Read Tomorrow Wendell (White Dragon Black) for Free Online Page A

hiss, and grabbed a pen off the front desk. He used the end of the pen to hold the lip balm container under the hot water slowly filling the sink.
    The room began to fill with the cloying, sweet scent of honey. Jonathan hoped the container would clean out quickly, but in the end, he had to use the tip of the pen to dig lingering blobs of wax out of the bottom.
    Then, to be certain there was no remaining residue, he carefully washed out the container with soap and rinsed it under fresh running water.
    Jonathan brought the now clean container to the mortar and pestle and scooped two fingers worth of the substance into it.
    It in no way resembled anything that anyone would want to put on their lips, but Jonathan didn’t expect the owner of the store to ask to borrow his lip balm anyway.
    He didn’t plan on engaging the owner at all, really, until after he had already used the paste. According to Wendell’s account of the owner, he wouldn’t be spending much time observing Jonathan either.

    It was a gothic day—bleak, windy, and overcast. Autumn’s grasp on the season seemed tenuous compared to the icy grip of her sister and, though the return from Daylight Saving remained a couple of days away, the sun seemed to have already given up illuminating this part of the world.
    Jonathan had one flask in his breast pocket for keeping him warm and one in his coat pocket for keeping away daemons, ghouls, and certain other undesirables.
    He got into his old Lincoln and, shutting the door against the insistent wind, slid the key into the ignition.
    The car, which had reached the age where people referred to it as ‘classic’ instead of a ‘piece of crap,’ gave a shudder and coughed but then fell silent.
    Jonathan patted the dash. He assured the Lincoln that he understood its reluctance and turned the key once more.
    After four minutes and a few choice words aimed towards his means of transportation, Jonathan was heading across town to the fortunetelling machine that had started this whole debacle.
    He found the antique dealer’s shop without any issue or hassle and with even a parking space across the street from it.
    After waiting for a delivery truck to rumble past, Jonathan strode across the slush-covered street, his hands stuffed in his pockets to ward off the cold.
    He didn’t immediately enter the store but stayed on the sidewalk looking in at the items displayed in the front window.
    There was a wooden box with real silverware in it, a lava lamp, an assortment of china dolls, and an imitation Tiffany lamp. Other items were displayed in the window as well, but Jonathan didn’t see any signs of a practitioner’s trade there.
    Sometimes shops like this, the antique and curio, were run by either users of magic or just those in the know. These people sold mundane items alongside items and trappings for the esoteric. Often the arcane items displayed were small, discreet things that only a practitioner would know as being other than knickknacks.
    Nothing in this display, however, said the owner knew that life comprised more than brushing one’s teeth and collecting stamps. It actually would have surprised Jonathan to discover otherwise, as he considered it a professional necessity to know who trafficked in the esoteric.
    Jonathan put his hand on the handle and pulled the door open, hesitating at the threshold to see if his wards, a ring of protective symbols and names tattooed just below his neck, reacted.
    The game Jonathan played was a dangerous one. His best friend since high school, Ralph, had once compared his profession to being the target for attack-dog training without the benefit of padding or even a way to call off the dogs. Jonathan had never forgotten that comment.
    When nothing burned, rippled, or flared under the collar of his shirt, Jonathan entered the store a little disappointed. He didn’t go straight to the fortuneteller’s machine but slowly meandered about, browsing as one did in a place like this and