by Angie Fox
I sucked in a breath. For all my abilities, it always amazed me just what these witches could do.
Grandma drew her hands around the jar once, twice, three times before she dropped the eyeball inside. We watched with rapt anticipation as the eyeball latched on to the enchanted rope and burrowed until we could no longer see it.
The rope thrashed like a stuck pig. It slammed against the side of the jar, squealing before it shuddered and fell limp. Grandma held her hands over the concoction, her eyes closed tight.
“Ostendo,” she uttered, as if forcing the words from somewhere deep inside. “Ostendo!” She repeated, louder this time.
I stared at the jar in front of her, then back to her face. Her skin had gone pale. Red color rose to her cheeks. “Ostendo!”
Her face contorted. “The man you saw is your father, Lizzie. He came to you because he needs your help.”
I’d already known. I’d felt that connection.
The rope began to smoke and hiss in the jar. Grandma struggled to maintain her hold on her vision.
“What your mother didn’t know. Wait. She knew! What your mother didn’t tell me is your father saw… No. Knew… No –” Her eyes flew open. “Holy crap, your dad is a fallen angel.”
“What?” I blurted.
Frieda clutched my hand harder and yanked.
“Ow!” A fallen angel? I’d detected death and sulfur. I’d never met an angel before, but I doubted they smelled like demonic minions. And another thing – if he was an angel, that meant I was half angel and that was too impossible to contemplate.
It had taken almost a year to get used to the fact that I was a demon slayer. I was still learning to control those powers and now I might be something completely different.
Being a demon slayer meant I could levitate, slow time and fry bad guys on occasion. But it still meant I was fully human.
And now?
If I was part angel, I wasn’t all human.
I wanted to leave. I had to get out of there and think about this. I had to tell Dimitri. He’d know what to do. We could turn our date into a therapy session.
Heaven above.
I looked around the room, to the circle of witches. They watched Grandma.
“Hold it together, Gertie,” Ant Eater warned her.
Grandma shook her head, focusing hard. “Damn it, Phoenix. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Because Phoenix, otherwise known as my mom, was a royal jerk. Not only did she shove off her demon slaying powers on me, it seemed she neglected to tell anyone she’d been running around with a fallen angel.
Grandma swallowed, collecting herself. “Sorry.”
Considering the circumstances, she was doing better than I was. My mind could barely hold a thought. I forced myself to slow down.
Relax.
Focus.
I’d always prided myself on my control, and if there was ever a time to shut up and take it in, it was now.
The rope grew still and began to smoke as Grandma redoubled her efforts. “Why, Xavier? Why did you come back now?” She struggled, her mouth hanging open, her eyes fixed on something none of the rest of us could see.
“Grandma?”
Her eyes bugged out. “Your dad’s been fiddling with the wrong side, Lizzie. He made some bad friends.” Sweat beaded on her forehead. “He might not have known what he was doing. Hell, he’d better not have known what his jackass friends were pulling. Either way, he got demoted.”
“Before or after he had me?” It was a selfish thing to ask, but darn it, I needed to know.
She just shook her head, concentrating. “He tried to work his way back, but now he’s really struggling. Dang it. I can see why he needs you. Hell and damnation!”
“What?” I demanded.
She struggled to pull out the last bit of information as the enchanted lariat caught fire. Grandma fought as it burned to ashes.
When it was gone, she lifted her head and stared right at me.
“What?” I repeated, leaning as far as I could without breaking the circle. “So I’m a half angel.” Or half fallen-angel. “He’s a fallen angel.” I was good. “He has to have some good, right?”
Grandma trembled slightly. “He does.” She glanced at the charred remains of my dad’s gift. “Even after this booby prize. I think it was hexed to compel you straight for Pasadena.”
“Like a magical lasso?”
Grandma frowned. “Or a noose.”
“Did he know I’d find all this out?” I asked.
“Nope. Most people don’t see us coming.”
Frieda grinned, but Grandma wasn’t in the mood. “I don’t want you going. I don’t want us to go,” she said to the group. “It’s foolhardy, and it’s dangerous. Xavier’s soul is not our problem.”
Okay, so I could tell Grandma had never been too keen on Xavier, but since when did she give a fig about foolhardy and dangerous?
I could tell there was something else. “What is it you’re not telling me?”
She eyed me. “If you don’t go, your father is going to fall farther,” she said, automatically. “He can’t help it. Forces are in motion against him.”
I didn’t understand. “But how can he fall more? He was an angel and now he’s not.”
Frieda squeezed my hand. Grandma planted her hands on her hips, searching for words. Ant Eater took the blunt approach. “He’s going to go demonic.”
“What?” I stopped for a moment, shocked.
Oh geez. Who was I kidding? Hadn’t I detected some demonic tendencies? Didn’t I smell the sulfur on him? He’d allied himself with death.
Grandma sighed. “I’m sorry, Lizzie.”
“Yes, well so am I.” This was my father we were talking about. Yes, he was creepy and I didn’t care for the way he’d tried to compel me or how he’d tried to trick me. But I wasn’t going to damn him to hell for it. “You say he’s going to go demonic unless we do something about it.”
