by Angie Fox
“We don’t have time for breakfast anyway,” Dimitri said. “I’ve got the witches lining up. Except for about ten stubborn souls, everyone’s relatively cognizant. We need to get moving. Lizzie, your dog wants to ride with Crazy Frieda.” He must have seen my spirit deflate, because he winked and added, “She’s been slipping him beef jerky.”
It did make me feel a bit better. Pirate tended to think with his stomach.
My fingers went to the emerald pendant Dimitri had given me. “Why didn’t you tell me about the Demon Slayer Licensing Exam?”
“Exam?” He seemed genuinely puzzled. Well of course he didn’t know. How could he?
How could I?
Dimitri eliminated the space between us and folded me into his arms. I closed my eyes, letting his warmth wash over me.
“We’ll worry about it later,” he said, kissing me on the top of the head. “You can’t plan everything.”
No, but I could sure try.
He gave me a squeeze. “I’m going to unlodge the Defiance road captain from under the pool table so I can thank him for his hospitality. You two, be out in ten.”
“Fine,” I snapped, suddenly cold and royally annoyed that he had everything under control. As always.
Meanwhile, the all-powerful demon slayer didn’t know what she was doing. “How am I supposed to pass this test?”
Grandma brushed past me, dumping the ruined eggs onto a platter, presumably for the bikers who were too hung over to know better.
“You won’t pass the test,” Grandma said, sliding the platter into the fridge. “Forget about it. We’ll head to Vegas. You’ll be in and out before they even know you’re there.”
“I think they know I’m here already.” I clutched the sorry-looking tickets until even more water dripped out. “What am I going to do?”
Grandma eyed the garbage disposal.
“Except that,” I said.
I didn’t have money for a bunch of fines, even if the instructions to pay hadn’t been recently pulverized. My eye caught a particularly troublesome line: All unlicensed demon slaying activity, must cease, or … I gulped. “They’re going to shoot me on sight?”
Grandma pried a pair of silver-framed reading glasses from the back pocket of her skinny jeans. Rhinestone clusters in the corners twinkled as she peered at the death threat. “Oh, yeah. I forgot about that part. Maybe you do need to get your license.”
Chapter Two
That afternoon, I stood in line at the Greater Nevada Department of Intramagical Procedures (DIP) office, about a half hour outside of Las Vegas. We didn’t have time for me to get caught standing in line to fill out forms to get permission to stand in a different line. Then again, I didn’t want to get shot, either.
I’d changed into one of my new demon slayer outfits—black leather pants and a sleek lavender corset top. The top was a nod to the purple prairie flower, the symbol of my demon slayer line. Told you I was a planner.
I wiped a smudge of axle grease from my wrist. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I didn’t pass their exam.
DIP officials had enchanted the office to look like a dry cleaner’s from the outside. Inside, I’d immediately gotten flashbacks to my last visit to the DMV. The air smelled like metal folding chairs and industrial cleaner. The entire facility consisted of one room, done in gray, beige and more gray, with a plastic desk that ran along the back. A few magical posters dotted the walls. Safe Shifting Is Everyone’s Responsibility. Don’t Jinx Yourself: Alcohol and Witchcraft Do Not Mix.
A burst of Harleys thundered past, rattling the glass doors behind me. Leave it to the Red Skulls to be having fun.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. If only I’d had time to prepare. I didn’t even like to go to Target without a typed list.
A few manuals sagged in a brochure stand. Most of them had to do with basic witchcraft. Nothing for demon slayers. It figured. We were rare. It had taken Dimitri years to find me when he’d needed me. I didn’t even know where I’d look for another one of my kind. In a world where everybody tries to stand out and be special, what no one really thinks about is how lonely it can get, especially when the pressure is on.
I focused on deep, even breathing as I clutched my Demonic Licensing Exam paperwork.
“Now that’s just wonky,” said the round-faced witch behind me. The wooden beads on her dress clacked together, and one of her blonde dreadlocks tickled my neck as she checked out the official forms I’d brought. She huffed like a steam engine. “You think they could have called it the Demonic Slayer Licensing Exam.” She looked me up and down with a critical eye. “You are one of the good guys, right?”
