The Last of the Demon Slayers (20 page)

“I’m not,” she said, regret in her voice as she drew a star. “But you’re not letting me kill Max. And you’re going to die anyway. We all are.”

I tried to sit up, but my body wouldn’t move. “You’re stronger than the compulsion,” I insisted. “You’re a demon slayer.” She had to understand. “If you kill me, we’ll all be weaker. We’ll never defeat this.”

She shook her head, her pain on display. “We can’t defeat it. It’s over. After this, I’ll infect my sister.” Her voice quivered. “I know where she is.” Her hand shook, still holding the star, ready to fire. “Mags will kill me. Then she’ll die.”

No. We had to fight. “We can stop the one who started this, and the dreg will die. You
can
save your sister.” And yourself.

“Stay back,” she ordered as the crowd approached behind her. Then to me, she asked, desperate, “How do you know?”

“I survived the dreg. You and your sister can too,” I added, hoping I was right.

The weakness I felt had turned into an intense, knife-like throbbing. It was as if my entire body had lost circulation and was now coming back.

A massive griffin swooped overhead. Dimitri. His immense lion’s claws gleamed against the setting sun as he prepared to dive.

Don’t.
I lifted my hand.

Please. He couldn’t stop her. I could.

She saw. “Touch me and the slayer dies!”

Dimitri dove low on colorful wings, his claws scraping the air inches from her head as he took to the air once more.

“How did you survive the dreg?” She demanded. “You should be mad with the compulsion.”

I tried to sit up, my arms screaming in protest. “I was made, not born,” I said through gritted teeth.

She stared at me for a long moment. “So you’re the one.”

Chapter Fifteen

She holstered her star and held out a hand. “Roxie.”

I took it, still on the ground, giving her the limpest handshake in history. “Lizzie.” I grunted as I sat up. “Thanks for not killing me.”

She stared at me. “The day’s not over yet.”

Oh lordy.

She stood over me, tense. “I’m fighting this as hard as I can. I don’t know how long I can last.”

“Let’s figure this out,” I said, staggering to my feet.

“Lizzie!” Pirate ran at me so fast he smacked up against my shin. He bounced off, scrambled to his feet and leapt up against my leg, his claws scratching.

“Lizzie! I was trying to get to you and Bob held me down and I couldn’t get out of his lap and I saw you needed me” - he didn’t even pause when I scooped him up under the tummy - “I barked and then I barked and I barked.” He twisted around to face me. “Are you okay because you don’t look so good.”

I nuzzled against his warm doggie neck, keeping an eye on Roxie the entire time. “I’m just fine.” For now. I wasn’t about to let my guard down around a demon slayer with a death wish.

Dimitri landed a short distance away and began to shift. Feathers in blue, green and purple folded over on themselves. He fairly shimmered as his lion’s body morphed to reveal a broad, muscled back, lean legs and oh my word we were going to have a naked griffin on our hands in a couple of minutes.

Make that an angry, naked griffin.

I knew Dimitri would be pissed. He got that way when people shot at me.

On this occasion, however, we needed to use some restraint. I’d finally gotten Roxie talking instead of attacking. We had to keep her engaged, learn what she knew and figure out what in bloody Hades we were going to do next.

Grandma pushed through the advancing crowd of biker witches, a red jar in her hand.

It was a death spell. She marched up to Roxie, chin thrust up and fire in her eyes. “Give me one good reason why I don’t bust a cap in your ass right now.”

Roxie drew a switch star.

“Stop it,” I said. Needles of pain shot down my legs as I forced them to start working. Crab walking, I inserted myself between them. “Cut it out.” The weight of Pirate got to be too much and I set him down.

“I need a minute!” I said to Grandma, to Neal who had somehow produced a shotgun (what about hippies and peace?), to the witches who had gathered behind Grandma, jelly jars ready to fire.

“The fight is over. We’re talking now.” I sure hoped Roxie didn’t recognize the jars as weapons or our tête-à-tête could be finished before it started.

Even my fingertips tingled. Wincing, I pointed to the chewed up wreck behind me.

