The Demon Conspiracy (49 page)

While Granny wrestled with the creature, she
yelled. “Kelly, go!” A moment later the monster tossed her out of
the way and came after me again.

I sprinted through the
kitchen to the basement steps. Travis and the demon were on my
heels. In the distance I heard police sirens making record time,
but again probably too late. Travis turned and fired off the steel
marble.
Thwuck!
The demon roared in pain and crashed into the kitchen table.
It thrashed and floundered, then sent the table and all the chairs
clattering across the floor. Travis ducked out of its way. The
demon kept coming.

“Run Kelly!” I heard
Travis fire off another steel marble.
Thwuck!
The demon roared.

As I flew down the stairs I glanced over my
shoulder. The demon was a few feet behind. Two of its nasty green
eyes were focused on me. Four more were swollen shut from the mace
and the last two had big steel marbles stuck in them. Could I beat
it to the panic room? I leaped off the steps and landed in a full
sprint.

Just as I got to the door of the concrete
and steel reinforced room, a gnarled, slimy hand caught my arm and
jerked me into the center of the basement.

“Gotcha now-ah! Come wid me-ah! I take you
to-ah the Demon Nation!”

Demon Nation. I was
starting to hate those words. I broke free and answered with the
bat. I struck the demon in the shoulder.
Thump!
I hit it again on top of its
left head—my left, that is.
Crack!
The last shot I took was on one of its
twelve-toed feet.
Whack!
The demon danced a brief jig of pain. I can fight
when I have to.

But demons recover quickly. It knocked the
bat out of my hands. It bounced across the concrete floor. The
monster slapped a vise-like grip on my wrist and pulled me toward
the back door. I fought it all the way. I dragged my feet and
grabbed for the stairs, but I couldn’t stop it. That sucker was too
strong. Just as the demon grabbed the doorknob to go outside, I
heard a booming voice.

“Kelly! Hit the deck!” I went limp as a rag
and dropped to the floor. The demon growled at me.

“Get up-ah!”

Gunfire erupted.
POW! POW! POW! POW!

Gooey black blood sprayed all over me. The
demon released my arm and fell like a lump to the floor.

***

I was so shook up I could hardly move. When
I looked, I expected to see a policeman standing there, but instead
it was Granny holding a handgun. She slid the gun into a shoulder
holster under her jacket and helped me up.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” We hugged each
other, breathing hard. I pressed my face into her jacket and took
in the ruggedly sweet odor of old leather. I love that smell.

I nodded. Angie and Travis hurried
downstairs. Angie had fire in her eyes.

“Matilda, I told you when
you moved in, absolutely
no
guns in this house. You’ve had that ever since
you got here, haven’t you?”

Granny nodded. “Kind of a good thing, too,
don’t you think?”

Angie was furious. “I can’t believe it! You
know how I feel about firearms and you deliberately went against my
wishes.” She went to a steel cabinet and produced some heavy chain
and a large padlock. “Hurry, tie it up. Make it tight. We’ll put it
in the panic room until the police leave.”

“Tie it up?” Granny was confused. “I shot it
four times point blank with a .357 magnum, straight through the
heart.”

“We don’t even know if
it
has
a
heart.”

“Good point. What’d’ya plan to do with the
body?”

Angie shook her head. “Maybe we should call
the press, let them take pictures.”

“I don’t know. We might end up in one of
those tabloids lookin’ like freaks. Do you think Mark would want
it? You know, to dissect or something in the name of science?”

I changed the subject. “This demon came here
all by itself. That’s twice it’s happened. The first time they
brought a small army and now they’re working alone. Why?”

“Maybe our security system scares the others
away,” suggested Granny. Somebody pounded on the front door
upstairs. Granny looked up. “Police. Angie, you’d better go chat
with ‘em. The kids and I will move our two-headed friend to a more
out-of-the-way place.”

“It took ‘em twelve minutes and twenty-two
seconds this time,” said Travis, checking his watch. “Eight minutes
faster than before.”

“But they’re still too late.” I wasn’t
cutting anyone any slack about this. Especially the police.

