The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

by Angie Fox

  Dimitri wrapped his arms around me from the back and I closed my eyes, savoring the closeness. The warm desert air scattered my bangs over my forehead. I chose to focus on that, rather than on my pounding head or wrung-out body.

  Pirate nosed the crook of my elbow. "You okay, Lizzie?"

  "I will be," I said, ruffling his fur between my aching fingers. Keep it together, Lizzie. I couldn't afford to fall apart now.

  Frieda's heels clacked on the sidewalk. "I know you want to see me as much as a skunk at a lawn party, but we really do need Dimitri."

  "Lizzie?" He ran his hands along my arms.

  "I'm fine," I said, pulling away first. It was good to know he could fly again.

  He kissed me on the head and followed Frieda toward the edge of the dam to get what looked to be a trapped gargoyle off a clock tower. I stood with my dog, too exhausted to move, waiting for Grandma, mourning Phil, wondering how it had come to this.

  Biker witches scattered along the roadway over the dam. The cars that usually traveled Ala Meda Boulevard were conspicuously absent.

  "Well, look who decided to join the fight after all," a deep voice rumbled.

  I about fell over as the angelic blond hunter strolled into the light. He looked like he'd been run over by a truck. "Max," I gaped. I couldn't believe he was here. "How?"

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest and scowled down at me. "My job wasn't done."

  My body surged into high alert mode. I was tempted to touch him and make sure he was real. But it had to be Max. I didn't sense any demonic imposters. Besides, we'd fried or captured every demon within a three-thousand-mile radius.

  "Is she dead?" Max asked.

  Oh yes. Definitely Max. "Serena's a demonic grease stain on the floor. Now, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing here?"

  "Did you think I'd stand by and watch Serena take you?"

  Frankly, I didn't think the man did a day of standing in his life.

  Max delivered a biting stare. "Killing demons on my own wouldn't have solved anything if you screwed up. I told you we needed a slayer to beat her."

  This coming from the person who had encouraged me to keep the dark mark. "I'm glad you made it out," I told him. And I was.

  Dimitri crunched up the road. I'd been so focused on Max I hadn't even heard him coming. He reached out for Max and I prepared for the fight.

  Instead, Dimitri clapped the hunter on the shoulder like an old friend. "Good to see you, buddy."

  Buddy? What on earth had happened since I'd been captured?

  Dimitri noticed my confusion and grinned. "We needed Max to get inside the dam. You should have seen the barriers the demons set up."

  I couldn't believe it. I stared at Dimitri, then Max, the tension draining out of me. "You two actually worked together?"

  "I helped," Pirate said, squirming in my arms. "Joe got Ezra, who got Sid, who got Dimitri. But then nobody understood the message."

  "Ghosts are horrible at getting facts right," said Max. "That's why I don't trust any of them."

  "But I understood," Pirate said, his tail thwumping my arm. "Ezra and I've been playing lots of Scrabble. I know how he thinks. See that's the trick. You study your opponent like a hunting dog. Sniff out their weaknesses and—whammo!—thirty-six-point word."

  I kissed Pirate on the head. "Ghosts and dogs. I never would have guessed."

  Bob wheeled up, his antidemonic quilt bits flapping in his spokes. "Hey, Lizzie. Glad to see you're not dead."

  "Me too," I said. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but what are you guys doing here?"

  Bob huffed. "Saving you. What else?"

  Max nodded. "Your witches have a gift for focusing power."

  "Red Skulls have always been that way," said Bob. "We get into trouble and it's trouble times ten. Frieda works a water spell and it's the Vegas flood of '99." He grimaced. "Talk about a mess. But you need to intensify a power like Max's, we can do that too." He chuckled at the look on my face, which must have reflected my pure and utter astonishment. "And, Ms. Lizzie, when we felt your power grow, we helped you aim your magic."

  I leaned my back against the concrete wall of the dam. Here I thought I had to do everything on my own. I was the Demon Slayer of Dalea, for goodness sake. I'd just assumed that power came with complete and utter responsibility. First Dimitri helped save me, and now the witches had my back. And Max. I didn't know what to say. This whole time, I'd imagined the Red Skulls as a liability, and Max as someone not to be trusted. Come to think of it, I still wasn't sure if I trusted Max.

  "I really did need you guys as much as you needed me," I said. It felt strange to even say it out loud.

  "Ding, ding, ding! Finally!" Grandma clapped me on the back, forcing humor through reddened eyes. "You don't have to know everything, sport. Nobody does. Not even me."

  "I never thought you'd be the type to go all After School Special on me," I said.

