Page 99 of The Time Of Queens

“Oh, you know the one, it has a smiling Jesus on the front, pointing his fingers at the camara and it says, I don’t always poo but when I do… holy shit!” she replied, making Sophia snort a breath. As for me, I shook my head and said,

“My previous comment about insulting religion still stands.”

“Oh, I am pretty sure the dead body we have stuffed in the trunk would come up before anything else,” Sophia pointed out.

“Yeah, you’re probably right… so how are we doing this anyway?” Pip asked once we were at the tree line, far enough away from the marquee where the evening party was still in full swing. We all dropped the trunk as one and looked at the very slight incline of grass.

“Well, we won’t get far without shovels,” Sophia replied, wrinkling her nose the second Pip conjured some up.

“Look who drank her mojo juice this morning,” I said, patting her on the back and making her beam at me.

“I know, right? The mother tree must have known I would need it today.”

“It’s us three, of course she knew,” Sophia commented dryly.

“Right, well, this shouldn’t take long, three supernatural’s with added strength digging a hole… easy… right?” I asked, making them both shrug.

“Do I look like the gardening type to you?” Sophia replied with a shrug.

“You love flowers,” I pointed out, making her admit,

“Yes, and I am also a germaphobe, hence why I usually just conjure that shit up.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that statement.

“Think of it as battle. Only instead of the blood of your enemies, it’s mud and an already dead Demon,” I offered,

“Great. Hey, did you see any bleach in that supply closet?” she asked, as clearly my logic hadn’t helped.

“Come on, the quicker we get this done, the quicker you can go scrub your skin off.”

“Bleach bath for one, coming right up,” Pip added after I said this, doing so with a ding ding and a raise of her finger, making Sophia grumble.

After this we hiked up our skirts, each wishing we had brought something more substantial to wear. I asked if either of them could just will the hole to appear. Which surprisingly, neither of them could, as they had never done it before.

“Really? Neither of you have ever buried a dead body before?” I asked, unsure why I was so shocked… oh yeah, because Demon and Imp, both of which replied in very different ways.

“Nope… I have lackies for that.”

“Only Mr Peanut, and he was small enough that I just stuffed him in a plant pot and grew daisies.”

“Okay then… digging some more it is,” I said, and after listening to Pip talk about Minecraft and wishing for a pickaxeand singing ‘whistle why we work’ ten million times, I finally asked,

“Is that deep enough, you think?”

“Only one way to find out,” Sophia suggested, tossing down her shovel, making us do the same. Then we dragged the trunk closer and kicked it over with a little too much force. Which meant that it quickly rolled, cracked open, and Layla popped right out, falling in the shallow grave like she knew it was her destiny.

“Wow, now it’s like she helping us bury her or something,” Pip said as we walked closer to see if it was deep enough. I could tell it wasn’t… in fact, we all could tell it wasn’t. But despite this, we all said collectively,

“Ah, close enough.” Then we picked up our shovels again.

“You know, this really reminds me of a movie.”

“As long as it isn’t,Night of the Living Dead,” Sophia muttered.

“No,Weekend at Bernie’s.”

I burst out laughing, agreeing. “Now that was a great movie.” Something that caused Sophia to look confused.

“A weekend at someone’s house includes burying a dead body… actually, second thoughts, I don’t want to know.”

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