A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

by Angie Fox

  “Think of it as a test,” he said behind me.

  “One that could turn me into a demon slayer shish kebab. My favorite.” I cocked my head back over my shoulder, ignoring the twinkle in his impossibly green eyes. Um-hum. Green. Not brown anymore. The man was feeling positively devious. “You know most boyfriends like to open car doors or make dinner…you know, do nice things.”

  He gave me a smoldering look. “I’m nice.”

  My heart sped up. “Oh really?”

  “I’m giving you the chance to truly levitate.”

  “Or fall on my head.” It was a good thing I couldn’t see exactly what was down there.

  “Trust yourself,” he said, tracing a hand down my cheek. “The battle is about to begin. I can feel it.”

  I could too, like a promise in the air.

  “I know you’re ready,” he said. “You need to feel it too.”

  “Or die trying.”

  But I knew he had my back. In this last test, before the ultimate showdown, I had a griffin to catch my fall. And that gave me the courage to make the final leap.

  I shimmied out until I was sitting with my palms grating into the broken stone and my legs dangling over the rock cliff. I took a deep breath, lifted a booted foot over the abyss and pushed myself off into thin air.

  As the wind rushed past and the ground surged up to meet me, I didn’t think about falling. Instead, I focused on floating. I gave in to the weightless feeling, the surety that I could and would do this. I was a demon slayer in charge of my own destiny. The air caught me, and inch by inch, foot by foot, I lowered myself to the ground.

  As my toes met the sharp rock, I couldn’t help grinning. Ever since I’d gained my powers, I acted on instinct. Today felt like a choice.

  My favorite griffin landed beyond the old stream in a tangle of wildflowers. He was a sight for the ages—his raw power and strength under a full moon. He immediately shifted again, his feathers retracting, his body remolding itself, but not before I spied his jeans and T-shirt tied to his back leg and the laces of his combat boots hooked around an immense lion’s paw.

  The rock crunched like broken glass under my boots as I made my way for softer ground.

  “Taking cues from your sister?” I asked as he slid the jeans over his hips.

  “Don’t tell,” he said, reaching for his shirt, “or I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  We cut through the gardens and found Rachmort outside the stone armory, inspecting an enormous heap of bronze armor with an instrument that could best be described as superlong binoculars. The immense griffin breastplates, shields and gauntlets were stacked like an American Indian tepee with an engraved griffin helmet at the top.

  Rachmort nudged a finger into the pile. “There,” he said to a spiky-haired biker witch with a blowtorch.

  Oh no. It was Hawk.

  She liked to blow things up.

  “No explosions!” I hollered, breaking into a run. We were too close to Dimitri’s house and gardens and…

  “Chill out, demon slayer.” Hawk lowered a pair of silver welding glasses as she fired up a hot blue flame. “We’re constructing, not destructing.”

  That was debatable, to say the least.

  Hawk put the torch to the metal and went to work, sparks flying. That’s when I saw the Greek sun of Vergina on Dimitri’s family crest. Holy moley. It was the Helios clan armor.

  Using a breastplate as a kettle was one thing—destroying it was quite another.

  “What are you doing?” I yelled, too far away to stop them as generations of griffin armor went up in sparks.

  “Final touches on the cave of visions,” Grandma said, trotting up to me, her headlamp nearly blinding me. She held up a ripped piece of cardboard. On closer inspection, it was the side of a case of Southern Comfort. “See?” she said, pointing to a set of crude drawings. “We’re building it like a tepee.”

  It looked more like a mess.

  I groaned as Hawk began melting a priceless engraved neckpiece into a lump of mortar.

  Dimitri placed an arm around me. “My ancestors infused those weapons with ancient griffin magic. They hold power that has only grown stronger in the generations since. Why wouldn’t we want to use that now?”

  “We? I was thinking more like you.” I stared as Hawk began slicing a door through a battered shield with ancient Greek writing. It had to be at least a thousand years old.

