The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers ds-2

by Angie Fox

  God, what was happening to Dimitri?

  I’d failed tonight. Dots hovered in front of my eyes as I stared at the dark marble floor in front of me. Sweat trickled down my spine as I racked my brain for something, anything to do.

  No one came.

  They were coming fast. “A hundred and twelve!”

  Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could reach Phil. Never mind that it had barely worked before Serena married Phil, took over his free will and tasked him with an integral part of her plan for world domination. It was better than counting the demons flooding through the portal.

  Sweat tickled between my eyes. I cocked my head and wiped my forehead on my shoulder. Cripes. I still wore Dimitri’s T-shirt. His musky scent short-circuited my brain and drilled warmth straight through me.

  I had to do this—for him and for everybody. I closed my eyes and pictured my fairy godfather.

  “Phil?” I called, pleaded really. I focused every ounce of strength and concentration into finding him. Maybe I could break through.

  “Phil.” I clenched my jaw and willed him to answer. Through the soupy, murky distance between our minds, I scrambled for him. I ached for him. Last time, I’d found him in a hurry. This time, I couldn’t locate a trace of my quirky, funny, teddy bear of a guardian. The man who’d fought to protect me had disappeared from the astral plane as if he’d never existed.

  I braced myself as Max’s demons broke free in a rush of bodies, tumbling, clawing, lashing out at whatever they could reach. They roiled toward the city, fracturing off along the way. The bitter taste of sulfur practically choked me.

  Add the demons from the portal and we had one hundred eighty. Make that one hundred eighty-eight. No way I could recapture that many demons, or stop the destruction.

  No more. I couldn’t watch. I forced my eyes open. I had to get away, even if it meant taking comfort in a deserted, dimly lit hallway. But I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. This place had changed too.

  Yellow vapor clouded the light from the sconces and the stench of sulfur lingered. I could see my breath in front of me, as the hellish smog wound through my lungs. I renewed my battle against the forces that kept my hands pinned in the floor, now icy with the power of Hades. I couldn’t feel my hands any longer, but I knew I had to get out of there.

  Now.

  Fear surged through me. It was survival at its most basic. Because they were coming for me next.

  I pulled until my wrists stretched nearly out of their sockets and thought, hoped, prayed I felt one move. This had to work because, frankly, nothing else had.

  However late, I had truly believed Joe would arrive, or Grandma and Dimitri. Or maybe Phil would find the strength to defeat the demons that held him, however impossible it seemed. I refused to think Serena would win.

  But she did.

  “Three hundred.” And counting.

  The demons rushed me in a wave of sulfur and rot. I could feel their leathery bodies, see the black shadowy figures surrounding me. Bony hands grabbed at my hair and clothes. They slipped under my arms, yanked me out of the floor and straight up.

  My toes left the floor as we hurtled straight up into the air. “Blazes!” Pain lanced through my head as they smacked it up against the ceiling.

  I breathed too close to one of them, inhaling the stench, and the back of my throat watered. They smacked my head against the ceiling again and my vision blurred.

  “Halt!” ordered a raspy voice as they practically smothered me with their frigid bodies. “It’s human. It can’t pass through.”

  Talons dug into my arms and I cringed at the multitude of icy hands pressing the top of my head against the concrete ceiling, as if they didn’t quite believe I could be so supernaturally inept. Acidic breath singed the back of my neck.

  My freed wrists ached and cold, dark, freezing air prickled my face as they rushed me down the hall. My toes never quite touched the floor as we darted around a corner and up a flight of stairs. So this was it. Serena was strong enough to kill me and take my power. Most likely, my Uncle Phil was already dead. They’d drain Dimitri. The Red Skulls would be fighting a losing battle for their lives.

  We burst into the control room and I winced against the glare. A second power source, most likely a backup generator, had kept the lights blazing and the control panels lit. Engineers’ stations lined three of the four walls, all the chairs empty, save one. Phil slumped over the control panels, his bulbous nose at rest next to a flashing orange button.

