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

LOVE SPELL NEW YORK CITY

Dire Predictions

I knocked on the door to Dimitri’s room. He opened it wearing a pair of green plaid boxers and nothing else. The man was temptation in the flesh. Too bad we didn’t have time for that right now. I placed the book in his hands. “Take a look at this.”

I ignored the way he undressed me with his eyes. Instead, I scooted past my personal Greek god and flopped down on his bed. He cocked a brow and sat down next to me, book in hand. He frowned as he read the passage predicting my downfall.

“Chopped in half,” I said, in case he hadn’t read fast enough.

He ran a finger over the page, contemplating it like an academic. “Split in two,” he murmured, focused on the book in front of him.

Oh please. He was far too calm about this. “What’s the difference? This is the second death prediction in forty-eight hours.”

He leaned close enough to kiss, his chocolate brown eyes fixed on mine. “You are in control.”

Had he read the passage? “No, I’m not.” I hadn’t been in control since my grandma showed up on my doorstep with jelly-jar magic and a demon on her tail.

His fingers tightened on my arms. “You decide your own destiny, Lizzie. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

Oh, so I was supposed to sit around, ignoring the warnings, pretending I was in charge. Not happening. I was a demon slayer. I shook off his grip and crossed my hands over my chest. He’d better feel like a rotten jerk when I turned up dead in a forest clearing.

To my husband, Jim, who has never doubted my dreams, no matter how crazy they might be.

After all my years of organizing field trips, fire drills and potty breaks for my three-year-olds at Happy Hands Preschool, you’d think I could get two geriatric biker witches through the Las Vegas airport in under an hour. But sometimes the things that look simple on the outside aren’t. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way.

“Don’t you even dream about casting a spell on that man,” I said to my grandma, who had paused next to a heavyset guy sneaking a cigarette in the nonsmoking area outside the Fly Away Bar and Grill. Her black “Harley’s Angels” T-shirt stood in stark contrast to his pinstripe business suit and red power tie.

Grandma tossed a lock of long gray hair over her shoulder as she rooted through her black leather bag. “He won’t even know what hit him,” she answered in a voice roughened by hard living and an extra-loud rendition of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” sung in the parking-garage elevator.

I gritted my teeth as a bearded student thwacked my elbow with his taped-together backpack. In all fairness, he was busy avoiding a woman lugging a rolling suitcase that tipped over every three seconds. Was it sad that I envied them? At least they were moving.

Normally I’m a fast walker, an organized person and certainly not the type to be late for my flight. I glanced down the immense glass and silver terminal as six more people joined the already overloaded airport-security line.

Ant Eater, Grandma’s second in command, flexed her shoulders and stretched out her neck. “I hope the stuffed suit’s not a lawyer.” She adjusted her silver-spiked riding gloves. “He might sue you if I kick his ass.”

“Nobody is kicking anybody’s—” I searched for the right word. “Tuffet.”

Seven years with preschoolers had made it nearly impossible for me to curse.

“Okay, now I’m really late. Time to go.” I took Grandma by the purse and was about to grab Ant Eater by the silver-stud belt. Then I thought the better of it. Ant Eater took orders about as well as Genghis Kahn tap-danced.

She caught my hesitation and grinned at me, her gold tooth glinting in the late-afternoon sunlight.

Grandma shook off my hold, moved in behind the smoking man, and with the stealth of someone well-practiced at placing “Kick Me” signs, she sprinkled what looked to be sawdust over his back and shoulders. Poor guy was going to think he had dandruff—or that he’d stood too close to a wood chipper.

The man gasped, the lit cigarette teetering on his lip. Meanwhile Grandma uttered something under her breath that sounded strikingly like a Gregorian chant. Fingers shaking, he dropped the cigarette on the floor and ground it out under his heel.

“Once rude. Always rude,” Ant Eater huffed.

The man turned to Grandma, eyes unfocused like he was waking up from a dream. “I don’t smoke. Do I?”

“Not anymore.” Grandma slapped him on the back.

Amazing. And here I thought she was going to Itch-spell him, maybe hit him with a Frozen Underwear bomb. “Is that new?” Never mind what it meant to mess with the man’s free will. Or what would happen if GlaxoSmith-Kline ever got wind of it.

“Mixed it up yesterday,” she said, with more than a hint of pride.

We’d talk about it later. But at the moment…

“I need to go,” I said, ducking into the crowd behind what looked to be an entire soccer team heading for Terminal C. “You can see me off at the security line, or you can see me off here. Doesn’t matter.”

I started walking, witches be darned. I had a sexy shape-shifting griffin to meet. Frankly, it was the only way you could get me on a plane. I wasn’t crazy about flying. It was bad enough Dimitri’s business had kept him from escorting me to the airport. I mean, isn’t that how a romantic trip to Greece is supposed to start?

Besides, Grandma and the gang should have been packing. They only had three days to drive out to New York if they wanted to catch their seniors’ cruise to the Mediterranean. It was the easiest way to bring Harleys along. Plus, those witches loved buffets.

Now that I finally had a ticket and I almost had a griffin, I wasn’t going to let a couple of pokey witches make me miss my flight.

I quickened my pace and took an inventory of the crowd in front of me: several kids in jeans that were either too tight or gangster baggy, an athletic coach who always seemed to find the break in the crowd. I squinted. I’d bet my big toe he was part fairy, but I doubted even he was aware of it. A couple of businesspeople…Nothing out of the ordinary, at least from a supernatural perspective.

A nice, normal day. It almost felt strange. It was like I was waiting for something to go wrong.

The two witches clanked behind me. Between their silver accessories and the spells they carried in glass jars, they could hardly move without something banging together.

“Lizzie Brown.” Grandma drew a labored breath, but I wasn’t buying it. This woman would smoke me in a footrace for a shot of Southern Comfort. “You’re as jumpy as a jackrabbit.”

“Can’t help it. I’m too close,” I said, dodging a family of four. Close to a dream vacation, without demons, imps, hellions or anything else that went bump in the night. A blessedly normal trip. Did I even remember what normal felt like anymore? I couldn’t wait to find out.

“Hold up,” Grandma rumbled next to me, keeping pace.

I ignored her.

They were supposed to make this easy. They were supposed to drop me off at the outside baggage check. Instead, they had to find parking for their Harleys, hit every wrong button on the parking-lot elevator and insult the check-in clerk. Of course American Airlines didn’t offer upgrades for demon slayers, even if I had saved Las Vegas and pretty much the entire West Coast from Armageddon. As it stood, I was lucky those two didn’t get me downgraded to crazy.