  Dimitri didn’t flinch. “They’re materials, Lizzie. Tools. We’d be crazy not to use them right now.”

  “Says the man who did not grow up in a house where we weren’t even allowed to use the good hand towels.” My adoptive mom would have had a fit if she’d seen this.

  I forced my eyes away. I couldn’t look. Besides, we had bigger problems.

  Grandma and Frieda took over the task of making the hulk of metal leakproof, while Dimitri and I took Rachmort aside. We told him about the other demon slayer. The old necromancer’s eyes widened as I explained how the evil one was connected to me.

  “A doppelgänger,” he whispered, almost to himself.

  “What do we do about it?” I demanded.

  “Finish sealing the cave,” he ordered as he flung open a shield at the front of the pile of armor. It smacked up against a breastplate with an audible bong.

  I stole a final glance at Dimitri. “You can do this,” he told me.

  “Of course,” I replied. The only other time I’d attempted to commune with my destiny in the cave of visions, I’d been taken prisoner by a soul-stealing she-demon. This time had to be better, right?

  Hawk slammed the door and started up the blowtorch on the other side.

  “You’re not sealing us in,” I protested.

  “Nah.” I heard a muffled voice from the outside. “Just saw a crack.”

  Lovely. I breathed the metallic tinge of flame-broiled heirlooms and methane.

  Moving away from the door, I tried not to focus on the sparks dropping onto the ground behind us. A few faint streams of the coming dawn filtered into the structure, but for the most part, we were in the dark.

  “Come,” Rachmort said, sitting down cross-legged in the center of the structure. “I fear an attack is imminent. I’ve emptied my evil-creatures trap twice today.”

  “Imps?”

  “Pixies.”

  I settled myself on the ground across from him. I’d never actually seen a pixie, and that was fine by me.

  He took my hands and gripped them tight. “Let us see exactly what is behind this other demon slayer.”

  “We can do that?” I asked.

  In the near dark, Rachmort reminded me of a wizard, his eyes burning with excitement, his white hair wild about his face, his pockets glowing with heaven knows what. He drew me closer. “We can do so much more than you ever imagined.”

  I didn’t doubt it. In the short time I’d known this man, he’d helped me focus my powers, taught me how to levitate and informed me I must be uncomfortable in my own skin before I could grow. I must have been growing out of my supernatural hide right about then.

  An otherworldly breeze touched us as we focused our powers. I almost hated to ask, but…

  “Where’s the goat skull?” We always had Grandma’s dead goat in the cave of visions.

  “You do not need any necromantic touches with me,” he murmured, eyes closed.

  “Goldfish?” I asked.

  “You are not alone, Lizzie. We will protect each other.”

  Good point. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced my worries about Dimitri’s home, the destruction of the Skye stones and my own future out of my mind. Instead, I focused on the power of this place. I let it seep through me, work its way inside me, until I was filled with possibility.

  That’s when the temperature plunged. Goose bumps skittered down my arms. The frigid air chilled me as my breath quickened and every hair on my body stood on end.

  Rachmort uttered a low sound. “Do you see her?”

  “No,” I said, my
own breath warm against my face.

  “Look harder,” he murmured.

  I focused everything I had on the woman from the woods, how the mere sight of her made my heart drop and my skin crawl. She was evil incarnate, and as the veil dropped in my mind, I saw her.

  She wore a twisted smile, along with my purple prairie clover bustier and black leather pants. And she stood in my room. My eyes flew open “Pirate!”

  “Concentrate!” Rachmort ordered.

  Right. Focus. I slammed my eyes shut. “If she touches one hair on his knobby little head…”

  “He’s not in your room,” Rachmort said.

  He was right. I saw her rifling through my jewelry box, opening my drawers. “She’s looking for my training bar.” Good thing I’d left it with Grandma.

  “Look beyond what she’s doing,” Rachmort said, sounding very far away. “See into her. Let us observe what she is thinking.”

