The Last of the Demon Slayers (15 page)

“You okay?” The spasms weren’t coming as often the nearer we got to Pasadena, but they seemed more violent.

Max didn’t answer.

Don’t go changing on me
. Not on the back of a hog.

The closer we came to the coast, I could also feel my dad. I sensed him in the same burning way I’d felt him that night outside Big Nose Kate’s.

I gunned my bike.

When I was a kid, I had fantasies about what my real parents would be like. They wouldn’t make me study so hard or stand so straight, or eat Grandma Renquith Noxington IV’s paté. My true parents would love me even if my room wasn’t clean and I smelled like last night’s horse riding lessons.

If only they hadn’t given me up.

But they had.

I’d convinced myself for years that it had been for some great cause that I couldn’t understand.

Someday, they’d come back for me and they’d see how wonderful I was and they’d want me. They’d regret giving me up. We’d be a family again.

I wasn’t that naïve anymore. I didn’t believe anyone was perfect, much less the people that left me to be raised by someone else. My adoptive parents had done their best, but it was obvious we didn’t have much in common.

Now the only thing I wanted from my birth parents was some sort of validation for who I was. Some reason for what I felt and what I’d become. My mother had set me on the path to becoming a demon slayer. My father had supernatural powers

I’d save him. I’d show him what he’d been missing in the last thirty years.

And maybe, just maybe, if I was really lucky, I wouldn’t have to prove anything. He’d see it on his own.

“Hold up. Hey.” Sid zoomed up on my side. “Exit to the left.”

Sid rumbled his bike ahead of us. He slowed and came to a stop under a willow tree next to a babbling brook.

“Damned side exits,” Sid grumbled as he lurched off his bike and began splashing through the creek. He dug his fingers into a brown gate at the edge of a meadow and pulled it open.

We were immediately assaulted with rap music. The thump-thumping beats of “Jump Around” blared into the meadow, accompanied by the smell of gasoline and McDonalds French fries.

Personally, I was a bit disappointed to be exiting from paradise but at least now I could keep my tires on the ground.

“Welcome to San Fernando,” Sid said like an overly proud tour guide.

“We wanted to go to Pasadena,” I protested.

“This is a fairy trail, not door-to-door delivery.” Sid grumbled. “We’ll take the 210 south and we’ll be there lickety split.”

We exited the fairy path and found ourselves in an alley behind a row of fast-food restaurants. It was a world of grease, packed Dumpsters and car horns. The zombie rope leapt inside the jar, thunking it against my leg. Either he was a fan of McDonald’s fries or he knew we were close.

Sid led us to the 210 south and we took it into Pasadena.

We rode down a main street, teeming with car dealerships, more fast-food places and a surprising number of dry cleaners. It was newer than the valley, but not too different.

“Let me drive,” Max said against my ear.

I nudged him out of my personal space. “Not on your life.”

“Then make a left at the Taco Bell.”

“Gotcha.” I made the turn. Half the witches made it through the light with me. The rest waited in the middle lane with Flappy the dragon. Somebody was going to have an accident. Dimitri circled back to try and get Flappy in the air.

We pulled over to wait in the back parking lot of a Bed Bath & Beyond. “How much farther?” I asked.

Max strained, as if looking for a sign. “How should I know? I didn’t swallow a road map along with the dreg.”

The zombie rope banged against the lid of the jar like a Mexican jumping bean.

“Why am I following you anyway?” I asked. If the dreg didn’t come from my dad, I should be following my own instincts.

The zombie rope banged harder. “See?” I said, pointing at the jar. “Look who agrees with me.”

Max balked. “You’re going to take the advice of that thing over me?”

I considered it for a moment. “Yes.”

Even though we’d made it to Pasadena, I couldn’t seem to get a direct lock on my dad. I tried to sense the burning from before, but near the busy street, I was only coming up with car exhaust.

“This way?” I asked the zombie rope, turning left.

The zombie rope banged his head on the top of the jar.

“Over here?” I asked, doing a full 180.

The zombie rope danced.

We might be onto something. “No kidding? He’s that way?”

“You can’t be serious,” Max groaned.

“I’ve never heard you whine before.”

“Keep it up and I’ll be forced to do it a lot more.”

