The End of the World As I Know It (The Ghosts & Demons Series Book 2) (18 page)

“No, of course not,” Mama said. “I’m an ordinary human, but I know she’s there.”

“How?”

“Kevin just said so. I think sometimes she’s spying on us even when Kevin tells me she isn’t there. How does she look, Tam?”

“Who?”

“What do you mean, who? Kevin’s dead wife who!”

Taeko was dead, sure, but she was also one of the sexiest women I’d ever seen. It didn’t hurt at all that she walked around this earthly plane in a tankini.

“Well?” Mama pressed.

The misty wistful studied me as I looked her up and down. “She looks…fine.”

“In what way?”

“She looks nice for a dead woman, I guess.”

“On a scale from one to ten?”

Ninety-nine,
I thought. “A solid five,” I said.

“Good,” Mama said. “I keep getting older and she doesn’t, so it’s really not fair.”

“How did she die? There’s not a mark on her.”

“Oh, that. Your father poisoned her.”

Lesson 142: Family secrets don’t get revealed until they can do the maximum damage.

On the plus side, arguments and petty jealousies at your family’s Thanksgiving dinner don’t seem so bad now, do they?

Chapter 31

Malta looked me up and down. “So this is her?”

“I’m me,” I said. “Iowa. I saw you a few years ago, but you were in the advanced black belt classes when I was a green belt. We didn’t talk much. I was always leaving the
dojang
as you were coming in. I thought you were away at university.”

“I was, for a while — ”

“Developments necessitated Malta’s return,” Mr. Chang said.

She shot a mean look her father’s way. “I’ve been in prison.”

“Malta is being hyperbolic,” Mr. Chang said.
 

“I’ve been guarding the quarry. Feels like the same thing.”

“You guard the quarry so there will be such things as universities when the war is over.”

I recognized my master’s tone. That was the bass that came into his voice just before he ordered someone to do pushups.

“Is the secret weapon in the quarry?” I asked.

“The path to the weapon, yes,” Mr. Chang said.

“Then let’s go!” Trick said.

“Agreed. Ellen, this isn’t your war. Perhaps you should stay in the Guardian.”

“Perhaps I should stay with my daughter. My daughter and my world. I can’t carry a tune,” Mama hefted her shotgun, “but I can do a little percussion.”

Malta looked at Mama and me. You know the face you make when you step in dog shit? It was like that. If she smiled, she might be as pretty as her mother, but I doubted I’d ever see that.

“Wilmington, stay and guard the Guardian. When the demons come, lead them away. Do some damage if you can but do so safely. You are our backup escape plan, so stay alive,” Mr. Chang said. “Trick, bring up the rear. If you see anything come after us, say something before it kills you.”

“Good advice,” Trick said.

“What did you say, boy?”

Trick picked up a sword cane. “Something that wasn’t sarcastic. It might have been, ‘yes, sir.’”

“Good boy. But put the toy away and grab a broadsword from the back of the Guardian.”

Trick looked pained. “I’m no better with a broadsword than a blade concealed in a cane, but at least with the cane I’m less likely to fall in a snowdrift.”

“Why are
you
here again?” Malta asked.

“Brains, good looks and moral support?”

Mr. Chang gave Trick a hard look. “Bring
two
blessed broadswords, boy, and strap them to your back. I can’t use you for your looks or your brains and your jokes aren’t that good. However, you might be helpful as a lookout and a pack mule.”

The misty wistful’s eyes were on me and I couldn’t help stare back. “Your mother was very beautiful, Malta.”

“She
is
beautiful,” Malta said. “She was more talkative before your father killed her.”

“He’s a DINO.”

“A what?”

“Dad In Name Only. But I
am
sorry. Not that there could ever be a good reason to poison anyone, but why did he do that?”

“Poison seals fate and sacrifice opens it,” Chumele said.

She acted like I was supposed to know what that meant so I nodded sagely. There was no time to ask questions. With demons tearing through Medicament, we had to get the secret weapon.

Lesson 143: When there is no time to ask questions, that’s when answers are needed most. Plan ahead if you can.

We left Wil at the wheel of the Guardian and exited through the back of the barn. Buffeted by wind and snow, Mr. Chang led the hike. We walked single file past signs that read: No Trespassing. Farther on, along a narrow path through the woods, the signs read: Trespassers will be shot.

