toad witch 04 - aunt tilly were canning demons

by Christiana Miller

  “Like a diet-based shapeshifter?”

  “Exactly!”

  Gus scratched the back of his head. “That would narrow things down a lot.”

  “I know, right? There’s a ton of different demons in those books, but not a lot of shapeshifting demons.”

  “So, if you’re right, we’re looking for a demon currently in the shape of a wolf-dog?”

  I gasped, remembering Frank’s odd wolf-dog and its eyes flashing red.

  “Would you stop doing that? It’s annoying,” Gus said.

  “I think I know where the demon is. And I think I know who its next target is going to be. Who’s the biggest predators of wolves? Humans, right?”

  “Well, yeah, through habitat destruction and hunting. But we don’t eat them. That’s disgusting.”

  “But if the demon is working its way up the food chain? Humans are at the top.”

  “Actually, I think the whale shark is at the top. The gentle giant of the sea that has no predators. Humans are somewhere in the middle. Between pigs and anchovies.”

  I shot him a dirty look. “Humans are the hegemonic species. Better?”

  “I’ll accept it. Why? What are you thinking?”

  “Our homeless guy, Frank. Remember? The morning after the demon ate that wolf-dog, and you closed the portal, so it was trapped here, Frank had a feral wolf-dog hanging out with him.”

  “You think that wolf-dog’s our demon?”

  “I really do. Which means he’s in danger.” I looked out the window and cringed when I saw that nightfall had hit. “We have to find Frank. Pip, you stay here with Aunt Tillie, and don’t hurt each other. That’s an order. Gus, let’s get moving.”

  WE LOCKED up and ran out. Frank wasn’t in front of the store or the cottage. We went around the side and the back of the store, through the alley, but we didn’t see him anywhere.

  “The demon seems to be drawn to Emily’s yard. Let’s go there,” Gus suggested.

  I nodded. Gus started running, but I was panting too hard to run. I followed at a brisk walk, holding my belly, until I could catch up to him. He was already talking to Emily when I arrived.

  “No, I haven’t seen any wolf-dogs around. Do you need to stake out the back yard again? You’d better do something, because I’m telling you, if I find bones by morning, you’re refunding my money, in full.”

  I groaned. Which must have been more audible than I intended. Gus shot me a look and then asked Emily if she had seen our homeless guy.

  “This time of night? He’s probably staking out the dumpsters, waiting for the grocery store to close. Freaking dumpster divers. Dumpsters are not makeshift pantries. What the hell is wrong with people?”

  “Poverty, I imagine,” Gus said.

  He turned and walked down the stairs. I caught up with Gus at the intersection, as he was waiting to cross the street.

  “Hold on,” I said, panting. “I can’t run.”

  Gus grinned. “Yeah, but watching you try, with that giant beachball you’re carrying, has been pretty amusing.” I shot him a look. “Okay, Miss Daisy, let’s get the car.”

  THE GROCERY STORE was in a strip mall, so it was surrounded by a lot of other businesses. Actually, more of a strip rectangle, with the grocery store taking up the back half and the front half lined with an electronics store, a fast-food place, a nail salon, an auto parts store, a cell phone store, a liquor store and a 99-cent store along its perimeter.

  We drove through the lot and finally spotted Frank and his dog hanging over by the grocery store dumpsters, hidden in the shadows. The security lights looked like they had blown out in that corner. The rest of the lot was about half-full with cars and people.

  “If that wolf-dog is our demon, we can’t just go confront it in a public place, without a plan,” I said. “We need to prepare.”

  “Agreed. But what if it’s just a wolf-dog?” Gus asked. I shot him a look and he held up his hands in surrender. “Just playing Devil’s Advocate.”

  “Either way, if it attacks, I’m pushing you in front of me. I have a baby to look out for.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he grinned and checked his watch. “We have an hour and a half before the grocery store closes and the strip mall goes dark. If it stays true to form, we’ll have another hour before it goes full-on demon and the teeth and claws come out.”

