by Cassandra
Furious and hoping to scare the living daylights out of her grandmother, Jessica pressed the doorbell repeatedly. With her other hand, she pushed aside the bloody, stinking ruler and fished the voodoo imp doll out of her bag.
When no one answered, she pounded on the wood with all her might, almost convinced that if she kept it up she could beat the door right off its hinges.
A light flickered on and glowed through the living room window before a commotion sounded behind the door. Cats screeched and meowed, and Grandma Ethel’s voice grumbled belligerently as she swore and struggled with the locks.
Ethel swung the door open to find Jessica standing there, panting.
“What in the devil? Child, what are you doing here? Do your parents know you’re here? Did you even go home? I swear, this had better be good. You woke me out of my dream about that handsome pastor!”
Jessica stormed past her grandmother and into the house and accidentally stepped on a cat’s tail in the process. It arched its back and hissed and she hissed right back.
“Oh dear, you’ve cracked up, haven’t you?” Grandma Ethel wailed and tightened her robe over her long nightgown. She shook her head. “I knew learning about all this stuff so fast was probably too much for you.”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Too much for me?” She squeezed the imp doll in her hand and tossed it across the room. It hit another cat, which arched its back and yowled at her. “Don’t worry about what’s too much for me. Worry about what’s too much for you.”
The old lady pressed her lips together and folded her arms across her chest. “All right. I can see you’re upset about something, so I’ll let the fact that you just yelled at me slide this time. But trust me, I won’t let it slide twice. You’d better remember who you’re talking to, girly. Now, do you want to tell me what your problem is?”
“Yes, I do, actually,” Jessica snapped. She was still livid, but she lowered her voice, nonetheless. It didn’t matter how angry she was with Grandma Ethel, she was still no fool. She was well aware that yelling at her grandmother again would likely result in more pain than even the imps had caused her.
She stood silently for a moment and tried to recollect her thoughts and calm her nerves.
Ethel looked her up and down. Her expression shifted steadily from bewildered to concerned.
Jessica exhaled. “I was attacked on my way home from the ice cream parlor,” she explained in a surprisingly calm voice.
The old lady’s jaw dropped, and she stepped forward to take her granddaughter’s face into her hands. “Are you all right?”
“No. I’m roughed up.”
“What happened? Did you call the police?”
“No, I didn’t call the police. I have a feeling they wouldn’t understand what imps are.”
Ethel’s jaw dropped. “You were attacked by imps again?” She studied Jessica carefully and noted her torn clothes and the fact that she was covered in monster blood. “Are you sure imps did this? Why didn’t you use the voodoo doll I gave you for protection?”
“I did. And it didn’t work!” Jessica felt her temper flare again. She took a moment to gulp down another deep breath.
Her grandmother lowered her hands and took a step backward. She looked at the voodoo doll Jessica had thrown across the floor. “It didn’t work?”
“No! And I was almost killed! There were three of them, Grandma. Three! And they were huge. They were about this tall.” She raised her hand above her head to indicate a height of roughly six feet.
Ethel slowly shook her head. “Oh, honey—those weren’t imps. There’s no such thing as an imp that big. And that voodoo doll would have worked on any imp that had crossed your path.”
Jessica blinked, dumbfounded. “What? Not imps? But…but they looked like imps. Big ones. Ugly, with big heads and sharp teeth. And—”
“Smelly?” Ethel crinkled her nose.
“Yes! Oh, my God. They reeked! Like…like…rotten eggs or—”
“Sulfur.”
The girl paused when she noted the tone of dread in her grandmother’s voice. “Grandma?”
“Demons, Jessica. Those were demons.”
Jessica swayed. Before she could topple, Grandma Ethel grabbed her by the elbow and steered her to the couch. She shooed away a couple of cats so the girl could sit.
“Demons?” she whispered. The word didn’t even feel real on her tongue. Hearing Chad and Roger talk about them was one thing, but knowing that she had actually encountered some face to face? “B-but why were demons after me?”
“I don’t know. Tell me exactly what they looked like.”
She pushed through the fear that had clouded her brain to recount what the demons looked like. “Well, they were tall, about six feet or so. And they were shaped like…like humans. But their skin was gross. Scaly or something, like an alligator or crocodile. And they had long, sharp teeth like vampires. Their eyes were dark and bright at the same time. Human-like eyes, but in a scaly reptile-like face. And they had horns.”
“Wings?”
Jessica shook her head. “No, no wings.”
“Definitely not imps, then.”
“I can’t believe I fought three demons,” Jessica muttered, her voice flat with shock. “Actual freakin’ demons.”
Her grandmother had grown suspiciously quiet. Jessica looked at her. Grace had come to stand beside Grandma Ethel and she swished her tail and looked at Jessica with her head cocked to the side. Both her grandmother and the familiar essentially looked at her with the same expression.
“What?” she asked.
“You fought them?” Grandma Ethel asked cautiously.
“Well, what else was I supposed to do?”
“Run! You were supposed to run, Jessica,” Ethel yelled. “I thought you managed to escape them. I didn’t know you actually fought them.”
