The Accidental Demon Slayer

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 my 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.
If we took the hog, Pirate would have to be fastened to me. Grandma had this contraption that was basically a glorified strap-on baby carrier. Pirate would hate it. It wouldn’t be fun for me, either. Pirate hadn’t had a bath in a week or two, and besides, he tended to have digestive issues.
We had to fly. Please. I shoved my clothes farther into the case and tried again.
My Saturn would have been my second choice, but Grandma already told me the demons probably had spotters looking for it. Besides, she was married to that hog. But a plane would be faster. She couldn’t argue with that.
“You ready yet?” Grandma charged up the stairs holding a sandwich and one of the apple juice bottles I kept on hand for school lunches only. “Lizzie! Stop farting around.”
“You have to be kidding me.” The woman expected me to wrap up my life in the time it took her to make a cheese sandwich. All I wanted was a simple, stable life. I liked to have things I could count on—my friends, my job, and even Cliff and Hillary. Heaven knew they’d never change. My spontaneity came from Pirate, and when that miniature problem with paws ran amok, I could just pick him up. Crisis averted. There was a reason I’d avoided people like Grandma.
She shook her head, her long, gray hair tangling over her shoulders. “Time’s, up, Lizzie. We’ve got trouble.”
Because we hadn’t had enough of it lately.
My stomach dropped. “Don’t tell me you blew up my bathroom.”
“Worse. Remember my purple emergency spell? It turned blue. Demons sucked the red right out of it. They’re coming. Fast.”
Yikes! I attacked the case with renewed vigor.
“Stop!” Grandma commanded. “What do you think this is, Spring Break at Daytona Beach? Ain’t no suitcases on a Harley. One backpack.” She held up a single finger, with a silver snake ring wound around it. “One.”
“Let’s just fly,” I pleaded, hearing the desperation in my voice. “It’ll save time!”
She threw her hands out, sloshing apple juice onto the hardwood floor. “I can’t protect a whole plane! You want demons camping out on the fuselage?”
Oh my word. We were a human tragedy waiting to happen. I shoved the image out of my mind. “Fine,” I said, yanking my school pack from its peg. “This will barely fit a tube top and a pair of socks.”
Grandma raised a brow. “Well, won’t the truckers enjoy that?”
I packed a change of clothes and a hairbrush, then dashed to the kitchen for Pirate’s Healthy Lite dog chow and a spare water dish. The bathroom was indeed glowing an incandescent blue. The haze spilled out into the hallway, carried on an invisible cloud. It had a palpable presence. A demonic one. It crept up to the ceiling and inched down across the floor like a slow, steady breath of evil. Holy he-double hockey sticks.
Grandma had already dragged Pirate out front to fit him for his riding gear. I stuffed his food and bowl into my purse, checked the back-door lock and dashed through the living room toward the front door.
“Akkk!” Pirate dashed circles in the yard while Grandma chased him with a black leather contraption that looked like she ordered it straight out of the Ozzy Osborne Pet Gear Catalog.
“Damn it all.” She tossed the contraption to me. “You try it. Lucky Bob built it for his late ferret, Buddy.”
Pirate went still with shock. “Why late? What happened to Buddy?”
We didn’t have time for this. “Pirate! Sit!” I said, summoning up the voice I learned in doggy obedience classes.
“Like hell!” He took off in a dead run.
“Pirate! Ditch the drama before Grandma zaps you in the butt with one of her demon spells.”
He dug in his front legs to stop, but his back legs kept going and he flipped over. Pirate popped back up, shaking with doggie indignation. “She’s going to tie me up! Look at that thing. It’s a doggy straightjacket!”
Grandma loomed over him, fear burning in her eyes. “If we don’t get on this bike in two minutes, you’ll be wearing your intestines as a necklace.”
Pirate released his bladder. I didn’t blame him.
