“Demons are better than divorce,” Allie said, and although I know she didn’t mean her words to sting, I saw the way Laura cringed. “Oh, gosh. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s okay, sweetie,” Laura said as Timmy turned one hundred and eighty degrees and launched himself at Allie. “To be honest, I wish Mindy didn’t have to put up with that, either.”
“Ah-ha!” Allie said, catching Timmy around the waist and holding him upside down. “I got you!”
Timmy squealed, absolutely delighted with this turn of events.
“Two swings,” Allie said. “Then I want the wiggly toy. Deal?”
“Deal!”
She hauled him upside down to the living room, and I didn’t have to be able to see to know she was holding his thighs and swinging him between her own before tossing him on the couch. The toss, in reality, was more of a gentle placement, but Timmy loved it just the same.
Meanwhile, Kabit padded over, lifted himself onto his haunches, and hissed at the contents of the tub.
“You said it, kitty,” Laura said. “Yuck.”
“Okay,” Allie said, coming back into the room with the zombie’s index finger held daintily between her own finger and thumb. “That worked, and he’s happily back in monkey land.”
“You win the good big sister of the year award,” I said as she tossed the finger back into the tub.
“Lucky me. So will you tell me now? The real zombie/fake zombie thing?”
“There are fake zombies?” Laura asked. “Like what I buy at Hobby Lobby for Halloween?”
“Not exactly,” I said. I took a step backwards so I could see into the living room. Sure enough, Timmy was camped out too close to the television watching George wheel around his apartment with a cast on his leg, and Mindy was nowhere near the back door. In other words, the coast was clear.
“Real zombies,” I began, “are just animated flesh. Like this guy,” I added, nodding to the tub.
“Since you can’t kill them,” Allie told Laura, “you have to hack them up. But they don’t bleed.”
“That’s really good to know,” Laura said, looking like she might throw up.
“The trouble with those zombies from a demon’s perspective is that they’re a whole lot of trouble to make,” I added.
“It involves the desecration of holy relics,” Allie chimed in, proving once and for all that she
can
pay attention, and that there was absolutely no reason for the C she got in American history last semester.
“Exactly,” I said. “And they don’t blend in particularly well, either, you know?”
I pulled out one of the kitchen chairs for Allie and motioned for her to sit. As long as I had a captive audience, I might as well put them to work.
“Why
do
the demons want them?” Allie asked as I put one of Laura’s baskets in front of her, then motioned to the Easter grass and ribbons.
I plunked a purple basket down in front of me and reached for the green grass. With my finger, I could easily fill baskets with grass. Tying gorgeous ribbons on the handles? Maybe not so much.
I shoved a handful of grass in and considered Allie’s question. “Cheap labor, more or less. Send out an automaton to maim and kill, and you don’t risk getting nailed through the eye.”
“But the
demon
attacked you,” Allie said. “Not the zombie. ”
“I know,” I said. “That’s definitely strange.”
“The missing demon?” Laura asked. Her forehead crinkled. “You have a demon and a zombie, right?”
“Right,” I said, thankful that Laura had subtly shifted the conversation, because I hadn’t told Allie the entire truth. Since zombies can’t talk—and since my demon felt compelled to chitchat about the Sword of Caelum and revenge and other nasty stuff—it made sense that it was a demon who’d jumped me.
“So those are the real ones,” Laura said. “And that’s what we’ve got here?”
“Exactly.”
“And the, um,
parts
? You had to hack it up because . . . ?”
“You saw the way it was wiggling in Timmy’s hand. The parts don’t have to be attached to the body to move around.”
“When the hand grabbed my leg, Mom had to cut its fingers off with the pruning shears.”
“And you thought you’d never get any use out of those gardening tools.”
“I love it when my tools multitask,” I admitted, grimacing a little when my stomach growled. My handful of M&Ms for breakfast hadn’t really hit the spot, and although I knew I should have something more substantial, at the moment all I really wanted was the sugar rush so easily supplied by my freezer.
I gave in, getting up and grabbing a bag of sugary goodness from the freezer. What can I say? I’m a weak woman.
“Okay, so back up,” Laura said, reaching out her hand for a helping of candy. “Why is that zombie real? I mean, other than the fact that squirming body parts is about as real as reality gets?”
“They’re the definition of zombie,” I explained. “The folklore. The movies about the creepy brain-eating creatures that roam through the night with their arms outstretched.”
“
Ewww
,” Allie said. “I forgot about the brain-eating part.”
“They don’t really do that,” I said. “They’re nothing but moving flesh. They don’t have to eat. All they do is exist, and even then only to serve their master.”
“But back to the real thing,” Laura urged. “What exactly is an unreal zombie?”
I had to put that answer on hold for a moment, because my son—apparently smelling chocolate—came charging into the kitchen. “Candy, Mommy! I want candy!”
“It’s only fair,” Allie said.
“Thanks for the advice, Mom,” I retorted. “But he just had breakfast.”
“Um, that was two hours ago, remember? And I’m pretty sure he ingested a grand total of ten flakes, then smashed the rest on the table and wiped them onto the floor.”
“I’m still thinking that’s not the best argument for chocolate. Scrambled eggs or a peanut butter sandwich, maybe. But chocolate?”
She cocked her head. “What did
you
have for lunch?”
“I’m not a little kid,” I said, then watched her face as she tried to decide whether I was in a good enough mood to parry if she lobbed back with a fancy retort.
Apparently, I didn’t look that chipper, because she backed off, becoming suddenly interested in tying her shoe.
Good call.
“Mine!” Timmy hollered, his hand reaching up and wriggling blindly on the tabletop as he searched for candy. “Party candy, Mommy! Want. My. Party. Candy!”
