Page 10 of Warlocks Don’t Win (Singsong City #9)

Chapter

Six

T he gates to the old mansion creaked open as I approached, but they moved quickly, like they’d been recently oiled but left with the sound effects for the ambiance. Or they were eager to have me back.

The sky was overcast, as it should be when approaching a house with a ten foot tombstone in the center of the circular driveway.

The house was four stories if you counted the attic with the small oval windows that let in hardly any light.

Maybe it was the dirt on the windows that blocked the light.

The wind blew and the entire structure swayed.

It screamed death trap, demolition dream, and also a generic ‘run away!’ I parked in front of the doors with a jerk and stayed there, gripping my steering wheel in my fists while I stared at it.

The skunk bumped my arm with her head.

I need to pee.

I went into action, parking and leaping out of the truck like a skunk was after me. Tolly leapt out and trotted happily into the nearest overgrown hedge, disappearing into the shadows while I was left outside of my truck, facing down the monster house.

Winston’s footsteps were audible as he walked around, crunching leaves that littered the drive until he reached my side. “Well, girlfriend, is this the part where you make use of my skills?”

I glanced at him. He was still wearing my pants and t-shirt, but he’d glamoured them black so he looked like a dangerous pajamas commercial. “No. This is the part where you stay in the truck while I go see what kind of booby traps the butler laid.”

He stepped in front of me, blocking me with his crossed arms and muscular chest. “I can definitely help you with that.”

I poked his shirt. “Not in those clothes. They’re my precious comfort zone. If they’re singed, I’ll cry. Step aside, slave.”

He quirked a brow and then with a sigh, turned and gestured me towards the door.

Right. I should definitely move my feet towards the ominous creaking mansion since I’d forced my slave to the side.

It had definitely fallen apart since my mother’s death.

Also in the last decade. It looked like it was about to collapse if someone breathed too hard on it.

Going inside seemed like a seriously dangerous undertaking.

Of course I’d neglected it for the last fifteen years.

The butler was actually my mother’s accountant.

He had spent more time than most people at the house.

He’d been absolutely detestable about the whole thing where I couldn’t sell the house or the weapons or the books or the magical objects.

And yes, he had set booby traps after my mother’s funeral.

Almost killed me on my way in, but happily, or unhappily considering, my father’s genetics made me extremely hard to kill.

I took a deep breath and stomped towards the door.

I got out my key and almost dropped it, which would have been a permanent situation since the boards over the porch were flexing like they were waiting to swallow the key into the space between the porch and the cellar.

I wasn’t climbing under the porch. At least not until I had absolutely no other options.

“Everything okay?” Winston called from beside the truck.

I rolled my eyes and then finally got the key into the rusty lock. With a creak that put the gate’s to shame, the key turned and the door leapt open, knob turning on its own as the house gasped its first inhale in a decade.

The stench of moldering hate and abandonment swirled around me, leaving a clammy residue on my skin.

I held very still while the house inhaled and exhaled, tasting my skin in its hunger.

I started trembling, feeling like the house really would swallow me and bury me alive, while the entire structure collapsed on top of me, burying me alive.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Winston called.

“Absolutely sure it’s not,” I muttered and then put my hand on the doorframe, feeling the prickle of slivers against my palm. I gripped it hard, letting it taste my blood.

The wind roared and the house crackled like popcorn popping, but then it settled down, leaving me with stinging hand and an almost welcoming vibe.

I exhaled the breath I’d been holding and then stepped over the threshold, looking around at the broad hall with its curved grand staircase and the enormous engagement portrait.

Oddly, it had been slashed to pieces, so I could hardly tell what it was other than my purple hem and the top of his head.

“If you didn’t like it, you could have sent it to me,” Winston said over my shoulder, making me jump while my heart pounded.

I whirled around to hiss, “Why aren’t you still by the truck? I haven’t cleared the house for visitors yet.”

He wrinkled his nose and took my hand, the one that was still oozing. “I smelled your blood.”

“Liar.”

“No, it’s true,” he said with sincere caramel eyes.

“You’re a vampire now who can’t resist the siren call of an open wound?”

“I’m your concerned fake boyfriend.”

I groaned and wanted to shove him through the floor. The house creaked, willing to put some effort into accomplishing my will if there was blood involved. I’d almost forgotten how much it loved a happy psychopath.

