by Angie Fox
Before it could bite him or burn him or burrow into his living skin, Max stuffed the dreg into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
“You –” I said, out of breath and staring as the lump of the dreg trailed down his throat.
He swallowed hard. “Not my fault,” Max managed, trying to work the dreg all the way down. “I assumed it would go for me first.”
“What made you think you could eat it?” Dimitri demanded.
Max gripped this throat, still struggling to force the dreg all the way down. “It’s what I do. I’m a hunter. I eat bad things for breakfast.” He choked, pointing at his throat. “This one’s from purgatory.”
Dimitri seemed surprised. “How can you tell?”
Max made a strangled sound. “Tastes like chicken.”
I stared at him for a long moment. “This is why you’re going demonic.”
Max shrugged, panting as the last of it went down. “So what? It’s gone. Every one of them needs to be wiped off the face of the Earth.”
“Well that’s just super.” I threw out my hands like an Italian grandmother, not caring a bit.
On paper, I understood Max’s obsession with eliminating evil. But come on. I slammed the lid on the jar before the zombie rope could escape too.
“And you,” I said, turning toward the immense griffin, “Stop being brave.” Demons eat griffins like candy. I recognized Dimitri’s insane desire to protect me. But if he jumped at another demonic creature, I was going to skewer him myself. Neither one of these lug heads wanted to look at the big picture – at the cost.
“Lizzie,” Dimitri dashed past me to catch Max. He grasped the demon hunter by the shoulders and helped him slide down the wall.
Max gasped for breath. He rocked backward clutching his stomach, his eyes rolling back into his head.
“What’s going on?” I asked, drawing a switch star.
Max’s eyes bulged. “It’s still alive,” he gasped, fighting for breath.
“Impossible.” Max ate things. Max destroyed evil.
“Remember how it burrowed into you, Lizzie?” Dimitri asked, checking Max’s eyes. “He introduced it straight into his system.”
Holy Hades.
“How do you feel, Max?” I asked, taking three steps backward. If the dreg had turned him, I needed a clean shot.
Max doubled over and screamed. He clutched his stomach, the corded muscles of his arms bulging with the effort.
My fingers tightened around the holes of the switch star.
“Stop it Lizzie,” Dimitri checked his pulse. “It’s the dreg.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” I could tell from Dimitri’s expression that he’d watched this before – when the dreg had taken hold of me.
Max writhed on the floor, his muscles twisted, his head slamming back against the concrete. His eyes fixed on a faraway place and blood mixed with spittle trickled from the corner of his mouth.
Fear welled in my throat. This is what would have happened to me if Dimitri hadn’t dug the abomination out of my leg. I remembered the burning pain, the sheer terror. Max was suffering a nightmare meant for me.
“How long does it last?” I asked, worried, guilty and more than a little scared.
“I don’t know.”
I wanted to take some of the pain away, or to at least comfort him. Max didn’t have anyone. I did the one thing that felt right given the circumstances. I reached out and took the hunter’s hand.
He clutched it hard as another wave of pain poured through him.
Dimitri’s expression hardened. “I didn’t say he wasn’t going to turn.”
“I have my switch stars right here.”
“He doesn’t need your help.”
That was the thing – he did. Dimitri might be the one I loved, the man who gave until it hurt, but right now Max was the one who needed me.
I stayed with him until the worst of the pain passed. He shuddered one last time and cleared his throat as he lay still.
“You don’t need to get up right away,” I said.
Sweat beaded his forehead. “Yes, I do.”
Max opened his eyes. They were still amber, thank the lord.
He forced himself to sit, his arms shaking. “I need to go that way,” he said, pointing at the steel wall of the vault.
I swallowed, my mouth dry. “It’s compelling him.” Max had said it earlier. The dreg made you go places.
“Stick with us,” I said, “we’ll help you.”
This thing is supposed to be in me, making me go.
Max winced. “I’m not sure I trust myself to travel.”
