Hexed_ The Iron Druid Chronicles - Kevin Hearne [9]
The earth is all too willing to help out with getting rid of demons: They don’t belong on the earth, are in fact anathema to it, and thus it takes very little coaxing to set up a demonic ward around one’s house. Teach the earth to detect a demon’s presence upon it and encourage it to tidy up the soiled area, and you’re done—sort of.
The problem is that the earth isn’t renowned for its reaction times. Every ten years I like to meditate for a week and commune with its spirit, which people like to call Gaia nowadays, and she chats fondly about the Cretaceous period as if it were something that happened just last month. A security-conscious Druid cannot afford to take the long view on intruders, however, so I set up my mesquite tree as a first line of defense and as an alarm bell for the elemental of the Sonoran Desert. The elemental would get the earth’s attention much quicker than I could—and perhaps make an appearance as Gaia’s champion. The truth was I didn’t exactly know what would happen when a demon awoke the earth’s wrath; I was simply betting the earth would win.
When my foot touched the grass of my front yard, I practically cried out in relief, drawing power immediately to replenish my spent muscles and hyperoxygenate my blood. It gave me a burst of speed and allowed me to narrowly miss a plunging stab from the demon. Its clawed foreleg whistled past my calf and sank convincingly into the sod, and it reminded me of a trick I had used on some Fir Bolgs when they’d attacked me at home.
“Coinnigh!” I yelled, pointing a finger back at the insect’s claw as I ran, commanding the earth to close tightly around it and prevent it from escaping. It slowed the demon down but failed to immobilize it; the chitin was too slick for the earth to grab on to, and, after a couple of mighty yanks, the horror was able to free itself. Still, it accomplished two things: It gave me time enough to duck behind the mesquite tree, and it definitely tripped my wards.
Thorny vines of bougainvillea shot out from my porch posts, attempting to snare the demon, which I now noticed was not grasshopperish at all, but rather a monstrous black wheel bug, complete with a ridged, coglike wheel of dorsal armor and a menacing beak it used to plunge into its victims and drain all their juices. The vines weren’t strong enough for that much hell; they shriveled almost upon contact. The lawn began to ripple and quake underneath the creature, and the roots of my mesquite tree shot up from underneath it and wrapped themselves around the beast’s back four legs. That definitely got its attention. It keened its frustration at the upper range of human hearing as it thrashed about, but like the vines, my poor tree’s roots could not stand the demon’s touch for long. They were strong enough to hold it for perhaps ten seconds only, and had I known they would do such yeoman service, I would have used Cold Fire and ended it.
“O’Sullivan! What the fuck is that thing?”
Gods Below, Mr. Semerdjian was still outside! And with the fog dispersed and the streetlights doing their job, he had a clear view of something mortal eyes should never see. I didn’t know how to begin explaining this. “Uh, little busy!” I said.
“You’re going to need a damn big can of bug spray!” he called. “Or maybe a rocket-propelled grenade. I have one in the garage, you want it?”
“What? No, Mr. Semerdjian, don’t! It won’t help! Just stay where you are!”
I had to shut him out. If I allowed him to distract me, I’d be demon chow. The black wheel bug tore free of my tree’s roots and advanced on me once again, across a lawn that was still heaving violently. It sliced at me with its tubelike beak, stabbing past the trunk of the tree almost too fast to track, and it grazed my shoulder and opened up a burning cut. My tree was having none of that. The canopy of branches began