The Last of the Demon Slayers (19 page)

      
Not that I wasn’t all for spells, as well as inappropriate flashing of skin to Dimitri but, “Why?”

      
Couldn’t Grandma have a spell that didn’t involve dead things, insects or semi-nudity?

      
Grandma huffed as if I was the one causing trouble. “You question everything.”

      
“It’s kept me alive,” I said.

      
Grandma shot me The Look. “Your shirt touched Max. I need something for the Bloodhound Spell to track. Unless you’d rather use your pants.”

      
“Shirt is okay,” I said, reaching for the zipper on the side of my bustier while my mind scrambled to think of anything else Max had touched that wasn’t bolted down to my bike.

      
I slipped the silken garment over my head. I was probably going to regret this.

      
At least I was wearing a nice bra.

      
And, yes, I know a bustier is technically a bra too, but what can I say, I’ve never been able to wear one without, well, added insurance.

      
“Here.” I handed it over. “Use it well.” Or this wouldn’t be happening again.

      
She inspected it. “You should be wearing leather anyway.”

      
“Yes, well now that you have it, you want to tell me what you plan to do with it?” I glanced back at Dimitri, to confirm just how much Grandma was demanding from me. Naturally he was completely distracted by my pink bra.

      
I didn’t miss the way his eyes trailed over me. In fact, I couldn’t wait to explore that thought further once we made it back to our bus.

      
Grandma spread my lavender bustier over the three-pronged stick and sprinkled the entire thing with an herb mixture that smelled like smoked wood and cinnamon.

      
“
Locos veloxio
,” she chanted, low under her breath.

      
Okay, maybe I didn’t mind this spell too much.

      
“
Locos veloxio
.” She raised her hands to the sky.

      
Nearly a year ago, I would have worried, but in that time, I’d seen for myself how Grandma’s spells made a difference. Sure it was my only shirt, but I trusted her. She’d use it right. She’d track Max.

      
She pulled out a pack of matches from her back pocket.

      
I started for her. “Heavens to -”

      
Dimitri’s hand clamped down on my arm. “Lizzie, you can’t interrupt.”

      
“She’s going to torch my shirt!”

      
“Here,” he said, starting to take off his.

      
“I don’t want it,” I fired back, and instantly regretted it as his abs disappeared back under the black T-shirt.

      
God bless America. I couldn’t win.

      
Grandma held the flame over the last decent thing left in my wardrobe. “Don’t worry, Lizzie. This is going to work.”

      
“I think it just did,” Dimitri said, pointing to a figure running headlong across the strawberry field.

      
Holy heck. “Max!”

Chapter Fourteen

Grandma dropped the match.

“Hey!” I leapt over the crystal barrier and stomped at the smoke curling from my only nice top. The three-pronged stick snapped under my boot, and I tried not to think of the spiders Grandma had added to the mix as I mashed the silk bustier into the dirt and slime and devil knew what.

Was it too much to ask to get through one mission – just one – fully clothed?

“Lizzie, stop!” Grandma charged over the barrier just as the entire mess gave a loud pop and belched blue fumes. “Your shoe’s on fire!”

Silver flames erupted and I barely got my foot out before my boot – and my shirt - ignited like a fourth of July smoke bomb gone wrong.

The silver wall blasted as high as my head and shimmered, forming a mirror. The flickering surface showed Max high-tailing it across a strawberry field.

“Don’t wreck it,” Grandma frantically re-positioned the crystals I’d knocked over.

“We don’t need it,” I shot back. And it almost toasted me.

Heart hammering, I whirled around, hands on my hips my pink Victoria’s Secret Angel bra on display for the whole flipping camp.

Max ran straight for us as if chased by the devil himself. “What the heck is he doing?”

“I don’t see anyone behind him.” Dimitri handed me his shirt. This time I took it.

Grandma scanned the sky. “No banshees.”

“Or dregs,” I said, with rising concern. Dimitri’s shirt felt warm as I slipped it over my head.

Max burst into camp. “Get down, get down!” He whirled me around by the shirt sleeve as I was still putting the thing on. That’s when I noticed the tiny blonde on his tail.

