and ready. The usual lighting was dimmed, and only a handful of candles still glimmered.
    The regular crowd at Mac’s, members of the supernatural community of Chicago, were strewn about like broken dolls. Half a dozen people lay on the floor, limbs sprawled oddly, as if they’d dropped unconscious in the middle of calisthenics. A pair of older guys who were always playing chess at a table in the corner both lay slumped across the table. Pieces were spread everywhere around them, some of them broken, and the old chess clock they used had been smashed to bits. Three young women who had watched too many episodes of Charmed , and who always showed up at Mac’s together, were unconscious in a pile in the corner, as if they’d been huddled there in terror before they collapsed—but they were splattered with droplets of what looked like blood.
    I could see several of the fallen breathing, at least. I waited for a long moment, but nothing jumped at me from the darkness, and I felt no sudden desire to start breaking things and then take a nap.
    “Mac?” I called quietly.
    Someone grunted.
    I hurried over to the bar and found Mac on the floor beside it. He’d been badly beaten. His lips were split and