But I'd seen his real face once, so I knew his personal glamour was good.
If he could mask his face, surely he could hide a bunch of green and red paint.
He frowned at me in deep displeasure.
You didn't ask for favors from the fae--not only was it dangerous, but they tended to take offense.
Zee might love me, might owe me for freeing him from a tight spot, but that would only take me so far.
"My mother is coming," I told him.
"The vampires are after me, and I have to get her to leave.
She won't do it if she knows I'm in danger." Then, because I was desperate, I played dirty.
"Not after what happened with Tim." His face stilled.
Then he grabbed my wrist and pulled me with him so we were both standing closer to the garage.
He put his hand on the wall next to the door.
"If it works, I won't be able to remove my hand without breaking the spell." When Mom turned the corner, the graffiti was gone.
"You're the best," I told him.
"Make her leave soon," he said with a grimace.
"This is not my sort of magic." I nodded and had started to walk to where Mom was parking her car when I saw the door clearly.
Covered by red and green paint, it hadn't been as noticeable.
Someone with some artistic skill had painted an X on the door.
In case I didn't get the right idea, instead of two mere lines, the shape was formed by two bones.
They were ivory with grayish shadows and just a faint blush of pink--not painted by a couple of self-righteous and irate kids with spray paint.
All it was missing to keep it from Jolly Rogerhood was a skull.
"You'd better hide that," Zee said.
"Magic won't." I put my back against the door and folded my arms.
"So why don't you think it's running right?" I asked him as my mother walked over from her car, with Hotep on a leash.
"Because it is old," Zee told me, taking the cue I had given him.
"Because it was not well designed in the first place.
Because air- cooled engines need constant tinkering." "I was--Hey, Mom." "Margaret," Zee said coolly.
"Mr.
Adelbertsmiter." My mom didn't like Zee.
She blamed him for my decision to stay in the Tri-Cities and fix cars instead of finding a teaching job, something much more in line with the kind of work she thought I should be doing.
Politeness done, she turned back to me.