Hexed in Show by Gretchen Galway

Author:Gretchen Galway [Galway, Gretchen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939872364
Publisher: Eton Field

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

We walked to the motel without speaking. There was a lot of foot traffic now, and anything and anyone could be listening to us on the paths and streets of Elwin. When I turned in to the parking lot, quickly checking my Jeep hadn’t been interfered with, Darius stayed on the sidewalk.

“This place?” he asked. “This was as good as you could do?”

I took out my room key and opened the door to my—our—room. My magical boundary spell sent a sizzle through me. When I was home, I liked to think of the sensation as equivalent to an affectionate dog licking me after a long day.

Darius followed me inside, his face showing a great deal of disappointment when he saw the spare accommodations. Because of my magic, housekeeping hadn’t been able to come to the room—that was my charitable thought anyway—and I hadn’t been tidy that morning. The bedspread was the type to be made of such a high percentage of synthetic material that it lacked the friction to stay on the sheets. It was now a twisted pile on the floor.

“At least there are two beds,” I said.

“Only because the owner probably cut a real one in half.” He closed the door behind us and locked it, shuddering as the extra spell I’d put on the dead bolt jumped onto his arm and climbed into his brain. “I was going to ask if you think the room is a safe place to talk, but now I’m sure.” He rubbed his forehead. “That security spell nearly gave me a lobotomy.”

I grinned. In the past year, I’d developed an excellent portfolio of defensive magic. “Thank you.”

I had to tell him about what I didn’t want to tell him. If I waited, he’d be even angrier than he was going to be now. Better to tell him right away.

But how should I phrase it? Everyone thinks the owner of this motel is a serial killer, but I don’t?

He saw the look on my face. “What’s the matter?”

Well, direct was usually the best way with Darius. “Everyone thinks the owner of this motel is a serial killer, but I don’t,” I said.

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

I sat on my unmade bed and gave him a detailed summary of my interaction with Lacoste at the front desk the day before. Then, perhaps with a subtle self-protective muffling spell around my ears, I braced myself for his explosion. He was going to point out all the completely logical reasons we shouldn’t put ourselves under the roof of a witch who the Protectorate believed had an unhealthy compulsion to kill women my age.

Maybe sleeping in the Jeep wouldn’t be too bad. I did wish I’d brought the new SUV, though—if I put the rear seats down, I’d have room to stretch out.

“OK,” he said. “That explains the cerebral assault at the doorway.”

I waited.

He walked deeper into the room. “There was nowhere else to stay, I take it?”

“Not within a hundred miles,” I said. “Even the tent sites are filled.

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