A Tale of Two Demon Slayers (22 page)

I flung him aside.

Do. Not. Stop. Me.
I let her energy pour over me, through me. I used it to hang on to her. I didn’t come into this place to be safe. I came for answers.

“What in Hades does Talos have to do with this?”

The answers crashed over me like a tsunami. I saw Talos at the scarred wooden table, the same table he’d used to crush the Skye stones. He took that living piece of my demon slayer power and mixed it with…Skye magic. By griffins, he’d stolen the Skye magic from Diana and Dyonne.

His gifts—his coral necklaces—seeped out their energy.
They weren’t powerless. They weren’t damaged. They were compromised.

He’d planned this from the start.

“He wanted them to die,” I said slowly, seeing it through the mind of the doppelgänger. “His clan has been doing this for generations, working with the demon Vald. They were the opening, the source of the curse. They gave the griffins to Vald in exchange for a cut of the power.”

They’d sold their souls to the devil.

Hell and damnation.

Vald. I’d killed Vald.

Dimitri had needed me to save his family from the demon, and I did. I ended the curse.

None of us could have thought, imagined,
dreamed
that the curse didn’t stop with the demon.

I raised my head to where Rachmort braced himself against the wall, watching me.

“The Dominos clan did it!” I told him. “They’re the enemy.”

It unfolded like a sick play in my mind. The Dominos clan had wanted Dimitri’s family from the beginning. They’d helped Vald exterminate every woman for generations. Griffin magic was too pure for the demon to take.
He’d needed help from other griffins.

It all made sense.

In my haze, I stormed toward the necromancer. “When Dimitri’s family grew weak and needed help, the Dominos clan stepped in. While Dimitri’s clan hemorrhaged from the inside, the Dominos clan stole bits of magic here and there. Scraps. But enough to elevate them above all the others.”

Rachmort approached me, eyes wide, like a villager who stumbles upon a lion. I could only imagine what I looked like. “What do they want now? This is very important, Lizzie. Try to see it.”

“Okay.” I pushed forward, hard and patient at the same time. I waited for it to unfold in my mind. When it did, I nearly fell sideways from the impact. “They want Dimitri. They want this estate. That’s why he’s supposed to marry Amara. They’re going to fold him into their clan. Only she doesn’t know it. She actually loves him.” I saw the Dominos elders plotting it all from a long blue room that backed up to the ocean. “They’re going to rob Diana and Dyonne of the last of their power. Soon. In battle. Then they’re going to kill them.”

Of course they’d sworn to protect the land.

They wanted it. And they’d kill the people who owned the land in order to get it.

I saw it as it unfolded in front of me. The death of Vald had brought unlimited power to the Dominos clan. They had his army of imps, his mad desire. They’d use it to capture all of the Skye magic. They would have the strength of two clans.

They’d be the most powerful griffins on the planet.

“When Dimitri’s clan is wiped out, this whole place and its energy will belong to them. They’ll have enough power to control every griffin in the world.”

Rachmort stood deathly still. “Griffins are in place in almost every government on the planet.”

“Excuse me?” I said, fighting the haze.

This was Dimitri’s family we were talking about, not the rest of griffinkind. At the moment, I didn’t care about
any other griffins. I just needed my love, my griffin—and his family—to make it out of this alive.

“Griffins are loyal,” Rachmort said. “Unless they are corrupted, as the Dominos clan was by Vald, griffins are noble and just creatures. They are drawn to service. Almost every good leader out there has at least some griffin blood.”

That’s when the awfulness of the situation sunk in. “Don’t tell me Talos and the Dominos clan could control them.”

The look on Rachmort’s face made me go cold.

“They could collapse governments and entire economies. They could start wars between neighbors, genocide. Anything they wanted.”

“Why?” I protested.

“Do we really want to wait and see?”

“We’d stop them,” I said.

Somehow.

“Not if they had their own demon slayer.”

“What? The one they made from me?” It was all falling into place with a sickening thud. “I can beat her.”

“Look into her mind.”

I closed my eyes again and focused. I saw her running across the lawn—straight for us.

“She’s coming!”

Rachmort had to get out of here. She wanted blood, death, destruction.

She wanted me.

“She’s going to kill me. Take the rest of me, body and soul. Then she’s going to wipe out any trace I ever existed.”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, yes?” I stared at him, her wants and desires flooding me. “She wants the life and souls of everyone here—you, Grandma, Pirate.”

Rachmort’s eyes blazed as he drew closer to me. “With every life, every soul, she grows more powerful.”

“How do you know this?” I demanded.

He stopped inches from me. “It is the way of the dark demon slayers.”

“I didn’t even know we had dark ones!”

