Night of the Living Demon Slayer (6 page)

"How did it know me?" I asked. I couldn't recall Ant Eater addressing me by name as we searched the house.

She leaned heavy on the bannister. "Powerful spirits don't need to be introduced," she said, shooting me a worried glance, "they just need you to acknowledge them."

And I had.

She shook her head, resigned. "Don't worry about it. Nothing to do now. We'll keep an eye on it."

"Right," I said, as we closed the door at the bottom of the stairs. I hoped it would be enough.

Chapter Five

Ant Eater stood at the front door. "Come on in!"

It didn't take much more than that. Biker witches barreled up the front. In fact, I hoped some of the tourists outside, with their drinks-to-go hadn't heard.

Grandma was the first inside. "All clear?" She paused. "It still feels a little off in here."

"Yeah," Ant Eater agreed. "We'll need some Dispel the Darkness spells, a few jars of Anti-Energy in the kitchen and the lodge room. Sage in all the corners…" she said, as if she were making a mental list.

She left out all the details. "There's a trembling knife block, evidence of bleeding walls." Grandma took my revelations in stride, until I added. "There's also a spirit in the tower room who knew my name."

"I sealed it in," Ant Eater added. "Could even be good camouflage. Nobody will want to mess with this house."

Grandma nodded. "Show me." I started for the stairs and she grabbed my arm. "Not you. You stay away from it, you hear?"

Ant Eater nodded as she popped the gum in her mouth and started chewing. "Come on."

"Frieda, come with us." She turned to the skinny witch who'd whipped the cover off the settee near the front door. "Edwina, take a crew and set up wards outside. Creely," she added, pointing to the engineering witch. You couldn't miss her. She had Kool-Aid red streaks in her ponytail, "see if you can't rig up an escape hatch through the backyard fence. Something subtle."

I barked out a laugh. Subtle? The Red Skulls couldn't even ride down the street without it feeling like a parade.

Grandma leaned close to Creely. "Set up a hatch that gets us out, but don't let nothing we don't want inside. We need all the bikes secure in the back tonight."

"You got it," the engineering witch nodded.

The sun was starting to go down. That was my cue. "I told Carpenter I'd meet him when dark hit," I said to Grandma, "unless you need me here."

She drew off her leather jacket, exposing the sagging tattoo of a phoenix on her arm. "You've done plenty already. We got this next part handled." She tossed her jacket onto the settee.

Good. And if I could solve the alligator problem tonight, maybe we wouldn't have use for Creely's escape door. Or Grandma's work to reinforce the tower, or any of it.

I could say
Goodbye
to that spirit in the tower before it barely had a chance to say
Hello
.

Grandma drew an arm around me as she walked me out to the porch. "Be careful," she warned, giving me a tight squeeze.

I pulled away. "Come on now." I gave her a quick smile. "It's me."

Her voice drifted over the garden as I strolled out into the dark. "That's what I'm afraid of."

I shook her off, although she had a point. I'd always been the focused one, the planner. In the beginning, I thought that would keep me out of trouble. Now I realized it usually helped me find more.

Nothing to do about it now.

I hitched myself onto my bike, rolled the throttle and punched the ignition. Couldn't resist it. I let myself have a little fun as I steered out into the street, reveling in the warm evening air against my skin. It felt good to get out of that house. It wasn't just the haunting. Something about that place didn't sit right. I couldn't escape the feeling that I was being watched.

Voices, music, and laughter clattered all around as I made my way through the crowded streets of the French Quarter, past bars, souvenir shops, and packed restaurants. I figured the address Carpenter scrawled out for me would lead to a bar or an apartment, maybe a safe house. Instead, I found myself a few streets beyond the emerging nightlife and in front of a voodoo shop on Royal.

Skeletons played cards in the display window, amid stacked displays of good fortune charms, Lucky Cat candles, and Heat Up The Bedroom linen mist. To celebrate after you won big at gambling, I supposed.

A metal, industrial sign over the door read:
Voodoo Works
.

The teardrop emerald at my neck warmed as I pushed my way inside the door. Flower petals and dirt sprinkled down from a green scarf bundled close to the vintage tin ceiling.
 

