by Angie Fox
“Famous last words.” I hated when he tried to take care of things for me. And I had a feeling that whatever this was, I wanted to know. “So are you going to tell me or…oh!” I gasped and gripped his arm. “There’s a creature on the plane,” I hissed. “Th ere!”
I pointed to a small, brown, scaled thing scrambling in circles on the cockpit door. It was a lizard with immense pointed ears and a tail as long as my arm. Its feet were like a monkey’s, complete with tufts of brown hair at the wrists and—holy cow—the creature turned to stare at me, its weathered face breaking into a crooked sneer that showed off a set of jagged teeth.
I gripped the seat in front of me and craned my body up for a better look as I reached for a switch star.
Dimitri stilled my hand. “Hold it, Lizzie. It’s only a gremlin.”
“What, like that Twilight Zone episode? ‘Nightmare at Twenty Thousand Feet’?” We hadn’t even made it off the runway.
“You do realize you have a flair for the dramatic,” Dimitri said, keeping his eyes on me while the creature wiggled its eyebrows at us.
I looked around the cabin. The other passengers were still settling in, some of them grazing the monster as they passed. It gave them slimy kisses and reached into their pockets.
Dimitri leaned closer. “Gremlins like to cause trouble, especially with electrical systems, but they’re not going to bring a modern plane down. They sneak onboard all the time. And believe me, you want them here rather than on the ground switching around your luggage tags.”
The stewardess brushed right past the creature as it stood on the cockpit doorknob and began what I could only describe as a most obscene dance.
“She’s not going to do anything?”
“That’s right,” Dimitri said, as if he understood what I couldn’t possibly comprehend. “You haven’t flown since you gained your powers.”
“I’ve been busy,” I snapped.
“She can’t see him,” Dimitri said. “No one can. Well, unless they have magical tendencies. Even so, one would have to be looking for problems.” He made sure to emphasize that last part.
“Well excuse me.” Yes, I was a demon slayer, and so far, it had brought me nothing but trouble. Now with this added death threat, I’d be crazy not to keep an eye out. As much as I would have liked to make this a private vacation for just me and Dimitri, I was glad Grandma would be there to begin my training. Maybe then I’d know more of what to expect.
The creature popped its head out of the galley. It ripped open a bag of snack mix and began chomping it loudly, with its mouth open.
“Of all the nerve.” That was probably my snack mix.
“Don’t interact with it too much,” Dimitri cautioned, “or it might follow us.”
“Onto our connecting flight?”
“They like cars too, although not as much as planes. It’s basically anything mechanical.” Lovely. The last thing I needed was a gremlin on my Harley.
I yanked my gaze off the creature. Instead of giving in to the urge to take one more look, I took a small notebook from my purse and focused on a new entry in what I was hoping would become a guidebook for demon slayers. So far, I had way more chapters than I’d ever planned.
To be added to The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers, Volume Two, subsection C: Magical creatures, benign.
What the gremlin lacks in aggression, it makes up in its unflagging desire to sabotage and disrupt. Teeth are long and jagged, although the one creature I’ve witnessed seems to prefer biting into Gardetto’s Original Recipe snack mix as opposed to anything else. His striking blue eyes and
I braced myself as the plane sped down the runway and took off with a lurch.
the obvious intelligence behind its stare make this creature
“Ohhhh…Lizzie,” I heard from the bag at my feet.
“It’s okay, baby dog,” I said, wishing I could do more.
The bag suddenly became very bumpy. “You said flying. Right. Okay. Well, I don’t like this kind of flying. Did you feel that? It’s like a rattle. Oh, and now a jiggle. I don’t think the bolts are tight on this airplane, and ooh biscuits…”
“Think of it like a Harley,” I said, resisting the urge to unzip him. We didn’t need a dog loose on the plane, even if FAA regulations didn’t strictly forbid it.
“I can’t, Lizzie. I just can’t. It’s not natural,” Pirate protested, as I reached down into the bag and found a wet snout.
