Angie Fox - ADS 01 - The Accidental Demon Slayer

The old lady behind me, whatshername, started wailing.

Not good. I slowed things in order to get a good look at the darts. They shone like miniature glow sticks. I touched one and it sizzled on the end of my fingertip. Warm, but not painful. I pulled it out of the air and it hummed in my hand. I gingerly touched the tip. “Ow!” Sharp as broken glass. “The trick is to grab ’em by the side,” I said to myself. I gathered them up like I was plucking tomatoes off the vine.

“Whaddaya think about that, Mr. Xerxes?” I held out a handful of green sizzly things.

The demon seemed almost frozen in time. My grandmother stood with her eyes transfixed, her mouth gaped open.

“Biiiiitttch!” The demon screamed.

Like he was one to talk. “How would you like it if I tossed magical lawn darts at your head and called you names?” I launched the barbs back at him.

They crashed into his forehead and he exploded into a million flecks of light.

I shielded my eyes as the world ratcheted back into focus. Grandma’s scream pierced the haze in my head.

“Ak!” What had I done? My arms sizzled from the electricity in the air, and every hair on my body stood on end. The room itself tasted bitter. Grandma and I gaped at each other for about a half a second. Then she snapped her mouth closed and dashed out into the hall.

“This is real,” I said to my wild-haired reflection in the bathroom mirror. What a terrible thought.

Grandma hurried back juggling a half-dozen ziplock bags full of heaven knew what. “Get out.” She shoved past me, dumped the bags on the floor, and drew a circle on the tile with ashy, gray chalk.

“What?” I choked. Handprints— my handprints —burned into the countertop like a brand. I stared at my palms. There wasn’t a mark on them. My fingers throbbed like they were asleep. I rubbed them on my dress to get the circulation going again. “Are you going to tell me what just happened here?” I grabbed the bathroom towel to wipe snot, tears and heaven knew what else from my face.

She paused, chalk quivering. “Yes. But first I’m going to slam the door on these bastards. Xerxes only wanted a look at you. There’ll be more.”

A look? I didn’t believe that for a second. “In case you didn’t notice, he fired green pointy things. At my neck!”

She slipped on a pair of silver-framed reading glasses with rhinestone clusters in the corners. “You’re right. He did decide to kill you.” She began rifling through a collection of glass vials. “Demons can be impulsive.” She harrumphed. “Like yo-yo grandchildren who touch what they shouldn’t.” She chose a vial of olive-brown liquid and stuffed it into the front pocket of her jeans. “I don’t know what you were thinking, grabbing his fulminations.”

“Fulma-what?”

“No time,” she said, rifling through her bag again. “But don’t think for one second that you’re off the hook, slick. I’m gonna ride you ’til next Sunday.” She handed me a Smucker’s peanut butter jar filled with a canary yellow sludge. “Can the questions. Keep this with you. And for the love of Laconia, let me work.”

“Okay…” A demon wants me dead, so I get a Smucker’s jar. Shouldn’t we be running? Hiding? Where, I didn’t know, but Grandma’s Harley was sounding better by the second. Even if we ended up some place like the Laconia motorcycle rally. My fingers slid over the greasy glass of the jar and I darn near dropped it. What was I supposed to do if another demon showed up? Throw this at his head?

“Ey-ak!” I squealed as she popped open a ziplock bag that smelled like a dead mouse. She ignored my distress and began rubbing tiny circles of mush onto my bathroom floor. “Tell me that isn’t poop,” I said, as she ground the foul substance into my grout.

“Raccoon liver. Now get out!” my grandmother ordered without looking up from the mess on my bathroom floor.

“Gladly.” I had no idea what had just happened and I was not at all opposed to getting as far away from her as possible. I tripped over Grandma’s animal-hide bag and what had to be about a half dozen Smucker’s jars in the narrow hallway outside the hall bathroom. They were filled with various brackish liquids, plants, and at least one possum tail. Roadkill witchcraft. Fan-frickintastic.

I slumped down at the kitchen table and buried my face in my hands. “Face facts, Lizzie. Xerxes the demon just tried to chop your head off.”

What would Cliff and Hillary have to say about that?

I didn’t know what to think anymore. That thing was real. No question about it. He came for me. And he would have killed Grandma too.

An hour ago, I wasn’t even sure I believed in hell. Now it was after me. Xerxes probably tracked me like my grandmother had. Worse, he’d gotten inside my head without even blinking. How could I defend myself against a creature who could control me like a Muppet? I had no idea what he—or my grandma—could possibly want from me.

When my grandma had called, I figured she was interested in what I’d been doing the last thirty years of my life. I’d tell her about my friends, my teaching job at Happy Hands Preschool. She’d tell me about herself and her family. Make that my family. At last, I’d learn about my mom, any brothers or sisters, who I was, where I came from.

Now I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. I could be dead right now. Killed by a demon in my very own bathroom.

Claws scurried across the ceramic floor in the hallway.

“Grandma!” I leapt from the chair, on instant high alert.

She shot out of the bathroom as I realized my would-be attacker was, in fact, my Jack Russell terrier. Pirate was mostly white, with a dollop of brown on his back that wound up his neck and over one eye. He scampered around the corner into the kitchen, slid three feet and nearly thwacked his head on the side of the refrigerator.

“Pirate.” The tension oozed out of me and I about collapsed on the floor in front of him. He leapt into my arms and licked wherever he could reach. I hugged him close, his wiry hair tickling my nose. “Where have you been, boy?”

His entire body wriggled with excitement. “Alone! Locked in the backyard! Alone! But I dug under the fence. And then I ate through the screen on the front door. And I’m here now! I’m here! What’d I miss?”

My blood froze. “Oh no, no, no.” I scrambled away from him like an oversized crab. “There’s a demon in my dog!”

Pirate danced in place. “Are you kidding? It’s me! I burrowed, I ate screen, I ignored Mrs. Cristople’s tabby cat. I’m here to save you!”

Grandma scrubbed her hands on her jeans, leaving an oily smear behind. “Pirate is fine. A little impatient.” She grabbed a vial of silver powder from her back pocket and uncorked it with her teeth. “I told you to keep quiet until I had a chance to speak with Lizzie.”

Pirate let out a high-pitched dog whine.

“I don’t want to hear it,” she said, eyeball-measuring a bit of silver powder into her palm. “Now, Lizzie. I have to finish this containment spell or we could have another Xerxes on your toilet bowl.” She gave a worried snort. “Or worse…” She disappeared back into the bathroom.

I stared at Pirate, who promptly began licking himself.

“Stop it.”

He ignored me like he always did.

“Well hallelujah. At least some things don’t change.”

But, oh God, what had just happened?

I didn’t feel any different. I did a quick once-over in the mirror above the living room couch. I didn’t look any different. But there had been a demon in my bathroom. And he knew my name. I wasn’t up on my demon lore, but something told me that wasn’t good.

As for Pirate, I didn’t know what to think. I took a deep breath, counted to three. There had to be a logical explanation for all of this.