“You don’t have a choice,” Dimitri said.
He was right. Max gave that up when he swallowed the dreg.
We knew it was from purgatory now, which meant we could go on to California.
Maybe Max could lead us to the one who sent the banshees, the one who’d hurt my dad. Besides, I reminded him, “you can’t do your job if you’re battling a demonic compulsion.” I didn’t want to leave him here alone. And I sure didn’t want him letting any of those demons out.
“We’ll help you destroy it,” I promised. I hoped.
And if he turned, I was the only one who could keep him from going rogue. I’d step up and put Max out of his misery.
Max groaned and threw his head back as a fresh wave of pain hit him.
This could have been me.
Dimitri seemed to be thinking the same thing. He cringed as he watched the hunter fight through it.
I squeezed Max’s arm. “We owe you that much.”
He’d helped us defeat the demons in Las Vegas, he’d let us know what we were dealing with tonight. And he was suffering.
“We don’t have much of a choice,” Dimitri said, resigned. He came from a warrior’s philosophy – you’re either on our side or you’re not. Dimitri didn’t have much time for creatures like Max, or the complications they could trigger.
“Dimitri,” I repeated.
A muscle in his jaw twitched. He had to see the truth that I didn’t want to say out loud: the torture could make Max turn.
“All right, hunter.” Dimitri bent down and eased an arm around Max, pulling him to his feet. “You’re with us now.”
Chapter Ten
Now all I had to do was convince the fairy to let Max tag along.
Grandma and I kept alert as we ducked out of the darkened prison and hurried across the broken down parking lot. Dimitri and Max stayed behind to dispose of the dead imp and mop up the blood.
We’d left just as Max had begun giving my griffin instructions. That was bound to go over well.
“I don’t like it,” Grandma said.
Truth be told, I didn’t either.
“We don’t have a choice. We have to bring Max with us,” I said, glancing over my shoulder.
A glowing red orb had followed us as far as the kitchen. We certainly didn’t need any supernatural troublemakers on the road. A clumsy dragon, a talking dog and a zombie rope were plenty, thank you very much.
The night had grown colder. I rubbed my arms for warmth as we hurried toward the bikes. I couldn’t wait to get beyond the fence line - and as soon as Dimitri and Max joined us - away from this place all together.
“I can’t believe you let him eat your bug,” Grandma huffed.
‘Let’ wasn’t the right word in my opinion.
“There’s nothing we can do about it now,” I said, allowing her to slip through the hole in the fence ahead of me. “We need to focus on getting to California.”
She nodded, taking note of the lights from the patrols. “I’ll convince the witches. You take Sid.”
An entire coven versus Sid? Somehow, I think Grandma got the better end of the deal.
When she saw my expression, Grandma just laughed and slapped me on the back.
She knew what was coming. So did I.
A minute later, Sid and I stood by the bikes. He crossed his meaty arms over his chest and sc
owled. He’d gone from smelling like bubblegum to reeking of burned cheese. And I was pretty sure he was about two seconds from siccing Ant Eater on me.
“I am not taking that degenerate down a fairy path.”
“Heavens to Betsy, Sid. It’s one more person.”
Sid narrowed his eyes. “He’s not a person.”
“Just because he’s half demon,” and slightly possessed, “and he lives in an abandoned women’s prison does not mean we can’t help him out.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max staggering across the parking lot with a lockbox in one hand and a pack slung over his shoulder. Dimitri followed like an immense, angry shadow.
We didn’t have much time before this was going to turn into a very personal discussion.
“Look, Sid.” I leaned in close and tried not to choke as I caught a waft of charred brie. “The sooner we fix this with my dad, the sooner you and Ant Eater can get back to New Jersey.”
“Newsflash, princess. I can do what I do with my lady in Jersey, Vegas or Timbuktu.” He jabbed his thumb behind him, toward the prison. “That guy is our worst nightmare. Fairy paths aren’t indestructible. He’ll clog up the lines.”
