What to Expect When Your Demon Slayer is Expecting

by Angie Fox

  I leaned back against the dresser. Mom had been inside my condo many times. Why had the demon waited until I was almost here before it attacked my mom?

  You’d think it would have happened when I was in Greece or in purgatory or anywhere else besides here.

  Unless it was using my mom to lure me into something awful. But what? It had to show itself in order to get me, and as of then, it hadn’t even given us a hint as to what kind it was or what it could do.

  I gritted my teeth. I could think of one person who might be able to help me sort out the motives of evil, but my mentor, Rachmort, was in purgatory. He spent half the year down there ministering to lost souls. Grandma was in the weeds, same as me. And that left the last person on earth—or in spirit—that I wanted to ask.

  I’d met a spirit in New Orleans on my last adventure, an old soul with a questionable agenda. He had haunted the tower room in Ant Eater’s old family home, and it was sheer chance that I’d been the first person to encounter him there.

  He’d wanted to ‘talk’ in the same way that Hannibal Lector chatted with Clarice. Or at least that was how it felt to me. The spirit never asked me for anything outright, but I had the feeling he was racking up points for a big favor later—one I’d dread.

  I’d been glad to leave him behind and didn’t relish the idea of getting back in touch, if I even knew how to do it. No way Grandma would help. She wanted nothing to do with him.

  I felt a stirring at the edge of my consciousness and stood up straight. “Okay, that’s weird,” I said to no one in particular.

  It felt like…him, a sickly sweet presence in the back of my mind.

  I blew out a breath and strolled toward my bed. “It’s fine,” I reminded myself. It wasn’t as if merely thinking about the spirit could summon him to my old bedroom.

  Could it?

  Oh, no, no, no…

  I stood in the middle of the room, my gaze darting, attempting to detect any unnatural shadows. He liked to appear in shadow, even though he didn’t need to look like anything at all. I didn’t need to be dealing with him right now, or ever again.

  His presence grew stronger in my mind.

  I fisted my hands at my sides, closed my eyes, and focused on blocking it out. It had been a mistake to speak to him in New Orleans, and an even bigger mistake to accept his help. I wasn’t going to do it again.

  Hello, Elizabeth. He surged into my mind. His voice was smooth, cloying. And dang it—distance hadn’t damped his power one bit.

  Goose bumps shot up my arms. I’d been hoping the spirit would just go away, find somebody else to haunt. Our time together should have been over.

  “You doing okay in there, Mom?” I called, desperate to talk to someone, anyone else. The shower was still going. No way she could hear me.

  I’m glad you still think about me, he crooned like a lover.

  I kept my spine straight and my tone firm. “Thinking is not calling. You need to get out of my head.”

  I like it here, he said simply.

  I slammed my eyes shut. “You know how creepy that sounds.”

  This so-called “master presence” was not an entity to encourage. That was why I hadn’t reached out to him in the first place. He had awesome power. And, yes, it had helped me defeat a crazed voodoo priest in New Orleans. But I didn’t want this to become a habit.

  My dear Elizabeth, the spirit said, chiding me, you just asked for my help.

  “I did not.” I’d considered it, and he’d barged in before I could put two thoughts together.

  You called me here, he said, as if correcting a child.

  I pressed my lips together. He was right, but his barging into my mind made me realize what a mistake it had been to even think of him in the first place.

  I’d figure out another way. The biker witches were already working on it. “You need to leave me alone now,” I said, pressing my backside against the dresser, wishing for once that one of the biker witches would come up and barge in on me. “Goodbye.”

  I’ve heard that before, but if I had left you alone in New Orleans, you and everyone you love would be Mamma Pade’s undead minions right now.

  I locked my eyes on the framed college diploma on the wall next to my old bed. I could hardly remember a time when my life was as simple as going to school, getting good grades, and hanging out in the student union after class. “We would have found a way out of that cemetery without your help.”

