A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

by Angie Fox

  It was in this slightly woozy state that I leaned against the wall in Dimitri’s foyer and eased the yellow stone out of my utility belt. In the light, it looked like a rough piece of marble. I couldn’t even explain what had led us to the collapsed rock face or why I’d felt the need to excavate it.

  Dyonne had greeted us at the door. Now she stared at the stone with as much confusion as me.

  “It didn’t belong there,” I told her, although that didn’t really explain why I’d decided to keep it.

  “It will be trouble for you,” Amara said, the corners of her mouth turning upward.

  Oh please. “Will you finish getting dressed?” She still hadn’t zipped up the side of her dress or found her bra.

  Dimitri had gone straight to his quarters for a new pair of shorts. If she thought she could hold out until he returned, she was nuts.

  “Let’s just get to work in the morning,” said Dyonne, as she ushered us toward the stairs. “I don’t know if it was the imp attack or the fact that the Skye magic is a bit more than we can handle right now, but”—she shook her head—“I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.”

  I gave her a squeeze on the arm, hoping to reassure her when I didn’t quite have the words. I knew what it was like to have something special inside that you didn’t quite know how to use. She’d get through it, and so would I.

  “You know what?” I said, pausing as a thought grabbed me. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  They ascended the staircase while I stopped by the library directly off the main foyer. As nice as it was to fly at nausea-inducing speeds over Dimitri’s home, I intended to learn something about the history of the place as well. Knowledge is power, and besides, I’ve always loved research.

  Amber wall sconces bathed the library in warm pools of light. Built-in bookcases crowded the circular room, stretching at least two stories high around arched windows. A family crest and a stone memorial were set into the wall, dedicating this as the library of Nikkos Kallinikos, circa 1789.

  The room smelled like old books and plaster. I set to work on the shelves to the right of the door, starting at the lowest shelf and working my way up. Then I moved to the bottom of the next shelf and worked my way up. At first, my wobbly legs protested. Soon, I was too wrapped up in the books to notice.

  I found comfort in the systematic search. More than that, I didn’t want to miss anything important. Most of the books on the first set of shelves had to do with the history of the Greek city-states and early Mycenaean culture. Then middle history, modern history, flora and fauna. I used my pointer finger to skim the thick volumes.

  While in another life I could have happily spent a month in here, tonight I had a purpose. I found two black leather history books on a low shelf near the center of the room. One focused strictly on the Kallinikos family, the other on the griffin clans themselves. Fifteen more minutes of searching and I had a history of the house, including maps of the estate.

  I smiled as I made a quick search of the rest of the books, just to make sure I had the most important volumes. Sure, Nancy Drew might have sleuthed her way into answers about the house and its past. I believed in taking a more direct approach.

  It might not be sexy, but I was nothing if not practical. I hefted the thick volumes into the crook of my arm and made my way to the stairs.

  Who knew? The next part of my research might be quite stimulating. After all, I fully intended to involve my griffin boyfriend.

  I returned to my room to find Pirate running from the door to the dresser and then back again, his nose to the floor. I stacked my research books on the long dresser to the right and clicked open the crystal buckle on my utility belt. “Pirate, what are you—? Hey!” His cold nose brushed my toes.

  “She was here. With that cat. See? Cat hair here and cat smell here and cat hair here.” He shoved his head under the dresser. “Mmm…crumb. I tell you, I don’t like that cat one bit.”

  Pirate was excitable anyway, but this was like Pirate on Starbucks. His entire body quivered.

  “Wait,” I said to his stubbly little tail. “Who was here?”

  “Ohh…Lizzie. Amara and that no-good Isabelle, although I should call her Fang Breath.” He yanked his head out from under the dresser. “Don’t you worry because I chased them off, watchdog-style.”

  “Good.” Amara had no business coming in here. Whatever she had to say, she could have said downstairs. She sure didn’t seem like the type to hold back. Besides, knocking on the door was one thing. Sneaking in was another.

