Every Demon Has His Day, page 10
“Right behind you.”
THIRTEEN
Constance came to in Mae Kenneth’s living room with Mel standing over her and Dead Jimmy right beside her, a worried look on his face. Constance tried to sit up, but a blinding headache hit her like a Mack truck and her eyes filled with stars as she fell back on the terrier-shaped pillow.
“What happened?” Constance croaked, still disoriented and dizzy, her head filled with images of Dante London and the devil.
“Damn, girl, I thought you had a stroke or something,” Dead Jimmy said, relieved. “What happened was you went down faster than a porn star with the cameras rolling. I thought you died!”
“Feels like I did,” Constance said, holding her head, woozy.
“Feels like you what?” Mel asked her, glancing over to where Dead Jimmy was standing and then back to Constance, a weird look on her face. Constance realized Mel thought she was hallucinating. Mel couldn’t see Dead Jimmy. It was the problem with having your dead husband following you around—everyone else thought you were crazy.
“Like I died,” Constance said to Mel, focusing on her.
“Well, you didn’t die. You just fainted.”
“I just came back with the tea and found her on the floor,” Mae said. “Is she going to be okay?”
Mel released the blood pressure cuff around Constance’s arm and gave her a hard look. “You might want to get checked out,” Mel told Constance. “I’d go see a doctor if I were you. Could be a seizure or something more serious.” Mel snapped her paramedic bag closed. “Otherwise, I say take it easy this afternoon. Drink lots of fluids.”
A knock came at the door and Caitlin Elizabeth Victoria the Welsh terrier barked loudly, announcing another visitor. Mae stood and opened the door, and in walked Nathan Garrett as if he owned the place.
“She okay?” Nathan asked Mel, who nodded.
“Your suspect is just fine, Sheriff,” Constance snapped. “No need to check on me.”
“Well, I’m wondering what you’re doing here, since you’re allergic to dogs,” Nathan said. “I’m surprised you didn’t have an asthma attack.”
“Allergic to dogs?” echoed Mae, as if that was the worst thing she’d ever heard.
“You remember that?” Constance snapped, surprised. He hadn’t even remembered her name at the Jiffy Lube all those years ago, and now he suddenly remembered she had allergies?
“I remember a lot of things about you,” Nathan said, and the way he said it made Constance blush up to her ears.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Constance asked, glancing down at her lap and trying to regain her composure. “Worried that your number one murder suspect is going to up and die on you?”
“Murder?” echoed Mae Kenneth.
“I never said you were a suspect,” Nathan said.
“Oh no, you just implied I killed somebody.”
“Maybe you two should get a room,” Mel suggested.
Nathan and Constance said nothing, just growled at one another.
“You going to arrest me?”
“No.”
“Then I’m going to go home.” Constance stood, still dizzy, but managed to take the few steps to the door without tripping. Her head felt like it was coming apart in big, heavy pieces, but she managed to get outside. Dead Jimmy was by her side. He was doing his best to help her, but since he couldn’t actually hold on to her, it was more of a nice thought than actual help.
“You want me to drive?” Dead Jimmy asked, trying to be thoughtful.
“If you drive the way you open beer cans, then no,” Constance said, holding her head. She grabbed her sunglasses from her bag to shade her eyes from the glaring sunlight and tried to focus on getting her key into the ignition. “I’ll be okay.”
When Constance got home, she found—in addition to the fact that her garage was still taped up with yellow police tape—her mother’s car in the driveway.
“Abigail is here,” Dead Jimmy said, frowning. “Mind if I wait outside?”
“That’s probably best,” Constance said, swinging open the back door.
Constance found her mother kneeling on her kitchen floor drawing a pentagram in permanent marker.
“Mama! What on earth are you doing?”
“It’s for protection,” Abigail explained, as if vandalizing her new linoleum was as ordinary as bringing over a cherry pie. Constance also noticed her mother had brought over a basket full of dogwood blooms. She had put a few of them around the edges of the pentagram. It looked like a satanic ritual designed by Laura Ashley.
