The Last of the Demon Slayers (11 page)

I’d already been attacked once this evening. And my enemies tended to be persistent.

      
The dragon sat up and shook the dirt out of his wings as he watched me walk away.

      
I was glad he didn’t try to follow. I needed an extra set of eyes at the back.

A smoky, burning presence weaved its way around the front of the hotel. Blackness shrouded the road and the desert beyond. My insides tightened.

“Dad?” I stepped into the darkness. It smelled of rot and death. “Dad, are you out there?”

I didn’t dare move farther forward or go back. I paced at the edge of the sinister cloud, listening to the wind swirling over dried grass, the occasional call of coyotes.

My boots crunched against the sandy soil as wisps of black, darker than night, curled around my ankles. Something was out there.

Whatever it was, I knew without a doubt it wanted me.

      
The ground was rougher than it looked. Crab grass sprouted in tufts. Every few feet, a hidden dip threatened to trip me. Stiff grass and nettles brushed my ankles.

The black silence crawled up my spine and settled behind my shoulders.

“Show yourself,” I called out into the night.

Let’s do this.

A wave of banshees screeched straight for my head. “Flappy!” I screamed as I hit one with a switch star. It flew backward as another banshee knocked me to the ground. Breath whooshed out of me as I hit hard sand and dirt. Razor sharp jaws thrashed, acidic spittle rained down as I took out the one on top of me, my switch star propelling it back into at least two more.

I scrambled to my feet and saw that Flappy had one in his jaws like a chew toy. The creature shrieked as the dragon bit it in half. I knocked out the last two with switch stars to the head while they tried to scramble away from Flappy, who’d chomped another one.

He tossed the creature out into the night. “Rrr-yee!” Flappy called, triumphant.

Biker witches poured out of the hotel, Grandma in the lead. I could tell it was her by her lavender housecoat, flapping behind her as she ran.

“Now they come,” I said, out of breath, turning a circle to make sure we didn’t miss any bad ass creatures of the night.

One of my pant legs sizzled with toxic banshee spit. Just when I was about to try and find a rock to scrape it with, Flappy licked it off.

“Thanks,” I said slowly, waiting to see if I had to take care of a sick dragon.

Flappy panted, his breath hot and wet against my shoulder as he watched me.

“Dimitri was right. You are a fighter.” I reached up to pet the dragon behind an ear, flicking my wrist to avoid a glowing red moth that wanted to land there.

Fairy moth?

“Shoo,” I brushed it off my shoulder and cringed as it landed on my neck.

It chomped down. Hard. “Ow!”

I grabbed it. That’s when, to my horror, I saw it was missing half a wing. Its entire body was rumpled, as if it had been smashed and its eyes were milky white.

      
It was a zombie bug.

Sweet Mary.

It zipped away as I went for a switch star. Jagged teeth sprang from a bulbous, larvae-like body. It reached for me with countless scarlet tentacles.

I tried to dodge sideways, but it crashed down on my leg. Before I could say demon-insect-from-hell, it bit a hole in my pants and sunk its teeth into my thigh.

“Ow!” I recoiled as it dug its fangs into my flesh. Pain seized me as it burrowed its head into my skin.

In a panic, I pulled at the creature’s fat body as it sank, fraction by fraction into my flesh. I could feel it biting, wriggling inside of me.

My mind went foggy and I had an insane desire to stand up and run – to where, I had no idea.

I screamed like a banshee, or so I was told.

The biker witches propped me up. My mind was numb, shocked as I tried to pull the creature away from me, watching it move under my skin.

“Kill it!” Grandma hollered.

Flashlights blinded me.

      
“No,” Dimitri ordered. “Put it to sleep.”

      
Glass broke over my leg and a cold spell oozed down my pants. My entire leg went dead.

      
“I’ve got you, Lizzie,” Dimitri said, his words clipped and crisp. I closed my eyes and focused on his voice. “Slowly. We want to get it all.”

      
I squeezed my eyes tighter. My head pounded. I was burning from the inside out.

      
Slowly, Dimitri pulled the hot agony out of my body through the hole in my leg. It felt like he was taking part of me with it. Sweating, I ventured a look. My thigh was laid open and bloody as Dimitri worked the fat pulp of the creature out by the neck.