  Hard to do, when she’d found the wild hyacinth Dimitri had picked for me in the desert outside of Las Vegas. I remembered the walk we’d taken together. It was so special to me that I hadn’t even allowed myself to enjoy the flower. Instead, I’d dried it in my closet for later. It had seemed so natural at the time to sacrifice my pleasure to save it for another day. The doppelgänger crushed the flower in her hand.

  I wanted to reach out and slap her away, to gather the scattered blooms. Instead, I dropped all of my defenses and bored right into her head.

  Rage burned inside me. I saw my fingers crush the purple blooms. I enjoyed destroying Dimitri’s gift.

  The damned interfering griffin.

  “Who created you?” I demanded.

  I felt a suffocating tightness around my neck, as if invisible fingers had wrapped themselves around my throat.

  It doesn’t matter who created me. I am here.

  I own you.

  A chill ran down my body. As awful as her words were, as terrible as she felt—I recognized her, like a lost sister or the twin I never had. I felt as if I should know her. I struggled to remember. The answer was just beyond my grasp.

  She placed a hand on her switch stars and I felt the familiar hum.

  I touched my hand to my own belt. “They made you with that part of me, didn’t they?”

  Just call me your better half. You’ve had a good run, Lizzie. Now it’s my turn.

  “What do you mean?” Even as I asked the question I saw the door to her memories in my mind. I shoved it open.

  Her fury cascaded over me.

  Yet in the violence of the storm, I learned exactly who had created this awful version of a demon slayer.

  “Talos!” I leapt to my feet, ready to do battle. “Talos made her.” He’d stolen my essence. He’d called upon the very demons of hell to raise her up. Then he’d tried to kill me before I ever knew. “Talos called the cursed imps down on us.”

  She shoved back at me, pushing me out of her mind.

  “Why?” I demanded, scrabbling forward. Fighting back with everything I had.

  “Lizzie!” Rachmort grabbed my arm.

  I flung him aside.

  Do. Not. Stop. Me. I let her energy pour over me, through me. I used it to hang on to her. I didn’t come into this place to be safe. I came for answers.

  “What in Hades does Talos have to do with this?”

  The answers crashed over me like a tsunami. I saw Talos at the scarred wooden table, the same table he’d used to crush the Skye stones. He took that living piece of my demon slayer power and mixed it with…Skye magic. By griffins, he’d stolen the Skye magic from Diana and Dyonne.

  His gifts—his coral necklaces—seeped out their energy. They weren’t powerless. They weren’t damaged. They were compromised.

  He’d planned this from the start.

  “He wanted them to die,” I said slowly, seeing it through the mind of the doppelgänger. “His clan has been doing this for generations, working with the demon Vald. They were the opening, the source of the curse. They gave the griffins to Vald in exchange for a cut of the power.”

  They’d sold their souls to the devil.

  Hell and damnation.

  Vald. I’d killed Vald.

  Dimitri had needed me to save his family from the demon, and I did. I ended the curse.

  None of us could have thought, imagined, dreamed that the curse didn’t stop with the demon.

  I raised my head to where Rachmort braced himself against the wall, watching me.

  “The Dominos clan did it!” I told him. “They’re the enemy.”

  It unfolded like a sick play in my mind. The Dominos clan had wanted Dimitri’s family from the beginning. They’d helped Vald exterminate every woman for generations. Griffin magic was too pure for the demon to take. He’d needed help from other griffins.

  It all made sense.

  In my haze, I stormed toward the necromancer. “When Dimitri’s family grew weak and needed help, the Dominos clan stepped in. While Dimitri’s clan hemorrhaged from the inside, the Dominos clan stole bits of magic here and there. Scraps. But enough to elevate them above all the others.”

  Rachmort approached me, eyes wide, like a villager who stumbles upon a lion. I could only imagine what I looked like. “What do they want now? This is very important, Lizzie. Try to see it.”

