by Angie Fox
She slipped on a pair of silver-framed reading glasses with rhinestone clusters in the corners. “You’re right. He did decide to kill you.” She began rifling through a collection of glass vials. “Demons can be impulsive.” She harrumphed. “Like yo-yo grandchildren who touch what they shouldn’t.” She chose a vial of olive-brown liquid and stuffed it into the front pocket of her jeans. “I don’t know what you were thinking, grabbing his fulminations.”
“Fulma-what?”
“No time,” she said, rifling through her bag again. “But don’t think for one second that you’re off the hook, slick. I’m gonna ride you ’til next Sunday.” She handed me a Smucker’s peanut butter jar filled with a canary yellow sludge. “Can the questions. Keep this with you. And for the love of Laconia, let me work.”
“Okay…” A demon wants me dead, so I get a Smucker’s jar. Shouldn’t we be running? Hiding? Where, I didn’t know, but Grandma’s Harley was sounding better by the second. Even if we ended up some place like the Laconia motorcycle rally. My fingers slid over the greasy glass of the jar and I darn near dropped it. What was I supposed to do if another demon showed up? Throw this at his head?
“Ey-ak!” I squealed as she popped open a ziplock bag that smelled like a dead mouse. She ignored my distress and began rubbing tiny circles of mush onto my bathroom floor. “Tell me that isn’t poop,” I said, as she ground the foul substance into my grout.
“Raccoon liver. Now get out!” my grandmother ordered without looking up from the mess on my bathroom floor.
“Gladly.” I had no idea what had just happened and I was not at all opposed to getting as far away from her as possible. I tripped over Grandma’s animal-hide bag and what had to be about a half dozen Smucker’s jars in the narrow hallway outside the hall bathroom. They were filled with various brackish liquids, plants, and at least one possum tail. Roadkill witchcraft. Fan-frickintastic.
I slumped down at the kitchen table and buried my face in my hands. “Face facts, Lizzie. Xerxes the demon just tried to chop your head off.”
What would Cliff and Hillary have to say about that?
I didn’t know what to think anymore. That thing was real. No question about it. He came for me. And he would have killed Grandma too.
An hour ago, I wasn’t even sure I believed in hell. Now it was after me. Xerxes probably tracked me like my grandmother had. Worse, he’d gotten inside my head without even blinking. How could I defend myself against a creature who could control me like a Muppet? I had no idea what he—or my grandma—could possibly want from me.
When my grandma had called, I figured she was interested in what I’d been doing the last thirty years of my life. I’d tell her about my friends, my teaching job at Happy Hands Preschool. She’d tell me about herself and her family. Make that my family. At last, I’d learn about my mom, any brothers or sisters, who I was, where I came from.
Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I could be dead right now. Killed by a demon in my very own bathroom.
Claws scurried across the ceramic floor in the hallway.
“Grandma!” I leapt from the chair, on instant high alert.
She shot out of the bathroom as I realized my would-be attacker was, in fact, my Jack Russell terrier. Pirate was mostly white, with a dollop of brown on his back that wound up his neck and over one eye. He scampered around the corner into the kitchen, slid three feet and nearly thwacked his head on the side of the refrigerator.
“Pirate.” The tension oozed out of me and I about collapsed on the floor in front of him. He leapt into my arms and licked wherever he could reach. I hugged him close, his wiry hair tickling my nose. “Where have you been, boy?”
His entire body wriggled with excitement. “Alone! Locked in the backyard! Alone! But I dug under the fence. And then I ate through the screen on the front door. And I’m here now! I’m here! What’d I miss?”
My blood froze. “Oh no, no, no.” I scrambled away from him like an oversized crab. “There’s a demon in my dog!”
Pirate danced in place. “Are you kidding? It’s me! I burrowed, I ate screen, I ignored Mrs. Cristople’s tabby cat. I’m here to save you!”
Grandma scrubbed her hands on her jeans, leaving an oily smear behind. “Pirate is fine. A little impatient.” She grabbed a vial of silver powder from her back pocket and uncorked it with her teeth. “I told you to keep quiet until I had a chance to speak with Lizzie.”
