toad witch 04 - aunt tilly were canning demons Read online

  “Me? Overstepping my bounds?” I asked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “After what you did?”

  “I don’t appreciate you threatening or banning, one of the members of my brood.”

  “And I don’t appreciate your baby bats feeding on my customers,” I snapped.

  He looked over at Aunt Tillie. “She’s really my sister?”

  “Half-sister,” I said. “Same mom only.”

  “Thank the Gods for small favors.” He snorted, looking me up and down. “And you’re the one she decided to keep?”

  “Not quite. I’m the one she decided to abandon when I was a toddler, and then die on.”

  He sighed and held up a hand. “My apologies. I suppose everyone has their own hardships to bear.”

  “How about apologizing for ripping into my neck like a weasel on a chicken?” I asked, still steamed.

  “It was a dream. Get over it.”

  “It still hurt.”

  He rolled his eyes, and in that instant, I could see myself in his face. Crap. He really was my brother.

  “You’re obviously not ready to have a conversation,” he said. “I’ll be back, later. When you’re ready to apologize.”

  “Me?!” I asked, astounded.

  “Yes. Apologize and reinstate Morte.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Then you and I are far from finished. See you later, Mara. That’s a promise.” He smiled, baring his fangs, then went out the door and vanished into the night.

  “Argh!” I yelled, angry and frustrated, as I locked the door behind him.

  “I told you to stay away from him,” Aunt Tillie said.

  “You know what would have been more effective?” I asked. “If you had freaking told me why.”

  Aunt Tillie raised an eyebrow. “Telling you we had a vampire in the family would have been catnip to your non-boyfriend. He would have never let you drop it.”

  She was probably right. I decided to wait until morning to get back to my demonology research. Instead, I grabbed a Vampyre book off the shelves and went to bed to do some reading.

  WHEN GUS DRAGGED himself in later that night, looking like he had just rolled out of bed, and sporting a hickey that I decided to ignore, I told him about Vin’s visit.

  “Are you fucking kidding me? You have a vampire for a brother and you didn’t think it was worth telling me? Until now?”

  “Half-vampire. Half-brother.” Did I really not tell Gus? Wow. There had been so much going on, but still. That seemed like a big oversight.

  “Why do I miss all the fun?” he complained, pulling his clothes off and getting into bed.

  “Maybe if you stuck around once in awhile, you wouldn’t. But it looks like you were out having plenty of fun of your own,” I said, raising an eyebrow at his hickey.

  He gave me a thumbs up. “Some nights more than others.” He yawned and closed his eyes.

  As I snuggled into Gus, I could feel him breathing in rhythm with me, his heart beating strong. I could see the faint, pulsating rush of blood through the arteries in his neck. Was that what Vin saw when he looked at people?

  Even the baby inside of me slowed down her movement and seemed to be floating, resting. I must have fallen asleep, because the next time I woke up, it was morning. Gus was lightly snoring next to me. I wanted to stay in bed, but my body wouldn’t let me.

  This whole pregnancy thing was kicking my butt. I was either famished, exhausted or looking for the nearest bathroom all the time. And lately, my stomach had gotten so big, it was displacing everything else. So not only was the baby sitting on my bladder, it was pushing my lungs up and out of the way, making it more difficult to breathe.

  Well, it was either the baby or all the weight I had gained. Considering that no one had ever given birth to a 70 lb. baby, I was starting to think Gus was right. I really needed to get the eating under control. But right now, I was famished. Bathroom first, then kitchen.

  WHEN I STUMBLED into the kitchen and turned on the light, I started screaming.

  Gus came running in, wrapping a sarong around his waist. “What?! Are you okay? What’s going on?”

  I pointed. The bloody sigils were back on the kitchen wall.

  CHAPTER 10

  “Be reasonable,” Gus said.

  I sat at the table in the outdoor kitchen area, sipping a cup of tea that Gus had made me, and glared at him. “Bloody sigils just reappear on the wall, overnight, and I’m supposed to act like it’s nothing? What planet are you living on?”

