by Angie Fox
My Big Fat Demon Slayer Wedding
( Demon Slayer - 5 )
Angie Fox
Lizzie Brown is about to have the destination wedding her dreams. But as this former preschool teacher knows, being a demon slayer makes everything more complicated. The vengeful Earl of Hell is still on her tail. And now it seems that one of the guests at the eccentric, seaside mansion is possessed and trying to kill her. Maybe she should just elope.
The groom, studly shape-shifting griffin Dimitri Kallinikos, vows to protect her at all costs. Yet even he is acting suspicously. And minions of the devil are popping up everywhere. Now Lizzie must protect her socialite mother, her Greek inlaws and her grandmother’s gang of biker witches – all of whom are convinced they know what’s best for her, and her big day. As the wedding draws closer, Lizzie has to learn who is behind the attacks – and fast – or risk losing everyone she loves.
My Big Fat Demon Slayer Wedding
Demon Slayer 5
by
Angie Fox
Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Alexx Miller and Sherrie Hill for early reads.
Chapter One
My biker witch grandma shut down her Harley and pulled off her helmet, letting loose a tangle of long, gray hair. “You need help, Lizzie Brown,” she said, as if I were the one sporting a flaming skull do-rag, rhinestone-studded riding glasses, and a brand new Ride It Like You Stole It tattoo.
I snorted. “I’m not the one making us late.” I pried off my riding gloves as she blithely hitched her leg over her motorcycle. Shaking my head, I watched her amble toward a bohemian farmers market set up on the side of a country road. It was as if it sprang from the earth between two California strawberry fields.
There was nothing to the place—a stretch of sandy soil in front of a half-dozen or so colorful tents. A mishmash of tables held everything from broccoli to kiwi, mixed in with dozens of kinds of jams, a healthy display of pottery, and a few more specialized booths.
“This better be important,” I said, finding my sunglasses in my back pocket.
Not that I objected to the woman selling erotic redwood carvings or the guy peddling bongs made from hollowed-out pineapples and carrots, but we had a bridal tea party in about an hour, and seeing that I was the bride, I’d rather not be late.
Grandma waited for me to catch up, her eyes narrowing. “This is vital resource gathering,” she said, which had been her excuse for leaving the main road in the first place. “And if you want to know why we stopped here, take a look at your necklace.”
I glanced down. When we’d first met, my fiancé had given me an emerald pendant that held ancient protective magic. Only it had been cold and unresponsive ever since our run in with the Earl of Hell. Now the large, teardrop shaped stone glowed against my bare skin. “Why?” I asked, touching it, feeling the warmth radiate from it.
Grandma shook her head. “Impossible to say. I’ll feel better after I grab some goodies to juice my protective wards.”
This entire stop made me nervous. “Let’s make it quick,” I said, heading for the market.
Grandma snorted as she fell in next to me.
Yes, well, we’d just sent twenty-four biker witches, plus my dog, to my mother’s party before us.
Maybe I was glad I wouldn’t be around for that part.
I hadn’t even seen my mother since I’d become a demon slayer. And now, in true Hillary Brown style, she’d flown in from Atlanta, rented a historic house, and was throwing a week’s worth of parties before my wedding. I’d run into many fearsome creatures, but nothing like my mom in full hostess mode.
I sighed as Grandma shook the road dust from her fringed black leather pants.
The two sides had to meet sooner or later. Still, Better Homes & Gardens was my mom’s bible, and the biker witches only knew the difference between lilac and mint because they used both in the spell jars they liked to hurl at people who wanted to kill us.
“What are we looking for?” I asked, as she headed for the fruit stand.
“Kiwis, apples, and grave dirt,” she said, nodding to the guy behind the table. “The fresher the better.”
I shrugged. “At least with the fruit.”
She merely rolled her eyes.
Grandma didn’t like staying in new places without casting a spell to see what was already in the neighborhood. I was all for it, in theory, but in this case, I wished we could have skipped it.
I leaned up against a tent pole while she struck up a lively conversation with the vendor about male versus female fruit. Because that makes a difference in spell casting.
Hells bells, it probably did.
Meanwhile the too-skinny, hippie-looking bong seller kept trying to make eye contact with me. Please. I’d tried real cigarettes only once. On a dare. After a particularly strong amaretto sour. I hadn’t been much of a risk taker before I’d learned I was a demon slayer and hooked up with the biker witches. I was still getting used to it.
I gazed out over the strawberry fields.
Wouldn’t you know it—there was a small family graveyard near the edge, partially shaded by a copse of trees. It was old, with an iron gate that leaned drunkenly to one side.
Nothing like one stop shopping.
I was half way there when the emerald at my neck began to hum. I stopped.
This was the necklace that had morphed into body armor when I needed it, tied me to a tree when I didn’t, and fainted dead away at the sight of the Earl of Hell. I supposed everything had its limits.
I held my breath as the bronze chain went liquid, reforming into a heavier looped chain. The warm metal poured over and around the emerald. It hardened around the stone, transforming the pendant into an ornate bronze locket with the emerald at the center.
Okay. I had to think about this one.
I’d never had my jewelry transform into…jewelry.