  She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and gave a long sigh. "Shut up. And next time, remember to trust yourself and your friends."

  I nodded, knowing she was right. Trust my friends, the Red Skulls, the witches who tempted the demons themselves to help me. It felt good to be a part of something bigger than myself. I straightened out my bustier and, despite the rigors of the night, walked a little taller in my pink zipper pants. I was a Red Skull and proud of it.

  Excerpt from The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers:

  Sacrifice Yourself: This is the third Truth of the demon slayer. Most take it to mean self-sacrifice in the face of great danger, looking beyond who you are and what you want. But it can also mean something that seems much simpler, but is actually much harder in practice—letting go of what you think you need, thereby opening yourself up to the things, and people, that have the power to make you truly happy.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  We buried Uncle Phil in green linen pants and a matching Hawaiian shirt. Grandma said that's how he dressed before Serena had him running around in a white wedding tux. I had to admit, it looked more like him. She even tucked a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon into his casket.

  I wished I had something to give him, a token of how much he'd meant to me. I couldn't think of anything that would do justice to the years he'd spent watching over me, or for what he did in the end.

  The night before the funeral, I wriggled out of Dimitri's arms. I sat on the steps of our cabin and wrote Phil a letter. I told him all of the things I wish we could have talked about when he was alive. And I told him how it broke my heart to lose him.

  I tucked it into his shirt pocket before the graveside ceremony at St. Christopher's Cemetery. Witches, fairies and who knew what else clustered in uneven rows amid a desert field of headstones. I held Grandma's hand while Dimitri stood on the other side of me, his arm wrapped around my waist. I marveled at how Uncle Phil's funeral turned out to be a typical ceremony in every way, except when Sid reached out to catch Father Hamilton's prayer book a second before the good reverend dropped it.

  I couldn't shake the feeling that I'd let Phil down. He'd been willing to sacrifice for me, but did he have to? I wasn't sure what I could have done to keep him from being used as bait. My original sin was in being a demon slayer in the first place. There had to be something else afterward, some other series of choices that would have kept him from making the ultimate sacrifice. I fully intended to berate myself until I came up with an entire list, alphabetized.

  Afterward, as we walked to the car, I caught a hint of cinnamon in the air. I squeezed Dimitri's hand. "Can I have a minute?"

  Dimitri walked Grandma back to the Harleys while I traced my way over to a small garden wall where the air was particularly sweet. My heart swelled, hoping desperately for any sign Phil was okay.

  As I rounded the wall, however, my hopes sank. Pungent, dead flowers assaulted my senses. They lay in half-wilted heaps, tossed aside from earlier funerals, left to rot in this corner of the cemetery.

  I couldn't help it. Images
of my fairy godfather in his grave skimmed the surface of my mind. "I'm sorry Phil," I said, watching the once-sweet flowers. "I'll figure out what I did wrong, and next time I'll do better. I promise."

  "I think you did just fine this time."

  I whirled around, my heart hammering in my chest.

  "Phil?" He had a faint glow around the edges. Not exactly a ghost, but…

  "Stop being so hard on yourself, Lizzie. Of course, you're a demon slayer, but believe it or not, you're only human."

  Tears blurred my vision and I let them come. "I'm sorry."

  "I know. I read the letter. All twelve pages, or I would have been here sooner."

  I wanted to hug him so hard. "Do you have your soul?" I asked, hoping—praying.

  He tapped the center of his chest. "Got her right here." His face fell slightly. "It's not that bad, Lizzie. Look," he said, floating a foot off the ground. "My basketball game has improved. I got to meet Elvis. And I know where they buried Jimmy Hoffa."

  I snarfed, half sniveling, half laughing. "I can't believe I'm going to lose you before I even got to know you."

  "Watch and be amazed." he levitated another foot off the ground and twirled. "Brian Boitano skating spectacular," he said, ending in a figure eight.

  "Now you're showing off."

  His eyes crinkled as he smiled.

  I found myself returning it—damn the man—and wiped my nose on my wrist. "You were supposed to be off the job when I turned thirty."

  He chuckled. "Just because you're all grown up, doesn't mean I can let you go."

  And here I thought I'd come to Vegas to save him.

  His bulbous nose widened as he smiled. "Glad I could do this for you, pumpkin."

  He'd always been doing things for me, from fairy beans under my pillow to dragging me out of Lake Newman when I was eight. I couldn't lose him. "I just found you."

  Phil grinned. "Don't think of it as losing a fairy godfather, so much as gaining a guardian angel."

