Chapter 3 #3
The house seemed to like my laugh. The walls brightened, the stars in the ceiling twinkled harder, and the butterflies finally released Gary, depositing him gently on a pillow that materialized just in the nick of time.
“I hate everything,” Gary announced.
“No, you don't,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “But I strongly dislike butterflies now.”
One landed on his shell. He made stank eye, or should I say, stank eye stalk, at it until it turned into a tiny glimmering gold flower.
Gary’s attitude immediately changed. The little shit was always forcing me to pimp out his shell.
Maybe these butterflies could come in handy and save me a lot of money on sequins and nail decorations.
I’d already spent countless hours this year applying them to him.
Though, the themed nights were fun. Especially Halloween.
“Your magic's evolving,” Baz observed.
He was right. I could feel it, shifting and changing inside me like a living thing. The curse had made it stronger, but also wilder. More unpredictable. More…mine.
“We should evacuate the town,” I said. “Before Illanya comes back.”
“The town won't evacuate. This is Assjacket. We don't run from dragons.”
“You've had dragons before?”
“We've had worse.”
I wanted to ask what could possibly be worse than a spurned dragon ex-girlfriend with a grudge, but the house interrupted with an urgent creak.
We all looked toward the door.
A figure stood in the opening, silhouetted by the setting sun.
Not Illanya.
Someone else.
Someone wearing a delivery uniform and looking very confused.
“Uh,” the delivery guy said, taking in the rainbow furniture, the butterflies, the blood, and the general chaos. “Pizza for…Baz?”
We all stared at him.
“You ordered pizza?” I asked Baz.
“Nope. Haven’t really had the time with all the…” He gestured at everything.
The delivery guy held out the box like a shield. “It's probably cold.”
The house, apparently offended by cold pizza, immediately surrounded the box with a warm, golden glow. Steam rose from the cardboard.
“Your house reheats pizza?” Gary asked.
“I guess it does now,” Baz said.
The delivery guy set the pizza down and backed away. “I'm going to…go. Please don't hex me.”
“We wouldn't…” I started.
The coffee table centaur nuzzled against his leg, begging for pets.
“Leaving now,” he squeaked and ran.
“What about your money?” Baz called out after him. He didn’t reply.
We watched him sprint down the path, his baseball cap bobbing with each step.
“We should eat,” Baz said practically. “Before she comes back.”
“You want to eat pizza? Now?”
“I want to die on a full stomach if we're going to die.”
The house opened the pizza box with invisible hands, revealing a perfectly reheated pepperoni pizza that smelled like heaven and normalcy.
“I think the house is trying to feed us,” I said.
“Let it,” Baz said, grabbing a slice. “We'll need the energy.”
I took a piece, and for one bizarre moment, we sat in the destroyed, rainbow-colored, butterfly-infested living room eating pizza like it was completely normal.
“Your life is definitely an adventure,” I told Baz.
“Our life,” he corrected, then caught himself again. “I mean…”
The butterflies formed a heart shape.
“I'm going to kill them all,” I muttered.
“No, you won't,” Gary said, delicately eating a crumb of cheese. “You can't kill something made of feelings and poor impulse control.”
He was right. I knew full well these butterflies were made of my emotions, my chaos, my inability to control anything. They were, essentially, a colorful version of me with wings.
One landed on Baz's shoulder and turned into a tiny, glowing red heart that was a smaller replica of the earlier one, before dissipating.
The curse noticed and sent another wave of pain shooting through me. I bit back a grunt, hiding it from Baz so he wouldn’t worry behind a particularly voracious bite of pizza.
This was going to be a long night.
* * *
Perhaps I’d grown too comfortable with the day-to-day routines Baz and I had easily slipped into.
He would go off and do weird things in the forest. Often coming back with honey, nuts, berries, meat, or firewood.
I never really asked what he was doing when he left the house.
I didn’t feel like it was my business. I also never really thought seriously about when I’d overstayed my visit.
He didn’t seem overly eager for me to leave. Plus, the guy cooked. I hated cooking. I did try to clean up after myself. That was a full-time job in and of itself.
Baz had just gotten back and was fresh from the shower.
The sun had barely touched the horizon when she returned.
It was only a few short days after her first unannounced visit.
For some reason, I’d neither sensed her coming nor thought she’d be back nearly so soon.
Her arrival was a complete surprise that I wasn’t remotely prepared for.
