Night of the Living Demon Slayer (21 page)

"No," she grabbed my arm violently, as a wave of red smoke shot up nearby. Way too close. "You have to kill her
in her grave
!"

I stared at her. "You sure?"
She held my gaze. "Positive."

"Good Lord." I hoped she was right.
 

I climbed up on top of a trunk near the wall, unsure how I could even pull it off. If this worked, if I could make it there, this could be our salvation.

I'd have to levitate and then make a run for it.

Meanwhile, I sliced the arms off an old man who was about to take a chunk out of Flappy's leg.

Flappy took off, jolting up into the sky.

"You can do it!" My dog's voice floated down to me.

He was in so much trouble right now.

But first I had to find the immortal voodoo queen. And lead her to her grave. And kill her.

I bashed in the skull of a creature who was more bone than anything, and leapt out of the circle, landing on the roof of a brick grave that crumbled under my feet. The red smoke from the death spells stung my eyes, making them water. My side twinged, but no blood oozed out. Go, Frieda.

"You want me?" I hollered to the voodoo queen. "Come get me."

I saw her advance through the mess of bodies and I did something I'd never done before. I ran away.
 

Jumping down off the far side of the grave, I took off like a shot, toward the rear left side of the cemetery. My boots pounded against the packed ground as I ran over the seashell paths and through the uneven graves. I found a relatively deserted path and took down a dead bride on the way up to the white stone lane where I hoped and prayed I'd find the Pade family tomb.

A wave of screams erupted behind me. I had to believe Dimitri and the witches were holding their own. That it was a battle cry, not the sound of my friends being ripped apart.

The whispers of the dead followed me. Their spirits tangled in my hair, chilling me to the core. They wound in front of me, misty and white.

I tore straight through them.

And then I saw it, the Pade grave straight ahead, on the dead end. It stood plain and white, topped with a slanted roof, then entrance flanked by vases of crimson roses twined with strands of pearls and feathers. More flowers scattered the ground in front of the entrance, along with offerings of rum and cigarettes.

I stomped them in my haste.

The tomb was cursed. I would be too in a minute. I spread my hands over the freezing cold stone, even as I sweated in the heat of the night. I found the lever, slid it to the side and stood back as the stone rolled away.

Dark energy tore at my skin and I remembered Aimee's warning. It could very well kill me to proceed, but dammit, I was about to make sure it was positively lethal for Mamma Pade.

"Sacrifice yourself." It was one of the three Truths of the demon slayers and I clung to it now.

A dead hand landed heavy on my shoulder and I gasped. I spun and came up hard against a very strong, very angry Mamma.

This time, she stood alone, away from her ghouls and her henchmen.

"I'm not going in there and neither are you," she hissed.

I grabbed her hand and fell back into the tomb.

Icy coldness washed over me and I let out a cry as my head slammed against the floor. I had to stay conscious, keep hold of the sword, even as Mamma's corpse crashed down on top of me.

I'd lost most of the feeling in my arms. I didn't even know if I could swing the heavy sword as Mamma rose up, her fingers closing around my neck.

I stabbed her in the chest, the sword going in hard, catching on bone. It drove her off my neck, but it didn't kill her. If anything, it ticked her off.

She snarled, working her body on the sword until I realized she was impaling herself to get to me.

I braced a foot on her chest and fought her, using every bit of strength I had left to dislodge her body from my weapon. My head swam, the blood trickling from my side felt warm against my cold, cold skin as Mamma's bony fingers found my throat once more.

My fingers weakened their grip. I couldn't feel them anymore. I had to find my strength somehow. Had to fight.

I thought of Dimitri and the witches, surrounded, fighting a losing battle against the horde. I thought of Pirate and what would happen to him if everyone he loved were gone. I thought of what I had with Dimitri and I how I refused to lose that over a crazed voodoo bokor and his damned mother.

So I shoved both my feet against her chest and yanked the sword back and kicked her into the ceiling. She slammed against the stone. I rolled away as she fell back down. And once she landed, I rose to my knees and sliced her sick, smiling skull in half for good.