Pirate let out a high-pitched dog whine.
“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, eyeball-measuring a bit of silver powder into her palm. “Now, Lizzie. I have to finish this containment spell or we could have another Xerxes on your toilet bowl.” She gave a worried snort. “Or worse…” She disappeared back into the bathroom.
I stared at Pirate, who promptly began licking himself.
“Stop it.”
He ignored me like he always did.
“Well hallelujah. At least some things don’t change.”
But, oh God, what had just happened?
I didn’t feel any different. I did a quick once-over in the mirror above the living room couch. I didn’t look any different. But there had been a demon in my bathroom. And he knew my name. I wasn’t up on my demon lore, but something told me that wasn’t good.
As for Pirate, I didn’t know what to think. I took a deep breath, counted to three. There had to be a logical explanation for all of this.
“Hey.” Pirate ran his cold nose along my ankle. “How ’bout you feed me? I swear I haven’t eaten in a year. And screen door doesn’t count.”
I stared down at Pirate, who spun three times and sat.
He cocked his head. “Why the face? Am I drooling? Oh geez. It’s the doggie pellets. I think of doggie pellets, I drool.”
“What?” I stammered. What are you? That didn’t sound polite. I rubbed my temples.
Get a grip.
“Why, Pirate?” Each word was a battle. “Why are you talking to me?”
“Because,” he said, mimicking my stilted tone, “I am hungry.” We stared at each other for a long time. “Now.”
“This isn’t happening,” I said. I turned back to the mirror and started shoving my hair back into place. I needed something to be normal. Anything. Even if it was something as trivial as a hairdo.
“Come on, Lizzie.” Pirate licked my leg. “Lighten up. And hey, if you don’t want to feed me that dry stuff, I’ll take the fettuccine from last week. Back of the fridge, to the left of the lettuce crisper, behind the mustard.”
Yeah, right. Instead, he got dry kibble and a fresh bowl of water. Then I set about canceling my thirtieth birthday dinner. I didn’t know what I was going to tell my friends.
Sorry, guys. I couldn’t wait to celebrate with you. Believe me. But then my long-lost biker grandma locked me in my bathroom, a demon tried to kill me and now my dog won’t stop yapping.
I dialed my friend Yvette and settled for a simple excuse instead.
“A problem with the dog?” Pirate harrumphed after I’d hung up the phone. “You owe me one.”
When Grandma finished closing the portal to hell, or wherever Xerxes had come from, she took a chair opposite me. She’d perched her reading glasses on top of her head like a tiara. Slicks of oil smeared her T-shirt and a bit of brown gunk had caught under one of her rings. She folded her hands on my sunflower-print tablecloth. “Would you like to talk about what happened?”
“Sure,” I said. She had to be kidding. “Where would you like to start? With the crazy green bars of light or with the fact that my bathroom is now glowing?”
And I didn’t mean glowing from a great cleaning job. As I spoke, a purple haze spilled out from the bathroom and into the narrow hall off my kitchen.
“A mange spell. Wards off demons, gremlins, succubi. Good against black magic too.” She flicked a small piece of I-didn’t-want-to-know from under one of her fingernails. “The black lords don’t usually recognize demon slayers so quickly after the change. And they
’re never this bold.” She arched her brows as if I should nod and understand. “But there have been unusual happenings lately.”
Lovely. I wanted her to leave. I wanted to forget this whole thing ever happened.
She tsked. “If only your mother were here.”
My voice caught in my throat. “Where is my mother?” The day I was born, she’d given me up for adoption. I’d never known anything about her.
She threw me a guilty look. “I suppose I’ll have to tell you. But for now, we need to hit the road.”
“Where?” I asked, afraid to know.
“Well, we got kicked out of the coven in Westchester. I’ll let my buddy Ant Eater tell you about that one.” She chuckled to herself. “We aren’t always the best houseguests. But hell, life is short. Nothing like the freedom of the open road.”
“Open road?” I said, starting to panic a little. Okay, a lot. “I’m not like you. I get carsick, train sick, plane sick. I get dizzy watching the kids swing at Happy Hands.”
