by Angie Fox
The wood of the front porch had cracked and grayed with age. The entire thing rocked slightly as I hoisted myself up the stairs. Along with Ant Eater’s enormous red bras, as well as a leopard-print teddy I refused to think about, the porch sagged under the weight of a rusted washtub full of discarded beer cans, the front bumper of a car and too many petrified hand towels to even count.
I paused, blew out a breath as I contemplated the holes in the front screened door. Shotgun blasts? No question about it, this was the worst roommate situation I’d ever faced. Ant Eater scared the beeswax out of me. Part of it was the fact she’d tackle you first and ask questions later. But most of it stemmed from the sheer rage I’d seen in her eyes this morning. We’d have to find a way to make peace or it would be a lot harder to help Grandma.
I smoothed a few stray hairs out of my eyes and pulled them behind my ears. Well, she hadn’t thrown me off the front porch yet. I supposed that was something to celebrate. The sun peeked out from the clouds and I caught a glitter out of the corner of my eye. Tiny rhinestones clung to each red bra, forming little skulls at the center of each cup. I swallowed hard and opened the front door.
“Lizzie!” Pirate popped up from where he’d been curled up, watching the front door. “Am I glad to see you. I’ve been dying for some company and this lady is no company at all.” Pirate’s collar jingled as he skittered toward me. I scooped him up in my arms, reveling in his warm little body.
Ant Eater tossed me an acidic glare and went back to stacking glass jars in a small pyramid next to a beat-up brown couch. She’d tied a black leather skullcap over her short silver curls. Chocolate brown furniture cluttered the narrow front room. Ant Eater had shoved most of it toward the back hallway in order to make room for stacks and stacks of pickle jars. Roadkill magic. Well, I’d seen Grandma’s jars. They shouldn’t surprise me by now. Except—my heart hiccupped—the goo in Ant Eater’s jars seemed to be alive.
“Hi there,” I said to her. I was not going to let this woman intimidate me. I picked my way across a yellow-brown rug that probably hadn’t started off that color. Lamps decorated with belching frogs topped white plastic end tables. Somehow, I’d expected these mercenary werewolves to live better. Perhaps this was simply an outpost where they stashed fugitives like us. I shuddered to think what kind of mission they had in store for me.
She hunkered over the jars, her wallet chain swinging from her back pocket. “Go to your room. It’s in the back. And stay the hell away from me.”
My stomach clenched. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was bullies. And she was one of the worst I’d ever met. I had to stand up for myself now, or she’d only get worse. “No,” I said, a little more breathless than I’d intended. “Let’s get one thing straight. You are not going to treat me that way.”
She paused, her back to me. And that was another thing. The woman had to have at least two dozen jars stacked along the walls. How had she fled the coven with all of them? Perhaps Ant Eater had more notice of the attack than she’d let on. The thought made me very, very uncomfortable.
Slowly, deliberately she reached for a jar with—ohmygosh—a preserved human ear inside. I braced myself, ready to duck if she tried to throw it at me.
She held it up, her wide face flushed with anger. “Know what this is? This came from another smart-ass.” Her bushy brows plummeted downward as she sneered. “I warned him. Said if he touched my motorcycle again, I’d bite his ear off and keep it in a pickle jar.” The distended ear bobbed in the grayish liquid. Ant Eater seemed to relish the fear tingling up my spine.
A nudge at my leg nearly sent me jumping out of my skin. But it was only Pirate. He danced in place on his two front paws. “Now I think this might be one of those situations where we let the old lady have her way,” Pirate said. He turned tail and hurried back through the trailer. “I’m all for fighting and all,” he called from somewhere down the hall, “but that is just wrong. Ohh, water bed!”
I wanted to follow him. I really did. There was no reason to provoke a crazy bully who would like nothing better than to whack me in two with the samurai sword in the corner, or the very large machete under the coffee table or the—geez, there had to be at least twenty shotguns stacked in there. Not to mention the pistols lining the counter by the sink.
“Yeah, that’s right, Lizzie,” she said, daring me to push it. “Back away.”
I wanted to. But, “No.”
“What?” she spat.