  “Good. Just enough time to go back to the Crooked Pantry and put together a little demon arsenal.” We pulled out of the lot and turned down the street.

  PIP AND AUNT TILLIE were pointedly ignoring each other in the store, and the quiet was a welcome relief.

  “I’ve been checking out Mama Lua’s supplies,” I told Gus. “I think she has enough stuff here for us to can the demon.”

  “Now we’re talking. Canning demons. That’s my kind of fun,” Gus grinned.

  “Goddess help us,” muttered Aunt Tillie.

  “I would feel better about it if we knew its name,” I said. There was power in names. That’s why witches generally had a secret name that they only shared with close family.

  “We can keep looking, but we’re running out of time,” Gus said.

  “Copy that.” I looked through the shelves, snagging what we were going to need, while Gus got on his cell phone with Nick, taking care of the mundane side of things.

  “Don’t be a douchebag,” Gus said, putting the phone on speaker, while he pulled Ceremonial Magick books off the shelves. “Work with me a little bit. It’s not like I’m asking for much. Just some type of body protection. You know what would be good? Kevlar vests.”

  “I’m not giving you department-issue vests. I can get you what we put on attackers in the women’s self-defense classes.”

  “Are you kidding me? They look like giant bugs with helmets. If we go in looking like insectoid terrorists or a cross between Hannibal Lector and the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, someone’s going to call the cops on us. We need something more subtle.”

  “No Kevlar.”

  Gus sighed. “What do you suggest, then?”

  “Let me think about it.”

  “Think fast. We’re going into battle in two short hours. Not days. Hours. With something that has teeth and claws and a high prey drive and may be part wolf.”

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you two back the fuck off and call animal control to take care of it.”

  “That would be great. Unless it’s actually a demon. They would get eaten. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

  “Do you know that for sure? Or is this one of your typical Gus guessing games?”

  “Does it really matter? Do you really want to see my beautiful mug covered in teethmarks? Are you going to take care of me if it cripples me for life? And then there’s Mara. She’d be easy prey for a miniature poodle, she’s so slow.”

  I could hear Nick sigh as he hung up. As I pulled supplies together, I saw Gus paging through the Ceremonial Magick books.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Brushing up on demon-canning,” he said.

  I stopped, suddenly worried. “Wait. You’re supposed to be the one who knows about this stuff. I’m the one who needs to look stuff up and ask for advice. You do know what you’re doing, right?”

  He waved my concerns away. “It’ll be fine, Miss Thing. Nothing for you to worry about. I’m just double-checking my plan.”

  Ceremonial magicians lived to can demons. It was one of their favorite things to do. I knew Gus had probably forgotten more about canning demons than I had ever known, since he had dabbled in ceremonial magick for awhile, but it still didn’t make me feel any better. Hopefully, one of those authors had put a comprehensive how-to in one of their books.

  So much magick was passed on verbally, and through hands-on experience, it was always a toss-up what you’d find in print. Sometimes it was good, and sometimes, it was utter crap. And sometimes, things in print left out important steps intentionally, or mixed up the order of things, to ke
ep sycamores and baby witches from getting into trouble.

  Aunt Tillie snorted. “You might have better luck praying. I’ve never met two more bumbling wanna-be witches.”

  “Praying’s good,” Pip agreed. “If anyone’s listening. Sometimes, they seem to go on walkabout for a bit. That’s when things get really interesting.”

  “Shut up, both of you,” I said to Aunt Tillie and Pip. “And that’s an order. I hear one more word, you can forget ever getting out of here.”

  “Six of one, half dozen of another,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “I’ll be stuck here if you get eaten, too.”

  “Unless it only eats one of them,” Pip said.

  “There is that,” Aunt Tillie agreed.

  “I put my money on the rotund one. She’s not coming back.”

  “I put my money on the ape. The girl is more resourceful than she looks.”

