What to Expect When Your Demon Slayer is Expecting Read online

  Dimitri opened his mouth to retort, but I spoke up first. “We do want something.” Best to just be honest at this point, I figured. “We need moly. I was told you’re one of the few people in the world who has it.”

  “Moly.” Philippa looked to the skies and heaved a sigh. “Always with the moly.”

  “It’s for a spell to save my mother,” I continued. “She’s possessed, and our coven thinks that with moly we could—”

  “Make a spell that drives out the possession, yes, I know of it. I invented that spell.” She sighed again, but this time it came off more tired than irritated. “The Red Skulls, huh?” she asked, sizing Frieda up and down.

  Frieda smoothed her denim shirt dress. “We’ve changed. We’re much less loud and pushy.”

  Philippa rolled her eyes. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” She turned away from Frieda. “You—” she pointed a gnarled finger at me “—you come along with me. You two—” she pointed at Dimitri and Frieda “—you wait here with the dog.”

  “No siree, Bob,” Pirate said. “I’m your watchdog, and that means watching you in this creepy-ass garden.”

  “I’ll be all right,” I promised him.

  After all, there wasn’t a scratch on him. Then again, he wasn’t going to be happy when I had to go after that spell residue with soap and a fine-tooth comb later.

  “Lizzie—” Dimitri began. I got on my tiptoes and kissed him hard before he could say anything else. It was a hot, urgent kiss, fueled by the remnants of our adrenaline and the fact that my very handsome husband was very deliciously naked now.

  “I won’t be long,” I whispered once our lips finally parted. “I have to do this. For my mom.”

  “Go on, honey.” Frieda smiled encouragingly. “I’ll look after your boys.”

  Philippa was already walking away. I ran to catch up with her.

  8

  If I thought I was out of my depth among the herbology in the last garden, there was no word for how lost I felt as we walked deeper into Philippa’s domain. Every plant seemed magical. Some glowed red and white, like strings of Christmas lights, while others were shrouded in their own little veils of darkness. We even passed a little patch of pink and white begonias that piped up with “God Save The Queen” as Philippa walked by.

  “Those are cute,” I commented, more than ready to break the silence.

  “Those are the result of decades of careful breeding, intensive spellcasting, and more ESL classes than you could shake a stick at,” Philippa retorted. “I had to start over completely after that idiot Ant Eater ruined my first crop. That put the kibosh on any idea I ever had of joining a coven, let me assure you.”

  I couldn’t picture this woman, who seemed so completely engrossed in her garden, as part of a larger group of witches. Still, the thought that she might have been one of the Red Skulls once upon a time was compelling. “They could have used you.”

  “Everyone could use me, or my plants, rather. But very few people know how to handle my babies, and even fewer can do it well.” She walked fast for such a short person, stalking past a bunch of murmuring anthuriums, whose volume picked up as she went by. “Troublemakers, those ones,” she cast back at me as I passed them. It was strange—like hearing a voice, but having the wind snatch it away at the last minute. “Don’t listen to them; they’ll drive you batty.”

  I hustled by, and the whispers stopped. “What do you do with all these plants?” I asked.

  “What’s it look like? I grow them.”

  “I mean…” How did I say this without offending? “You use them in spells, don’t you?”

  “Child.” Philippa stopped and turned a weary eye on me. “These plants are spells in and of themselves. I don’t need to chop them into pieces and brew them to within an inch of their lives to find a use for them. They’re already useful just by existing.”

  I was beginning to wonder if I was going to walk away with moly after all. “And you never give them to anyone else?”

  “Rarely.” She shrugged and kept walking. “Battina was an exception. She knew the value of every part of a plant. I didn’t have to worry about her stomping gracelessly through a patch of daisies just because she couldn’t slap an immediate use on them.” She turned down a smaller darker path, and I had to crouch to get under the flowering vines that made up the makeshift trellis overhead.

  “Moly is one of those plants that everyone wants but few people truly know how to use,” Philippa said. “It grew out of the blood of a god, you know. The giants were the first children of Gaia, the earth.”