Dimitri shoved me into the dirt as a blast of heat rocketed over us.

Max sprawled on the ground next to me. “She’s going to kill us.”

“What did you do?” I demanded.

But he was already up and running again.

I chased him because what the frick was I supposed to do? Spindly plants tore at my bare foot as I thundered after Max, with one boot on, one boot gone.

He dove behind a yellow rainbow van as another blast of heat nearly fried us.

I shoved a clump of hair out of my face. “Why is she trying to kill us?”

“She’s a pissed off demon slayer.” He drew a red, churning switch star out of his belt. His hunter weapons were useless, though. He couldn’t throw them. He had to get close. “Damn.” He slammed the star into the side of the bus.

I ducked. Sparks flew as it churned into the metal.

Max drew another star. “I wish I had a gun.”

I grabbed his arm. “Cut it out. You’re screwing up our cover. Besides, I’m the last of the demon slayers.”

“Oh yeah?” Max asked, eyes wide, his hair spiking all over the place.

I chanced a look and saw a petite blonde stalking toward our side of the bus. She couldn’t have been any older than me, with a pixie face and Marilyn Monroe hair tied up in a teal scarf. She wore a tailored white wrap-around shirt, flowered Capri pants and yow – four switch stars on her turquoise studded belt. She held a fifth star in her hot little hand.

Shock zinged through me.

“She’s a demon slayer.”

“Told you,” Max drawled.

Hells bells. Only demon slayers could touch, much less carry switch stars for any length of time. She had five, same as me. They were pink and rounded, the same as mine.

“She should be on our side,” I said, my voice about two octaves higher.

This is
not
how I envisioned a demon slayer reunion.

Max moved quickly down the side of the bus. “Yeah well it’s the dreg. Roxie is usually the life of the party.”

I snuck another glance around the front of the bus. She glared at me, cold and calculating. She was ten feet away. Tops. And drawing back to fire. “What do you mean?”

Max gave a low whistle. “You should have seen her sing from the top of a table in the Tic-Tac Club,” he said, his voice low and husky, “unbelievable.”

“Max!”

The star slammed into the other side of the bus, rattling the widows – and us.

Max drew a bowie knife from the back of his pants, holding it as he crouched low. “I had to find her. I was out of my mind. And not because she’s the best fuck I’ve had in the last hundred years.” He swallowed. “As soon as I saw her, the dreg flew up my throat and into her. Straight through her skin.”

My insides ached, remembering the pain.

Max ducked his head around the side of the bus and jerked back as a switch star screamed past. “The dreg compels you to kill the person that gave it to you. Then you have an insane urge to find another slayer and it goes on.”

Wait. When I had the dreg, I hadn’t set out to kill anyone. Of course I’d kept it in a jar at the time. Still, “You didn’t want to kill me after I gave it to you.”

“No offense, but you’re different. So am I.”

No kidding.

“Come on,” he hissed.

I followed, lopsided on one bare foot as we moved behind a pink bus closer to the woods.

“So she’s trying to kill you because you gave it to her?” I asked.

He grinned. “She’s been trying to kill me since Prohibition.”

I didn’t doubt it.

He shook his head. “Damn, she is hot.”

“Yeah, well, she’s trying to murder us.” I could sense her drawing closer.

“Hey,” I called out to her as she put a bus between herself and the biker witches. Smart slayer. Knowing the Red Skulls, they’d look for any chance to take a pot shot. “Put the weapon down,” I said, “let’s talk.”

“Not a chance,” she said, fire in her eyes, her white blond hair blowing back with a sudden gust of wind. “I’m going to axe him.”

I glanced back at Max. “You know what? Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” Max muttered as I crouched behind him.

“You asked for it,” I reminded him.

My emerald necklace hummed against my neck.

Oh who was I kidding? I was the only one who could face off against a demon slayer.

It was such a waste - a stupid, senseless waste. I tugged off my boot and tossed it away.

