Evil - Chapter 3
“How you doin’ back there, hon?” Junebug asked from the front of the cab as we rattled down the street. “It’s not much further.”
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.
It's not easy being the Antichrist.
Anjelica’s mother never told her that she was a demon. Now, all she wants is her old life back, but that’s not possible for her. Not after what she’s seen.
Anjelica used to be a popular cheerleader with an awesome life, but that was before an evil cult of demons tried to use her blood to open a portal to Hell and start the Apocalypse.
She was rescued from that fate, barely, and because of the imminent threat to her life, her saviors ripped her from Los Angeles and brought her to a safe house in the middle of nowhere.
They said it was for her own good, but she would rather be dead than stuck in boring, old Bronard, Missouri. She was from the big city, so a sleepy, rural life wasn’t for her.
She longed for excitement.
So, when she met a young witch with a mysterious past who promised to show her everything she knew about opening portals and traveling between distant lands, they bonded immediately
I mean, what’s the worst that could happen, right?
It’s not like they would open an intergalactic gateway to another planet and get thrown into a brand, new world with no way to get back to Earth, right?
Join Anjelica in her own solo adventure and find out what happened to her immediately after the events in Magic.
“How you doin’ back there, hon?” Junebug asked from the front of the cab as we rattled down the street. “It’s not much further.”
“I’m fine!” I screamed back. I was not fine. I was struggling not to slide around the back of the cab, clinging tight to a tray of muffins June asked me to hold after she stuffed the cab full of trays. It was freezing, and the wind whipping over the hood made it worse.
I did my best to focus on the route from June’s house. We made a right from the main road, away from the water tower, and across two train tracks until we arrived at a crossroad, where we took two lefts and a right before I lost the thread. The roads were winding and undulating, and I cheered inwardly when we finally reached the center of town, and Junebug slowed to a crawl after having gunned it irresponsibly fast on the country roads.
“This is Main Street,” Junebug said. “You’ll get to know it well.”
Junebug pulled up to a small strip mall on the main drag. The town was out in full force, even though it was a workday, and dozens of people scurried down the sidewalks on either side of the street. I had seen quaint little towns in movies, but I had never been in one. The colorful vinyl siding alternated between every building, from forest green to powder blue to burgundy. All of the buildings had adorable white shutters on their windows.
“Can you help me?” Junebug said, pulling a tray out of the front seat after lowering the bed so I could scoot out of the truck. I centered the tray of muffins, and she placed another into my hands before I could answer. “It’s over there. Dessertation.”
She pointed to a powder blue shop across the street with Dessertation scrawled on the window in pretty cursive. “That’s funny. Like dissertation?”
“What?” Junebug said, kicking the door closed after filling her hands with trays. “No, like dessert vacation, hon. The heck is a dissertation?”
“Like a PhD? You’re kind of like a doctor of baking.”
She looked at me, deadpan. “I like you, but that was a real dumb thing you said.”
“Sorry,” I replied, hanging my head.
“Don’t drop yer head, kiddo,” she said, crossing the street. “You need your head on a swivel at this intersection. People drive like maniacs through it. Come on, then.”
Junebug scooted the door to the bakery open with her butt, and the bell atop the entrance rang to welcome us. She placed the trays on a glass counter filled with bakery goodness and walked around it to give a middle-aged woman in a white apron a hug. “Sorry, Betty. We had a busy morning.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Betty said. “Hasn’t been busy yet, but Earl’s going to come in for another two dozen glazed in about fifteen minutes.”
Junebug pointed to a set of trays. She had made exactly two dozen glazed donuts. “I had a feeling.”
“How do you always know?” Betty said.
“Intuition.” Junebug winked at me.
I had a feeling that one of the gifts she had been given as a pixie was some sort of magical perception or something like that.
“Who’s your friend?” Betty said. “And why is she standing in the doorway like a fool?”
“This is Anjelica. She’s…staying with me for a while.”
“Ah, another one of your strays.” Betty raised her hand. “Well, nice to meet you. Anybody ever tell ya that you make a better door than a window?”
“Huh?” I said.
“Come in out of the doorway, sweetie,” Junebug said softly.