I could feel my blood pounding in my skull, but this was no time to roll over. “If you want to share a trailer with me, there’s no reason why I can’t sit here on the couch and read a magazine.” I eased onto the squishy sofa and practically sank down to the floor. The thing was worse than a beanbag chair. And there were no magazines. Fine. I’d relax and contemplate the Three Truths of the demon slayer. Look to the outside. Accept the universe. Sacrifice yourself.
Sacrifice myself? Please don’t let it be today.
Ant Eater charged me and slammed the couch over backward. Pain exploded in my head as it smacked against the linoleum floor. “You’re the only one who can kill Vald, and you want to read a magazine?” She stood over me, fuming. “You worthless sugar-tit! You can’t even spit, and you’re the one who has to save Gertie. Time to feel some pain, princess. You’d better get used to it.”
She seized the toad lamp and yanked the cord from the wall. I scurried past the breakfast bar into the arsenal of a kitchen as the lamp crashed into the mugs above me and sent a whole rickety shelf tumbling down. The rack pounded into me and the cups sliced at my back as they shattered. I reached for one of the guns. My fingers touched the cool metal, and I stopped. I didn’t need to make this worse.
There had to be another way.
Look to the outside.
What outside? Outside myself? Okay. I’d stop worrying about myself and focus on the problem. Every red jowled, overblown, lethal inch of her.
I faced the crazy woman. Rage boiled in her eyes. “Stop!” I ordered. “Let’s talk—” She reached under the coffee table, grabbed the machete.
“Yeeee!” Pirate launched himself at her ankle.
Oh my word. Where had he come from? “Pirate, no!”
He chomped his teeth into her leather chaps.
“Son of a bitch!” She whipped her leg around and launched him into the hallway.
“Pirate!” Please don’t be hurt!
Ant Eater hurled the machete at my head. I hit the floor as the heavy blade shattered the kitchen window behind me.
This time, I did grab a gun, a Glock. It was like the one Cliff and Hillary kept in their bedroom in case burglars invaded the minimansion. I double, triple checked to make sure the safety was on and shoved the hulking pistol under the waistband of my too-tight leather pants. Pirate and I had to get out of here. But to do that, we’d have to get past Ant Eater.
Sarsaparilla!
I’d have to take her down.
“Pirate, you stay put!” I called to him, but when I stuck my head around the corner of the breakfast bar, I saw him crumpled in the dirty hallway. “Baby dog!”
Rage boiled inside me. She could hate me all she wanted, but if she hurt Pirate, I’d never forgive her. “You bitch!”
She snarled like the predator she was.
And holy Hades. A dark thing hovered over Pirate. A cloud of jagged black creatures—more than I could begin to count—swarmed, writhed to form a single, horrible monster. How dare she cast a spell on an innocent animal?
I glared at Ant Eater. “What kind of sick, twisted freak are you?” I had to get Pirate out of here.
My eyes flew to the samurai sword by the door. She saw where I was going and raced me for it.
She beat me.
I slid the last few feet like a ball player sliding into home and spiked her ankle with my oxford. She let out a howl of pain, but held tight to the sword. She ripped it from its sheath and drove the razor-sharp blade down on me. It clanged against my helmet and
ricocheted to the floor. Panic screamed through me. I scrambled backward, into the corner between the front door and the breakfast bar.
My back knocked against stacks and stacks of pickle jars. I grabbed the nearest one and threw it at her head. It smacked her in the chest with a dull thud.
“Get your hands off those!”
“Drop the sword!”
Her face twisted in hate and she charged right for me, sword raised. My hand dove for a red swirling jar at the bottom of the stack. I had to have that one. I aimed it straight for her sneering nose. It exploded at her feet with a deafening crash. Red smoke shot through the room, suffocating every surface. Ant Eater dropped the sword. It clattered to the floor as she fell to her knees, her hands clutching her throat.
I ran past her and found Pirate. He lay on his side, half curled in a ball. I pushed through the hot, stinging magic. It bit like a thousand fire ants, but I didn’t care. Pirate was alive. Relief poured through me. Blood oozed from the back of his head, and he was wheezing as bad as Ant Eater. I gathered him up in my arms and hurried him outside while I could still see the light from the doorway.