  “Planet Gus, of course. Mama Lua said she warded the space. The sigils are probably tied into the wards, and that’s why they’ve popped back up.”

  “And that doesn’t seem strange to you? Self-replenishing sigils?”

  He looked like he was weighing the question. “Not strange…more like, cool. Cool as fuck. I think you should be completely wowed by the level of coolness and Mama Lua’s insane skills.”

  “You are out of your mind.”

  “You’re over-reacting.”

  “And you’re under-reacting.”

  We glared at each other. It was a stalemate.

  “Fine,” Gus said. “I’ll send her a letter asking about the sigils.”

  “And about the hungry demon Emily has in her yard. Especially how the heck we’re supposed to get rid of it.”

  “Okay. Geez. Anything else?”

  “Go to a restaurant and buy me breakfast. Make it something good and plentiful. Did you bring home any groceries last night?” His guilty look told me everything I needed to know. I glanced at my watch. “Crap. Just for one day, I would like to not have to deal with the store.”

  Gus stood up. “You get ready to open, I’ll take care of everything else. But then I have to leave for a meeting, so you’ll be alone today.”

  “What else is new?” I muttered. “If you ever stuck around and helped me run the store, I might think the world was ending.”

  I rinsed the cup out in the sink, closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was going to be okay. It was going to be okay. I just needed to keep repeating that.

  But as Gus left, I shuddered. Wards or no wards, those sigils reappearing on the wall creeped me out. What I really wanted to do, was call Nick. I wondered if he would let me move back in with him, without putting any conditions on it. I sighed and went back to the bedroom. Thankfully, it had its own bathroom, so I could shower without going into Mama Lua’s cottage again.

  NICK MUST HAVE READ my mind. He showed up an hour later, just as I was about to open the store.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Thought I’d check on you. Where’s Mighty Mouse?”

  “Do you mean Gus? He’s cleaning the sigils off the wall in the kitchen.”

  “Are you kidding me? The cleaners left them there?” Nick asked, his face getting hard.

  He reached for his cell phone, but I stopped him. “No, the cleaners got rid of them. They came back.”

  “What do you mean, they came back?” Nick was looking at me like I was crazy, or speaking in tongues.

  “I don’t know how I can make that sentence any clearer,” I said. “It was mostly one-syllable words.” I shrugged. “Gus thinks they’re some kind of protective ward, and they’ll keep coming back.”

  “On their own?” Nick asked, sounding skeptical. “Does anyone else have a key to that cottage?”

  “Not as far as I know.”

  “I don’t like this,” Nick said.

  “I don’t either, but bizarro happenings seem to be part of the package, when you’re living with Gus.”

  Nick shook his head. “Gus thinks everything is magickal. But those sigils weren’t written in fairy blood.”

  “Did you test it? What is it? Is it red paint?”

  He shook his head. “Try animal blood mixed with paint.”

  A wave of hot and then cold ran through me. “Was it the blood of the same animals whose bones Emily found?”

  “That would be a
n interesting coincidence, for sure. But it wasn’t. It was cow blood.”

  My mind raced. Where would someone get cow blood, without going to a slaughterhouse?

  Nick must have understood the look on my face. “Stop overthinking it. You can get cow blood from the butcher at Sunland Produce.”

  I nodded. “So, it’s a person doing it.”

  “Of course it’s a person. I swear to God, Gus has rotted your brain. I want you to call me, if you hear or see anything suspicious. Sometimes, a cop with a gun is a lot more useful than a little brother with a wand,” he said, taking my cell phone and adding his number into my contacts. “I’m going to have a patrol car keep an eye on this place at night.”

  “HAVE you thought any more about our escape?” Aunt Tillie asked, after he left. “You don’t want to be here, any more than I do. Let’s leave and go to that Nick boy’s place. He seems sensible.”

  “You’re not here alone anymore, Aunt Tillie. Gus and I are right next door. If you want company, get out of your skull and pop over. It’s not that difficult.”