The rest of the gang made it through the light and I gunned my engine. “This way,” I said, heading across the parking lot and down a back alley.

The rope led us through the alley and back up Mesa Avenue. He took us through a maze of crowded streets flanked with strip malls, drive-through banks and at least twelve In ‘N Out Burgers. Every time he banged his head against the glass, I knew we’d taken a wrong turn.

Finally we exited onto a narrow, tree-lined street. Pale stucco houses lined up behind immaculately kept lawns. If an angel lived in Pasadena, I could see him living here. The neighborhood was gorgeous.

Of course now I didn’t even need the zombie rope to tell me which house belonged to my dad. A lonely brown house cowered at the end of the street. Paint peeled from it in small sheets. It sat on a hill held up in part by a concrete retaining wall. The near side had rotted completely, leaving rusting metal rods. The lawn was brown. The bushes on either side of the front walk had died and it was a wonder no one had called the city and reported the awful stench of burned hair and sulfur.

The only color – heck, the only thing that remained whole and untouched – was the blue front door. It stood in stark contrast to the rest of the house.

Even the zombie rope shuddered.

I shut down my bike.

“This isn’t where we’re supposed to go,” Max said behind me.

“This is my stop,” I told him, getting off.

I’d never seen anything like it. It was as if death radiated from this place.

“It’s not worth it, Lizzie,” Grandma muttered, pulling off her riding gloves.

“It is to me.”

“Let’s get it over with,” Dimitri said, heading straight past us.

Zap!

The moment his booted foot crossed onto my dad’s front lawn, an unseen charge hurled him back to the street.

“Dimitri!”

He landed flat on his back and barely missed cracking his head on Frieda’s bike.

I rushed up to him. “Are you okay?”

He rubbed at his head. I helped him up, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead. He felt hot.

“It’s solid,” he muttered.

Which meant Max had to try it.

Zap! The unseen wall threw Max flat on his back a few feet away.

H-e-double-hockey-sticks. I half expected my dad to come to the door and see what the commotion was about. But the curtains in the windows didn’t even sway.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” Max dug his elbows into the dead grass and struggled to sit up.

In his demon-hunter dreams.

“Let me try something.” Grandma dug at the chain around her neck. A Ziploc bag dangled on it, held up by a safety pin. Inside, living spells twisted and curled, practically falling over themselves as they vied for her attention.

They were like living pulses of energy, flattening, lengthening, and twirling as the mood saw fit. One lime green spell kept leap-frogging the others, as if it knew she’d pick it.

Grandma eased open the bag and picked a hot pink spell.

I watched it curl under and try to rub up against her fingers. “What does it do?”

“Oh this is just a simple, ‘get your butt to dinner’ spell. Good for when Battina wanders off looking for wild lavender.” She winked. “It’ll also tell us what we’ve got going here or at least who can get in.”

She flung the spell at my dad’s house and it zapped up against the invisible barrier. The spell flew back and smacked Pirate in the chest.

“Now what was that all about?” He paused for a moment, stunned. “You know I could go for a burger? Maybe three. With mustard and cheese and more cheese and crispy bits.”

“Nothing can get through,” Max said.

“I don’t buy that.” I was called here. I drove three thousand miles of fairy paths to be here and I wasn’t about to just walk away.

There had to be an explanation.

Dimitri came jogging around the side of the house. “The entire place is warded.”

“Are you sure?”

He glanced back. “Unfortunately.”

“Stand back, Lizzie,” Pirate said, kicking up brown grass with his back legs. “This is a job for a dog.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “Stay.” Before he could protest, I walked straight into it.

I made it partway through until my switch stars hit the barrier and a giant electric shock slammed into me and sent me reeling onto my butt. I landed hard on the sidewalk, my teeth rattling.

“Ohh…” Pirate rushed up to lick my face. “Are you okay? I told you I’d go too. Did you know you didn’t get zapped back as far as anybody else? I saw that. In fact, I saw you didn’t get zapped at all until your belt hit it. And then whammo – goodbye, Lizzie. Lizzie?”

I brushed him aside and stood. “Did anybody else see me go through?”

Dimitri stood with his arms crossed, a thundercloud of mistrust.

