by Terri Grimes
“I can do without the finger in my face, Grandma. I get it.”
“Don’t you sass me, young lady.” She gave a final shake of her finger in my face before lowering her hand.
I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful to have her appendage out of my face. It wasn’t that I didn’t love and respect her, but I knew where that finger had been. It had been in a dark mahogany coffin for the last year, buried under six feet of consecrated ground.
The delicate silver bracelets contrasting on her thick, meaty arm jangled as she leaned towards me. “Do you realize just how special you are?”
“Um, sure. You told me all the time, Grandma.” And she had. Not only did she often tell me I was special as I was growing up, but she also put it into writing. I thought back to all the greeting cards my grandparents had given me over the years. “To a special granddaughter on her special birthday,” or “Wishing a special Christmas to our special girl.”
It was to the point where I had begun to think the special bus would pick me up to take me to the special school. You know, the special short bus. Yeah, I got it. I was special. But being Grandma’s special girl wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
She leaned back against the toilet tank, giving a long, drawn out sigh that was reminiscent of a November wind howling through a drafty house on a blustery night. It made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck.
“I’ve failed you, Gertie. And for that I’m sorry.”
“You haven’t failed me.” I tried to pat her on the arm, my hand waving through her appendage, landing on the side of the sink.
“Gertie, my girl, there are things I should have told you a long time ago. Things I meant to tell you.”
I shivered, smiling in spite of myself. “Okay, I’m listening.”
“There’s no easy way to say this, honey. You, my dear, are a demon hunter.”
I cocked my head and stared at my grandmother, a half smile on my face. “Come again?”
“You heard me. It’s no use pretending you didn’t. You come from a long line of demon hunters. My grandmother was one, her grandmother and so on down the line.”
“What about my mother?” I asked with the half smile still plastered on my face, still very much in denial.
“Skips a generation. Your daughter won’t have the gift but your granddaughter will.”
“I don’t have a daughter, much less a granddaughter.”
“You will,” she said. “It’s no coincidence that you were born on the seventh day of the seventh month. The veil is always thinner for girls born under the sign of seven. Just be glad you weren’t born a boy.”
“Why? What’s wrong with boys born under the sign of seven?”
“Oh honey, you don’t want to know,” Grandma shook her head and tsked several times.
“Sure, I want to know,” I insisted. What could I say, I was a glutton for punishment.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Okay. I got that.”
My grandmother leaned in close to me, her breath smelling earthy, like dirt-encrusted worms. “You know how some boys seem to have a streak of the devil in them?”
“Yeah,” I replied, leery.
“Well, there you go.”
A small gasp escaped from my lips. It all made sense now. I shivered.
Grandma raised her hefty bulk from the toilet seat, standing in front of me. “Enough about that though. I didn’t come here tonight to tell you the universe’s secrets.”
“No disrespect, but why did you come back from the dead to talk to me? Why now after twelve months?”
“There are things you need to know,” she said conspiratorially.
“Huh?”
“Don’t say huh, dear. It makes you sound like an uneducated street urchin.”
“Sorry, Grandma,” I mumbled.
She turned to look in the mirror, smoothing her disheveled hair. “I grounded my first demon when I was fourteen. Yes, indeedy, I stabbed that masher dead square in the center of his William Powell looking forehead with an engraved magnetic religious medallion my dear grandmother had given me for my birthday that year.” My grandmother chuckled softly. “Looked like a third eye, it did. William Powell with a third eye, now that was a sight to behold.”
Why the demon looked like William Powel, I didn’t know. Call it a gut reaction, but I wasn’t anxious to ask.
“I would have liked to have kept the medallion for a memento. Not only was it attractive, as I said it was my birthday present from my dear sweet grandmother. But, you know how it is.”
“No, Grandma, I don’t know how it is.” I frowned. “Your grandmother may have given you an engraved magnetic medallion, complete with instructions, but mine gave me dolls and board games and even bicycles.”
She chortled. “Don’t forget the car your grandfather and I gave you for your birthday the year you graduated high school.”
“Oh yeah, it’s hard to forget a 1968 Studebaker. So much nicer than a measly old religious medallion that may have saved me from being attacked by a demon. Much more stylish too.” My arms were crossed over my chest in frustration. I set my lips tight and thin. I wasn’t anxious to take up the mantle of demon hunter.
“Don’t be crass, dear, it’s not becoming.”
I continued to glare at her. “Well? Why didn’t you tell me about this demon hunting business when you were alive? Don’t you think it might have been helpful?”
“Yes dear, I always meant to teach you the ways of a demon hunter, you know how things come up though.”
Again, I didn’t know, but I had the good sense to keep that little comment to myself this time.
“So, why couldn’t you take your medallion back once you’d, um…trapped him?”
Grandma gave an indulgent laugh. “My silly girl, if I took the medallion out of the wall where I trapped him, the portal would be opened and the demon would be free to come and go as he pleased between here and the lower level I sent him to. The magnetic properties, combined with the religious connotations of the medallion, negate the portal, thus keeping the entity grounded.” She leaned toward me, a smile on her face, chucking me on the chin. “Goofy girl.”