“Run. Hide,” I hissed to Max. “If I don’t make it, you don’t have a chance.” Not against demon-slayer weapons. She could wipe out the whole camp.

Sacrifice yourself.

I jumped out, firing.

Grandma had run to get the witches, hopefully to get them out of the way. Dimitri looked ready to jump in between us and Max stared in horror.

I shot low, hoping to clip her in the knee. She leaped in the air as my star streaked under her.

Yow.

Then she fired straight at my head. I ducked as the star slammed into the bus behind me. It forced me to miss my own star as it boomeranged toward me, screeching against the bus and whirling out into the night.

Holy Hades. I was down a weapon, I realized, as hers sailed back.

The crowd surged around us, but luckily not behind us. Dimitri looked ready to blow a gasket. I just hoped he didn’t do anything stupid, or heroic – one in the same at this point. He wasn’t a demon slayer. He couldn’t block our weapons. He couldn’t save me. I had to do this by myself.

I’d save both of us, all of us – somehow.

She stiffened, crying out as pain wracked through her body. I could see the dreg pulsing through her.

The pain was excruciating. I knew first-hand.

Is that what would have happened if Dimitri hadn’t saved me?

The emerald grew hot on my neck, its copper chain snaking down. I always hated this part. It felt wrong and creepy and it usually meant I was in trouble.

Nuts.

The emerald and copper wound around my left side to form a barrier directly over my heart.

Oh geez.

She launched another switch star straight at my head.

I watched it – every curve of the blades as it sawed through the air, straight for my neck. I drew my own switch star, fingers white in the handle and watched my arm release it in a perfect arc. The stars collided on the field between us, sizzling and crackling as they fell down dead.

Three left.

This was ridiculous. I didn’t want to kill one of the last of our kind. There had to be better way.

The demon slayer drew again. She fired, I fired. Again, our stars collided over the field. Two left.

My heart shoved against my chest. I needed my weapons. I couldn’t let her destroy my weapons.

She fired again.

I released again. We lost our weapons, sizzling and burning, tangled together smoking in the scrub brush and dirt.

One left. She fired again. I had to stop this.

Instead of firing back, I made a mad dash for the pink bus. I could feel the switch star whistling behind me as my bare feet dug into the dirt. If I could get behind the bus, maybe I could talk to her, reason with her while she tore it apart.

But I wasn’t fast enough to outrun a switch star.

It shrieked closer and I turned as it bore down on me, twisting blades and tearing metal. I fired, catching it an arm’s length from my head. Energy dropped on me like a blanket of electricity as the switch stars sparked and burned each other out.

She drew again as I made it behind Grandma’s bus. I forced the world back into focus as I clutched the cold metal side.

A switch star tore into the side of a bus with an inhuman screech. I listened to it rip through the metal side before soaring back to her.

I ducked my head around as she caught it, ready to fire again.

She stalked toward me, switch star drawn. Cripes.

I was out of weapons.

Witches scattered behind her. Dimitri began to shift.

Oh no.

He’d better not try to save me.

I ducked behind the bus. Back flat against the cold metal, aware of her every step crunching the sage grass as she drew near enough to be very, very lethal.

Okay, think, think,
think.

What could I use as a weapon?

A hand slammed around the bus, switch star churning as it bore down on me.

I screamed.

Energy rocked through me, sizzling down my spine and driving me to the ground. My arms gave out. My legs wouldn’t work. I lay there with my face in the dirt, amazed I was even alive.

Pain seared my chest.

I should be dead. I should be torn open.

Rolling onto my back, I lay weak, my limbs refusing to obey me. The copper plate throbbed over my heart as I fought for breath.

Leave it to Dimitri. His necklace, with its protective magic, had saved me. At least for now.

      
I tried to move my arm, somehow find a star, but I could barely move.

      
Tears welled in my eyes. Frick. I wasn’t a crier. I was a slayer. I was just so hurt and tired and frustrated. This was wrong, so wrong.

The other slayer stood above me. I stared right into her blue eyes, the picture shifting through my tears. “You’re not a killer,” I told her, praying no one got close enough to see what might happen to me.