by Savoy, Skye
Was it possible for the she demon to jump from a squirrel into Ida and drown Big Mama in the pool?
Stacy bounded up from the chair to pace in front of us. “Do you hear what you’re saying? You got possessed animals and Elvis killing off our family.” She stopped, planted her fists on her hips. “So, what’s going to get my mama—a crazed pigeon, or a Liza Minnelli impersonator?”
“A dumpster?”
“What?”
“I pulled your mama out of a man eating dumpster the other day.” I cringed as I relived the smell and blood. “The thing almost flattened her into a crepe. We almost didn’t get her out.”
Stacy blinked twice. “Mother is always doing something stupid involving trash picking. I can’t seriously believe a demon took over the dumpster!”
“If I was a dead girl stuck on the astral plane talking to the one who borrowed her old body, I’d be a little more open minded.”
“I think Ava is right. I don’t know why open season was declared on my family. But it was ‘cause all three of us are dead.” Big Mama shrugged her shoulders and made her handbag fall to the crook of her elbow.
“Obviously, my body is not dead.” Stacy touched my shoulder. “If I could get back into it, I’d be alive again.”
Big Mama stared at me expectantly as if waiting for me switch places with Stacy.
“Look, I feel bad enough about being in your body when you should be, but there’s a reason why all this happened. At least I think there is.” Stacy made a rude noise. I narrowed my eyes at her and went on. “I’m the only one with a body who can try to fix things.”
A popping sound, like somebody stepping on bubble wrap, jolted me out of my thoughts. Big Mama strained to listen while Stacy continued to stare hungrily at me.
“Yeah, but if I had my body, I could figure it out faster.” She zapped herself behind me and gave me a push. I stumbled forward. “Seeing as how I’m younger than you are.”
I didn’t take kindly to her remark about my age nor did I like being stalked as if I was a quart of Ben & Jerry’s. I rose to my full height and got in her face. “Age is only a state of mind.”
“Girls! I didn’t bring you here to fight. I think we got bigger problems.” Big Mama pointed up to the sky.
The blackness above revealed spots like the ones you see when you close your eyes really tight. These spots broke loose and dropped from the sky. “Big Mama, maybe we should head back to the real world about now.” The uneasiness in my voice made the last word crack.
She grabbed my hand, then reached for Stacy’s. Stacy wouldn’t budge. “I’m just gonna stay right here. After all, this is my little world. I feel safe in here.” Stacy returned to her whirling chair.
“See what you did! You got her all upset. Now, her sky is falling.”
“Well, Big Mama, did you think we’d cuddle up, and sing, ‘Kumbaya,’ when you brought me here?”
“I can hear you, you know,” Stacy called out from her refuge.
“You’re in denial is all I’m saying. You’d better get your tail over here ‘cause we ain’t leaving without you. Ow!” A piece of black sky bounced off Big Mama’s head. It careened down to the ground where it grew wings and teeth, shook its rubbery body, and flew into the air.
Stacy’s world didn’t crumble into nothingness. It was infested by maniacal little winged creatures.
The carpet crawled with bat-like beasties. Big Mama yanked a bug-eyed, leathery creature out of her hair. I averted my eyes as she squashed the life out of a creature who climbed her pant leg.
I watched in horror as a swarm of claws and teeth came toward me. Lightning bolts struck, electrifying the ground near us. My hair stood straight up.
Big Mama’s face, illuminated by the bolts whizzing and striking around us, was panic stricken. “Stacy Avalita Summerlin! This is your reality. Do something.” A lightning bolt zoomed straight at her. She summoned a wall of light above her head. The bolt hit with a chink and fell to the ground.
Stacy climbed on top of her chair. She yelled into the falling sky, “I command you to stop!” Nothing happened. She screamed her command a second time, lost her footing, and fell to the floor where she curled into a ball with her arms protecting her head. Maybe being stuck in the astral plane makes a spirit go crazy.
The nasty little creatures dug their claws and teeth into my skin. Several flew up my sun dress. I shouted and stomped when the creatures attached themselves to very sensitive parts of my anatomy.
