Page 6 of Warlocks Don’t Win (Singsong City #9)

Chapter

Four

T he pain of being with him built over the next few miles, hours, built and built until with a crackle of energy over my skin, it erupted in a cloud of noxious stench that left me barely able to see the road.

I changed lanes, leaving cars honking at me, while my eyes burned, my nostrils screamed, and Winston gurgled.

I couldn’t take much satisfaction in his misery when my own was so potent. I drove down the exit ramp and then pulled over on the shoulder, shoving open the door and falling out the second I could. The cloud of green stench followed me out.

I bent over, coughing and gasping until I made my way around the truck to the field beside the road. I kept walking out into the field until I got enough distance from my truck that I could breathe.

I turned to see Winston the Warlock heading towards me, holding the skunk by the scruff, his own face slightly purple.

I held up my hands. “Keep it away from me!”

“It’s your familiar. You need to control it!”

“He’s not mine! You’re the psychopath who let him in my shop!”

“Her, and I never saw this skunk until recently.” He shook her slightly while she curled up her hind legs and looked adorable. Adorable? When I still couldn’t breathe?

“She’s your familiar. You need to take responsibility for her.”

I crossed my hands, making the evil eye. “She’s your familiar, not mine. She’s evil, like you. You belong together.”

He frowned at me for a moment then looked at the skunk. “If you, as her mistress, are giving her to me, then I will take it upon me to relieve this situation of its poignancy.” His eyes lit with purple flames and then he started muttering a spell of great power.

The sky crackled and the clouds swirled while a wind rose, blowing my hair into my face.

“Aloris Sumpsit Sensio!” he boomed, sending a shock through my bones. Big magic. What did he do to the skunk for spraying him?

I waited to see if she would turn into a frog, or die a terrible death with melting bones, but as far as I could tell, nothing happened.

The skunk blinked at him and then looked at me.

Was that supposed to do something?

I clapped my hands over my ears and stumbled back.

“No! You are not my familiar! You don’t get to be in my head!

You aren’t…” I groaned and fell to my knees in the field, getting my lemony pants all dirty, not that they weren’t already rank.

I felt the link between us growing at a ridiculous rate, like Winston’s spell had forced the familiar bond to wrap around my soul. I was going to kill him. Both of them.

“Clary?” Winston said in a low voice very close to me, which meant that he’d probably gotten on his knees in the field beside me.

“Go away.” I pressed my forehead against my lemon pants and tried to disappear. Why didn’t I have disappearing magic? That would be so much more useful than draining magic.

“The truck has aired out as much as it can without intervention. Our clothes are vile along with the rest of us. There’s a motel a few miles down the road, in the middle of nowhere, and we could shower, maybe find some spelling supplies to neutralize the truck.”

I groaned. Was he trying to be useful, or send me into spasms? A motel? That’s just what this needed, a one-bed trope.

“Tomato juice is supposed to be effective,” he added.

I whimpered and looked up at the glorious man with soulful eyes and cutting cheekbones who was holding the skunk like it was a baby, long tail wrapped around his neck.

“What’s the point when she’s just going to spray again?”

Winston brightened up considerably. “I spelled her to smell good. That was my big magic. It should work, and if not, I’ll come up with something else.”

I stared at him for a long time. “You used big magic to make the skunk smell good?” That was actually the most useful use of big magic I’d ever heard of.

Was he useful in the old days? It seemed like he was more theoretical, using his magic to understand obscure dimensions and hidden pockets, or understanding brain stimulus.

It had been fifteen years. People changed a lot in that length of time.

He stroked my familiar’s head with a slight smile. “She’s sweet.”

I rolled to my feet and brushed off my pants like I cared about looking respectable. “Yeah, well, glad you think so, because she’s yours.”

She looked at me. I will protect your mate very well.

And that’s exactly what I wanted to hear.

I shuddered hard and headed to my truck.

I couldn’t tell how bad it stank because everything was equally awful.

Did I actually want to stop and destink with Winston in a motel?

No. Absolutely not. But did I want to go back home covered in stench?

Not that I cared what anyone thought, but no.