“Um-hum,” Pirate agreed. “Don’t forget the time you yarfed up your hot chocolate all over Brian Thompson’s toboggan.” Pirate studied the look on my face. “Oh, but I didn’t like him anyway. He had cats. Three cats. The brown one, I called him Thor, he had pointy teeth. And another brown one, I called him Tuna Breath—”
All the homeless dogs in the shelter that day and I had to pick the motormouth. “Pirate, level with me. What made you start talking?”
“Me? I always talk. Why’d you start listening?”
“Enough!” Grandma clamped my hands in hers. “We’re hopping on my Harley whether you like it or not. The coven’s holed up outside of Memphis right now. It’ll be a good spot to teach you. You need to learn your hexes from your horny toads. Magically speaking.”
“I need to get back to normal. I have a job, friends, a cute guy I just cancelled on.” I slipped out of her grasp and saw my French manicure had melted away.
“Holy ship anchor!” I gaped at her.
“Like I said, there’s a lot you need to know. And Xerxes will be back—with a bunch of bloodthirsty creatures. Time’s up, Lizzie. Unless you can come up with a better idea, we need to hop the hog and get out of here.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, eyeing the lumpy remains of my polish. She reached out her hands, but I wasn’t about to let her near me again. “Back off. You can’t hit town on your Harley, lock me up, introduce me to Xerxes and turn me into Lizzie the road warrior. I deserve some answers.”
She sighed. “You’re right, Lizzie. The truth is, what you did in there was…unique. I know I’ve never seen it before. Your nail polish was consumed by the demon’s vox because, frankly, most things…heck, most people would have been. You, Lizzie, are special. Whether you want to be or not.”
Not. “So most people get hit by the green thingies and they die. Instead, I pluck them out of the air and they ruin my manicure?”
“The nail polish was not of you.” She touched her fist to her heart. “This. The power you have inside. This is of you.”
“Okay…” I said, bobbing my head one too many times. “But you have”—I glanced at my glowing bathroom — “magic. You can handle a demon, right?”
Hands clasped, she leaned across the table. “I run from demons. You can kill them.”
I didn’t even like to kill June bugs.
“I know it’s a lot to swallow. That’s why you have to plant your pretty butt on my bike. Other demons will come.”
“Why can’t we leave each other alone? Live and let live?”
She shook her head. “Doesn’t work that way, Lizzie. You come from a line of powerful women. Every third generation, we are honored to produce a demon slayer. You.”
But I didn’t want to be a demon slayer.
I also didn’t want any more demons showing up in my bathroom. Or at sushi night with the girls. Or at the Happy Hands Preschool where I worked. That last thought chilled me to the core. I couldn’t imagine what would happen to my class of innocent three-year-olds. I had to stay far away from them until I could get rid of Xerxes, and anything like him, for good.
“If I come with you,” I began, “will you teach me how to get rid of any demon complications, once and for all?” I needed to learn how to have my normal life. Let Grandma have her voodoo-hoodoo. As long as I could get this thing under control enough to teach preschool.
Her bracelets dangled as she leaned toward me, resting her chin on her hands. “I will show you everything you need to know. But I’m not telling you anything else until we get to Memphis. It’s not safe.”
Not safe? Try mixing me with a Harley.
I pounded my fingers on the table until they tingled. “If I do go with you to Memphis, will you tell me what to do about Pirate?”
I followed her gaze to the Jack Russell sniffing her Smucker’s jars. “I’m here to teach you magic, Lizzie. The dog is your problem.”
Chapter Three
“Don’t worry, Pirate,” I said, shoving a mountain of underwear into a pink plastic overnight case I’d yanked from the closet in my small, loft bedroom. “I have a plan to get us a half-dozen counties away from that Harley.”
A quick online check showed American Airlines had a flight leaving in two hours. We needed to be on it. I hated to fly, but when the alternative was driving four hundred miles with Grandma, a talking terrier, and twenty-seven Smucker’s jars filled with heaven knows what, I was ready to make an exception. Besides, we didn’t need to be out on the open road with demons on our tail.