“We?” Grandma balked.
“Fine. Me.” I was the demon slayer.
“Lizzie, you don’t owe that man anything.”
“Only my life,” I said. Technically, it was true. Even if I didn’t know him, I couldn’t help but feel for him. I owed it to him to at least see if I could help. If I didn’t try, I’d never forgive myself.
Grandma watched me, unhappy.
Dimitri would understand. Why couldn’t Grandma?
She could frown until her face froze that way. There was no way to ignore the final, awful truth. “You realize if he does fall all the way and becomes a demon, I am a demon slayer.”
“I know what you are,” she snapped.
I’d have to kill my own father.
I opened my mouth to say it and realized I couldn’t.
She knew.
It was too much. My head hurt. I rubbed at my temples, knowing it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. “Do you want to be on the run again?” I asked. “What if he comes after me because I didn’t help him?”
What if he came after me and I couldn’t destroy him?
I’d rather not have to find out. I really didn’t want to know that yes, I could kill my father. To save my friends and my new family, I would. It would be gut wrenching and horrible and I knew I’d never be the same person again if I did it.
“Face it, Grandma,” I said to her and the rest of the Red Skulls. “Saving him is a lot easier than the alternative.”
Besides, it was the right thing to do.
Grandma stared at me long and hard.
“We just got here.” A witch in the back protested.
“I know.” It was a lot to give up. These witches hadn’t had a home in more than thirty years. “We can come back,” I said.
“When?” Another witch grumbled.
I didn’t have an answer to that. I was asking them to sacrifice for a person they didn’t know. Heck, I had barely met him. They’d worked my entire lifetime to get back to the place where we now stood and I was asking them t
o give it up.
“Can it wait?” Frieda asked. “I haven’t even finished cleaning the cobwebs out of the shower curtains.”
That, I could ignore.
“This isn’t our battle,” Grandma said to the group, her eyes still on me, “but I haven’t known any of you to walk away from a fight that needs to be won.”
She dug her hands into her pockets. “I’d like to settle down too, but I don’t think I could relax knowing we could save a man from eternal damnation. Lizzie hasn’t always asked for our help, and sometimes we’ve wanted to skin her for it. Now she’s asking. I’m not going to say no.”
The witches began murmuring among themselves. Grandma spoke louder. “Anybody who wants to stay here, that’s fine. You’ve earned the right. We won’t say a word about it.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Anybody who sees fit to join us, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at dawn.” She paused, her eyes fixed on the floor, finding the words.
“I always used to think we were running and fighting because we had a demon on our tail. And that’s a damned good reason.”
The biker witches chuckled.
Grandma shook her head. “It was more than that. Somewhere along the line, we stopped fighting for just us. I don’t want to eek out a living hidden behind wards and our spells. I want to look the devil in the eye and kick him in the teeth. I want to say to these creatures, ‘No. You will not win. You will not corrupt us or enslave us. You will not own us.’”
She climbed up on the keg. It rattled with her weight, but Grandma was beyond caring. She stood, her black Harley flame boots planted firmly on either side. “We are in charge of what happens in this world. Not them. Never them.”
“Never!” Several witches bellowed from the back.
“We owe it to everything good to stand up and fight,” she bellowed. “So I will go to Pasadena. I will take that man back from the demons. And I will tell them to go to hell.”
The walls echoed and chandeliers swayed with the stomps and cheers of the biker witches.
Creely slapped me on the back. “I’m there.”
“Me too, honey.” Frieda hugged me from the side. “We’ll get your daddy back.”
The flood gates opened as the witches shouted out their support. The circle broke, gin glasses clinked and I stood there like a fool with a smile plastered across my face. I had a whole coven of bikers behind me.
“We’re in this,” Frieda brushed a lock of lavender hair from my shoulder, “whether you want us or not.”
I did. The decision was made. Dang it all. We were going to Pasadena.
Heaven help us when we got there.
Chapter Four
I stepped out of the phone booth and let it slide closed behind me. Most of the biker witches were still celebrating downstairs, and probably would be for a while. Me? I had some things to figure out.
So far in my time as a slayer, I’d killed the baddies instead of trying to rescue them. I wasn’t sure how rehabilitation worked. Even if we could track down my dad, what would we do next? What would we be facing?
I took stock of what remained of my dad’s gift, still in the jar. Judging from what he’d given me, I wondered how badly Dad wanted to be saved.
The ashes had settled into a circular groove along the base. I shook it out so they spread across the entire bottom. Within seconds, the particles had flickered back to the edges.
Maybe it was just gravity.
Yeah, right.
Grandma said my dad’s creature couldn’t harm me now. She told me it was as dead as the zombie crow. I wasn’t so sure.
Before I became a slayer, a pile of ashes was a pile of ashes. Now a jar was a magical trap, a spell meant a new hairdo and I still wasn’t sure how the biker witches were playing “Freebird” on the jukebox when we technically had no power.
My Jack Russell Terrier bounded up to me amid tables crowded with Burger King takeout bags. Sidecar Bob was in charge of catering. My dog followed him everywhere.
