The Last of the Demon Slayers (29 page)

She shrugged, white plastic earrings swaying. “Then follow me.”

This was it. “Bye, Dad.” I kissed him on the head before following Frieda out to the field.

On the way out, I saw Max and Roxie emerge from the cabin – laughing. The light from the door fell full on his face which held pure emotion.

It stopped me because I didn’t think I’d ever seen Max genuinely happy. I didn’t know he was capable.

No question about it, Roxie had powers that went beyond slaying demons.

Frieda nudged me. “Whatcha stopping for?”

“Nothing.” She was right. We needed to keep moving. “We have ten minutes according to my watch.” I wouldn’t bother Frieda with the seconds.

Twenty-eight - in case you were wondering.

I rubbed at my eyes as a wave of exhaustion rolled over me. It was my body’s reaction to stress, calm and now more stress. Either that or it was the fact that we were going on nearly twenty-four hours with no sleep. My watch read 4:36 a.m.

The witches lit so many torches it looked like daylight had already come to the field behind the main cabin. A steady wind whipped at the flames.

Dimitri, Max, Grandma and an entire gaggle of witches stood to my right, positioning dreg jars and going over strategy. Another platoon of witches maintained the torches. Max and Roxie had their own pow-wow going farther back in the shadows.

I stopped short as we came up on Creely. She hitched up a red cowboy boot onto the bottom of her latest contraption. The witch never did things halfway, but this was impressive even for her.

The engineering witch gave me an ear-to-ear grin as she stood in front of a wooden creation the size of a mini van.

“I call this the Charm Flinger 3000,” she announced, her green-streaked hair swirling about her face.

It looked like a medieval catapult but there were no wheels. She’d built it on the spot.

The throwing mechanism reminded me of a large spoon. Only this one was basically a blazing sun on a long colorful piece of wood.

“Where did you get that?” I asked, running my hand along it. I knew I’d seen it before. The memory of it tugged at a corner of my brain.

“Don’t ask,” she said, moving my hand from her precious piece of engineering.

Oh my word. She’d swiped the totem from the cemetery.

Then again, this was war.

“Simple to use,” Creely said, beckoning me to the controls. She pulled a rag from the back of her brown leather pants and wiped her hands before she touched the machine. “Pull this latch,” she said, giving a fake yank at the wooden stick, “and it releases the rope.”

“Which fries the demon,” I said. “Now how do I aim it?”

She shook her head. “You don’t,” she said, scratching her nose. “I didn’t have time for a navigation system.”

“Well then what good is a spell that misses?” I hated to break it to her, but we probably had one shot.

“Look, we’re winging this,” Creely explained in the understatement of the century. “The demon is going to show up because we’re here. Then we just need to get him in place.”

Get him in place? “Have you ever battled a demon?”

She glared at me. “You know I have. Now can it. This will work. Roxie needs to lure the demon to the spot I marked in orange.” She pointed out ahead of us and I strained to see an orange beach towel spread over the grass.

“I hate to tell you, but your target can get blown away, or moved, or used to sop up a spill.”

“It’ll stick,” Creely said. “Ant Eater used stakes. We don’t have time for anything else. Then your friend Rachmort sprinkled demon dust to help stick Zatar to our spot.”

I didn’t like this. It was too complex. Simple plans seemed to work best in situations like this.

For example: my favorite - see a demon and then shoot a switch star at its head. Not a lot can go wrong there.

Okay, that’s a lie. There were all kinds of things that could go South (and often had) but the basic plan was solid.

For the eight hundred and twelfth time, I wished I could kill Zatar myself and be done with Evie’s formula. I didn’t like trying to hit it with a charm that needed to be thrown perfectly for it to work. I didn’t like having to rely on Creely or Roxie or a machine, or anything else for that matter. And I didn’t like knowing that we had one shot at this – one – before the Earl of Hades was on top of us.

Creely slapped at my arm. “Stop stewing. We’re going to pull this off.”

Cripes. If I had my way, Creely and the rest of the witches wouldn’t be anywhere near here when Zatar showed up. Of course this was not The Battle According to Lizzie.

Our choices were limited.