  Would you, really? It’s cute of you to say, but you don’t truly believe it. His voice lowered a little, taking on a more intimate quality that made me want to cringe away. You can’t lie to me, Elizabeth. You shouldn’t even try.

  I shoved off the dresser. “What do you want now?” I demanded, spinning in a circle, wishing I could at least see his face, look him in the eye. I had to stay on the offensive, verbally and emotionally, if I was going to best this creep.

  I want to help you. Just like before.

  I let out a huff.

  Just like always, he added, sugary sweet.

  There was a weird possessiveness to his tone that bothered me. It wasn’t the only thing.

  “I know you have an angle,” I told him.

  He didn’t deny it.

  I walked to the window. “What makes you think we need your help? I’ve got a coven of witches working flat out to figure this out, not to mention my own abilities.” I turned to face the empty room. “And there are plenty of other people I’d turn to for help before I ever asked you.” People like my mentor, Zebediah Rachmort, who was a powerful necromancer and a leading expert on demonic powers.

  He’s in purgatory, and you’re hiding upstairs.

  Way to cut right to the bone. My lips contorted in an involuntary snarl. “If all you’re going to do is insult me, you can—”

  A shadow passed over the room.

  Elizabeth, really. Don’t let your human urge to fight get in the way. The spirit’s voice became a bit warmer, more wheedling. I can be useful in ways you can’t even imagine.

  I didn’t want to imagine them, either.

  But you should, he almost purred. The shadows in the corners of the room deepened.

  I turned on the bedside lamp.

  It wasn’t enough.

  Imagine, with your raw power and my vast knowledge at your fingertips, you could be more than just a demon slayer. Much more. He spoke more persuasively than the snake in the Garden of Eden.

  And we all knew how that story had turned out.

  “I’m not interested,” I said, striding forward, “and I’m not going to be.” Mom’s shower still blasted, and the spirit was right on one count—I wasn’t doing her any favors hiding out up here. “You should hightail it back to New Orleans,” I said, heading for the door, “and find someone else to follow around.”

  I heard him chuckle as I turned the knob.

  I might leave you be if something more interesting came around, he offered. But, Elizabeth, there is very little in this world more interesting to me than you right now.

  Oookay, the creepiness had just increased by a factor of ten.

  I swung the door open, keeping my back straight and my motions confident. “The harder you push,” I said, bracing a hand on the jamb, “the less I’m going to want anything to do with you.”

  Oh, my dear, he said, far too delighted, we’ll see how you feel tomorrow.

  I turned my back and walked out.

  He didn’t follow.

  With blessed relief, I felt the spirit fade into my subconscious. Good riddance.

  I breathed easier with every step I took down my beige-carpeted stairs. Then I was annoyed at myself for being relieved. I was a take-no-prisoners demon slayer who didn’t crumble at the first sign of trouble.

  I was powerful, in control.

  My stomach gurgled uncomfortably. I was hungry.

  Maybe if I took care of myself, I could come at this with a new perspective. I hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that was six hours in the rear
view mirror at this point.

  I walked down into the kitchen, dodging witches and skirting around spell jars. The ubiquitous Smucker’s containers lined the walls three jars deep, but none of the spells inside seemed particularly energized. Some spells seemed to sense when they were getting close to action, even before they were let loose. I’d seen them writhe, wriggle and quiver in anticipation of doing what they were made to do, but these were all fairly placid.

  More strangeness.

  I opened my old cupboard door and looked for something to snack on. An old can of tuna, ugh, and that peanut butter was definitely past its prime. Maybe I had a—aha!

  I grabbed the box of saltines and pulled it open. The crackers had to be stale, but that didn’t matter. They pretty much tasted like cardboard from the get-go. I nibbled on a few, and my stomach settled gratefully.

  “Lizzie? What are you working on in here?”

  I whirled around to face Grandma, who was looking at me like I was the strange one. “Nothing!” Other than accidentally summoning questionable spirits from the Big Easy. “I was just hungry,” I said after swallowing my overly dry mouthful of cracker. And maybe stress eating. Sue me. I had a reason. “Did you find anything useful in the house?”