  Pirate cocked his head to the side. “Can I bite her next time?”

  “No,” I said, not really meaning it.

  “She gave you a book,” Pirate said, hopping on the bed and leaning to sniff a rich blue journal on my nightstand. “She said it was her mama’s and that you needed to see what was inside.” He let out a wet doggie sniffle over the leather-bound volume. “Personally, I think the entire thing smells like trouble.”

  As if we hadn’t had enough of it lately.

  I took the straw-wrapped stone from my utility belt and placed both it and the belt on the nightstand next to the bed. “Ohh.” He paraded straight across my lap, his paws digging into my thighs. Pirate, of course, didn’t notice. “Pretty!” he said, inspecting my find.

  “Right,” I replied, rubbing him on the head. “But no sniffing, chewing or licking. I’m not sure what it is yet.”

  “Aw, now that’s no fun.” Pirate lost interest almost immediately. He pawed at the thick white bedspread, curling up at my side as I picked up Amara’s gift.

  “So this was her mother’s,” I said to myself. Though it would have been hard for Amara’s mother to dislike me as much as her daughter did, I was sure I wouldn’t be doing cartwheels at whatever the book had to say.

  As I opened the front cover, I realized it was a journal. The title page read, Predictions of Alana.

  Perfect. Mom was psychic too.

  Or at least she thought she was.

  I slammed the book shut and scooped up Pirate. “Come on. We’re going to have a talk with Amara.”

  “You take Amara. I’ll do a growly-dog number on the cat. I might even throw in a snarly bark. That move is not just for the UPS guy!”

  “Pirate,” I said, storming out into the hall. “Let me do the talking.”

  “Now that’s no fair. You always get to talk.”

  Amara answered on the first knock. She wore a silky white nightgown and an amused expression.

  “Why were you in my room?” I demanded.

  She tilted her head. “To lend you my mother’s journal, of course. Have you read it?”

  “I’ve been more concerned with you picking my door lock.”

  She feigned surprise. “I’m good, but I’m not that good. You left your door open,” she said. A white Persian cat yowled at her feet. She scooped it up and stroked it, watching me. “Just read the book. I think you’ll find it fascinating.”

  Pirate’s entire body vibrated as he growled.

  “Oh please,” she said to my dog. “It’s a scandal we only have one cat around here. We griffins have an affinity for cats. And birds. Although that can prove troublesome.”

  “Just stay out of my room,” I told her.

  I should have returned the book as well. But I didn’t. Like I said, I’m not one to refuse a tool.

  Pirate and I trudged back to our room and plopped down on the bed to take a better look at Amara’s “gift.” I’d decide for myself whether the journal proved useful.

  The edges of each page were lined in gold. A torn piece of parchment marked a place near the end of the book. I opened it and found an illustration of a gorgeous sunset done in watercolor. Below it on the thick, unlined paper was an entry in flowing black script.

  There shall be a woman who comes between what should be and what is. She wears the emerald and her name is on the lips of the beloved. She will be lost at the Callidora, the first time in joy, the second time in death. She wil
l be split in two.

  Oh lovely. Another death prediction. My fingers went to Dimitri’s emerald at my neck as my gaze fell on the armoire with my mother’s training bar locked inside. Let’s see, I could either be gutted or chopped in half. Choices, choices…

  Pirate rubbed his muzzle against my hand. “Oh now, Lizzie, don’t be sad. We can get you a different book.”

  I slipped my fingers behind his ears, rubbing until his back leg began to quiver.

  Yeah, well I had a better idea.

  I knocked on the door to Dimitri’s room.

  He opened it wearing a pair of green plaid boxers and nothing else.

  The man was temptation in the flesh. Too bad we didn’t have time for that right now. I placed the book in his hands. “Take a look at this.”

  I ignored the way he undressed me with his eyes. Instead, I scooted past my personal Greek god and flopped down on his bed. He cocked an eyebrow and sat down next to me, book in hand.