  “The point is, I shouldn’t have to,” she sniffed. “You don’t like being alone in that cottage. There’s something weird going on there. I don’t like being alone in this store. So, pack up my skull and let’s find someplace else to stay.”

  I stared at her. “Why do you need me? You’ve never been at the mercy of anyone. We did what you asked, we got you to Los Angeles. Go and have fun. You always do what you want anyway and the rest of us get to suffer through it.”

  Aunt Tillie glared at me, her eyes flashing in the skull. “I do not. You malign me, missy. Besides, I think that Nick guy is sweet on you. We’d be doing him a favor.”

  But there was something oddly subdued about her. A line from the note Mama Lua left flashed through my head. The space is warded… I remembered how tightly the wards had squeezed my head when we got here. They felt like a vise. I remembered Aunt Tillie complaining that the store gave her a headache.

  “Ah-ha!” I started laughing. “You are trapped. The store is warded so tight, you can’t actually cross the threshold, can you? So either you have to project in dream form, or we have to physically move you, in the skull, out of here and to some place less warded. That’s why all you could do was yell in dreamspace when that portal opened at Emily’s. You’ve been bested by Mama Lua.”

  Aunt Tillie’s eyes glittered dangerously. “Don’t mistake yourself as being correct. And don’t underestimate me, niece. It never ends well when you do.”

  That stopped my laughter. “What do you mean?”

  “Wait and see.”

  I was never sure with Aunt Tillie, just where her boundaries were. Ever since she transitioned into spirit form, she enjoyed being a royal, occasionally homicidal, pain in the ass. I supposed I should consider myself lucky that she had mellowed out from when I first moved into her cottage. At least she wasn’t actively trying to kill me anymore. But I didn’t want to poke that hornet’s nest inside her head any more than I had to. Just in case.

  I turned the Closed sign to Open and unlocked the door. Outside, a picket line had formed and was marching in front of the store. A picket line led by, of all people, Mrs. Lasio and her priest.

  “HELL, no, Heaven, yes. Shut these doors, God will bless.”

  The chant was loud, proud and obnoxious. The picket line was full of people of all ages, from children in strollers to old people using walkers.

  Across the street, news vans, reporters and cameras were immortalizing it. As the cameras focused on me, I quickly stepped back into the store, away from the door. What the hell?

  I pulled out my phone and texted Gus:

  Where the hell are you? Still cleaning the wall? Get over here now.

  That was so thirty minutes ago.

  Where are you?

  In a meeting.

  Mrs. Lasio barged into the store, holding her picket sign. “I thought I recognize you, fatty. Even fat, you have same face, Mara Stephens.”

  Damn it. I should have locked the door. “I’m not fat, I’m pregnant.”

  She gave me the once-over. “Not for too much longer. After that, you just fat.”

  “What are you doing here, Mrs. Lasio?”

  “We here to save peoples’ souls. We know all about what goes on here. That boy told us everything.”

  “What boy?” I asked, confused. There was no way Gus was going to be talking to any of Mrs. Lasio’s group.

  “None of your business. This place is home for demons of hell. You should get out, while you can.”

  The priest opened the door and poked his head in. “Gloria, it doesn’t look good for us to be in the store. Please come out.”

  “I’m trying to save her soul,” she said, giving me another once-over. “Hmph. Looks like it’s too late.”

  She left and rejoined the picket line. “Hell, no, Heaven, yes. Shut these doors, God will bless.”

  I WAS MORE CONFUSED after she left, then I was before she came in. At least the picketers made for a semi-quiet morning at the store, since no one would cross the picket line to shop. Gus was ignoring my texts, but that was okay.

  Thankfully, he had left his computer behind this time. I plugged it in and booted it up. Maybe I could find something useful about Emily’s demon on the internet.

  “What boy?” Aunt Tillie asked, and I jumped. I had been so caught up in my thoughts, I had forgotten she was here.