“I also have a taste for Mag Mell Mushrooms,” Max said over Sid’s shoulder.
The fairy jumped a foot, showering glitter on my shoes.
“Smooth move,” I said to the unrepentant hunter. “Wait. You’ve been on the trails before.” How else would he know about the mushrooms?
“I’ve been around.”
The man was frighteningly intense, even when he was about to keel over.
Sid took a step backward, one beefy arm out in front of him. “Well, you’re not coming with me.”
There was no way around this. Max had to come. Of course Sid didn’t have to open the fairy path, but frankly, I was used to gliding on air. Which gave me an idea.
“What if he doesn’t touch the trails?”
Sid rolled his eyes. “Aside from that being impossible -”
“I can levitate,” I said.
Dimitri’s mouth split into the first grin I’d seen on him all night.
He’d told me I didn’t use my powers enough. It had been so hard to wrap my head around the idea of being a slayer that I sometimes tended to go with familiar solutions. Not this time.
Maybe I was getting the hang of these powers.
Sid knew it too. Still, he wasn’t about to go down without a fight. It was the principal of the thing. “You promise you won’t let him touch a path?”
“You got it.”
“Not a blade of grass.”
“Or a Mag Mell Mushroom,” Max added.
I elbowed him in the ribs. “Not helping.”
“Fine,” Sid muttered. ”But he’s finding his own way back from California.”
“Agreed,” Max said.
“Fantastic. It’s settled.” Frankly, I hoped he’d make it that long.
As we gathered up the coven to leave, Max eased onto the back of my bike. It felt strange to ride with a man who wasn’t Dimitri. Max wrapped his arms around me.
“That’s a bit tight,” I said.
His warm breath brushed my ear. “Any looser and I’d fall off.”
From the expression Dimitri wore, I don’t think he would have minded Max falling off—and getting run over while he was at it.
We rumbled away from the abandoned prison, kicking up dust as we hit the road. Sid led us farther into the desert, down highway 95 until we came to a sign that advertised The Red Hot Rockettes. I hoped they weren’t like the real Rockettes because these girls were lounging on a bear skin rug, posed strategically in nothing but their smiles. They did not look like they should be forming a kick line.
Sid pulled off near the sign and we followed him. My bike bumped over several ruts in the shoulder of the road and Max jostled behind me.
“Is that a cyanide injector in your pocket are you just happy to be riding with me?” I joked.
“Is that demon slayer humor?” he asked, amusement finding its way into his voice.
“I’m trying,” I said. “How’s the pain?”
“Don’t ask.”
“Let’s focus on the road,” Dimitri muttered next to us. “And on your powers. You remember what to do?”
Dimitri had given up his position in the back and was riding a tight shotgun. Any closer and he’d qualify as a sidecar.
“You worry too much,” I said, desperate for levity. It was bad enough we had my dad to cure, banshees on our tail and a semi-possessed hunter at my back. Now Dimitri had to question my ability to get this bike airborne.
Truth be told, I was a little concerned myself.
My mentor had taught me how to levitate by making me jump out of a tree. The landings weren’t pleasant and that’s when I only had myself to worry about. But Max and I weren’t leaping off high branches or coasting down a cliff. I just had to get the bike airborne a few inches and hold us there.
Frieda pulled up on the other side of us. “You okay?”
“Of course.” The worst thing about wondering, worrying if I was going to pull this off was that everybody seemed to have the same doubts as me.
They needed to have some faith. So did I.
I clutched the handlebars of my bike.
Sid groaned as he dragged open a sliding door straight out of the billboard pole. Inside, a fairy path bloomed.
“Let’s do this.” I kicked my front tire up and reached deep inside of me.
Accept the Universe. There was no other way to get to Pasadena by morning. This had to happen.
I found the flicker of power I needed and with a wince and a prayer, the front tire of my bike lifted off the ground and onto the moonlit fairy path. I tried to hide my surprise and delight when the back tire did the same.