  Dimitri’s room was the same size as mine, with slate gray walls and a cherrywood sleigh bed. The furniture was more masculine, but arranged the same. It was tidy and comfortable. Still, it didn’t feel like him.

  “This isn’t your room,” I said, almost to myself.

  “No,” he murmured, slipping his hand into the book and finding the parchment marker. “I moved to be closer to you and my sisters.”

  Dimitri angled his head. “What am I looking for?” he asked, opening the book.

  I blew out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. “Just read the passage.”

  His face darkened as he opened the volume. “It’s a journal,” he said dryly, as if he already knew what it was and wasn’t quite ready to admit it to me. He leaned over it, feet planted on the floor, a lock of black hair falling over his forehead. I watched him frown as he read the passage predicting my downfall.

  “Chopped in half,” I said, in case he hadn’t read fast enough.

  He ran a finger over the page, contemplating it like an academic. “Split in two,” he murmured, focused on the book in front of him.

  Oh please. He was far too calm about this. “What’s the diff erence? This is the second death prediction in forty-eight hours.” And the next time Grandma asked me to open something of my mother’s on the way out of town, I was going to drop her mystical bar straight into checked luggage.

  He closed the book with one hand and pointed to me with the volume. “I know where you’re going, and you need to stop.”

  He had to be kidding. “Why? I consider this fair warning.”

  “No,” he said, drawing my hands to my sides. Shoot. I’d been gesturing like an Italian grandmother. Dimitri studied me carefully. “You can do something about a warning,” he said. “This is merely fearmongering.”

  “Merely?”

  He leaned close enough to kiss, his chocolate brown eyes fixed on mine. “You are in control.”

  Had he read the passage? “No, I’m not.”

  I hadn’t been in control since my grandma showed up on my doorstep with jelly-jar magic and a demon on her tail. “I haven’t survived by being stupid. I’ve had two warnings. Two. The first one I could put down to my mom’s crazy magic. The second one I have to start taking seriously.”

  His fingers tightened on my arms. “You decide your own destiny, Lizzie. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.”

  Oh, so I was supposed to sit around, ignoring the warnings, pretending I was in charge. Not happening. I was a demon slayer. Besides, what part about being chopped in half did the man not understand?

  I shook off his grip and crossed my hands over my chest. He’d better feel like a rotten jerk when I turned up dead in a forest clearing.

  “Do you have a limestone building on the estate? Preferably in the middle of the woods?” I asked.

  He thumbed through the book, not answering. It didn’t matter, anyway. I could be killed anywhere. Dimitri, on the other hand, was as stubborn as they came. From his rock-hard head down to his size-twelve shoes.

  “You’re not listening to me,” I said.

  “You think so?” he asked, clearly frustrated. Well, he could join the club. “Tell me, Lizzie. What else did you have to say?”

  “That was it.” If he didn’t get it by now, he never would.

  “So I listened,” he said, as if that answered it all.

  No he hadn’t, or he’d have realized I could be in real trouble here. I didn’t know what was coming after me, only that it wanted me in pieces. Heck, I’d seen it with my own eyes, thanks to my mother’s crazy bar. Now part of me was missing on the grounds, we couldn’t find it and I couldn’t get the man who was supposed to love me to take it seriously.

  I felt so alone.

  He placed a warm, strong hand on my leg. “Here’s what you need to do about this.”

  Oh fun. Solutions. “Can you just listen and admit I’m in real trouble here?”

  “Do you want to know what to do about it or not?”

  I so wanted to say not. “Lay it on me, Merlin.” Not that I was going to like it.

  He slid an arm around my waist. “Trust yourself.”

  I sighed, refusing to lean against him the way I always did. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction. “You’d better be glad I don’t have my switch stars.”

  His fingers tightened on my hip. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  I turned to look at him. “How long have you known me?”

  Okay, so it had only been a few months. Still, we’d been through a lot.

