by Angie Fox
“You just had a dreg pulled out of you,” I reminded her. It had made me woozy too and I’d only had the thing under my skin for seconds. She’d had hers for nearly a day.
Which brought me back to my point. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this? Creely told me what you want to do.” It was gutsy on a good day, much less now. “Maybe you should sit this one out.” Max could watch over her. They’d be happy and I wouldn’t have to worry about him eating any more dregs.
She looked at me like she had when she thought I was the scourge of the demon slaying world. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This Zatar is trying to kill me. He put something inside of me to make me want to murder my own sister. I’m going to smoke his ass.”
Well, when she put it that way.
I nudged her. “Not unless I smoke him first.”
That earned me a smile.
“Come on,” I said, walking out to the field with her. I had to admit it was reassuring to have another slayer in the fight. Slayers naturally worked in pairs. Twins fought together, trained together, did everything really. It would have been nice to have that.
But what was I saying?
Roxie already had a twin. And what we were about to face was anything but nice.
“Here’s your mark,” I said, showing her the orange towel on the ground.
She rolled her eyes. “I know my mark. What I want to know is – oh hell.”
“What?” I demanded. But I knew.
The earth rolled and shook as the demon emerged from the soil not five feet from where we stood. Zatar’s golden hair tangled around the sharp lines and angles of his face as the dirt fell from him like water.
Die.
I drew my last switch star and fired, striking him in the forehead. He raised his face, the star’s blades still churning, embedded down to the bone. A lover’s grin tickled his lips.
He flicked it away like a gnat. My star smoked and fell from his body, leaving a bloody gash.
The silver and white wings of an angel sprang from the earth as he drove his lizard’s body up.
Roxie fired a shot meant to decapitate him. It sliced straight into his neck at a deadly angle. Hope surged within me and then died.
He bled, but nothing more.
And I was out of stars. I felt the soul-crushingly empty holder on my belt as I made a mad dash for the portal charms.
“What the hell are you two doing?” Grandma bellowed.
What had I been doing? I’d been shooting at the thing while it was vulnerable. I’d been trying to kill it, chop its head off, do something besides watch it and wait for it to come out of the ground.
Yes, we established I couldn’t kill it – not yet – not without gaining more powers and strength, but I had to try.
Zatar laughed. It sounded like bells to me.
Everyone else fell to the ground, clutching their ears.
Damn, damn, damn. We hadn’t planned on that. We hadn’t figured out anything. We had no idea what this demon could do.
Roxie had a belt full of Max’s red stars. She was still at it, trying the Lizzie method of spending all your ammunition on something you can’t kill. Then I saw what she was doing.
She fired again and again, luring Zatar to the impact zone.
The witches rose to their feet. Dimitri too. He and Max stood surrounded by witches with deflector spells, waiting on our signal. Rachmort held steady with them.
They would protect Dimitri as he captured the dregs, and Max as he’d most likely eat them. I’d have to kill Max if he turned.
I wouldn’t expect Roxie to do that. Not after what I’d seen at the cabin.
Okay. Every muscle in my body tensed. Maybe we could get through this. “Hang on, Dimitri,” I murmured to myself. And hang on Max.
Battina slammed a Charm Spell into the catapult, practically falling sideways as she did it.
“You okay?” I asked. She looked green. All of them did.
“Damn it.” Betty Two Sticks staggered up on my left, her gray crew cut caked with dust. “We spelled this thing to be invisible. That could go to hell if you draw him over here.”
“You can barely stand and you’re giving me a lecture?” I had to shoot. I couldn’t be a demon slayer and not shoot. In fact, maybe it was good I had no weapons left because that’s all I wanted to do now. Fire and fire and fire switch stars until I’d finally killed that scourge.
I had the demon in my sights. Just a little more to the left.
Come on, Roxie.
Battina sagged against the machine.
Roxie got him close enough and I shifted the entire catapult a foot forward.