A caramel-skinned woman scooted around the counter. "Welcome," she said, pressing her hands to the skirt of her colorful orange and yellow dress, "how can I help you?"

I decided to take a chance. "I'm meeting a friend here," I told her, casually checking out a display of Wash Yourself Clean soaps.

"Carpenter," she said, lowering her voice, even though we were the only ones in the store. "He's in the back. I'll go get him." She began to leave and then paused, her bracelets jangling as she smoothed back her thick, black hair. "Thank you for your help with this."

"You know?" That surprised me. The necromancer had never struck me as one who would trust easily.

She wet her lips, nervous. "I've been watching Osse Pade. He has a business just down the street. Voodoo can be so beautiful, but he has taken a dark path."

She disappeared behind the green and gold curtain at the back and soon after, Carpenter emerged, tucking something into his pocket. He carried a small sack over his shoulder, and a dagger in his hand. "You're late."
 

"Sun's not down yet." That was the deal. "And why are you sharing our business with the voodoo community at large?"

He tightened his grip on the sack. "It's just Aimee, and she's the one who tuned me into Osse Pade in the first place." He kept walking, as if he expected me to join him. "If anything happens to me, go to her. She can tell you what to do."

I took a quick glance back at the woman in question. She peeked out from behind the stock room curtain as we made our way to the door. "She doesn't look like much of a warrior."

Carpenter gave me a long look. "Neither did you when I first saw you."

That showed what kind of taste he had.

The necromancer stopped in front of an old brown mustang parked out front of the shop. It had a bad paint job and a dented side door. "Let's go."

I stopped short. "If you don't mind, I have my own ride." I preferred the control.

"Suit yourself," he said, sliding in the driver's side and starting it up.

I headed to my bike across the street and saw Aimee watching out the window of the voodoo shop. She gave me a small wave, and I nodded back. At least someone knew where we'd be tonight.

The engine on Carpenter's car whined and clacked as it tried to turn over.

Just when I was wondering how he'd fit on the back of my bike, his engine caught and the mustang pulled out.

Good. I followed him close and tried to breathe through the caustic smoke coming out of his tailpipe. He really needed to get that car checked out.

The sun slipped below the horizon as I trailed the necromancer past the city limits and the levees, to where the houses grew sparse and the dirt roads skirted the swamps.

Insects screamed in the night, mixed with the croaks of bullfrogs. Gnarled trunks of cypress trees rose from the wetlands, their canopies dripping mossy leaves and tangling vines. More than once my headlights caught the reflective eyes of gators on the banks. I watched one turn and slip back into the water, ripples echoing out behind him.

Carpenter's car bounced and jostled like he had no suspension at all.

His tail lights flared red as he slowed. I stayed close behind as he pulled off onto a road I hadn't noticed among the trees and the underbrush. It was a wonder the old mustang even made it past the low-hanging branches. I drew my arms in close to my sides, glad for the leather riding jacket protecting my shoulders.

He stopped amid the tangle of trees, his headlights illuminating a rickety old dock. A small motorboat bobbed in the bayou.

I parked my bike facing the main road then went to join Carpenter, who had busied himself untying the boat. I tried to ignore the way my boots sank into the spongy earth. "Seems I'm going to have to accept a ride from you after all."

He glanced up at me. "Just don't fall out."

"I make no guarantees," I said, as he held the boat steady enough for me to climb in.

He tossed the rope in between us and settled in the back where the engine was. I barely heard the hum of it over the sounds of the night as we took off into the heart of the swamp.

His cloth bag lay at my feet. I nudged it with one boot, listening to something rattle against the metal underbelly of the boat. "What did you bring?"

I was smart enough not to open it. It could be magic relics or a powerful talisman.

"Alligator tranquilizer," he said, as I ducked under a low branch.

"Let's hope it works." I was up for anything that would make this go quicker.

It would be easy for a person to get lost out here, but the necromancer seemed to know the way. We passed a rickety old house at the edge of the swamp.

"That your summer home?" I teased.

He snorted. "Moonshine shack."