  Dimitri nodded. “Very well.” He released me and stood. “I have something to show you,” he said, irony tingeing his voice as he reached into his dresser drawer and pulled out a Maglite. “We’re going on a field trip.”

  I won. A grin tickled my lips. “Let me go get my switch stars.”

  Dimitri grabbed his jeans.

  We made our way through the darkened house to the even darker outside. Dimitri flipped on his light as we descended the thick, white steps at the front of the house. The Mediterranean air blew warm against our faces and the waves pounded the rocks below.

  “This way,” he said, shining his beam onto a white rock path that wound away from the cliffs toward a break in the trees at the other side of the house.

  The white stone soon gave way to the island soil, rocky and strewn with bits of shell and pumice stone. High trees rose on either side of us, their lean trunks built to sway in the harsh coastal winds.

  We walked for several minutes, listening to the buzzing of insects and the tree branches swaying in the night. Abruptly, the trees ended, and we stood in a large clearing. Woodland rose up on all four sides and the moon shone down on the ruins of what looked to be an old church.

  I stopped cold. I’d been here before.

  This was the place from my vision.

  Broken stones had tumbled until only the portions of the walls remained. Dark pink flowers and weeds grew from the crushed limestone benches, and trees had begun to invade the walls.

  I’d seen the horror that would happen here.

  The stones themselves seemed to glow with a light of their own.

  Right now, it was a wildly beautiful place, arresting in its simplicity. But I knew.

  “This is the clearing I saw,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  Dimitri ran a hand down my back, lingering at the curve of my hip. “I was afraid of that.”

  My heart began to pound, readying for battle.

  “My family has held this land from the very beginning of time,” he said, as if he were talking about the Holy Grail.

  “You have to be kidding,” I said, still trying to believe I was there, on the very spot I’d seen. Granted, I hadn’t caught a lot of detail while I watched myself, my chest torn and bloody, but I knew enough to be very, very scared.

  “This is our gathering spot.” Dimitri walked toward the ruins and I followed. The moonlight slid over his back as he moved among the rocks. “The Helios clan is t
ied to the sun and sky,” he said, “but we are rooted in the earth of our home as well. This is a sacred place.”

  I took care on the uneven ground. I could feel the power and the magic. It surrounded us. Important things happened here.

  Yet if it was so vital, I couldn’t help wondering why it had been abandoned.

  As if he knew what I was thinking, Dimitri said, “This was once an exquisite temple. This section here,” he said, leading me to a section where stones jutted out, fighting the encroachment of a cluster of bushes, “this was the base of a massive tower with a bronze bell that gleamed in the sun.”

  He stood looking to the sky. Hundreds of stars shone above us. “I wish I could have seen it.”

  “You never did?”

  “Drawings. Pictures from the past,” he said, stepping closer, touching the rocks as if they might fall to pieces in his hands. “This building crumbled as my family did. When the curse came all of those years ago, we lost the ability to maintain our magic. This is not merely stone and plaster, but the heart of our family. With the death of my sisters, it would have collapsed to dust.” He paused, deep in thought, and then said almost on a whisper, “Now we have a chance.”

  I kissed him on the arm.

  He turned to me, his lips brushing mine. Dimitri was so strong, so determined.

  “You’re not going to die, Lizzie.” He drew his fingers down my cheek. “You’re going to prosper. Here. With me.”

  I wanted to believe that.

  “We have a choice,” he said, studying me. “We decide.” He stood tall, gazing over his family lands. “Do you believe this place can be beautiful again?” he whispered.

  “Yes,” I said. This man could do anything.

  He pulled away slightly, his hands cradling my chin and cheeks. “Why is it so easy for you to believe in me, and not in yourself?”

  Heat snaked up my body. I didn’t know. I broke away and almost stumbled against a cool slab of stone that seemed to have weathered the ravages placed upon Dimitri’s family. “What is this?” It lay close to the ground. No weeds grew around it. It looked to be a small altar, whiter than the rest, with a carving of a sixteen-point sun etched into the front.