knew, she was being encouraged to become a cleaner.
Her sister Libertie, as good-natured as they came, had joined in only because she always tagged along on Vika’s coattails. She had never had the adventurous spirit of their sister, Eternitie, who was off in the wilds of some African nation at the moment. Libby and Vika were homebodies, and they liked that just fine.
When the area was clean, Vika pulled off her pink rubber gloves and looked over the wet asphalt and brick sparkling in the harsh shine from the car headlights. The warding spell they always initially cast around the crime scene kept passersby from witnessing what they were doing, so she worried little about being seen. She inhaled the lemon scent, smiling. Always felt good to accomplish a necessary task.
Libby packed up the cleaning supplies and bent near the rear tire of the hearse they’d had a mechanic modify as a cleaning vehicle.
“Found something!” Libby dangled the hairy chunk to show Vika. “An ear. Give the tarmac a blast of purifying magic over by the tire, and I think we’re good to rock and roll.”
“Great.”
Vika packed away the wet vac and then grabbed an amulet fashioned from bloodstone and strung on a silk cord from an assortment they kept in a purple tackle box. Just as she was about to speak the purifying spell, her nose tickled—and something brushed her soul.
Noticing her sister’s distraction, Libby asked, “One hanging around?”
Vika nodded but found the tickle in her nose would not dissipate. A sneeze strained at her sinuses, entirely unrelated to the wandering soul she felt nudging against her soul.
“Who’s that?”
Vika divided her attention between fighting the sneeze and eyeing the dark figure her sister pointed to. He ran up along the hearse toward them. A man with long, messy hair blacker than coal waved his hands at them. One of the hands was blackened with a glove or...maybe it was tattoos? And his eyes...
Vika squinted. Were they red?
He winced and bent at the waist, appearing to fight some inner struggle.
“He can see us?” Libby asked, gaping at the realization. She tugged out her earbuds. “I haven’t taken down the ward yet.”
The soul brushing up against Vika’s soul began to attach itself. A bright glow entered her chest—and she sneezed so forcefully her head bobbed forward and she staggered side to side. She caught herself against Libby’s arm.
“Blessed be,” Libby said. “That one was a doozy.”
“Oh, no.” Vika slapped a palm to her chest. “It’s gone. I sneezed it right out of me!”
* * *
Certainly felt the force of the woman’s sneeze enter his core. It was the weirdest thing. One minute he had been racing toward the twosome, fighting against the carrion demon to maintain control of his being, yet baffled at what the two women dressed head to toe in white clean suits were doing in the alleyway with scrub brushes, and then she sneezed, and it was as if the sneeze moved through him. Permeated his clothing and flesh and sparkled its way through his innards.
Yes, sparkled.
Bright and immense, it was as if some divine force had entered him. And he felt the effect immediately. Because the carrion-sniffing demon urging him toward the rangy scent of dead flesh had given an inner howl—something he’d felt clawing at his insides instead of actually hearing—and then it was gone.
Certainly slapped a hand to his gut. He knew without doubt the demon had been expelled.
By a sneeze?
He shook his head and brushed long strands of hair from his face. Crouched against the brick wall and safely ensconced within the headlight glow, he looked up to see the front doors of the hearse slam shut. The vehicle backed up.
“No!” He ran after the departing vehicle. “Stop. I need you!”
The hearse turned onto a main road near a video store that glared with a multitude of neon lights, and the driver stepped on it, peeling away into the night. Certainly was able to catch only the tiny logo on the back door of the white hearse, a pentacle overlaid with what looked like a vacuum cleaner and the words Jiffy Clean.
A patron from the video store walked out, and, staggering, CJ bumped into him. The man cursed him in French and shoved him aside. CJ stepped out onto the street, following the retreating red taillights.
“You are all right, monsieur?” the man who had cursed him called, though he was still walking away down the sidewalk.
Certainly nodded and gestured with a wave that he