“What the hell?” Battina demanded as I fired.
“Demons out!” I conjured up images of the deepest reaches of hell. Zatar and his dregs could rot there.
The charm spell shot straight at Zatar, hitting him smack in the chest.
It worked!
He screamed as the dregs poured out of him and a silver portal opened up behind him.
Wind swept over the field, carrying dust and debris as the portal I’d created consumed Zatar’s earthly body. He shimmered at the edges, but the dregs flew straight out of him – toward us. There were dozens upon dozens – all deadly.
Why were they escaping? Why wasn’t Zatar gone yet?
Dimitri sprang into action, but there were too many – even with the witches deflecting for him, they swarmed the tiny group and there was nothing I could do but watch.
The witch in front of him fell, screaming as a dreg burrowed into her. Holy hell.
“Dimitri!” I hollered. A dreg burrowed into his arm. Another landed on his neck as he slammed a jar closed on three of them. They were thick as a swarm of mosquitoes.
Rachmort opened glowing white portals in front and behind Dimitri, catching dregs.
But where would those portals take them?
Or take Dimitri if he fell too far forward or backward?
Maybe once Zatar was gone, they’d lose some of their power.
Zatar fought the suction of the portal, inching away from the silver light.
“What are we going to do if the portal doesn’t work?” I demanded.
Battina shook her head and pointed to Roxie. She was running straight for Zatar.
“Get back,” I ordered, abandoning my machine and tearing across the field. The portal was weakening. No matter how heroic she wanted to be, she couldn’t go down with him.
I had to open up another one. Fat lot of good it would do. I had to do something.
“Now I’ve got you!” The demon lunged forward, seizing Roxie as the portal lost power and snapped closed behind him.
Dregs whipped around him as Zatar rose to his full height.
“Roxie!” Max flung himself at them, tackling Zatar.
Who in Hades tackles a demon?
Max drove a switch star into the demon, causing absolutely no damage beyond a paper cut.
H-e-double-hockey-sticks.
Zatar raised his hand to Max. I had to save them, right then and there or I was going to have to watch them die.
“Run!” I screamed to them. Zatar zeroed in on me and fired a volley of vox. I dove sideways as Betty Two Sticks took the full brunt of the demon’s fury. Her body incinerated as she fell to the ground dead.
I dashed back to the catapult, under a volley of vox. They slapped into the ground behind me, throwing up superheated soil and suffocating sulfur. The back of my throat burned and my eyes watered as I dove behind the machine.
Vox tore through the air, severing the main cord.
I about choked. I needed that cord! This demon could not escape. I could not fail.
Options flew through my mind as I gripped the wooden weapon. Belt? My utility belt was hard leather – no way to tie it up. Hair? I didn’t have scissors – or much hair left.
Pirate and Flappy soared overhead. Damn it. I told him no riding the dragon.
At least they were off the ground.
Th
e dregs were everywhere.
The ground rumbled as Rachmort’s portal swallowed the dregs. There were too many. It was unstable. Rachmort fell.
“No!”
His face slackened with fear for a split second before he gathered his wits and calmed, falling backward into the abyss. Where had it taken him?
The witches threw spells, as more and more Red Skulls fell to the dregs. I watched in horror as at least two burrowed into Dimitri’s arms.
Tears burned the back of my eyes.
Oh my god – Dimitri.
He lowered his head and shifted. Claws erupted from his hands and feet, and thick lion’s fur raced up his arms. At least three more dregs tunneled into him as he shifted.
Why was he shifting?
Red, purple and blue feathers cascaded down his back and formed wings as bones snapped and his body expanded. Dimitri lifted his eagle’s head and called out into the night.
He had no hands, only paws now. It was suicide. He couldn’t catch them this way.
Then I saw the rippling under his skin.
The dregs! His skin flexed as it worked the poison out of him. The dregs crackled from his skin, broken to pieces. He shook them off like nettles.
Did he kill them?