A change in the necklace usually meant I was about to face a confrontation, or that I needed protection. In this case, I had a stylish accessory.
I blew out a breath. The more I learned about demon slaying, the more I needed to figure out.
Grandma was busy inspecting an apple as if she could see through it. No help there. I didn’t feel as if I were in immediate danger. Of course, that usually meant I was about to get ambushed.
The new pendant felt heavy around my neck, ominous. I approached the cemetery a little slower than before. Beyond it lay the ruins of an old Victorian farmhouse. No telling how long ago the family had abandoned this place, and their dead.
A warm breeze blew in from the south as I pushed open the gate. It creaked from time and neglect. There were only three graves that I could see. Scraggly grass and weeds clung to the sandy soil around them.
Two of the graves were marked with standard, rounded headstones. The last one, on the far right, was shaped like an obelisk. It must have been grand at one time. It had softened at the edges with age and black discoloration had washed over the stone. The battered inscription read: Elizabeth 1893.
I bent in front of it and gathered a palm full of dirt. Where I was going to put it was another question.
“Help me,” a voice whispered.
I spun and drew a switch star from my belt. Switch stars were the weapon of the slayers. It was round-shaped like a Chinese throwing star, only with jagged edges that twirled like saw blades when I threw it.
But there was no one behind me to fight. I turned in a small circle. A trickle of sweat slicked the back of my neck. I could have sworn I heard a voice. It was urgent, desperate.
“Hello?” I asked, fingers digging into the grips on the star.
A breeze rustled through the
trees.
“Help me.”
“Who are you?” I demanded.
There was no response.
I waited, opening up my demon slayer senses and searching for anything, good or evil, that could have made that request.
There was nothing.
Grandma ambled up from the market, a produce bag in hand.
“What are you doing?” She eased through the gate I’d left half open. “You say you’re in a hurry and I catch you farting around in the cemetery.”
I sheathed my switch star. “I heard a voice,” I said, scanning the cemetery, half expecting to hear it again.
She stood next to me, listening, her hands on her hips, the bag dangling from her left wrist. After a little while, she shrugged. “I doubt it’s anybody we know. You get the dirt?”
“I’m working on it.” I’d been a little distracted.
She pulled a Ziploc from her pocket and bent to grab some from the grave at my feet. The one where I’d heard…something.
“Take it from the middle one instead,” I told her.
She shrugged and did as I asked.
I touched my necklace, which was now a locket.
Now or never.
Maybe I hadn’t even heard a voice, but I was pretty sure that I had. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
There was no telling who it belonged to, or why it had spoken to me. But it didn’t feel threatening or evil.
I couldn’t walk away, not without trying to make a difference.
Besides, my necklace had always looked out for me in the past, protected me. And it had given me a way to take some of the grave dirt with me.
I bent and pinched two fingers full from the base of the obelisk. Grandma raised her brows, but didn’t say anything as I opened my locket and stashed it inside.
Chapter Two
We gunned our engines and made it back to the Pacific Coast Highway in record speed. It was a gorgeous, cliff-hugging thrill ride.
I felt good. Alive.
Yes, my biker witch family was about to meet my society family. And yes, we were also going to be adding my fiancé’s Greek relatives into the mix. But I was also about to marry the most gorgeous, sexy, strong, and wonderful man on the planet.
End of story. I hoped.
It was pretty remote this far south of Monterey. We passed Hearst Castle, with its spires jutting out to the impossibly blue sky. There was almost no shoulder on the right of the road, only a sharp drop to the ocean. To the left were hills lush with spiky wild grasses and dotted with blue oaks, their knotted trunks twisted like bohemian art.
I could see why turn-of-the-century timber barons and railroad tycoons built their getaways out here among the cliffs and the wilderness. It felt like another world, one where I could easily lose myself.
In fact, I almost missed the turn off, a lonely paved road mostly hidden by a large cypress. An iron spike jutted from the ground near the tree, and it had white and silver balloons tied around it. My wedding colors.
My front tire skidded sideways as I turned a little too fast. Grandma was right behind; but her rubber burn was deliberate.
“You should have gone with black and silver,” she hollered over the noise of the engines.
“So you don’t have to buy a new outfit? I don’t like you that much,” I said, noticing the mini champagne glasses dangling from the balloon ties. Leave it to my mother.
Grandma let out a guffaw as I gunned my engine past the gate and up the drive. Frankly, I’d get married in a garden shed if it meant saying ‘yes’ to Dimitri. We’d been through so much together, and there had been times when I wondered if my life, if being with me, was too much for him. Not everyone is cut out to marry a demon slayer.
He loved me. He really did. And I would never take that for granted.
The drive wound up a hill, with cypress planted in neat rows on either side, interspersed with—I slowed my bike to get a better look—stone gargoyles. I was used to seeing them on buildings, not as yard art. Someone had interesting taste.
At the top of the hill, the path opened up to a large, flat lawn with artfully trimmed hedges, a fountain and one of the most bizarre looking old mansions I’d ever seen.
