“You, too,” I said.
At least I was sitting now. I swung my legs over to get out of bed.
Diana caught them. “I promised I’d take care of you.”
“You did,” I told her. “Now I’ve got to figure out what’s going on. Hand me my leather pants.” My legs were smooth, maybe a little red. And weak. Otherwise, you’d never know I’d been poisoned.
“You’re worse than Dimitri,” she said, as I stood slowly.
“Thanks,” I said, managing to stay upright.
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
“So how the hell are you going to find a demon you can’t even sense?” she asked me, as if I wasn’t having enough trouble putting my pants on.
“Simple,” I said, zipping them up and fastening the button. “I’m doing it the old fashioned way.”
***
I was extremely quiet, and kept to the right side of the bannister as I headed down the main staircase. There were still small groups of Dimitri’s relatives gathered in the sitting room. They leaned their heads together, talking quietly, fearfully.
My legs still felt a little weak, and I took it slow. Still, I didn’t want to bring any attention to myself or have to hear about how I should be in bed. Recovering was one thing. It was something else to sit around doing nothing while someone or some
When I made it outside, I saw a pair of biker witches at the far end of the drive, right before it sloped down. They were working with a group of objects on the ground. Spells, most likely. To my far right, I saw a plume of smoke erupt from the dense gardens on the side of the house.
“Lizzie!” A wet nose found the back of my knee, and I nearly stumbled off the porch. “I told you one of these days I’d be able to sneak up on you.”
Yes, well I wasn’t quite myself this evening. “Where have you been, Pirate?”
He stood as tall as his stubby legs would allow. “Your mom threw me outside for barking. Can you believe it? I was only trying to tell you your dress was here.”
The dress was the least of my problems now.
“You think you can help me with something, bub?” I asked, bending to scratch his knobby head. As soon as he saw me reach down, he got so excited he couldn’t stop moving. I hit his ear, snout, his nose. “I need to search the estate, see if we can find more of those markers, like the one you saw in the observatory.”
“Oh, I will be good at that,” Pirate said, falling in next to me as I started walking. “I have been all over this place. Running. Chasing rabbits. Running. Did you know there’s not a fence? I could run until I fall over. In fact, I did that. Flappy had to bring me home.”
“Which way?” I asked. It was more a question for myself than for him. The sides of the house looked clear. It would be hard to hide something on open ground. The gardens in the back, however, left all kinds of possibilities.
“Dimitri is making sure everything out front here is safe,” Pirate said, starting to head that way.
“Let’s go out back,” I said, making it several feet before Pirate realized I’d done the opposite.
He rushed to join me. “What is this? Some kind of super secret mission?” he asked, his stubby legs going a mile a minute as he kept up with me.
“I’m afraid they’re going to try and make me stay in the house,” I said to him, as I double-checked my switch stars. No telling what we’d find out there.
“I get it,” Pirate said as we neared an arched trellis that marked the entrance to the side garden. “When I want to be in, people throw me out. When I want to go out, no one ever opens the door.”
I opened my demon slayer senses as we neared the garden. I detected nothing. I focused on something new—the slight hum of my switch stars. In the past, I’d always been able to detect their subtle power. Now, I couldn’t even feel that.
What had we gotten into?
“Be careful, Pirate.”
He snorted. “Careful? Shit. Any creeps out here better watch out for me.”
Yes. Fear the mighty Jack Russell Terrier and the injured demon slayer.
I still had my powers. That was evident enough by the way I’d nuked my wedding gown in the sitting room. But I didn’t have my instincts, and that was dangerous.
It felt like I was going in blind.
We made it through the herb garden, and instead of heading through the roses, like last time, we veered into a covered garden. It swallowed us up. The archway didn’t end with the trellis, rather the wiry top extended over us, forming a tunnel as climbing vines grew up and over us on both sides.
“This is like a cave!” Pirate said.
“Have you been this way before?” I asked, noticing the spider designs on the tunnel supports.
What was it with this place and spiders?
“Of course I’ve been this way before,” Pirate said, every step light as he streaked out ahead of me. “I’ve been everywhere.”
I reached out to touch one of the iron spiders. It was slick and cold. “How long does this go?”
“I don’t know,” my dog said, turning a corner, “I usually run!”
“Pirate, wait!” I dashed after him, afraid he was about to spring a booby trap or barrel headlong into something treacherous or heck—unleash a curse.
Instead, he stood at the end of another tunnel that led to a large, dry pool that held the battered husks of plants. Water lilies, I assumed.
“Are there any markers in there?” I asked, approaching slowly, saving my strength.
“Lemme see,” Pirate said, scrambling up the side and basically tipping head first into the mess. I could hear him crunching around in the dead leaves before I got close enough to see him.
“Well?”
He leapt from pile to pile like a tiny stag. “It tickles my tummy!”
“Pirate, focus.”
“No crazy markers, but that lady don’t have a face.”
For a second, I thought the ghost was back, and then I saw the statue overlooking the pond. It was some kind of a water nymph, with flowing robes and hair. She held her hands out, palms cupped toward the sky. And Pirate was right—she had no face.
“Looks like the people in the observatory,” Pirate said, looking up at her.
“Those weren’t people.” They were very creepy statues.
I scanned the bottom of the pond, glad for once that Pirate had stirred things up. The bottom was slick, red tile, with no markers in sight. I walked the perimeter of the pool and checked the base and robes of the statue to make sure.
They were clean.
Hades. I wasn’t sure where to go next. Several paths branched off from our little clearing, like spokes on a wheel. I counted six, including the one we’d just used.
“What way is the best, bub?” I asked. He’d been down some of these.
Pirate lay down in a sunny spot. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t like to pay attention to
No, I didn’t. I’d had my fill of surprises lately.
“Hold on,” I said, as if my dog was going anywhere.
I opened up my demon slayer senses and reached out, hoping, praying I’d get at least some sign of where we should go.
Nothing.
Lovely. I sighed, not sure what to do. Yes, I could pick a path, any path, but we only had about two hours of daylight left. I could get some biker witches to help us look. At this point, we were all on equal footing—searching without the benefit my demonic warning system.
“Help me,” I said, to no one in particular.