“But, Mom…”
“You said a demon killed Jimmy, didn’t you? Well, this is supposed to keep them away.”
“That looks like the sign of the devil, Mom.”
“Well, the exorcist in Pasadena said it would work like a charm,” Abigail said, drawing a circle in thick black marker on her floor. “Besides, I think of the two of us I am the one with the certified degree in white witchcraft.”
This was true. Abigail took a correspondence course online. She had a certificate held to her refrigerator with a magnet that said psychics do it better than anyone else.
“So, did you find the dog in the pink sweater?” Abigail said, sitting up on her haunches. For a second, Constance thought her mother might really be psychic.
“Sort of,” Constance said. “Dante London has one. I saw it on the cover of People.”
“Oh, then it should be easy to talk to him. Just get past her three bodyguards and all the security, and you’ll be fine.”
“I know,” Constance said, groaning. She held her hand against her head. Her headache from the vision hadn’t gotten any better.
“What’s wrong?” Abigail asked.
“I’ve got the worst headache and the Sharpie fumes aren’t helping.” Constance slumped down into her kitchen chair and started rubbing her temples. This was a headache worse than any hangover she ever had. Abigail’s head shot up, and she studied Constance closely.
“You had one, didn’t you?”
“Had one what!”
“A vision,” Abigail said, standing and recapping her Sharpie.
Constance groaned and held her head. “I guess. Maybe. I don’t know.”
“You did!” squealed Abigail, clapping her hands together. “My baby had her first vision!”
Constance just put her head on the table and sighed.
“Now you know why I am always getting those migraines,” Abigail said. “Now you know! I was beginning to think the powers skipped a generation, but now look at you. What did you see? My first vision was of Elvis. Did I tell you that? I was twelve, and I picked up his record in a record store and—bam!—I saw his whole life. From birth until…well, death, which isn’t until next year.”
“Mom…” Constance suddenly felt a pang of guilt for never believing her mother all those years. Constance thought she was just making it all up, and the headaches were just her way of not doing things she didn’t want to do, like take Constance to the playground or cook dinner. But it turns out they’re very, very real. “You know I never believed you.”
“Well, I bet you believe me now,” Abigail said. “Here, drink some Dr Pepper. It helps with the headaches.”
Constance took the plastic bottle her mother handed her and smiled. She felt closer to her than she had in years. “Thanks, Mom.”
“So? What was it? Elvis? No. John Lennon maybe? Or, no, Jimmy Hoffa? Tell me!”
“None of those things. I touched People magazine and got a vision of Dante London becoming the mother of the Antichrist.”
Abigail let out a low whistle.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
Abigail slowly sat down in her chair, letting the information sink in. “Well, this is a lot more serious than a dog in a pink sweater.”
“Tell me about it,” Constance said. “But, maybe it wasn’t real? Maybe it was just a dream or something.”
“No,” Abigail said, shaking her head. “No, my dear, you had a vision. I’d stake my crystal ball on it. You have to trust what you see. Those visions are true.”
“How do you know?”
“Five generations of women can’t be wrong,” Abigail said.
“But Dante London as mother of the Antichrist? It’s so hard to believe.”
“Harder to believe than Elvis is an antiques gun dealer in Albuquerque?” Abigail asked, referring to her own first vision.
“I guess not,” Constance said.
“Well, we have to do something about this Dante London girl,” Abigail said. “Tell somebody.”
“Who?”
“Maybe Pastor Allen?” Pastor Allen was the liberal Methodist preacher in town. He was open-minded, true, but he also didn’t believe in literal translations of heaven and hell.
“I don’t think he believes in the Antichrist.”
“True. Maybe someone else.” Abigail got a far-off look while she thought.
“So, Mama, how many of these visions am I going to have?” Constance asked, bringing her back to the present.