  “Seriously, the two of you need to shut the fuck up, now, before I do something unspeakable and irreversible.” I had no idea what I was going to do, but they didn’t need to know that. And I must have sold it, because they finally hushed up.

  I looked at my watch. We were doing good on time. So, I went into the ritual room to send up a quick prayer to Hekate. After all, who better to have on your side when you’re canning demons, than the Goddess in charge of witchcraft, magick and demons?

  I CREATED SACRED SPACE, setting and consecrating the circle, inviting the ancestors in and calling in the directional deities. Then I called in the energy of Hekate. I asked her to look after us, so that we would return safely from our mission. Once the ritual was done, I gathered up the circle and put its energy around me like a cloak. I had a feeling I was going to need it.

  WHEN I CAME BACK into the store, Gus looked up from his books. “You were gone awhile.”

  I looked at my watch. Damn it. Going into the ritual room was like stepping out of time and space. You never knew if you were going to be gone a few minutes or a few hours. What I had thought was a fifteen minute ritual had actually been an hour.

  Gus closed his book. “Okay, what do we have on the demon canning side?”

  I showed him everything I had set out on the counter. “One brass canopic jar with an Anubis lid.”

  “Cool! Any organs in it?”

  I gave him a look. “It’s a for-sale one, not from a collection of mummified organs.”

  “Shame. I’d pay more for a used one.”

  “I’ll bet.” I continued with my inventory. “A container of graveyard dirt, another container of bone dust. A container of sea salt. And an empty vial to mix them in. Chalk to draw the circle. Any luck with the books?”

  “Enough,” Gus said. “It jogged my memory a bit, which was what I needed. It would be better if we knew which demon we were dealing with though.”

  “No kidding,” I said, mixing ingredients together.

  “On the bonus side, I learned how to drop the wards around this place.”

  “Which would be an exceedingly bad idea. What about Anubis? Can’t we call him up and have him deal with whatever this demon is?”

  “That’s tricky. It could work, or we could wind up with both our demon and Anubis going walk-about in Los Angeles, leaving a swath of death, destruction and bones in their wake.”

  “You come up with an idea, then.”

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” He got up and walked down the hall to the bathroom.

  “Close the door!” I hollered after him. I swear that boy had an aversion to peeing in private.

  Just then, Nick showed up, knocking on the door to the store, visibly annoyed.

  “Is my nut-job of a brother here?” he asked, after I let him in.

  “Bathroom,” I said, as I went back to my mixing. “He’ll be out in a minute.”

  Which he was. He walked out, drying his hands on his pants. Which meant, at least, that he had washed his hands. Which was an improvement.

  I don’t get why it’s so hard for a guy to wash his hands after he pees. My working theory was that guys spend so much time with their hands on their penis, they don’t see the point, unless they get pee on their hands. It’s right up there with why do guys talk on the phone with you, while they’re peeing? Isn’t that what the mute button is for?

  “Can’t you see we’re busy, getting ready to battle a demon?” Gus asked.

  Nick looked at him for a few beats. “You’re lucky I grew up in the same family as you. Any other cop hears you spout this shit, you’ll be in a 72-hour lockdown in the mental ward.”

  “Which is why I wouldn’t be telling any other cop, dummy.” Gus said.

  “Any luck finding its name? Mom always told us there’s power in names.”

  I shook my head. “We’ve been trying, but we’re out of time. It’s going to make its move tonight.”

  “So, why are you here?” Gus asked.

  Nick took a gallon bottle out of a shopping back and put it on the counter. “Holy water, just in case.”

  “Oh, hold up. I have something perfect for that…” Gus ran out to get whatever it was.

  Nick looked after Gus, and muttered, “Squirrel.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Squirrel. I swear that boy can’t focus. Anything shiny sends him spinning off in a different direction.”

  I sealed the vial of ingredients I was mixing and gave Nick a smile. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I’m starting to remember why I liked having Gus thousands of miles away.”

  After a few minutes, Gus walked back in with a super-soaker water gun, which he proceeded to fill with holy water.