He weaved in and out of a maze of narrow tributaries. I kept careful track of them all.

"Here," he said, as we reached what appeared to be an island in the abyss.

He cut the engine and we coasted the rest of the way there.

"We get in, we get right out," he said, as the front of the boat bumped the muddy shore.

"Don't jinx us." I helped him drag it up onto the bank, my boots sinking in the muck. I took my long leather gloves from my coat pocket and left the jacket in the boat.

"Stay close," he said, drawing his knife. "There are booby traps in this swamp, as well as the odd pocket of quicksand."

I nodded, drawing on the gloves.

We set off through a break in the trees. "You come here much?" I asked, mirroring his steps through what appeared to be the only dry ground in a maze of marshland.

"Only when I have to," he said, sidestepping a gator. The thing opened its jaws and appeared ready to strike. I drew a switch star.

"Watch it," I warned.

He barely broke his stride. "It's not the one we want."

"Oh well in that case, let's not worry about it," I mused.

I followed him for several minutes, careful to skirt as much wildlife as I could, as we drew deeper and deeper into the swamp. Insects buzzed around my ears and my black leather pants and bustier dampened with sweat. If we didn't take care of this problem tonight, I was going to start shopping for something else to wear down here.

Carpenter drew up short, and pointed to an area dead ahead.

The protective emerald at my throat began to hum. That was never a good sign. It was infused with ancient griffin magic and set to help protect me under threat. The bronze chain thickened and I braced myself for the slide of warm metal against my skin.

I stood motionless as the liquid bronze slid down my torso, over my hip, reforming into—what? It had made itself into a breastplate right before I'd had a shotgun pulled on me. It became a metal helmet a moment before I'd almost gotten brained with a sword. I cringed to think what I needed now. I closed my eyes and wished for a big, alligator cage with thick bars and maybe a nice pointy fence around it.

Instead, the enchanted metal wrapped around my calf under my pants and boot, molding to my skin and cooling into what felt like an emerald-studded shin-guard.

I spotted light through the branches up ahead. Torches. I strained my neck to see around the wide bottoms of the trunks and saw some sort of shrine at the center. Movement flickered through the trees. Men.
 

"You didn't mention any guards," I murmured to the necromancer.

He tensed beside me. "There weren't any before."

Thick candles flickered in glass jars. They formed a circle around an immense white alligator resting on a blood red pillow. Its fat legs thrust out to the sides and its jaw rested on a large gold tassel at the edge.

"I've got this." Carpenter slipped off the path and into the water. He moved silently through the marsh, until he blended into the shadows. I didn't follow. I studied, and spotted the necromancer's target. A beefy guard flicked a cigarette out into the marsh. He wore tribal tattoos on his face and arms, along with a necklace of feathers.

The guard held a chain in his other hand. It led to a thick collar around the reptile's neck. He approached the gator, winding the chain around his palm, as if reeling in the beast.

The man turned at a sound from the trees behind him. "Brother Rebe?" he called.

No response.

I had a feeling Brother Rebe had met a necromancer.

I felt a nudge against my shin and turned to see a flash of alligator jaws. Sweet Jesus. I drew back as it clamped down on my shin. The guard yelled. I thrashed, my stomach going hollow as the gator dragged me down into the water. I drew a switch star, the blades on the flat disk churning the moment my fingers wound through the grips on the side. I slammed it directly down onto the gator's wide head.

It let out a grunt, its jaws slackening. I shoved it back down into the water as my free foot touched down on the muddy bottom. The gator sank into the warmth of the bayou as I worked hard to high tail it the other way. My fingers clutched the muddy bank, my weapons hand ready to strike again.

When I sloshed out of the water, I saw Carpenter several feet away on his knees. The guard stood behind him, digging a chain under the necromancer's throat. He thrust out a foot and the white alligator snapped at it.

"Attack!" The guard hollered, straining to finish the job on the necromancer. "Enemies on the island! Attack!"

I fired a warning shot and the guard dropped the chain. The tank of a man stumbled backward as Carpenter turned in one fluid movement to pounce on him, rolling to get his hands around the man's neck.