Grandma wound her thick hair into a bun and stuffed it under her helmet while I fought to untangle the black leather straps of the carrier. The Harley roared to life. She pumped the engine until the kickback rattled my teeth. “Lord help us,” I mumbled as I finagled Pirate’s hard little noggin through the ferret carrier. “It’s okay, sweetie,” I yelled, trying not to breathe in any of the choking exhaust billowing from Grandma’s chrome pipes. I hoped Pirate could hear me over the deafening roar. He lashed his head back and forth. I tried to summon the tone I used with my preschoolers. “It’s snug, but that just means I can hold you close and keep you safe.”
“Bullshit.” Pirate yelped, half in, half hanging out of the carrier.
I heaved us both up on the pink Harley with silver flames shooting up the sides. “Hold still,” I ordered as I lowered both terrier and carrier over my head. Not an easy task, considering he’d decided to escape. His stubby legs grasped for traction as they dangled out of the baby carrier.
Grandma secured her bag of jars. “Strap him in!” She growled impatiently. “We need to go. Now.”
“This is humiliating!” Pirate lamented to Grandma’s back as I wedged him in tight and fastened the straps around his tummy, his stubby tail poking me in the stomach.
Grandma reached around to tighten the straps. “Cut the chatter.”
I adjusted my helmet and tried not to think about the deep scratch marks that marred its dull, black surface. How many wrecks had this lady been in? Maybe we could stop somewhere for an extra-heavy-duty helmet with a face mask. While we were at it, maybe we could rent a Volvo.
Grandma wore a sleek silver helmet. Hers didn’t have a safety mask either. What? Would it have broken some kind of biker code to fly down the highway at head-smashing speeds while wearing full protective gear? She eyed me as she pulled on a pair of riding goggles.
“Hold on to my waist,” she hollered over the engine. “Lean when I lean and for God’s sake turn your helmet around. You’ve got it on backward.”
My fingers dug into the strap under my chin. I didn’t know how I was going to survive this odyssey when I couldn’t even buckle a helmet right. And talk about crummy instructions. Lean when I lean. How far? How much? I chewed at my lip. If we crash, please don’t let it be my fault. I felt so helpless.
Grandma eyed the blue smoke curling out from under my locked front door.
“What if Xerxes tears apart my neighborhood?” I asked, wrapping my hands around Grandma’s thick waist. I never really met my neighbors. They never seemed to venture outside of their houses, but still…Pirate squirmed, his legs flopping in the air. All three of us lined up on Grandma’s hog like a warped version of the Three Musketeers.
“No worries, babe.” She reached in her pack for a mossy-looking Smucker’s jar wrapped in masking tape. She yanked off a section of tape, shoved it against my face and yanked it back.
It stung like blazes. “God Bless America!” My hand flew to my right eyebrow.
Grandma spit on the tape that held way too many of my eyebrow hairs. She stuck it back against the nasty-looking jar. “Confuto aggredior!” She fired the jar at my house and it shattered on the front porch. Glass flew everywhere and greasy slime oozed down my top step and onto my red brick walk.
“They’ll be following us now.” Grandma gunned the engine, and my back slammed against the safety bar as we peeled out into the gathering dusk.
  
“Yell if you see Xerxes or any of his hell-raisers,” Grandma said at the first stoplight we reached. “We’ll make Evel Knievel look like a p-ssy.”
“Urgle.” I nodded, stomach churning. Two blocks and my butt throbbed from the vibrations. Maybe in another two it would go blessedly numb.
“What? Why’d we stop? Did someone say stop? Pup-per-roni, we were flying! Wind in my face, wind in my ears, wind in my toenails. Wind whipping all up in my…”
“Pirate! If you keep whamming me in the gut with that tail, I’m going to heave.” Yeah, blame it on the dog. Nausea climbed up the back of my throat. I fought to ignore the smushed stinkbugs on the windshield. And the gas fumes from the cars surrounding us. And the pulsations that rattled every raw nerve in my body when I just wanted to lie down. Why did I ever think this would work? I could barely ride bumper cars without yarfing all over the place.
Pirate’s tail pounded my fragile stomach. “Your problem is you got no sense of adventure. Green light!”