  He couldn't. He wouldn't. "You'll be back?" I asked, voice hitching, almost afraid to hope.

  He nodded, entirely too pleased about the whole thing. "Told you. I have a hard time letting go. And tell your Grandma thanks Tor the brew."

  I had so much more to tell him, I realized as he faded away. It hurt to lose him, even temporarily. Still, over the pungent aroma of dying flowers, I detected a whiff of cinnamon. He'd been there to save me—in big ways and small. He'd sat through my five-hour-long dance recitals, left fairy beans under my pillow and the more I thought about it, I wondered if he hadn't been the one who barged up to my corner lemonade stand and demanded old Mr. Steele pay me the full nickel, even though we'd run out of ice. Uncle Phil, it seemed, always knew when to show up. And he'd always be with me, no matter what.

  We held the funeral reception in the lodge next to the petting zoo. The building sagged and most of the walls needed paint. There was little furniture, save for wooden benches and tables. Tire tracks ran up and down the stairs, but I had a feeling the Red Skulls were responsible for those.

  The Red Skulls mingled with the fairies. Plus, we'd found Phil's address book and asked his friends from the bowling league, plus his boss at work. Luckily, Mr. Reed had no idea what had happened at the dam. I could thank the Red Skulls—again—for that.

  The murmur of the crowd echoed through the spartan room.

  "You going to turn this into a biker bar?" I asked Grandma as I handed her a cup of punch.

  "Nah," she said, pausing for a large gulp. "This doesn't feel like home. We're going to hit the road, head south somewhere."

  I sipped my own punch and nearly choked as acid burned my throat. "What is this?" I asked, my voice an octave higher.

  "Mmm," Grandma tipped the paper cup to her lips again, savoring. "Not a clue. Ant Eater doesn't share her recipes."

  That's not all Ant Eater had kept to herself. She hadn't let poor Sid out of the corner the entire afternoon. Worse, the short, stocky fairy sported a Harley Davidson do-rag over his balding head. And, "Why is he wearing leather chaps?"

  Grandma shrugged. "Life on the road can chafe your thighs."

  Oh my word. Ant Eater and Sid? They'd kill each other.

  Grandma took another swallow. "What? Now you can tell the immediate future?"

  Sid saw me and broke away from Ant Eater with—ew—a kiss to her cheek.

  "I got something for you," he said, unfolding a piece of paper from his back pocket.

  The gold seal of the Department of Intramagical Affairs decorated the right corner. "A full demon slayer license?" I asked, swelling with pride and relief. "You mean I don't have to take the test?"

  Sid rolled his eyes. "Stopping a demon invasion wasn't enough of a test? You earned it. But don't go flaunting it in front of Officer Ly or she'll have you back on that ladder faster than you can say 'crash landing.'"

  Like I ever wanted to see the Dragon Lady again.

  Dimitri wrapped his arm around my shoulders, warm and inviting. "Come here. You have to see this."

  I followed him to the front room. Next to a charred spot on the hardwood, Pirate stood behind a line of white plastic forks.

  "Look at this, Lizzie. One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Six forks! Want me to do it again? One! Two!…"

  I hardly knew what to think. "Did Ezra teach you that?"

  "No-sir-ee-bob. Dimitri taught me!" Dimitri rubbed Pirate between the ears and my dog closed his eyes with pleasure.

  I stared at my dog. Was he imitating? It had to be. "Dogs can't count."

  Dimitri grinned. "Not with that attitude."

  He stood and wrapped his arm around my waist. "I figured now that Pirate's going to be a world traveler, he needs to learn a few new things."

  The griffin had a point. I yanked him closer and dragged my fingertips along his side, pleased at the little shiver I felt run through him. "So we're finally headed to Greece?"

  He ran his hand along my spine, trailing a line of kisses up my neck. "The sooner the better."

  At last I'd meet his sisters, sip a little ouzo, help unravel the secrets that brought Dimitri to me in the first place. "I love you," I said.

  He grinned. "Finally."

  Growing up, ANGIE Fox used to keep a flashlight in her bookcase for emergency situations when she had to read "just one more chapter" after lights out. She even tried her hand at writing—an illustrated book about a dog that ate his family's Thanksgiving turkey. Of course the book had a happy ending—the family spent Thanksgiving at McDonald's.

  Angie kept writing and eventually graduated with a journalism degree from the University of Missouri. She worked briefly in television news before she realized it was more fun to make up her own facts. Thus, a career in advertising was born. Angie became a copywriter—a job she loved, and still does. She squeezes in freelance advertising jobs between her fiction projects.

  Visit Angie at www.angiefox.com.

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