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By Root 758 0

had a dimple on the left side of her mouth, a diamond stud glinting on the right side of her nose, and her eyebrows were expertly tweezed or waxed or whatever the proper beauty exercise is called. Her dark eyes shone with amusement, and one didn’t get the sense at all that she was used to making deals with rakshasas and transferring her soul from body to body. “I am rather fond of this particular form.” She held up her left hand, adorned with golden bangles on the wrist, and admired it with proprietary pride. “I am thinking I would like to keep it for a while, especially since the previous owner of it yielded it to me so willingly. I have not possessed a body free of karmic debt since the one I was born in, and I confess it holds much attraction for me.”

“There are no problems with it, no scars from the auto accident the young lady was in?”

Laksha gave a small shake of her head. “Nothing on the surface. She suffered some broken bones, but they are all healed. She lost her spleen. The head trauma that put her in a coma is something I can work around for now and perhaps mend with time. Of course, the muscles are atrophied and I still tire easily, but they will strengthen with a little work.”

“Fascinating,” I said. “Let’s continue talking in the car. We’d better go before the TSA guys get impatient with us.”

As Granuaile got us on the eastbound Loop 202, Laksha announced she was hungry for Mexican food.

“I know just the place,” I said, and gave Granuaile directions to Los Olivos, a Scottsdale landmark since the 1950s. It was on our way to Satyrn, and it would give us a chance to talk.

Laksha was fondly anticipating a divorce from Mr. Chamkanni. “Taking off like this without his precious masculine permission will drive him to irrational behavior,” she said, smiling. “He will think he’s lost all control—not that he ever had any—and his friends will egg him on to put me in my place. He will make demands of me when I return. That’s when I will serve him with divorce papers.”

“You already have them after a week?”

“Granuaile suggested a background check on him before I took Selai’s body. He’s been keeping a mistress, as one might expect of a man with a wife in a coma. We have photographic proof and a divorce lawyer already on retainer. I will be keeping the house, I think,” she finished smugly.

Once at Los Olivos—in a room of blue glass and gray stone, with an indoor fountain splashing in the background—we chatted amiably over chips and salsa about the myriad charms of North Carolina. Over plates of green chile burros, enchilada style, the conversation turned as serious as the food.

“All right, Mr. O’Sullivan. Tell me what you wish of me,” Laksha said.

“I want the Bacchants out of town.”

The witch cackled at me, making a belated attempt to cover her mouth politely. “I see. We begin with the humanitarian option. You imagine I have such powers of persuasion?”

“I hoped you would at least consider it seriously instead of laughing at it.”

“Mr. Chamkanni said much the same thing in bed the first night home from the hospital!”

Granuaile nearly spat out what she was chewing and slapped the table repeatedly as she struggled to control her mirth. I steepled my fingers over my plate, elbows on the table, and waited patiently for the women to wind down.

Laksha finally said with an expression reserved for small children or idiots, “Mr. O’Sullivan, you know I am not the sort of witch who changes minds. I’m the sort that ends lives. That is why I am here, yes?”

“It is.”

Granuaile abruptly ceased to find our conversation amusing. “Wait.” She looked at Laksha and then at me. “Are you suggesting that Laksha should kill the Bacchants somehow?”

“You know precisely how she operates,” I said.

“Atticus, how can you?” asked Granuaile, scandalized. “That would be murder.”

“Not to mention very bad karma,” Laksha added airily. This was a fight I’d seen coming, and I wanted not only to win it but also to teach Granuaile that she could and should question me, especially on questions of morality. Just as the Tuatha Dé Danann look at the world