The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers (6 page)

Grandma shook her head, her hair tangling around her shoulders. "That's
a sense you have to develop on your own. It'll come. In time."

Yeah, well we didn't have time. Phil didn't have time. And Dimitri? I didn't
even want to think about it.

At least there were none in the house. I tried to rub the tension from my
forehead. I could feel their rage and the absolute darkness they held.
Something horrible was going down in Vegas, and there was nothing I could do to
stop it. It was steaming toward us like a freight train and the only thing I
could do was get Uncle Phil out of the way—if we could find him.

Focus
. I braced my hand on the door and willed myself to think
rationally. If we could get inside, we had a shot at figuring out where Phil
went with his demonic floozy. Maybe, just maybe he left his door open. People
did all the time down South. I twisted the handle. Unfortunately, we were a
long way from Georgia.

"Okay, Grandma?" She had plenty of spells. Maybe one of them could
open a lock. "For the love of switch stars, tell me you have
something—anything—that can get us in there."

"Sure." Grandma charged out to the rock garden, seized one of the
Seven Dwarves and heaved it through the front window. The glass shattered,
leaving a Dopey-sized hole.

"What are you doing?" I clutched my head to keep it from spinning.
We needed to be smooth, not suicidal. She was going to get us arrested.
Property damage, breaking and entering—I'd never even had a speeding
ticket.

And who breaks through the front window in broad daylight?

The curtains swayed next door. We had to get out of here. We couldn't do
Phil any good from jail.

"Pirate?" Where was my friggin' dog? He'd been sniffing Uncle
Phil's daisies not two minutes ago.

"Get your panties out of a wad," Grandma said, digging around in
the front pocket of her jeans.

"Oh because you've got this whole thing planned out. Well tell me who's
going to save Phil,
and
get Dimitri out of here if we get sent to the
pokey!"

"Who calls it a pokey?"

"Grandma!"

A skinny man in a bathrobe burst out of the house next door. His sparse,
graying hair sprouted from his comb-over like unruly weeds. His mustache
twitched with excitement and—oh lordy—he brandished a rifle.
"I'm calling the cops!" he squeaked.

"Oh yeah?" Grandma scoffed. "Then what the hell are you doing
out here?" Silver rings flashing in the bright desert sun, she yanked a
chain out from under her
Hairdoo by Harley
T-shirt.

She'd brought her pets.

Several Ziploc bags dangled on safety pins from the chain. Inside, living
spells hovered, practically falling over themselves as they vied for her attention.
They refashioned themselves at will—flattening, lengthening, twirling as
the mood saw fit. One spun itself in shimmering corkscrews before mashing flat
against Grandma's palm, rubbing at her like a cat.

Grandma tore open a bag and let the spells fly. Globs of goo ricocheted off
each other like the Crazy Balls I used to play with as a kid.

They were Mind Wipers. Heaven help us.

"Sic 'em, Gene! Ace, Paul, Peter!" Leave it to Grandma to name her
spells after the original members of Kiss.

"Duck!" I hollered as a pointy black one zipped straight for
Grandma's head.

She sidestepped and caught it as it veered past her left ear. "Aw, come
on, Gene. I thought I had you trained." She tossed the spell toward the
neighbor with the rifle. "Go get 'em, tiger."

The man bolted back inside, his robe gaping to reveal a pasty white chest as
he slammed the door. Curtains fluttered up and down the street.

"Geez, Lizzie, don't just stand around with your mouth hanging
open," Grandma said, hauling me toward Phil's broken window. "Get in
there before the cops come!"

Right. Go ahead, break in. Don't worry about the man with the gun. Or the
police who are without a doubt barreling right for us, handcuffs ready. I
needed to make sure I was actually inside the crime scene when they arrived. In
the meantime, we pin our hopes on Gene, the Mind Wiper, who couldn't seem to
tell the difference between Grandma and a rifle-waving crazy with a comb-over.

Cold air streamed out into the dry, desert heat. I reached through the
jagged hole and unlocked the window, careful of the glass littering the marble
sill. I yanked a couple of cushions off the brown plaid couch in front of the
window and, shaking them off as best as I could, laid them over the worst of
the glass. My butt would be fine, but I didn't want to catch glass anywhere
else.

