He picked up said broom. And even though she wasn’t quite sure what he was planning to do, she trusted him enough to grab the bottle and squirt some of the potion into her hands. Then when he pointed, she slicked it over that bare shoulder.
Too messily, she knew.
His expression was a peach when she finally finished rubbing. Just completely bemused, in a way she had to snap him out of. She had to click her fingers in front of his face, and tell him, “Hey, at least it’s done,” just to get him to refocus on what they were doing. But to his credit, he didn’t make any snarky remarks about her clumsiness.
He just attempted to poke her in the shoulder with the handle end of the broom. Gently, she thought. Though gently didn’t seem to matter. The instant the handle got within a foot of her, the whole thing jerked away. As if someone other than him had grabbed it. Then that someone seemed to yank it back, away from her.
And somehow smashed itdirectlyinto hisface.
Like right into it, hard enough to make a cracking sound. It made his whole head snap back. He actually stumbled a little—it was that brutal and violent. And when he finally managed to right himself and look at her, oh deargodinheaven. His mouth looked like a car wreck. All she could see was blood.
Then he spat into his hand to clear it and—fuck.
There was a tooth. She had knocked his tooth out with a potion she thought erased stains.
“Okay, you could have told me it was going to bludgeon you,” she gasped out as she tried to grab paper towels, and excavate some ice, and find a spell called Teeth Restorer, all at the same time.
But he just laughed. He laughed. His mouth was a bloody mess, and he was laughing. “I didn’t need to,” he said, as he dropped the tooth in the trash. “It hasn’t hurt me.”
“Seth, you just had an incisor in your hand.”
“Yeah, and it’ll grow back in about five minutes. Because like I just told you—even my heart can do that, after it’s been stabbed. Heck, I’m not even sure if decapitation is a real killer. I think it’s entirely possible that my head will just sprout another body. While my body sprouts another head.”
She tried not to look aghast. But failed horribly, obviously. Her face felt like a rigid rictus of disgust. “And you’re telling me that horror story now, while I’m still trying to process the last horror story you told me? Do I have to worry that there might end up being two of me if someone attempts a beheading?” she asked. Yet somehow all she got in return was an eye roll.
“Nobody is going to attempt a beheading.”
“That’s not what I am concerned about, Seth.”
“Then what is?”
He looked genuinely curious, she thought.
And right as it was dawning at her that none of her concerns really mattered.
“I have no idea,” she said. “Now that I’m calming down, being sort of invincible seems like something I am supposed to be really pleased about. And also should have understood. Because seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t grasp this. Or what made me miss it when I was updating this potion.”
You still can’t really believe your own power, her witch brain informed her. And that sounded right. Or at least more right than what he said a second later. “Maybe it’s like me not wanting to think about hell.”
“Hell is a lot more horrible than being sort of indestructible.”
“Possibly so, but it takes a similar amount of shifting things around in your head.” He set down the pan he’d picked up. Folded his arms. “Suddenly you don’t have to worry quite as much about getting your brains bashed in. Or having to have an operation for your bashed-in brains. Or needing to somehow pay for the bashed-in-brains operation. You just smother yourself in that potion, and if someone aims the brain-bashing hammer at you, they knock out all their own teeth.”
“It does sound pretty goddamn mind-melting when you say it that way.”
“Gets even more so when you process that you, like me, won’t ever age.”
“Fuck you. There’s no potion that’ll stop that,” she said, half laughing. Even though she knew she was already mostly believing him. In fact, more than already mostly believing. The confirmation was there, in the back of her mind, tingling away. She felt it before he replied.
“You already know there is.”
“Okay, fine. But I’m not going to drink it.”
“Oh, I think you will, eventually.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because you’ll realize how many movies you won’t get to see once you’re gone.” He gave her a smug look, on the end of hissentence. He had a right to, though. He was so bang on that she couldn’t stop herself from groaning in despair. And of course he understood what that groan meant. “Yeah, I figured that out because I, too, was weirded out at the thought of never aging. Until I realizedThe Conjuring 37could be but a month away, when I’m on my ninety-year-old death bed.”
