The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers ds-2

by Angie Fox

  “Dimitri says you wasted three demons.” She glared at me, her body sagging but her mind as alert as ever. “You’re not trained to kill that many.”

  I wasn’t? “Well, that’s just great!”

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  What indeed? I clutched my marked palm against my skirt.

  Her eyes narrowed. “We came here because we’re in this together.”

  Not when “together” meant floating unconscious in the hallway. “I just about got killed tonight trying to save your butts. You’re not helping. You need to leave. Don’t even tell me where you’re going.”

  If I couldn’t protect them by being with them, I’d do the next best thing—get them as far away from here as possible.

  “News flash. You need the coven.”

  “That might be true.” I’d certainly needed them in the past. But it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about knowing in my gut what was right and what was wrong—and then doing something about it.

  She flung the broken phone on the floor. “This after we protected you, we trained you, we accepted you as one of our own.”

  “Some training,” I scoffed. “When were you going to teach me to kill three?”

  “When you were ready!”

  “Yeah, well I think I’m ready.”

  “You can’t handle everything!”

  “Yes. I can.” The dark mark burned into my skin. “I killed the fifth-level demon that chased you around the country for thirty years. I killed one last night. Three today.”

  She let out a string of curses that would have burned my adoptive mom’s ears clean off. “You can’t do this alone. You probably don’t even know how you killed three just now.”

  A sudden fear snaked down my back. She was right. I had nothing going for me but my instincts and my God-given skills. Grandma hadn’t shown me what to do during a multiple demon attack. She’d never told me that Max, a half demon, half human could even exist, and she certainly hadn’t shared how to keep from being marked by a demon. “You didn’t teach me jack.”

  Her face blazed red. “You think I can teach you a lifetime of lessons in two weeks? People want to be lawyers, they spend three years in law school. You want to be a vet, you go to eight years of medical school. You skip thirty years of demon slayer training and you want to learn it in two weeks, half of which we spent on the run from a fifth-level demon and the rest we spent trying to get here to save Phil’s sorry ass. There’s no easy way. I taught you what you needed to know to survive.”

  Well, it wasn’t enough. The only thing I did know was that I wasn’t going to be responsible for the coven getting wiped out.

  “I’m the only one who can slay a succubus. So I’m staying and you’re going.”

  “You need me,” she said, biting off every word.

  “No, I don’t,” I retorted, sad, angry and very much alone.

  If I could have slammed a door in knee-deep water, I would have. Instead, I slogged down the hallway, avoiding dead fish. I rubbed at the 6-6-6 that had etched itself deep into my palm, the edges burned black.

  Someone splashed up behind me. It wasn’t a demon, so it could have been Mary Poppins for all I cared. I had to think.

  “Hold up!” Sid hollered.

  I’d forgotten he was even there. Still, I kept walking, despite a string of fairy curses.

  “Excuse me? Hey, lady. I’m risking a crab up the pants, so you need to park your ass and listen.”

  I sighed. “What, Sid?” I turned around to find him struggling to shake a tangled string of seaweed from his fingers. He was shorter than I was, and the water reached halfway up his thighs. His brown trousers held a pocket of air that made him look even rounder.

  “I should be asking you the same thing,” he said. “What happened here? We’ve never seen succubi attack like this, and they don’t usually go for females. What’d you do?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Obviously, the witches had something they wanted.” Like life energy. I shivered despite myself. “Sid, we need to get the survivors out of here. Does the DIP have a place they can stay?”

  He furrowed his brows. “Maybe.” He wiped his hand off on his sleeve and pulled his phone from the pocket of his tan striped shirt. “They don’t normally like to get involved, but I think they’re going to have to make an exception here.” He dialed in a text message. “Call me a softie, but a full-scale slaughter won’t look good on my performance review. Besides”—he gave me a quick once over—”you’re about to have bigger problems.”

  That’s right. Fairies could predict the near future. “So what’s going to happen?” I asked, a bit too breathlessly.

  “Demons. What else?” he said, far too flippantly for my taste.

  “Soon?” I asked.

