Page 26 of Be the Serpent

“What the hell—?”

“You scared me,” said the voice I now recognized as Quentin’s, as he jerked me roughly into a sitting position and wrapped his arms around me in something that resembled a hug only in the sense that constrictor snakes technically hug their prey. He seemed determined to squeeze the life right out of me.

I opened my eyes a second time, patting him unsteadily on the back. “I’m okay, kiddo,” I said, and I was, except for the headache and the fact that I was on the floor, with no idea how I’d ended up there.

A crowd had gathered. They were mumbling and staring, but they weren’t freaking out, which meant that either my illusions had managed to hold or Quentin had reinforced them when he saw me go down.

He squeezed me tighter for a moment—something I wouldn’t have been sure was possible before he did it—then let me go, sniffling as he pulled away.

“You’re going to have to get a tougher skin if you want to keep coming with me on errands,” I said, offering him a forced smile.

He briefly looked like he wanted to start squeezing me again. Instead, he stood, offering me his hands, and I let him pull me to my feet.

Stacy was still sitting calmly in her seat, sipping her iced concoction like nothing had happened, like she wasn’t surrounded by a ring of both humans and anxious, hovering pixies while her best friend sprawled on the cold linoleum floor. I frowned at her. None of this had been normal, but her behavior was what put it over the edge into completely beyond the pale.

What had I been doing when I—oh, right. I’d been about to check for traces of the compulsion spell that had sent her here in the first place. Magic lingers. For someone to hit her with a spell that strong, they would have needed to leave a layer of it clinging to her skin like cheap perfume. If I could just pick that up, I could figure out what we were dealing with. I started to lean toward her again.

Quentin grabbed my arm, jerking me back. I turned to frown at him.

“What’s that all about?”

“That’s what you were doing right before you passed out,” he said, tone borderline frantic. He glanced around at the humans who were still watching us with the vague interest every crowd has for a car crash, clearly censoring his words. “I think somebody spilled some bleach or something. Something that smelled bad and made you fall down.”

“Oh,” I said. I should have realized that faster, but my head was still throbbing, and the light was still burning my eyes. “Stacy’s never had much of a sense of smell, and she’s been a little off since we got here. Maybe somebody did spill something.”

Muttering and alarmed, the humans began moving away, not wanting to emulate my journey to the floor. I pulled away from Quentin, standing on my own, wishing the throbbing in my head would stop. I heal quickly enough these days that any pain lasting more than a few seconds is a major distraction and deviation from the way the world is supposed to work.

“Hey, Stacy,” I said, as gently as pain and disorientation would allow. “Come on. I’ll take you to Mitch and the kids.”

“All right,” she said, grabbing her purse as she stood. “It’s very kind of you to give me a ride home.”

“They’re not at the house.”

She raised her eyebrows. “No? Well, I suppose Mitch has a car, so they can come and go as they see fit.”

I took her arm, guiding her out of the store, the pounding in my head getting stronger until it transitioned into a feeling of generalized nausea, like I was going to throw up all over everything. Normally, that would have been annoying but not problematic, since I’m not great about remembering to eat. After today’s McDonald’s run, it could be the sign of a big mess coming. I dug my keys out of my pocket and passed them to Quentin.

“Get the doors unlocked and make sure the back seat’s clear,” I said.

He nodded and ran off to do just that.

We all have our little weird tics and twitches. One of my big ones is checking the back seat for intruders. I came by it honestly—an assassin camped out in my back seat once, and nearly managed to do their job before I trashed my own shocks getting away, and then I’d gotten shot for my troubles. Not my favorite day ever, and unlikely as it was to happen again, if checking the car before I got in was a way to avoid it, I was going to do that.

“You can ride up front if you want,” I said to Stacy. She made a noncommittal humming sound and let me guide her to the vehicle, where she got in obligingly enough, putting on her seatbelt without being prompted. Given how out of it she seemed, that felt like a good sign.

Quentin handed back my keys as we both got into the car. The afternoon sunlight was glaring off the windows, making the inside of the car virtually invisible to anyone who happened to be looking in. I still locked the doors before snapping my fingers to release the illusion making us look human.

Nothing happened.

“That’s weird,” I muttered, and snapped again. Still, nothing happened. “Hey, Quentin, weird question maybe, but what do I look like to you right now?”

“You have that human face that makes you look too much like May on,” he said. “Why? Did you forget what your own illusions look like?”

“No.” I could feel my magic, curled like a cat in my belly, warm and comfortable and present. That alone kept me from panicking. “Just having trouble finding the release, that’s all.”

In the rearview mirror, Quentin looked as human as I did. He met my eyes and frowned, quizzical and displeased. “Maybe you hit your head in a new way?”

“Great. If there are specific injuries that can jam my illusions in the ‘on’ position, Tybalt’s never going to let me hear the end of it.” I started the car, finally pulling out of the space. Another car dove in as soon as I was clear, showing all the normal urgency of a mortal shopper presented with good parking. Never cast a don’t-look-here when you’re in a grocery store parking lot. The spell will keep people from explicitly noticing your presence. For a person on foot, it will usually avoid collisions. For a moving vehicle, it will do the same, and since healthy traffic doesn’t come with a lot of desire to play bumper cars with strangers, it works out okay.