Just then a half dozen griffins shot out of the dark. I recognized Kryptos with his gold and red jeweled necklace, and a pure blue griffin, probably the prince. They surrounded Dimitri and the witches, eating the dregs like candy.
Bad idea. Probably. Hell I didn’t know anymore.
But at least Dimitri had survived. My handsome griffin shrieked like an eagle and stomped at the dregs on the ground.
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Okay, so no more dregs. And no more Rachmort.
Max dragged Roxie away from Zatar, but they wouldn’t make it far.
Zatar laughed, firing vox straight into the griffins. They dodged his attack with lightening speed. For now. But it was only a matter of time.
He was toying with us. It hit me like a punch in the gut. Zatar knew he had us. He didn’t think we could win.
The winds whipped around him, burning out torches and plunging parts of the battlefield into darkness.
Black settled over us like death.
We had to axe this demon. Now.
Before he decided to wipe every one of us from the face of the planet.
The ground shook as I barreled back to the catapult. It vibrated up and down.
“Stop it, stop it,” I dove to the base of the catapult in a desperate measure to keep it in place. Zatar hadn’t moved. He was still in range. If only I could fix the rope and load it again.
Simple. I needed something simple.
My old life as a preschool teacher had revolved around simple.
Then it hit me. “Pirate!” I hollered. At the same time, I took the zombie rope from the jar at my belt. He poked his end out of the jar. “You gotta help me.” I told the quivering rope. “This will save Xavier, who sent you.” And I’d sure appreciate it too.
“Please.” I stuck him between two pieces of frayed cord. “Hold it together,” I ordered.
He bobbed his head and twirled both of his ends around the main firing rope.
The earth rattled, and I fought desperately to steady the gun. I had to hold position. We couldn’t lose our aim. We had one more shot at this. One. I strained to see the demon. We had no shot at all if Zatar so much as moved an inch.
Or if he realized we could beat him…
The demon practically dripped with satisfaction as he fired a volley of vox at the witches, scattering them.
“You think this is a game?” I grunted, dragging the oversized sling shot into position between Creely’s hastily drawn lines.
Zombie rope twirled part of an end around to see me. “Eyes on the catapult,” I told him.
Flappy cruised to a stop, his wings sending dirt flying into my face as Pirate leapt off. “Get behind me.”
I loaded the anti-demonic cannonball. Would it be enough? It had to work. We weren’t getting a second chance.
Hellfire. I was a demon slayer. I was part angel.
I laid both hands on the demon killer and willed my power into it. I focused my strength, my energy, my goodness. It radiated from my core, down my arms, into my fingertips until the cannon charge glowed with it.
It gleamed strong and white, a beacon of truth. A weapon that would set us free.
Brilliance flowed through me. It filled me up and made me whole. I’d never felt anything like it.
We needed to fire.
“Pirate,” I hollered. I couldn’t pull the lever on the gun. I didn’t know what would happen if I let go of the cannon shot.
“Pirate, I need you to pull the lever,” I pointed to the wooden handle. “Use your mouth. Get your teeth around it.”
“Yes! It’s rescue dog to the rescue.” Pirate scrambled up the base of the firing mechanism and fell off as another shock rattled the earth.
“Go,” I insisted, stomach sinking when I realized Pirate was too short.
“Flappy!” Pirate danced underneath our salvation. “Flappy, pull the lever!”
Flappy stared at him, tongue lolling.
“Pull Flappy!” I ordered as Pirate dashed behind the dragon and herded him toward the catapult. Flappy turned to face Pirate, his long spiked tail whooshing for the lever, threatening to flatten the cannon – and me.
He was too big, too close. He was going to wreck the entire thing.
“Sit, Flappy!” I hollered.
The dragon wound his bottom around.
“Sit!”
He thundered down onto the lever.
Chapter Twenty-three
Wood crackled and split. Flappy’s butt broke the lever and smashed half the catapult into the ground – but not before it released the portal charm.