I leaned my head back against Grandma. “Oh, ick.”

      
Dimitri grunted and plunked something into a jar. “Come on. Let’s get you inside.”

      
A few minutes later, I hunkered in one of the wing-backed chairs by the window with my leg propped up on the opposite chair. My brain was starting to clear, the muddiness replaced by a throbbing ache at the base of my skull.

I looked around to Grandma, Dimitri and about a dozen or so biker witches.

“How’s your leg?” Dimitri asked, inspecting the bandage.

“The feeling is starting to come back,” I said, the greatest understatement of the year. My entire leg burned from the knee up. It was like coming off a giant dose of Novocaine.

      
The insect snarled inside a jar on the side table. The zombie rope had disintegrated to ash along the bottom, no doubt trying to hide. “Any theories on what this is?” I asked.

“It’s a pressure bug,” Grandma said. “I’d never seen one, but I’ve read about them. They try to get under your skin. Literally. Then they hijack your free will.”

      
No kidding.

      
“What is Dad caught up in? This was worse than the banshees.” And here I thought a mini-horde of acid spitting creatures was my problem.

Ant Eater held up the jar, watching the bug slam against the glass. “No angel, fallen or otherwise would have access to something like this.” She gave me a stern look. “It has demon written all over it.”

      
“So what do we do with it?” I asked.

      
“Test it,” Dimitri said to Grandma.

      
She blanched. “I can’t touch something that evil.”

      
“Then what do we do?” Ant Eater asked.

      
I watched the creature attack the lid of the jar. “I don’t know.”

Chapter Eight

“Lizzie!” Pirate dashed through the crowd of witches and jumped right onto my leg, nailing me with a prickling pain.

“Baby dog.” I let him nuzzle under my arm and sniff Grandma’s jar on the table next to me.

“That’s it? That’s the bug? Shoot. I’ve eaten bigger bugs than this for dessert. You want me to chomp it?”

“Thanks for the offer,” I said, “but not this time.”

I’d spare my attacker from death-by-dog. I wanted to observe it, learn more about it. Besides, Pirate didn’t need to be eating enchanted creatures.

      
It was bad enough he’d adopted a dragon.

“He looks crunchy. I like crunchy bugs,” Pirate said. “You change your mind, you tell me. ’Cause you know I’ll eat anything.”

Did I ever.

“Ho-boy.” Pirate scrabbled against me. His whole body quivered as he attempted to slather every inch of the jar in dog nose. “You didn’t tell me it was magic!”

“What are you talking about? It’s not -” Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the mule. “Grandma. Take a look at this.”

My attacker was no longer a red insect. It twisted upon itself, chest heaving, wings collapsing. It bent and flattened until it morphed into a fleshy, plasticky lump. It reminded me of the silly putty I used to play with as a kid. But this thing was hard. It shimmied against the glass, sounding like a wobbling penny.

Frieda, Sid and a half dozen other biker witches scooted back. Grandma, Dimitri and I moved closer.

She whistled under her breath. “Pressure bugs can’t do that.”

Dimitri watched it as if he’d cornered a viper. “That was never a pressure bug.”

A bad feeling crept over me. For the love of Pete. “I can’t believe it’s worse than a demonic bug.”

The rope cowered as the bug-turned-blob gained momentum and began slamming against the side of the jar.

I stood to get closer, trying not to wince as pain shot through my thigh. As long as the leg didn’t buckle, I’d be okay. If I was going to be a big, bad demon slayer, it would look better if I didn’t wipe out on the floor.

Grandma pulled out a pair of reading glasses with rhinestones clustered in the corners and went nose-to-nose with the jar. “I hate it when Dimitri’s right.”

“Then what is it?” I asked, wanting – no, needing – answers.

Grandma lowered her glasses. “Dunno. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Wonderful. We were now testing the limits of biker witch knowledge.

Grandma spoke slowly. “We spent thirty years dealing with everything Vald had to throw at us from the fifth level of hell. I thought I’d seen everything.”

“What? Could this be from a deeper level?” I asked, sharing a glance with Dimitri.

He didn’t like it. I didn’t either.

“If it is,” Dimitri said, “we need to know what level it’s from so we know what we’re dealing with.”

Ant Eater looked as shaken as I’d ever seen her. “If we’re up against anything over five, we need to go into bunker mode.”