“Roxie knows about this?” I wasn’t sure how I felt about using the other slayer as bait. Zatar was amazingly fast. I’d had seconds after he started shooting vox at me down in purgatory. What would happen to her if the demon opened fire?

“Roxie!” I called from across the field.

We didn’t want to count on her catching vox like I had. According to Rachmort, it was a rare gift. He’d been her instructor. He’d know if she had it. Then again, he’d trained me too.

Roxie stumbled up next to me, wiping her brow with her good arm. Her platinum hair fell across her dazed eyes. “I don’t feel right,” she said, her voice scratchy.

“You just had a dreg pulled out of you,” I reminded her. It had made me woozy too and I’d only had the thing under my skin for seconds. She’d had hers for nearly a day.

Which brought me back to my point. “Are you sure you’re feeling up to this? Creely told me what you want to do.” It was gutsy on a good day, much less now. “Maybe you should sit this one out.” Max could watch over her. They’d be happy and I wouldn’t have to worry about him eating any more dregs.

She looked at me like she had when she thought I was the scourge of the demon slaying world. “You’ve got to be kidding me. This Zatar is trying to kill me. He put something
inside
of me to make me want to murder my own sister. I’m going to smoke his ass.”

Well, when she put it that way.

I nudged her. “Not unless I smoke him first.”

That earned me a smile.

“Come on,” I said, walking out to the field with her. I had to admit it was reassuring to have another slayer in the fight. Slayers naturally worked in pairs. Twins fought together, trained together, did everything really. It would have been nice to have that.

But what was I saying?

Roxie already had a twin. And what we were about to face was anything but nice.

“Here’s your mark,” I said, showing her the orange towel on the ground.

She rolled her eyes. “I know my mark. What I want to know is – oh hell.”

“What?” I demanded. But I knew.

The earth rolled and shook as the demon emerged from the soil not five feet from where we stood. Zatar’s golden hair tangled around the sharp lines and angles of his face as the dirt fell from him like water.

Die.

I drew my last switch star and fired, striking him in the forehead. He raised his face, the star’s blades still churning, embedded down to the bone. A lover’s grin tickled his lips.

      
He flicked it away like a gnat. My star smoked and fell from his body, leaving a bloody gash.

      
The silver and white wings of an angel sprang from the earth as he drove his lizard’s body up.

      
Roxie fired a shot meant to decapitate him. It sliced straight into his neck at a deadly angle. Hope surged within me and then died.

He bled, but nothing more.

And I was out of stars. I felt the soul-crushingly empty holder on my belt as I made a mad dash for the portal charms.

“What the hell are you two doing?” Grandma bellowed.

What had I been doing? I’d been shooting at the thing while it was vulnerable. I’d been trying to kill it, chop its head off, do something besides watch it and wait for it to come out of the ground.

Yes, we established I couldn’t kill it – not yet – not without gaining more powers and strength, but I had to try.

Zatar laughed. It sounded like bells to me.

Everyone else fell to the ground, clutching their ears.

Damn, damn, damn. We hadn’t planned on that. We hadn’t figured out anything. We had no idea what this demon could do.

Roxie had a belt full of Max’s red stars. She was still at it, trying the Lizzie method of spending all your ammunition on something you can’t kill. Then I saw what she was doing.

She fired again and again, luring Zatar to the impact zone.

The witches rose to their feet. Dimitri too. He and Max stood surrounded by witches with deflector spells, waiting on our signal. Rachmort held steady with them.

They would protect Dimitri as he captured the dregs, and Max as he’d most likely eat them. I’d have to kill Max if he turned.

I wouldn’t expect Roxie to do that. Not after what I’d seen at the cabin.

Okay. Every muscle in my body tensed. Maybe we could get through this. “Hang on, Dimitri,” I murmured to myself. And hang on Max.

Battina slammed a Charm Spell into the catapult, practically falling sideways as she did it.

“You okay?” I asked. She looked green. All of them did.

“Damn it.” Betty Two Sticks staggered up on my left, her gray crew cut caked with dust. “We spelled this thing to be invisible. That could go to hell if you draw him over here.”