A doe-eyed woman behind her took a step toward the door and nearly ran into the large, woodsy-looking fellow at the end of the line. Yeah, well with the Red Skulls popping wheelies in the parking lot, she and the mountain man were much safer inside.
“I am most definitely one of the good guys,” I said, folding my wad of paperwork and stuffing it into my black leather utility belt. I never hurt anybody, except for a homicidal werewolf and a fifth-level demon, but that was self-defense.
She sized me up before evidently deciding to give me the benefit of the doubt. “I’ve been here three times for my Express Voodoo License. ‘Cause you know folks these days can barely wait to microwave a burrito at the Quick Trip, much less hang around for a full-fledged magical incantation. I would have passed the first time, but I keep getting the old Dragon Lady.” She pointed a long, gold fingernail at a five-foot-nothing Vietnamese woman with poufy black hair and wide glasses straight out of the ‘70s.
The Dragon Lady’s plain beige uniform didn’t have a wrinkle on it, not even at the matching cloth belt. She stood ramrod stiff and blended with chameleon-like precision into the colorless office. Even the other workers gave her a wide berth.
“Gives me the heebie-jeebies just looking at her,” my new friend said, adjusting the gold and red shawl at her shoulders. “Bet she eats steak with a spoon. They say she’s been here for thirty years and only passed two people.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I hoped. Because unlike the witch behind me, I couldn’t afford to fail. I had to get into Las Vegas yesterday.
It seemed my Uncle Phil, who should have just signed up with eHarmony, had taken up with the wrong woman. And, no, I don’t mean a gold digger or the flavor of the week at the Double Trouble Gentleman’s Club. He’d fallen for a she-demon. Literally. A succubus, who’d charm a man silly before draining the poor guy of his life force and sometimes even his soul.
I tried to hide a grimace and failed. Succubi were the worst kind of demons because you couldn’t see them coming. Supposedly, they looked like beautiful people, right up until the time they drained you. I’d like to think—hope—I’d sense them. But right now, most of what I knew about succubi, I’d learned on Wikipedia.
In fact, most of what I’d learned about the magical world, my powers, everything—I’d learned through the back door. It had better be enough. Uncle Phil couldn’t afford to wait for me to master the Practical Demon Slaying Exam.
“See now,” the witch said, tapping me on the shoulder. “You want the Yeti.” I followed her chubby finger to a portly gentleman with tufts of snow white hair bursting from the vee in his uniform shirt. The same hair curled around the bald spot on his head and peeked out of his shirtsleeves.
I nodded. Come on, Yeti.
The bored-looking clerk at the only open window motioned me over. I handed my paperwork to Bradford, a mousy man whose name tag said he was happy to serve me.
Now or never.
Without a word or even so much as a glance in my direction, Bradford slapped a thin, pasty hand on top of the stack. “Veritas probatum,” he said, like he’d been asked to read the dictionary, “dedecus impedio.” The area where his hand touched the paper glowed an orangish green. He sighed. “This would be a lot easier if you wouldn’t lie on your application.”
My breath caught in my thro
at. He was going to flunk me before I even got started. “Everything in there is true,” I insisted. “I did make it to the second level of hell and back.”
He lobbed me a patronizing glance as he rifled through my stack of paper, ripping off the pink “anti-demonic practitioner” copies. “You weigh one-ten?”
I felt the color creep into my cheeks. “I did in high school.” After I’d had mono.
He made a notation on the form and handed me my packet. “Step outside the metal door to test area 3A and wait for your examiner.”
The metal door opened into a long, narrow yard fenced in with gray cinder blocks. The hot desert sun warmed my face and I could smell the acrid remains of magic in the air. The walls reached at least two stories high and I wondered why they didn’t enchant the yard like they had the front of the building. Then again, maybe they had. Unease settled over me. The cinder-block enclosure might not be there to keep random people out, as much as it was to keep creepy things in.