The plane jolted and Pirate retreated to the far end of his bag, muttering under his breath. I was going to owe him a trip to Burger King for this one.
Dimitri touched my shoulder. “Lizzie.”
I leaned back into my seat. “It breaks my heart to do this to him,” I said, eyeing the bag. He was better off in it. I knew he was. Still it would make me feel better to hold him.
“Lizzie,” Dimitri said. “I need to tell you something while it’s loud in here.”
He looked as intense as I’ve ever seen him. “You know what you were asking before? About my business? Well, the situation didn’t unfold as I’d hoped. I’m sorry I have to explain it so quickly, but—”
We both cringed as we hit an air pocket and the plane dropped sharply.
“When I needed to find a demon slayer—you,” he corrected. “When I needed to find you, I used old griffin magic. I don’t have time to explain it all now, but basically, I traced a thread of your power and I used it to find the rest of you.”
I tried to digest that. “Wait. Before I was even a true slayer?” Dimitri had been the first one to find me.
“Yes,” he said.
My stomach twinged. I knew he was powerful, but it still humbled me every time.
“It’s a form of protective magic that I used for my own purposes. And I’m sorry.”
Oh no. “What do you have to be sorry about?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
He looked guilty. “When protective magic is used to expose instead of to guard, it makes the subject particularly vulnerable.”
“You mean me. It makes me vulnerable.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “I was desperate,” he said quickly. “I needed to find you.”
Wonderful it had worked out for him. But what about me?
“And now?” I asked.
“Someone else could use it too,” he said. “I’ve kept the thread well protected, hidden in something we griffins call a light box. It never leaves my study. Only someone tried to break in last night. Diana drove the creature off.”
“Creature?” As if we hadn’t run into enough creatures. “What kind?” I demanded. “Is the magic safe?”
He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Diana didn’t get a good look. And she hasn’t been able to inspect my office. My wards are too strong for her.”
“Great. Nice work.”
“I made inquiries today. All day. There were a few who knew I was using the thread to find you.”
“Like Grandma?”
“No. I never told her. Although she suspected when JR blew into town.”
“What? So now you’re calling in the werewolves?” Sure, JR was Dimitri’s friend, but his pack had also tried to kill me. If I was somehow exposed, I’d rather keep it to ourselves.
“Lizzie, it’s not like that.”
“Well, what is it like?”
“I’m trying to explain,” he insisted. “We don’t have much more time.”
He was right. The plane had started to level out.
Dimitri noticed it too. “I only told trusted allies. JR. Max.”
“Max?” Dimitri despised Max.
“We used the thread to help track you down when you went missing in Las Vegas. Besides, as a hunter, he’s sensitive to your energies. I needed the help. Now, do you want to hear how it went?”
“Of course.” And I would have appreciated knowing before now.
“From what I found today, I don’t think you’re compromised. Yet.”
“Gee, than
ks.”
He ignored my sarcasm. “We’ll know for sure once we get to my home. I’ll take you to my study, show you the light box, and then you can watch me destroy it.”
“You didn’t have any right to create it in the first place.”
“I know,” he said softly. “Do you want apologies or information?”
“Both are overdue.”
“We couldn’t do anything about it before now. It would have only fed into your fears. You were feeling weak already.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Here I was, worried about visions of danger, when he had my rear end out there for the world to see.
Then I asked him the worst question of all. “So what happens if somebody did steal it?”
Dimitri swallowed hard. “The possibilities for destruction are limitless.”
Chapter Three
I spent the rest of the flight lavishing attention on Pirate and ignoring Dimitri. Once the plane leveled off, we couldn’t discuss the risk Dimitri had taken with me. We didn’t know who could be listening. And I certainly didn’t feel like talking to him about anything else.
Pirate nudged my wrist with his cold nose. “Lizzie. Did you hear me, Lizzie? I said B-five.”
I tried to shake off my dark thoughts and focus on the travel-size game of Battleship on the tray table in front of us. A weak overhead light shone down on our game, while the rest of first class slumbered in the pockets of black that was night on board an airplane.
