Hexed

such accidents occur in nature, saguaros just seal themselves internally and grow new arms, no problem. The elemental wasn’t even slowed down. Another arm whacked at the demon’s head, crushing one of its globular black eyes and spraying jets of ichor across my lawn.
    The demon knew it was in a fight for its life now. This wasn’t a puny human it had to eat before it could do whatever it wanted on this plane; this was a champion of the earth itself, the corporeal manifestation of an entire ecosystem, and a particularly deadly one at that. The black wheel bug directed a flurry of scissoring blows at the saguaro, trying to cut off all its arms so it could then deal with the trunk, but the arms grew back even faster than it could sever them. It wasn’t ten seconds before a long one on the far side of the trunk twisted around and crashed through the demon’s skull. The arm kept going all the way down the elongated body, splitting the creature in two and dumping its flanks to the ground, where the legs spent some time twitching a spastic dance of death.
    Immensely appreciative for the aid and trying to ignore the unholy stench, I sent my thanks through my tattoos down into the earth, communicating with the elemental in a sort of emotional shorthand, since human languages meant nothing to it.
    //Druid grateful / Aid welcome // I said. The elemental was flush with victory and pleased with itself. It offered to repair the damage to my lawn, my tree, and my vines, wanting to leave no trace of hell in its territory, and I accepted graciously. It didn’t quite know what to do with the demon mess; the head and thorax were little more than black tar at this point, but the abdomen and legs were still fairly intact and clearly not of this earth. It didn’t want to absorb the demon into the ground, but it seemed to realize I couldn’t stuff a giant wheel bug down the garbage disposal either. I offered a suggestion: Encase it all in rock, condense and crush every bit of it down into liquid, and then leave me with a stone keg crafted with a plug near the bottom. I’d give it to some ghouls I knew (actually, Leif knew them, he had them on speed dial), they’d have a party with it because demon juice was like Jägermeister to them, and then they’d return the keg cleaned out and ready to be reabsorbed into the earth. The elemental was pleased with this solution and began to work on it right away.
    » O’Sullivan? « an uncertain voice pulled my consciousness back aboveground. It was Mr. Semerdjian.
    » Yes, sir, how may I help you? « Everything was back to normal—that is, the vines looked great and so did my mesquite tree. The saguaro cactus using its many arms to mold stone as if it were clay and making loud bug-crunching noises was admittedly worth comment.
    My neighbor raised a shaking index finger to point at the saguaro. » That moving cactus … and the big bug … and you, you spooky bastard. What are you? «
    I stuffed my hands in my pockets and grinned winningly at him. » Why, I’m the Antichrist, of course. «
    Mr. Semerdjian responded by fainting, which seriously surprised me. I’d expected a vulgar expression of disbelief, like a middle finger or a clutching of the crotch, because the man had seen a giant demon and casually offered to blow it up like a tough guy. Why would saying the name of the boogeyman from Christianity make him lose his mind? He was a Muslim, for the free love o’ Flidais!
    Actually, his collapse was a blessing. When he woke up, everything would be swell and I’d deny that any of it ever happened. If he tried to get anyone else to believe him, well, they wouldn’t. The cut on my shoulder was already healing over.
    The elemental finished its work and left the stone keg full of distilled demon on my empty driveway, where I could easily camouflage it and the ghouls could load it into their refrigerated truck. Sonora said its farewells and then sank back into my lawn from whence it came, cleaning up as it disappeared, leaving no sign that anything supernatural had occurred. My lawn even looked like it had been freshly fertilized.
    › Is it safe now? ‹ Oberon asked from the backyard.
    Yeah, come on out. I have a couple calls to make . First I called 911 for Mr. Semerdjian, establishing an official record of my concern for his welfare. If he woke up calling me the Antichrist, he’d get a strong dose of sedatives and maybe one of those snug little straitjackets to play around in. Next