Demon Hunts Read Online Free PDF

spring.
    Billy’s wife, Melinda, appeared on the porch in the midst of a rush of children. Most of them converged on the van, yanking the doors open hard enough to rock the whole vehicle as they spilled in with a cacophony worthy of a marching band. I picked out a demand from Clara to be brought to school and squeals of delight that I’d come to visit, followed by howls of dismay as six-year-old Jacquie realized she couldn’t both visit me and go to school. It made me feel loved, and somehow made up for the ear full of jam-slathered toast courtesy of Erik, the three-year-old.
    Billy did an excellent impression of a roaring bull elephant, and ten seconds later the older kids were buckled in and I was standing in the driveway with Erik on my hip and strawberry jam in my hair. Melinda minced down the steps to join me, and we all waved goodbye, though baby Caroline—not quite two months old—required her mother’s assistance to do so. Billy pulled out of the driveway and I turned to Melinda, sagging in astonishment. “I honestly don’t know how you do it.”
    Erik caroled, “With meeee!” and smeared some more jam across my face. I wrinkled my nose, trying to get the itchy, sticky stuff to retreat, and Melinda laughed aloud.
    â€œYes, with you. You’re mama’s helper, aren’t you? How about Joanne puts you down and you run inside to get us all a washcloth? Look how messy Joanne is! Silly Joanie!”
    â€œSiwwy Joanie!” Erik squirmed down my side, depositing crumbs, butter and jam as he went, and ran for the house.
    Melinda looked me up and down. “I’d lend you something clean to wear while I threw those in the wash, but all of my clothes would be too small and all of Bill’s would be too big.”
    I rubbed a bit of jam off my cheek. “It’s okay. I just expect you to peel me off the walls if I get stuck to them.”
    â€œFair enough.” Melinda herded me inside the house as if I were one of her children, and I went without complaint. Erik met us in the front hall bearing a soaking wet washcloth, which his mother wrung out and applied to me with the same brutal efficiency she turned on her son a moment later. I stood there trying not to laugh, and a moment before Erik’s cherubic smile came clean, she realized what she’d done and turned to me with cheeks pink from mortification.
    I held on to solemnity with every ounce of my being and thrust my jam-sticky hands out for her to scrub. Melinda hit me with the washcloth, and I threw my head back and laughed. “You’re the best mom ever, Mel. Woe betide any mess that gets in your way.” I went to wash my hands, still laughing, and Melinda turned her ruthless washing back on her son. Half an hour later he was involved with a complex game of “pile up blocks and knock them over” in the playroom, and Melinda and I slipped into the room off it that was hers alone.
    The only time I’d been in there previously, it had been a place of ritual lit by candles. It was dramatically less mystical with floor lamps turned on and light pouring in from the playroom, but the wide power circle painted on the concrete floor remained the same. A sister circle marked the ceiling, and I’d seen how power could flood between the two of them, making a column of living magic. Caroline unfolded a hand from within her sling and grasped for the upper circle, burbling with dismay when it didn’t come closer. I found myself eyeing the baby, then her mother, who lifted a hand, palm out, to deny me. “She can’t talk. I’m not even sure she can see as far as the circle.”
    â€œThey all saw the Thing in the kitchen.” “They” were Melinda’s kids, and the Thing had been a terrible, enormous serpent: a monster made manifest in the Hollidays’ home. It, infact, was the reason there was a new front porch; half the house had been stretched and torn