Ant Eater hurled the machete at my head. I hit the floor as the heavy blade shattered the kitchen window behind me.
This time, I did grab a gun, a Glock. It was like the one Cliff and Hillary kept in their bedroom in case burglars invaded the minimansion. I double, triple checked to make sure the safety was on and shoved the hulking pistol under the waistband of my too-tight leather pants. Pirate and I had to get out of here. But to do that, we'd have to get past Ant Eater.
Sarsaparilla!
I'd have to take her down.
"Pirate, you stay put!" I called to him, but when I stuck my head around the corner of the breakfast bar, I saw him crumpled in the dirty hallway. "Baby dog!"
Rage boiled inside me. She could hate me all she wanted, but if she hurt Pirate, I'd never forgive her. "You bitch!"
She snarled like the predator she was.
And holy Hades. A dark thing hovered over Pirate. A cloud of jagged black creatures—more than I could begin to count—swarmed, writhed to form a single, horrible monster. How dare she cast a spell on an innocent animal?
I glared at Ant Eater. "What kind of sick, twisted freak are you?" I had to get Pirate out of here.
My eyes flew to the samurai sword by the door. She saw where I was going and raced me for it.
She beat me.
I slid the last few feet like a ball player sliding into home and spiked her ankle with my oxford. She let out a howl of pain, but held tight to the sword. She ripped it from its sheath and drove the razor-sharp blade down on me. It clanged against my helmet and ricocheted to the floor. Panic screamed through me. I scrambled backward, into the corner between the front door and the breakfast bar.
My back knocked against stacks and stacks of pickle jars. I grabbed the nearest one and threw it at her head. It smacked her in the chest with a dull thud.
"Get your hands off those!"
"Drop the sword!"
Her face twisted in hate and she charged right for me, sword raised. My hand dove for a red swirling jar at the bottom of the stack. I had to have that one. I aimed it straight for her sneering nose. It exploded at her feet with a deafening crash. Red smoke shot through the room, suffocating every surface. Ant Eater dropped the sword. It clattered to the floor as she fell to her knees, her hands clutching her throat.
I ran past her and found Pirate. He lay on his side, half curled in a ball. I pushed through the hot, stinging magic. It bit like a thousand fire ants, but I didn't care. Pirate was alive. Relief poured through me. Blood oozed from the back of his head, and he was wheezing as bad as Ant Eater. I gathered him up in my arms and hurried him outside while I could still see the light from the doorway.
A crowd of witches and werewolves had gathered in the yard. They stood in shocked silence as I lowered Pirate to the ground outside the trailer. His breathing had grown even more labored. I didn't know what to do.
Chapter Eleven
"Ant Eater?" Frieda called as she struggled across the lumpy yard in three-inch heels, watching in horror as smoke poured from our trailer. "What'd you do to her, Lizzie?"
To her? "I don't know. She's back in the trailer. Something's wrong with Pirate."
Betty Two Sticks lumbered up, her Woody Allen glasses fogging with the wet heat escaping from the trailer. Heat? "I think she threw a death spell," she told Frieda.
"What'd the jar look like?" Frieda demanded.
"How'd you know—" I hadn't said anything about a jar.
"We don't have time! What'd it look like?"
"Red," I said. "Swirly. A pickle jar with a gold lid." I'd wanted that one. I knew I had to throw it. I took a deep breath. My go-for-the-most-dangerous demon slayer mojo had gotten us in some serious trouble this time.
"Anaconda spell." Frieda's voice dripped with fear and contempt.
"How'd she beat it?" Betty challenged, pointing at me.
"Don't matter," Frieda said, trying to yank me away from my dog. "You gotta go back in there."
Pirate had curled on his back, fighting for every breath. I never should have brought him here.
"Listen to me!" Frieda demanded. "You let loose one of the death spells. You're going to kill Ant Eater and your little dog, if you don't reverse this now. Find the white jar. Betty, you get the matches. Go!"
I dashed back inside. The air felt wet with smoke. It reminded me of the way Hillary used to make me steam my pores. But it wasn't hard to breathe. If anything, it was easier. Seeing was another matter. I stumbled over Ant Eater's body. I found her arms and struggled to drag her out of the trailer. I had her head onto the front porch when Frieda started screaming again. "Get the jar. Now!"