"Move it, princess!" Grandma hollered as Phil's neighbor got off a
shot.

Oh sure. Like I flung myself through broken windows all the time. And why
had I thought it was a good idea to wear stiff black leather pants? For
Dimitri. And while I was busy looking sexy for him, he'd left me with Grandma
and the Mind Wipers.

I planted my rear on the cushion and straddled the window sill, one leg in,
one leg out. Broken glass crunched underneath the pillow and where my right
foot dug into Phil's couch. I ducked inside, eyes adjusting to the cool, shaded
interior of the house when I saw it. My legs went limp.

"Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the mule," I said, staring at the coffee
table in front of me.

A mess of picture frames crowded the long wood table. Which wouldn't have
been strange, except for a certain person in almost every picture—me.

I was so shocked I almost slid right down onto the glass-covered couch.
There was no way Phil could have been there to take pictures of my college
graduation, my stint as a molar in
Tommy and the Toothbrush
, the time
I'd trashed my dollhouse in the name of science.

Impossible.

Illogical.

The glass crunched under my bronze butt plate as I leaned over as far as I
could. There I was at the sixth-grade science fair, powering up my dollhouse
with a potato, and was that my old retainer, on his bookshelf, encased in
glass? Of all the things I could have expected, this wasn't it.

I braced my hands on the pillow and concentrated on taking long, even breaths.
There had to be a logical explanation for this.

Yeah, right.

I'd never even seen Uncle Phil, technically my great-uncle. He was part of
the package that came with meeting my real family. And that had only started
happening a few weeks ago.

Legs shaking, I scrambled off the couch to inspect a picture of Pirate right
after I'd picked him up at the Paws for Love pet adoption event. Phil had been
there.

Grandma hadn't known how to find me until I'd grown into my powers. You'd
think Phil would have helped out, or heck, introduced himself. In an eerie way,
I didn't know whether to be wigged out at the idea of him following me all of
these years or to be glad someone, anyone—besides my parents'
housekeeper—had actually made it to some of the most important events in
my life. My adoptive parents, it seemed, always had a party or a charity
function or a tennis match. Unless it was a "see and be seen" kind of
event. Then they'd spend the whole time talking to other people.

From the look of it, Phil had been there for everything. And he'd certainly
brought plenty of film. But why hadn't he said anything?

More albums crowded two tall bookcases that flanked the entrance to the
kitchen. I walked over to take a closer look and—holy moly. He had copies
of my diaries. Every journal I'd kept since I'd learned how to write. I pulled
one off the shelf.

Pages and pages of badly drawn horses—mine—from the days when
I'd wanted to be a jockey. That was before I grew hips. And a butt.

I slammed the book closed.

"Aw, hell." Grandma poked her head through the window behind me,
her long gray hair tangling around her shoulders. "I was wondering what
took you so long to open the door."

I turned to her, diary in hand. "You're not going to believe
this."

"Try me."

I unlocked Phil's door and flung it open. "Uncle Phil is an insane,
lunatic stalker."

Grandma didn't look convinced. "Nah. He's just your fairy
godfather."

"Fairy what?" I asked, scarcely believing what I'd heard.

"Not
that
kind of fairy."

"Excuse me?" This didn't make any sense.

"You need me to draw you a picture? Uncle Phil is your fairy godfather.
You know, a guardian type, a do-gooder, bibbity bobbity boo and shit."

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn't know what to think.

A flicker of warmth caught hold of me. I thought I'd been all alone. For
years, it was simply me. Then it was me and Pirate. I didn't know anyone else
had truly cared.

"I have a fairy godfather," I said, letting it sink in. I was sooo
not Cinderella.

A black and silver Mind Wiper buzzed past Grandma's ear and dive-bombed me.
I dodged and flicked it back into the front yard. "Out!" I told the
wiper. Those things better leave my dog alone. Pirate chased spells like they
were fireflies.

Dread tickled the back of my neck. "Where is Pirate?"

She snorted. "Playing rescue dog."

I stared at her incredulously. "You mind-wiped my dog?"

