toad witch 04 - aunt tilly were canning demons Page 12

  “Mara, I presume,” he said, and bowed, kissing my hand. He looked up at me, and his eyes were silver. He seemed to glow in the moonlight, from the top of his bald head, to the tips of his shiny, wingtip shoes.

  “Yes…Who are you?”

  “Your worst nightmare.” He smiled, revealing fangs that were long and lethal-looking.

  I screamed and backed away.

  “There’s no use fighting it,” he said. “I am always going to be faster, stronger and more clever than you.”

  I turned and started running.

  He ran faster.

  This is a dream, Mara, fly. You can fly, I told myself. I ran faster and faster, until I didn’t feel ground under my feet anymore, and I was airborne.

  “I love these flying dreams. So freeing, don’t you think?” he asked.

  I looked over. He was flying next to me. While I was going my fastest, he seemed to be lounging, laughing at me.

  Wake up, Mara. Wake up…

  Okay, that wasn’t working.

  Change the channel. Go to another dream. Think…Fields of red flowers and…and…Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory.

  But he was in the new dream with me, lounging against a cream-filled mushroom, that grew next to a chocolate river. He had a shiny red flower in his hand, and he was licking it like a lollipop.

  “I love the chase. It always takes me to such interesting places,” he said, and laughed. “It doesn’t matter how far you run. When I get tired or bored, I will end it. I win. I always win.”

  Then he threw the flower on the ground, where it shattered, and hard-candy shards scattered everywhere.

  The stranger went full-on vampire and attacked. I ran and jumped on the Wonkatania boat as it pulled away from shore.

  A few minutes later, the boat hit the tunnel, with nightmare images flashing in all directions, and Willy Wonka morphed from a benevolent, fun uncle into something far scarier.“Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing,” he yelled.

  As the images got faster and more disturbing, and the passengers started screaming, I turned and saw the vampire standing next to me.

  He smiled.

  I screamed.

  And then he bit into my neck, hard, puncturing the skin, and my screams turned from screams of terror to screams of pain.

  AUNT TILLIE HOLLERED “WAKE UP!” inside my head and I startled awake, just as a bright blue light flashed across the back yard.

  I felt the baby lurch inside of me, to look at whatever that light had been.

  “What the…Gus! Did you see that?” I whispered.

  His light snoring gave me my answer. I shook his arm.

  “I’m not sleeping,” he said, as he startled awake.

  “I think I just saw a portal open.”

  “Where?” Gus looked around with his night vision goggles. “I don’t see anything.”

  “To the left of the tire swing.”

  The baby shifted again. “I think…I think the baby can see it.”

  “From inside you? That’s epic.” Gus said.

  “Give me the camera.” He did. Every time the baby shifted, I snapped a photo in whatever direction the baby was looking at.

  Normally, Los Angeles is never really dark at night. Too many house lights and street lights and security lights.

  But back here, it was oddly pitch black. The street lights had all gone out. The house lights for the entire block had been extinguished. Not even the moon was making an appearance tonight.

  I wondered if we were in some kind of rolling black-out. But, I put my faith in whatever the baby was looking at and kept taking pictures. The sound of an animal screaming shattered the quiet. I jumped and grabbed Gus’s arm. “What was that?”

  “Sounded like a coyote finding his dinner,” Gus said. In the distance, we could hear howls starting up, along with high-pitched yipping. “Yup. The pack’s out hunting.”

  I shuddered. I hated listening to the coyotes when they were on the hunt. It wasn’t the coyotes who were hard to listen to, it was the screaming of the prey as they ripped into it. But the baby didn’t seem to be bothered. I could feel the tiny body roll over into a sleep position.

  “I think that’s it, photo-wise,” I said. “At least, for now. The baby’s saying it’s over. Maybe we should go back to Nick’s and call it a night.”

  “Awww, are you scared? Don’t be scared, I’m here. I can protect you, my cheeky little monkey,” Gus said, patting my hand. “No mean coyotes are going to make off with you.”

