Demon Fare

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Wanda screamed in frustration and threw the wooden box against the basement wall. A chunk of plaster tumbled from the hole it made.

“Wanda, dear, you need to calm yourself,” said a woman’s voice from the stairs. “You’ll upset the neighbors.”

Breathing hard, Wanda stomped on the box and it skittered across the basement floor, stopping beneath a shelf cluttered with old toys, bedding, and stacks of ancient dishes. Why wouldn’t the damn thing break?

She blew a wisp of hair from her forehead. “Aunt Alva, I can’t open these boxes. It’s like they’re made of iron.”

The middle-aged woman sat on the bottom step and shrugged. “Then you’ll have to return them.”

“No.” Wanda retrieved the perfectly intact redwood box and turned it over to stare at the thumbprint branded on its lid. “Okay, maybe. I still need to think on it some.”

“It looks like the Bringer placed his mark on those demons. You can’t send them back to The Source without setting them free first.” Alva sighed. “And you can’t set them free without him.”

Wanda nodded. “At least I have somethin’ to bargain with. He has to hear me out.”

“You’ll charm him into it.” Alva beamed at her niece. “You did well tonight, Wanda. Your great grandmother would have been proud.”

A half-hearted smile tugged up the corners of Wanda’s mouth as she remembered the Hellspawn woman who had set her on her path. “She’d always said the lesser demons would come to no good someday. Grandma Lacy had been vague on how, but I don’t think that matters. A prophecy is a prophecy.”

Alva stood and approached her niece to give her a hug. She wasn’t tall enough to reach Wanda’s shoulders, so she wrapped her arm around Wanda’s waist instead. “You’ll work it out. Now that you have his boxes, you’re sittin’ in the catbird’s seat.”

Wanda gathered up the wooden cubes and dropped them back in the sack. She’d tried everything to crack them open, had even thrown them in the furnace, but they wouldn’t burn.

She used her booted foot to shove away the sheet of plywood covering the narrow hole in the basement floor. The rift glowed red, and hot, and hungry. It wanted its demons back. If the fissure mouth were bigger, she’d drop the boxes in whole.

“Wanda, honey,” Alva said. “I’m so happy you’re finally here. I’ve missed you.”

Wanda smiled. “I missed you, too. The big city’s different from what I’m used to, but I’m learnin’ to like it okay.”

Alva laughed. “Getting out of Kentucky now and then will do you good. It did me.” She headed back to the stairs. “Come on up and I’ll make you some breakfast.”

Wanda closed her eyes, feeling exhaustion seep into her bones. She needed rest. Her energy level was a lot lower than it should be and if she didn’t recharge her batteries, she couldn’t do what she’d come to the city for.

“You can look for your Spawnster later,” Alva added.

“He’s not my Spawnster.” Wanda wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, her fingers coming away damp with sweat. The furnace down here was baking her alive. “I don’t want nothin’ to do with him.”

“Of course you don’t, dear,” her aunt said, a sly tone to her voice. “It’s just that you haven’t stopped talking about him since you got home.”

That wasn’t true. She didn’t know him from Adam’s housecat, but damn, he was a tall half-breed. And broad across the shoulders. And he swaggered when he walked. Arrogant Spawnster, and a tough one, too. She’d socked him hard enough to knock him into next week, but he got right back up, madder than spit on a griddle. Her smile spread a little wider.