A crowd of witches and werewolves had gathered in the yard. They stood in shocked silence as I lowered Pirate to the ground outside the trailer. His breathing had grown even more labored. I didn’t know what to do.
Chapter Eleven
“Ant Eater?” Frieda called as she struggled across the lumpy yard in three-inch heels, watching in horror as smoke poured from our trailer. “What’d you do to her, Lizzie?”
To her? “I don’t know. She’s back in the trailer. Something’s wrong with Pirate.”
Betty Two Sticks lumbered up, her Woody Allen glasses fogging with the wet heat escaping from the trailer. Heat? “I think she threw a death spell,” she told Frieda.
“What’d the jar look like?” Frieda demanded.
“How’d you know—” I hadn’t said anything about a jar.
“We don’t have time! What’d it look like?”
“Red,” I said. “Swirly. A pickle jar with a gold lid.” I’d wanted that one. I knew I had to throw it. I took a deep breath. My go-for-the-most-dangerous demon slayer mojo had gotten us in some serious trouble this time.
“Anaconda spell.” Frieda’s voice dripped with fear and contempt.
“How’d she beat it?” Betty challenged, pointing at me.
“Don’t matter,” Frieda said, trying to yank me away from my dog. “You gotta go back in there.”
Pirate had curled on his back, fighting for every breath. I never should have brought him here.
“Listen to me!” Frieda demanded. “You let loose one of the death spells. You’re going to kill Ant Eater and your little dog, if you don’t reverse this now. Find the white jar. Betty, you get the matches. Go!”
I dashed back inside. The air felt wet with smoke. It reminded me of the way Hillary used to make me steam my pores. But it wasn’t hard to breathe. If anything, it was easier. Seeing was another matter. I stumbled over Ant Eater’s body. I found her arms and struggled to drag her out of the trailer. I had her head onto the front porch when Frieda started screaming again. “Get the jar. Now!”
A cloud of red smoke churned inside the trailer. I couldn’t see a foot in front of my face. I felt my way along the wall next to the door, nudging the floorboards with my feet until I knocked up against a pyramid of jars. I grabbed as many as I could carry and headed for the front porch. I lined them up on the weathered gray wood. Two blues, a pink and the ear jar. No good.
Ant Eater’s fingertips had turned blue. Her face wedged against the open screened door.
I ducked back inside. On the fourth trip, I found the white jar. While the contents of the other jars swirled and smoked, I could have mistaken this one for a jar of white paint. But then I noticed the tiny bubbles, like soda fizzies.
Frieda grabbed it from me. “You can’t look at it too long.” She’d pulled off her hair scarf and used it to shield her face from the smoke pouring from the front door.
We left Ant Eater on the front porch, half in and half out of the trailer. By this time, the crowd had swelled to a throng as every witch and werewolf within ten miles gathered to see what Frieda would do next.
Frieda dumped the white liquid out near the front steps of the trailer. “Let death be broken. Let life surmount.”
Her face took on a look of panic. She turned back to Betty and me. “Shit. We don’t have a death. We need a death. Betty?”
“I’ll get the roadkill.”
“No, wait.” I had a better idea. I dashed up the front steps of the trailer and found the ear.
She nodded. “Drop it in.”
I twisted the jar open. Formaldehyde fumes burned my nose. Eyes watering, I dipped my fingers into the liquid and retrieved the ear. I threw it down onto Frieda’s soup and tried not to wince as it flopped wetly into the white goo. She struck a match, dropped it and the whole thing went up like she threw lighter fluid onto a burning barbeque pit. Energy rushed past us in a soundless wave. I found myself holding my breath for no reason as I reached down for Pirate. He coughed.
“Baby dog!” I scooped him up in my arms as he hacked up a storm. Finally, he opened his eyes. “Are you all right?”
He blinked, his eyes watering. “Oh yeah, sure,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I get whacked by crazy ladies all the time.” He sneezed.
I hugged him to my chest.
“Now that’s nice. I like that,” he said, his cold nose finding my collarbone. “Anyone ever tell you how pretty you smell?”