The black soul burst from her throat, breaking into hundreds of tiny shards that flew straight at me. I shielded my face, closed my eyes, as they seared past me and out into the night.

Free.

Chapter Twenty-One

Mamma's bones rested on the dirt-caked floor of her grave. As it should be.

I watched the light fade from her eyes. The flesh flaked and crumbled from her bones. Her eyeballs sank into her skull and returned to dust. And when I was satisfied that she lay well and truly dead, I stepped out of the grave.

The moans of the dead echoed throughout the darkened cemetery.

A young blond girl stumbled toward me. She couldn't have been more than ten. Blood trailed from her mouth, but at the moment, she appeared more stunned than deadly.

"I've got her," said a gristly voice on my right.

Carpenter stepped out from between the graves, flanked by Frieda and Aimee. A white bandage wrapped his chest. He looked like he'd seen better days, but he was whole and alive.

Thank God.

He stretched a hand out to her and she jolted to attention. "This way, sweetheart," he said, ushering her toward an open mausoleum a few graves down. Her tiny feet scraped the dirt as she shuffled back to her place of rest.

"Now this one," Carpenter said, turning weakly to beckon a pale and confused Osse Pade. Without Mamma, he'd lost his intellect, his awareness. "Go," Carpenter said, pointing to the Grave of the Three Sisters. I stepped aside and let the bokor enter.

"Don't anyone else near this place," I warned, "it's cursed." I sure felt like death warmed over.

The necromancer shook his head. "That curse died with Mamma." He paused. "You did kill her, didn't you?"

Way to take it for granted. "Yes," I said, trying to sound cocky, even as I admitted my failing. "Her soul went free."

Carpenter squinted and looked to the sky, as if he could somehow see it. "It was free before."

I didn't even want to think about it.

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

He shrugged. "About as bad as you look," he said, his attention returning to me.

"He was too busy destroying records to worry about bleeding to death," Aimee said, tears clouding her eyes. "Frieda got to him just in time."
 

The biker witch shrugged, embarrassed. "We all do what we can."

"We figured out how to stop Mamma," Carpenter said, as if that was all that mattered. "And I made it so the secret to Osse Pade's soul traps died with him."

Dimitri stepped from between the graves. Sweat shone on his body. His hair was a mess and blood marred his cheek, but he was whole and alive.

"Lizzie," he said, scooping me up, kissing me for all I was worth. I ignored the groans of the rest and let him. I only had one love, one person I woke up for in the morning and thought about every night before I went to sleep. And he was here now. Whole and healthy.

Life had never been so sweet.

***

We helped the witches clean up while Carpenter returned the cemetery dead to their graves.

"What do we do about the rest?" Ant Eater asked Grandma.

We'd laid out the church members in neat rows and covered their faces as best we could with the white cloth the witches had used to wrap spells inside the trunks.

Grandma shook her head. "I don't know. It's a shame."

"They should have stayed off the dark path," said the man whom I'd seen with Aimee earlier. He had a Spanish accent, and was quite the looker in an Antonio Banderas sort of way. He held out a hand to me. "Dante Montenegro, Aimee's husband."

"What a way to meet you," I said, taking his hand.

He nodded to Dimitri, who merely smiled. Evidently, I'd missed out on a joke.

"Do you deal with this sort of thing a lot?" I asked Dante, trying to figure out what was going on.

"The dead coming back to life?" He laughed. "Not often," he mused, shooting Dimitri a look. Let them have their little secret. "I must say, though, my brother-in-law does attract trouble."

I didn't doubt it. "He's one of the best I know." He'd sacrificed himself try and stop Osse Pade and to keep the witches and me safe. And even though he'd gotten us into this mess in the first place, he did it for the right reasons. "We all owe him a debt."

"I heard that," Carpenter said behind me.

Dimitri groaned.

"No," I said, "he's not going to hold me to that one."

Carpenter merely smiled.

Before we left the cemetery, we closed up the graves and Aimee sealed the Tomb of the Three Sisters with magic that made my hair sizzle. Even the biker witches broke out into applause, although to be fair, they'd also found a flask of cinnamon schnapps among the spell jars and had laid into it pretty heavy by the time we were ready to go.

