Free Maggie for Hire by Kate Danley

have to say it was a talisman of some sort.”
    I threw the baggie up at Killian, which he caught midair and held up to the sun to get a better look.
    “This one charm looks like a coat of arms...”  He suddenly got very still.
    “What?”
    “I believe it is your family’s coat of arms.”
    I didn’t even know we had a family coat of arms, much less what it looked like.  I’m pretty sure that maybe once we had gone into one of those genealogy t-shirt shops you find at the mall, but I seem to remember coming up empty handed.  Sucked that the first time I was going to see my family crest was when it was removed from the body of the undead, “Great.  Think I could get it printed on a mug?”
    Killian gave me a look.
    “It would make the holidays easy,” I explained.
    Killian shook his head.
    I sighed and dropped the last of the ghoul’s slimy clothes in the bag.  Killian lent me a hand and I climbed up the side of the grave and out. 
    I wandered over to my car, pulled out a briefcase, and went back to the gravesite.  I opened up the briefcase and grabbed a sports bottle from inside.  I popped the sippy top and sprinkled the water on the grave in the sign of a cross.
    “What...?” Killian asked.
    “Have to re-consecrate the ground.  I’ve got a priest I know who can come give us a hand, but it’s better to get this party started before word gets out to the nasties that there is an open church for rent.  Could you fire up that backhoe for me?”
    Killian flipped the keys to “on” as I sprinkled more water on the fill dirt.  I climbed up into the machine and began finishing the job of laying the poor schmoe’s empty coffin to rest.
    “I like a woman who knows how to handle heavy machinery.”
    “Don’t make me bury you alive.”
    “Just in case you were keeping tally.”
    I wiped my dirty hands on my pants, “What do you say we take a stroll over to the church there so that I can wash up?”
    Killian nodded and followed me over, opening up the door.
    The church inside was eerily quiet.  Not peaceful quiet.  Church quiet should make you want to rest and just be.  This was the kind of quiet that makes you check your locks.
    There was a summoning circle set up by the altar and the whole place smelled like rotten eggs.  I kept my hand upon my stake and walked in, “Yah, the priest was definitely the first to go.”
    I popped open my cell phone and scrolled through my contacts until I came to the one I was looking for.  The phone rang a couple times before a familiar voice growled at me from the other side.
    “Father Killarney!  It’s Maggie... You got a second?  Seems like St. Bartholomew’s is in need of a little holy help... Yes, I will buy you dinner.”
    I snapped my phone shut, “He’s on his way over.  We should probably check to make sure there isn’t anything hiding in the baptismal font.”
    The font was filled with leaves and dirt and sludge.
    “Great,” I said as I grabbed one of those long, brass thingies they use to light candles and poked the handle around the bottom of the font, "Someone has been using it as a bathtub.”
    Nothing leapt out to eat my face, so I called it good and moved on to the next spot ghoulies like to linger.
    The sacristy had been cracked open and the wafers left out, eaten like crackers next to a goblet filled with something I didn’t even want to consider.
    “Looks like the vampires made themselves at home.”
    Killian looked repulsed, which was appropriate if you hadn’t seen anything like this before.  I don’t know what it said about me that I was unfazed.
    “This priest you know, he can set this wrongness right?” he asked.
    “Yah, he’s got a regular Sunshine Cleaning crew.  They’ll get this place spic and span in a jiffy.”
    We hung around straightening up the mess that we could until the door opened and a short, grey-haired priest interrupted our fun.  He lugged a duffel bag over his shoulder.  Behind him came a middle aged