  “Soon enough. Me and the Red Skulls are making it out. You, I’m not so sure about.” He shrugged at my utter shock. “You can’t do anything about it. Except you’d damned well better ask for help when you need it. Capiche?”

  Not help from the witches, I hoped. I couldn’t risk them like that. “Tell me everything I need to know,” I said.

  “I just did.” He tapped something else into his phone. “Geez. See, this is why I don’t tell people things. They ask for details that I don’t have.” He took a closer look at a message on his phone. “Says here we’ve been able to confirm your report, at least so far as there’s some weird shit going on.”

  “Hallelujah.”

  Sid wrestled a handkerchief out of his back pocket, found a dry spot, and used it to mop his head.

  He shot me a disdainful glare as he dug something out of the pocket of his loose brown dress pants. “I’m going to regret this, but…” He held a small vial of glitter. The clear contents churned and sparkled with energy. “Fairy dust,” he explained, “Mine. Just don’t go summoning me during any demon attacks or I’ll kill you myself.”

  “Wow,” I said, “thanks.” I had a feeling this didn’t happen every day.

  The fairy scowled. “Yeah, well if you screw up, I’m allowed my quid pro quo. You know, restitution. And I will take you up on that.”

  “I shudder to think,” I responded. As for the fairy dust, I held it up watching it cluster thick in places where my fingers touched the vial.

  But it wasn’t the fairy I was worried about.

  Excerpt from The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers:

  Gargoyles are a good measure of the evil threat in an area—both demonic and otherwise. These horned creatures resemble giant bats and are attracted to the negative energies. Gargoyles will eat any evil that wanders too close. It’s good in the short term, but a bad sign overall. Too many gargoyles in one spot means they’ve found a place to feast—and to breed.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Wouldn’t you know it, Sid and the DIP actually came through. Less than an hour later, he’d found accommodations outside of the city for all two dozen of the Red Skulls. Grandma lay on her bed, resting up while the rest of the witches packed.

  “You mind if I ride with Bob?” Pirate asked. “He found me a special helmet in one of the gift shops. It has racing stripes!”

  “Go ahead.” I scratched him between the ears. I’d be glad when they were safely on the road out of town.

  I was about to check on the witches when the door to our hotel room flung open. Pirate and I both jumped an inch.

  Witches crowded the corridor outside as Max hitched himself out of the knee-deep water in the hallway and strode into the room like he did it every day.

  He looked like the devil himself, in black leather pants and a red club shirt. Hell and seduction seemed to press around him. How did he even find us?

  “I need you,” Max said, his eyes flicking over me.

  Naturally. “Well, take a number.”

  I had my own problems to solve. As soon as I marshaled the witches and Dimitri out of Vegas, my biggest challenge involved a giant war with two dozen succubi.

  Max stood rod-straight. If h
e was affected by the scene around him, he gave no indication. He took me in, inch by inch, settling on the darkened emerald at my throat. “You’re flinging slayer energy up and down The Strip. Cut it out. We’re leaving now. I’ve word that a succubus will be at Coo Coo Lounge. Get your switch stars.”

  Something had happened to him. I could feel it like a black hole at the very core of him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  He gave a predatory grin. “I’m mourning the one that got away.”

  I’d never seen a cambion turn, but he felt close. I stole a glance at Grandma. She seemed to be thinking the same thing. And it worried the snot out of me that she wasn’t even saying it.

  “You need to leave,” I said to Max. I didn’t want him around anyone when he went over the edge. Besides, he was going about this the wrong way. Picking the demons off one by one would likely get me killed and push him over to the dark side. And it wouldn’t do any good if they kept bringing more in. It’d be like attacking a roach infestation by stomping just the ones you see. Only these roaches were huge and evil and wanted to kill us. We had to attack them at their source.

  “Slayer…” Max warned.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “There are too many of them, Max. What good is it going to do to kill one?”

  Max raised a brow. “Want to tell that to the family of the man she kills?”

  “Damn it.” I reached for my switch stars, despising him for saying the one thing that would get me off track. Whatever life we saved was as important to somebody as Grandma or Uncle Phil or my own adoptive family was to me. “I’ll go.” I raised a finger in warning. “If you let me do the killing.”

