【Curse Ground Zero】

A couple murder-muggings later then both Ava and Meg booked out a motel room. At the behest of her demon cohort Ava had gone shopping for clothes, sanitary items, a bunch of black candles and a table-sized map of Minnesota. It was almost amusing how little the stares of other shoppers bothered her. Old Ava would be mortified at the idea of going out in public places looking like a homeless person. Afterwards she returned to their room and dropped the shopping bag of items. Meg was sitting on a bed with her legs crossed. Wet from a shower and wrapped in a towel, another woven around her hair.

"Got the weird spell shit you wanted." Ava greeted. She pulled out the new clothes she'd bought and started ripping off the tags. "Now it's time for the best shower of my life."

"Kinky." Meg said and was ignored.

Ava shut the door and locked it. She twisted the taps and hot water gushed out, steam began filling the room. She stripped off her well-worn clothes, stood under the hot spray and groaned. Grime, ash and blood ran off and down the drain. She stood there for a few minutes, face up and eyes closed, and then she started to scrub. She scrubbed herself raw and then washed her hair. The bathroom was meant to look like beige marble, the gold paint on the taps chipping off. Faux-fancy. Ava ignored the tiny soap and squeeze-bottles of shampoo, instead using the coco-butter and mint concoctions she'd bought while out.

When the steam filled up the cubicle Ava started finding it hard to breathe. Her mind flashed back to the early days at Cold Oak – running out of breath while others chased and tried to kill her. Seeing evil demons giggling as they attacked. Ava recalled how she'd cried for weeks on end, how she'd freeze up and one time even sat and blinked at a wall for a full day, just dissociating until the raw motivation to survive seized and forced her through it. She'd shut down and given in to her demon blood. Her mind had rewarded her then, opening doors to new abilities and letting her grow stronger. She was choking in the shower so she turned the taps off and as the fog receded so did her panic attack. When she could breathe again Ava shook it off and stepped out the glass door to get dressed.

New jeans, printed top and a light jacket. She came out drying her hair with a towel. Meg was also dressed, standing around the coffee table bordered in black candles. Sinister candlelight flickered against the pale walls. The map was laid out.

She looked back with a smile then faced forward, continuing her chanting "…alash kad iriley zophratis bel zebulon." The candles flared up and Ava's eyes widened. The map was engulfed in fire before dying down completely. Ava stepped over slowly to Meg's side and she pointed at the piece remaining "there."

"That's still not super helpful…" Ava leaned down and squinted. "There's still five towns and miles of like, farmland?"

"See how that's a perfect circle." Meg pointed around the circumference. "There's omens all throughout it, dating back sixty years. Beelzebub is at the center."

"He's just been chilling at the same spot for sixty years?"

"Looks like it." Meg turned and put her hands in her pockets. "My part's done. Time for yours."

"What do you mean?"

"Your part of our deal. Look, there's no demons in the entire area. None except for him. He doesn't keep lap dogs, not demon ones anyway. If you ask me, every other demonic son-of-a-bitch that catches a whiff of this guy turns tail and leaves. No chance in hell I'm stepping into that circle." At her words Ava bunched her lips and looked away. Meg stared "I told you where to find him. I never said I was gonna hold your hand while you ring his doorbell."

"Fine." Ava breathed. She pulled out her phone, stopped and clenched it. "Should I be doing this?"

"Suppose you could run," Meg shrugged and started absently wandering the room, running her finger along her bed. "You might make it a few months before they catch you. Might be hard trying out your mind control on multiple demons, and it certainly wouldn't work on Azazel. They'd catch you and pull the meat from your bones..."

"Then my best bet is to deliver this message, get dropped back into Cold Oak and keep fighting for the winning spot." When Meg turned around Ava tossed her mobile and she caught it. "Good luck to us both, I guess."

Meg flashed her teeth "I'll tell you one thing, if we both fail… I'll see you in hell." With that she turned and vanished in an eye-blink.

Ava stared after her then ducked down to pick the paper circle from the ashes. In the dead-center was a township called Zebut. She counted her remaining bills then rolled them into her pocket and set out.