“You can barely stand and you’re giving me a lecture?” I had to shoot. I couldn’t be a demon slayer and not shoot. In fact, maybe it was good I had no weapons left because that’s all I wanted to do now. Fire and fire and fire switch stars until I’d finally killed that scourge.

I had the demon in my sights. Just a little more to the left.

Come on, Roxie.

Battina sagged against the machine.

Roxie got him close enough and I shifted the entire catapult a foot forward.

“What the hell?” Battina demanded as I fired.

“Demons out!” I conjured up images of the deepest reaches of hell. Zatar and his dregs could rot there.

The charm spell shot straight at Zatar, hitting him smack in the chest.

It worked!

He screamed as the dregs poured out of him and a silver portal opened up behind him.

Wind swept over the field, carrying dust and debris as the portal I’d created consumed Zatar’s earthly body. He shimmered at the edges, but the dregs flew straight out of him – toward us. There were dozens upon dozens – all deadly.

Why were they escaping? Why wasn’t Zatar gone yet?

Dimitri sprang into action, but there were too many – even with the witches deflecting for him, they swarmed the tiny group and there was nothing I could do but watch.

The witch in front of him fell, screaming as a dreg burrowed into her. Holy hell.

      
“Dimitri!” I hollered. A dreg burrowed into his arm. Another landed on his neck as he slammed a jar closed on three of them. They were thick as a swarm of mosquitoes.

Rachmort opened glowing white portals in front and behind Dimitri, catching dregs.

      
But where would those portals take them?

Or take Dimitri if he fell too far forward or backward?

Maybe once Zatar was gone, they’d lose some of their power.

Zatar fought the suction of the portal, inching away from the silver light.

“What are we going to do if the portal doesn’t work?” I demanded.

Battina shook her head and pointed to Roxie. She was running straight for Zatar.

“Get back,” I ordered, abandoning my machine and tearing across the field. The portal was weakening. No matter how heroic she wanted to be, she couldn’t go down with him.

I had to open up another one. Fat lot of good it would do. I had to do
something
.

“Now I’ve got you!” The demon lunged forward, seizing Roxie as the portal lost power and snapped closed behind him.

Dregs whipped around him as Zatar rose to his full height.

“Roxie!” Max flung himself at them, tackling Zatar.

Who in Hades tackles a demon?

Max drove a switch star into the demon, causing absolutely no damage beyond a paper cut.

H-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Zatar raised his hand to Max. I had to save them, right then and there or I was going to have to watch them die.

“Run!” I screamed to them. Zatar zeroed in on me and fired a volley of vox. I dove sideways as Betty Two Sticks took the full brunt of the demon’s fury. Her body incinerated as she fell to the ground dead.

I dashed back to the catapult, under a volley of vox. They slapped into the ground behind me, throwing up superheated soil and suffocating sulfur. The back of my throat burned and my eyes watered as I dove behind the machine.

Vox tore through the air, severing the main cord.

I about choked. I needed that cord! This demon could not escape. I could not fail.

Options flew through my mind as I gripped the wooden weapon. Belt? My utility belt was hard leather – no way to tie it up. Hair? I didn’t have scissors – or much hair left.

Pirate and Flappy soared overhead. Damn it. I told him no riding the dragon.

At least they were off the ground.

The dregs were everywhere.

The ground rumbled as Rachmort’s portal swallowed the dregs. There were too many. It was unstable. Rachmort fell.

“No!”

His face slackened with fear for a split second before he gathered his wits and calmed, falling backward into the abyss. Where had it taken him?

The witches threw spells, as more and more Red Skulls fell to the dregs. I watched in horror as at least two burrowed into Dimitri’s arms.

Tears burned the back of my eyes.

Oh my god – Dimitri.

He lowered his head and shifted. Claws erupted from his hands and feet, and thick lion’s fur raced up his arms. At least three more dregs tunneled into him as he shifted.

Why was he shifting?

Red, purple and blue feathers cascaded down his back and formed wings as bones snapped and his body expanded. Dimitri lifted his eagle’s head and called out into the night.

He had no hands, only paws now. It was suicide. He couldn’t catch them this way.

Then I saw the rippling under his skin.