"Take the Bug," I told him.
"Tell your mom that the turn signals don't blink, so she'll have to use hand signals.
And tell her not to pull back on the steering wheel too hard or it will come off." His face got stubborn.
"Look," I said before he could refuse, "it's not going to cost me anything.
It won't hold all the kids"--not that the Buick did; there were a lot of kids--"and it doesn't have much of a heater.
But it runs, and I'm not using it.
We'll work on the Buick after hours until it's done, and you can owe me that many hours." I was pretty sure the engine had gone to the great junkyard in the sky--and I knew that Sylvia, Gabriel's mother, couldn't afford to buy a new engine, any more than she could buy a newer car.
So I'd call upon Zee, my old mentor, to work his magic on it.
Literal magic--there was not much figurative about Zee.
He was a fae, a gremlin whose natural element was metal.
"The Bug's your project car, Mercy." Gabriel's protest was weak.
My last project car, a Karmann Ghia, had sold.
My take of the profits, shared with a terrific bodyman and an upholsterer, had purchased a '71 Beetle and a '65 VW Bus with a little left over.
The Bus was beautiful and didn't run; the Bug had the opposite problem.
"I'll work on the Bus first.
Take the keys." The expression on his face was older than it should have been.
"Only if you'll let the girls come over and clean on Saturdays until we get the Bug back to you." I'm not dumb.
His little sisters knew how to work--I was getting the better of the bargain.
"Deal," I said before he could take it back.
I shoved the keys into his hand.
"Go take the car to Sylvia before she's late." "I'll come back afterward." "It's late.
I'm going home.
Just come at the usual time tomorrow." Tomorrow was Saturday.
Officially, I was closed on the weekends, but recent excursions to fight vampires had cut into my bottom line.
So I'd been staying open later and working on the weekend to make a little extra money.
There is no cash in battling evil: just the opposite in my experience.
Hopefully, I was done with vampires--the last incident had nearly gotten me killed, and my luck was due to run out; a woman whose best talent was changing into a coyote had no business in the big leagues.
I sent Gabriel on his way and started the process of closing up.
Garage doors down, heat turned to sixty, lights off.
Till drawer in the safe, my purse out.