Grandma stomped on the gas and we lurched from zero to five hundred in two seconds flat. The wind stung my face and arms. Pirate flung his legs out in the air. “Eyyah! I’m king of the world!”
“Car!” I screamed as we slammed toward a Toyota Prius.
“Yyy-yes!” Grandma swerved at the last second, zigzagged between lanes and gunned it out onto the open road.
I am going to die. What was worse? The road ahead of us or the demons we left behind? At that moment, I wasn’t sure.
  
Thanks to small miracles, we made it out of Atlanta alive. We zipped over the Georgia/Alabama border near Bowdon and caught the back roads from there. Alabama had plenty of quiet side roads where we could still rumble at butt-breaking speeds without risking detection on the open highways.
In the darkness, the trees on the side of the road formed an army of shadows, breached occasionally by the light from a house. I breathed in the warm night air. It was a moment to savor because—sure as Grandma’s Smucker’s jars—our luck had to run out sometime.
It almost didn’t seem real—the demon in my bathroom, my biker-witch grandma, any of it. And now we were out on the road with no more than a change of clothes and a doggy bowl. This was so not me. I didn’t like to leave for the grocery store without a typed shopping list and my color-coded coupon file.
Worry about things you can control, like…
Darned if I could think of anything.
Okay, fine. I could still have a moment of peace. I tuned out the droning roar of the bike and focused on the good in my life. I nuzzled my little dog, his prickly hair warm against my cheek. It reminded me of when he was a puppy and used to like to curl up on my chest and listen to my heartbeat. I felt myself relax. Pirate too. He fell asleep somewhere after Talladega, his little legs dangling out of the ferret carrier.
Sure enough, trouble found us at a QuikTrip just outside of Jasper. We’d stopped for gas, a clean bathroom and a Rooster Booster Freezoni for Grandma. While she parked herself in front of the self-serve slushie counter, debating the merits of adding a blue raspberry layer to her energy drink, I found a field for Pirate next to the station.
He sprinted across the small meadow, leaping here and there, just for the fun of it. “I was made for the open road. How come we never blew out on a road trip before?”
Because I’d never thought of it. The full moon illuminated my romping dog, as well as the road dust clinging to every inch of my body. Ugh. I smelled like a diesel gas pump. I brushed at the grime on my arms. “We were fine in Atlanta.”
“Fine does not mean alive!” he said, hurdling over a patch of weeds. “Tingly!” He hopped back the other way. “Oh yeah. That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, continuing his assault on the shrubbery. “Belly scratch!”
“Pirate. Hurry up. Do your thing. Grandma will want to leave sooner rather than later,” I said, as I caught her out of the corner of my eye. She’d chucked her Freezoni and jogged toward us with a hotdog wrapper flapping out of her pocket and the look on her face I was coming to dread. Shadows gathered in the skies above the QuikTrip.
Pirate sniffed furiously at a clump of dried grass. “Hold the phone, Lizzie. You guys eat hotdogs while I get dull, dry dog food. And now you rush me in the john.”
“Four pixies,” Grandma called out before stooping over to catch her breath, “back by the beef jerky. Two more by the weenie machine. Let’s move, people!”
Sweet heaven. Pixies? She might as well have told me she’d spotted the Easter Bunny.
Pirate’s head popped up from a clump of wild daisies. “Don’t pressure me. I can’t stand pressure.” He circled twice. “Oh look, now I’m all locked up.”
Grandma and I made tracks for the bike at pump 6 while I tried to wrap my head around our newest supernatural terror. Someday, when I wasn’t about to have a heart attack, she was going to have to sit down and explain all this to me. “Tell me about pixies, Grandma. They’re bad?”
“They report to the imps. I thought we’d keep you under the radar, least ’til we sharpened you up.”
“Until Xerxes the demon,” I said under my breath. “Wait.” I gripped her arm. “You smell that?” A faint trace of sulfur floated past. And what else? Burned hair. It smelled like evil. Oh no. I sure hoped I was wrong. “Pirate, now!”