  I rolled my eyes. I would have gotten up and left, except I was stuck in the stupid chair. “Help me up. I want to mark the portal, so we know where it’s at, and then I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Again?”

  “What can I say? I have a bladder the size of an acorn these days.”

  “No kidding.” He helped me up. “You go to the bathroom, I’ll deal with the portal.”

  I grabbed a flashlight and quickly headed for the back door. Thankfully, Emily had remembered not to lock it. I hurried in, past a jumble of shoes (heels, gym shoes, men’s sandals and fashion boots), past the baseball caps and sun hats dangling from hooks in the hallway, and was brought up short by stubbing my toe on an umbrella stand.

  I froze, hoping the sound didn’t wake anyone. After a few seconds of silence, I tiptoed past the dining room, the flashlight shining on a large picture of Emily and a guy with long, sandy hair, at the beach. They were smiling, their arms around each other. That must be the boyfriend she was talking about.

  WHEN I WENT BACK OUTSIDE, the streetlights were back on and Gus was looking proud of himself.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I closed the portal.”

  I groaned. “Gus! You can’t do that!”

  “Not only can I do it, I did do it. You’re welcome. Money earned. What’s your problem? I thought you’d be happy.”

  “Whatever it is that came through that portal, it’s still on this side. Now that you’ve closed it, the thing is trapped here. That’s why I wanted to mark the portal and close it later, after we booted its hungry ass back to its own side.”

  “Oh,” he said. At least he had the grace to look sheepish. For all of half a second. “You should be thanking me. If I didn’t close it, no telling what else could follow Snacky McJaws out of that portal. You should be singing my praises. I may have single-handedly stopped hordes of demon armies from crossing into our side.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Can you re-open it?” I asked.

  “There’s no guarantee I’ll be opening the same portal. It’s like trying to travel to Earth, via a dart. You throw the dart, that’s where you land. Trying to throw the dart again and have it land in the exact same location, when you don’t even know what continent you’re supposed to be aiming for, and you’re spinning in circles…”

  I held out my hand, to stop him. “So what if you’re opening a different portal? Does it matter what part of the Otherworld we drop this demon in?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me. You’re the one who’s been getting on my ass about causing perpetual winter. Does it matter where I send a demon back to? Can I send it to the Winter Queen? Maybe we’ll wind up with perpetual summer, after it devours her.”

  I sighed. “We can’t just let a demon stay here. Especially not if it thinks earth is some kind of all-you-can-eat buffet. We just need a portal to someplace in hell. Probably somewhere in Tartarus, where Hekate keeps demons and disgraced deities. That should be easy enough to do.”

  Gus gave me a weird look. “Do you have any idea how many demons Tartarus contains? I open some generic portal to hell, it’s a two-way door. There’s no telling who’s going to use it to come through. We don’t have our demon trapped and ready to send back, so we can seal it back up. We don’t even have a name to summon the demon with. All we would have is an open portal to hell in the yard, that anyone can use. As much as I don’t like Emily, that would be a really mean thing to do to
her.”

  I sighed. “We need to get that demon back.”

  “Oh, sure. Why didn’t I think of that? Here, demon, demon. Here, demon. Come here and we’ll give you a snack…” He turned to me and shrugged. “Gosh, I don’t know why that’s not working.”

  “Shut it,” I said. “I don’t hear you coming up with ideas.”

  He shrugged. “It would help if we knew which demon came through. That way, we could summon it up by name, key a portal to its home address, and boot its ass through. Done and done.”

  “You can do that?” I asked, surprised.

  Gus gave me a haughty look. “I’ve suckled ‘pon the breast of a witch since birth. Magick naturally flows through my veins. I’m the opposite of you and your bairn.”

  “What?!” I kicked at the area of his ankle, but since my stomach was blocking my view, he was able to dodge it. “Say that when you’re in punching range, I dare you.”