After finding the local library Ava did some research, clacking away at an old keyboard. Then she left and did something she'd always been too afraid to do, and that's hitchhike. Walking alone, a now clean and pretty woman, she stuck out her thumb and it didn't take long before someone stopped. Granted it was an old trucker who gave her creepy Uncle vibes, but she smiled as he pulled over and wound his window down.

"Hey there, pretty lady."

"Mornin', Sir."

"You need to call someone?"

"Nope, just heading toward Zebut. Can I catch a ride?"

"I can get ya as far as Wickshire. Maybe further if you're a nice chat."

"That'd be much obliged, Mr."

He helped her open the door and she stretched to climb up and in. The trip took hours. Ava talked with him freely and the strangeness bought from her newfound insanity in Cold Oak only seemed to charm him in an 'I'm quirky' sorta way. Other people were so oblivious to her. Even back in that cursed town all it took was waterworks and people saw her as a helpless victim. Ava had to remind herself that without a weapon of sorts she wasn't the apex predator she felt she was. If this guy or someone else attacked her there probably wasn't anything she could do. Ava faced the window, air blowing through her hair and scattering the scent of coco-butter and mint. She probed her forehead and let the visions flash across her mind. She saw glimpses of what might've been Cold Oak. A few everyday scenes too: a post office, fire hydrant, someone walking dogs in the sun. Nothing too descript.

"Headache?" the driver asked.

"I'm good." Ava noticed a photo dangling from the rearview mirror, alongside some fuzzy dice. "Who's that?"

"Trevor, my nephew. He died last September. Suicide after his wife left him."

"Awww. That's tragic."

"Yep. He lost his job too. Just a whole lot of bad luck at once."

"When I was a kid I once had six boxes of pop rocks then drank a whole can of coke. You reckon that counts as a suicide attempt?"

The driver stared at the road and slowly shook his head "Lady... you are nine kinds of crazy."

She laughed it off good-naturedly and changed the subject. In the end charm won out over irksomeness, and after the fellow made his deliveries in Wickshire he drove the rest of the way to Zebut. He left Ava by the road and she waved him off, he tooted his horn and vanished in clouds of road gravel. It was mid-afternoon. She turned to face Zebut which was an old olde town with clapboard houses and countryside. She saw goats in a little paddock and pumpkins. Ava took a wary breath and trudged along into town. A few country folk gave friendly smiles and they seemed like nice, salt-of-the-Earth types. That damn Meg hadn't told her how to find the demon she was looking for now she was in town. She supposed the first thing to do was pay for a room with the money she had left, then she'd have herself a walk-around.

。

All signs were pointing to Zebut, the center town among all the anomalies. Jo frowned over her map at the strange sightings and deaths she'd marked. Other hunters may not have noticed this. They had radars for deaths occuring in the same town. In this case the deaths and events were strange and varied, spread across countryside but all around Zebut and its neighbouring settlements. It could be the hotspot for whatever was going on, or maybe it was peaceful like the eye of a hurricane and had the answers she was looking for. Every cell in Jo's body was resisting the thought of heading to Zebut. She recalled Gordon, Ash and even her mother shouting at her to be more careful. Would any other hunter be looking into a case as strange as this? Not likely. They'd all be looking into the straight-forward cases, like Jo would be if she had more than the weekend off.

It was coming to the end of her first day and she was burning daylight. Jo needed more if she was going to pass this on. No point just sitting in her car and thinking about it, so she took off for ground zero.

。

"Bel Zebub. Beelzebul. Ba'al Zebub. Beelzebuth..." A naked young man knelt on the floorboards of his room, a little candle on his nightstand flickering in its brass holder. He was a farmstead worker, and before him was an open window that let the night breeze come through. The man breathed deep, his sandy head falling back and protruding his Adam's apple. His bare shoulders flexed, eyes half-closed and as he exhaled the air was heavy. A breeze flickered the flame and the man felt drunk on occult power.

He started to float. Gently he turned forward, like he was on all fours and floated out the window. He felt the cold air against the warmth of his body and smiled, flexing gently upright and hanging his arms, pointing his feet as he went up like a balloon. From the paddocks sitting goats watched him rise. He drifted higher over town, and all across the dark landscape were others floating naked from their windows, climbing higher to join him in the sky.

They all chanted "Adey vocar avage Beelzebub."

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