For once, he listened. I stuffed Pirate into the ferret carrier while Grandma reached for a Smucker’s jar. She unscrewed it, revealing a leafy-looking sludge. And was that a deer tail? My hand shot to my eyebrows.
She yanked the top off her silver snake ring. “Here.” She forced the severed cobra head into my free hand. Its emerald eyes twinkled under the fluorescent lights of the gas station. Protruding from the ring, which was now basically a snake neck, was a very small, very sharp-looking needle. Grandma plunged it into her chest.
“Ak! What are you doing?”
She winced as it pierced the flesh above her heart. I seized her arm as she flicked one, two, three drops of blood into the jar.
“What kind of lame-ass question is that? Gimme.” She took the snake head and snapped it back onto her ring. Dark wet blood stained her Kiss My Asphalt T-shirt. “Blood. It’s a small death. Makes the spell stronger.” She braced the Smucker’s jar between her thighs and threw on her helmet. “We’re gonna need an ass load of magic to get out of this.”
“Ohhh squirrels!” Pirate struggled against the ferret carrier, his legs automatically giving chase.
Not squirrels. My voice caught in my throat. Three—no—at least five shadowy creatures slinked toward us. I scrambled for my helmet, if only to whack them with it. They curled around the gas pumps and past the only other car at the pumps, a white Chevy Nova. “Help!” I called, hoping like heck the Nova belonged to an exotic-animal wrangler.
“Pipe down. Nobody can see the imps but us.”
Imps?
Lovely. I’d have to thank Grandma for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of magical creatures. Sweat pooled under my arms and chest. The imps’ congested breathing grew more and more excited as they drew closer. Purple eyes glowed from under dark, furry brows. They had weasel-like faces and the bodies of thick, hastily constructed people. Dark hair clung to their bent frames.
“Confudi!” Grandma tossed the Smucker’s jar and it shattered between two of them. The air radiated for a split second and the creatures screeched.
The imps retreated as fast as they’d appeared. Yow. I let myself breathe again. “You’ve gotta teach me about those jars,” I said. Maybe I’d try something with a SoBe bottle or two.
Grandma’s eyes widened. “Move!” She shoved both of us against a gas pump and I felt a wave of energy crackle past.
I spun to face her, Pirate dangling between us. “What was that?”
Huge wings beat a blue streak above us. I looked skyward and dread swelled inside me. A monstrous eagle with the body of a lion circled above the convenience store. Big as a truck, it screeched and displayed feathers of red, purple, green, blue. Impossible. Oh begonias. After today, who was I to even think that?
“The Phantom Menace!” Pirate’s legs clambered for him. “You coming back for more? Shake your tail feather this way. I’ll show you more.”
The creature blocked out the moon as it plunged right for us. I scrambled for the hard leather seat of the Harley. The bottoms of my shoes slipped off the riding boards as Grandma peeled out of the parking lot. We were on Route K in a heartbeat, flying so fast it made my head spin.
“I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” Pirate hollered as we sped off into the night. I clung to Grandma and closed my eyes to keep from being sick. I didn’t know how we were going to outrun that thing. My hair swirled under the edge of my helmet, and I could feel my face stretching with the wind. Every hill we crested, I swore the bike went airborne for a second or two. Heaven help us.
“Holy shit!” Grandma hollered as we careened around a hairpin turn at a speed I didn’t even want to know. The bike skidded, skipped over a dip in the road and slapped pavement again. My fingers dug into her sides when I saw the road ahead. Or make that, the lack of road.
Our stretch of asphalt ended in a small lake. It consumed both lanes of the road and the forest beyond.
Grandma hunkered low and steady over the handlebars. “Hold on!”
“What? Stop!” My gut clenched as we thundered straight for it. A flash flood like that could sweep a car away, much less three idiots on a bike.
There were no detour signs, no road cones. No reason for the water. My toes curled and I clung to Grandma tighter. We were traveling uphill. Water does not run uphill. But this water did.