“I had one every month. But for you—who knows? Your grandmother had one every week, and her mother had one every day.”
“Every day?” Constance had a flash of having the worst headache of her life every afternoon from here on out. It was enough to make her crazy just thinking about it. “How did she cope?”
“She drank—a lot,” Abigail said.
“Great.”
Abigail sent her daughter a sly look. “So, I bet that vision of yours didn’t have lotto numbers in it, did it?”
Constance blushed. “No,” she said.
“Or a weather report?”
Constance shook her head, embarrassed about all the years she spent teasing her mom about the randomness of her visions.
“See? You can’t choose what you see,” Abigail said. “Your visions choose you. And in your case, they have to do with the devil. Maybe that’s what the minor prophet stuff is all about.”
“But what do I do about it?”
“You still haven’t talked to the pink sweater dog,” Abigail suggested. “Maybe you should start there. But first, I’d lie down for a while, or that headache will never go away. And you’ve got Jimmy’s funeral tomorrow, don’t forget.”
“The funeral! Oh Lord,” Constance groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes. “I nearly forgot.”
“Easy to do when the deceased is always with you,” Abigail said. “Oh! And I almost forgot. My friend in Pasadena emailed me some stuff about Yaman,” Abigail said, grabbing her purse and digging around until she found some papers.
Constance took the pages, a chapter devoted to “Yaman: The Killer of the Tibetan God of Death,” and despite her headache, she tried to focus. When she turned the page and saw a rough drawing of the demon, she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was a pretty scary-looking monster with multiple arms.
“He killed the Tibetan God of Death and is known for wearing a necklace of human heads?” Constance shuddered. “I don’t remember him wearing any heads. Or having multiple arms.”
“Sometimes people exaggerate a little,” Abigail said. “Now, you better go lie down.”
“I can’t,” Constance said. “I’ve got to get to the café.”
“You can’t take one day off? That restaurant is going to be the death of you,” Abigail said. “You spend your whole life there.”
“That’s because it is my life,” Constance said as she walked out the door.
Constance took over her shift as manager and hostess at the Magnolia Café, but business was so slow it did little to take her mind off the whirlwind of events over the last two days. It didn’t help that the few stragglers who came in for dinner came not for the food, but to get a glimpse of her and gather up some gossip about the would-be Dogwood County murderer. The gossips came, and spent more time eyeing her than their plates, and she felt more than a little like a bug under a microscope. Even when she retreated into the kitchen—normally her safe haven—she found herself distracted by the images she’d seen of Dante London and the devil. Even whipping up a batch of pecan pies didn’t help take her mind off her vision, which seemed to replay endlessly in her head. It was so vivid, and yet she had her doubts it was an actual vision of the future. Maybe she’d just heard too much about Dante London over the last few weeks, given that she’d been the talk of the county since news of the movie shoot broke. She turned the vision over, again and again, in her mind, and it always came out the same way: Dante and the devil.
She was hoping not to think about it for a few hours, but the slow night at the café meant she had few distractions and could think of little else. For the first time in a long while, she watched the clock tick by, hoping for closing time. When it came, she hurried home.
She had an even harder time falling asleep, and once she did, she slept fitfully, her sleep marred by dark dreams, and she was startled awake early the next morning by the sound of howling. She sat up with a start, unsure of what it could be, but soon realized it was a dog. In fact, a small one, by the sound of it.
“What the Sam hell is making all that racket?” complained a sleepy Dead Jimmy, who sat up next to her and rubbed his eyes.
“Jimmy!” Constance cried, pulling up the sheets to cover her very thin nightgown. “You’re not supposed to be sleeping in here.”
“Sorry, Connie, old habits,” Dead Jimmy said, trying to look innocent but failing.
“Get out,” Constance said, pointing to the door. He might be dead, but it didn’t mean Constance was going to let him see her nearly naked. They had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the last six months, and she didn’t want to backslide now that he happened to be a ghost.
