Page 23 of Hexual Healing
The coffee table centaur nuzzled against his leg, begging for pets.
“Leaving now,” he squeaked and ran.
“What about your money?”Baz called out after him.He didn’t reply.
We watched him sprint down the path, his baseball cap bobbing with each step.
“We should eat,” Baz said practically.“Before she comes back.”
“You want to eat pizza?Now?”
“I want to die on a full stomach if we're going to die.”
The house opened the pizza box with invisible hands, revealing a perfectly reheated pepperoni pizza that smelled like heaven and normalcy.
“I think the house is trying to feed us,” I said.
“Let it,” Baz said, grabbing a slice.“We'll need the energy.”
I took a piece, and for one bizarre moment, we sat in the destroyed, rainbow-colored, butterfly-infested living room eating pizza like it was completely normal.
“Your life is definitely an adventure,” I told Baz.
“Our life,” he corrected, then caught himself again.“I mean…”
The butterflies formed a heart shape.
“I'm going to kill them all,” I muttered.
“No, you won't,” Gary said, delicately eating a crumb of cheese.“You can't kill something made of feelings and poor impulse control.”
He was right.I knew full well these butterflies were made of my emotions, my chaos, my inability to control anything.They were, essentially, a colorful version of me with wings.
One landed on Baz's shoulder and turned into a tiny, glowing red heart that was a smaller replica of the earlier one, before dissipating.
The curse noticed and sent another wave of pain shooting through me.I bit back a grunt, hiding it from Baz so he wouldn’t worry behind a particularly voracious bite of pizza.
This was going to be a long night.
* * *
Perhaps I’d grown too comfortable with the day-to-day routines Baz and I had easily slipped into.He would go off and do weird things in the forest.Often coming back with honey, nuts, berries, meat, or firewood.I never really asked what he was doing when he left the house.I didn’t feel like it was my business.I also never really thought seriously about when I’d overstayed my visit.
He didn’t seem overly eager for me to leave.Plus, the guy cooked.I hated cooking.I did try to clean up after myself.That was a full-time job in and of itself.
Baz had just gotten back and was fresh from the shower.The sun had barely touched the horizon when she returned.It was only a few short days after her first unannounced visit.For some reason, I’d neither sensed her coming nor thought she’d be back nearly so soon.Her arrival was a complete surprise that I wasn’t remotely prepared for.
This time, she didn't explode the door.Probably because there wasn't a door left to explode.She simply walked through the opening like a normal person, if normal people had smoke curling from their nostrils and murder in their eyes.
She'd changed clothes.Gone was the dirt and debris-covered designer outfit.Now she wore something that looked as if armor and lingerie had a baby together.Scant scale-mail that covered strategic areas while leaving plenty of skin exposed to show off the ruby-red scales that traced her spine and shoulders.Her hair was pulled back in a complex braid that probably had a YouTube tutorial titled “How to Look Devastatingly Hot While Planning Murder.”
“We need to talk,” she said.Her voice was way too calm for comfort.
To be honest, it was worse than screaming.Besides, pretty much anyone’s butthole puckering up when they hear the words “we need to talk.”Illanya calm meant Illanya scheming.Illanya scheming usually meant someone was about to die.
“Talking's good,” I said, stepping forward before Baz could do anything about it.The house immediately tried to push me back, the floorboards creating a gentle slope away from her.“House, no.Bad house.”
It subsided with a sulky creak.