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“He said it’s venomous.” I ducked under his arm, waiting for my opening. “How venomous?”
“Not too bad.”
“Oh good.”
“Unless it hits you with multiple quills, which are like mini hypodermic needles.”
As I performed a quick count, the daemon tried to rip out the monster’s throat. The dobhar-chú twisted at the last second, giving the daemon a mouthful of quills for his trouble. Already his cheeks bloated, and his eyes swelled. Now he couldn’t talk except to yell his incoherent fury.
“I’m going in.” Clay set off at a run. “Come behind me and vaporize the sucker.”
The poison wouldn’t hurt Clay. The monster otter would have to scratch his shem to cause him any harm. He would have been the ideal candidate to wrestle the creature, but it hadn’t been interested in waiting around for Clay to show.
“Okay.” I pushed out a slow breath, gave him a head start, then followed. “Here we go.”
Clay joined the dogpile with a whoop of what sounded suspiciously like glee. He got his hands around the dobhar-chú’s throat and squeezed while it fired quills in all directions. The daemon got elbowed aside by the golem and slumped onto the road to catch his breath.
“Now.” Clay pinned the beast on its back. “Watch the tail.”
Dancing around the swishing appendage, I jabbed its hide with my wand and murmured a quick spell.
Magic ignited in its veins, setting it alight, and it burst into ash, leaving Clay to thump onto the flaky pile.
Relief gusted past my lips, and I sagged on my bones. Control used to come as easy as breathing to me, but that wasn’t the case anymore. Or it hadn’t been until Colby began exercising our familiar bond. The odds of me zapping the dobhar-chú, and that charge transferring into Clay, were still higher than made me comfortable, but I was getting there.
“Well, that was fun.” He climbed to his feet. “I wish I had gotten here sooner.”
“Me too.” I scrabbled to the daemon’s side. “Hey, big fella. You with me?”
“One, four, six.” He smiled, his teeth on display. “So many Rue.” He waved a hand. “Hi, Rues.”
“He’s delusional.” I pressed a hand to his forehead. “Help me get him home.”
“He’ll have to shift.” Clay glanced behind us. “We parked in town, remember?”
“Can you shift?” I scratched the daemon’s scalp with my fingernails. “I’ll wash your hair tomorrow if you do.”
“Brush?” The daemon purred for me. “Braid?”
“Yes,” I promised. “Wash, brush, braid. All of it. If you shift now so we can get you both help.”
“You two and your kinks.” Clay shook his head. “Where did I go wrong?”
The daemon, pleased with our deal, allowed Asa to claim his skin, which only highlighted his injuries.
“I’m certain that spending my formative years with a golem who tucks his wigs in at night had nothing to do with who I ended up with romantically.” I checked to see if Asa was conscious, but he was out cold. “I really don’t want to do this, but we need to get the worst of these quills out before he wakes.”
“I don’t tuck them in.” Clay reached up to pat his brown curls. “I box them in. Totally different.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
With gentle hands, I worked on Asa’s face, which plumped under my fingers to an alarming degree.
“Not everyone can pull off a wig,” Clay extolled, allowing me to do the heavy lifting—yanking?—while he watched our backs. “It takes a connoisseur’s eye to select the finest cap and hair, and then you have to know how to style it. You must invest in wigs. Buy quality. Spend the time maintaining them.”
Familiar with how he spent his downtime washing, brushing, and taking them on “walksies,” I zoned out.
And yes, he really called wearing his wigs, particularly ones that hadn’t been worn in a while, walksies.
