Don't Hex with Texas (22 page)

We didn’t have anything as fancy as a cordless telephone in the house. We’d only upgraded to push-button phones instead of rotary dials a few years ago when so many services started requiring touchtone. That meant it was almost impossible to get away from Mom to talk on the phone. I was stuck talking on the kitchen phone, right in front of her. “Hi, Dean, what’s up?” I said when I took the phone.

“The odds are a little more in our favor for tonight,” he said.

“Why, what happened?”

“Well, three of them left in a hurry, totally freaked out. It seems they got a look at Sam and are now less sure they want to be mixed up in this. Then three more got arrested. I guess there was a traffic violation. Jason pulled them over, and then he found some contraband in their car—drugs of some type. I have a feeling it was herbs for potions instead of actual dope, but by the time they verify that, our fight should be over.”

“That’s good to hear,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral for Mom’s benefit. “I’m glad that’s been taken care of.”

He laughed. “Let me guess, Mom is hovering and listening.”

“Exactly.”

“I thought you two were just supposed to raise some interest, not make that big a splash. They’re all in awe of how powerful this wizard must be to have eluded them like that. But be honest, wasn’t a lot of that due to your driving?”

“Maybe. I guess I’m not totally useless.”

“Who’d have guessed, my little sister comes out ahead in a car chase.”

“Thanks for the report. I’ll see you later.”

The moment I hung up the phone, Mom pounced. “Wasn’t it sweet of Dean to check on you like that?”

“Yeah, it was really swell of him.” I could tell she was dying to know what Dean had told me, but the phone rang again before I had a chance to make something up. I was closest, so I answered.

It was Nita.
“Help!”
she said. “I still don’t have housekeeping help, and these people are animals. I’ve had a bunch check out already, but there are still too many here. Can you come do a few rooms for me? Pretty please, and I’ll love you forever. I’ll even buy lunch next time.”

I wasn’t sure that going to the motel in the truck the would-be wizards had been chasing was such a good idea, but the chance to spy on them was nearly irresistible. “I’ll be right over.” I hung up the phone and told Mom, “Nita needs housekeeping help, so I’m going over there. Can I borrow your car? I had a little trouble starting the truck earlier today.”

The truck was unreliable enough that Mom didn’t question me and just handed over her keys, which had the added benefit of ensuring that she wouldn’t be wandering the town while the wizards were on the loose. I went upstairs to change shirts and do something different with my hair so I wouldn’t be so obviously recognized as the driver of the truck they’d been pursuing. A Cobb Comets baseball cap with my ponytail pulled through the back worked wonders.

While I drove to the motel in Mom’s car, I tried to think of ways to get rid of even more of our visiting wizards. I recognized one of the cars in the motel parking lot from the chase. Most of the spots were still empty, so the gangs must have been roving the streets still. As I made the rounds, I lit the magical candles in each room to get more of that jarring skewed spell into the air. I wasn’t sure how much good that would do, but I figured every little bit would help. It sounded like we’d already lost a few wizards to headaches caused by the candles.

The guys who’d been in the car chase were in their room, and I held my breath as I went in with a pile of towels. As I’d expected, they barely looked at me. “I was wondering when housekeeping would finally show up,” one of them said. I made sure to make a note of which one he was so I could tell Owen to give him a special blast.

“We’re full, so it takes longer,” I said, keeping my head down so my hat brim covered my face. “Now, would you like me to change your sheets or just make the bed?” That was my subtle way of saying that I couldn’t do much about the bed while they were lying on it.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Just clean the bathroom and leave the towels.”

On my way to the bathroom, I paused by the dresser and moved the candle behind a stack of pizza boxes, then lit it. The bathroom was enough to make me wish I had access to magical cleaning spells. I had three brothers, so you’d think I’d be used to what guys could do to a bathroom, but this was something else. I was really going to make Owen give them the full treatment. It was a good thing I had gloves. By the time I’d finished clearing out their science experiments and returned to the main room, they were all holding their heads and moaning. I had to suppress a smug smirk.

“Who’d have thought that doing magic was such hard work?” One of them said. “I’m so drained, and my head is killing me.”

“Ssshhh!” another one said with a gesture in my direction.

“Oh, she probably doesn’t even speak English.”

Idiots,
I thought,
never mind that I talked to you in English
. If I hadn’t been worried that the candle would burn down and possibly start a fire in the room, which would be bad for Nita’s family, I’d have left it burning. Instead, I blew it out as I passed, and the jerks never even noticed. I hoped I could sic a few pixies on them.

I finally got around to Idris’s room. I didn’t see his rental car anywhere nearby, but then all rental cars looked alike to me. At any rate, the parking spaces in front of room twenty-five were empty, so it looked like this would be a good chance to search his room thoroughly in his absence. I tapped on the door and said, “Housekeeping,” then prepared to use my master key, but the door opened just before I got the key in the lock, and I was face to face with Phelan Idris, on my own and unguarded by anyone magical, as far as I could tell.

I
kept my head down and held my breath, waiting for Idris to recognize me. But my nonmagical invisibility spell from being the “help” worked, and he just turned away from me after opening the door. “About time,” he said. “I need new towels.”