Grandma looked offended. "Of course not," she said. "He ate
Peter."

Dang it. Reason #512 why live spells are a bad idea. I scanned Phil's barren
front yard for any sign of my dog. When I didn't find any, I squeezed past
Grandma and dashed for the back of the house.

"Oh, come on, Lizzie. Pirate's having a ball." Grandma jogged
behind me. "My Mind Wipers make you forget everything but who you'd most
like to be."

Sure enough, right past the rusty barbeque pit, Pirate had already dug a
hole the size of his head. Dirt flew up behind him as he burrowed into Phil's
backyard. "Don't worry, Timmy! I'll save you!"

I knew I shouldn't have let him watch
Lassie
on TV Land.

"We're running short on time," I told Grandma.

"I might have hit the old man with a Mind Wiper," she said,
kicking the door closed behind her. "It's hard to tell."

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. "Well if you didn't," and if
this block had any sort of a neighborhood watch, "the police could be here
any time." My stomach dropped at the idea of being handcuffed in the back
of a police car, having a mug shot taken, having a record. It would be the end
of my dignity, not to mention my teaching career.

Bits of glass crunched under my feet as I stalked through my uncle's
cluttered living room. "We have to find something in here that tells us
how to find Phil. You take this room." I'd already seen enough. "I'll
go back to the kitchen. Then if we don't find anything out front, we can check
the bedroom in the back."

I headed straight for Phil's refrigerator and began scanning past the year's
worth of pizza coupons, newspaper clippings and, egad, pictures of me plastered
all over the door.

"Come on, Phil," I muttered, fingering the mess on the
refrigerator and sending a couple of slot-machine magnets clattering to the
floor. All we needed was a phone number, a calendar, anything to tell us where
he might be.

"You never told me you wrote poetry!" Grandma hollered from the
next room. I could hear her clomping around on the hardwood floor, from display
to display. Phil had more mementos than my own adoptive parents. Although to be
fair, my adoptive mom, Hillary, did have mounted displays of my report cards,
until she'd opted to use the antique wood frames for her equestrian
certificates.

"Focus," I said, rifling through a stack of lunch receipts and pay
stubs from the Hoover Dam. "I can't believe you knew about this."

She'd dragged me halfway across the country without all the facts. If she
wanted to have me as a partner, she'd better well start treating me like one.

I stared at the decade's worth of dance recital photos crowding the side of
Phil's fridge. My adoptive parents hadn't even made all of those performances.
He'd been there for me, even if I hadn't realized it at the time. I just wish I
knew how to save him.

My stomach dipped when I saw the jar on top of the refrigerator. Were those
my baby teeth?

Couldn't my parents even handle being the tooth fairy?

On the other hand, it explained why my friends had gotten silver dollars and
I'd gotten inspirational notes and fairy beans. No wonder my adoptive mom
hadn't been pleased when I planted my fairy beans behind her Carolina jasmine
arbor. But most of my wishes had come true, except the one about Luke Duke
coming to my birthday party. And even as a six-year-old, I knew that was a
stretch.

I blew out a breath in frustration. Nothing in this kitchen gave me the
barest hint to where Phil had gone. Until I saw the St. Simmions Church
calendar tacked up next to the yellow wall phone, and what was scrawled across
today's date. "Grandma, he took today and tomorrow off work at the
dam." A knot formed in my throat. "For a wedding."

Something shattered in the next room.

No kidding.

"Where?" Grandma demanded.

I raked a hand through my hair. "I don't know." This didn't make
any sense.

Grandma burst into the room and began riffling through the calendar herself.

"Do succubi even get married?" I asked.

"No," she said, staring at the entry I'd found. "Never."
She looked at me, eyes wild. "Let's see what else we can find."

Grandma hurried back to the front room and I kept at it in the kitchen until
there was nowhere else to look. I'd gone through the last of Phil's junk
drawers when Grandma appeared in the doorway. "Bad news, Lizzie," she
said, holding up a massive Las Vegas Wedding Guide. Post-it notes sprouted from
the book.

She tossed the guide onto the kitchen counter with a
thunk
.
"Forty-three chapels, every one marked as a possibility. We're
screwed."