“Give us five minutes in this bus,” I said, knowing they’d give me about two.

Frieda chewed her gum. “Yeah, uh, that’s my bus and you ripped the side out.”

      
“Use mine,” Grandma said, watching us with cold calculation. She knew that I needed time with Roxie. She wasn’t happy about it, but she understood.

      
“Explain it to Dimitri,” I said, limping toward Grandma’s bus, happy for once to give someone else an impossible job.

      
My legs had turned to rubber. I hoped I wouldn’t trip over a clump of scrub, or fall in a hole. A demon slayer has to keep up appearances.

Roxie fell into step next to me. “You have some strange friends.”

      
I sized her up. “And even stranger enemies.”
      

      
Danged if she didn’t look like a 1950s Hollywood starlet, or a Banana Republic model. Not bad for a girl who had to be at least 112 years old.

What was she anyway?

      
It bothered me to no end that figuring it out wasn’t even on my top-ten list of things to do today.

      
So you’re some kind of supernatural creature. So what? We have work to do.

Grandma’s yellow school bus shifted as we climbed the stairs. Privacy, at last. I wrinkled my nose at the smell – dust, mildew and spiced orange incense.

If Grandma thought her Wild Ass Gertie’s Citrus Combustion sticks were covering anything up, she needed to re-tool her sniffer. I held a blue and yellow tie-dyed curtain back for Roxie.

      
She paused. A furrow creased the perfectly smooth skin between her eyebrows. And dang, that woman had the longest, thickest eyelashes I’d ever seen. “You first,” she said, peering into the bus, switch star drawn.

      
Yes, I supposed it could be a dusty, orange-scented trap, although I didn’t know where a bad guy would hide in this mess.

Grandma had unpacked her essentials, which meant, well – everything. The small table at the front of the bus held a goat’s skull, a twelve-pack of mouse traps and an empty, obviously used ten-gallon aquarium. A menagerie of pink and red candles burned in every space that remained.

There was no way Grandma had fit more than her goat’s head and a few dozen spell jars onto a Harley. She had to have gotten at least some of this from the other witches, and most of it from Neal.

I whistled under my breath.

There was no denying those two had a history. It was written in black sharpie all over the beat-up cardboard boxes crowding the bus, and every chair at the table.

      
Cauldrons, vats and kettles

      
Dried turtle innards (miscellaneous)

      
Pelts, skulls and toothy ingredients

      
My ankle brushed a stack of jars under the table. They clattered against each other, but dang, you couldn’t take a step in here without running into random jars or boxes.

      
Anti-Mephistophelian experiments, caustic

      
Anti-Mephistophelian experiments, benign

John Wayne DVDs

      
A flicker of dread sparked in my stomach. She’d even mashed the bed full of boxes.

      
Grandma had
better
be sleeping in her own bed tonight.

      
I shivered at the thought of her with that annoying hippie. We’d deal with that later.

      
Roxie took in the mess around us, her eyes flickering back to me.

“Don’t ask,” I said.

She gave me a mocking smile. “Believe me, I have better things to do.” She looked me up and down. “You’re the made slayer,” she stated.

      
“Yes.” What about it?

      
“How?”

      
I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t even know I was a slayer until this past summer. I’d come a long way since then, but our little party in the yard showed me how much farther I had to go. Roxie would make a good mentor, if she didn’t kill me first.

Neither one of us was willing to take our eyes off the other. Still, I let her move, get comfortable.

      
Roxie used the opportunity to circle back around me and take the spot nearest to the door. A wave of claustrophobia hit me and I fought it down, ignoring the way the boxes seemed to crowd closer. The incense burned sweeter. The air itself felt heavier. I’d give her the exit. If that’s what it took to get her talking, I could handle it.

      
“How do we save my sister?”

      
“Have you ever heard of a demon named Zatar? I think he’s behind the dregs.” And a lot of other things.

She tapped a finger against the switch stars at her belt. “That bastard took Rachmort too.”

I about fell over. “The Earl of Hades has my mentor?”

“Mine too,” she said defensively. “I thought Zatar wanted him out of the way because he’s been freeing black souls. Now I’m wondering if it has something to do with us.”