An electrical bolt aimed at my head. If I can wield fire and power balls, I can handle lightening. I fought my upright hair as it tried to cling to my upraised arms and grabbed the bolt.
I shook off the bats gnawing at my face and arms. The bolt sizzled but didn’t burn my skin as I molded it into an umbrella of light. Beasties dove off my shield like competitors in the summer Olympics. My grin stretched from ear to ear. I freakin’ did it! I’m queen of the world! Ow! One of the creatures swan dived off the shield, crawled under the bolt, and bit my foot. I mule kicked it into oblivion.
“Stacy! Please stop! We only came here to rescue you!” Big Mama’s screech was louder than the bats. “You are making me lose my patience with you, girl, and you aren’t gonna like what happens.” She manifested a cast iron frying pan, struck an all star batter’s pose, and smacked imps away left and right.
“In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not doing anything,” Stacy volleyed back, voice muffled from her fetal position on the floor.
I left the threats up to Big Mama. I was all about sauté-ing those evil batties. I’d been bitten and scratched enough to put me in one hell of a bad mood. I drew power from my safety shield, formed it into electrical artillery, and lobbed them at the bats gathering over Stacy.
“Ladies, what’s going on here?” Sam stood behind us. Bats deflected off his long duster. He was so fast, I barely saw him manifest a sword, and send a well-timed electrical bolt hurtling into the wall of Stacy’s fireplace.
From her position amidst the rubble, Stacy whined, “Aw! You ruined my mural. It took me days to figure out how to do it!” Sam used one hand under her arm to lift her from the floor.
“What are you doing here?”
Stacy took the words right out of my mouth. I searched the sky for more winged beasties. Their disappearance coincided with fall of the “great wall of Stacy.”
I clapped my hands to make my electric field disappear. Cool. Just like my own personal clap-on light only with a lot more voltage.
“Where’s Suriyel?” I asked.
Sam’s arms flew across his chest. “You could’ve at least said, ‘Hello, Sam,’ or ‘So glad to see you, Sam,’ or ‘Thanks for saving me, Sam.’ No, all I get is ‘Where’s Suriyel?’!” He brushed the dust off his shoulders then looked at me as if he wanted a proper apology.
“Okay, fine. I really am glad to see you.” I glared at Stacy. “And, thank you for saving us from Stacy’s lay on the floor kicking and screaming temper tantrum!”
She rolled her eyes.
“Apology accepted. For your information, when Suriyel came back to find you missing, he asked me to help. He went one way and I went this way.” He gave me a withering glare. “Lucky me.”
“Who’s he?” Big Mama moved to stand beside me. We were more than a little wary of being too close to Stacy.
“This is Samael, one of the fallen angels who’re helping me.”
Stacy whipped around so fast, I assumed she got wind of a sale on neon hair dye at the cosmic equivalent of Sally’s. “Helping you? Is he the one who put you in my body?”
“Yeah, he and Suriyel did it to help me.”
She turned her expectant face to Sam.
“It seemed like the only thing to do at the time.”
“Does that mean you can put me back in my body?”
“Whoa.” Sam stuck his palms out in front of his vital organs. “I’m not the one who can help you, dear.”
Stacy pasted a pretty pout on her face and tr
ied the southern belle “flirt until they throw the white flag up” approach. “You should be ashamed for leaving me here so long, you know.” She batted her eyelashes. “A girl gets pretty lonely in her own astral plane, you know.”
“I know, darling. I really wish I could help you, but I can’t,” Sam explained as he succumbed to her siren call with a sheepish look.
“Why the hell not?”
Sam blinked as if surprised at how fast her sugary goodness disappeared. “Because it took me and Suriyel to do it in the first place,”
“Well, go get him!”
“He is an honorable man. He won’t go back on his promise to her. Besides, there’s no guarantee we can switch your soul out with hers.”
An electrically charged wind began to blow again. Thunder boomed in the distance.