Pirate fought the ferret carrier. “Oh no. I don’t do water. Water is not good.” He lurched, just like he did every time I tried to dunk him in a—
“Bath!” he yelled and pitched his body to the left.
“Shiii…p!” I screamed, as I lost my balance and toppled into the air.
“Holy hell!” Grandma grabbed us by the doggy sling. The bike plunged into the lake and skidded sideways through the surging water. Depression and rage swelled from its depths. “It’s an ambush!”
We lost the bike in a wave of water. I clutched Pirate as we slammed nose over toes into the abyss. Eyes closed tight against the muck, I fought past fleshy ropes of seaweed. It clung to my arms, heavy and stringy.
Please let it be seaweed, even if we are a thousand miles from the ocean.
Pirate’s flailing leg caught my arm, and I winced as his doggy claws sliced deep.
We broke through to the surface and, blessedly, I was able to touch bottom. Afraid to draw too much attention, I crouched in the water, just high enough for Pirate to keep his head above the churning darkness. The despair of this place surrounded us. Waves of hopelessness and fear tangled my insides. Grandma was nowhere in sight.
Pirate flailed in his carrier. “Oh, biscuits! Calm down. You calm? I’m calm. Oh, biscuits.”
“Shhh. You’re fine.”
“Shit.” Pirate shook off as best as he could, peppering me with putrid water. “That’s what I said. I said I was fine.”
“Look for Grandma.”
Pirate tried to wriggle a leg out of his carrier. “Oh yeah, the lady who said she wanted to make my intestines into a necklace? Yeah, let’s get right on that.”
Hang tight. Focus. I scanned the area for demons, witches and anything that wasn’t one hundred percent normal. Grandma had called this an ambush. Someone or—I gulped—something had created this lake in the middle of the road. And they had us stopped cold.
A shimmer spread throughout the water. Goose bumps snaked up my arms. Holy moley. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Is it me or is the water glowing green?”
“Oh, man,” Pirate said, ready to climb up to my shoulders. “You know I’m color-blind.”
An emerald glow radiated from the depths of the water and broke to the surface in a roil of bubbling water. Churning foam sucked at my shoulders. “That’s it.” Ambush or not, I broke into a run, the waist-high water sluicing off us. We had to get out of here.
In a flash, Grandma appeared at the far side of the lake, at the edge of the woods. Shadows dove at her from every direction. “Lizzie, run!” she screamed before she disappeared.
“Grandma!” I made a mad dash for her. I had no idea what to do, but I had to do something. The air itself vibrated and smoked. It tasted like singed hair.
“Stop! Halt! Cut it!” Pirate yelled. “Wall!”
“Wall?” Then I saw it. It shimmered like a giant soap bubble. There was no time to stop. I felt my toes leave the ground as it sucked us through.
Thick, wet undergrowth tangled around my ankles. I steadied myself, ready for the worst. I clutched Pirate’s knobby little body and blinked once, twice. We’d raced headlong into a clearing littered with scores of rodentlike faces staring up at us. Imps. Their glowing purple eyes bounced through the darkness as they scuttled toward us, baring row after row of glistening teeth.
Grandma braced herself at the far edge of the clearing. Heavy iron cuffs bound her wrists and ankles. She struggled to hold them away from her body, despite the weights pulling at each cuff. An eerie tickle crept up my skin when I realized why. Curved snakelike fangs protruded from the cuffs and connecting chains, ready to pierce her skin if she gave in to the weight of her restraints. I wondered what horrors waited inside the fangs.
“Oh, this is just great,” she said, breathing heavily with exertion. “I told you to run, not get yourself trapped. Honestly, Lizzie.”
She could at least pretend to be grateful. “Ditch the attitude. I’m saving you,” I said. Somehow. The imps cackled like psychotic weasels as they skulked closer. I rubbed Pirate, who hadn’t stopped shaking since we broke through the wall.
“Yeah?” Grandma fought to keep the razor-sharp fangs from plunging into her skin, “Well, if you’re going to save me,” she stopped to catch her breath, “untie the damned dog and let’s get to work.”