  Looked like I was getting a mythology lesson in addition to herbology. “I know a little about that but not a lot.”

  “I figured.” She finally stopped and knelt down in front of a low, unassuming-looking crop of little white flowers with slender green stalks. The blossoms looked a bit like tiny bells. “Moly,” she said with a wave of her hand. “One of the strongest magical protections known to man. I could sell a single blossom for a hundred thousand dollars to the right taker.”

  I didn’t have that kind of money. Good thing Philippa didn’t look like the type who collected boats or cars or expensive purses.

  “I’d never sell it, of course,” she said, sizing me up. “You refrained from taking from me out there, and I appreciate that. It’s the only reason I’m still talking to you. Squat.” I got down onto the ground next to her. “You need it for your mother, you say?”

  I nodded. “We left a doorway open and a demon got into her. Grandma tells me that the Praesidium spell is powerful enough to drive any demon out.”

  She rubbed a finger along her chin, thinking. “It might be.” She spoke slowly, considering the question. “But there’s a price associated with moly,” she added, pointing the finger at me. “A blood price.”

  That didn’t sound good. “What’s a blood price?”

  “Moly only grows on ground that’s been watered with blood. It has to be transported the same way, or else it seeks out blood to keep itself alive.”

  Oh my god, what was I going to have to do to get this stuff to Hillary? I stared at the innocuous-looking little plants and tightened my jaw against a wave of nausea.

  “Evil acts like a fertilizer,” Philippa continued. “That’s why you absolutely cannot touch moly. If it gets its roots in you, and you are tainted by the simplest human fault—if you’ve ever been dishonest, told a white lie”—her eyes bored into mine—“tried to deceive a garden witch—well, those moly roots find that deception and feed on it. The roots grow deeper and deeper until the plant consumes you.”

  Ah, that was why it killed you if you tried to transport it.

  “So I definitely can’t touch it,” I said. I’d done my share of fibbing even before I became a demon slayer. The plant would have me down to bones after ten minutes at one of my mom’s Sunday brunches.

  Think. My mind spun as I tried to come up with a solution. “Can you put it in a pot?” Or a vault?

  Her gaze held mine. “I need blood first.”

  I nodded.

  One of the Three Truths of the demon slayer was sacrifice yourself. I had done it before, and for my mother, I would do it again. “How much?”

  Philippa peered at me for a long, silent moment then nodded. “A vial should do it.”

  “All right,” I said, even though my mind screamed at me that there had to be a catch. Maybe there wasn’t. Maybe this was as straightforward as she made it out to be. It seemed like a small sacrifice, all things considered.

  Philippa wore a strange little smile as she reached down into the cargo pocket of her overalls and withdrew a vial and a needle. With a nurse’s precision, she readied her instruments.

  “Do you want to move to some place more sterile?” I asked, swiping at a few gnats buzzing close by.

  Her eyes flared as her gaze shot to me. “We do it now.”

  She held out a hand and I gave her my arm. Philippa gave no warning as she plunged the needle into my vein. I hel
d still, bracing myself as we watched my blood gurgle into the vial.

  “Nice,” she said under her breath. “Very nice.”

  The needle gouged into my skin. And when she’d filled the vial as much as it could possibly allow, she drew the needle out of my arm with a satisfied smirk.

  “You’re far too happy about this,” I said, placing my thumb over the blood seeping from my wound. I supposed it was too much to ask for a Band-Aid.

  Philippa capped off the vial of my blood and held it to the light. “This is wonderful,” she crooned, “lovely.” She turned to me with a smile. “Even better than I imagined,” she added as she placed the vial in her breast pocket.

  Wait. “Don’t you need that blood to give me the moly?”

  She laughed. “Slayer blood? It’s far too valuable.” She patted her breast pocket. “I’m keeping this as payment.”

  Holy Hades. She’d tricked me. Blood was a valuable spell ingredient. It was life itself. And now she had mine.

  “Give it back,” I ordered, advancing on her. “Don’t force me to take it from you.” She might have her crazy plants, but I was still a demon slayer.

