Read Witch Doctor - Wiz in Rhyme-3 for Free Online Page B

calling on the saints, or making the Sign of the Cross, or anything like that, kind of rankled; I hadn't been about to cop out to religion back home, and I didn't intend to here. Besides which, it might require conviction, which I definitely did not have.
    She must have seen that in my eyes, because she gave me a gaptoothed grin. "Ah, then! You shy from those words yourself, eh?
    Well, then, come! Prick your finger, write your name in my book, and swear to serve the queen and her master, or I'll call upon his power, and you'll writhe in flames!"
    Outrage kindled. "No way!" I snapped. "I've heard about that book-and I'd end up writhing in flames either way, until this hallucination wears off! I won't be a slave, and I won't accept any master! " She answered with an evil grin. "Excellent," she crooned,
    "most
    excellent! For if you'll serve no master, then you cannot be protected by any-and the Other Side will not ward you!" I felt the hair rise on the back of my neck.
    "I felt your first use of a spell and said to myself, 'Sobaka, what bother is this?' and began to tidy up my work to spare time for a visit-but ere I departed, I felt the nerve-grating shimmer that could only have come from an agent of the Other Side, and withheld my visit till that grinding had ceased . . ."
    Translation: she'd sensed the visit from my guardian angel and had been so scared that she'd burrowed under the bedclothes. I felt a little more confident.
    "Yet cease it did," she crowed, "and totally-there was no shred of it left! Therefore did I come here, and sure enough, I see no particle of the aura of the Other Side about you! You have not aligned yourself with them, and have not their protection!"
    The temperature of my precious bodily fluids began to fall again.
    " "Tis an idiot, surely,' I said to myself, 'an idiot who doth think to gather magic as if he were a windmill, gathering power from the gale and wielding it to grind what he will! Ay, such a fool I can twist right easily!' So come, addle-pate, and sign in my master's book, or die in agony!"
    Somehow, for a second, I didn't doubt that she could do as she'd said, and my heart sank down to join the caterpillars that were trying to turn into butterflies in my belly-but mostly, I felt the hot anger of indignation. How dare this old witch try to push me around! "No way will I get on your hook!" I snapped. "Keep the fire for your blasted book!"
    She let out an outraged squawk, just about three-quarters of a second before her book burst into flames. She screamed, jumping back. All I could do was stand there and stare.
    That was too bad; it gave her a chance to recover from her surprise.
    "Vile recreant!" she screamed. "The records of all who owe my master are destroyed!" Then she hooked her fingers into claws, chanting, "By the most vile of obscene names, Follow that book into the flames!"
    And she threw a whammy at me.
    Only this whammy took form very fast, some unseen energy gathering itself together until it materialized about halfway between us as a roaring globe of fire. I shouted and leapt out of the way, but it swerved to follow me. I jumped again, in a forward somersault, but came up to see it still following.
    I ran.
    Behind me, the hag's cackling almost drowned out the roar of the fireball-and it was gaining. In a rush of adrenaline, I suddenly realized I should be trying verbal acrobatics, not physical-she had brought this phenomenon into being by versifying; I sure hadn't seen her pulling the pin on a grenade. I ducked behind a boulder; it followed me, and it was roaring, but so was I, tapping myself on the chest and chanting,
    "Put out the light, and then put out the light. If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, I can again thy former light restore, Should I repent me; but once put out t y ig t, Should I, considering, find it sinister I can leave it dark and quenched forevermore."
    I had to do a little rewriting there, since rhyme seemed to be important here-but under the