“Right. That’s what I’m talking about. On-the-job training,” I said, desperate to mask my fear. I released Pirate. His wiry body slid down mine and to the ground. I had to focus, find my power. If I didn’t get this right, I hated to think what could happen to us.
Focus. Breathe. Find a way.
They might have numbers on their side, but I’d sent Xerxes to hell and I could send the imps too.
Pirate circled my legs as the imps stalked us from every direction. “Oh, you’d better get your ass back,” he said, “you filthy looking, I don’t know what you are. You do smell kind of nice. But don’t you be testing me. I’ll kick you into next Thursday. Don’t you think I won’t.”
I ignored Pirate and reached deep down inside. I was the most uptight, disciplined person I knew, and I had to use that. Whatever raw magic I possessed, whatever had allowed me to drive Xerxes from my bathroom, I’d find it and own it. Now.
“Water nymph at two o’clock,” Grandma warned. A dripping, green fairy rose from the marsh at the edge of the lake and skimmed toward us. She might have been beautiful if she hadn’t looked so desolate. She was tall, with the body of an underwear model. But her face sagged and her eyes held horrors I didn’t even want to imagine. She wore a shift that—ick—looked like it had been crafted from the skin of imps. And, I gulped, she held cuffs, the same kind that bound Grandma.
I dug my fingernails into my palms. Show no emotion. Instead, I focused every bit of will I possessed, felt the magic churning inside me. The center of my body hummed with energy. I could feel it right down to my fingertips. I let instinct take over and screamed the first thing that came to me. “Begone!” My own voice tore at the back of my throat as I flung my power into the clearing.
The imps cowered, clung to the ground.
“Begone!” I zapped them again with everything I had. This time, they stood still, studying me. The water nymph had sunk down into a puddle after my first try. Now she drew toward me, curiosity playing on her features. Oh no.
“Solvo dimittium,” Grandma hollered.
Hope flared and died quickly. They didn’t react to that either.
“Lizzie.” Grandma struggled against her chains. “You say it! Solvo dimittium.”
“Right.” I nodded, resisting the urge to run, which I knew would be useless and stupid and wrong. Solvo dimittium. Solvo dimittium. Driving my power to me once again, I opened my mind, took a deep breath and bellowed, “Solvo dimittium!”
A slight wind rippled the water nymph’s hair. A curl of blue flame sizzled a circle around her water-logged hair before fizzling.
“Shit,” Grandma said.
No kidding. “That’s it?” My voice hitched as the creatures closed in around me. “What else should I do?”
Pirate brushed past my leg. “You stand there and look pretty. Let me give it a whirl.” Pirate stalked toward a scowling imp.
“Pirate, no!” Bravery was one thing. This was something else.
Pirate thrust his tail out. “Suave dimmi-who’sit’s, you bug-eyed freak of nature.”
The imp shrieked and reared back to attack. Pirate yelped as it leapt onto his back, claws digging into his fur.
“Pirate!” That thing could kill him with one bite. It clambered up his back, heading straight for his neck.
Rage boiled inside me, and I drop-kicked the imp like I was punting a football. Three more took its place. I booted another. Blood flowed down Pirate’s back. At least one imp landed hard on my shoulders, clawing rivers of fire down my back. I spun, desperately trying to throw it off, when I spotted another creature circling.
A winged beast the size of a Clydesdale descended upon us. The same breed of creature we saw at the gas station—with the head of an eagle and the body of a lion. A griffin? Tail swishing in the gathering wind, it reached for us, claws outstretched, like a hungry bird of prey.
Pirate broke free and bit the nearest imp. I threw an imp from my shoulders straight at the pair of talons leveled at my head. Grandma screamed something or other, but it was impossible to hear her over the high-pitched yelps of the imps and the screeching calls of the griffin. The flying creature dove straight for the water nymph.
