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hard.
    “We just got here.” A witch in the back protested.
    “I know.” It was a lot to give up. These witches hadn’t had a home in more than thirty years. “We can come back,” I said.
    “When?” Another witch grumbled.
    I didn’t have an answer to that. I was asking them to sacrifice for a person they didn’t know. Heck, I had barely met him. They’d worked my entire lifetime to get back to the place where we now stood and I was asking them to give it up.
    “Can it wait?” Frieda asked. “I haven’t even finished cleaning the cobwebs out of the shower curtains.”
    That, I could ignore.
    “This isn’t our battle,” Grandma said to the group, her eyes still on me, “but I haven’t known any of you to walk away from a fight that needs to be won.”
    She dug her hands into her pockets. “I’d like to settle down too, but I don’t think I could relax knowing we could save a man from eternal damnation. Lizzie hasn’t always asked for our help, and sometimes we’ve wanted to skin her for it. Now she’s asking. I’m not going to say no.”
    The witches began murmuring among themselves. Grandma spoke louder. “Anybody who wants to stay here, that’s fine. You’ve earned the right. We won’t say a word about it.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Anybody who sees fit to join us, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at dawn.” She paused, her eyes fixed on the floor, finding the words.
    “I always used to think we were running and fighting because we had a demon on our tail. And that’s a damned good reason.”
    The biker witches chuckled.
    Grandma shook her head. “It was more than that. Somewhere along the line, we stopped fighting for just us. I don’t want to eek out a living hidden behind wards and our spells. I want to look the devil in the eye and kick him in the teeth. I want to say to these creatures, ‘No. You will not win. You will not corrupt us or enslave us. You will not own us.’”
    She climbed up on the keg. It rattled with her weight, but Grandma was beyond caring. She stood, her black Harley flame boots planted firmly on either side. “We are in charge of what happens in this world. Not them. Never them.”
    “Never!” Several witches bellowed from the back.
    “We owe it to everything good to stand up and fight,” she bellowed. “So I will go to Pasadena. I will take that man back from the demons. And I will tell them to go to hell .”
           The walls echoed and chandeliers swayed with the stomps and cheers of the biker witches.
    Creely slapped me on the back. “I’m there.”
           “Me too, honey.” Frieda hugged me from the side. “We’ll get your daddy back.”
           The flood gates opened as the witches shouted out their support. The circle broke, gin glasses clinked and I stood there like a fool with a smile plastered across my face. I had a whole coven of bikers behind me.
           “We’re in this,” Frieda brushed a lock of lavender hair from my shoulder, “whether you want us or not.”
           I did. The decision was made. Dang it all. We were going to Pasadena.
           Heaven help us when we got there.
     
     

 
    Chapter Four
    I stepped out of the phone booth and let it slide closed behind me. Most of the biker witches were still celebrating downstairs, and probably would be for a while. Me? I had some things to figure out.
    So far in my time as a slayer, I’d killed the baddies instead of trying to rescue them. I wasn’t sure how rehabilitation worked. Even if we could track down my dad, what would we do next? What would we be facing?
    I took stock of what remained of my dad’s gift, still in the jar. Judging from what he’d given me, I wondered how badly Dad wanted to be saved.
    The ashes had settled into a circular groove along the base. I shook it out so they spread across the entire bottom. Within seconds, the particles had flickered back to the edges.
    Maybe it was just gravity.
    Yeah,