Mama was sturdy, but I worried the preceptor might blow away. Chumele shivered and hugged herself. She wore only a light windbreaker, jeans and high calfskin boots. Chumele looked to weigh less than a hundred pounds. If there was demon trouble, I wondered who would need more protection, Chumele or Trick.

Taeko Chang, walked beside the little Filipina, comfortably dead in a bathing suit and oblivious to the weather.

It wasn’t a long way to the quarry, but the snow slowed our progress. Finally, the trees parted and we stood at the edge of a deep well of rock.

Not only had I never visited Mr. Chang’s home, I’d never been to Grove Quarry. It was a small lake of ice dotted with a few islands of rock and an ice fishing hut at each end of the quarry.

“Who’s the ice fisherman?” Trick asked.

“The one on the right is mine. I keep my oxygen tanks and other things there.”

“You dive?” I asked. “In
winter
?” The thought made me shiver.

“I do lots of things,” Malta said.

“The far hut belongs to our local holy man,” Mr. Chang said.

“But you can call me Spider.”

We turned, weapons ready, as a haggard bearded man emerged from the trees. He’d been no more than a few feet away, but we’d had no idea he stood there.

“Hold!” Mr. Chang commanded us. “This is the holy man I was talking about. Meet Mr. Richardson.”

“Just call me Spider,” the old man said. He was thin under his huge parka, a look that suggested he’d once been much healthier than the slip of a man we saw now.

He ignored everyone but the wiccan. “It’s been a long time, Chumele. Do you still sing karaoke?”

Chumele smiled back. “Sometimes. Are you keeping your vows of celibacy?”

“Since we last met, yes.”

“Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t want your blessings to lose their power.”

“That’s not so solid a rule, you know. If I were part of a tantric order, there’d be more leeway.”

“Careful. That’s the train of thought that got you to break your vows last time.”

“Since you, I have not been tempted. I come here every day at dawn, noon and sunset for the rituals and to keep the seals strong.”

Malta cleared her throat. “Excuse me? We’re in a hurry here.”

“Allow me this moment,” Chumele said.

“We don’t have
time
to —”

Chumele put a finger to her lips. Malta stopped speaking. Then I realized she literally could not speak. She could only watch as Chumele went to the old man. He took her in his arms. They embraced for a long moment until Chumele went up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “I don’t like the beard, but it was good to see you again. Goodbye, Spider.”

“Goodbye, Chumele. I’ll always remember that summer.”

Spider looked up and seemed to notice the rest of us for the first time. “If you have to retreat and can’t get back to Chang’s place, regroup at my cottage past the trees on the far side of the quarry.”

He pointed at a tiny plume of smoke from a chimney through the trees. “I’ll be there with bandages and whatnot, ready to assist the survivors, if there are any. Hope so. I’m a little long in the tooth to battle demons. They’re long in the fang and don’t have much respect for old sorcerers like me.”

Spider gave a nod to each of us and disappeared into the trees. Whatever else the old man could do, he was the master of camouflage. Unless he had a cloak of invisibility or a really convincing tree costume, I have no idea how he did it.

Chumele released Malta from her spell. When Mr. Chang’s daughter could speak again, she coughed, sputtered and cursed the little wiccan.

Trick chuckled. “Unless you want her to do a Darth Vader force choke on you, maybe you better settle down, Malta.” He put a finger to his lips just as Chumele had. Malta flinched and shut up.

As we walked along the edge of the quarry, Malta’s cheeks flushed scarlet. Her pride had been dented. Her father looked for a way to restore it to its original mint condition.

“There was a fellow from Des Moines who had a diving club,” Mr. Chang said. “He wanted to test his students here in the summer. He said testing is best done in the dark, getting divers to take off their tanks and all their equipment. Then they put it back on, blind.”

“Diving here in summer would be a luxury,” Malta said.

“We had to discourage him from coming back,” Mr. Chang said.

“What’d you do to discourage him?” Trick asked.

“Something mean,” Malta said.

When she said that, I could tell she felt a little better. I was wrong about a smile making her pretty. When Malta smiled, she looked dangerous.

“The Choir keeps the secret down there,” Malta said.