“I suppose you’d better figure something out, then,” Stacy threatened.
Sam’s eyes glittered dangerously. “I’ll thank you to remember who put you here in the first place. For your own good I might add.”
Big Mama put herself between Sam and Stacy. “You’d think y’all were an old married couple or something they way you’re going after each other,” she twittered nervously. She patted Sam on the shoulder, then coughed when she inhaled the cloud of dust that arose from it.
“I think what Big Mama is trying to say is that we’ll be taking Stacy and leaving now that the maelstrom is over.”
Sam grinned at me so brightly, I suspected he used Robert’s Zoom whitening equipment. “I don’t think so.”
Big Mama’s hands went to her hips and compelled Sam to quickly explain. “Think about it. Stacy’s soul shouldn’t be on the same plane as her body. There are demons who will eat her soul just to gain power.”
“Oh. I forgot about that. Well then, Mr. Know It All. Exactly how are we going to make things right?”
“Big…uh… dear lady, we will just have wait until things resolve themselves.”
“There’s one being who can figure all this out,” Big Mama‘s hair stopped shaking from side to side after she did.
“Yes, but he also says ‘vengeance is mine.’ Where is that going to leave your precious Ava,” he stroked Stacy’s head, “and little Stacy?”
He has a point. It’s aimed right at my conscious. This situation is all my fault for wanting to bring my killer to justice when I should’ve let God handle it. When I did meet him, the best I could hope for was the akashic plane. Maybe then, Stacy would find her way out of the astral plane so she could make it to Heaven with Big Mama.
“I quit. I screwed things up insisting on finding my murderer. The best I can do is let Sam take me in.” I stuck my hands in front of Sam as if I expected him to slap a pair of cuffs on me.
His puckered frown suggested he was either really sorry he didn’t have a set on him, or he couldn’t use them if he had them.
“You can’t just quit,” were the first words out of Big Mama’s mouth. I stood there, stunned as if she’d whopped me with the frying pan she still carried.
“I didn’t raise a quitter,” she said and smacked the frying pan against her open palm with determination. “Besides, who’s gonna save Kitty seeing as how she’s the last of our line?”
“But you just said God can figure it all out!”
Big Mama raised the hand that held the frying pan. I ducked. Her weapon vanished. She tugged me in for the hug I’d wanted for three years.
“Maybe he’s already figured it out, and you’re the one who he sent to do the job.”
Thunder rolled in the distance. Dark, churning clouds formed behind Stacy.
“I think you’d both better go before the little beasties return,” Sam mumbled under his breath.
“Who’s gonna protect Stacy from whatever’s in those clouds,” I shouted over another clap of thunder.
Sam bestowed a contemptuous look on Stacy. “I guess I’ll have to do it.”
Big Mama pried me from her arms and pulled Stacy in. “Now don’t you worry, child. We’re going to get you out of here in no time.”
I gave her an apologetic look.
“Oh, don’t worry. You haven’t seen the last of me. Aunt Ava, I’m going to haunt you until I get my body back.”
I took it as a threat rather than a joke. My desire to call her on it diminished in light of her ability to summon imps and electricity bolts.
Sam cringed. “You didn’t hear a word I said did you?”
“I heard you, old man!”
Their argument grew faint as we picked our way through bat carcasses and rubble to the scooter. I hesitated in front of the basket when I heard the crackle of lightening. Big Mama impatiently nudged me with the cart. My knees buckled, and my butt sank into the metal trap. Off we went into the tunnel to the tune of “Let’s Do the Time Warp Again,” banging through my head.
Chapter Eight
“I don’t know why you got your undies in a bunch. I brought her back safe and sound,” Big Mama defended safely from the seat of her scooter.
Suriyel loomed in front of her in the same spot he’d been in since we returned through the RC Cola sign. I longed to kiss the blue vein that stood out in the side of his neck as he gave my domineering mother a dose of her own medicine.
“You are tampering with what you do not understand. Samael and I upset the balance by doing what we did.”