A cloud of red smoke churned inside the trailer. I couldn't see a foot in front of my face. I felt my way along the wall next to the door, nudging the floorboards with my feet until I knocked up against a pyramid of jars. I grabbed as many as I could carry and headed for the front porch. I lined them up on the weathered gray wood. Two blues, a pink and the ear jar. No good.
Ant Eater's fingertips had turned blue. Her face wedged against the open screened door.
I ducked back inside. On the fourth trip, I found the white jar. While the contents of the other jars swirled and smoked, I could have mistaken this one for a jar of white paint. But then I noticed the tiny bubbles, like soda fizzies.
Frieda grabbed it from me. "You can't look at it too long." She'd pulled off her hair scarf and used it to shield her face from the smoke pouring from the front door.
We left Ant Eater on the front porch, half in and half out of the trailer. By this time, the crowd had swelled to a throng as every witch and werewolf within ten miles gathered to see what Frieda would do next.
Frieda dumped the white liquid out near the front steps of the trailer. "Let death be broken. Let life surmount."
Her face took on a look of panic. She turned back to Betty and me. "Shit. We don't have a death. We need a death. Betty?"
"I'll get the roadkill."
"No, wait." I had a better idea. I dashed up the front steps of the trailer and found the ear.
She nodded. "Drop it in."
I twisted the jar open. Formaldehyde fumes burned my nose. Eyes watering, I dipped my fingers into the liquid and retrieved the ear. I threw it down onto Frieda's soup and tried not to wince as it flopped wetly into the white goo. She struck a match, dropped it and the whole thing went up like she threw lighter fluid onto a burning barbeque pit. Energy rushed past us in a soundless wave. I found myself holding my breath for no reason as I reached down for Pirate. He coughed.
"Baby dog!" I scooped him up in my arms as he hacked up a storm. Finally, he opened his eyes. "Are you all right?"
He blinked, his eyes watering. "Oh yeah, sure," he said, his voice hoarse. "I get whacked by crazy ladies all the time." He sneezed.
I hugged him to my chest.
"Now that's nice. I like that," he said, his cold nose finding my collarbone. "Anyone ever tell you how pretty you smell?"
Like roadkill and severed ears, I imagined, wiping my free hand on my ruined pants. The outfit Frieda had lent me was a total loss. Of course so was the outfit Frieda had on, I noticed, as she knelt over a coughing Ant Eater, who was still half in, half outside the trailer and holding the screened door open with her head.
Time to face the music.
"How are you?" I asked, careful to stay out of her reach.
Ant Eater hacked like a seasoned smoker and looked at me through bloodshot eyes. "They tell me you walked right through a death spell." I hadn't really had time to think about it until right then. But I had. Several times if you wanted to count my trips in and out of the trailer, trying to track down the white jar to reverse the spell. "I guess it doesn't work on me," I said, in the understatement of the year.
Ant Eater nodded. She coughed several times, without covering her mouth. When she finished, she used the back of her hand to wipe away a clump of spit from her bottom lip. She eyed me like I'd grown four feet and gained two
hundred pounds. "How about I don't try to kill you and you don't try to kill me?"
"Deal," I said.
"Now get me up," she said, struggling to sit. "And get some of the young ones in here to clean up the place. I want all my jars in my room. If I gotta live here with this pain in my ass, we might as well keep a tidy living room." She snapped my bra and chuckled when I jumped. No way I'd ever understand Ant Eater.
"You still want me to live with you after I nearly choked you to death?" If anything good had to come out of the afternoon, I hoped I could at least end the nightmare roommate situation.
She adjusted the American flag bandana around her neck. "I don't want your dirty undies hanging next to mine either, hot stuff. But I don't see anyone else around here who wants to live with you while Rex is out for blood."
"What?"
She seemed to enjoy my shock. "Yeah." She paused for a long, hacking cough that brought tears to her eyes. "Assholes like that will zero in on a weak spot. You." She braced her hands on her knees. "I was getting to that in the diner before your boyfriend pulled a gun on me."
I wanted to remind her she had a shotgun pointed at my chest at the time, but I stopped myself.