“It’s a feast!” Pirate said, skidding right into my leg, his tail thwacking my shin at a hundred and eighty beats a minute. “We have French fries and cheeseburgers and double cheeseburgers and double bacon cheeseburgers…”
“Chow time!” Bob yelled down to the speakeasy. Boots thundered on the metal stairs.
“Bob, have you seen Dimitri?” I asked. He should have been back by now.
Bob tossed Pirate a French fry and shook his head ‘no.’ “Don’t worry,” he said, as the first of the biker witches clambered out.
Easy for Bob to say. I scooped Pirate up and buried my nose in the wiry hair of his neck. The heavenly aroma of flame grilled burgers and piping hot fries made my stomach rumble.
Pirate licked my fingers, my arm, my shoulder, pretty much anything he could reach. “You smell fantastic. Smells like you’ve been roasting meat. Of course you burnt that one,” he said, sniffing my jar, “but that’s okay. I’ll eat it.”
That wasn’t saying much. Pirate would eat anything. In this case, he couldn’t have my dad’s crispy minion.
The front door banged open. Everyone in the bar jumped, including me. Dimitri Kallinikos, my long-awaited griffin boyfriend stood in the doorway with a massive white dragon behind him.
“Oh thank God,” I said. He was here. He was safe and he was mine.
Dimitri was well over six feet, with the broad shoulders and sculpted body of an ancient Greek statue. He had a square jaw, olive skin and striking green eyes. Dimitri was out of place in this dingy biker bar, even though he wore jeans and a dark black T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders.
He had the ability to hold perfectly still, which is lost on most people these days. Even now, his movements were precise as he peeled one of Grandma’s thorny wards away from his leather jacket.
I let the tension leave me as I started for him, amazed he still managed to look polished after flying for two hours. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, back straight and always alert. Or maybe it was simply the fact that he really was from another world.
“Flappy!” Pirate scrambled out of my arms and broke into a run the second his paws touched the concrete floor. My dog dashed straight for Dimitri and through his legs as he greeted the dragon.
Flappy’s happy squawk ended in an adolescent croak. As usual, Pirate blew the curve when it came to happy reunions.
Still, I wasn’t too shabby myself.
“Hey there,” I said to Dimitri, feeling my mouth quirk into a grin. Heaven knew I’d missed this man. I didn’t like him going out in search of trouble, and not just because it could be dangerous. I just wanted him with me.
“Lizzie,” he said with a slight Greek accent that made my name sound almost lyrical. He looked me up and down. “Nice hair,” he said without a trace of irony.
Heat crept up my cheeks. Yes, it was ridiculous. I was embarrassed enough. The last thing I needed was for him to remind me.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’d just found out I was part angel. That trumped the hair thing. Besides, it was good having him back. I’d been more worried than I wanted to admit.
“What happened out there?” I asked as he touched his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.
He’d been fighting. The emerald in his eyes betrayed him.
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he said. “Not here.” We savored a quiet moment and when he opened his eyes again, they’d gone back to a rich chocolate brown.
I reached for him and noticed his ebony hair curled with moisture at the ends. I ran the damp strands between my fingers.
He replied with a melting brush of his lips on mine.
“Why do you always assume we have trouble?” he said against my mouth.
“Other than the fact that we usually do?”
He rumbled out a laugh and pulled me into his arms. “You’re just worried about our date.” He smelled like warm leather and campfires. I snuggled against him as a toasty feeling wound through me.
Yes, w
ell I had every reason to worry. Ours hadn’t been what you’d call a typical relationship.
We’d met when he pulled me out of a hole. I’d wrecked my Harley in an encounter with seven imps and a particularly nasty water nymph. We’d ended our first fight with a trip to hell. Personally, I would have preferred make-up sex. And now we were in another mess. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same.
Call me an old-fashioned girl, but it would be nice to be officially courted.
And then his mouth was on mine, hot and possessive.
Okay, so maybe I wasn’t complaining too much.
I curled toward him as he slid hands up the exposed skin of my arms, up my shoulders to cradle my chin. It was a rash, claiming kind of kiss and I loved every second of it.
As if he knew what I was thinking, Dimitri drew me closer until I was flush against him. One of us groaned—I think it was me—as he nipped my neck.
This man was sin wrapped in leather. There’s no telling what I would have done if I didn’t sense half the bar gaping at us.
I eased back, as the cool air seeped between our bodies. No need to make a spectacle, even as my mind conjured up images of us heated and naked and sliding against each other. Sweet heaven.
“Thanks,” I said, a little unsteady, “I needed that.” I needed him.
His breath came quickly. His eyes were closed and when he opened them, the warmth in them nearly melted me into a puddle on the floor. “My pleasure,” he said, making it clear there would be more to come.
My inner vixen did a little happy dance.
“First I have something I need to tell you.” He wound his hand in mine.
Pirate jumped up against our legs. “Is it about Flappy?” he asked. “I told him to stay away from your boot laces. I’ve been training him, see?” Pirate thumped his butt on to the floor. “Flappy’s not good at ‘sit’ and he doesn’t know how to ‘fetch.’ I thought I had him at ‘play dead,’ till I realized he was sleeping. But I know for a fact I told him to stay away from your boot laces.”
