Angie Fox - ADS 01 - The Accidental Demon Slayer

Sure enough, trouble found us at a QuikTrip just outside of Jasper. We’d stopped for gas, a clean bathroom and a Rooster Booster Freezoni for Grandma. While she parked herself in front of the self-serve slushie counter, debating the merits of adding a blue raspberry layer to her energy drink, I found a field for Pirate next to the station.

He sprinted across the small meadow, leaping here and there, just for the fun of it. “I was made for the open road. How come we never blew out on a road trip before?”

Because I’d never thought of it. The full moon illuminated my romping dog, as well as the road dust clinging to every inch of my body. Ugh. I smelled like a diesel gas pump. I brushed at the grime on my arms. “We were fine in Atlanta.”

“Fine does not mean alive!” he said, hurdling over a patch of weeds. “Tingly!” He hopped back the other way. “Oh yeah. That’s what I’m talking about,” he said, continuing his assault on the shrubbery. “Belly scratch!”

“Pirate. Hurry up. Do your thing. Grandma will want to leave sooner rather than later,” I said, as I caught her out of the corner of my eye. She’d chucked her Freezoni and jogged toward us with a hotdog wrapper flapping out of her pocket and the look on her face I was coming to dread. Shadows gathered in the skies above the QuikTrip.

Pirate sniffed furiously at a clump of dried grass. “Hold the phone, Lizzie. You guys eat hotdogs while I get dull, dry dog food. And now you rush me in the john.”

“Four pixies,” Grandma called out before stooping over to catch her breath, “back by the beef jerky. Two more by the weenie machine. Let’s move, people!”

Sweet heaven. Pixies? She might as well have told me she’d spotted the Easter Bunny.

Pirate’s head popped up from a clump of wild daisies. “Don’t pressure me. I can’t stand pressure.” He circled twice. “Oh look, now I’m all locked up.”

Grandma and I made tracks for the bike at pump 6 while I tried to wrap my head around our newest supernatural terror. Someday, when I wasn’t about to have a heart attack, she was going to have to sit down and explain all this to me. “Tell me about pixies, Grandma. They’re bad?”

“They report to the imps. I thought we’d keep you under the radar, least ’til we sharpened you up.”

“Until Xerxes the demon,” I said under my breath. “Wait.” I gripped her arm. “You smell that?” A faint trace of sulfur floated past. And what else? Burned hair. It smelled like evil. Oh no. I sure hoped I was wrong. “Pirate, now!”

For once, he listened. I stuffed Pirate into the ferret carrier while Grandma reached for a Smucker’s jar. She unscrewed it, revealing a leafy-looking sludge. And was that a deer tail? My hand shot to my eyebrows.

She yanked the top off her silver snake ring. “Here.” She forced the severed cobra head into my free hand. Its emerald eyes twinkled under the fluorescent lights of the gas station. Protruding from the ring, which was now basically a snake neck, was a very small, very sharp-looking needle. Grandma plunged it into her chest.

“Ak! What are you doing?”

She winced as it pierced the flesh above her heart. I seized her arm as she flicked one, two, three drops of blood into the jar.

“What kind of lame-ass question is that? Gimme.” She took the snake head and snapped it back onto her ring. Dark wet blood stained her Kiss My Asphalt T-shirt. “Blood. It’s a small death. Makes the spell stronger.” She braced the Smucker’s jar between her thighs and threw on her helmet. “We’re gonna need an ass load of magic to get out of this.”

“Ohhh squirrels!” Pirate struggled against the ferret carrier, his legs automatically giving chase.

Not squirrels. My voice caught in my throat. Three—no—at least five shadowy creatures slinked toward us. I scrambled for my helmet, if only to whack them with it. They curled around the gas pumps and past the only other car at the pumps, a white Chevy Nova. “Help!” I called, hoping like heck the Nova belonged to an exotic-animal wrangler.

“Pipe down. Nobody can see the imps but us.”

Imps?

Lovely. I’d have to thank Grandma for opening my eyes to the wonderful world of magical creatures. Sweat pooled under my arms and chest. The imps’ congested breathing grew more and more excited as they drew closer. Purple eyes glowed from under dark, furry brows. They had weasel-like faces and the bodies of thick, hastily constructed people. Dark hair clung to their bent frames.

“ Confudi! ” Grandma tossed the Smucker’s jar and it shattered between two of them. The air radiated for a split second and the creatures screeched.

The imps retreated as fast as they’d appeared. Yow. I let myself breathe again. “You’ve gotta teach me about those jars,” I said. Maybe I’d try something with a SoBe bottle or two.

Grandma’s eyes widened. “Move!” She shoved both of us against a gas pump and I felt a wave of energy crackle past.

I spun to face her, Pirate dangling between us. “What was that?”

Huge wings beat a blue streak above us. I looked skyward and dread swelled inside me. A monstrous eagle with the body of a lion circled above the convenience store. Big as a truck, it screeched and displayed feathers of red, purple, green, blue. Impossible . Oh begonias. After today, who was I to even think that?

“The Phantom Menace!” Pirate’s legs clambered for him. “You coming back for more? Shake your tail feather this way. I’ll show you more.”

The creature blocked out the moon as it plunged right for us. I scrambled for the hard leather seat of the Harley. The bottoms of my shoes slipped off the riding boards as Grandma peeled out of the parking lot. We were on Route K in a heartbeat, flying so fast it made my head spin.

“I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee!” Pirate hollered as we sped off into the night. I clung to Grandma and closed my eyes to keep from being sick. I didn’t know how we were going to outrun that thing . My hair swirled under the edge of my helmet, and I could feel my face stretching with the wind. Every hill we crested, I swore the bike went airborne for a second or two. Heaven help us.

“Holy shit!” Grandma hollered as we careened around a hairpin turn at a speed I didn’t even want to know. The bike skidded, skipped over a dip in the road and slapped pavement again. My fingers dug into her sides when I saw the road ahead. Or make that, the lack of road.

Our stretch of asphalt ended in a small lake. It consumed both lanes of the road and the forest beyond.

Grandma hunkered low and steady over the handlebars. “Hold on!”

“What? Stop!” My gut clenched as we thundered straight for it. A flash flood like that could sweep a car away, much less three idiots on a bike.

There were no detour signs, no road cones. No reason for the water. My toes curled and I clung to Grandma tighter. We were traveling uphill. Water does not run uphill. But this water did.

Pirate fought the ferret carrier. “Oh no. I don’t do water. Water is not good.” He lurched, just like he did every time I tried to dunk him in a—

“Bath!” he yelled and pitched his body to the left.

“Shiii…p!” I screamed, as I lost my balance and toppled into the air.

“Holy hell!” Grandma grabbed us by the doggy sling. The bike plunged into the lake and skidded sideways through the surging water. Depression and rage swelled from its depths. “It’s an ambush!”

We lost the bike in a wave of water. I clutched Pirate as we slammed nose over toes into the abyss. Eyes closed tight against the muck, I fought past fleshy ropes of seaweed. It clung to my arms, heavy and stringy.

Please let it be seaweed, even if we are a thousand miles from the ocean .