  My fairy godfather wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. I could feel it.

  I wondered if anyone else knew that.

  Windows along the fourth wall overlooked a massive sunken room with six truck-sized generators, each of them silent. Serena watched them, knowing I was there.

  It ticked me off.

  It was bad enough to be powerless, weaponless—without her rubbing it in.

  I had to figure out a way to destroy her before the demon army reached six hundred sixty-six. Because after the gates of hell opened, well, I didn’t know what could stop them.

  Five hundred and one.

  Triumphant, Serena flipped her pageboy haircut and strolled straight for me.

  Son of a mother. I wasn’t surprised, but I had a hard time containing the dread. She wore Dimitri’s emerald.

  She followed my gaze. “Oh, this old thing?” she said, her French-tipped nails lingering over the teardrop-shaped stone at the hollow of her throat. “He’s not coming. For all I know, someone else finished him off. He was quite tasty.”

  My stomach hitched. I wanted to kill her.

  I needed to force my emotions down or I’d never be able to focus. I had a job to do. Plain and simple. No telling how I’d destroy Serena, recapture the succubi and save Phil, but I knew I had to try.

  Five hundred eighty-two.

  A blue bubble formed in Serena’s palm, pulsing with a life of its own. Claws erupted from her fingers and her hands took on their true, skeletal form. I took an involuntary step backward and into a wall of freezing cold demons. They shoved me forward and I almost stumbled.

  Serena rubbed at the bubble with a taloned finger. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You won’t feel a thing.” The bubble grew to the size of a basketball. “Besides, you scream too much and I’ll send you to the third layer of hell with Max’s other slayer.”

  I stiffened. “You took her?”

  Serena winked. “Turned her. Same difference, really.” Demons seized my arms. “Now, hold still.” Serena gripped the bubble, wound back like a boxer and slammed it into my chest. Ice tore through my veins and at the same time I felt like I’d collided with a live electrical wire. Energy flooded my system and I realized, to my utter horror, that I could use none of it to move. It was like she’d bug-zapped me into complete paralysis.

  Six hundred five.

  The energy flowed between us in a frigid blue stream as I felt her searching inside me.

  “Oh you are a fun one.” Her perfectly arched brows knit. “I felt you take the mark,” she muttered. “Now where did you put it?”

  Sweet happy puppies! She must need the mark to get a grip on my power. And I’d gotten rid of it. My knees sagged in relief as the demons at my sides shoved me forward, upward, closer to Serena.

  I’d thought I wanted that extra edge, hoped like heck I hadn’t needed it. Max’s other slayer must have thought the same thing. But while she’d kept her mark, I’d shed Serena’s leash.

  Now what was I going to do about it?

  I swallowed hard, gathered my strength as Serena’s power prickled inside me. I knew I had one shot. One. Before I lost the element of surprise.

  It was a classic maneuver, like old J. Bennett used to do at the Springdale Country Club pool. He’d reach up, ask you for a hand out of the deep end and then—whammo—he’d yank you in, flip-flops and all.

  If he could do it, I could try. Problem was, for this plan to work, for me to seize all her power, I had to free all mine. I
had to open myself up to her completely.

  Sacrifice yourself.

  I didn’t know what her dark power would do to me. Jaws clenched, I served up everything I had and laid it bare. I’d never felt more raw or vulnerable. To my shock, I felt Phil join me. His presence felt like a warm hand on my back. A steady hum surged through my body as he mingled his life force with mine.

  Please let this work. I surrounded her energy as it searched me, and braced myself as I chose the precise moment to attack.

  Now or never.

  I took a deep breath, shot both hands through the blue stream connecting us and grabbed her power at the base of her white minidress. She shrieked as my fingers closed around it. Yeah, well she was going to do a lot worse than that. I kicked her backward and yanked her power into me.

