My Big Fat Demon Slayer Wedding (6 page)

He jerked his head up. “Why? This is research.”

“Yes, but we don’t know what this is.” I touched the emerald at my neck. It was warm, yet strangely lifeless at my touch.

“We need to show Grandma.” And Dimitri, when he arrived tonight.
 

In the mean time, I took a few pictures with my phone.
 

Pirate sneezed every time my flash went off.

“Don’t mention this to anyone else,” I told him.

He nodded. “You know I don’t like to share our business.” He tilted his head. I could almost see the wheels spinning. “I’ll have Flappy stand guard.”

Right. “Because a dragon standing outside a tower isn’t at all suspicious.”

He didn’t get the irony.

Still, Flappy was the best we had. He was loyal, good at guarding things, and he wasn’t drinking my mom’s tea. All three were plusses in my book.

I tried to open the door on the ground floor level, but there was no way to unlock it from the inside.

“As soon as Grandma sobers up, we’ll get her out here,” I said as we climbed the stairs. Lord knew how we’d get her inside.

Pirate missed a step. “You mean she’s not watching her sandwiches?”
 

“Focus,” I told my dog.

Flappy managed to get us down from the tower, with my dog whooping the whole way. He was on cloud nine. I was less so as we headed back to the house.
 

I didn’t know what we’d found, but I didn’t like it. I needed things to be normal—well as normal as they could be—for one week. Was that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

When we got back to the house, we found Sidecar Bob at the Steinway, belting out
Only The Good Die Young
like he was at a piano bar.

He’d slapped a few new stickers onto his wheelchair and had crammed a pint of Southern Comfort into the cup holder. His long gray hair stuck out in tufts from his ponytail.

“I thought boys didn’t come to tea parties,” I said, tugging on his ponytail.

“I crashed,” he said, grinning.

He had five cups lined up on the piano. I was glad to see at least one was filled with nickels, pennies, and quarters.
 

Meanwhile, my wedding tea party attendees had pushed the couches, chairs, and tables to the side of the room. Some witches were actually napping on them. Mom was dancing in a motley circle with at least a dozen Red Skulls. She’d taken off her shoes, wedding reception style, and was wearing Grandma’s yellow bow in her hair.
 

I stopped for a second. It was truly a sight to see. I couldn’t help but grin. If this was how my reception turned out, I’d be glad.
 

Or maybe I was just high on life after almost falling off a dragon. Twice.

I backed up toward Bob, who was blowing kisses at the end of his song.

“Hey,” I said, before he started in on another one, “have you guys warded for demons?”

He tisked. “It’s the first thing we do. Now go act like a bride. Have fun. You know what fun is, right?”

I gave him a saucy smile. “Yes, but Dimitri isn’t here yet.”

He responded with a cheery rendition of AC/DC’s
You Shook Me All Night Long.

Ah, well, it’s always good to have crazy musicians rooting for you.

In the meantime, Mom spotted me and waved for me to join in.
 

I walked on over and gave her a hug instead. She smelled like a case of champagne. “I’m beat,” I said into her ear, hoping she could hear me. “But thank you so much for the tea party with my friends. It was magic.” Literally.

She tried to turn the hug into a dance, but I kissed her on the cheek and headed for the stairs. After a few steps, I stopped. I didn’t know where my room was.
 

My mom seemed to realize it at that exact moment as well because she broke away from the group and took my hand, dragging me out into the foyer like we were school kids.
 

At least it wasn’t as loud out here.

She couldn’t stop giggling.
 

“Hey Mom, have you been out in the garden?” I asked, in the loaded question of the century.

“Of course,” she trilled. “I made diagrams. I was thinking of trimming down the rose garden and having the wedding out there. It’s so pretty.” She held up a finger. “Unless we use the huge, huge grand arch near the back. But we’d have to edit the fountain out of the pictures because I don’t want unicorns with penises in the shot.”

I didn’t even know my mom knew that word.

And I was going to have to see that fountain.

I slipped an arm through hers as we took the stairs. “What do you know about the tower near the rose garden?”