“The only way they could possibly show up in
time to help would be to move in with us.” Angie shook her head and
went upstairs. Travis and I helped Granny move the dead demon into
the panic room.

“Is this why we have a panic room?” asked
Travis, tugging on one of the creature’s scaly feet. “To hide dead
demons in? I thought it was a hidin’ place for Kelly.”

Granny laughed. “I guess a panic room’s a
lot like a garage. You have every intention of using it for one
thing, but soon you find yourself using it for completely different
purposes.”

Her logic made me smile.

“We did better this time,” she continued.
“The alarm gave us plenty of warning, though it’s way too loud, if
you ask me.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Travis. “My ears are still
ringin’!”

“But it did the job.” Granny looked my way.
“We stopped another demon from getting you. We’ve got problems,
though, like how to fight the nasty things. But we’re a whole lot
safer now than we were a couple weeks ago.”

She’s
right
, I thought. The first demon attack
had taken us completely by surprise. But after that Angie went all
out to have the house redone and she’d spared no expense to have
the best security systems installed on the property. We had plenty
of money now, because of Majik Juice sales. Chris’ amazing fruit
juice was the hottest selling bottled drink on the market. Angie
used the money to install thirty-two security cameras inside and
outside the house. Most were hidden but some were in plain view to
scare away bad guys and maybe demons, too, if they understood what
a camera was for. And we had all kinds of detectors that turned on
security lights and set off the alarms. Motion detectors, audio
pickup systems, thermal systems, CO
₂
detectors that identified a
person’s breath, and even pressure receptors around the yard in
case another giant lobster demon was outside looking into a second
story window.

In addition all the windows were bulletproof
and the doors were solid steel with huge bolt locks. The only way
to open the doors from the outside was with an electronic touchpad
that had a secret personal identity number, or PIN, and we were the
only ones who knew the number. The entire house was hardwired to
the main power supply, with solar and battery backup, just in
case.

Also, the outside of the
house was now brick. Angie figured it wouldn’t be too hard for
demons to break through vinyl siding, so she had the contractors
remove the vinyl and replace it with red brick. I was impressed the
contractors had been able to do so much work in such a short time,
but Angie found out if you pay people enough money they’ll work
around the clock to get a job done. And they did, too. There had
been at least a dozen companies working all through the
night
every
night.

Granny closed the panic room door and we
started upstairs. Then we heard a desperate, muffled voice.

“Lemme go-ah! Ya can’t hold me here-ah. I
won’t hurt nobody, I swear-ah!” The demon had come back to
life.

***

We gawked at each other at the top of the
stairs. The demon had only been dead for twenty minutes and now it
was back again! What kind of death was that?

About then Angie returned to the kitchen. “I
complimented the officers on getting here so fast, but I told them
it was a false alarm. I don’t know, maybe next time we should show
them a demon’s body. I don’t want them to think we’re crying wolf,
you know?” Angie stopped in her tracks as soon as she saw us.
“What?”

“You know that demon we killed?” said
Travis. “Well, it just said somethin’.”

We rushed back into the basement and opened
the panic room door. Sure enough, though the demon was still
wrapped in chains, it certainly wasn’t dead anymore. Both heads
looked at us pleadingly, fear in its two good eyes. The bullet
holes in its chest were gone.

“I’ve got to get a bigger gun,” murmured
Granny.

Angie flashed her a look, then spoke to the
demon. “Why did you come here?”

The demon stifled an obvious chuckle. “To
get the Kelly Bishop-ah for the Demon Nation, of course-ah. The
Boss put a bounty-ah on her head and whoever brings her back-ah
gets all the soup-ah he wants forever-ah!”

“Why did you come alone?” I asked, being
careful to stand behind Granny.

“Cuz the bounty-ah only counts as one-ah. If
I had help-ah, I’d have to share my soup-ah. Slopgreez don’t want
to share-ah. Slopgreez wants all the soup for himself-ah. I got two
mouths to feed-ah.”

“You name is Slopgreez?” asked Angie.