  Grandma looked ready to punch somebody.

  “You’d better be gone by the time I get back,” I warned.

  Max and I shoved past the witches in the hallway. “What, Lizzie?” Frieda protested. “Are you working for him now? We need you. And besides, your Uncle Phil needs you. His soul’s in trouble and you’re gonna run off? Don’t let that devil on wheels use you.”

  I pinned her to the wall with a glare. “He stands up to his enemies. I know you can respect that.” I raised my voice to be heard loud and clear. “I’m leaving, so you guys need to clear out. Now.”

  “What? Are you just shoving us aside?” she demanded.

  “When you’re a liability?” I said to her, and the group, “yes.”

  That got me some attention and a few middle fingers.

  Like they weren’t used to being on the run.

  “You’re making about as much sense as tits on a tree,” Frieda snapped over the jeers of the rest of the bikers. “Well, you can kiss my go-to-hell. Leave. It’ll serve you right if we get attacked again.”

  Max’s eyes flared. “You need to get the griffin out of Vegas.”

  As if I hadn’t thought of that.

  “This attack didn’t come because of Dimitri,” I said, keeping him moving. “The succubi know I’m in Vegas. The coven is a perfect target. They can get to me and steal energy from the witches to bring more demons in.”

  Max stopped cold.

  Dimitri had just made it back to the thirteenth floor. Despite his weakened state, my honorable griffin had been schlepping luggage for the battered witches. His shock at seeing Max quickly morphed to disgust.

  Max’s face hardened. “There’s your energy leak.”

  “Dimitri is leaving too,” I said, hoping I was right.

  Dimitri stepped around me, blocking Max. “Not with him around.” He shoved Max into the wall.

  Max scowled. “You are the reason for all of this!” No question he was a killer. I had no doubt he’d attack anyone who got in his way.

  Dimitri’s hair had gone white, and he’d grown leaner, bolder than I’d ever seen him. “I’m not the one keeping them in my basement.”

  “Enough.” I stepped between them. “The question is what we do about it.”

  “Attack,” Max growled as he stormed past me.

  “Wait!” He couldn’t mean… I tried to see it from Max’s warped sense of justice. If the griffin is feeding them, giving them power… Kill the griffin.

  Max leapt at Dimitri, sending them both flying down the hallway and into—

  “The wards!” Ant Eater hollered, as goo splattered and Dimitri’s head hit the far wall with a resounding crack.

  “Not good.” Grandma yanked me by the arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”

  She had to be kidding. “I’m not going to leave Dimitri and Max to be ravaged by the she-demons.”

  Dimitri held Max’s head underwater as Max brought his fist straight into Dimitri’s gut. “Let him go!” I screamed. Dimitri slammed against the wall, bounced off and drove straight back at Max. “Stop!” It was like watching two dogs fight. I had to stop them, but I couldn’t jump in the middle without getting bit. Hard.

  “Go!” I told Grandma.

  “Aw, hell. But the wards—” Fear burned in her eyes.

  “That’s why you need to go!” I said, herding the Red Skulls down the corridor. I could feel the demons circling, looking for a way in. For the second time that evening, I shoved Grandma through the doorway. The witches might like to talk smack, but they were smart enough to get out of the way of a demon. One by one, they rushed for the door.

  Meanwhile Dimitri and Max had worked their way closer to the flickering wards. “Dimitri! Stop!” If I could only get Dimitri and Max out of here before the succubi broke through.

  Dimitri had to listen. “Dimitri!”

  I made a dash for them, not knowing what I’d do when I got there, but sure I had to stop this somehow.

  “Hold it!” A bullet exploded the ceiling above my head.

  I spun around and couldn’t believe what I saw. “Sid?”

  His pudgy face shone with sweat, and he aimed a small silver revolver straight at me. “Back up now or I’ll bust a cap in that sweet ass. Come on. All three of you.”

  “What are you doing, Sid?” I said, as calm as I could manage with my heart hammering in my throat.