“You can’t get close,” she said, leaning heavily against me. “The gate’s locked.”

“Not anymore,” I told her.

If she heard me, she didn’t let on.

“Here’s your room,” she said, stopping in front of the second door on the left.

It held an antique four-poster bed with a rich ivory spread and pillows embroidered with birds. The dresser, nightstand, and mirror were all rich, dark wood and very old.

“My room is next door,” she said. “You don’t even need to go out into the hall to reach me. We connect. Like this.” She walked over to a door by my dresser and opened it to reveal a similar suite, done in Oakwood and yellow. “Dimitri’s room is across the hall.”

I don’t know what passed across my face, but my mom’s good mood disappeared.
 

“I know how you kids are these days and
that
won’t be happening under my roof.”

“This is a rental,” I said, hoping for a loophole. Counting on it.

“All the same.” Drawing her shoulders back, losing the drunk walk. “You tell him no monkey business because I’m not comfortable talking about sexual things with men I’ve barely met.”

Oh, geez. “You didn’t say that to him, did you?”

“No. He’s not here yet.”

That was strange. He’d had to run a quick errand for his clan, but he should have been here by now. I hoped he was okay.

Her face pinched. “You tell him. If he is going to marry my daughter, he needs to keep his Johnson in his drawers.”

Suddenly I wished the house were cursed so the floor could swallow me whole.

“Don’t get too worked up until you meet him. Okay?”

She nodded one too many times. “When he gets here. When is he going to get here?”

“Soon.” I hoped.
 

I didn’t know what had happened to the groom.

Chapter Six

Dimitri should have arrived by nightfall. He wasn’t answering his phone, or my multiple texts.

Something had to be wrong.
 

But there was nowhere to go. Nothing I could do about it. And so I sat out on the front porch, waiting.
 

It was the curse of being a demon slayer. I didn’t worry about traffic jams or the chance that he’d lost his cell phone or gotten it wet. My mind was filled with…other things.

The cool evening air cut through the thin fabric of my dress, and I rubbed at my chilly arms. What I’d give for a sweater. Or for my fiancé to appear from around the curve in the long driveway.

Laughter and general mayhem from the tea-turned-karaoke party filtered out into the night. I didn’t even want to think about what else they might be doing in there. The Darjeeling was certainly flowing.

I stood and immediately regretted it as the chilly air blew straight up my dress. I paced to keep warm.
 

It didn’t help.

I was checking my phone—again—when there was a rustling in the bushes to my left. I turned quickly and relaxed as a knobby head appeared.

“Lizzie!” My dog went from zero to sixty as he clambered out of the bushes and up the front steps. “I was looking for you!”

I reached out and scratched the wiry fur on his back. “You thought I might be hanging out in the hedges?”
 

Pirate mulled that over for a second. “Nah. I just smelled something. You know I had to check that out. Now I don’t want to alarm you, but we have to get inside. I smell bacon, cheese, shrimp, and more cheese!”

I drew him into my arms. “I can’t, bub. Too worried.” I sat back down on the steps and cradled the dog in my arms. He was toasty warm from all his running around. It felt good.

Maybe it was ridiculous. I mean, Dimitri was strong, fearless. Even if he ran into something terrible out there, he was a good fighter. He could take care of himself.
 

But I loved him.

I stared out into the black night, trying to see, to anticipate, to imagine the slightest light at the end of the dark driveway.

“Why can’t I relax anymore?” I asked Pirate.
 

“You and me both, sister,” he said, rolling over so I could rub his tummy.

Technically, that party in there was for me. My mom had come in all the way from Atlanta. Until today, I hadn’t seen her in a year. And the biker witches? Sure, we saw each other all the time, but that didn’t mean I should be ignoring them. “They’re living it up and I’m sitting out here. Alone.”

Pirate nosed my elbow. “Excuse me?”

Okay. So I was sitting outside with a dog.

Had my position as a demon slayer robbed my ability to simply be with the people I loved, to have fun? Had it stolen my life from me?