  “I’m not saying you’re not a kickass witch. All I’m saying is, you have a baby amplifying your already magnificent powers, by supplying magick to you through the umbilical cord. It’s a compliment. To both of you, really, when you think about it. You two must have quite a bond.”

  I hmphed and sat back down in my canvas prison. I never quite thought of it that way, but he was right. I was nourishing the baby with food, and the baby, in return, was nourishing me with magick.

  Gus moved the cameras a safe distance away, then took his blackthorn staff, stood up and cast a circle around us. While a lot of witches used blackthorn for blasting or cursing, it was great for moving energy in general.

  “What are you doing?”

  “We don’t need the cameras anymore, so I’m casting a circle of protection, just in case it comes back. In your condition, you’re easy prey.”

  “Have you gotten hold of Mama Lua yet?” I asked Gus, once he was finished casting, calling in guardians and spinning the circle. “I would really love to get her advice on how to deal with this.”

  He shook his head as he sat back down. “No. I’ve tried texting, calling, emailing, Facebook messaging, tweeting, and there’s been no response.”

  “I hope she’s okay.”

  “You tell me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have the same connection with her that you do.”

  “Then let’s do it together. We’re stuck here until sunrise, just in case the demon comes back, looking for its portal. We’re in sacred space, now that the circle is up. Let’s take advantage of it.”

  “How?”

  “We’re witches, remember? We’re going to try contacting her the old-fashioned way and see what’s going on. Through the Web of Wyrd. You do the seer work, I’ll provide the power.”

  Gus grabbed my hands, and started a low, rumbling chant. I closed my eyes, and let my body sway with his, as we focused on Mama Lua.

  In my mind, it was like I was flying over a giant map of the United States, and all the states were full of pinpoints of light.

  But when I got to Louisiana, a section of it was dark. Not like the lights didn’t exist, I could see half-lights at the edges of the darkness. More like someone had draped a blanket over them, hiding them, rather than them being extinguished.

  Those must be Mama Lua’s wards. She was incredibly, heavily warded. I had never seen anything like it before.

  But there was no feeling of panic or pain or death or absence. It felt like she was there, she was fine, and she was enjoying her privacy.

  I decided to go into the darkness, to see what was underneath it.

  That was the last thing I remember, before everything went black.

  We must have both fallen asleep at that point, because the next thing that woke us up was Emily, screaming. Gus jumped up. I tried to. He quickly pulled me out of the chair, like a stuck cork being yanked out of a tight bottleneck, and I flew off, bowling into him.

  “Oof,” he said. But he stayed standing. Barely.

  “Fuck!” Emily yelled. “This had better not be my neighbor’s dog.”

  On the sidewalk leading to Emily’s back door, there was a neat pile of bones, along with what looked like a canine skull.

  The demon must have come back while we were sleeping. Probably at sunrise. Thank goodness Gus had cast that circle of protection around us. We would have been easy prey, otherwise.

  “Awww, cool! Would you look at that? I call dibs on the bones. Plus the skull,” Gus said.

  “Not funny!” Emily said.

  “I’m not kidding,” Gus said. “I’ll give you a hundred dollar discount.”

  “Fine, take them, whatever. I don’t care. Freak.”

  The line of carefully placed bones reminded me of a cat leaving a mouse offering for its owner. Had the demon somehow imprinted on Emily? Was it some kind of offering for her?

  Thankfully, the neighbor’s dog started barking at the commotion, so we knew it was still alive. We heard Emily’s neighbor go outside, yell at the dog to shut up, and slam the door shut.

  Emily turned on Gus. “You were supposed to stop this thing. Isn’t that why I’m paying you to be here?”

  “Nope, sorry,” Gus said. “That’s not how it works. It’s not instantaneous.”

  “Of course, it is,” Emily said. “You’re like the ghostbusters, right? Except you’re demon-busters. So…? Bust it already.”