“I did try to run. But they attacked me. Look!” Jessica stood and pulled up her pant leg to reveal the scrapes and scratches the demons had left on her skin. She shed her coat to show her grandmother the way it was torn when they had scratched her back. “They were too fast,” she continued. “They would have killed me if I hadn’t fought back. They wanted to kill me, and they laughed about it.”
The old lady looked faint. She lowered herself to the couch and closed her eyes for an instant, her face pale.
Jessica looked from her grandmother to Grace the cat and waited for either one of them to say something. But once again, they were both suspiciously quiet.
“What? Are you honestly upset with me for fighting for my life?”
“No,” Grandma Ethel cried. “Not at all. I’m just… I’m relieved you’re okay and terrified when I think of what could have happened. But demons are dangerous, Jessica. You’re right, sweetheart. They would have killed you. Oh, I wish you had managed to get away without engaging them. I understand that you had to but the thought scares me to death too. Fighting them probably made them angrier.” She drew a ragged breath and teased a stray lock of hair off her granddaughter’s face.
“I can’t believe you tried to use that voodoo imp doll—if you hadn’t wasted time with that, you might have escaped before—” She shook her head and shuddered. “But how were you to know. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. That doll is powerless against actual demons. You need a different spell for that.” She shook her head and frowned as a sudden thought seemed to penetrate her distress. “I’ll have to whip one up for you in case those monsters come back for revenge. They’ll definitely remember you since you fought back.”
“But they’re dead…I think.”
Grandma Ethel’s eyes bulged. “They’re…dead? How? Did you call Chad and Roger for help?”
Jessica shook her head. “There was no time to call anyone for help or I would have. I had to kill them on my own.”
“It takes years of training to kill demons, Jessica. How did you kill them on your own?”
“I stabbed them through the eye with my ruler.”
“Y
ou…what?”
She threw her hands into the air in exasperation. “My ruler. For geometry. Grandma, I had to do whatever I could. I didn’t have any weapons. All I had was a wallet and school supplies, so I improvised. I caught the first one in the eye and drove it in deep—deep enough that it died, so I did the same with the other two.”
“And it worked?”
“Yes. They turned into piles of ash.”
At the sound of laughter, she leapt up from the couch in panic. Then she realized it was only Grace. The cat slunk across the room and leaped onto the window sill. “There’s definitely something unusual going on with you, girl.”
“Unusual like what?” Jessica asked Grace.
It was Grandma Ethel who responded. “Unusual because you have managed to not only kill an imp but three fully grown demons, all without formal training. It’s unheard of.”
She swallowed and shook her head in denial. “It’s nothing more than dumb luck.”
Her grandmother raised a skeptical eyebrow. “No dumb luck is ever that good. I’m known to be a damned decent witch, but I’m not sure even I could have taken imps on and full demons at your age. Especially not on my own.”
Jessica squirmed, suddenly uncomfortable. She didn’t feel special. Hell, she didn’t even feel lucky. If anything, she felt cursed.
She sat on the couch and winced when the pain in her leg returned. She rubbed her thigh. “It seemed like they wanted my whole leg for some reason.”
Grandma Ethel stood abruptly.
“Where are you going?”
“To get some supplies to mend you up, dear. I should have done that a long time ago. You have my brain all rattled, girly. Out there fighting demons at your age. Kids these days,” Grandma Ethel muttered and sounded more like her normal self again.
Jessica leaned back against the couch and closed her eyes, overwhelmed by how exhausted she felt. One of the cats crept onto her lap and purred. She stroked its fur gently and felt comforted rather than annoyed.
Even with her eyes closed, she could feel Grace staring at her from the window sill, studying her as if she was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. The irony of a talking cat finding her strange wasn’t lost on her.
Grandma Ethel rummaged around in the bathroom and Jessica’s eyes lifted open when she heard her grandmother’s house slippers slide across the floor. She carried a basket full of glowing ointments.
“I’ll patch you up right quick, and then I want you to jump your smelly butt right into the shower, you hear me? I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re smelling up my whole house. Stand up.”
“Sorry,” she said groggily, removed the cat gently from her lap, and pushed carefully to her feet.
Grandma Ethel waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not your fault. I’d rather have a smelly granddaughter than a granddaughter that was eaten by demons. Roll your pant leg up, and off with that shirt. Oh, don’t be modest with me. You don’t have anything under those clothes that I don’t have more of. Come on now.”
Jessica exposed her leg and back and permitted her grandmother to rub a variety of magical ointment into her wounds. The old lady worked gently and chanted healing spells all the while. Little by little, the pain eased until it was completely gone. Her skin was soft, smooth, and unbruised. She no longer had so much as a scratch.
“Wow. Thanks, Grandma.”
“Now go and get in the shower. Give me your clothes so I can patch them up and get the demon gunk out of ʼem. When you finish, I’ll have a hot cup of tea waiting for you. Then off to bed you go.”
“Thanks for everything, Grandma.” Jessica reached out to give Ethel a hug.
Her grandmother pulled back from the stench but kissed the top of her forehead. “Anytime, Jessie-poo. Anytime.”
The girl headed down the hall to the bathroom.
“Hey, Jess,” Grandma Ethel called.
She turned to her. “Yes?”