I took a few steps into the shop and was overwhelmed by the smell of bread. I loved that smell. There was a bakery not far from my house, Randy’s, and every time I passed it, I literally wanted to eat everything inside after one whiff…and that paled in comparison to the heavenly scents here at June’s place.
“It smells great in here,” I said, setting down the trays.
“It better,” Betty said. “I’ve been baking since four.”
“In the morning!” I breathed, incredulous. I was pretty sure I had been fighting demons at that time. The thought that people were going about their lives while mine was about to end left me shook for a moment.
“Every morning,” Betty said with a smile that said she truly loved it.
“We’ve grown a little too big for this space, so every morning, I have to supplement our supply with some of my own.” Junebug covered her mouth with a finger. “We’re not supposed to, but what the health inspectors don’t know won’t hurt them.”
I had to admit, Junebug was more fun than I expected. I worried that her rustic, down-home charm was going to wear on me quickly, but she was spunky, and she made cookies, which, in a mom, were two things that I highly valued.
Junebug must have seen me eyeing the eclairs because she pulled a pair of tongs and handed me one. “Take one.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t,” I said.
“Girlie, you had a night. You could probably eat this whole place down to the floorboards and still deserve another one. Now, eat. I insist.”
“Don’t insult her,” Betty said. “Trust me, denying food from a Campbell is an insult.”
“Darn tootin’ it is,” Junebug said as I took the éclair.
“It’s my favorite,” I said, taking a bite. It was unlike anything I had eaten before. I thought I’d had delicious eclairs before, but this one set a new standard for everything else in my life. “Oh my god.”
Junebug watched me with a knowing smile. “Kind of makes all that crap you dealt with worth it, eh?”
A bit of gooey vanilla cream slid down my throat. “Not even a little bit, but this is pretty amazing.”
“Go wait outside for me. I’ll be done in a second, and then we’ll go shopping.”
I didn’t argue. I couldn’t. Junebug’s food had driven me to complacency. I would have done anything she asked me to as long as she kept feeding me her delicious goodies.
***
Dana’s Dress Barn was not Melrose or Beverly Hills, but it was…a woman’s clothing shop…and the things she stocked technically counted as clothes. I wasn’t trying to be picky, especially since Junebug was paying the bill, but not many items spoke to me. After over an hour of searching through the racks, I pulled out four blouses, two pairs of jeans, a jacket, and three dresses that I wouldn’t be mortified to wear. Mostly, I just enjoyed talking to Junebug.
“That one makes your butt look big,” she said with a scrunched-up nose after I came out of the dressing room one last time. “I guess we’ll just go with what we have and hope we can go to the mall this weekend.”
“You guys have a mall?”
She grabbed the clothes we chose from a chair where she stashed them. “Well, it’s an hour away, but it’s a nice drive. We do a lot of driving out here, that’s for sure. Not much is close.”
“So did I, back in LA.”
I never had a mother to do girlie things with, and my mom was an only child, which meant I didn’t have aunts or cousins, or really anybody to hang out with that was family. Besides, it’s not like she was going to have two demon-spawn babies. I’m sure I was enough of a handful in that department. I didn’t blame her, of course, at least not much, for being an absentee parent. Mom worked as a nurse, and she was pretty much always on call. When she wasn’t, the odd hours she worked always made her tired.
“So, can I ask why Lizzie is home today? I mean, I know it’s a school day and all.” I set down the clothes on the counter. The over-makeuped teller started ringing us up.
A curt smile from Junebug told me it was a sore subject. “That girl,” she muttered. “She skipped school, so they suspended her…which is letting her miss another day of school. I swear they are idiots at that school. Why would you keep a kid home from school as punishment for them not wanting to go to school?”
“I gotta say, I agree with them,” the woman behind the counter said. “Being in your house is the worst punishment I could imagine.”
“Good for you, Dana.” Junebug threw a credit card onto the counter. “Just ring us up, already. I don’t need your lip.” She turned to me. “Where was I?”
“You were complaining about the school and suspensions.”
“Right.” She pressed her finger to the bridge of her nose. “They are idiots, all of them. But you’ll find that out soon enough. You start there next week, assuming all your paperwork is in order.”
Oh yeah. School. That would be…fun? No. That wasn’t the right word, was it?
This is a portal fantasy series with mythological roots and action-adventure tendencies. You can search through all my work on my website.