“Fine,” Dead Jimmy said, yawning. He stretched, and then disappeared.
Constance glanced around the room. “You better not still be here,” she said. “And you better not watch me shower, either,” Constance warned the room.
“Don’t flatter yourself!” Dead Jimmy shot back. He was invisible, but there all the same.
Constance’s face flushed red and her temper flared. “I knew you were still here! Jimmy—go downstairs—now!”
“Okay, okay, I’m going.”
Constance waited, and then she heard the sound of the refrigerator door downstairs open and shut. She guessed he was in the kitchen. She never imagined her almost-ex husband could be more annoying dead, but there it was.
Constance fell back into her bed and sighed. She was still trying to make heads or tails of this whole mess, and she wasn’t sure she understood any of it. The barking started up again—a high-pitched yipping—and she put a pillow over her head. None of her neighbors had small dogs. She figured it must be a stray. With a sigh, she threw off the covers, and grabbed her terry cloth robe, slung it around herself, and stomped downstairs. The yipping got louder, and it sounded like the dog was sitting on her front porch. She swung open the front door, and there, sitting on her welcome mat, was a small tan French bulldog, wearing a fuzzy pink turtleneck and staring straight at Constance.
“Well, I thought you’d never open the door,” the dog said in a crisp British accent, not unlike that of Anthony Hopkins. “I’m Frank. And I’m here to help you. Mind if I come in?”
FOURTEEN
I’m sorry, did you just speak English?” Constance blurted to the dog, dumbfounded.
“Well, I thought Chinese would probably be wrong for the occasion,” the dog quipped. “But you probably don’t want the neighbors hearing us, so would you mind letting me in?”
Constance sidestepped and the tiny lapdog trotted into her house and straight into the kitchen. He must have run into Dead Jimmy, because Constance heard her dead husband shout, “Jesus in a jumpsuit, what the hell is that? Looks like a squirrel in a sweater.”
Constance was in the kitchen two beats later, and the dog, who was ignoring the stares of Dead Jimmy, turned to her and held out one little paw.
“Now, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” said the dog. “My name is Frank.”
“Um, Constance,” she said, stooping low so she could clasp the tiny paw. She gave it a little shake and then let it go. She wanted to give herself a little pinch to see if she was dreaming, but thought that might be rude.
“If your name is Frank, how come you’re wearing pink?” Dead Jimmy pointed to the dog’s pink sweater.
“No accounting for human stupidity—especially with pop stars. Miss London, my owner, got my sex wrong,” Frank said. “Anyway, I’m here to help you, Constance. I understand you had your first vision yesterday, and that it involved Dante London having the devil’s child.”
“You know?” Constance asked amazed.
“Of course I know. I’m an angel-in-training,” Frank said, hopping up on one of her dinette chairs. “I’ve been sent here undercover to keep an eye on Miss London, a duty I’m forsaking this morning to make contact with you.”
“Since when are angels lapdogs?” scoffed Dead Jimmy.
“I’m not an angel yet. I’m trying to earn my wings,” Frank clarified. “I’m only taking this form for this assignment.”
“Oh,” Constance and Dead Jimmy said together.
“Kind of like the Wonder Twins,” Dead Jimmy said. “You know, one of them always took the form of an animal.”
Frank rolled his eyes. “Right, that would make sense if I were wearing purple spandex and had a twin,” Frank said, giving Dead Jimmy a look of annoyance. “Now, we don’t have much time, Miss Prophet. I can’t leave Dante alone for very long, but it’s imperative that we start your training.”
“Training?” echoed Constance, stumped, as she slumped into the chair opposite Frank.
“You don’t think you just wake up one day and you’re a full-fledged minor prophet.”
“Well, up until two days ago, I’d never thought prophets—minor or otherwise—existed these days.”
“Well, now you know they do, and you’ve got some work to do.”