“You trained with him?” I asked.

      
She nodded. “He was like a father to me.” Her wistful smile turned to a frown. “Then, thirty years ago, the dreg attacks started. It was awful. All of a sudden, demon slayers started turning on each other. No one was safe.” The regret and sorrow in her voice shook me. “So many were killed,” she said quietly. “The only way to save our race was to give up our powers,” she gave a small laugh, “which is impossible.”

Oh yeah? She should ask my mom about that. The knowledge stung. Her betrayal was complete. My mother didn’t just foist off her responsibilities, she’d given me a death sentence.

      
Roxie’s eyes held the pain of the memory. “My family faked my death and my sister’s as well. They claimed we turned on each other,” she shivered, “killed each other. It was a believable story.”

      
“Then you hid from the other slayers.”

      
“Rachmort too,” Roxie said, her voice dripping with regret, “nobody could know we were alive.”

“So Rachmort really did believe it when he told me I was the last of my kind.”

“He thinks that. The rest of us are in hiding, even from the people who could help us. It’s the only way to stay completely safe.”

      
“How many others survived?” I asked. I had to know.

“In the years since, I’ve learned of only four other slayers.” She gave me a once over. “And then you.”

“We could save Rachmort.” We owed it to him.

Roxie balked. “Never. He’s on his own. Just like we are.”

No. “Consider this. What if it’s time to unite again? What if Rachmort can bring the others out of hiding?”

He’d dedicated his life to training slayers and saving lost souls – which, at times, could be one and the same. The other slayers would have to see how much trouble he was in. Rachmort had been taken by a demon that, according to my dad’s books, had sixty-six legions of dark angels.

“No,” Roxie said. “It’s impossible.”

“Why?” I challenged, stomach churning, “Do you think he’s in hell?” Because I had some experience with Hades. Not that I was in any hurry to re-live it.

Roxie looked as wretched as I felt. “Last I heard, he was in purgatory. Zatar hadn’t had a chance to move him yet.”

“Purgatory,” I said, trying to work up a plan. Okay. “We can do that, right?”

She stepped backward, colliding with a box. She kicked it away. “Are you nuts?”

I didn’t hear her offering up any better plan. “We’ve got to do something.” Rachmort had never left us hanging.

“We survive,” she snarled. “Or we die so that the others can live.”

Geez. You could play a drinking game to this woman. Take a shot every time she wants to off somebody.

“Fine. At least let me contact the other slayers.” They could choose, as she had.

“No,” she snapped. “They stay hidden. If I die, I die. I’m not going to compromise the entire demon-slayer race.”

“We’re not compromising them. We’re rescuing them. We’re allowing them to actually be who they were born to be.”

It was the only way. I could set this right. I could save my dad, my mentor and the last of the demon slayers.

Roxie watched me with disdain and a smidge of hope. “You think we can do this.” She shook her head. “I can’t stop thinking about Max. I want to kill him. It would feel so good to fire a switch star through his heart.” Her breathing deepened. “I want to. I want his blood. I want –”

“Control it,” I snapped before she talked herself into slicing up Max. “Stand up to it. This is not the natural order of things.”

If she didn’t fight this, we were looking at damnation, destruction and death. “This might well be the most horrific thing we ever have to face, but it’s
not
impossible.” I refused to believe it could be.

I may not be able to control my dog or what the biker witches did or Dimitri’s need to run around and keep griffin secrets, but demon slaying was my destiny. I’d been given this power for a reason.

Roxie rested a hand on her chest and bowed her head, taking her eyes off me for the first time since we’d met. “You don’t have a dreg in you. I do.” Her voice cracked. “I can feel it. I don’t know how long I can control it.”

“You’re a demon slayer,” I said, wishing I could reach out to her, knowing she wouldn’t welcome it. “You can’t choose to do this. You simply have to do it.” For the first time, I truly understood what the last demon slayer Truth meant. “Sacrifice yourself.” It wasn’t about what you thought you could do or what you wanted to do. It wasn’t about us at all.