I took a deep breath and summoned my brightest smile.

“Isn’t it a gorgeous foyer? Have you ever seen such fabulous crown molding?

And that chandelier? Hand-crafted crystal from Austria, wired with the most modern technology.

This house is going to bridge the past and the future.

” I sounded creepily like my mother, but flattery was the quickest way to soothe the monster.

“Er, yes, the crystal is very…”

I elbowed him before he could say how dusty it was, so he oomphed instead.

“Glorious. Absolutely glorious. I’ll have to call the power company and have them turn it on then you’ll really see it shine. You could carry the ladder from the barn so I can polish them.”

“Yes, er, that sounds delightful.” He managed more enthusiasm that time, although he didn’t match my manic delight.

“Come on. Let’s check on the kitchen.”

The rest of the tour was a focused battle between staying positive and falling through the broken floors.

“Real hazelnut wood from Brazil,” I said, dangling through the main floor bathroom while Winston stood outside the door looking at me with strained anxiety he was trying to cover up with politeness.

“All the way from Brazil? Imagine that. And the sink looks like a solid piece of marble. Probably would hold your weight.”

I sighed and grabbed the base of the pedestal sink and hauled myself out of the floor. It flexed and shifted back into place, but I wasn’t using this bathroom any time soon.

An ear-shattering scream and gunshots had me sprinting down the hall to the kitchen. It had come from outside, back where the cemetery had overtaken the garden generations ago until there was only a small kitchen garden surrounded by tombstones and mausoleums.

Winston was close on my heels as I exploded out the kitchen door and leapt over the porch and into the abysmally overgrown kitchen garden. I swatted branches away until another gunshot had me reoriented to my target.

"Shouldn’t we be running away from guns?” Winston asked from directly behind me.

“Yes,” I panted, trying to run faster. “You should be. Stay, sit, slave.”

He huffed a laugh and didn’t stay, sit, or slave.

He’d never be able to play the mindless thrall.

I leapt over a fallen tree covered in thick ivy and landed awkwardly in the loose earth before I caught my balance and kept running on the narrow trail.

It came out into a wider trail and I hit another runner, sending us both sprawling in the loose leaf mulch, rolling down an incline through a number of bushes until we came to a stop against an oak tree.

Happily, it was his body that hit the tree, not mine.

His gun was next to his body. I scrambled for it, grabbed it and pointed it at him.

The man had a dramatic widow’s peak, pale skin, and heavy makeup on his face. He looked up at me, disheveled, my black sweats and my green and purple-striped hair.

“That wasn’t in my contract,” he said in a shore accent. He slowly sat up and rubbed his head. “I might have a concussion. Do I look like a stuntman?”

Winston snorted loudly and disrespectfully from the top of the ravine. “Paulo, they got you to play a vampire? You’re better than that.”

“Winston?” Paulo squinted up at the most annoying fake boyfriend in the world. Then again, him being annoying would probably be great for my closure project.

I scowled at Paulo and grabbed his hand, hauling him to his feet. “You’re an actor? Why are you running around with a gun on my property?”

“Your property?” Jessica asked appearing next to Winston up on the ridge, haughty derision dripping from every syllable. Not that there were a lot of syllables in there. Four. Four syllables of dripping derision.

This was going to be fun. Me at the bottom of a ravine covered in leaves, holding a gun on an actor.

I turned and pointed the gun at Jessica instead. “Hello. I’m back.”

Jessica’s eyes narrowed as she struggled to recognize the striped-haired intruder.

Tolly Vervain the Terrible chose that moment to launch at me from the left, hitting me and sending me sprawling over Paulo again.

Paulo gurgled while I struggled to get up, but Tolly’s tail kept getting in my face. Her tail was ridiculously fluffy. I sputtered and swatted at it while Paulo slowly expired beneath me.

“Is this really the shot we want?” a man called.

“Cut!” Jessica screeched, sounding more than slightly rabid. “Cut! Cut! And someone call security to take this stalker off my property!”

I got Tolly’s tail off my face long enough to see Jessica gesture dramatically at Winston the Warlock.

He gave her a flat glare and then slid gracefully down the slope, reaching my side a few seconds later.