“You saw it!” The only thing that snagged me had been my switch stars. I could go through.

If I surrendered my weapons.

On second thought, that might not be the best idea. I chewed at my lip, studying the house. It didn’t look as if anyone lived here.

“My dad has to be here,” I said.

Dimitri frowned. “Because the zombie rope said so.”

The zombie rope and I had come to an understanding of sorts, but I wasn’t about to admit that to Dimitri. Not right now anyway.

We didn’t travel this far not to check it out. “I know it’s crazy to go anywhere unarmed.” Some days I didn’t even want to shower without my switch stars. But extreme situations called for extreme measures. “You’re going to be right out here.”

“Where we can’t get to you,” Dimitri said.

“And you’ll have your weapons.”

“Which we probably can’t fire through your dad’s wards,” Grandma said, lining up next to Dimitri.

Hells bells.

“He may be hurt in there,” I told them.

“Or it could be a trap,” Dimitri said.

But they knew I’d already made up my mind.

Grandma dug through her leather bag. “Take this,” she said, handing me a jar of brackish yellow sludge. “Throw it.”

“What will it do?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Grandma,” I warned.

She shrugged. “It might singe his lawn. Look. The point is to see if you can get a spell through the barrier.”

“Fine.” I launched the jar, cringing as it sizzled past the barrier and exploded onto my dad’s lawn, leaving a Pirate-sized crater. None of the dust or rocks made it past the wards, which was really creepy.

“Good,” Grandma said, rummaging through her bag as if we hadn’t just launched a small explosive at my dad’s house.

“If you’re going in there, take this.” She handed me a jar of red sludge.

It felt slippery. I held it with two hands. “This is a death spell.”

“You walked through a death spell before,” she reminded me.

I wasn’t worried about myself.

“I can’t use this on my dad,” I protested. “Haven’t you always said I shouldn’t carry a weapon if I’m not willing to use it?”

Grandma planted her hands on her hips. “Oh for Pete’s sake, Lizzie. What’s the difference between this and a switch star?

I wedged the jar under my arm as I unbuckled my utility belt and handed it to Grandma.

Dimitri frowned. “Bring the spell, Lizzie.”

“Does this mean I have your blessing to go in there?”

“Does it matter?” he asked.

I didn’t know how to answer that. This wasn’t a committee. This was me saving my dad, or at least finding out what kind of trouble had him contacting me after thirty years of silence.

“Okay. Let me get organized.” I took the jar with the dreg and the poor cowering zombie rope and shoved it into my right pocket. Then I wedged my flashlight down the front of my pants.

Pirate jumped up on my leg. “You can do it!”

“Thanks, doggie,” I said, picking him up for a quick head rub before handing him off to Dimitri. No way I wanted my dog following me in there, even if he could make it through the barrier.

And I wasn’t about to put anything past Pirate.

I picked up the death spell. Butterflies danced in my stomach. “Here goes nothing,” I said, closing my eyes as I stepped into the ward.

This time, it felt like walking through warm butter.

I looked back to Grandma, Dimitri and the biker witches. They couldn’t help me now.

It was me, the red jar and the zombie rope.

I clutched the death spell, praying I didn’t have to use it, as the blue door creaked open.

Chapter Eleven

God. Everything was dead. My boots crunched over wilted weeds still reaching out from between the flagstone walk. Abandoned birds’ nests hung crookedly from bare trees. I wanted to see a bug, a leaf, anything. But nothing lived in this yard.

We’d see about inside.

I’d never felt the absence of my utility belt as I did right then. It was like going in without a part of me. I missed the familiar weight of it, the unspoken energy.

As the air touched my skin where the belt usually hung, I hoped I’d done the right thing. My dad would never harm me. I hoped.

I clutched Grandma’s spell jar.

My mother had been less than trustworthy when I’d met her. But that had been early, when I’d first become a demon slayer. She’d sought me out to warn me and when I didn’t take her advice about quitting the job, she’d grown insistent in her own creepy way.

This was different. It had to be. My dad called me. He needed me.

Maybe he even wanted me.

My boots echoed on the concrete porch. This place was eerie in its silence. I knew the biker witches were behind me, watching. Their silence was disturbing to say the least. Since when were the biker witches the quiet types?