  She took a step away from me, and I saw the fear in her. “Pay for the moly, or you’ll never get it out of this garden.” She saw me hesitate and added, “Your mother can’t survive without it.”

  She didn’t know that.

  But I didn’t want to take the risk. I needed that moly, and trick or not, she wanted my blood in exchange.

  Grandma was going to kill me when she learned what I did.

  “Fine,” I gritted out. “Keep the blood. Give me the moly. Now.”

  She gave a sharp nod. “We’ll use the rabbit that started this whole mess in the first place.

  She put two fingers in her mouth and whistled—at least, I assumed she whistled. I couldn’t hear a thing, but a minute later a familiar brown bunny hopped down the path. It stopped in front of Philippa, nose twitching contentedly.

  “You little rascal,” she scolded it. “You were supposed to be a nice, hearty meal for my Calvin. Instead you caused a huge mess. Time to pay for that.” She picked the rabbit up and held it against her chest with one hand as she reached down and tugged firmly on a single stem of moly with the other. It took a bit of doing, but she finally pulled the plant free from the ground.

  Sure enough, the root dripped red. “What have you got buried under there?” I asked, not sure I wanted to know.

  Philippa smirked. “Not as much a what as a who, dearie, and never you mind about that.” She gently placed the root on the back of the rabbit’s neck, and—

  In the blink of an eye, it vanished beneath the fur. The rabbit squirmed for a moment then settled down again, not even seeming aware of the flower that now grew out of the base of its head. “There you go.” She patted it on the back then handed it over to me.

  I took it. It was soft and warm. “You just killed a bunny.”

  Philippa appeared surprised for a moment then smiled. “Don’t worry. A bunny is incapable of evil. That root will be easy to get out. Gertie will know how to do it.”

  “Good.” At least somebody would come out of this okay. I held the rabbit tight. “If you’re lying to me, I’ll be back.”

  She raised a brow. “One lie and you’re so untrusting.” Philippa studied me for a moment. “Just manage your expectations, Lizzie. Even Odysseus’s luck ran out a few times along the way home. Now leave me alone and don’t step off the path on your way out.”

  I backed away, refusing to give her the advantage. When she was well behind me, I turned and hurried back to Dimitri, Pirate, and Frieda with our quivering prize clutched to my chest.

  9

  By the time I got back to the others, the scene of near carnage had completely changed. Dimitri’s face was almost totally healed, the wide slash across his cheek diminished to a thin line that probably wouldn’t even have time to scab before it was gone. Frieda bent to brush some mulch under a patch of cobra plants and leapt back when the petals reared back and tried to strike. Pirate chased his own tail in an effort to chew on a clump of defensive spell gook.

  Calvin, I was pleased to see, stood completely still. Like a regular plant. That’s right, you’d better play dead, mister.

  Pirate saw me first. “Lizzie! Can you help me reach my—oh!” His voice changed from plaintive to gleeful in a heartbeat. “You brought back the magic bunny! I was hoping you would.” He leaned up onto my leg and sniffed at the rabbit’s feet. “Do you think Flappy will like him? He could be Flappy’s pet just like Flappy is my pet, and—”

  “Oh no,” I said, cutting off that line of thought before Pirate could really get going. “We aren’t adopting another pet. Two is enough.”

  “Two?” Pirate quirked his head. “Who’s the second one?”

  It wasn’t worth trying to explain. “Never mind. We’re not keeping him. He needs to live free.”

  Pirate tilted his head. “What if the other bunnies make fun of him for having a flower growing out of his head?”

  “A what?” Dimitri joined us. Judging from his ripped pants and black, now sleeveless, button-down, Frieda had apparently managed to spell together enough of Dimitri’s clothing that he wouldn’t be arrested for indecent exposure the minute we stepped back out into the real world. Thank goodness the van had tinted windows. He looked like a shipwreck victim. “Yeah, I know. These were my favorite pants.”

  The guy was having a hell of a birthday.