“It is absolutely your party candy,” I said, sweeping the candy back a good six inches even as I decided not to bother correcting him about the “my” party thing. Why not let him think Mom threw him a party and invited the entire neighborhood? “That’s why you have to wait for the party. It wouldn’t be any fun if party day came and there was no candy, would it?”
He climbed up in a chair, eyeing the candy now on the far side of the table and very much out of reach. “Want candy,” he said, in the tiniest voice.
“Timmy . . .”
That did it. His face fell, overwhelmed by this ultimate betrayal by the mother who loved him. His lower lip started to quiver, and I was done for.
I told myself I gave in so that I could finish my zombie spiel before Mindy arrived. In reality, I was suckered by the pouty lips and long lashes of a tousled-haired little boy.
After a bit of toddler negotiation, which consisted of me telling him he could have two M&Ms and him insisting he wanted ten, we finally settled on five counted out slowly into his greedy little palm.
“Anyway,” I said, as soon as Timmy was settled again,
“the other kind of zombie isn’t just animated flesh. It’s really a demon. Instead of moving into a newly dead body, he sets up shop in a body that’s been down for the count for a while.”
“I thought they had to do it right after you died,” Allie said, the area above her nose pulling into a little V as she mentally skimmed all the Hunter texts I’d assigned her over the last few months. “The soul slips out, and they slip in.”
“Right,” I said. “That’s the entry portal. Miss that, and they’re out of luck.” They’re out of luck, too, if the body belonged to a person with faith. Those souls go out kicking and screaming, protecting their earthly host from the indignity of becoming a shell for a demon. “But if they wait until the body starts to decay . . .” I trailed off with a shrug. “To be honest, I don’t really understand it. I only know that about the time the ick factor sets in, so can the demon.”
“To
any
body?” Allie asked.
“Pretty much,” I said.
“But they don’t do it very much,” Allie said. “How come?”
I shrugged. “Demons want to be human. They covet our form. They covet our ability to touch, to feel. The carnal aspects of being human. Plus, they want to blend in.”
“And Danny Demon walking down the street decomposing isn’t going to get to experience all the perks that go with being human?” Laura asked.
“Exactly. Not to mention that demons rarely
only
want to be human. They’ve got bigger end-of-the-world type plans. And it’s hard to be subtle when there are maggots poking out of your eye sockets.”
Allie grimaced, an M&M pausing on the way to her mouth.
I fought a smile. “Squeamish?”
“I
so
am not,” she said, then shoved three candies into her mouth and chewed vigorously.
Another light rap on the door, followed by, “Allie? Aunt Kate? Can I come in?”
“We’re in the kitchen, sweetie,” Laura called.
Allie stood up as Mindy walked in. “We’re going upstairs, okay?” She aimed a pointed look at me. “Anything interesting happens and you totally have to tell me.”
“What’s going to happen?” Mindy asked.
“Oh.” For a moment, Allie looked completely befuddled. “Mom’s arguing with Stuart.”
“Lucky you,” Mindy said, rolling her eyes and pointedly
not
looking at Laura.
“Not that kind of fight,” Allie said as they left the breakfast area. “Mom wants to put a swimming pool in the backyard, and Stuart thinks—”
I couldn’t hear what Stuart thought, but I had to admit that a pool didn’t sound like a half-bad idea. “I could infuse the thing with holy water and have my own backyard demon trap,” I said to Laura.
“You’re thinking about getting a pool?”
“I am now. Wasn’t ten minutes ago. The kid does think on her feet well. Any chance Mindy bought it?”
“This time, maybe. Whether she’ll keep on buying it . . .” Laura shrugged. “One of these days, I’ll either decide it’s okay to tell her, or we’ll find out that she’s known all along, and she and Allie are better at keeping secrets than we thought.”
She had a point. I grabbed the coffeepot and refilled both our mugs.
“Speaking of secrets,” she said. “Why didn’t you tell her that the missing demon can’t be a zombie?”
I looked at her, impressed. “Aren’t you the good little pupil? ”
“Perfect attendance for all of first grade,” she confirmed.
“After that?”
She shook her head. “Bad. Very bad. Never got the attendance award again.”
“I can tell it’s scarred you.”
“For life,” she said. “Seriously, why didn’t you tell her?”
“She’ll figure it out on her own if she thinks about it,” I said. “But in the meantime, I don’t really want her wondering what kind of creatures were creeping around our backyard in the wee hours of the morning.” Because Laura was right, of course. The demon had originally entered Sammy’s body when the “portal” was open, and by the time I stabbed it in the eye and sent the demon rushing toward hell or the ether or its local demon hangout, the portal had closed and no new demon could move in.
But the body was still fresh and new. Not the least bit decayed. All nice and tidy. Which meant it wasn’t yet ripe for a zombie takeover.
And that, of course, meant that our demon hadn’t gotten up and walked away. Someone had moved the body.
My fourteen-year-old may have definitely clued in to the whole “a Hunter’s life is a dangerous life” thing, but that didn’t mean I felt the need to exaggerate the lesson.
“There’s more I didn’t tell her,” I confessed.
“Oh?”
“Revenge, vengeance, and the Sword of Caelum,” I said.
“Gesundheit.”
“Very funny. You know that’s supposed to keep a demon from flying up your nose, right?”
She lifted an eyebrow.
“No, seriously. It means ‘bless you’ or ‘good health’ or something. And people used to think that when you sneezed it gave a demon the opportunity to shoot up your nose.”
“So they said ‘bless you’ to keep the demon out.”
“Exactly.”