Page 31 of Hexual Healing
“Good point.”
We stood there, surrounded by broken glass that was slowly piecing itself back together, and I realized something.
“We're going to fight her?”I half asked and half declared.
“Yes.”
“All of us?The whole town, if necessary?”
“Probably.”
I smiled, and for the first time since Illanya had shown up, it felt real.“Good.Because I have the worst plan you've ever heard.”
“How bad?”Gary asked warily.
“Remember when I accidentally summoned that IRS agent instead of an orgasm demon?”
“That's your benchmark for bad?”
“This is worse.”
Gary sighed dramatically.“We're all definitely going to die, aren't we?”
“Probably,” I admitted.“But we're going to make it really inconvenient for her first.”
Baz's hand found mine and squeezed gently.Sparks, but no pain this time.
I’d call that an improvement.
We had under twenty-four hours to save a town, break a curse, and not die in the process.
I'd had worse deadlines.
ChapterFour
Iadmit I never thought I’d waste fifteen minutes of my life trying to get a house to stop sulking because I'd called it bad when it tried to “help” me scrub my back when I was in the shower.
“I’m not mad at you.I was just surprised.”I told the ceiling for the umpteenth time.“You did an amazing job today.You kicked a dragon’s ass.That'sveryimpressive.”
The walls brightened slightly, but that was the only sign it heard me.
“Maybe try petting it again?It really liked that.”Baz suggested from where he was attempting to coax the coffee-table-centaur back into being just a table.It wasn't going well.The creature had decided it quite liked having legs and was currently doing tiny victory laps around the living room.
“I'm not petting the house.”
“You hexed it into consciousness.I think normal rules stopped applying yesterday.”
I could already tell this was going to be a nice-dad, mean-mom scenario, but he had a point.I approached the nearest wall and gave it an awkward pat.“Good house.Very good house.”
The purring resumed almost immediately.The sound resonating through the floorboards with enough force to make the butterflies—yes, much to my dismay, they were still everywhere—dance in the air.
“Great,” Gary said from his perch on the mantle.“Now it's going to expect belly rubs all the time.”
Before I could respond by asking if he was jealous, I started thinking about giving Baz belly rubs.And…his shirt disappeared.
We all stared.Baz looked down at his suddenly bare chest, then up at me.“Did you just…”
“I didn't mean to!”My hands flew up defensively, but that just made it worse.His pants started flickering between visible and transparent like a badly tuned TV.