Pirate wriggled off my lap and curled up next to me on the porch. He rested his head on my leg and exhaled, his warm doggie breath tickling my wrist. “I’d rather be inside eating snacks.”

I scratched him on the soft spot behind his ears. “Me, too, bub. Me, too.”

After midnight, when my back was stiff and my head ached from worrying, Pirate and I made the climb up to my room. I closed my door, blocking most of the party noise from the first floor, and slipped off my shoes. I rested my phone next to my head and let my doggie curl up next to me.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Pirate said on a yawn. “He’s tough.”

“I hope you’re right,” I said, as we cuddled in the dark together. Waiting.

***

I woke to the smell of bacon and eggs. Sunlight filtered through the lace curtains and I realized it had to be at least eight o’clock in the morning. And I hadn’t heard from Dimitri.

The thought sat like a rock in my stomach as I pushed past the still-warm, dog-sized spot on the bed covers.
 

I didn’t bother changing, or finding my shoes. I was halfway through brushing my teeth before I even realized I was doing it. Call it force of habit. My mind really wasn’t all there. My head still ached and my body felt like I’d slept on the porch.

His room was empty. The hallway was deserted, but at the bottom of the stairs, well, I should have expected this. It looked like a geriatric slumber party gone horribly wrong. Frieda was curled up by the main banister, her pink suit shirt tied like Daisy Duke and her head resting on the bottom step. Ant Eater snored, open mouthed, as she leaned against the front door. Someone had drawn a moustache and goatee on her face with a black Sharpie.
 

I thought she had a shiner. That is, until I made my way down the stairs, stepped over Frieda and saw it wasn’t a black eye, but a crudely drawn eye patch. Ah, swell. Ant Eater was a pirate.

There were three more witches crashed out in the foyer. At least a dozen on couches in the sitting room.
 

I stepped over my Grandmother as she snored away in the hallway to the kitchen.

If I were a good granddaughter, like I was before I became the exalted Demon Slayer of Dalea and was forced to deal with all this nonsense, I would have woken Grandma up and escorted her to bed. But she looked so peaceful curled up, her head resting on a potato chip bag. And really, I’d given up trying to tell the biker witches what to do. It wasn’t the first time they’d all woken up on the floor, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Still, guilt compelled me to grab a couch cushion from the sitting room and trade it for the Lay’s Salt & Vinegar.

See? I was nice. “There you go,” I said, depositing the chips on a hall table. She mumbled something unintelligible.

Maybe she’d wake up sober. I could always hope.
 

I could use Grandma and a few of her friends to help me search for Dimitri. If only I knew where to look.

At least my mom wasn’t among the snoring drunks. Thank heaven. She might have had the energy to make it up the stairs. More likely, she was the one cooking. Nothing kept Hillary down. She’d keep to her schedule even if it killed her.
 

Given what transpired yesterday, it just might.

The gray slate floors were chilly against my feet as I nudged Sidecar Bob’s wheelchair out of the way and rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Dimitri stood by the massive stove, turning a large skillet full of bacon.

He looked gorgeous in a green, button down shirt that matched his eyes and accented his broad shoulders. Over it, he wore an apron that said
Dude with the Food
.
 

I let out a small shriek and launched myself straight for him. He caught me by the waist and pulled me close.
 

“I expected that reaction from Pirate,” he smiled, his angled features softening. “Of course, he only cares about the bacon.” The sound of his voice, the crisp Greek accent, the relief, made me want to grab him and never let go.

“I wouldn’t mind a taste of your bacon,” I said, more interested in him than in any kind of banter. I breathed a sigh of relief and hugged him again, grateful for the solid warmth of his chest against my cheek. “Where were you?”

“I got in late. I didn’t want to wake you up.” He curled his free hand around me and brushed a kiss over my forehead. “What’s the matter?”

“Not a thing.” Not now.
 

I needed to relax. Be a bride.

Still, I promised myself a long time ago, I’d never take this man for granted.

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “If this is how you get when I cook, I’m going to live in the kitchen.”

I ran my fingers through the thick, ebony hair that curled at his collar. “Promise?”

He tilted his head. “What happened to your hair?”