Angie Fox - ADS 01 - The Accidental Demon Slayer

“Lizzie!” Pirate popped up from where he’d been curled up, watching the front door. “Am I glad to see you. I’ve been dying for some company and this lady is no company at all.” Pirate’s collar jingled as he skittered toward me. I scooped him up in my arms, reveling in his warm little body.

Ant Eater tossed me an acidic glare and went back to stacking glass jars in a small pyramid next to a beat-up brown couch. She’d tied a black leather skullcap over her short silver curls. Chocolate brown furniture cluttered the narrow front room. Ant Eater had shoved most of it toward the back hallway in order to make room for stacks and stacks of pickle jars. Roadkill magic. Well, I’d seen Grandma’s jars. They shouldn’t surprise me by now. Except—my heart hiccupped—the goo in Ant Eater’s jars seemed to be alive.

“Hi there,” I said to her. I was not going to let this woman intimidate me. I picked my way across a yellow-brown rug that probably hadn’t started off that color. Lamps decorated with belching frogs topped white plastic end tables. Somehow, I’d expected these mercenary werewolves to live better. Perhaps this was simply an outpost where they stashed fugitives like us. I shuddered to think what kind of mission they had in store for me.

She hunkered over the jars, her wallet chain swinging from her back pocket. “Go to your room. It’s in the back. And stay the hell away from me.”

My stomach clenched. If there was one thing I couldn’t stand, it was bullies. And she was one of the worst I’d ever met. I had to stand up for myself now, or she’d only get worse. “No,” I said, a little more breathless than I’d intended. “Let’s get one thing straight. You are not going to treat me that way.”

She paused, her back to me. And that was another thing. The woman had to have at least two dozen jars stacked along the walls. How had she fled the coven with all of them? Perhaps Ant Eater had more notice of the attack than she’d let on. The thought made me very, very uncomfortable.

Slowly, deliberately she reached for a jar with—ohmygosh—a preserved human ear inside. I braced myself, ready to duck if she tried to throw it at me.

She held it up, her wide face flushed with anger. “Know what this is? This came from another smart-ass.” Her bushy brows plummeted downward as she sneered. “I warned him. Said if he touched my motorcycle again, I’d bite his ear off and keep it in a pickle jar.” The distended ear bobbed in the grayish liquid. Ant Eater seemed to relish the fear tingling up my spine.

A nudge at my leg nearly sent me jumping out of my skin. But it was only Pirate. He danced in place on his two front paws. “Now I think this might be one of those situations where we let the old lady have her way,” Pirate said. He turned tail and hurried back through the trailer. “I’m all for fighting and all,” he called from somewhere down the hall, “but that is just wrong. Ohh, water bed!”

I wanted to follow him. I really did. There was no reason to provoke a crazy bully who would like nothing better than to whack me in two with the samurai sword in the corner, or the very large machete under the coffee table or the—geez, there had to be at least twenty shotguns stacked in there. Not to mention the pistols lining the counter by the sink.

“Yeah, that’s right, Lizzie,” she said, daring me to push it. “Back away.”

I wanted to. But, “No.”

“What?” she spat.

I could feel my blood pounding in my skull, but this was no time to roll over. “If you want to share a trailer with me, there’s no reason why I can’t sit here on the couch and read a magazine.” I eased onto the squishy sofa and practically sank down to the floor. The thing was worse than a beanbag chair. And there were no magazines. Fine. I’d relax and contemplate the Three Truths of the demon slayer. Look to the outside. Accept the universe. Sacrifice yourself .

Sacrifice myself? Please don’t let it be today .

Ant Eater charged me and slammed the couch over backward. Pain exploded in my head as it smacked against the linoleum floor. “You’re the only one who can kill Vald, and you want to read a magazine?” She stood over me, fuming. “You worthless sugar-tit! You can’t even spit, and you’re the one who has to save Gertie. Time to feel some pain, princess. You’d better get used to it.”

She seized the toad lamp and yanked the cord from the wall. I scurried past the breakfast bar into the arsenal of a kitchen as the lamp crashed into the mugs above me and sent a whole rickety shelf tumbling down. The rack pounded into me and the cups sliced at my back as they shattered. I reached for one of the guns. My fingers touched the cool metal, and I stopped. I didn’t need to make this worse.

There had to be another way.

Look to the outside .

What outside? Outside myself? Okay. I’d stop worrying about myself and focus on the problem. Every red jowled, overblown, lethal inch of her.

I faced the crazy woman. Rage boiled in her eyes. “Stop!” I ordered. “Let’s talk—” She reached under the coffee table, grabbed the machete.

“Yeeee!” Pirate launched himself at her ankle.

Oh my word. Where had he come from? “Pirate, no!”

He chomped his teeth into her leather chaps.

“Son of a bitch!” She whipped her leg around and launched him into the hallway.

“Pirate!” Please don’t be hurt!

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.