“Where exactly did those demons attack you?”
Jessica felt her face warm. She didn’t want to admit that she’d tried to use a shortcut and had passed through one of the shadiest areas of town. It had already crossed her mind a dozen times that she probably wouldn’t have ended up in such a predicament if she had only taken the safer route. Of course, she had expected those back alleys to contain a few shady people, not actual demons, for crying out loud.
She scratched her ear. “I tried to take a shortcut home, that’s all. It was late, and I wanted to hurry and get inside.”
“You were by yourself?”
Jessica swallowed. “Yes.”
“Jess—you should have waited for your friends.”
“But I didn’t want to miss curfew.”
“Curfew, smurfew. Your parents and I would rather you be safe than out alone after hours.
“I’m sorry.”
Grandma Ethel shook her head. “I’m still confused. You should have been safe. This shouldn’t have happened. You were at Betty’s Ice Cream Shop, right?”
Jessica blinked. “Betty’s? No.” She and her friends hadn’t hung out at Betty’s Ice Cream Shop in ages. It was a little too old fashioned for their liking. It was designed like the old ice cream parlors you saw in movies, and it had a 1950s theme. It even had a jukebox that only played outdated music. Nobody hung out there except for old people and toddlers being babysat by old people.
Her grandmother put her hands on her hips. “You told me you were going out for ice cream, missy.”
“I did. Just not at Betty’s. We were at the ice cream parlor farther into town.”
The old lady thought for a moment. “Oh! That one. Where the young hoodlums hang out. Go figure.” She sighed.
“Grandma, not all young people are hoodlums. Geez.”
“It’s just that Betty’s Ice Cream Shop is protected, that’s all. It keeps evil out. Demons don’t get close to that territory.”
Jessica blinked. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”
In hindsight, it made sense. Grandma Ethel’s friend Betty was a witch too. Of course, she would have protective charms on the shop her family owned. While it certainly wouldn’t have been very fashionable for her and her friends to hang out at a place like Betty’s Ice Cream Shop, she made a mental note. She would have to tell them that Betty’s would be their ice cream spot from now on.
She had learned far too many times today that it was better to be safe than sorry.
“Well, you go ahead,” Grandma Ethel instructed. “Let me get your clothes cleaned up for you. Now, please, go wash that stench off!”
Chapter Eighteen
Never before had Jessica been so desperate for a weekend to roll around. When she got up and headed to school the next morning, she felt like the week would continue indefinitely.
She had spent the night at Grandma Ethel’s house, and she halfway considered asking if she could simply miss a day of school. Perhaps she could call it a mental health day, so to speak. She had changed her mind when she considered how badly she wanted to talk to Chad. While she had tried to call and texted him several times, he hadn’t responded to either. Her last hope was to see him at school.
When she arrived, she immediately searched the halls for the two young men. While she didn’t see Chad, she spotted Roger standing at his locker before homeroom.
“Hey!” she called as she jogged over to him. “How it’s going?”
He paused from gathering his books and glanced back at her. He looked a little worse for wear. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his usual good-humored expression was slightly lacking. “It’s going,” he grumbled.
Jessica leaned into him and lowered her voice. “How did things go with…you know? What Pastor Norman called you guys for?”
Roger grimaced for a second and shook his head. “They’re getting worse. The demons. We don’t know what’s gotten into them. They were at Pastor Norman’s church. A real church. Since when did they start going anywhere near holy ground? It’s ridiculous.”
<
br /> Jessica blinked, surprised to see Roger so frustrated. “Did things go okay? I mean, did you guys…”
“Kill them? Yeah. Eventually. I’m still not sure what made them choose that location, though.”
“Um…” Jessica began, “by any chance, is there’s any…reason for demons to attack certain people? Like…if a demon comes after you, does it mean that something is…wrong with you?”
Roger looked at her oddly. “I don’t think demons are all that picky when it comes to attacking folks.” He shrugged. “Evil is evil. But I guess they choose certain targets sometimes. Why do you ask?”
“You won’t believe what happened to me last night.”
He eyed her curiously and was about to ask her what happened when the bell rang and students flooded the hall.
Jessica swore, agitated by the interruption. She almost felt tempted to ignore the bell, but she saw that he didn’t seem very keen for that to that happen.
He shook his head. “Sorry, Jess. I can’t risk detention.” He chuckled. “That sounds so ridiculous at my age. But really, I don’t have time for that. I have a special mission of my own to tend to. I’ll have to catch you later.”
“All right.” He scurried away and she called, “Hey—is Chad here? He hasn’t answered my calls and texts.”
“Yeah,” Roger called from over his shoulder. “He was probably passed out drunk from drinking all night with the pastor.”
Jessica stood there for a moment and tried to decide if she’d heard him correctly. “Drinking with the pastor? What the hell? Who does that?” she muttered to herself.
She retrieved her books from her locker and prepared to report to her own homeroom.
“Have you listened to a word I said?” Jessica asked Chad when she finally caught up to him.
“Huh?”
“Chad!”
“Okay, look—I have a major headache right now. No offense, but I hardly know what anyone is saying. You’ll have to try me after lunch once I’ve had food.”