We'd all survived the battle, and that was something to celebrate.

Even Creely partook, which I thought was a bit much, given her age and her injury…until Frieda showed me her work. The gash in the engineering witch's side had closed up completely, leaving a pink line of irritated flesh. I lifted my shirt and found nearly the same thing.

"You've got a natural talent for this," I told the blonde witch. We'd lost our healer a few months before, in a battle with a demon. "You ever think you might want to take on the job for good?"

She blushed and shook her head, her hoop earring swinging. "Oh, I don't know."

I did. "Think about it."

Life's too short to try and hide your talents.

Chapter Twenty-Two

News outlets reported the next day about Osse Pade's voodoo church, and how all of the members had committed mass suicide.

Aimee hadn't been happy. It was bad PR for a religion that could be quite beautiful in the right hands. But, frankly, I was just glad to be getting out of town.

I missed our home. The trip to New Orleans had taken longer than we'd expected. My first wedding anniversary was coming up in a few days and I wanted to focus on love and happiness, not curses and death.

We gathered outside Grand-mère Chantal's house, packing up the bus. Dimitri stopped to give me a kiss before helping the witches haul a spell trunk onto the waiting bus. We'd used all of the extra spells to brighten up the house, which was good, because I could swear I saw the wall in the front room getting a little bloody on top.

We'd been houseguests long enough. The ghosts could roam free again and hopefully find some added peace. I wished it for all of them, even the spirit in the séance room.

"I took the restraining spell off," Ant Eater said, as she followed my gaze up to the tower.
 

"What was that thing?" It had been right about so much—about the evil we faced, about the blood and the bones. It hadn't asked for anything in return. My attention, maybe, but nothing else.

Ant Eater shrugged. "I guess we'll never know."

She might be happy with that, but I wasn't.

We still had a few minutes before everything made it out to the busses and the bikes. I slipped back inside and climbed the stairs. I edged down the hallway and entered the door that led up to the tower.

There was no harm in it anymore. I was leaving. It had to stay.

I took the final set of stairs quickly and slowed only a hair when the gold door creaked open without me touching it.

"Glad I'm not interrupting," I said, as I stepped into the old séance room. It appeared the same as before. Dark, with gritty windows, extravagant wallpaper, and the circular wood table at the center. I looked to the Ouija board that had greeted me before.

But this time, I heard the voice instead, the one from my dream. "You missed something." It echoed in the small space, low and smug.

I didn't take the bait. "Tell me. How did you know how to defeat the voodoo queen?"

He chuckled low, and I felt it in my gut. "I know…so much."

Maybe it hadn't been such a great idea to return.

The Ouija board remained motionless. The air in the room hung heavy. "Okay, I'm leaving now." I turned toward the door.

"You can try."

I'd do more than that. I closed the door behind me and didn't look back.
 

***

Dimitri stood in the bright sunshine, along with Pirate and Flappy." I told Pirate he could ride the dragon back," my husband said, "at least until we stop for lunch."

"I'm trying to
dis
courage him," I said, as Pirate yipped with joy and the dragon danced.

"They've proven they can be responsible," Dimitri countered, as if saving my skin in an undead cemetery battle counted.

"Oh, all right," I said, letting my husband wrap his arms around me.

"You realize this will keep them busy," he murmured against the soft, sensitive skin near my ear.

"Well, when you put it that way…" I brushed a kiss across his cheek.

A few of the Red Skulls whistled at us, but I didn't care.

I climbed on my bike next to Dimitri and watched Ant Eater lock the door to the house, hopefully for good.

"You ready?" Dimitri asked, drawing his helmet on.

"Always," I said, doing the same. We were whole, free, and ready for whatever adventures lay down the road. Life was good, and I intended to savor every minute of it.

Author's Note:

The Accidental Demon Slayer series began on the back of a Macy's envelope. I'd been up all night with my infant son and while I was walking him around, I had this idea about a demon slayer and a gang of biker witches. The book was a complete joy to write and it became my first published novel.