But the nymph was fast. She disappeared into the nearest puddle as the bands on Grandma’s wrists and ankles snapped and crumbled away. The imps scurried back to the shadows, save the two dead ones at my feet. “Take that!” Pirate chased the remaining imps to the edge of the clearing.
I stood catching my breath, my back burning. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy over the clearing. I wanted to collapse with relief. Or was that fear? Just because this thing didn’t kill me before didn’t mean it wouldn’t hurt me now. He landed a few feet from me, settling his wings around his body like a bird. He wore a single emerald ring on one of his talons, and his feathers shone in a burst of colors.
Grandma bustled over to me. “You alright?” I nodded. “Well, then.” She flexed her hands, working to get the circulation going again. “Hiya, Impetrix Heli—” She paused. “Um, Impetrix. Thanks for saving our asses. Now, with your permission,” she saluted him, “we’re outta here.” She grabbed my arm. “Come on.”
“He’s just going to let us go?” I asked, hustling behind her.
“If we go quick enough.”
I fought the urge to look behind us. Good enough for me.
We exited the clearing, and I couldn’t hold back a gasp. The immense lake had disappeared as if it never existed. Grandma’s bike lay twisted down a steep embankment off the main road. We scrambled through some mud and pulled the hog upright. Grandma wrenched the handlebars and yanked the seat.
“Hurry,” she said quietly.
“So he’s…?”
“Trouble.” We managed to heave it halfway up the embankment, but the bike was too mangled and heavy.
“Is he worse than the imps?”
Grandma groaned as she hauled the bike with everything she had. I joined her, pulling until I felt my arms stretching half out of their sockets. For every inch we dragged the flipping thing, we sank two in the mud. It was no use.
“God damn it!” Grandma shoved the bike and it fell back into the ditch, nearly taking me with it.
I slid an extra few feet and stared down at the wreck of a bike. It was toast, and we were trapped.
She brought a bloodied hand up to her mouth. “Yeah. In a way, he is worse than the imps.”
My nerves quivered. The air felt heavy, smoky. I felt it in the pit of my stomach. Maybe my magic was finally kicking in. It was about time. “What is it, Grandma?” I asked. “More demons? Or the griffin?
“It’s not that,” she said grimly. “It’s him.” She jabbed a mud-slicked finger at an imposing, olive-skinned man who stood like royalty at the edge of the ravine.
I gripped her hand and felt my pulse leap. “Is he a monster?”
“That depends,” she said, giving him the evil eye.
My blood warmed just looking at him. He was striking. If you liked the GQ type. He wore a dark, tailored suit cut to fit his broad shoulders. His angled features gave away nothing as he watched us. I felt his eyes, hidden in shadows, sweep over every inch of my body. I blinked twice, studied him. Something inside me felt like I knew him.
That was impossible, I thought with a twinge of desire. If I’d ever met this man before, I would have remembered. He seemed so out of place on this swampy, dirty backwater road. Everything about him was polished, except for the way his thick, ebony hair curled around his collar.
His eyes flashed orange, then yellow. Holy Moses. I stumbled backward in the darkness as his eyes began to glow with a positively arresting, utterly horrifying grassy hue. My body tensed, ready for a fight if it came to that.
“Well, look who likes you, Lizzie.” Grandma rubbed at her wrists where the chains had been.
What? The automatic excitement that flared at the idea of a good-looking man finding me attractive fizzled under the dread that it was this emerald-eyed…person. Why couldn’t any normal guys like me? Oh wait. One of them might have. Tonight, at this very moment, I was supposed to be enjoying a Rum Swizzle with a boatload of friends as well as Hot Ryan Harmon from the gym. A birthday extravaganza with the stunning Mr. Harmon as the ultimate party prize. Instead, I stood here, at the bottom of a ravine, staring up at this magical enigma.
“Good to see you’re keeping your distance,” Grandma said, drawing me toward her like an old girlfriend. “That man is nothing but trouble.”
No kidding. Yet another supernatural complication I could do without. “So who is he?” I asked.
“Well, sugar beet,” Grandma said, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “He’s your protector.”