I hesitated. While his back was turned, I had the perfect opportunity to make a run for it. He could live without clean towels, and being alone in a motel room with Phelan Idris was very high on my list of experiences I could live without, so me running away was a win-win scenario. On the other hand, he hadn’t recognized me, and this was the best chance we’d have to see what he was up to. There was no telling what I could discover from being in his motel room with him when his guard was down. Plus, it wasn’t like he could use magic on me, and I had a feeling I’d come out ahead in a physical fight, thanks to my brothers teaching me a few dirty tricks. I took a deep breath and crossed the threshold, even as a little voice in the back of my head warned me that this probably wasn’t the brightest thing I’d ever done.

His room wasn’t quite as messy as some of the other rooms had been. It merely had a high level of clutter and an odd smell that wasn’t stale pizza or dirty socks. Someone had been brewing potions in the bathtub, I suspected.

I put on the heaviest hick accent I could manage and lowered my voice to whiskey-and-cigarette tones. “Y’all have got us busier than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest,” I said as I took some cleaning supplies with me back to the bathroom. I saw the magical candle on the dresser as I passed, but I figured trying to light it in front of him was too risky. He was an idiot in a lot of areas, but he did know his magic and he was likely to recognize it.

His bathroom wasn’t frat-house filthy, but he’d definitely been up to something other than personal grooming in there. The towels and washcloths were a funny color, and they had a pungent smell. I dumped all the towels and washcloths into a plastic garbage bag to take to Owen for analysis. The chemical properties of potions could affect me even if the magic didn’t, so I kept my rubber gloves on while I cleaned the sink and bathtub.

I couldn’t resist looking at the toiletries spread out on the bathroom counter. It appeared that Idris was a devoted Rogaine user. He also wore the brand of body spray that was featured in the really annoying commercials where women lost control around men who wore it. His personal scent was “Player,” which nearly sent me into uncontrollable giggles.

If he’d been brewing potions, he had to be up to something, and I needed to figure out what it was while I was in his room. I tried watching him out of the corner of my eye as I brought the bag of used towels out of the bathroom and stashed it on the edge of the housekeeping cart. Then I grabbed a stack of clean towels and headed back into the room.

He had papers spread over the bed and table, along with a bunch of what looked like necklaces. The closer I got to the table where the necklaces were, the more my own magical necklace vibrated. I immediately tripped on the carpet and sent my armload of towels flying around the room, letting a couple land on the bed and one land on the table.

“Oopsie!” I said, remembering to keep my voice low and my accent heavy. “That ol’ rug just reached up and grabbed me.” As I gathered towels, I made sure that I got one of the necklaces in the fold of a hand towel. “Now I guess I’d better get you some really fresh towels that haven’t been all over the floor.” I carried those towels back outside, slipping the necklace—which turned out to be a cheap Texas souvenir, the kind you can buy at the cash register at gas station convenience stores—into my pocket as I did so.

Idris fidgeted furiously while clenching his jaw as I carried yet another stack of towels to the bathroom and took my time arranging them. I whistled cheerily to myself while I worked, wandering in and out of the room to get a feather duster, which I used liberally all over the room, and then the vacuum cleaner. The feather duster was good at knocking things down so I could get a better look at them as I set them right—always just before Idris could get to me to keep me from touching them. With the vacuum cleaner cord I managed to wipe out everything he had spread out on the bed. A few pages of parchment found their way into the pocket of my apron while Idris sputtered and I apologized heartily.

“You have got to be the worst hotel maid ever!” he blurted after I toppled a pile of books.

That was my cue to burst into sobs. “Oh, please don’t tell my boss. I need this job. I got three kids at home, and their daddy took off months ago. He was a no-account hard drinker who barely kept a job more than a week, but we needed what pay he did bring in. If I get fired here, my kids’ll starve.” I sniffled and ran a sleeve across my nose. “I’ll just get out of your way now. Have a nice day, sir. No need to tip me, since I caused you so much trouble.”

I’d almost made it to the door when he called out, “Hey, wait a second!” and caught me by the arm. I kept my head down and hoped he’d do something uncharacteristic like apologize, but instead he pulled the baseball cap off my head. It got tangled in my ponytail, so it didn’t quite work as a dramatic moment of revelation, but it was enough to show my face. “You!” he shouted. “What are you doing here, spying on me?”

I drew myself up to my full height, jerked my arm out of his grasp, and put a hand on my hip in an indignant posture. “You were the one who invited me in. Didn’t you recognize me? It’s not like I’m in disguise.” I gestured at my work clothes and set my baseball cap back on top of my head. “I really do work here. My friend’s family owns this motel, and I’m doing her a favor since you and your gang of merry men scared off the housekeeping staff. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

I almost made it to the door before it slammed shut on its own and he stepped in front of me. He couldn’t use magic directly on me, but it looked like he could use magic on other things that could affect me. I should have thought of that sooner, but now wasn’t the time for reevaluating this plan. While he guarded the door, I turned and ran for the bathroom. That took him by surprise, so it was a few seconds before he realized I was running away from him instead of trying to get past him. His hesitation gave me just enough time to be armed when he got to the bathroom.