  Serena gasped and tried to pull away. I pulled harder, but she’d already started to fall. Wet, red energy flooded my limbs, filling me up. Her sopping power streamed through my fingers and out onto the floor. The more of her power I had, the more I could get until it surged into me. Serena’s claws dug into my arms. Ha! They didn’t even make a scratch. She couldn’t hurt me anymore, and there was nothing she could do. She’d already plunged headfirst into my trap.

  It felt amazing.

  She stumbled backward as I went back for more, sopping up the remnants until I’d drained her. Then I flung off her measly blue current and shoved her shell of a body to the floor. Strength rushed through me until I was almost giddy with it, drunk on power.

  I spun and faced the demons behind me. They’d backed away, but not far enough. I thrust my hands out like Tasers and incinerated them on the spot. No switch stars required.

  Good gravy, I could get used to this.

  Ohhh, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I had a mental map of every demon from here to Panama City. Make that Quito. I could see them, like fire ants scurrying around the mound. And lucky for me, it turned out I could zap them mentally. I squashed the first two, marveling at how I could decide for them not to exist and—whammo. It was almost fun. But I didn’t have time to indulge myself.

  Nope, I might have been Lizzie the all-powerful, but I was also Lizzie the efficient. I torched the six hundred five in Las Vegas, then exterminated them in waves from here down to the Andes Mountains and out into California, until they were no more than hissing stains on the ground, or in one case, oozing down a circular staircase. Talk about a grand entrance for the ultimate demon slayer. Like a well-aimed can of Raid up into Canada and sweeping the United States until I hit ocean on every front.

  To make sure they’d never come back, I incinerated the portal. I had no trouble finding it now—a burning hole between our world and theirs. I could see why a chilly demon would have a hard time passing through. I fried it until it was no more than a churning mass of burnt embers, and to make it even better than before, wrapped it in a double layer of protection so nothing could dig itself out.

  I turned to the demon at my feet. Serena had shed the rest of her glamour. A leathery thing lay in place of the petite brunette. Hair sprouted in wiry clumps from her chin and blackened skull. Her cadaver-like hands scratched feebly at the industrial linoleum. I drove my hand forward to finish her and with a rush of shock, yanked my shot at the last minute.

  Phil was still attached to Serena.

  My wayward power surge zapped a gaping hole in one of the monitoring panels. Sparks zipped across the engineers’ board along the left wall. I raced for Phil, lifting him off the panel as live wires crackled and the whole thing started to smoke.

  God bless America.

  We had to figure this out. Fast. I didn’t want Serena melting into the floorboards with my uncle in tow. And I wasn’t sure how the succubi had managed to keep everyone official out of Hoover Dam, but I didn’t expect to have the same kind of luck. No way I could explain the blown-out turbines or the scorched control board or the fried demon holes in the floor.

  With Serena damaged, I could feel Phil’s strength building.

  “Hey,” I held his head in my hands and brushed his thinning gray comb-over out of his eyes. “I need you to think. She’s got you. Is there a way to pull away from a succubus?”

  His eyes fluttered and he sniffed. “I don’t know.”

  I glanced back at Serena. She’d pulled herself to her knees, glaring at us with red eyes. Gripes! I couldn’t squash her and I doubt she’d be willing to disclose the proper dose of power for a knockout blow.

  He shivered.

  “Come on, Phil.”

  His blue eyes opened and he looked at me the way I’d always wished my parents would. He cleared his throat and on a rasp, said, “Have I ever told you how proud I am of you?”

  My heart squeezed. “Not the time.”

  Serena slowly rose to her clawlike feet. She took an uneven step forward. “You want your uncle back? You let me go.”

  Impossible. Serena was too dangerous. Besides, there had to be another way. I had to break her hold on him.

  She began to shimmer. “Give me my power or I leave and take him with me.”

  Holy schniekes.

  I didn’t want to have to make that choice.

  Phil’s fingers closed in around my arm, his grip surprisingly strong. “Help me up. Now.”

  I pulled him to his feet. “Do you have your soul?” I asked, my fingers tracing along his chest, like I could feel it. It seemed like he did. I detected a presence, warm and steady. Still, I had to be sure.

  “I have it,” Phil said.

