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    And Pretty Maids All In A Row
    And Pretty Maids All In A Row
    And Pretty Maids All In A Row
    Ebook59 pages50 minutes

    And Pretty Maids All In A Row

    By Barbara Hambly

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    A novelette of 15,000 words, sequel to the Windrose Chronicles series by Barbara Hambly. When the head of a Los Angeles criminal gang seeks out exiled wizard Antryg Windrose looking for wizardly advice on his love life, Antryg realizes that the man's girlfriend is a lamia, a trans-dimensional creature that absorbs the soul and personality of her victim, a little at a time. Unfortunately her victims become addicted to the process of having their souls drained, who while the lamia is becoming more and more like a Los Angeles criminal - in cunning, ruthlessness, and selfishness - her victim, though demanding his freedom from her, is not really willing to give her up. And this is before she starts hunting other victims...

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBarbara Hambly
    Release dateOct 22, 2015
    And Pretty Maids All In A Row
    Author

    Barbara Hambly

    Since her first published fantasy in 1982 - The Time of the Dark - Barbara Hambly has touched most of the bases in genre fiction. She has written mysteries, horror, mainstream historicals, graphic novels, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, romances, and Saturday Morning Cartoons. Born and raised in Southern California, she attended the University of California, Riverside, and spent one year at the University of Bordeaux, France. She married science fiction author George Alec Effinger, and lived part-time in New Orleans for a number of years. In her work as a novelist, she currently concentrates on horror (the Don Simon Ysidro vampire series) and historical whodunnits, the well-reviewed Benjamin January novels, though she has also written another historical whodunnit series under the name of Barbara Hamilton.Professor Hambly also teaches History part-time, paints, dances, and trains in martial arts. Follow her on Facebook, and on her blog at livejournal.com.Now a widow, she shares a house in Los Angeles with several small carnivores.

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      Book preview

      And Pretty Maids All In A Row - Barbara Hambly

      …AND PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW

      by

      Barbara Hambly

      Published by Barbara Hambly at Smashwords

      Copyright 2015 Barbara Hambly

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only, and may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please include this license and copyright page. If you did not download this ebook yourself, consider going to Smashwords.com and doing so; authors love knowing when people are seeking out their material. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author!

      Table of Contents

      And Pretty Maids All In A Row

      About The Author

      …And Pretty Maids All In A Row

      You a wizard?

      Antryg Windrose leaned his elbows on the table – where he’d joined Joanna Sheraton for a cup of tea during a pause in his bartending duties – and regarded the questioner with his usual air of politely daft interest: Joanna, who’d gone two steps in the direction of a former school-friend glimpsed in the scrimmage around the bar, wheeled promptly and came back.

      The man making the inquiry – tall for a Chinese, dressed in an aggressively slick fashion which combined way too much jewelry with gang tattoos on his neck and hands – looked like trouble of a sort that Antryg, as a relative newcomer to Los Angeles, might not be able to identify quickly enough to side-step.

      And anyway, Antryg – lover, partner, friend and never-ending source of amusement and entertainment – would talk to anybody.

      I am, Antryg replied. Though of course I can’t prove it, since in this universe I haven’t any powers. But if one is born a wizard, one doesn’t cease to be one… I’m Antryg Windrose. And you are…?

      So if you don’t have powers how can you be a wizard? The Chinese ignored his outstretched hand.

      It’s a matter of perception and training. Antryg widened his gray eyes behind thick, round-lensed spectacles. And minor abilities, like seeing in the dark, which I gather is no more common in this universe than it is in my own.

      Why do you ask? Joanna stepped close, into range of the querent’s overpowering cloud of Jovan Musk.

      The young Chinese sized her up with what impressed her as professional speed, glanced from her to Antryg and back, then asked her, Is he crazy?

      Yes, she replied. "But he is a wizard. She gave him the big smile she reserved for business clients to whose accounts she was about to append a seventy-five percent Aggravation Tax, and held out her hand. I’m Joanna Sheraton. You’ve met Antryg—"

      Lester Chan. He altered his body-language – consciously, she had the impression – and deployed a mega-watt smile. His eyes remained exactly like black ball-bearings, but he returned her grip with a manicured hand. A friend of mine said your pal claims he’s a wizard—

      Please do sit down. Antryg scooted his chair over – furniture at Enyart’s had a vaguely science-fictional quality, slick, black, and not designed with human anatomy in mind – and reached one long arm to the next table to drag over a third seat for their guest. At eleven o’clock on a Thursday night the noise-level at Enyart’s was annoying without precluding conversation, even with the sound-system jacked to carry over it (it was Jim the manager’s turn to pick the music, so tonight was wall-to-wall Rolling Stones), but at this hour the place was emptying out. The low lighting gave the impression of a pastel cave. The Beautiful Kevin, concocting Piña Coladas and Fuzzy Navels at the bar in Antryg’s stead for the moment, caught Antryg’s eye and sent over a waitron with a couple of beers.

      Antryg poured himself another cup of tea and asked in a voice like jeweled brown velvet, Now – Tell me exactly why you’re looking for a wizard.

      Chan studied him for a moment, then looked sidelong at Joanna, who had taken her seat at Antryg’s side. Uneasiness sat oddly on him: clearly he wasn’t a man who often found himself hesitant about what to say or how to say it. He started out with, So you’re from another universe?

      Well, I can’t prove it, apologized Antryg. So you’ll have to take me at my word, I’m afraid… Joanna can’t prove I am, either, he added, as Chan’s glance shifted to Joanna again. "But clearly you’re prepared to believe me, or else you wouldn’t have sought me out… Not that

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