Page 20 of Oh No! There's an Incubus in my Hot Spring
I cross my arms, too. “You don’t even know what an app is.”
“This is true. Years of solitude have left me behind the curve of human innovation. You are all so talented and bright with what little time you’re given.”
I feel a twinge of guilt. Even if his life is eons long, years of being left completely alone, starved, incorporeal…that sounds terrible. I can’t just pretend he doesn’t exist and wave him away, especially since I’ve named him.
I pull in a deep breath as I take in the little apartment. “All right, if you want to help me, you can do it the hard way—with kneepads and rubber gloves.”
He quirks a silver eyebrow at me. “I’m not opposed to exploring new kinks.”
Flirting again, that little bugger. I try not to acknowledge the heat in my cheeks, or the memory of his hands on my ass.
I roll my eyes with a snort. “Come on. And manifest some pants, please.”
“As my witch commands.” He smiles playfully and fashions himself a pair of dark shorts not unlike swimming trunks.
The tub with all my cleaning supplies is next to the toilet—which is very thankfully clean and operational. The owner’s apartment was connected to the town’s water system, but the rest of the building runs on its own well, and that will likely need substantial work. Can’t have a hot spring resort without operational showers that don’t reek of sulfur.
But a problem for another time.
I tug my hair up into a high bun on my head and strap on my gloves. There’s a variety of cleaners for different kinds of surfaces, and I walk Apollo through them so he knows what to use. Once he’s steered off to cleaning the natural wood cabinets inside and out, I dig into the tub for the Goober-Be-Gone, my favorite cleaner of all.
The spray paint doesn’t require too much scrubbing to get clean, and much of the other gunk on the walls was just from stupid kids throwing mud—hopefully—and beer. I rip the old curtains down and stuff them in a trash bag, then I take out the cling film from storage. With the sun coming up soon, I want to get that board off the window so we can at least get some natural light.
A strange grunt sounds in the corner of the room and I whirl to face it. There doesn’t appear to be anything there, but then again, the light from the fireplace isn’t the best without my lantern, which I left on the third floor.
“Apollo, was that you?” I ask.
He glances over his shoulder. “No, that was a dust bunny.”
I snort. “A what?”
“Dust bunny,” he repeats slower.
I mean, I know I talk to an inanimate duck, but this poor guy has been alone so long he’s actually personified dust.
“Right, okay. Well, maybe you can introduce me to them,” I say, trying to appease him and not make him feel crazy.
“They’ll be here soon enough,” he says, and it feels ominous.
“What do you mean?”
He points to the particles glistening in the firelight from where I pulled down the curtains. “You’re summoning them.”
Another grunt sounds in the opposite corner from the first, and I whip toward the sound. My eyes must be playing tricks on me because I swear there’s something there.
Apollo sucks in a breath. “Here they come.”
six
Fluffle Kerfuffle
“What the fuck is that!” I scream as a sphere of fluff with fangs flies at me from the corner of the room.
“A dust bunny,” Apollo says again, louder.
“Those aren’t real things!” I say, whipping my trash bag full of curtains through the air and smacking the thing.
It doesn’t seem to weigh much, and my hit sends it hurtling toward the wall. It lands with a smack and explodes into a cloud of gray.
