Chapter 1 #2
“Gary. I’m broke. Hexed. Malnourished. Possibly cosmically concussed. I’m not buying you a damn—” He withdrew into his shell mid-glare. My voice softened as I relented. “Fine. I’ll find something.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have met his wrath glare for glare, but I was suspicious that he might have dragged me out of the InBetween. And if that were the case, Gary was more powerful than I knew, and I sure as shit didn’t think it was wise to piss him off in my current state.
Better safe than sorry, my not-so-sweet little mollusk.
The banshee-warded door howled when I entered. It sounded like an actual banshee, not a metaphorical one. The charm wailed for a full five seconds, pausing only when the cashier chucked a pencil at it and muttered, “Not again.”
She didn’t look up after that. I kept my head down and grabbed the essentials.
One problem: I only have $4. As in, I was flat, busted, broke.
One solution: charm magic.
Risks? Astronomical. But charm didn’t need precision. It needed hunger. Conviction. Blind faith, or at least massive amounts of confidence. I usually had them all in spades.
I walked to the back fridge. Rolled my shoulders. Licked my lips.
Then, very deliberately, I opened the door with a flourish, bent slightly at the waist, and whispered: “Hey, gorgeous.”
The now enchanted security mirror caught my gaze. My reflection flickered. Then winked.
Good enough.
I turned and casually strolled to the counter like a woman who hadn’t just interdimensionally face-planted, bedraggled and covered in a thin layer of goo, which was now starting to crust over.
Laying the items down with just enough confidence to fake a functioning credit score, I gave my biggest, friendliest smile.
The cashier finally glanced up from what I’d assumed was her phone but turned out to be a fairly large packet of rhinestones. Her eyes glowed faintly lavender, pupils slitted. Fae. Definitely Fae. Probably minor nobility, based on the manicure and crazy expensive jewelry.
“These yours?” she asked, voice flat.
“Absolutely.”
“You gonna pay?” This time, her words dripped with condescension as she noticed me not reaching for money or a credit card.
My smile widened to Cheshire Cat proportions, and I let the charm drip off my words like honey laced with venom. “They’re already paid for.”
The mirror glimmered behind her. She blinked once. Slowly. Then smiled back.
“That they are,” she agreed dreamily. “Receipt?”
“Nope. Ohhh,” I said with what I hope sounded like genuine interest. “Those are so pretty. Can I have them?”
Yes, I knew I was pushing my luck. But those rhinestones would make the perfect peace offering for my little diva Gary. And luck was made to be pushed.
She shrugged and placed them into my pile right before she started bagging things up.
“May you be eternally blessed with cellulite-free thighs, and may your enemies’ shoes be soggy and smell like Limburger,” she said as I was halfway to the door. It was always best to get the heck out of Dodge when one’s charm spells had the failure rate mine did.
“Thanks! Right back atcha,” I said as I hastily exited to the soundtrack of the banshee door charm coughing itself awake again, items in hand and dignity…still nowhere to be found.
Gary was waiting on what remained of the hood of my Kia, his shell gleaming faintly in the moonlight.
When I showed him one of the rhinestones, he straightened like a royal at court and gave me a single solemn nod.
“You’re welcome,” I muttered as I tore open the wrapper and placed the candy bar beside him.
He took a bite with a sigh that suggested existential satisfaction. I put the box of rhinestones next to him and tore into my bag of chips.
We sat like that for a while. Me perched on the front bumper, legs dangling, breath catching from the pain in my chest every third inhale.
Gary, alternating between taking bites of the candy bar and decorating his shell with rhinestones as if the world wasn’t one misstep away from turning me into a cautionary tale in the back pages of Hex Weekly.
“You think she’ll follow?” I asked.
No answer.
He turned slightly toward the east. Toward the tree line of a forest. The air was tinged with secrets, and I felt like something important…no, someone important waited.
“Yeah. Me too,” I said as I crunched through the last bit of chips. Tipping the bag into my mouth, I ate the last of the flavored dust before sighing and sliding into the driver’s seat.
The upholstery gave a resigned groan. Gary slithered across the dash and applied rhinestones to the ignition rune like it was a dying sigil in need of glamour and a pep talk.
“Classy,” I said.
He didn’t look at me. Just stuck the last rhinestone, a glittering, silver-plated middle finger, right above the main glyph.
I touched the rune.
Nothing. Then a click. Then a groan that sounded like the dead coming back for revenge.
And then the Kia gloriously sputtered to life.
The headlights blinked and fluttered like they had trauma and were afraid to be seen. The engine wheezed like a sputtering poltergeist forced to confront the reasons for its anger management issues in court-ordered therapy. Whatever, my piece-of-shit car moved, and that made me happy for now.
Down the road we went, well below the posted speed limit. We drove past abandoned signs, fields of cows, an area of trees that smelled like pig shit so bad, I gagged for what had to have been one mile but felt like five.
“I have no idea where we are. Do you?” I asked, knowing full well he wasn’t going to answer me.
The most I got from Gary was crinkling as he took another bite of chocolate.
The world grew darker. The air got moister and heavier as the humidity increased.
My skin prickled with the kind of premonition I hated acknowledging.
The dashboard flickered. My head was feeling a little funny and everything was getting all blurry and white on the edges as the spot where my head had connected to the concrete started throbbing.
Dammit… I hit my head! I shouldn’t be driving. I might have a concussion!
“I’m going to pull over for a minute. I don’t feel so well.”
The gravel road narrowed, so I pulled off into the woods a bit, just shy of the town line and a sign that said, “Welcome to Assjacket.”
The car coughed, sighed, and died completely.
And as soon as I put it into park, I collapsed.
Just like that. No drama. No final quip or warning to my shelled familiar. My body gave out the very moment it was allowed to. Gary slithered to the edge of the dash and stared at me as I fell over.
That’s when everything went black.