  “It’s not that easy,” I said. “Right now, all we know for sure is that it’s a supernatural entity, not a wild animal. It opened a portal to cross into this realm. A wild animal wouldn’t do that. There’s a lot of demons on the other side. We need to figure out which demon is coming through and why it’s targeting you.”

  “But, thanks to Mara and her radar baby, we’ve got a good start,” Gus said, holding up one of the cameras.

  Emily looked peeved. “That’s all you did? Take photos?”

  Gus gave her a haughty look. “No, that’s not all we did. You should be singing my praises. I closed the portal, so there won’t be anything else following it through from the other side. You’re welcome.”

  That was one way to spin it. Hopefully, she didn’t think about it too hard and realize that the demon was currently trapped on our side.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse us,” Gus continued, packing up our supplies. “We have some research to do.”

  “I HAVE a crick in my neck so bad.” I said, as Gus walked and I waddled back to the Crooked Pantry.

  “I hear you. I’m pretty sure there’s an elbow growing out of my shoulder. So, what did you find out about Mama Lua?”

  “She’s okay. Her wards are something else, though. When I tried to breach them, I fell asleep.”

  “Is that what kicked our butts? I like it. It’s not aggressive, there’s no karmic backlash, but it keeps your enemies at bay. Like a giant sleeping spell.” He looked at me and did a double-take. “Did you get bit?”

  I stopped and stared at him, shocked. “Why? Do I have a giant mosquito bite?”

  “Not really…” he looked again. “It looks like you poked yourself in the neck with a carving fork. Unless you’re dating a vampire when I’m not around.”

  I felt my blood run cold. “Oh, hell. I dreamt that Morty’s vampire master came after me.”

  “Let me take another look. Move your hand.”

  I put my hand down, and he inspected my throat and neck, up close.

  “They may be just freckles. Like, those weird, red ones you get sometimes.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “I’ve never had red freckles on my neck before.”

  He shrugged. “I’ve heard that babies can do strange things to your body. Body, skin, hair…everything is growing like crazy. Super-sized cell reproduction. And with this baby…all those weird alien hormones flowing through you…I’m a little surprised—and I won’t lie, disappointed—you haven’t grown horns yet.”

  “It not an alien baby, or a demon baby or a vampire baby. It’s just a baby,” I snapped.

  “Whatever. All I’m sayi
n’ is, for all your complaining, I’m a little jealous that you get to have all the fun.”

  “You have a warped idea of fun. Spending the entire night sitting in camping chairs has to count as torture not fun.”

  “No argument here. I think the damn chair gave me hemorrhoids, my ass is in so much pain. I can’t wait to get on an actual bed.”

  I gave him a sideways glance. Despite his complaints, he was cheerfully strolling along, carrying the chairs and a backpack full of equipment, his man bag stuffed full of the new bones, while I carried the sword and the staff. I fully expected him to start whistling the theme from the Andy Griffith show any minute. I swear, nothing makes Gus happier than a full-immersion dip into Spookyland and a gift of bones from a demon.

  “You’re springing for a masseuse,” I said. “Or I’m going to sit on you and squash you like a bug.”

  Gus gave me a look. “Masseuses, like therapists, are for people who don’t have friends.”

  “Friends only go so far,” I said and almost stumbled over the same homeless person from the day before. This time he had a scruffy-looking, skinny dog with him and they were both sitting outside the Crooked Pantry.

  “Got some cash you can spare?” he asked, looking hopeful.

  “You already blew through that ten?” Gus asked.

  The homeless guy shrugged. “Food’s expensive. And now I got a buddy to feed.”

  Gus gave him a five. “Sorry, man. That’s all the cash I have on me.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, tucking it into his shoe. “It’ll get us both some nosh at the 99-cent store.” He got up and ambled off.

  I unlocked the door and we walked into the Crooked Pantry, as we continued our conversation.

  “We’ll take turns massaging each other. It’ll be fine,” Gus said.