I choose not to take offense to her calling me goofy, but only because she was my grandmother. If anyone else had called me goofy, it would have been on.
I tilted my face and looked at the ceiling, shaking my head in disappointment. “Why didn’t you teach me about things that go bump in the night? Why didn’t you tell me about my legacy? Didn’t I have a right to know?” My eyes watered, causing me to blink several times to clear my vision.
My grandmother looked back at me, sadness shining on her ghostly face before she turned away, breaking our gaze. “I should have. I often thought about it. But then you would come to me in your childish exuberance, excited because you’d learned to draw a hopscotch grid. Or thrilled because you’d had a butterfly light on your arm whilst playing in the back garden. How could I be the one to cast a shadow on the light that bathed your life? How could I introduce my own flesh and blood to the dark side of the universe?” She sighed. “You were always my heart and soul, Gertie. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you that there really is a boogeyman.”
I saw the plea in her eyes. But I also saw the love.
“Is that so hard to understand?”
“No, of course not. But damn it, Grandma, you blindsided me. I had a right to know my legacy.”
She leaned forward, staring at me intently as a muscle in her cheek twitched in rhythm with the beat of my heart.
“What about that young man in your guest room?”
“Excuse me?” The pitch of my voice was high and I felt myself going into blush mode.
“Do you plan on telling him your new life’s work is to chew up demons for breakfast and spit ’em out at lunch?”
“How could I possibly explain that to him? I didn’t even know that was my new life’s work until tonight. Anyway, he’d think I was nuts.”
>
“Oh, I see,” Grandma said, nodding. “Just like you think he’s nuts for chasing ghosts for a living.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Pshaw girl. Yes you do. He spends his nights chasing something most people can’t see. And if you can’t see it, then it doesn’t exist. Or so the general populace seems to think.” She stopped for a moment before starting the finger shake again. Oh God, not the finger shake. “Do you think he’s crazy for chasing something that isn’t even there?”
“No,” I protested. “Of course I don’t think he’s crazy for chasing ghosts. And they are there, whether people want to admit it or not.” I couldn’t very well refute the fact that ghosts exist since I’d spent the last twenty minutes conversing with one dearly departed, very annoying, very loveable, ghost.
“Well then, I just don’t understand.” Grandma gave me her best confused expression. Obviously a ruse since she seemed intent on making her point. “Why do you think that young man is going to ship you off to the nut house when you tell him you come from a family lineage of demon hunters?”
It wasn’t lost on me that she said “when” I tell him, not “if” I tell him. That was my grandma, one smart cookie.
I stared at her wavering form, speechless. She had me there, for sure.
“Well?”
“Okay, Grandma, you are right,” I said in a small voice.
“What was that?” She cupped her ear with her hand. “I didn’t quite catch that, Gertie. The old hearing isn’t what it used to be, you know.”
I fought an eye roll. “You are right, Grandma.”
“Oh,” she said, all smiles. “That’s what I thought you said.”
I smiled in return. After all, who was I to argue with a smiling, dead for almost a full year, grandma?
She patted my arm. “You best get back in bed, young lady. But take it easy on the hanky panky. At least until you get a ring from him. Understand?”
“I understand, Grandma.”
“No need in giving the milk away for free, you know,” she cackled as her opaque image became even more translucent. And then she was gone. No hug, no kiss, not even a wave. Just gone.
“Grandma, wait! You didn’t tell me what I’m supposed to do with these demons once I catch them. Come back,” I pleaded.
“Use the medallion,” I heard her faint voice holler.
And then the room was quiet. The chill in the air was gone and so was my grandma. I tiptoed back into the bedroom and climbed into my bed. As I lay there, I could hear Sam in the next room sawing some serious logs. I wished I were snuggled up close to him, sharing his body-warmth. It would have been a welcome delight after spending the last thirty minutes in a chilly bathroom with the ghost of my deceased grandmother. At least I wasn’t scared anymore. Knowing my grandmother was still around, albeit in spirit, I felt assured everything would work out now. The last thing I remember was giving a happy sigh before I fell into a deep, contented sleep.
Seventeen
It was almost two hours since Sam left and I was still bathed in a happy glow. The good morning lip-lock we’d engaged in had helped a great deal with keeping that glow going.
On his way out the door, Sam told me he’d decided to skip tonight’s investigation in favor of taking me out to dinner and a movie. While thrilled, I had to admit I was more than a little nervous at the prospect of a real date with him. There was no time to obsess about it though. I had a call to make.
After ten minutes of digging through my oversized purse, at last I retreated with cell phone in hand. It never ceased to amaze me that we could send a man to the moon, yet still couldn’t design a purse that didn’t hide your cell phone and car keys. Grateful to have found the small pink device, I opened the display and expertly punched in Timmy’s number.
“Yeah,” he answered in a sleep-laden voice.
“Timmy,” I screeched. “Don’t tell me you’re still in bed. Good God, it’s almost four o’clock in the afternoon.”