White stenciled markers divided the lot into three distinct sections. I walked through the sand of test area 1A and tried not to think too hard on the small jets of steam erupting like minigeysers. I edged past the dug-out water pit (I wouldn’t call it a pool) that was test area 2A and made it to an expanse of blacktop pavement with what looked to be ancient runes carved into the surface.
Harleys rumbled on the other side of the wall. I wished I could scale the thing and join them, even if it meant watching Ant Eater ride in that too-tight red leather halter top.
Just to have something—anything to do—I counted my switch stars. Five. The same as there were on the way over here. The same as I had this morning. Five.
I usually carried five, mainly because they fit comfortably on my utility belt. Heaven knew if that was the correct number. I supposed I’d find out.
I was about to check out a trench that ran along the outside wall when something down there growled.
I took three steps back, thought about it, and took two more.
Times like this, I wished for my old life back. I’d kept a tidy condo, a 10:00 P.M. bedtime and a secret stash of Junior Mints for when I felt naughty. My adoptive parents and I tolerated each other from noon to 1:30 P.M. every other Sunday, and I never, ever had to worry about she-demons or things that snarled under the parking lot.
Footsteps rang out behind me. I turned and saw the Dragon Lady.
Oh Sheboygan.
Spending the past seven years as a preschool teacher made it impossible for me to cuss, even in my head. But now would have been a good time to start.
The air itself seemed to heat another ten degrees as the Dragon Lady sauntered straight for me, with absolutely no mercy in her eyes.
She’d better not be a real dragon.
She was short—tiny even. It only made her scarier. She brandished her clipboard knowing she held my magical fate in her hands.
“I am Officer Ly.” The wrinkles around her mouth deepened as she scowled. “You are here for the Practical Demon Slaying Exam, Part A, with waivers C, D and E.”
I found myself nodding for no particular reason. A cool wind whipped the hair at my neck, but didn’t even seem to touch her.
“Stand away from the targets,” she commanded.
I followed her to the back edge of the lot and waited while she wrote something on her clipboard.
Her sharp eyes caught mine. “This exam is for basic slaying only. If you violate this, the Department of Intramagical Procedures will be forced to enact corporal punishment.”
As if I didn’t know.
She tilted her dyed black head over her clipboard.
“Lizzie Brown?”
“Yes.”
“Prepare your switch stars.”
I nodded. Switch stars reminded me of tricked-out Frisbees. I rested my hand on top of a star. My worn leather utility belt felt cool against my black leather pants. No matter what, the belt seemed to hover at about eighty-five degrees. No one knew why.
The switch star warmed as I slipped two fingers into the delicately carved holes in the center. It was flat and round, about the shape of a small dinner plate. Five blades curled around the edge. They’d been dull. When I touched them, they glowed a light pink.
Officer Ly eyed me like I’d taken too long. “What is the average standard velocity of a switch star as it impacts a target fifty meters away when said target is attacking with thirty-two metric tons of force?”
My heart skipped a beat. “Can you repeat the question?” I asked, swallowing an involuntary squeak.
She did. And it didn’t make any more sense the second time around. Nobody told me I needed to know these kinds of things. Grandma’s idea of studying magical theory involved a keg of cheap beer and a Ping-Pong table. And Dimitri? He’d been too busy helping me learn how to throw switch stars through the air instead of into the dirt. We hadn’t made it to math problems. My hands started to sweat. I had to work to keep a good grip on my switch star.
Fifty meters was about one hundred sixty-five feet, and who cared how fast something was attacking as long as I could kill it? I was still trying to do the math in my head when an orange plastic target flew up out of the ground.
“Fire!” the Dragon Lady roared.
I half tripped, half spun and hurled the star fast and strong—straight into the ground ten feet in front of us. Chunks of asphalt spattered across lot 3A and the smaller bits rained down on us. I tried not to wince as a few pebbles of the testing area nestled in the Dragon Lady’s stack of black hair.