Like roadkill and severed ears, I imagined, wiping my free hand on my ruined pants. The outfit Frieda had lent me was a total loss. Of course so was the outfit Frieda had on, I noticed, as she knelt over a coughing Ant Eater, who was still half in, half outside the trailer and holding the screened door open with her head.
Time to face the music.
“How are you?” I asked, careful to stay out of her reach.
Ant Eater hacked like a seasoned smoker and looked at me through bloodshot eyes. “They tell me you walked right through a death spell.”
I hadn’t really had time to think about it until right then. But I had. Several times if you wanted to count my trips in and out of the trailer, trying to track down the white jar to reverse the spell. “I guess it doesn’t work on me,” I said, in the understatement of the year.
Ant Eater nodded. She coughed several times, without covering her mouth. When she finished, she used the back of her hand to wipe away a clump of spit from her bottom lip. She eyed me like I’d grown four feet and gained two hundred pounds. “How about I don’t try to kill you and you don’t try to kill me?”
“Deal,” I said.
“Now get me up,” she said, struggling to sit. “And get some of the young ones in here to clean up the place. I want all my jars in my room. If I gotta live here with this pain in my ass, we might as well keep a tidy living room.” She snapped my bra and chuckled when I jumped. No way I’d ever understand Ant Eater.
“You still want me to live with you after I nearly choked you to death?” If anything good had to come out of the afternoon, I hoped I could at least end the nightmare roommate situation.
She adjusted the American flag bandana around her neck. “I don’t want your dirty undies hanging next to mine either, hot stuff. But I don’t see anyone else around here who wants to live with you while Rex is out for blood.”
“What?”
She seemed to enjoy my shock. “Yeah.” She paused for a long, hacking cough that brought tears to her eyes. “Assholes like that will zero in on a weak spot. You.” She braced her hands on her knees. “I was getting to that in the diner before your boyfriend pulled a gun on me.”
I wanted to remind her she had a shotgun pointed at my chest at the time, but I stopped myself.
She grinned and wiped her eyes on her bandana. “You might be useless, but after today, I got hope.”
“Thanks.”
�
��Rex won’t come round here.” She eyed her shotgun. “Mine’s bigger than his.”
I’d known we weren’t completely safe here, or anywhere, but…I glanced back at the rapidly thinning crowd. “Don’t we have a deal with the werewolves?”
Ant Eater succumbed to another coughing fit.
Frieda chewed at the corner of her unadorned lips. “For now. The fact is the alpha wants to use you to clean up around here. Rex is gunning for him hard. If you screw up, or if Rex kills you, the alpha looks weak.”
Oh great. Kill me to get to some guy I’ve never even met before.
Frieda tugged at her soot-stained corset top. “You okay, babe?” she asked Ant Eater, who nodded, face red, as she hunkered over to catch her breath. “Come on inside. Both of you. You’ll feel better after a shower and a change of clothes. Andrea and some of the wolves headed to the Goodwill in Monroe City.”
While Ant Eater shuffled inside, I turned to Frieda. “I’m sorry about these,” I said, rubbing at the leather pants she’d lent me. A hunk of gravel dislodged from the pants and clattered to the deck.
“Well,” she said watching the gravel bounce under a petrified towel, “like the saying goes: it’s not what you lose, it’s what you do with what you have left.”
“Who said that?” I asked, following her through the screened door. “Maya Angelou?”
“Oprah.”
Amazingly, the red smoke had whooshed away as fast as it had appeared. But dang, we’d sure made a wreck out of the place. Frieda helped me hoist the saggy brown couch upright. We planted Ant Eater on it. Frieda and a few of the younger witches helped me clean up the broken glass, then headed out, leaving me with a sleeping Ant Eater. I was about ready to take a break myself when Andrea the Annoying banged on the screened door. I don’t know why she bothered because she barged right in before I could invite her…or tell her to scram.
She stepped her high-heeled boots daintily around an overturned coffee table. “Heard about your accident.” She tried to contain a snigger but couldn’t. “Pity power struggles are always so messy. I wouldn’t want to end up on the wrong side of one. Bloody, bloody, bloody messes if you ask me.”
