Angie Fox - ADS 03 - A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

Amara’s fingers turned white as she battled with her zipper. She lost her grip. “Gods! I hate women’s fashion.”

I was about to agree when I heard the most beautiful sound in the world—the symphonic roar of dozens upon dozens of Harley motorcycles.

“Brace yourselves!” Amara abandoned her zipper and went for her bronze sword. “It’s the sound from my vision!”

“Grandma!”

“Wait, stop!” Amara grabbed for me as I dashed past her onto the lawn. Talos tried to block me, but I dodged him too.

What was it with these Dominos griffins?

I sprinted down the driveway, well aware the Red Skulls could be driving into an ambush, but I didn’t get far. The biker witches rumbled straight for me, a wave of chrome and leather with Grandma in the lead.

They whooped and hollered, and a second before I became a human speed bump, they split and thundered past on both sides, popping wheelies, leaving choking dust in their wake.

Yeah, well we had an emergency here.

But even though I was frustrated, tired and dusty, I couldn’t help giving them a big thumbs-up. Hell’s bells, I was glad to see them. I needed something I could count on.

The Red Skulls slowed and came to a grinding stop on the road ahead of me, even more rough-and-tumble against the elegant white walls of the villa rising behind them. I could still feel the heat from their engines. A month ago, if you’d told me this motley gang of biker witches would be the one constant in my life, I’d have laughed. Hard.

They looked so out of place in their biker boots and dorags, a small army of chrome on this country load lined with cypress trees and bathed in tradition. Right now, they were the most beautiful sight in the world. I received at least a dozen high fives and pats on the back as I made my way over to Grandma.

“You don’t know how glad I am to see you,” I hollered over the engines as she strangled me in a sideways hug. “We’re in trouble.” In fact, I wasn’t sure where to start—with my problems or the fact that the wards on this place could go down any minute.

She slapped a hand glittering with silver rings over her chest. “Of course you’re in trouble,” she said, her gravelly voice full of humor.

This was no time for jokes. “Grandma, there’s something after me.”

She tilted up her dusty riding glasses. “No kidding.” She held out her arm. “Like my new tattoo?” Red skin puffed at her wrist where she’d had her half brother Phil’s name and date of death inscribed. Fairy wings flanked the Old English script.

“Grandma, listen to me.”

“I just did. Something is trying to kill you. Join the club.” She pulled off her black leather riding gloves. “We got motorcycles.” She and the bikers around her let out belly laughs.

“Sure. Fine. I’m glad this is amusing to you. But I’ve got some dark-haired woman attacking me, stealing from me, supposedly going to kill me, and I don’t even know what she is!”

Grandma sobered, but not before I caught a slight eye roll. “Okay, we’ll powwow as soon as I get the gang settled.” She stuffed her riding gloves into her back pocket. “Oh, and your trainer will be here tomorrow.”

“Thank goodness.” The sooner I learned how to use all of my powers, the better.

Grandma looked past me and raised an eyebrow. “Well don’t he look madder than a boar in a peach orchard.”

“What?” I turned to see Dimitri hiking toward us, with a griffin and a frantic Amara in hot pursuit. Dimitri must have shifted back at the house. He was barefoot and buttoning a pair of jeans as he went.

No wonder griffins preferred warm climates. They had a hard time keeping their clothes on. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded.

“Don’t move, Lizzie! We’re coming.” Amara kept a tight hold on her sword. “This is a disaster,” she wailed.

I walked out to meet them, keeping a choke hold on my control. “This is not a disaster. This is my family.”

Dimitri stood between the griffins and the bikers, fuming. “Everyone calm down,” he ordered.

“They’re here!” Pirate dashed past Dimitri, his paws barely touching the ground. “And they brought beef jerky!”

With the road blocked, the bikers began shutting down their rides.

Amara’s perfect brows knit as she looked over my shoulder. “Those people are with you?”

“Yes,” I said, as if everybody had biker witch relatives.

“Well, they look nice enough,” she said, not fooling anybody.

But I had bigger problems than Amara. Half the Red Skulls had killed their engines, and it wasn’t because Talos was being a big, bad griffin. The witches were doing it so they could start digging in their saddlebags for who knew what kind of magic spells.

Amara’s brother could find himself floating home to Rhodes.

Ant Eater leaned back on her bike, her curly gray hair peeking out from underneath a do-rag covered in glittering red skulls. “Who’s the chippie?”

Amara stared at the witches decked out in Harley gear, tank tops and American flags. “Where are you people from?”

A skinny witch in pink leather pants and a leopardprint shirt shrugged and pulled a cigarette out of her cleavage. She held it between two fingers. “We’re from that part of the South where sushi’s still called bait.”

Amara stared as the witch patted her blonde bouffant hair and accepted a light from a Harley-riding fairy who looked a lot like Danny DeVito.

“You’re more than welcome here,” Dimitri said to the witches. His voice didn’t even hold a trace of irony. He was either brave or crazy. “Come, we’ll take you back to the house.”

The Red Skulls idled up the drive as we walked with them. Pirate was on his back in Sidecar Bob’s lap, feasting on Cheetos and beef jerky, undoing about a year’s worth of Healthy Lite dog chow.

Grandma cursed under her breath as she shut down her bike on Dimitri’s perfect lawn.

“I don’t know Lizzie,” she said to me under her breath. “I’m not saying we need to be living in high cotton, but I’m not so sure I want to stay here. With him.” She nodded over at Dimitri, who was sending Talos out on another mission from the look of it.

Talos shook his large eagle head, but Dimitri was insisting.

I had to admit that these people, this estate, everything here was different from what I was used to as well. But still, we grow, we change.

“We can fit in here,” I told Grandma. “Just try. For me.”

“Maybe this’ll help.” She pulled a Smuckers jar from her saddlebag.

The jam inside was long gone, replaced with Grandma’s brand of magic. This recycled jar held a swirling green mass and…

“Is that a squirrel tail?”

She held the jar up to the light, revealing yellow flecks in the goo. “Let’s just say my ultimate Southern cocktail should liven things up a bit.”

“No, Grandma,” I warned, giving her the stink eye until she sighed and tucked the jar inside a black leather-fringed saddlebag. “I’ve done a pretty good job fitting in around here and you can too.”

“I won’t spell him,” she said. “Yet,” she added under her breath. “But I ain’t staying in no namby-pamby villa.”

“Yeah.” Ant Eater slapped Grandma on the shoulder. “Any place where you can’t ride a bike up the stairs—”

“Or have pickled-egg fights,” Frieda added.

“Or even let the band practice,” Sid the fairy said, glitter showering his shoulders.

“ You have a band?” Leave it to the fairy to have musical ambitions. “Never mind.” I had to figure out a way to keep them from tearing up the place. “Grandma…” I began.

Dimitri stepped between us. “It’s okay, Lizzie.” He reached down for Grandma, but then thought better of it. “It’s not as if we have thirty-eight extra bedrooms anyway.”