Inhaling, I flicked my eyes to the expectant Jack Russell terrier making swirls on the window with his stubby tail.
“Hit,” I said, trying not to smile. One must not grin when losing the battle.
“Ha!” He danced in place. “I knew it. I knew you liked to play ’em high. You’ve been playing ’em high all night.”
“Now that you’ve got most of my ships—” I began.
“Again,” he added with no small amount of glee.
I threw one hand up in a mock gesture of surrender and placed a round red peg into my largest battleship. “We should really be getting some sleep.”
“Oh no. No way I’m sleeping when I’m winning. Besides, I’m not going to shut one eye with that weaselly looking thingamabob ready to jump us.”
I followed Pirate’s narrowing eyes past the sleeping Dimitri to the gremlin, legs splayed and snoring on the seat across the aisle. “I think he’s out.”
Pirate twitched his ears like he did when he was thinking hard. “He could be faking. A watchdog can never be too careful.”
Times like this, I wished I could borrow some of Pirate’s energy. “I could have sworn I wore you out before the flight.”
“Um-hum,” Pirate said. “Good for you I can power-nap.” He studied the flip-up game board in front of him. “B-six.”
“Hit.”
I let Pirate obliterate the rest of my fleet before I leaned my seat back and closed my eyes, satisfied. Pirate had adapted rather well to air travel. My job, at least in that department, was done.
As far as the rest of it?
There was nothing I could do at the moment about my mother’s invisible bar or the supernatural risk Dimitri had taken—or for that matter, my sunken battleships. Tomorrow. I needed to be fresh for tomorrow.
It took me a while to fall asleep, and I doubted Pirate closed his eyes at all. From time to time, I’d wake and listen to him sniffing at the stale cabin air and feel him quiver as he watched the gremlin.
We landed in Athens and then boarded a puddle jumper bound for the island of Santorini. The Aegean Sea swirled like a rich blue cloud below us. White waves crested over the surface and streaked out from under the ferries and pleasure boats crisscrossing the Cyclades islands. All told, there were more than two hundred spots of land dotting the Aegean.
As we passed over the lush green islands, I tried to guess which might be inhabited, and if there were homes, what kind of people lived in the middle of a small ocean. Most of all, I wanted to be down there, under the hot sun. I wanted to dip my fingers into the churning waters. I wanted, for once, to be free.
I brushed my fingertips against the cold glass of the window and glanced back at Dimitri. We’d moved on to the polite stage, which was worse than being mad.
The issue of the stolen magic hung in the air between us and would until we had the privacy to talk it out. Even then, things wouldn’t be completely resolved until we reached his study to learn once and for all if we had a problem on our hands.
Pirate had curled up in his Port-A-Pooch once he was convinced the gremlin was no longer a threat—at least not to us. Shortly after we began our descent, the thing had given an explosive fart before it began squeezing into the overhead bins. I could hear it as it moved its way down the plane, shifting luggage.
I ignored the banging and focused on the beauty outside my window. The islands looked so peaceful from twenty thousand feet.
Maybe my life would finally make sense here in Greece.
Things could be simple if I let them. First, we’d make sure the magic Dimitri used to find me was safe and then destroyed. Then I’d put away my mother’s box. Grandma would be here soon enough with an instructor who understood that sort of thing. At long last I’d have the time and the guidance to learn about my new powers. In the meantime, I could relax.
After the pilot turned off the “fasten seat belt” sign and bid us good-bye, Dimitri took the bag with my sleeping dog and wrapped his other hand in mine. I adjusted my sunglasses as we made our way down the staircase of the plane and onto the tarmac below.
“I feel like a visiting dignitary,” I told him jokingly, giving a presidential wave for effect.
He squeezed my hand. “You are,” he said, ushering me toward a pair of brunettes inside the glass terminal. They wore matching coral necklaces and expressions of excitement.
They sprung upon us in a flurry of hugs, cheek kisses and olive blossoms.