“A magical secret locked up tight,” Chumele said. She took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”

Mr. Chang shook his head sadly. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t have to use the weapon, though. It will be…difficult. The sacrifices necessary will change the nature of this war.”

“Diving under ice is a sacrifice, Dad,” Malta said. “Being here is a sacrifice. Losing my
mother
is a sacrifice. We’re under attack and we can’t keep the war a secret much longer. Everything is about to change. Let’s do this while we still can!”

Mr. Chang nodded. He pointed at a jagged cliff of limestone. “Behind Malta’s ice fishing hut, there is a narrow path down the cliff on the right if we need an alternate route out. There’s a rope ladder concealed in the crevice that leads to narrow stairs cut into the rock. We can get down the fast way, however.”

Malta darted forward and bent at the base of an ironwood tree. A moment later she returned with a thick coil of rope with a rock about the size of a human head tied to the end. She swung it in a circle a few times and tossed the anchor over the edge.

“Where are we going?” Trick asked. “I don’t see anything besides the huts.”

“If you could see the way in, it wouldn’t be much of a secret.” Malta pointed to a short rise of stone in the center of the quarry’s ice field. “The entrance is there.”

Malta handed me the rope first. “You first, Iowa. Test this and see if I tied a good enough granny knot around that tree.”

I gave the rope a tug and it seemed secure. I wouldn’t really know until I trusted my life and all my body weight to it.

“Don’t worry,” Chumele said. “The girl is just screwing with you. She understands how important you are to this mission. That is why she is jealous of you.”

Malta sneered at the little woman.

“Ease off,” Mama whispered to Malta as she clicked the safety on her shotgun off. “I’d hate to have to shoot that chip off your shoulder. You are my future step-daughter, don’t you know?”

Malta and I looked at each other. We were probably equally alarmed at the prospect of our parents marrying each other. Neither of us wanted a new stepsister. If demons weren’t chasing civilians around, we might have bonded and become tight friends right then and there. We were still short on time, however, so I rappeled down the cliff as fast as I could.

Lesson 144: Destiny doesn’t wait. You have to go to it.

Chapter 32

As I stepped on the ice, the sound of a crash and the roar of the Guardian’s engine reached us. The deep, heavy spit of a machine gun came next, then the engine roared again.

“The demons are coming!” I yelled.

“Wil will try to lure them away, at least for a while,” Mr. Chang yelled. “Go!”

It was the timing of the bursts that told me Wil was in trouble. Everyone in the Choir was taught to keep a heavy machine gun from overheating by squeezing off rounds in short bursts. Each burst should last no longer than the time it takes to say, “Sonofabitch!” She was firing too long each time.

“Sonofabitch!” I called up to the group. “Get down here!”

They hurried.

Mama shrieked as the rope slipped through her gloved hands. She came down so fast it was almost a fall. I thought she might drop through the ice at the bottom of the cliff. At the last moment, she slowed herself, but the ice still cracked under her feet.

I didn’t see the rest of our group’s descent down the cliff. I was too focused on a demon. He appeared in the sky above us. He was massive and blue. The last time I’d seen him, he killed a man incapable of lying.

The blue demon pointed at me. “I am Magog!”

His wings didn’t flap. He just hung there, defying physics as we know it, and laughing at us. Magog’s laughter chased us all the way to the center of the quarry.

When we arrived at the circle of stones that rose above the ice, we took cover behind a block of limestone. When we looked back, Magog stood at the edge of the precipice. He looked down at us from the same spot we’d stood moments before. He wasn’t alone.

Red and yellow demons joined him. Some carried spears. Others held swords. They all watched us. First they were silent. Then Magog’s laughter spread among their ranks.

Trick gave me a brave smile that reminded me of Brad. Brad, my first boyfriend, was dead because he knew me. Soon, I was sure, Trick would be dead, too.

Trick was the first among us to find his voice amid the demon din. “Ever watch old westerns on a Saturday morning? The cowboys circle the wagons and there are Indians on the ridge waiting to scalp them? I’m having deja vu.”

“That’s a racist trope,” Chumele said. “Besides, deja vu is you picking up on the activities of your dopplegangers in other timelines in other dimensions.”

“Yeah,” Trick said. “That doesn’t sound crazy at all.”