Carpe Demon: Adventures of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Read Online Free PDF Page A

my way, then grabbed the outfit I’d laid across the unmade bed. I’d picked up a cute little flower-print sundress during a T.J. Maxx shopping spree at the beginning of the summer (swimsuits and shorts for Allie, yet another growth spurt for Timmy). With its fitted bodice, tight waist, and flared skirt, it was both festive and flattering. Considering I mostly lived my life in T-shirts, jeans, or sweatpants, this was the first chance I’d had to wear it.
    With one eye trained on the digital clock next to the bed, I shoved my feet into some light blue mules, ran a brush through my hair, and stroked some mascara onto my eyelashes.
    I never got ready this quickly, but today I had incentive, and the whole process took less than three minutes. Didn’t matter. I could tell the second I raced into the kitchen that I’d taken too long. Way too long.
    “What the hell is this?” Stuart said. He was standing just inside the pantry, so I couldn’t see his face, just part of his arm and the back of his head.
    His voice didn’t help me, either. He sounded vaguely mystified, but that could as easily be a reaction to a new brand of cereal as it was to a dead body behind the cat food. If he was questioning my switch from Cheerios to Special K, then That’s an incapacitated demon, dear. I’ll get rid of him by morning would be an entirely inappropriate response.
    I’d sprinted across the room, and now I put a hand (wifely, supportive) on his shoulder and peered around him into the pantry. As far as I could tell, there was no visible demon. Just dozens of trash bags blanketing the small room.
    Big relief.
    “Um, what’s the trouble?”
    “This mess,” he said.
    “Yes, right. Mess.” I was babbling, and I stood up straighter as if good posture would force more oxygen to my brain. “Allie,” I said, jumping on my first coherent thought. First Brian, now Allie. Had I no shame? “I’ll talk to her about this tomorrow.”
    I could tell he wanted to belabor the point—my husband is a total neat freak—so I urged him out of the pantry and shut the door. “I thought you were fixing the window.”
    “That’s why I went looking for the trash bags,” he said with a scowl. “Rain.”
    “Right. Of course. I’ll bring you some.” I pointed to the clock. “Thirty minutes, remember? Less now.”
    That got him moving, and in a whirlwind of male efficiency, he had the broken window covered in under fifteen minutes. “It’s not a very attractive job,” he admitted, finding me in the living room where I was arranging the tiny quiches on our tangerine-colored Fiestaware platters. “But it’ll keep the weather out.”
    But not the demons . I fought a little shiver and glanced in that direction, but all I could see was thick black plastic. I made a face and tried not to imagine a horde of demons crouched below the windowsill, just waiting to avenge their compatriot.
    Enough of that. I forced the thought away, then stood up and surveyed the rest of the room. Not bad. “Okay,” I said. “I think we’re ready for battle. If we can keep everyone corralled in the living room, the den, and the dining room, I think we’ll be okay.”
    “Oh,” Stuart said. “Well, sure. We can do that.”
    Warning bells went off in my head, and I thought of the piles of sorted laundry in the upstairs hallway, the disaster area Allie called a room, and the wide assortment of plush animals and Happy Meal toys that littered the playroom floor. Also, I was pretty sure the CDC wanted to quarantine the kids’ bathroom, hoping to find a cure for cancer in the new and exotic species of mildew growing around the tub.
    “You want to show someone the house?” I asked, in the same tone I might use if he’d suggested I perform brain surgery after dessert.
    “Just Judge Larson,” Stuart said, his voice losing a bit of steam as he watched my face. “He’s looking to buy a place, and I think he’d like the neighborhood.” He licked his lips, still