“What?” Pirate yelped, dropping the Mickey Mouse panties he’d just stolen. “Are you leaving without me? You can’t leave without me. I’m your watchdog. I watch out for you. You need me.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I assured him. “And honestly,” I said, scooping up the panties and tossing them in the direction of the bathroom hamper, “you need to tone down the watchdog shtick.” His face fell and I found myself working hard to recover. “Not that you aren’t great at it. You are. I feel very safe.” At least I used to feel safe. “But you have to learn to pick your battles.”
Pirate blinked twice, seemed shocked at the thought. “What? You don’t think I can handle it?”
With shaking hands, I yanked three pairs of khaki pants from their hangers. “Feel free to protect me from butterflies, the vacuum cleaner, my hair dryer,” I said. “But please. No demons.”
Pirate considered my advice while I folded two pairs of pants and left the third pair out to wear. “I could take a demon.” He twitched his ears, daring me to tell him he couldn’t. “You should have seen me today. I wasted the Phantom Menace. Been after him my whole life. And today—whammo! So don’t tell me I can’t bust a demon. Oh yeah. I can bust a demon.”
I tossed an armful of button-down shirts into the case. “The Phantom Menace is from a Star Wars movie. Not a real person.” Pirate liked to yip at every shadow in the yard.
“He’s real,” Pirate insisted. “I left teeth marks.” He growled and showed me his canines. “Good? Yeah? What about this?” He sprung into a stalking stance and bared his teeth, his whole body shaking. “I’m an animal!”
“And you caught your own shadow.”
“No—a phantom. He flies! Likes to watch over the yard. Bet he’s after my squeaky frog. Today, he tried to give me something gold and shiny. Completely inedible. So I chomped him.”
Technically, Pirate’s rubber toys were supposed to be inedible too. I sighed and wrestled a simple white top off its hanger. Normally, I would have ignored a rant like that. Wait, who was I kidding? Normally, I wouldn’t be having this—or any—conversation with my dog.
Holy hand grenades, I sure hoped Pirate was imagining things. I didn’t want to think of shadowy figures hanging out in my yard. Watching me. To be safe, I said, “Promise me, if you ever see Phantom Menace again, you will not go anywhere near him. Understood?”
Pirate attacked his tail.
I eyed the little beast I’d shared m
y bed with for the last three years. “Pirate.” I stroked him behind the left ear and he turned to mush in my hands. “Are you listening to me? Remember what we learned in obedience class? A good watchdog also listens.”
“Ahhh…anything you say, Lizzie. Just keep hit-tin’ the sweet spot.” The instant I stopped scratching, he jumped to his feet and began nosing around the semifolded clothes in my suitcase. “You know, we would have passed that class if that sexy Pomeranian hadn’t winked at me. Lost it on that one. Dames.”
“Pirate,” I warned. “Don’t attack any yard spooks. You come get me.” He treated me to the innocent doggy look, but we both knew he wasn’t fooling anybody. I pulled on a pair of khakis and, yanking down my top, plowed through my closet for the comfortable, lace-up shoes I wore at the preschool.
I plunked down on the bed to tie my shoes and while I was there, gave Pirate a quick rub on the head. “Let’s motor. I’m going to try to convince Grandma to head to the airport, but we have to hurry if we’re going to make the next flight to Memphis.” My stomach roiled at the thought. Flying gave me hives, but all I had to do was look out into the driveway and there sat my courage, with chrome wheels and silver flames painted down the sides.
“Give me a frosty Pet-sicle and I’ll tell you where I hid your wedge sandals.” He burrowed between two pillows.
I rolled my eyes and attempted to clip the clasps on my bulging suitcase. “You’d just better hope we can convince Grandma to get off that hog of hers.”
“A hog?” Pirate shrieked and pillows flew. He raced to the window behind my bed and shoved his nose against the glass. “Oh, biscuits! I could zoom down the highway, wind in my face. Checkin’ out the babes.”
So he hadn’t processed anything I’d said about bike versus plane. Peachy. I had a talking dog, not a listening dog.
Good to know, I decided, as I tried to force the suitcase shut with the weight of my butt. My socks and underwear bulged out from between the clasps. “I expect you to back me up on this one.” I’d tell him later that he’d have to fly cargo.