“For your hair.” A willowy sister with an upturned nose and a yellow sundress slipped a spray of tiny white flowers behind my ear. I inhaled the scent of unfolding buds and freshly cut grass. She admired her handiwork before throwing her arms around me. “Oh I am so glad to finally meet you!”
“That’s Diana,” Dimitri said with obvious pleasure as he gripped his other sister and held her tight. He squeezed his eyes shut and I stopped to enjoy the moment vicariously.
When Dimitri left Greece, he didn’t know whether he’d see his sisters again. Now he was home.
I hugged Diana and marvelled at the fact that this was the woman who’d ridden a monstrous horse named Zeus through a raging thunderstorm and straight into the family dining room.
“Diana.” Her square-jawed sister laughed, her bronze-coin earrings jingling. “Give Lizzie some air.”
Diana giggled and launched herself at Dimitri.
“I’m Dyonne,” said the sister in the bronze-coin earrings and khaki shorts. She offered me a hand and then dragged me into another hug, my neck pressed against her chunky necklace. “Oh who cares? You’re family now, right?”
I wasn’t so sure but found myself grinning anyway. Who could be polite and detached around these two?
According to Dimitri, they’d always been a little wild. I didn’t blame them a bit. They’d lived their lives under a demon’s curse, knowing they’d fall into a coma when they reached the age of twenty-eight, and die twenty-eight days later. Dimitri and I had saved them.
Diana broke away from Dimitri, admiration and a few unshed tears shining in her eyes. “Our rescuer, in the flesh. You’re officially forgiven for using my Han Solo lunch box for target practice.”
Dimitri’s mouth quirked into a sideways grin. “You said you’d forgive me if I rescued Princess Leia from the carob tree.”
“Bah.” Dyonne took a playful swipe that Dimitri deftly avoided. “You only did it because Princess Leia was wearing a slave-girl bikini.”
Dyonne turned to me, her short-cropped hair falling in layers around her eyes. “Go
od thing for us, our brother’s taste has improved.” She winked.
“I don’t know about that,” I said, feeling the color creep up my cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” she touched my arm. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.” Her face glowed with pleasure. “I’m just so glad to have you both here. You don’t know how long we’ve waited to have him back, to be a nice, normal family, you know?”
I nodded. I did know. I was still looking for that.
“A dog!” Diana lifted a yawning Pirate out of his carrier and ruffled him thoroughly.
“Aw, that’s nice.” Pirate soaked up every pet. “Oh hold it. That tickles.”
Dimitri pulled Dyonne aside, but I heard each word he said. “Are there any new developments regarding the item in my study?”
Dyonne sobered at once. “Not that I can tell. I ran a few tests. So far, they look good. But you’re the only one who’ll know for sure.” She caught my eye and I detected a flash of worry, or perhaps guilt, before she broke away.
“The car’s waiting around front,” she said to everyone. “We’ll grab your luggage and head out. Christolo made your favorite, Dimitri. Pastitsio, with a cucumber and feta salad.”
Dimitri’s eyes lit up. He took my hand and picked up the pace. “Once you’ve had Christolo’s cooking, you’ll never want to leave.” He squeezed my hand.
“Ohh…” Pirate licked his chops. “I could go for some noodles right about now.”
I’d tell him later about the twenty-pound bag of Healthy Lite dog chow I’d shipped with our luggage.
On the way to and from baggage claim, the sisters informed me that my handsome Greek lover was allergic to broccoli, defended the entire family from a werewolf attack at age sixteen and had a habit of going out in rainstorms to rescue worms from the sidewalks. I also discovered the magic Dimitri used to find me could be very, very dangerous in the wrong hands.
“It’s okay. Dimitri can fix it,” Dyonne said, as if she was trying to convince herself too.
Dimitri slipped his arm around me as we sat in the backseat of his sister’s battered old Mercedes. I didn’t have to be strong all the time, did I? At least that’s what I told myself as I relaxed into the nook of his shoulder.