  She rolled her eyes. “What, like a convenient portal with a sign on it saying ‘Home of Fred the Demon’ on it?”

  “I’m sorry I got a little impatient before,” I said, handing her the box of saltines.

  Grandma shrugged and grabbed a small mountain of crackers. She popped the entire thing in her mouth, washing them down with a swig of Jack Daniel’s from a little flask inside her leather vest.

  “I get that you’re frustrated,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “The place was brimful of demonic smoke that even Hillary could see, and now…nothing.”

  I refused to believe it. “You had to have found something.”

  Grandma frowned. “We’re no closer to figuring out which demon has your mom than we were when we first got here.” She sighed as she capped her flask. “That’s strange in and of itself.” Her feather earrings swayed as she shook her head. “Objects and places, they have a memory of sorts. They carry the residue of things that were done in them for—years, sometimes. It shouldn’t be so damn difficult to tap into a baddie that made its move today.”

  My heart sank a little. “But it is.”

  “Yeah, it is. Even for Ant Eater.” She drew closer. “Don’t tell her I said this, but when it comes to spells that pack a punch, she’s second to none. You know that Glitterbug spell of hers that she used as a barrier to protect the house in New Orleans?”

  I remembered that spell. It had been beautiful and full of power.

  “She set it off here, and it just fizzled.”

  That wasn’t good. I set the box of crackers down on the table, my heart rate picking up a little. If the coven really wasn’t getting anywhere… “There might be another avenue we could try for information.”

  Grandma perked up. “Spill it.”

  I took a deep breath. “The spirit I met in New Orleans offered his help.”

  She looked blank for a moment then frowned so ferociously I thought her eyebrows were going to fuse in the middle of her forehead. “He’s still there? What the hell, I thought you left him behind!”

  “I did too.” Except I knew I hadn’t, not really. “But he’s here, and he says he can help.”

  “Don’t you listen to a single word that comes out of that thing’s insubstantial mouth. I mean it, Lizzie.” She pointed a silver-ringed finger at me when I opened my mouth to talk. “We don’t know enough about it to want to give it any kind of leverage over you. Heck, you don’t even know its name, do you?”

  “No.” All I really knew for certain was that it had been haunting a Ouija board before it found me, and that it knew things that had helped me in the past. “It’s not ideal,” I admitted.

  “Ha.” Grandma shook her head. “Not ideal.” She drew closer, her eyes boring into mine. “You give an inch, a thing like this might take a mile and then take another lap for good measure. You don’t want to be indebted to it. Whatever it’s offering you, you should tell it no deal and move on.”

  She was right. I knew she was right—the last thing I needed right now was to complicate things by using a supernatural consultant that I didn’t know how to shake yet. As soon as my mom was safe, we’d have to work on getting the spirit out of my head for good. “I got it. But what else can we do?”

  Grandma drew back. “That’s the question, ain’t it?” She hooked her hands into the belt of her jeans. “We’ve still got options. Come on up to the living room and we’ll talk about it.”

  We passed Frieda on the way, who had a big bundle of clothes tucked under one arm and a cheery smile on her creased face. “I thought I’d bring your mama some variety,” she said to me as she headed for the stairs. “Does she wear thongs?”

  “Not even the sandals,” I said. Frieda just laughed.

  We dodged two more witches on the way to the living room, and Grandma motioned me toward the couch. “Sit down and put your feet up, Lizzie. You look tired.”

  I did feel a little beat. I settled in on the couch, but before I could get too comfortable, Grandma squished in on one side of me and Creely squeezed in on the other. “Okay”—Creely leaned forward as Ant Eater planted herself on the green cushion that had once been Pirate’s “—the working theory is that your mother was especially open to possession because she had no defenses in place, not even an Evil Eye charm bracelet. This was obviously an oversight on our part.”

  “On my part especially,” Grandma owned. “I should’ve warded her after the wedding, but it slipped my mind.”