  “Back up.” Sid thrust the revolver to my chest and yanked me against him. Fairy dust rained down around us, and I nearly choked on the stench of stale bubble-gum. No question, Sid was stressed. Good.

  Dimitri rushed for Sid, Max on his heels. Sid tried to drag me into an open doorway as an explosion rattled the far end of the floor. Heat seared me down to my underwear.

  “Duck!” Sid hollered as the far wall burst into silver flames. I crouched, my elbows in the water, my hands flung over my head as sparks burned fist-size holes in the ceiling above. A soaring inferno devoured six Skeep posts and a potted fern at the end of the hall. I shielded my eyes against the intense glare until it exhausted itself. The flames licked away the last of the Skeep posts and fizzled out.

  “You knew—” I began. Wait, of course he knew the end of the hallway would explode. And, my stomach flip-flopped, he said the demons were coming.

  “Ward failure,” Sid muttered, shoving away from me. “Looks like Battina cast a backup system. Smart lady. That means you got about two minutes.” He stuffed his gun down the back of his pants and used his sleeve to wipe the fairy dust from his forehead. “I already told you I’m making it out of here alive.”

  The thin ward belched smoke and super-energized air. The hallway felt like the desert at noon, and with each step I caught a jolt of static electricity. Lovely, considering we stood in knee-deep water.

  “Lizzie! Get back!” Dimitri ordered.

  I pitched myself against the wall, not even hearing the piercing shriek of the switch star until it buried itself in the wall to my left.

  Max was still going to attack?

  I’d switch-star him myself if we didn’t need him.

  Blood poured from Max’s temple and tangled in his golden hair as he sloshed down the hallway. His eyes glowed red like a demon’s. “You’re feeding the devil himself,” he said, his face stiff with concentration. “You need to die.”

  Max the brav
e, the unstoppable, the lone vigilante lunged for the man I loved.

  We had to immobilize him and get him out of here. No way we could face what was coming, even with Max.

  Dimitri thrust out a fist and caught him by the throat. Max slammed into the water. He shot to his feet, but Dimitri caught him in midair, hurtling him down again. Shock ricocheted through me. How strong was Dimitri? Even after he’d been drained.

  Max had bested demons. He was half damned himself.

  “Stop, Max!” I ordered. “Think! We need to leave now!”

  His jaw set in a snarl. “First things first.” He glared at Dimitri, hate burning in his eyes. “You are a scourge, a plague.” Max breathed heavily, water dripping off him.

  Max attacked again. Dimitri spun sideways and grabbed the last switch star from Max’s belt. He held it down at his side, as the red blades began to churn. I gasped. I knew Dimitri had slayer in him. I’d put it there myself. Still, it was an entirely new thing to see the blades churning like they would for me.

  Max had to know it was over.

  He didn’t. Max launched himself at Dimitri and they toppled sideways, the switch star burying itself in Max’s side.

  “No!” I choked.

  Steam hissed from the wound. Thick blood surged like a pot boiling over, searing the star, melting it as if it had been dipped in acid. Max’s eyes widened. He let out a choked gurgle before collapsing headlong into the water. Blood bubbled to the surface.

  I cringed at the smell of it, like singed copper mingled with the overwhelming scent of sulfur. At the same time, I refused to believe it. He had to be only half dead, half… holy heck. I rushed to Max’s side. His blood sizzled at my skin.

  “Max!” I dug through a wad of seaweed, felt for a pulse, trying to ignore my own blood rushing through my ears.

  My limbs weakened and my insides churned. Bent on my own misery, I practically fell sideways when a wave of energy slammed into me. It surged through me, filling me to the core. My strength surged, along with my determination, and an immense desire to kick butt. My demon slayer mojo had never kicked in so strong before. Then I knew.

  Max was dead.

  His captured demons rejoiced in an immense wave of power. It pounded in a heady, almost addicting rhythm. I reached out blindly, bracing myself against the wall as the force of seventeen starving demons threw me off balance. I yanked my hands back and braced them on my hips. It took immense concentration to stay that way. I felt the demons’ strength growing, expanding. They fled Max’s prison, ready to devour Vegas and their newfound freedom.