Death Warmed Over - By Kevin J. Anderson Page 0,33
The spells in our spell books are intended for entertainment purposes only. The publisher accepts no liability for any misuse or inadvertent accidents that may occur as a direct or indirect result of our books. We make no warranties, express or implied, about the accuracy of our content. Any damages are the sole responsibility of the user.”
“Reads like a form letter,” I agreed and handed it back to Robin.
“We’ll file a suit against them,” she said. “In order to protect other users, our first course of action will be to demand that they withdraw all copies of this spell book from the market until the typo is corrected. In fact, I can probably get an ex parte injunction by showing irreparable harm to the user—i.e., being turned into a sow.”
“But how long will all that take?” asked Mavis. The sow let out a squeaking snort, then sat on the carpet.
“I’m afraid it’s going to require some time. First, we have to serve the complaint, and they have thirty days to file an answer. If they don’t agree to take the book off the market, I have to file papers and go through written discovery, after which we take depositions, move for a trial date.” A glint appeared in her deep brown eyes. “As another possibility, we can go directly to the media. Obviously, one interview with you and your poor sister, and our case is won.” Robin leaned over to gaze at the mournful sow, and she put both her hands on the table. “But we are going to win this one. We’re going to win!”
“I believe you, but my sister’s a sow!” Mavis’s lower lip trembled, and I could see she was about ready to unleash a hurricane of tears and sniffles. “I always wanted to work in publishing. I even applied for a job at Howard Phillips, offered to help with proofreading. They never responded. And now . . . my poor sister!”
Alma nuzzled up against Mavis’s dark skirts. The witch straightened her back, and her expression darkened. As she rose from her chair, Mavis’s black gown seemed to grow more voluminous, her hair standing out like a big curly thundercloud. “If we can’t find a way to fix this, then I want to nail that publisher to the wall!”
Robin sounded cheery. “We can help you with that, too, if you like.”
CHAPTER 14
After I ushered the witch and the sow out of the offices, walking them down the hall to the elevator, Sheyenne was opening the day’s mail at her desk. She tore open an envelope and looked at the results with a disbelieving grumble. “You gotta love the post office.” She held up the paper. “This letter to me—important chemical results—took weeks to be delivered, even though I filed all the change-of-address forms as soon as I came back from the dead.”
Sheyenne had experienced a lot of trouble getting her mail forwarded. Since she was a ghost and gainfully employed, she used the Chambeaux & Deyer offices as her new physical address, but glitches still happened.
I plucked the paper from her ghostly hands. It was some kind of lab report, a spectrometer trace, tables of numbers and lists of complex compounds that I didn’t understand. While working on other cases, I had seen blood tests and DNA matches for paternity suits, but these results didn’t look familiar. “What is this?”
“Back at Basilisk I sneaked a bottle of Zom-Be-Fresh perfume that Brondon Morris was showing off around the club, but when I tried the stuff, it gave me a horrible allergic reaction—I had hives all over my skin, and they itched like crazy. I was miserable, and I told Brondon he shouldn’t leave dangerous chemicals lying around.”
“Funny, he just told me about that last night. If you stole the sample, he didn’t exactly leave it lying around. And if you didn’t follow the directions—”
She grimaced. “I know it’s not designed for or marketed to humans, but JLPN is peddling that stuff all over town. I sure was sorry I tried it!”
I let out a wistful sigh. “Your skin looked just fine during our night together.”
Sheyenne laughed. “It was dark, and the rash was mostly gone by then.” We both paused for an awkward moment, reminiscing.
She turned her attention back to the chem analysis. “Brondon was panicked about a PR debacle, slobbered apologies all over me, but I sent the sample off to a lab anyway.” She looked up at me, her eyes bright. “I had connections at the