  “Okay.” I pushed forward, hard and patient at the same time. I waited for it to unfold in my mind. When it did, I nearly fell sideways from the impact. “They want Dimitri. They want this estate. That’s why he’s supposed to marry Amara. They’re going to fold him into their clan. Only she doesn’t know it. She actually loves him.” I saw the Dominos elders plotting it all from a long blue room that backed up to the ocean. “They’re going to rob Diana and Dyonne of the last of their power. Soon. In battle. Then they’re going to kill them.”

  Of course they’d sworn to protect the land.

  They wanted it. And they’d kill the people who owned the land in order to get it.

  I saw it as it unfolded in front of me. The death of Vald had brought unlimited power to the Dominos clan. They had his army of imps, his mad desire. They’d use it to capture all of the Skye magic. They would have the strength of two clans.

  They’d be the most powerful griffins on the planet.

  “When Dimitri’s clan is wiped out, this whole place and its energy will belong to them. They’ll have enough power to control every griffin in the world.”

  Rachmort stood deathly still. “Griffins are in place in almost every government on the planet.”

  “Excuse me?” I said, fighting the haze.

  This was Dimitri’s family we were talking about, not the rest of griffinkind. At the moment, I didn’t care about any other griffins. I just needed my love, my griffin—and his family—to make it out of this alive.

  “Griffins are loyal,” Rachmort said. “Unless they are corrupted, as the Dominos clan was by Vald, griffins are noble and just creatures. They are drawn to service. Almost every good leader out there has at least some griffin blood.”

  That’s when the awfulness of the situation sunk in. “Don’t tell me Talos and the Dominos clan could control them.”

  The look on Rachmort’s face made me go cold.

  “They could collapse governments and entire economies. They could start wars between neighbors, genocide. Anything they wanted.”

  “Why?” I protested.

  “Do we really want to wait and see?”

  “We’d stop them,” I said.

  Somehow.

  “Not if they had their own demon slayer.”

  “What? The one they made from me?” It was all falling into place with a sickening thud. “I can beat her.”

  “Look into her mind.”

  I closed my eyes again and focused. I saw her running across the lawn—straight for us.

  “She’s coming!”

  Rachmort had to get out of here. She wanted blood, death, destruction.

  She wanted me.

  “She’s going to kill
me. Take the rest of me, body and soul. Then she’s going to wipe out any trace I ever existed.”

  “Yes.”

  “What do you mean, yes?” I stared at him, her wants and desires flooding me. “She wants the life and souls of everyone here—you, Grandma, Pirate.”

  Rachmort’s eyes blazed as he drew closer to me. “With every life, every soul, she grows more powerful.”

  “How do you know this?” I demanded.

  He stopped inches from me. “It is the way of the dark demon slayers.”

  “I didn’t even know we had dark ones!”

  I could see the sweat on his forehead and the fear behind his fury. “We wiped them out while you were still in diapers. We lost a lot of good ones in the pro cess.” He stared me down. “Didn’t you ever wonder why demon slayers are so rare? Why you’ve never met one like yourself? Hundreds of noble and powerful slayers died out in the Vast War. Hundreds of lines wiped out—forever. Now there’s just you.”

  A chill swept down my spine. “Me?”

  “You.”

  I didn’t even want to say it. “I’m the last of the demon slayers?”

  “Yes.”

  Sweet switch stars.

  Rachmort’s eyes never left mine. “You’re the only one who can defeat her.”

  “But I’m defeating myself.”

  “Yes.”

  “My powers.”

  “She is more powerful. She has your strengths and she has the power of generations of Skye magic behind her.”

  “Lovely!”

  Yes, I’d get right to killing the more powerful version of myself—with my strengths, my instincts, my powers, and an added dash of ancient griffin magic. Because I was the only one who had a shot in the world.

  “She’s heading for the Callidora,” Rachmort hissed, right before the wards began to explode.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  I burst out of the cave of visions and choked on the acrid smoke outside. Witches called to each other and dashed in an organized, frightening chaos. The earth shook and fire shot across the sky as the barriers took the impact of an all-out invasion.