Page 11 of Warlocks Don’t Win (Singsong City #9)

He grabbed my hand and hauled me up, then picked me up and proceeded to carry me up the hill like he’d fallen into a pride and prejudice reproduction and couldn’t help himself.

No, that’s not the one with him carrying her around.

Marianne. What was his name? No idea, but he was hot.

The injured former soldier with money, loyalty, and patience for the delightfully flighty girl who liked shiny things.

Winston wasn’t the reliable soldier. He was the flighty villain who looked good and could manipulate everyone. Wickham. He was definitely a Wickham. Of course, Wickham had been very hot.

He reached the top of the hill where Jessica was staring at him with a curled lip. She was now surrounded by a variety of people in jeans and caps who looked irritated.

“What now?” a bald man demanded whose skin was tinted green. Ogre? Goblin. Definitely goblin with the way he was looking at Jessica with violence barely held in check.

Jessica ignored him, just kept staring at me and Winston. “Who do you think you are? Some long-lost relative who thinks she can claim what’s rightfully mine?”

I blinked at her. “I’m not challenging you. In fact, I’m totally open to seeing if the butler can transfer the title to you.”

The butler cleared his throat, voice like gravel crunching cheese puffs. Perfect. Now we could have a really fun party. His enormous black umbrella blocked out everything but the tips of his polished Italian loafers.

“I was alerted when you entered the gates, Miss Sage. And you’ve brought Winston the Warlock with you. How delightful.” He sounded the opposite of delighted. As usual, he sounded dry, dusty, and disgusted.

“Right? So delightful,” I sputtered while I tried to get out of Winston’s arms and failed. Win was still wearing lounge clothes, but made it look like everyone else was overdressed. Charisma like that should be illegal.

“You’re not Clary Sage,” Jessica said, raising her chin and sounding extremely confident.

“Winston, put me down before I turn you into a frog,” I hissed.

He pursed his lips for a moment before he set me down and crossed his arms, looking bored. “As you wish, my lady.”

“My lady?” Paulo chortled, climbing up the ravine with more energy than before.

“Are you saying that this charming cannonball is the actual, original Clary Sage? The infamous murderess and seducer of warlocks everywhere?” He gave me a rakish smile that he definitely rehearsed daily. It was actually quite effective.

“I’d give you a discount,” I murmured.

Winston nudged me. “No. Paulo’s got succubus blood. Absolutely not.”

I considered the things my mother would do with a succubus then shuddered and shifted away from Paulo. “Agreed.” I was not my mother, draining the magic and lust out of a monster.

Jessica maintained her disbelief. “She’s not Clary Sage. I don’t know how she fooled you, Winston, but she’s absolutely not?—”

“Ouch!” I jumped when the butler/accountant pricked my hand, the same hand the house had sampled. He waved the pin around, sending a trail of smoke up that was the signature green of my family legacy.

“Identity verified,” he said primly, giving her a look with those creepy pink eyes.

The butler was an albino, which explained the big black umbrella, but not his vicious personality.

I didn’t actually know his name. My mother taught me to call him the butler.

His name belonged to only her, like his soul.

“Touch her again, and I’ll personally dismantle your limbs,” Winston growled, managing to convey a world of savagery while maintaining his cool indifference.

I rubbed my hand while it throbbed. The guy really was a prick. Maybe I’d like Winston to rip him limb from limb. Anyone who served my mother with so much loyalty deserved it.

“She can’t be. Clary Sage isn’t this…” Jessica gestured at me in my black sweats and sneakers, adding an extra large hand floosh towards my hair.

I patted it like I’d put effort into it.

“Nice, right? It was to commemorate me and Winston here getting back together. Green and purple equals true love. So tell me what this is all about,” I said, turning towards the goblin who was eying me with unnerving intensity, like he was considering how much he could shake me down for.

I needed to start distributing sausage rolls, but we’d eaten all of them on the trip.

That meant that I’d be cooking in the kitchen.