  He leaned over and kissed me on the cheek before he launched himself into the live wires on the control panel.

  “Oh my God! Phil!” His body jerked and sputtered. I dragged him away from the controls, raw electricity shooting up and down my arms. Without my new powers, I had no doubt it would have fried me. Even with them, my limbs burned with shock. I stumbled backward with Phil and we both hit the floor.

  Serena cackled. I hit her between her eyes with a jolt of power and rolled my fairy godfather onto his back. I couldn’t even see where the current had entered. My fingers danced up and down his neck, searching for a pulse.

  I lowered my shaking fingers. My fairy godfather was dead.

  Phil didn’t have to die to get us out of this. There should have been a better way. He’d already sacrificed himself once to try to save me. How many times did my fairy godfather have to give up his life for me?

  Heaven above, he actually looked happy. God, I felt like I’d failed him. I could save the entire West Coast, but I couldn’t save my own fairy godfather.

  I spent a quiet moment with the man who’d shared my struggles since childhood, the man who’d watched me grow into a demon slayer. He’d trusted me to see this through until the end, bet his life on it. I wouldn’t let him down. Worse, I didn’t know if he was completely free before he died. Serena could have damned him and I’d never know.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  The power churned inside of me. And I thought the dark mark was bad.

  Serena skittered away from me like a locust and hissed, struggling to stand.

  I zapped her hard. “Tell me where he is!”

  She snarled. “You know he’s mine.”

  Rage bit me to the core. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth or not. It didn’t matter. She’d never willingly give him back to me and now she was going to die.

  I aimed a killer surge at her chest.

  She screamed as the blast hit her. The most powerful she-demon to hit the West Coast went up in a shower of blue flame, fighting as her body melted into nothingness. I hit her with a blast to the neck to shut her up. Her head rolled from her body, silent except for the hiss and crackle of the obsidian fire.

  The old Lizzie might have felt regret, at least for her suffering as the shell fought and kicked. But I didn’t feel the slightest bit of shame. I enjoyed it.

  I stood, marveling at how I could have probably flown if I’d wanted. Black energy raged inside me. I swallowed, fi
ghting back the stark terror, doing my best to ignore my pounding heart. Hand to my chest, I felt Serena’s hellish force merge with my demon slayer powers, twisting together until I could barely distinguish the difference.

  I stood above the smoking pit of acid that had been Serena, her power thrumming from my toenails to my fingertips. And that’s when a cold realization struck. Serena might have gotten me after all. I didn’t own her energy. It owned me.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  “Lizzie!” Pirate’s voice echoed down the hallway. “I’m here for you, Lizzie!”

  Oh no—what was Pirate doing here?

  “Stay away!” I leapt over the remains of the demons and slammed the one and only door to the control room. Fear churned in my stomach. And worse—rage. My new powers screamed for an outlet. I released a fraction of it, enough to break the door lock. Instead the keyhole disappeared and the doorknob melted clean off.

  No, no, no.

  I folded my arms over my chest and swallowed hard, trying not to panic. So I wouldn’t be leaving this room for a while. At least no one else could get in. Not until I could get a handle on this.

  “What the hell?” Dimitri pounded on the door.

  “You’re alive.” Relief flooded me, followed by a stinging fear. Holy smokes—was I about to fry everyone I loved?

  “Lizzie!” Dimitri hollered, rattling the door down to its hinges. “What’s wrong?”

  Thank heaven, he sounded like his old self again.

  My entire body shaking, I battled the urge to rip the door open and show him exactly what was wrong with me.

  “I’m compromised,” I said, opting for the shorter version of I took on demon powers and now I might kill you… and my little dog too.

  Dimitri let out a string of curse words while Pirate scratched frantically on the other side of the door.

  “What’d they do to you?”

  I could practically feel his green eyes boring through the door.

  “Nothing.” I did it to them. “I took Serena’s power,” I said, eyes widening as my fingertips began to glow blue. “All of it.”

  I was answered in the worst possible way—by silence.