  “This is going to be awesome!” Gus crowed. Then he looked around. “Where’s the rest of it? Where’s our personal padding and protective gear?”

  Nick handed him a pepper spray canister. “Just in case it’s a real wolf-dog, and he tries to bite your face off for fucking with him. I suggest you spray fast and get the hell out of the way.”

  So, pepper spray did work on animals. I checked my pocket, to make sure I still had mine.

  “Seriously? Pepper spray and holy water? That’s it? What about a gun, at least?”

  “In your dreams.”

  “You have a gun. Are you going to help us, or not?”

  “You’re not dragging me into your mess. Your demon, you deal with it.”

  I smacked Gus’s arm. “He can’t help us. The demon would kill him.” I turned to Nick. “No offense, but bullets don’t stop demons. And you can’t throw it in a jail cell. You’re not trained to help with this.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. Gus got the magick, I got the brains and the brawn,” Nick said.

  “You wish,” Gus snorted. “You got the brawn, period. I got everything else. If anything happens to us, I’m going to come back and haunt you.”

  “Sure you are. You’re going to turn into a lame-ass ghost who messes with my cable TV.” He looked at his watch. “I gotta run. Try not to get eaten. But if one of you has to be sacrificed, be a man and save the chick.”

  “Nice,” Gus said.

  “And put a rush on the research, okay? If this really is a demon and it’s going to target humans, you two need to get on top of it quick. I’m going to get cranky if I start running into dead humans.” As Nick was leaving, I heard him mutter: “That’s all I need. A town full of confused and pissed-off, half-eaten spirits chapping my ass.” And with that, he was off.

  “Fleshist,” Aunt Tillie muttered. “Typical mouth-breather. Giving us spirits a bad name.”

  “I don’t think he meant it that way, Aunt Tillie,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Aunt Tillie said. “Don’t get eaten.”

  BY THE TIME we pulled into the parking lot, the stores were shut down, and the lot was empty.

  I didn’t see Frank anywhere at first, but then I felt the baby move. I turned to see where the baby was looking, and I spotted Frank and the demon-dog completely in the shadows, a few feet away from the dumpsters, under another blown-out security li
ght. I could barely make out Frank sitting on the ground.

  I wondered if the demon was the reason the lights were blowing out. When we spent the night at Emily’s, all the street lights and house lights in the area had gone out, leaving the yard in pitch blackness.

  I nudged Gus and pointed. “Show time.”

  As we got closer, it seemed to me that Frank was looking dejected and the demon-dog looked like it was snoozing.

  “Probably conserving its energy before its attacks the poor man,” Gus said.

  “Do you know what we’re doing?”

  Gus shrugged. “I figured we’d start with a containment circle, and play it by ear.”

  “That’s it? That’s our plan? That’s the best you could come up with?”

  “Yeah, without knowing which demon we’re dealing with, I’m having to wing it a little bit. We’ll just need to move fast. First we get Frank out of the way. I’ll close the containment circle around the beast and then I’ll banish it. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll can the fucker. I have the canning supplies in my pack. We’ll get it done, don’t worry.”

  I shuddered. Impromptu demon-canning. Yeah, nothing could go wrong with that. “I’m pushing you in front of me, if it starts to look peckish.”

  I WALKED OVER TO FRANK, pepper spray in hand. I could feel the baby stirring and looking around. As I got closer, another security light flickered and went out. Magick, electricity and fire often operated on the same wavelength and there had to be an overload of magick in this place.

  “What’s the matter, Frank? You seem down,” I said, trying to keep a safe distance from the demon-dog. Behind Frank, I could barely make Gus out, getting busy in the shadows, starting to lay a chalk circle around us.

  “Stupid store. They’re so afraid of being sued if anyone eats dumpster food, they decided to ship the old food to Compton, to compost it. No more salvaging food out of the dumpster. What’s that about? All the grocery stores now, their food gets old, they either donate or compost. How are people like me supposed to eat?”