I hit him right in the eyes with a big burst of “Player” the moment he showed his face in the bathroom doorway, then while he was still rubbing his eyes and fumbling blindly, I dropped to my hands and knees and crawled past him back into the main part of the room. Then I got back to my feet and sprinted for the door, hoping he hadn’t used a spell to seal it shut. Fortunately, it did open, but before I could get out, the smell of “Player” hit me, meaning Idris wasn’t far behind. He grabbed my wrist, pulling me back into the room. I backed away from him as much as I could with my wrist still in his grasp, but instead of pulling me back, he moved with me until I hit the wall, then he kept moving forward. The smell of his body spray was strong enough in that proximity to make my eyes water.

“I don’t think I’ll have to worry too much about Owen anymore,” he said in a pleasant, conversational tone that was more menacing than a growl, “considering I’ve got you now, and we both know what he’s willing to do to keep you safe.”

That made me more angry than scared. I’d given up the best relationship I’d ever had, left the best job I’d ever had, and exiled myself to the middle of nowhere in order to avoid exactly this situation, and here I’d walked right into it. I tried edging away from Idris sideways, not only because the thought of his body against mine was so repulsive to me, but mostly because if he got close enough, he’d find all of his stuff that I’d stashed in my pockets and in the pockets of my housekeeping apron. Priority one was getting away. Priority two was getting away with all the things I’d found in his room.

He kept coming after me, giving me just enough leeway to move but never releasing his grasp. Then he made the mistake of getting too close to me at just the right angle, and that gave me the opening I was looking for. A well-placed knee to a sensitive spot made him release my wrist as he grabbed at himself, then while he was still doubled over, I darted out of the room, grabbed the housekeeping cart, and nearly ran into Sam.

“You okay, doll? You took an awful long time in there.”

“I’m fine. Idris may not father children, though.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve done the world a favor.” Idris then came limping out of the room after me. I pushed the cart ahead of me and ran, letting Sam deal with him. I hadn’t realized how fierce gargoyles could be. He gave a hissing roar and spread his wings to their fullest. Idris flinched, but he didn’t run.

The door of the next room opened, and the jerks I’d seen earlier staggered out, clutching their heads, coughing, and choking, only to find themselves facing a very pissed-off Sam. They all screamed at the top of their lungs and took off running across the parking lot. There went three more from their side, I noted.

The commotion drew Nita out of the office, hefting a baseball bat. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“No wonder your housekeeping staff quit,” I said, then pointed at Idris. “This—this—this person just made a pass at me, and not a welcome one either.”

“She assaulted me!” he said, still not standing completely upright.

“In self-defense. I’m not sure what he’d have done to me. He had me by the wrist and wouldn’t let me go.” I held out my arm to Nita.

As soon as she saw the red mark circling my wrist, she raised her bat at Idris, who flinched even more than he had at Sam in attack mode. “I want you out of here, now! No one treats my workers—or my friends—that way. I don’t care how big a rock star you are!” From my spot next to Nita, I stuck my tongue out at Idris, who looked confused at the rock star reference. Sam was practically rolling on the ground in mirth, safely invisible from Nita, I assumed. I had to admit, it was a pretty good show.

This was a big test for Idris. He probably could have gone after Nita—if Sam let him—but using magic on the nonmagical in a way they might notice was strictly forbidden. If he tried to zap her with magic, then he really would have broken with the legitimate magical world. Apparently, though, he hadn’t yet gone so far as to be willing to do that. “Let me get my stuff,” he said, but she waved her bat again. “Okay, I’ll, uh, come back later when things are calmer.” Then he ran for the rental car that I now noticed was parked at the other end of the motel.

“Sorry about that,” Nita said. “These guys have been jerks since they got here. I’ll tell Dad and Ramesh about it so they can take care of them tonight.”

“No problem. Thanks for coming to my rescue.”

“So much for the Rock and Roll Motel idea,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t think they’ll be famous enough for it to pay off, anyway.”

While she went back to the office, I put the housekeeping cart away, except for the sack of tainted towels, which I threw into the trunk of Mom’s car. Then I headed back home to report what I’d found.

Sam must have called ahead to Owen, for when I pulled into the driveway and parked behind the house, a worried-looking Owen was there waiting for me. He took me by the shoulders and asked, “Are you okay?” It would have been nice if he’d taken that maybe one step further and actually hugged—or even kissed—me, but the fact that Dean and Teddy were there with him probably restrained him some.

“I’m fine. I was mostly putting on a show to get Idris in trouble. He’s the one who’ll be needing an ice pack. But I did bring you some presents.”

He frowned in confusion. “Presents?”

I pulled the necklace from the pocket of my jeans. “Well, there’s this. He had a bunch of these in his room, and they don’t strike me as his usual style. They felt like magic, so I swiped one. It also looked like he’d been making potions in the bathtub, and it seemed like he cleaned up after himself with the room’s towels, which I have for you in the trunk if you want to analyze them. Then there were some papers—”

“How many of these did he have?” Owen cut me off. He held the necklace in his hand, staring at it in horror.