The officer pursed her lips, plucked a chunk of asphalt out of her hair and started writing on her clipboard.
“Wait.” I said. “I’m sorry about that. You caught me off guard.”
“A demon will catch you off guard.”
True. But it was a completely different mind-set going into a demon attack than it was standing in a blacktop lot next to a growling creature in a ditch while trying to convert feet to meters in my head as the instructor from hell (I should know, I’ve been there) decided whether to let me into town in time to save my uncle’s life.
“Let me try it one more time,” I insisted.
Without waiting for an answer, I hurled a switch star for the target. This time, it flew hard and straight, slicing the target straight down the middle. Ha! I practically did a jig as the switch star arced back to me. I caught the razor-sharp disc on my finger and gave it an extra spin.
Dragon Lady wasn’t amused. She wrote something down on her chart. “Remove your shoes and climb the ladder.”
“Excuse me?”
The Dragon Lady pointed at a rickety ladder at the edge of the lot. I’d barely noticed it because there wasn’t much to see. Made of dark wood, with age-blackened joints, the thing belonged in a museum rather than a testing yard. Besides, it stood about fifteen feet tall, which was higher than I wanted to be.
“Go,” Officer Ly ordered.
“Sure.” I eased off my Harley boots and chanced a look at the wooden ladder. “Why not?” I stuffed my socks inside my boots. I was dating a shape-shifting griffin. He’d taken me flying a lot higher than fifteen feet. Of course, Dimitri would never let me fall.
I gripped the sides of the ladder and planted one bare foot on the bottom rung. The whole contraption wobbled. I ignored it as I climbed another rung, and another.
Dragon Lady reached into her pocket and pulled out a small cloth sack. “Name the Three Truths of the demon slayer.”
Okay, I rolled my shoulders and kept climbing. I knew this question. “The truths: Look to the Outside. Accept the Universe.” I gripped the ladder tighter as she spread a handful of nails—pointy side up—on the ground underneath my ladder. “Sacrifice Yourself and… what are you doing?”
“This is the levitation test.”
“Wait. Demon slayers can levitate?” My first thought? Nifty! Followed swiftly by concern—I’d never done that.
Or maybe I had.
I’d certainly broken a fall in hell. But d
id the rules of physics apply in the underworld?
No question they’d apply here.
“I don’t think I can levitate.” I mean drift to the ground effortlessly? Balance in thin air? Land amid the nails? I could barely walk in high heels.
I rubbed my lips together. Those nails looked really sharp—rusty too. I didn’t even like it when I got my ears pierced. And what business did they have injuring test takers?
“This isn’t fair. I’ll jump, but no nails.”
Didn’t they have the magical budget for something better than nails? Not that I wanted to meet any conjured-up nightmares, but nails?
“I conduct this test per Rule 89d of the Updated and Unabridged 2009 Department of Intramagical Procedures Practical Demon Slaying Exam Manual,” she said, scowling over her glasses. “If you don’t complete the test, you will fail.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my fingers, even as the ladder wobbled. “There’s no way for me to get into Las Vegas without getting this license?”
“No.”
Not unless I wanted to be shot, which she would no doubt enjoy. I winced as I took another look down at the nails.
Son of a sailor.
I held my breath and stepped up onto the top of the ladder, my toes curling over the edge. Fifteen feet wasn’t overly high, but it looked that way from where I stood. I really could break my neck doing this. A slight breeze cooled my ankles as I stared at the nails scattered below. There was no way to land without cracking something or slamming down on at least a dozen nails.
Officer Ly clicked something on her watch. “Go now. Ten seconds.”
Wait. I needed to prepare. “Why do you need to time me?”
“Eight seconds.”
Oh geez. I had to do this. My uncle needed me. My friends were champing at the bit to get into Vegas. They couldn’t face a demon by themselves.
“Five seconds.”
I stared down at the parking lot below and the rusty nails ready to slice me to ribbons. Maybe I could levitate. If not, well, I’d land barefoot on the nails and be no good to anybody.
“Three!”