  “I blame the keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon,” Ant Eater said, crossing her legs on the floor and thoroughly squishing Pirate’s dog bed. “We never should have tripled the alcohol content with that Spell of Plenty. I’ve never had a worse hangover in my damn life.”

  “At any rate,” Creely continued, “the task in front of us now is twofold: one, we’ve got to get the demon out of your mom, and two, we’ve got to set up a defensive spell powerful enough to ward her against any other attempts at possession. To do that, we’re gonna have to brew up a mega spell.” She spread her arms apart in a “like, really big” gesture. “We need a Praesidium spell.”

  Ant Eater let out a low whistle.

  I’d never heard of it before. Admittedly, I’d never heard of a lot of spells before, but if this was as powerful as Creely said, then I wondered why no one had mentioned it to me earlier. “What does this spell do, exactly?”

  “Think of it like a mini-magical atomic bomb,” Grandma said. “You cast it, and the big boom gets this demon out, then afterward nothing else can grow there because there’s nothing for it to latch onto.”

  In this case, the cure sounded as bad as the disease. “You make it seem like you’re going to incinerate my mom’s psyche.”

  “The good stays; the bad is annihilated,” Creely explained. “It’ll make your mom feel good. It’ll help her tighten her grasp on her own spirit and purpose.”

  “Like a butt lift for the soul,” Ant Eater added with a cackle.

  “If you’re into that type of thing,” Creely teased.

  “But it won’t change her,” I clarified.

  “No,” Creely said, growing serious again. “What makes Hillary Hillary is there to stay. Still, it’s a hell of a spell, Lizzie. It can ward off all kinds of demons and soul suckers for years, even decades.”

  That couldn’t be all. “What’s the catch?” I asked. Because if it was really that easy, then I expected that the Red Skulls would be casting this spell left, right, and center.

  Grandma scratched her nose while she tried to think of a way to tell me a piece of news I probably didn’t want to hear. “It’s not a catch,” she said, “as much as a challenge.” She glanced at Creely. “The Praesidium spell is some of the highest magic an earth witch can cast, an
d it takes a lot of things from the earth to power it. Powerful herbs, rare flowers, stuff like that.”

  “And we’ve got most of it,” Creely said, brushing her bright red hair back from her face. “What we don’t have we should be able to rustle up pretty easily, with a little bit of outreach. Except for one thing. The kicker, so to speak.”

  “Ugh.” Ant Eater shook her head. “That. I’ve been trying to forget about that.”

  I was tired of being talked around. “Spill it,” I ordered. This was for my mom; I would get a lift on a fairy path and go halfway around the world if I needed to if it meant saving her life. “What do we need?”

  “Moly,” Ant Eater said grimly. “We need moly. And there’s no tougher herb to get your hands on these days, especially in America. The last time I saw any of it growing here was in the seventies.” She brought a hand to her mouth. “I lost a tooth getting it.”

  “You could have lost your life,” Grandma said. “You know neither one of us can go after it again. We’re cursed not to even see it.”

  “But Lizzie can go,” Creely suggested.

  “She could,” Grandma said without relish. She turned her gaze on me. “You’d have to be very, very careful.”

  “And brave,” Creely said.

  “And fireproof,” Ant Eater added, with a grin and a flash of gold tooth.

  “Oh, geez.” I had gotten myself into a lot of scrapes with the witches, but this seemed like the next level.

  “Are you up for it?” Ant Eater prodded.

  “I am,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt.

  Holy moly.

  5

  “When you say fireproof…” I began.

  I suddenly had visions of a dragon-shaped plant belching flames at me. And not the cute, Flappy kind. “Are you telling me that this moly stuff can set people on fire?”

  “No, no,” Grandma assured me. “Well, not exactly,” she amended. “From what I understand, moly itself is pretty harmless. Sure, it’s hard to dig up, and it can literally eat right through your hands if you get its juices on you, but nothing special.”