7

After I collected on my bet with Duchess by way of a few strands of her hair, I took her out to breakfast. The victory had taken the sting out of my injury, but by the time I was done eating, pain had crept back in. I thanked Duchess for bringing the items I had asked Valente for and said goodbye. I stopped by Walgreen’s to grab a bottle of painkillers, hung the Do Not Disturb sign on my hotel room door, and lay down to take a nap while I waited for the pills to kick in.

No dreams came and by ten-thirty I was as pain-free as I was likely to get. I spent a half-hour straightening up the room, though there was little I could do about the broken mirror. I planned on leaving the Do Not Disturb sign up, but I didn’t need an overzealous maid getting me kicked out. Inspecting my work, I thought the room had been upgraded from terrorist aftermath to post-drunken bender.

“Quit stalling,” my inner voice warned.

“Yeah, I know. Our real problem is the wendigo. It’s just so much easier to deal with the mundane,” I admitted.

“Magically exploding telephones are mundane?”

“For this week, yes, yes they are. There hasn’t been anything normal about this week. The most “normal” disaster this week was me accidentally bumping Dorothy’s light controls out at the lake. I haven’t done anything that harebrained since…wait a sec.”

“Do I smell an idea?”

“Wild paranoia-slash-conspiracy-theory, but maybe it’s an idea: What if I didn’t turn Dorothy’s headlights on?”

“Umm, you must have. I mean, who else was there? Oh...”

“Starting to see my point?”

“You don’t think we ended up in that gas station by accident.”

“Nope, it would make a great Murder, She Wrote plot, but I’m not Jessica Fletcher. A wizard is the first person at the scene of a magical homicide by coincidence? Something wanted me there.”

“So they sabotaged the car. You might be on to something.”

“Only one way to find out.” I decided. “We’re going back out to the lake.”