This time, she didn't explode the door. Probably because there wasn't a door left to explode. She simply walked through the opening like a normal person, if normal people had smoke curling from their nostrils and murder in their eyes.
She'd changed clothes. Gone was the dirt and debris-covered designer outfit.
Now she wore something that looked as if armor and lingerie had a baby together.
Scant scale-mail that covered strategic areas while leaving plenty of skin exposed to show off the ruby-red scales that traced her spine and shoulders.
Her hair was pulled back in a complex braid that probably had a YouTube tutorial titled “How to Look Devastatingly Hot While Planning Murder.”
“We need to talk,” she said. Her voice was way too calm for comfort.
To be honest, it was worse than screaming. Besides, pretty much anyone’s butthole puckering up when they hear the words “we need to talk.” Illanya calm meant Illanya scheming. Illanya scheming usually meant someone was about to die.
“Talking's good,” I said, stepping forward before Baz could do anything about it. The house immediately tried to push me back, the floorboards creating a gentle slope away from her. “House, no. Bad house.”
It subsided with a sulky creak.
Illanya's eyes narrowed. “You gave the building separation anxiety?”
“I gave it opinions. The anxiety was already there…or it’s feeding off mine.”
She took a deep breath. I could almost see her counting to ten in her head. It was an old trick from when we were together. She'd count to ten before saying something she'd regret. Usually, she only made it to three.
She made it to seven this time. Maybe people could change.
“Here's what's going to happen,” she said, and each word had sharp, hard, pointy edges. “You're going to remove that ridiculous mate mark, gather your things, and come with me. Now.”
“No.”
“That wasn't a request.”
“Still no.”
She smiled, and I remembered why I'd fallen for her in the first place. Seeing Illanya smile was like watching a forest fire. She was beautiful, mesmerizing, and oh, so destructive.
“Let me rephrase,” she said. “You're going to come with me, or I'm going to burn down this entire town. Every building. Every tree. Every ridiculously named establishment in this ‘Assjacket’ place,” she said, using air quotes and loads of sarcasm when she said the town’s name, “could be ash by morning.”
“You wouldn't.”
“Wouldn't I?” She held up one hand, pursed her lips, and blew a thin strand of magic until a flame danced between her fingers.
Not regular, old, basic-bitch orange fire.
This was your standard-issue dragon fire.
The kind that burned magic itself. “How many people live here, Tansy? Fifty? A hundred? How many of them can survive dragon fire?”
Baz growled and took a step forward, but I caught his arm. The contact sent the telltale sparks racing over both of us, and Illanya's eyes tracked every single one.
“Cute,” she said. “The bear thinks he can protect you. Tell me, bear, have you ever seen what dragon fire does to fur? It doesn't just burn. It consumes. Every hair follicle becomes a wick. You'd be a living candle for about thirty seconds before—”
I cut her off. “Stop,” I said softly, with pleading in my voice.
She tilted her head. “Hit a nerve, little spark? You always were too soft. It's one of the many things I loved about you, Tansy.”
“You know we haven’t been together in years, right? You were dating a whole-ass other guy all of five minutes ago.”
Her calm cracked slightly. “We were on a break.”
“As I said before, the last break we were on was because you set my apartment on fire!”
“And as I said before, it was an accident!”
“Which time?”
“All of them!”
We stood there glaring at each other, and for a moment, it felt like old times. Like any second, she'd throw something at my head, and I'd hex her coffee to taste like orange Fanta, which she utterly despised, and we'd end up having angry sex against a wall.
She’d kiss me like she wanted to win, shove me up against the wall like a grudge she hadn’t finished chewing, and I’d happily let her savor every bite, because I was just as mad and twice as horny. Yeah, we were toxic.
The curse apparently had the same thought, because it chose that moment to flare so hot, I gasped.
“Still hurts, doesn't it?” Illanya said, with a hint of empathy. “The curse. It's eating you alive, little spark. I can see it under your skin, burning through your magic one day at a time.”
“I'm fine.”
“You're dying.” She stepped closer, and the house tried to stop her, boards rising like a barrier. She avoided them without even looking. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon. The curse will consume you and him, unless you come back to me.”
“Or unless I figure out a way to break it,” I snarled through clenched teeth.
She laughed, and I was taken by surprise. It wasn’t her cruel laugh, but the genuine one I remembered from better times. She was amused when she replied.