“Or if we’re facing a two, we need to keep on to Pasadena,” I reminded her. We had no reason to jump to conclusions. “How far is Las Vegas?”

“What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?” Ant Eater demanded.

“Max is in Vegas,” I answered.

“What?” Dimitri thundered.

“Now?” Grandma balked.

“Oh please.” I thought we’d called a truce.

I watched the middle of the creature pulse into a flat disk.

This thing was evil and Max knew evil.

Max Devereux was the only person I knew who made it his life’s work to navigate the murky waters between heaven and hell. “He’s been killing demons longer than I’ve been alive.”

“That’s not hard,” Grandma muttered.

“Sid,” I said, locating the fairy over by the window, “you have any fairy paths that can take us through Las Vegas?”

Sid looked at me like I’d asked him to tap dance across broken glass. “We can take Gooey Gumdrop Lane.”

Grandma tapped a silver ringed finger against the jars at her belt. “Lizzie, you have to admit Max is a long shot. And the guy’s not completely right in the head.”

This coming from a biker witch.

Grandma, Dimitri, and the rest of them had never liked the hunter, and for good reason. Max was half-demon. He wasn’t what you’d call trustworthy. And he was on the edge of giving into the dark side himself – if he hadn’t turned already.

He was a cambion, a half demon, half human I’d met during a succubi invasion in Las Vegas. Max was on our side, mostly. I never knew what he was going to do, but he did get a kick out of killing demons, so we had that going for us.

Okay, so Max wasn’t Dudley Do-Right. “You didn’t even have to watch him eat a demon.” I’d never forget it. “Still, he’s a hunter, which is as close as we’re going to get to another slayer. He’s survived for a century on his own and if anyone can tell us where this thing came from, it’s Max.”

Nobody looked happy.

Dimitri looked fit to be tied. He knew I was right and it was killing him. “Let’s go,” he ground out. “I hate the bastard, but I’ll go.”

“Thank you.” I knew he’d stand by me. Dimitri always did. Now we just had to convince the rest of the group.

Or go it alone.

”What if you hole up and it gets you anyway?” I asked. “We don’t know what level of hell this is from or what it’s capable of doing. This is life or death, people.”

Sure Max was dark, dangerous and sexy as hell (not that I’d admit that last part to Dimitri). Max was also the one person who could help us.

I needed to be a leader here. I finally knew what I was doing and nobody wanted to listen. My preschoolers used to listen to me. Mostly. Pirate listened. Sometimes.

Why couldn’t I just make them understand that this is the way it had to be?

“Our answer is in Las Vegas,” I said, as sure as I’d been of anything in my life. “We need to go. Now.”

No one moved.

Dimitri turned his back on me and walked away, through the crowd of witches. The front door creaked as he held it open. His dark eyes caught mine and held them. “Come on, ladies. Sid. Let’s hit the road.”

***

As soon as the last biker had left the hotel, it reverted back to a crumbling wreck. Flappy sniffed at the rotted-out porch as we climbed onto our bikes.

Even though I’d gotten my way, I couldn’t help but fume over how it went down. They followed Dimitri out the door. Not me. He wasn’t even part of the Red Skulls.

I knew what it was. I’d come into this group with no knowledge of my abilities and no experience in the magical world. We’d fixed that. I’d grown into my powers. Sure I still had some things to learn but I knew what I was doing – especially when it came to Max. Still, it seemed like I’d always be seen as the newbie.

Maybe that would change after they saw what was waiting for us in Vegas. And maybe Ant Eater would braid my hair and tell me a bedtime story.

We took Nether Wallup Way to Greeny Bits Drive up to Gooey Gumdrop Lane. I found myself in awe each time Sid swung open a new fairy gate.

The paths were similar in that they let us travel at ungodly speeds. Most of the time, my bike tires didn’t even touch the ground. Yet each of the trails had a personality of its own. Nether Wallup Way felt like old Ireland. We sped over a cobblestone road, past soaring cliffs and fields of emerald green. We turned left at a low stone wall – heaven knew how Sid could distinguish it from any other.

There Sid eased away a section of stone to reveal Greeny Bits Drive. Just like that, we were speeding over sand and seashells. Palm trees swayed, colorful macaws sang and I could taste the ocean on the breeze.