Which meant cleaning the kitchen and repairing all the damage done by age and monster hysterics.

The house was so insecure without a psychotic witch to direct its focus.

First, I had to make the house habitable, then I had to defuse the Salem coven, then I could really dive into unravelling the curse.

Which meant that I’d be here longer than a weekend.

I pulled out my phone and nodded all around. “Excuse me, but I have to make a call.”

Jessica was outraged. “A call? You barge onto my set and then you have to make a call?”

“Um, yeah. That’s what I said.” I turned and called Parody. Hopefully she was set up in the shop by now, but it took some time to adjust to normality after absorbing someone else’s life force and magic. “Hey, Par. I think I’m going to have to be here longer than I’d hoped. How are you doing?”

It took her a few seconds before she answered slowly. “I guess I’m okay. You left a list of things to do, but I haven’t seen a skunk. Was that a typo?”

“Um, no. The skunk’s with me. Tolly’s my boyfriend’s bodyguard.

He’s a delicate flower, needs lots of protection.

” I glanced at Winston who raised a brow slightly, but kept his crossed-arm, that sexy indifferent thing going on.

Also showing off those gloriously muscled and runed forearms. That had held me through the night.

And I was staring at him.

I quickly looked away, at Jessica who was whispering to the goblin, and Paulo who was smoldering at me. He winked when he saw me looking. It was a good wink. I’d definitely give him a discount.

“Anyway,” I said, forcing myself to focus on Parody instead of the irritating people in my yard. “Don’t worry about the skunk. I might have to set up a way door if we’re here too much longer.”

“A way-door? In the Salem house?” Jessica was appalled. “The real Sage heir wouldn’t ever pollute her heritage like that.” She really was annoying. Had she always been so obnoxiously proud of my heritage? She really had adopted it.

Parody spoke slowly, still in shock from the energy transfer, also from Winston’s mind meddling. It was terrifying that he’d done that so easily. “A way door? Where are you again?”

“Back east. Okay. Thanks, Par. I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up and smiled all around. “Cool. Now that we figured out that it isn’t real guns in my back yard, I’m going back to the house.”

“It’s not yours!” Jessica was so tenacious, and I had no sausage rolls for a nice, quiet, gentle takeover.

I chewed on my bottom lip and then stretched out my arms, letting the magic and power flood me in a wave of green guilt. The wind rose, and so did I, levitating while the land came to life for me. My blood. My power. My name. This whole thing was so archaic.

“Sage House is mine.” I lost my sight and was sucked into the vortex of energy lines, the house’s web of decaying life to one side while the wild woods were on the other.

The land screamed at being trampled and cut by the trespassers, the coven traitors who brought strangers into the heart of their power and sucked it dry.

Huh. So that was happening. Someone wasn’t only using the house to make curses, they were also draining the land itself of its magic and power.

One particular tree was keening particularly loudly from a fresh wound surrounded by swelling sap. From a bullet. That tree right there, where someone had stood on the opposite side of the trees and shot directly where I’d been standing before Tolly knocked me back down on Paulo.

I closed off my connection to the land and house and landed badly, so I fell over sideways.

Winston caught me and swept me into his arms, shifting me so my head could loll on his shoulder.

“What was I saying?” I asked no one in particular. My head pounded, throbbing in time to the pounding of the ley lines. The house was drained nearly dry, and someone had tried to shoot me. And Winston was carrying me around again.

“That you were going back to the house,” Winston murmured and then started walking directly back, through the impassable verdure, which twisted away at his approach.

He didn’t kill anything or steal the life of the place.

That was much more my mother’s MO than anyone else I knew.

I had some cousins. Maybe they’d set up as life-sucking spiders.

I groaned and buried my face in Winston’s neck. “Did I mention how much I hate Salem’s coven?”

“You can get closure from that while you’re working through your other issues. Therapy for everything.”

I bit his neck.

He responded by holding me closer and pressed his lips to my hair. Yeah, this was way more torture than therapy. That’s why it felt so good.