She grinned and wiped her eyes on her bandana. "You might be useless, but after today, I got hope."
'Thanks."
"Rex won't come round here." She eyed her shotgun. "Mine's bigger than his."
I'd known we weren't completely safe here, or anywhere, but... I glanced back at the rapidly thinning crowd. "Don't we have a deal with the werewolves?"
Ant Eater succumbed to another coughing fit.
Frieda chewed at the corner of her unadorned lips. "For now. The fact is the alpha wants to use you to clean up around here. Rex is gunning for him hard. If you screw up, or if Rex kills you, the alpha looks weak."
Oh great. Kill me to get to some guy I've never even met before.
Frieda tugged at her soot-stained corset top. "You okay, babe?" she asked Ant Eater, who nodded, face red, as she hunkered over to catch her breath. "Come on inside. Both of you. You'll feel better after a shower and a change of clothes. Andrea and some of the wolves headed to the Goodwill in Monroe City."
While Ant Eater shuffled inside, I turned to Frieda. "I'm sorry about these," I said, rubbing at the leather pants she'd lent me. A hunk of gravel dislodged from the pants and clattered to the deck.
"Well," she said watching the gravel bounce under a petrified towel, "like the saying goes: it's not what you lose, it's what you do with what you have left."
"Who said that?" I asked, following her through the screened door. "Maya Angelou?"
"Oprah."
Amazingly, the red smoke had whooshed away as fast as it had appeared. But dang, we'd sure made a wreck out of the place. Frieda helped me hoist the saggy brown couch upright. We planted Ant Eater on it. Frieda and a few of the younger witches helped me clean up the broken glass, then headed out, leaving me with a sleeping Ant Eater. I was about ready to take a break myself when Andrea the Annoying banged on the screened door. I don't know why she bothered because she barged right in before I could invite her . .. or tell her to scram.
She stepped her high-heeled boots daintily around an overturned coffee table. "Heard about your accident." She tried to contain a snigger but couldn't. "Pity power struggles are always so messy. I wouldn't want to end up on the wrong side of one. Bloody, bloody, bloody messes if you ask me."
"Thanks for the sentiment. Now leave."
"I brought you some new clothes. Alpha's orders," she said, dumping a bag on the floor.
I wondered what was behind the personal delivery.
She flipped her platinum blonde pageboy hair. "Good thing you didn't kill Ant Eater," she said, breezing over to the couch with a paper shopping bag. "We had to make a special trip to Leather Up for her. My boss has a thing for the ladies."
Oh, this was getting old. "Pack up your fake boobs and your fake hair and your fake attitude and scram before I show you what I did to Ant Eater."
Andrea opened her mouth to respond, then closed it again.
"Now," I said.
"Enjoy your new clothes," she grumbled, the trailer door banging on its hinges behind her.
I picked my way past broken glass to retrieve the bag. All things being equal, I would have rather collapsed in a chair and slept for a week. But I did need to get cleaned up, and we had a lot bigger problems than my lack of sleep. I had to learn everything I could once Dimitri hauled his butt back here. I'd given him power over me. It was as real as the teardrop emerald I wore. Now it was time for him to do something in return. He knew more about my powers than I did. It seemed like everybody did given the afternoon I'd had. And we'd need every power we possessed to get Grandma back.
At least I'd gotten something out of Ant Eater's rampage. When I stopped worrying about myself and focused on the problem, I did get better at fighting her. Look to the outside.
An uncomfortable thought struck me. Perhaps Dimitri had been right to leave me on my own this afternoon. He'd given me a powerful instructor—me. I'd learned to trust my instincts. It was an unspoken kind of learning, a feeling that can't be taught from the outside.
Accept the universe. I toyed with the plastic handles of the bag. I did get help in the form of a power I didn't even know I had. And even though I still couldn't pry it off, the helmet had come in handy against Ant Eater's sword. While I was feeling brave, I looked inside the bag. Eek.
Inside, I found a pair of chewing-tobacco-stained men's cleats and what could best be described as a mumu.