“Well excuse me for having stayed up all night chasing your ghost,” he simpered as he gave a poor attempt at stifling a yawn.
“Dude, are you forgetting that Sam and I were the ones up all night last night? You are the one who left well before midnight. In fact, it was ten o’clock if I recall. But even so, Sam and I managed to wake up before noon.”
“See, that’s your problem,” Timmy said with an air of smugness. “I, unlike you, know when to stay and snuggle.”
“Don’t assume we slept together, dude. He may have spent the night, but not in my bed. Unlike you, he’s a gentleman. And furthermore—” I stopped speaking as his words finally sunk in. Even though I was talking on the phone to him, I felt like I was turning ten shades of red as if I were right there in the bedroom with Timmy and whatever one night stand he’d managed to pick up when he left my house the night before.
“Are you still there?” Timmy said after several seconds of silence.
“Yeah,” I whispered into the phone. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you had company.”
Timmy responded in a hushed tone. “It’s okay, he’s in the shower anyway.”
“If he’s in the shower, why are we whispering?”
“I don’t know, why are we?” He asked, still speaking softly.
Even though he couldn’t see my actions through the phone line, I rolled my eyes.
“What did you call for, anyway?” Timmy said loudly, startling me so bad, I jumped.
“I just wanted to let you know we’re taking a break from investigating tonight. Sam and I are going out for dinner and a movie.”
“You know, most couples do the dinner and movie thing before they sleep together for the first time.”
“So I almost did it backwards. Whatever. You can thank Bacardi for that,” I snapped.
“Bacardi, my ass. When you’re drunk, you don’t do anything that’s not already in your nature. The alcohol just lowers your inhibitions. So that inner whore of yours was already there, waiting for the guard to walk away from the gate, girlfriend. Anyway, what do you mean almost?”
“Timmy,” I protested. “I don’t have an inner whore. Speak for yourself.”
“I admit I have an inner whore. You are the one in denial, however and the sooner you face the fact that you would have slept with Sam Valentine anyway, with or without the aid of the alcohol, the better off you’ll be.”
“Well thank you, Doctor Ruth.”
“I can only call ’em as I see ’em,” he stated.
“Anyway, it turns out, the only part of him I slept with that night, was his t-shirt. I found out I passed out in his car that night and we didn’t really sleep together.”
“What? You’ve got me awake now. Dish it, Gertie my girl.”
“Well,” I began, taking care to choose my words, “as I said, it seems I passed out in his car so he had no choice but to take me to his house since he didn’t know where I lived or even my name.”
“How romantic,” Timmy sighed. “Did he keep one eye shut while he undressed you and put his tee shirt on your body?”
“I couldn’t say,” I admitted with reluctance. “I was passed out. Remember?”
“How do you know didn’t have sex if you were passed out?”
“Sam told me, natch.”
“I love it! The last of the red-hot gentlemen. It reminds me of that movie with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert. All you needed was a blanket hanging from the ceiling, in the middle of the bed separating the two of you, with you on one side of the bed and he on the other.”
“Ah,” I said. “The Walls of Jericho.”
“That’s the movie!”
“Actually, I think the movie was called It Happened One Night.”
“I know, but that’s the movie,” Timmy gushed.
I should have known better than to let a gay guy talk about old movies, especially my gay guy. Once he started jabbering about the classics there was no shutting him up. I tried to change the subject to the real reason I had
called.
“What time do you want to come over to test the equipment before tomorrow night’s investigation?” I said, attempting to change the subject.
“What? I tested the equipment last night.”
“Sam said that all of the equipment needs to be tested before each and every investigation.”
“All of it?” he said in a none too pleased voice.
“That’s what the man said. And, as Urban Ghost Hunter’s temporary tech manager, it’s your job to test each of the monitor’s reception, all of the cameras, digital and still, the electro static meters, voice recorders and even the walkie-talkies, my friend.”
Timmy uttered a drawn-out, put-upon sigh. “I had no idea being tech manager would be so much work.”
“You should have known anything with the word manager behind it wouldn’t be a cake walk.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said. “So how did it go after Lillith and I left?”
I let my breath out in one long whoosh. “Not good, pal. Not good at all.”
“Oh? Was there any sign of the presence?”
“Oh yeah. And then some.”
“Shit. So I guess we can’t shut the book on this case yet.”
“No,” I admitted. “Looks like we’re in this one for the long haul.”
“So, you’re going to help me, with the equipment check, right Gertie?”
“No way, dude. I’ve got my own laundry list of things to do before tomorrow night’s investigation.”
“Like what, check out Sam’s butt?”
“Timmy!”
“Save the righteous tone for someone else, girlfriend. I saw you checking out his butt last night. Don’t even try to deny it.”
That shut me up. I knew there wasn’t much I could say in response because he was right. “Okay, I concede, I was checking him out. But, you’d do the same thing and you know it.”
“Would and did,” he giggled.
I was ready to let loose with the “stay away from my man and I’ll stay away from yours” speech but Timmy reverted back to a whisper, “Have to go. My date is out of the shower so I’ve got just enough time for a couple of quickies before he leaves.”