“Let’s move, people,” Sid called, jogging to his bike. Max and I whizzed past him, and just like that, we were off.
We rode Bumpy Jump Junction through purple desert canyons and on to Limeny Quick, a trail flush with pink hummingbirds and mounds of wild honeysuckle.
The highway ran greener and wilder as we approached the coast. The trees bloomed with exotic flowers and dripped with red and purple fruit.
Levitating came surprisingly easy after I’d convinced myself I could do it. It was like taking a separate road – a better one. This way, I didn’t rumble over the stone fairy bridges. Max and I went up and around them.
The hunter shuddered against my back as we zoomed past a field of rainbows.
“You okay?” The spasms weren’t coming as often the nearer we got to Pasadena, but they seemed more violent.
Max didn’t answer.
Don’t go changing on me. Not on the back of a hog.
The closer we came to the coast, I could also feel my dad. I sensed him in the same burning way I’d felt him that night outside Big Nose Kate’s.
I gunned my bike.
When I was a kid, I had fantasies about what my real parents would be like. They wouldn’t make me study so hard or stand so straight, or eat Grandma Renquith Noxington IV’s paté. My true parents would love me even if my room wasn’t clean and I smelled like last night’s horse riding lessons.
If only they hadn’t given me up.
But they had.
I’d convinced myself for years that it had been for some great cause that I couldn’t understand.
Someday, they’d come back for me and they’d see how wonderful I was and they’d want me. They’d regret giving me up. We’d be a family again.
I wasn’t that naïve anymore. I didn’t believe anyone was perfect, much less the people that left me to be raised by someone else. My adoptive parents had done their best, but it was obvious we didn’t have much in common.
Now the only thing I wanted from my birth parents was some sort of validation for who I was. Some reason for what I felt and what I’d become. My mother had set me on the path to becoming a demon slayer. My father had supernatural powers
I’d save him. I’d show him what he’d been missing in the last thirty years.
And maybe, just maybe, if I was really lucky, I wouldn’t have to prove anything. He’d see it on his own.
“Hold up. Hey.” Sid zoomed up on my side. “Exit to the left.”
Sid rumbled his bike ahead of us. He slowed and came to a stop under a willow tree next to a babbling brook.
“Damned side exits,” Sid grumbled as he lurched off his bike and began splashing through the creek. He dug his fingers into a brown gate at the edge of a meadow and pulled it open.
We were immediately assaulted with rap music. The thump-thumping beats of “Jump Around” blared into the meadow, accompanied by the smell of gasoline and McDonalds French fries.
Personally, I was a bit disappointed to be exiting from paradise but at least now I could keep my tires on the ground.
“Welcome to San Fernando,” Sid said like an overly proud tour guide.
“We wanted to go to Pasadena,” I protested.
“This is a fairy trail, not door-to-door delivery.” Sid grumbled. “We’ll take the 210 south and we’ll be there lickety split.”
We exited the fairy path and found ourselves in an alley behind a row of fast-food restaurants. It was a world of grease, packed Dumpsters and car horns. The zombie rope leapt inside the jar, thunking it against my leg. Either he was a fan of McDonald’s fries or he knew we were close.
Sid led us to the 210 south and we took it into Pasadena.
We rode down a main street, teeming with car dealerships, more fast-food places and a surprising number of dry cleaners. It was newer than the valley, but not too different.
“Let me drive,” Max said against my ear.
I nudged him out of my personal space. “Not on your life.”
“Then make a left at the Taco Bell.”
“Gotcha.” I made the turn. Half the witches made it through the light with me. The rest waited in the middle lane with Flappy the dragon. Somebody was going to have an accident. Dimitri circled back to try and get Flappy in the air.
We pulled over to wait in the back parking lot of a Bed Bath & Beyond. “How much farther?” I asked.
Max strained, as if looking for a sign. “How should I know? I didn’t swallow a road map along with the dreg.”
The zombie rope banged against the lid of the jar like a Mexican jumping bean.