  “What boy?” I repeated, closing the laptop.

  “That woman. She said some boy had told them everything.”

  “Maybe they sent in an altar boy as a spy?”

  Tillie gave me a look. “Get your head in the game, girl. If they’re as religious as they look, they’re not going to send an altar boy somewhere that they think will damn his soul for eternity.”

  I looked out the window, where a flurry of activity was going on. The press corp had expanded and there were more picketers than before. I debated going out there, but I knew Mrs. Lasio would expose me if she saw me, and I really didn’t want to become the public face of evil for Los Angeles.

  I shook my head and texted Gus:

  UR missing ur 15 min of fame.

  No, I’m not.

  What does that mean?

  Silence. I texted him again. He ignored me again. So I texted him again:

  Whatever.

  That should let him know I was getting pissed. Mama Lua had a small TV in her office. I brought it out to the counter, plugged it in, turned it on and flipped to the local news.

  A young female reporter was standing in front of the camera, in frozen anticipation. Someone must have told her the feed was live, because she startled and carefully put an expression of concern on her face.

  “We’re standing in front of a local, North Hollywood occult shop, where picketers, led by the controversial, activist preacher, Richard Carson, have been protesting all day. It looks like Reverend Carson is almost ready to give a press conference. Which we will be bringing to you live, right after these messages from our corporate sponsors. So, stay tuned.”

  “Slow news day,” remarked Aunt Tillie.

  “Must be,” I agreed, but my stomach was twisting.

  The commercials ended, and the news came back on, with a close-up of Reverend Carson, preparing to speak to all the gathered bystanders, a wireless, outdoor mic in his hand. Great. Like his voice needed to be amplified.

  I was horrified to see how many people seemed to materialize out of all the nearby buildings—cafes, restaurants, grocery store, strip mall, thrift store, gas station, second-hand bookshop, etc. They were all standing outside the Crooked Pantry, gawking.

  “This isn’t going to be good,” Aunt Tillie muttered, echoing my thoughts.

  Cameras and camera mics, camera operators and roving news reporters crowded in, jockeying for position, as the Revered cleared his throat and started speaking.

  “We have it on very good authority that this store, The Crooked Pantry, is a haven for b
lack magic and demonology. The proprietor, one Mama Lua, is well-versed in what us God-fearing folk call black magic. Her actions, and the dark entities she calls up have held this neighborhood hostage. People are afraid for their pets, for their children, for their very lives. Today with me, I have young Emily, who lives down the street. Come here, my child, and tell the people what you’ve seen.”

  My jaw dropped open. Emily, the chick with the bones, stepped away from a young man with long sandy hair, who was wearing a small pentacle. Although, to be more accurate, it looked like he shoved her, and she took a step forward to keep from losing her balance.

  I paused the picture to take a closer look at him. He was the same guy from the photos in her house. He must be her boyfriend. Although he seemed like a jerk to me.

  He frowned at her, and glanced over at the Reverend, then at back at her. Emily hesitated, and he took a step forward. She turned, faced the Reverend, and a few steps later, she was standing next to him. He handed her his microphone.

  She started talking, looking uncomfortable. “I keep finding animal bones in my yard. Like, a lot of animal bones. Entire skeletons. It’s horrible. Every few days. And I was told, by Mama Lua herself, that it was a demon attack. Since she’s the only one in the neighborhood who knows how to conjure up demons...”

  Father Carson took the microphone back. “You see what I mean? Animal sacrifices, death and destruction, conjuring demons. Where will it stop? When will it stop? We demand this store be shut down. Its very existence is an affront to decent people everywhere.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Animal sacrifices…maybe by the demon, but not by us. And there was no way Mama Lua had called up that demon.

  The Reverend pulled out two photos of the inside of Mama Lua’s cottage, one showing the bloody sigils on the wall, the other showing the horrible mess we had encountered when we arrived. “This is how the woman lives. Not only is her store the center of her evil, insane actions, her home is a health hazard to this community.”