"What am I, Mrs. Roeper?" I griped to myself. Nobody else was listening. I held the nylon day dress out in front of me. Yellow birds paraded, beaks open, over a loud green-and-blue checkered background. It would have made an ugly tablecloth. As a sack-shaped dress? It was the most hideous thing I'd ever seen. Andrea had gotten the last word.
The last item in the bag—much to my relief—was a pair of granny panties. Those I could wear.
But I had bigger things to worry about than fashion. I took a shower and donned the mumu. It fit like a Hefty bag and was almost as attractive. I paired it with the scarf Frieda had used as a face mask. Lovely. At least the scarf around my waist gave me a hint of a figure, even if it was eerily reminiscent of a twist tie. I swung my arms. At least I could move in it.
I tugged on the cleats, along with the men's gym socks I'd found rolled up inside. They were certainly more comfortable than my ruined oxfords and besides, they might help with my training. Athletes wore cleats when they threw baseballs. I'd wear them to hurl switch stars. Andrea, the tarnished angel of mercy, had actually given me a pretty good demon slayer outfit.
Pirate lifted his head. "Dimitri's back."
"Now how could you possibly know that?" I asked, moving toward the window.
"Doggy intuition," he said, following me.
Darned if he wasn't right. I pulled the dusty curtain aside and saw Dimitri and Scarlet pulling up in the Shoney's parking lot. Well thank goodness. We had work to do.
I caught up with Dimitri—yummy in a clean black T-shirt and a pair of Levi's 501s, having coffee at Shoney's with a man who could have been Mr. T's evil twin. The guy wore stacks of jewelry, and his foul temper made me want to take three steps back.
Dimitri raised a brow at my outfit. "Lizzie, this is Fang. He's the alpha of the Blue Moon Pack." He shook a packet of sugar into his coffee and stirred it, as nonchalant as if he were catching up with an old friend. I didn't buy it for a second.
Fang, huh? So this was the wolf Rex needed to beat. Yikes. I hoped Fang held on to power long enough for us to rescue Grandma and get the heck out of Dodge. The large werewolf looked me over like I'd escaped from the loony bin. I hoped it was the outfit. "This is the slayer, huh? Not what I expected." His eyes narrowed.
"I get that a lot," I told him.
Dimitri patted the seat next to him, and I slid into the booth. This had disaster written all ove
r it. If the Red Skulls didn't need this guy's protection, I would have been out of there faster than you could say "dead demon slayer."
Fang leaned his meaty arms on the table. "The black souls hovering around here are a threat to my pack. Get rid of them by midnight tomorrow, or all bets are off." He glared at us, clearly expecting a challenge.
Dimitri merely raised a brow. "Fair enough," he said. His hand found mine and gave it a squeeze. "You ready, Lizzie?" I nodded, eerily unsure of what I'd just agreed to do.
Chapter Twelve
Well thank God and hallelujah. I slipped two fingers into the delicately carved holes of the switch star. Think of it as a tricked-out Frisbee. The switch star was flat and round, about the shape of a small dinner plate. Five blades curled around the edge. They'd been dull in Dimitri's hands. When I touched them, they glowed.
Dimitri guided my shoulders into position, his grip firm. "Remember your stance."
The evening breeze whipped a few loose tendrils of hair into my face, tickling my nose. I resisted the urge to scratch and instead studied the target, a fifty-gallon plastic drum that had once held Grade A Lard, or so it said in industrial block letters on the side. Cliff and Hillary's tip-top arteries would have clogged at the sight of it.
We stood far back from the village of trailers that dotted the grassland behind Shoney's. In theory, we were at least a football field away from prying eyes. In reality, several of the werewolves had followed us to the training grounds. They'd pulled up a few ramshackle sofas and chairs and, of course, Andrea perched on the end of the shabby gold divan closest to Dimitri. She wore a leather bustier overflowing with cleavage and had kept busy painting her nails and flirting loudly with every werewolf within a half mile.
Like I cared. She was small potatoes compared to what Grandma was going through. Scarlet had spent the afternoon in the nearest thing she could find to a Yard-saver shed, an empty Dumpster back behind the restaurant. She'd reported Grandma was still trapped in the first layer of hell, holding on with everything she had, fighting Vald as he tried to suck her down into the second level with him. I had to get Grandma out of there.
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