Thank God.
Battina, too. Bless her dear departed soul.
I flexed my fingers. They were stiff but whole. And, dang, I was going to need a shower. “Frieda,” I said, as she finished packing up Battina’s supplies, “do you think you can grab my switch star belt? It’s in my room.” I’d nail the dress as soon as Creely and Grandma were finished with it.
The two witches knelt next to the dress with what looked like a test tube kit. Biker witches stood over them, spell jars as the ready, as Creely and Grandma drew fibers with tweezers and dropped them into various tubes full of blue, red and purple liquid.
Frieda stood behind them, her hands on her hips. “You think you might want to keep your switch star belt with you next time? Oh, demon slayer?”
“Strangely, I think I’ve figured that out.” Although, truth be told, I’d been too compromised to throw a star. Still, I needed to keep my weapons with me at all times. I wasn’t safe anywhere—even behind the wards.
Diana lingered nearby, her hands covered in the same healing goo Frieda had used on me. Dyonne was busy keeping my mother upright. Hillary looked as if she’d been to hell and back.
Suddenly, one of Grandma’s test tubes spit fire and sparks.
“What is it?” Dimitri asked.
Grandma leaned back on her haunches. “Spittle of Cerberus,” she said, not happy at all.
“What is that?” Hillary protested, pushing against Dyonne.
“Three headed dog of the underworld,” Creely answered automatically. “Let’s test again to make sure.”
“Poison.” It settled in my stomach like a rock.
Somebody had tried to kill me.
But truly, hadn’t I known from the moment I saw blood?
Hillary freed herself and stumbled toward me. “This doesn’t make sense,” she said, her tone pleading, wobbling on her heels as she tried to find her footing. “Lizzie?” she asked, as if I could somehow put her back in her normal world where organization triumphed, society was king, wedding dresses didn’t try to kill the bride.
“Mom—” I began. Oh geez. “I don’t know where to start?”
“How about with the truth?” Grandma muttered.
“Yeah, right.” Oh, hell.
“What have you done?” Hillary asked Ophelia. Her words were sharp, her tone angry. I knew that voice. That was mom regaining control, damn the consequences.
“It is not us,” Ophelia protested as mom advanced on her. “The dress was fine! We tried it on Antonia right before we left our villa!”
“You tried to poison my baby.” Hillary said, her voice low and controlled. She looked ready to hit Ophelia.
Ophelia snarled. Two more griffins joined her.
That’s when Dimitri honest-to-God roared.
“Stop fighting,” he ordered. “We have an emergency. Someone is trying to kill Lizzie.” His eyes were orange again, or maybe they’d never changed back. He clutched me to his side, every inch of his body hard, feral. His voice was clipped, measured. “I don’t imagine the guilty party will admit to this heinous attack, but I do promise I will find you.”
He spoke to the Greeks, the witches, and my mother.
A stone cold silence fell over the room. Naturally, it was Hillary who broke it. She tugged at her pearls, her voice hard, her cheeks flushed. “Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?”
It was the moment I’d dreaded since I came into my powers. “Mom,” I began, my voice scratchy. She already knew, right? She had to know. She’d seen spells and partial griffin shifting and me asking Frieda for weapons.
This had to turn out okay. Maybe.
Hopefully.
“Okay,” I looked to my confused, desperate, on-the-edge mother. And pointed at Grandma. “They’re witches.”
Hillary gripped her pearls. Hard. “I don’t believe in that.”
“Those jars, the ones that spit smoke and energy—those were spell jars. Powerful ones.”
“There—” She stammered. “There has to be another explanation.”
While I was on a roll, I took my fiance by the arm. It wasn’t hard because he was still helping to hold me up. “Dimitri is a shape shifting griffin.”
She shook her head. “I don’t even know what that means.”
Come on. “He just roared.” Then again, it wasn’t like she’d ever picked up a paranormal romance. Or even watched
Now she had both hands gripping her necklace. “Lizzie Brown, you stop playing with me this instant. We have things to do. I’m sure we’re off schedule...”
“Hillary,” Dimitri said. For added proof, or maybe because he had an ornery streak, he locked gazes with her and changed his eyes from mocha brown to startling green, and then orange.
She let out a small squeak.
Frieda picked that moment to clomp up with my switch star belt. “It sure got quiet around here,” she said, handing it to me.
Dimitri helped hold me steady while I buckled on my weapons. “Mom,” I said. This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to tell her, what with the poisoned dress and me all shaky and her standing there with her mouth moving up and down with no words coming out. But in for a penny, in for a pound, “I’m a demon slayer.”
She watched me, speechless, as I took several shaky steps toward the poison dress.
“Stay back,” I said to Hillary. “I have weapons. You just can’t see them.”
“Oh,” she half-barked, half-squeaked.
Grandma and Creely had finished by then, and the dress was alone. It wasn’t dumb, though. Whatever had hold of it skittered the dress sideways a few inches as I approached.
“Could be possessed,” Creely offered.
I didn’t know and I didn’t care. With fingers that were still a bit shaky, I drew a switch star out of my belt. I aimed. And I hurled it.
The star ripped through the fabric.
We retreated a few steps and watched the flame consume the dress. When the magical fire died down, all that was left was my switch star, gleaming in a pile of ashes.
That’s when I realized I had a massive headache. My arms and legs felt weak. “I think I’m going to pass out,” I told Dimitri.
Grandma drew a spell jar. “You think you’re in trouble again?”
No. “I’m beat.”
Mom stood behind her, watching me as if she were seeing me for the first time. “You’re a demon slayer,” she said, as if she were trying out the words.
“Yes,” I told her. I hoped with everything I had that she could accept me.
“Lizzie can also talk to her dog,” Dimitri supplied, helpfully.
Hillary’s eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fainted dead away.
Dyonne, bless her heart, was there to catch her. I sure couldn’t have moved that quickly.
“Come on,” Dimitri said, “let’s get you some rest, too.”
I took one last look at my mom as they moved her to the couch. “Maybe you shouldn’t have told her about Pirate,” I said, as he helped me out toward the foyer.
“Yeah,” he said, bracing my arm, wrapping his hand around my back. “The dog was the problem.”
Chapter Thirteen