Suriyel took a deep breath. He slammed a hand up in the air to stop Big Mama from jumping in. “You may have ripped a hole in the plane by ‘calling on,’ as you put it, one of its residents, and drawn attention to Stacy.”
I got lost in the line about ripping a hole. “Do you mean the real Stacy or me?”
The vein turned purple. “Both of you!” He scrubbed a hand down his face, then returned his attention to me. “Why would you want to find Stacy’s soul in the first place?”
Because Big Mama made me do it? “Maybe I felt like I owed it to her. I mean I ended up in her body and she didn’t.”
“It ain’t right.” Big Mama interrupted.
“You have made that perfectly clear from the beginning…”
“You didn’t let me finish. I was going to say, but after seeing Stacy,” she looked at me. “I mean Stacy’s soul, I feel a little better about things.”
Yeah, right. Angels aren’t supposed to lie. “How can you feel better about things when we were chased by imps with claws and teeth and almost struck by lightning?”
My mother rolled her eyes. “We did get attacked, but your fallen angel friend seemed to have things under control.”
“I am sure it seemed that way,” Suriyel muttered under his breath. “Samael was not supposed to take her there.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword. It remained in a white knuckle grip for a few seconds before returning to his side.
Big Mama gave the cart enough juice to creep around Suriyel.
“I hate to just drop you off and leave, hon. I’ve got another one of them Eternal Education classes starting in about ten minutes. My friend, Molly is telling the unabridged version of what really happened on the Titanic.” She began to pick up speed and aimed her cart at the brick wall. “I’ve heard it a million times but they’re serving, Better Than You Know What cake for dessert. Remember now, don’t be a quitter. We’re counting on you, darlin’.”
Just like in life, Big Mama was the Betty Crocker of anarchy. She liked to stir up a big batch of trouble and run like hell. I guessed by the puzzled expression Suriyel wore, she’d put cookies in his oven, and they were about to burn.
“Care to tell me what she meant by that?”
“No. I don’t care to tell you, but maybe I better so your cute little tic will stop.”
“I do not have a tic.”
“Yes, you do.” I gently touched the pulsing nerve next to his bottom lip. “It’s right there.”
He grabbed my hand. My whole body began to tingle. The scent of cinnamon rolls, Tiramisu, and all things delicious filled my nostrils. He broke my trance with a demanding, “W
hat did your mother mean by her last remark?”
My tongue darted nervously across my lips. “When I saw Stacy stranded on the astral plane, I told Big Mama and Sam I wanted to quit so Stacy could move on to Heaven.” I shrugged. “I felt guilty for being in her body.” I waited, shoulders hunched, for him to whisk me away to meet my maker.
“There is no need.”
I shot straight up just like I did after one of Big Mama’s lectures about poor posture. “Wh-what?”
“Do not feel guilty. I gave you a gift. The ancient spell I performed was a one-time thing.” He pushed away from me. “Before Iscah went into the ever after, her spirit came to me with the Lotus Amulet and incantation. She said she made a deal with some demon to become immortal so she could stay with me. Unfortunately, her time would be divided because the wearer could be summoned to serve the evil spirit as well.”
“Why didn’t you use it on her?”
“You forget I was imprisoned in the center of the Earth with Samael and the other fallen angels. There were no human bodies for me to put her in. Besides, the price was too great. I thought I missed my chance at Heaven and did not want her to suffer in hell.”
“How do you know she isn’t there right now?”
“He promised to have mercy on all who turned to him. I persuaded her to do the right thing in the end.”
Wait just a damn minute! “Let me get this straight,” I cocked a hip and patted my foot. The clicking sound resounded in the alley. “You didn’t use the demon spell on her so she could go to Heaven, but you jumped at the chance to use it on me.” I didn’t realize I approached him until my finger poked his tight pec muscle. “You didn’t care that I might end up in hell for sure from using your gift?” My voice reached the nails on chalkboard level.
He batted my finger away, then took me by the shoulders. “Of course I care. The spell will not affect you once we undo it.”