Wild Night Road(5)

Between gullible customers, Benny and the magick bar top, Lilith had cleared almost six-figures already this year on top of her shit wages and meagre tips. If things kept up like this, she could quit tending bar for a few years and focus her attention on more important matters.
Like mongrel weres who seemed to think their prime seat on the Council of the Kinraven meant they were above every other magickal being. She fingered the silver rune she wore on a chain at her neck and touched the air. The currents were wild, rippling and erratic.
She loved nights like this. It made men horny and women nervous. In other words, it was perfect for grifting and sex, not necessarily in that order (with or without magick).
Two of her favorite things in the world.
Misty Adkins dropped a fiberglass bar tray on the rubber mat at the waitress station. She was permanently blond, pushing forty, and blessed with tits that made twenty-something females jealous. “Nice you see you decided to grace us with your presence tonight, your ladyship.” She slid Lilith a slit-eyed grin. “Gimme a couple of Devil’s Rock darks, a scotch rocks and a ginger ale.”
When Lilith had started at Chill a few years ago, the two had bonded over their mutual disgust with the stupidity of vacationers who left their brains at home. Even though it had violated about 63 line-items of the Kinraven Charter setting forth rules for the interactions between magickal and non-magickal beings, Lilith had taught Misty a few tricks. She had enough innate psychic ability to make them work and ensure the process entertained Lilith, but not enough skill that Misty could ever have become a witch herself.
Not that Lilith had ever revealed herself or her true identity.
That was one rule even she was afraid to break.
The lordly seraphim who controlled the council rarely descended from the peaks where they made their home, but when they did, they were usually pissed off, and a pissed off seraphim was not a pretty sight. Exactly where humans had gotten the notion the winged beings were angels, Lilith would never know.
Brutal seraphim enforcers maintained compliance with the rulings of the council among the many and various magickal beings on the planet. Supernatural cops and not the good kind. They were only too happy to set a were after a witch and then sit back taking bets on how long it would take the wolf to track the witch and tear her to bloody shreds.
 Despite the warmth of the night, she shuddered.
“Any good ones out there?” Lilith asked Misty while she scanned the crowd.
“Yeah,” Misty said grinning, jerking her head toward the dim side of the bar where booths marched all the way to the back. “Couple dudes over there. They look like they’re loggers, maybe. No money, I’d guess, but they are sweet.” She gave sweet two syllables and topped it off with a sexy shimmy. “I’d do both of ‘em. For free.”
Lilith laughed, but when she followed Misty’s direction and saw the dudes in the back booth, the sound died in her throat.
It was like a bad joke. A were, a lyr and a witch walk into a bar…
Swearing under her breath, she snagged two mugs and pulled the lever for the drafts with one hand. With her free hand, she flipped over a short bar glass, dumped a scoop of ice inside and poured three fingers of cheap bar scotch. “Ginger and what?”
“Ginger and ice, genius.” Misty pulled out a wedge of cash she swiftly counted before stuffing it back in the center pocket of her black apron. She swiveled and pointed at a blond woman at one of the tables. “For her.”
Tasha McNeil.
Lilith smiled. Things might turn around after all.
The blonde had her back to the bar and seemed engrossed in conversation with her female companions, which was a good thing, Lilith considered. It was time to figure out why the idiot hadn’t managed to bond with the damned were yet. What was her problem?
Lilith was likely the only straight female under eighty who didn’t want to get cuddly with upwards of six feet of sexy muscles and the reportedly epic-sized cock of a werewolf, but that was her issue. Tasha and the were had spent one night together, but something had gone wrong. The bond wasn’t complete, which made her hex was as good as useless.
She needed to get Tasha McNeil and Owen White together again, but not here. Not now.
The wild energies erupting from the meeting of air, earth and sea were too unpredictable. On a night like this, a were in full rut could just as easily kill a woman as give her the orgasm of her life. Even the most prosaic locals stayed off the streets when the potent energies of predators meant trouble—the kind of trouble that was bad for business and bad Lilith’s personal bottom line.
She couldn’t throw the were and the lyr out of the bar, however she could engineer a few gestures that would make it too uncomfortable for them to stay, but only if she escaped to the back for a few minutes. There were a whole lot of spells she could sneak past unsuspecting humans, but one strong enough to give a were fleas was a spell even Benny would notice. A moment of quiet would also give her a chance to find out what was up with Tasha. Then she could figure out how to orchestrate Plan B—after she had a Plan B.