  Dimitri looked down at the rabbit, then at me. “Is that the moly?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Another bloodthirsty plant.” Dimitri swore in Greek. “Growing on the rabbit, or in the rabbit?”

  “I have no idea.” I’d stopped being surprised by what these witches did. “As long as we get back to Grandma soon, he should be fine.”

  He placed his hand on my bloody arm. “What price did she ask for it?”

  “Nothing I wasn’t able to give.” I’d made plenty of bad deals in my day, but I always got the job done.

  “We’ll discuss this later,” he said through a clenched jaw.

  It was already done. “We’d better get out of here,” I said. The rabbit started kicking, and I clutched it harder. The last thing I needed was for it to get free in the middle of a poison garden, eat something fatal, and drop dead before we could get it home.

  I stuck a Sneak spell on the rabbit, and we left the poison garden and its less-than-gracious inhabitants behind.

  Getting back out into the Botanical Garden was like stepping through the looking glass and into the real world again. I tilted my head back and sighed with relief as the sun beat down on me. No man-eating plants or cobra orchids. Just a mega-powerful witch who now had my blood.

  “Hey!” a throaty voice called.

  A man in a security guard’s uniform hurried our way, a frown creasing his wide face. “You’re not allowed to be on the grass here! And what—is that a dog?”

  Oh jeez, Pirate had lost his Sneak spell. “He’s a service dog,” I blurted.

  Pirate was chasing his tail in a circle again. The guard looked unconvinced. “He’s an emotional support animal,” I clarified. “And we were just leaving.”

  The guard nodded once. “I’ll walk you out.”

  Five minutes later we were back with the van, and I called Grandma to let her know we were on our way.

  “You got it?”

  She didn’t have to sound so incredulous. “Yeah, we should be back to the condo in about—”

  “Oh, we’ve moved on from there,” she broke in. “The condo couldn’t be any more secure at this point, and your mom was getting antsy. We’re back at your folks’ place. Ant Eater’s got her warding teams going, and your dad just put out the buffet. Seems it was too late to cancel the catering for Dimitri’s birthday.”

  “As long as you’ve got it handled,” I told her. I didn’t want to take any chances.

  “We’re set.” Grandma whistled. “I swear, Lizzie
, I could eat off the bathroom floor, it’s so damn clean.”

  “Just don’t try it,” I warned.

  Hillary had the place professionally cleaned every week. She had for as far back as I could remember. I remembered getting annoyed as a kid to come home from school and find all my toys put away in the wrong places.

  “Well, now it’s clean and warded,” Grandma said with satisfaction. “I’ll start the prep work on the spell.” She paused. “You sure you got out of a tangle with Philippa the Strange with no ill effects? You’re not bringing any curses home, are you?”

  “Pretty sure.” I’d bring up the blood when I had time to listen to a lecture. “Philippa doesn’t remember Ant Eater kindly, though.”

  “Nobody holds a grudge like that woman,” Grandma grumbled, and ended the call.

  “New plan,” I said, turning to Dimitri and Frieda. “We’re going to my parents’ house.” The bunny kicked enthusiastically in my arms. “How are we going to keep this little guy contained?”

  “I’ve got an old milk crate in the back of the van,” Frieda said. “He should be safe in there.”

  “Great.” I handed him over to her. “It won’t take long to get there.” My parents lived in a posh Atlanta suburb with a golf course on one side and a series of nature trails on the other. If we took Rock Springs Road, we’d be there in under fifteen minutes. That was good—I felt more run-down than I should have, even after a fight. I was going to need an afternoon nap at some point.

  With traffic it took twenty minutes, but eventually we ended up in front of my parents’ million-dollar mansion. It was an immense two-story brick house on three acres, with a meticulously maintained lawn, a pool house, and a pavilion in the back for entertaining. After such a long time away, it looked more like Barbie’s Dream House than anywhere I would ever be comfortable.

  Frieda pulled off her helmet and whistled. “Darn, honey! What’s your daddy do again?”

  “He’s in finance.” That was Cliff’s standard answer when people asked. It was nicer than saying “he’s a stockbroker—yes, like the ones your parents warned you about.”