“Demon out!” My voice came like a terrible thunder from the heavens. I heard my words and over that, my words commanding in a language I’d never heard. It shook the ground.
As Evie’s grand invention hurtled through the air, I pictured the barren wastelands of hell. I fixed my mind on an icy place devoid of love, warmth or affection. A glacial prison in an apocalyptic underworld, where Zatar would be trapped in darkness, chained in despair, bound to that place for eternity.
The missile scored a direct hit to Zatar’s heart.
The demon reared back, his lizard’s body heaving as the glorious cannon shot launched him into the air. The backlash hit me with hurricane force. I tumbled backward into the dragon, my eyes forced shut by the dirt and debris.
Ice.
Hell.
Damnation.
I drilled the words into my mind, forced them into existence.
“Squark!” Flappy shielded me and I clung to his scaly body, fighting to rivet my mind, my shock and my utter terror on sending the hell spawn back where he came from.
I saw him in my mind’s eye, hurtling across the field and into a gleaming silver portal. I watched him falter, I relished the surprise and fear in his eyes as he fell backward, down, down, down off a sheer cliff, through entire dimensions into an icy vault.
He shattered onto the floor of it, breaking into a million shards.
I sealed him in. Melted it closed. Chained the vault and buried him alive so that no one – mortal or immortal – would ever be able to rouse Zatar again.
And when I was done, I lay against the dragon and simply breathed. There was nothing but the rise and fall of my chest, the air as it rasped dry against the back of my throat. I’d given everything I could and now I simply needed to be.
Until a dog licked the side of my face. “Lizzie!” And danced on my chest. “Lizzie?” Pirate’s paws were like tiny pistons on my stomach. “Wake up, Lizzie. Did you see it?”
I reached for him, finding his knobby head before I’d even bothered to open my eyes.
Pirate stood over me, happier than if he’d scored a barrel full of bacon. “Flappy sat!”
“Yeah, bu
ddy. I saw it.” I tested my body as I rose to a sit. The air crackled with energy. I could taste the metallic tang. I brought shaking fingertips to my cheek. I truly was part angel.
“Flappy did a trick! You saw it?” He spun around as Dimitri reached down for me. “Did you see it?”
Dimitri, human again, grinned. Dirt smeared his face and chest, his hair stood out in spikes and he looked ready to fall over sideways. “It was amazing,” he said, lifting me up, holding me against him.
I buried my face against Dimitri’s warm chest. “Are you okay?”
He nuzzled against me. “As soon as Zatar fell through the portal, the dregs left my body,” he murmured, as if he knew what I was thinking. “I could feel them dissolve.”
“You might want to put some drawers on, buddy,” Grandma said behind him.
Yes, well he had managed to find the orange towel we’d used as a demon target. It was wrapped around his very fine waist.
The rest of the griffins weren’t so modest. “Did you see me?” Kryptos demanded. His olive skin glistened with perspiration, catching bits of sun as it rose over the horizon. “I destroyed many of your dregs. I am the most worthy.”
I snuck a glance. I admit it. And the man had assets.
“Dyonne would be lucky to have you court her,” I told him.
He gave a small bow.
Turns out that was the wrong thing to say because then I had five more hot naked griffins crowding us.
“I caught seven in the air,” Prince Thereos declared. “I am the most worthy!”
A griffin who reminded me a lot of Antonio Banderas pushed his way to the front. “Did you see me?”
Er, I wasn’t sure I felt comfortable looking anymore. Yes, it was an embarrassment of riches, like being mobbed by Chippendales, but this was something for Dianna and Dyonne to sort out – I only had eyes for their brother.
Dimitri turned to the griffins. “You came when I called and fought admirably. Now I have one more request,” he said, as the witches started wolf whistling. “Can you give me a minute?”
They backed off – for now. Knowing these guys, they were counting to sixty.
Dimitri turned to me, mouth quirked. “I just have one question for you.”