It was made entirely of black stone, with ominous looking sculptures anchored to the swooping gray slate roof. They looked like werewolves, only stockier, with sharp spines on their backs and mouths full of angry black teeth.
It was enough to make me pull up short. “What are those?” I squinted to get a better look. “And what’s with the pitch of the roof?” You could build a ski jump up there.
Grandma shielded her eyes with her hand. “Oh, the shock of it. A millionaire with more money than taste.” She unstrapped her helmet. “You should see the crazy looking spikes on the roof of the Winchester Mystery House.”
“I’ll put that on the list.” I hadn’t traveled much, at least until I’d gotten mixed up with Grandma and her gang. We’d been too busy fighting minions of the underworld to do much sight seeing.
Still, I could see the recruitment posters now: Be a demon slayer and see the world!
So far, I’d been to Las Vegas, California, the Greek islands—not to mention, purgatory, hell and a psycho demon’s laboratory. Come to think of it, a recruiter would need more than a poster.
I hitched a leg over my bike and almost stepped into one of the elaborately trimmed bushes. It sported inch-long thorns and red berries that were probably poisonous.
Never mind. Unless it grew fangs and tried to eat me, I wasn’t going to let a creepy shrub ruin my day.
I dug in my saddlebags for my overnight backpack.
We had a week. One week. And I was going to enjoy it, even if my mom had rented some crazy gothic house in the middle of nowhere.
Hades. I slung my bag over my shoulder.
The sprawling main building had a tower on each side. It looked like there might even be a stone walkway above the second floor, below the roof. The windows were opulent, pointed at the top and decorated with stone carvings of vines and crazy beasts.
It was untamed, fantastical even. I shook my head. I couldn’t escape the fact. “This is so unlike Hillary.”
“To be fair, you sprang an entire summer wedding on her,” Grandma said, drawing a few spell jars out of her saddlebag. “She was probably lucky to find this place.”
“Are you expecting trouble?” I asked as she handed me a Mind Wiper. Inside, a living spell hovered. It was sticky sweet pink and reminded me of a gob of silly putty. The spell refashioned itself at will—flattening, lengthening, and twirling. It saw me watching and did a somersault before thunking up flat against the glass. “Hello to you, too.”
Grandma grinned, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “That’s Rose.” She held up her own jar. “I’ve got Blanche and Dorothy, you know, in case things get out of hand.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Like usual.”
“Yes, well let’s hope the Golden Girls can take a break.” I balanced the jar against my hip as I veered toward the side of the house. “I want to try and go in the back way,” I said when she hesitated.
Grandma frowned. “You sense something bad? If something’s after us, Lizzie, it’s going to attack no matter what.”
“Who said anything about attacking?” I asked, skirting around a box hedge. “I’m trying to avoid my mother. At least until I change out of these leather pants.” Not to mention my midriff-baring purple bustier. Hillary would blow a gasket if she saw me in this get-up.
Grandma caught up to me. “Let me get this straight,” she drawled. “You’re willing to face off against the Earl of Hell, but you don’t want your mamma to see you in leather pants?”
“That’s about right.” And I wasn’t going to apologize for it, either.
I ignored her chuckling and opened up my slayer powers. Just in case.
We passed a crowd of bikes parked next to several trellises of purple roses.
“This place is buck wild,” I said, looking twice at
a fountain along the side of the house. The laughing centaur at the center looked like he could eat my face.
Relax. He was made of iron. Completely decorative. Maybe we could give him a little flower necklace or something.
Now I was thinking like Hillary.
But truly, even if this place was creepy, and the result of a lack of time—or options—mom had unwittingly found the perfect location to stash biker witches, griffins, my pet dragon and anyone else who might be a little noticeable at a more traditional wedding. Not to mention my mentor, the necromancer.
Grandma seemed to be thinking the same thing. “I got to tell you, I haven’t been anywhere this nice since your uncle’s funeral in Vegas.”
I didn’t remind her that she’d been to Dimitri’s villa in Santorini. The biker witches had definitely left their mark.
“This may look imposing, but I really am keeping the wedding simple,” I said, rounding the corner.
Out back was a huge garden, with stone-lined paths and all kinds of plants and flowers done up in triangular patterns. Silver pots filled with purple prairie flowers and tied with a white ribbon lined the walk up to a large, stone porch.
Yes, Hillary was in charge. Obviously. But I wasn’t having any bridesmaids, I ordered my dress from the Ann Taylor online store and we were keeping this as straightforward as possible. And I loved my dress, by the way. It was simple, classic, like I’d always wanted.
Grandma stopped as she eyed the obnoxiously large white tulip and magnolia wreath on the back door. “Does your mom know you’re a demon slayer yet?”
“I want to tell her in person,” I said, as if I hadn’t been avoiding the entire conversation.
She snarfed. “Did you tell her we’re witches?”
This whole thing was making me uncomfortable. “I wasn’t exactly sure how to phrase that.”
She gave me a sidelong glance. “You did mention that the groom is a mythical shape-shifting griffin.”
“No,” I snapped. I’d tell Hillary in my own good time. Preferably before Dimitri or any of his relatives landed in the back yard. “First, we’re going to get through the tea party this afternoon.”