The demon nodded. “But I don’t wants her
anymore-ah. Let me go-ah back to the Demon Nation, I’ll never
return-ah. I promise-ah.”

“Like we can believe
anything a
demon
says.” Angie crossed her arms. “If you want to see your cave
again you’ll have to tell us what we want to know
first.”

Its two functional milky green eyes
narrowed. “Like what-ah?”

“First, why should we believe anything you
say?”

“Demons can’t lie-ah. We ain’t like
humans-ah, it ain’t part of our nature to lie-ah.”

I could read people’s minds easily enough,
but so far I hadn’t been able to pick up on any thoughts from a
demon. Too bad. I definitely didn’t trust this one.

“Why does the Boss want the Kelly
Bishop?”

“Don’t know that-ah. Only know he wants
her-ah bad.”

“He’s doing what he’s
told,” I said boldly. “The man, Mr. Deel, is the one who
really
wants me.
And
he
tells the
Boss what to do.”

Slopgreez became belligerent. “No-ah! Nobody
in the Demon Nation tells the Boss nothin’-ah! He’ll put you in his
soup-ah for sayin’ that!”

“Not if he keeps sending
in slackers like
you
to get her,” said Granny with a chuckle. “Beside, we’re not
part of the Demon Nation, are we?” The demon scowled
darkly.

Travis had his own questions. “So how come
you were dead and came back to life? Were you fakin’ it?”

“Slopgreez don’t know what fakin’ it-ah
means. Demons die and come back-ah. You can’t kill us forever-ah.
We’re immortal-ah.”

“Immortal?” spat Granny. “I’ll bet I could
find a way to keep you dead.”

Slopgreez glared at her. “Many have
tried-ah. No such thing-ah. There, I told you what you wanted-ah.
Can I go now-ah? I swear I won’t come back-ah.”

Angie shrugged. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt
to let it go. I mean, if demons really can’t lie, and all. It did
cooperate.”

“I don’t know, Angie. I don’t trust it.”
Granny subconsciously touched the holster under her jacket. “Maybe
we should try to kill it again, you know? Chop it into lots of
little pieces and set them in the sun.”

The demon’s dark eyes flashed fear.
“Slopgreez been good to you-ah! Please-ah, let me go!”

I scanned Angie’s thoughts and realized
she’d already made up her mind to release Slopgreez, as long as he
didn’t try anything stupid. Angie made her offer. “You’ve got to
promise you’ll never come back here, and that you won’t try to harm
any of us ever again. Especially the Kelly Bishop.”

Slopgreez nodded both heads vigorously. “Oh,
I do promises-ah. I-ah will never come back-ah or try to harm the
Kelly Bishop-ah again. Never-ah!”

The Kelly
Bishop
. It was kind of weird hearing
everybody talk about me in the third person like I wasn’t even in
the room. I guess that’s the nature of demon-speak.

Slopgreez looked and
seemed sincere, but who could tell? I mean both of its heads spoke
at the same time and sounded like they really meant it. But you had
to remember, it was a demon. I didn’t know much about them but it
seemed that words like truthfulness and trustworthy probably
weren’t in their vocabulary. I was very uneasy about letting this
one go. But if you couldn’t kill them, what
could
you do with them?

Granny reloaded her magnum as Angie unlocked
the padlocks. We all unwrapped the chains. Granny caught the ugly
creature by one of its throats and lifted it off the floor.

“You ever come back this way I’ll make sure
you regret it.”

“I’ll never come back-ah, I swear-ah on the
Boss’ left foot!” She released the demon and drew her handgun.

“Travis, open the back door.”

I moved as far from the demon as I could
get, but stood ready with my bat. Travis opened the door. A red
security light came on over the door and he punched in the code.
The light changed to green. He took out his slingshot, loaded
another steel marble and took aim.

The demon’s eyes grew large with
anticipation. It looked to Angie for approval before it went
anywhere. She nodded at the door. The demon took off running, but
not before it hissed at me on the way out. Then it started laughing
like a crazy person. We followed it outside.