They would laugh at me for the rest of their lives.

That wasn’t the problem. It would make me look weak and out-of-control which would invite back-stabbing.

I didn’t have time for power struggles and assassination attempts while I was unravelling Winston’s grandmother’s curse.

But the idea of a motel with Winston was not a happy one.

We spread our unhappiness once we got to the motel.

“One room,” the clerk said, covering his nose with his hand while he stared at us. “One room and I’ll have my sister run out for some tomato juice so you can bathe in it. One room and don’t touch anything until you’ve bathed in tomato juice. Also, I’m charging triple.”

There was only one bed.

I stood there staring at it for a long time while my heart pounded in my throat.

Winston cleared his, standing right behind me. “We aren’t sleeping here.”

“No? But it’ll take at least the night to clear out the scent from the truck. I left my destenchers at the shop for Parody to use. I didn’t think the skunk would climb in my truck, and that I wouldn’t notice. Why didn’t I notice?” I sounded lost and forlorn.

He sighed heavily. “I could call for a driver. A helicopter. A?—”

I whirled around and put a hand over his face. My stinky hand over his stinky face. “No way are you attracting any more attention. We’re just lucky no one recognized you through the stench. And me. We want to go quietly, in, out, no one the wiser. I am not linking my name to Winston the Warlock.”

He frowned beneath my hand, but didn’t say anything until I lowered my hand and wiped it on my filthy, stinky lemon pants.

“Then I’ll go get your luggage. Do you have anything large enough for me to wear?”

I stared at him. Did I? I had an enormous pink cartoon character t-shirt that would probably fit over his shoulders.

And a pair of black and white striped pants that were enormous and incredibly cozy with a drawstring waist. But those were my comfort clothes.

I didn’t want Winston the Wicked to wear my comfort clothes.

“Or I could just lounge around in a towel,” he said with a flicker of a smile.

“The black suitcase. The one with the silver stripe on the side. And here’s the tomato juice,” I said, smiling at the girl who came towards us with a wince, holding the bag of jars out as far away from herself as possible.

She pinched her nose, dropped the bag and ran, leaving me alone with Winston.

“Was it something I said?” he deadpanned.

I elbowed him and went to retrieve the cans. “You get my bag while I bathe. Then you can bathe while I dress. Good plan. Okay.” I took those cans into the tiny bathroom and filled up the tiny tub.

It had been a long day. Between skunks, murderers, and warlocks, I hadn’t had a moment to breathe.

I sat in the tub filled with tomato juice, sinking deeper and deeper until only my nose was sticking out.

What a miserable day. I didn’t want or need a familiar, but I had one wandering around somewhere.

The second I’d opened my door in the motel parking lot, she’d been out like a shot, disappearing into the shadows with one wave of her jaunty tail.

“Tolliver is not a girl name,” I said out loud.

I talked to myself from time to time, which was fine because I was alone.

It was fine. I’d be alone again soon, and then I could figure out how to unbind the creature without killing it.

Witches did replace familiars, using their death to fuel the binding to the next creature.

I wasn’t killing Tolly. Tolly…Ver…Vervain.

She’d have a nice surname since she was already Tolliver the Terrible.

I soaked in tomato juice until I was pruny, dunked my head and felt like I was in one of my mother’s creepy seances. Did blood smell better or worse than skunk spray? Either way, not great, and adding the scent of tomatoes wasn’t helpful.

I finally finished soaking and got out, covered in tomato juice.

Winston would have to soak in the tub before I drained it and could take a real shower.

I wrapped myself in a towel and left the room, stopping abruptly when I saw Winston standing there, being patient while he waited for me to come out, wearing a towel and covered in tomato juice.

“Um, I left the juice in the tub,” I said lamely, gripping the top of my towel with stained fingers and feeling very naked and vulnerable, particularly with him looking at me like that.

He nodded, eyes on the ends of my dripping hair. “Yellow, pink, and red. It’s a look.”

Oh. That’s what he was thinking, not that I looked so naked beneath my towel. I scrunched up my nose, and turned sideways, pointing at the bathroom. “Your bath awaits.”