I could see the sweat on his forehead and the fear behind his fury. “We wiped them out while you were still in diapers. We lost a lot of good ones in the pro cess.” He stared me down. “Didn’t you ever wonder why demon slayers are so rare? Why you’ve never met one like yourself? Hundreds of noble and powerful slayers died out in the Vast War. Hundreds of lines wiped out—forever. Now there’s just you.”

A chill swept down my spine. “Me?”

“You.”

I didn’t even want to say it. “I’m the last of the demon slayers?”

“Yes.”

Sweet switch stars.

Rachmort’s eyes never left mine. “You’re the only one who can defeat her.”

“But I’m defeating myself.”

“Yes.”

“My powers.”

“She is more powerful. She has your strengths and she has the power of generations of Skye magic behind her.”

“Lovely!”

Yes, I’d get right to killing the more powerful version
of myself—with my strengths, my instincts, my powers, and an added dash of ancient griffin magic. Because I was the only one who had a shot in the world.

“She’s heading for the Callidora,” Rachmort hissed, right before the wards began to explode.

I burst out of the cave of visions and choked on the acrid smoke outside. Witches called to each other and dashed in an organized, frightening chaos. The earth shook and fire shot across the sky as the barriers took the impact of an all-out invasion.

Grandma ran straight for me, a leather bag of bottles clanking on her back. “They’re attacking at the Callidora!” An explosion rattled the ground under us.

“Who?” I demanded, hot on Grandma’s heels, as a wave of imps darkened the sky, black and menacing against the red of the setting sun.

Frieda and three other witches hauled a rusted cannon past us. “They’re breaking through!” she yelled, pointing to a spot in the sky where imps had already begun to divebomb the Callidora.

The creatures had torn through the Skye magic. Some of them. Others died on the sharp edges of the invisible barrier, their oily black fur erupting into flames and breaking into pieces as they fell onto the battle below.

Grandma grabbed Scarlet by the shoulder. “Tell Creely and the artillery witches to concentrate all defenses on that hole. Then bring up the other cannon. I want full aerial support.”

Rachmort bounded straight for me. “You ready, Lizzie?”

I struggled to stand my ground, caught in the stampede of witches and weapons. “Where’s Dimitri?” I demanded, scanning the chaos.

Rachmort grunted as he accepted a long tube from Hawk. “Your boyfriend shifted,” he said, lowering a pair of goggles with a brass weapons sight attached to the left lens. “He’s already in the middle of it.”

Dimitri didn’t know about Talos!

I took Rachmort by the weapon. “We need to warn him.”

Just then I saw my salvation. “Amara!”

She hauled three glass bowls and a jug of water and she didn’t even slow down until I stepped in front of her. “Not now,” she said, trying to push past me. “My brother is gone and so is Dimitri.”

“Yeah?” I said, catching her at the wrist. “This is why.”

I told her about her family’s deception—and what her brother would do to the man she loved. Amara’s haughty control cracked and her eyes widened.

“Impossible,” she murmured, her mouth barely forming the words.

But I detected the shift in her. On some level, she knew.

An anti-imp charge detonated over our heads, shaking the ground with a deafening boom.

It was suicide to stay where we were—in the heat of the battle.

“Come.” I dragged Amara closer to the cave of visions, willing Dimitri’s ancient family magic to protect us.

“We don’t have time for this,” she protested, struggling to keep a firm grip on the water, the bowls and whatever
magic she had bursting from the linen bag at her shoulder.

My shoulder smashed against a rumpled seam of the cave of visions where armor fused with armor, and at that moment I felt the presence of the Helios clan.

“I don’t have time for this!” Amara’s eyes fixed on a spot past my shoulder and stared in horror—at what, I could only imagine.

“Make time!” I forced her attention on me. “I saw your father and his council through the cave of visions. They’re in a long blue room that backs up against the sea. They plotted this attack.”

“No.” She shook her head, her long black hair tangling around her shoulders, panic rising in her voice. “You can’t know about that room. I’m not even supposed to know about that room.”

Even as she spoke, I saw her making the connections in her mind. “They wanted…my father told me…” She stiffened, and for a moment I thought she was going to pitch sideways as the color drained from her face. “In the garden, I felt the traces lead back, but…I didn’t know!” She brought her hands to her mouth. “All this time and I didn’t know!”

“They were using you to get to this family. Talos used you too. But Dimitri doesn’t know about your brother. You have to warn him. Now. Shift. Go to him. Save Dimitri from your family.”

She nodded, tears in her eyes.

Amara stepped backward, not even seeing me anymore as she shifted. Her dress tore, the fine gold jewelry at her neck and wrists cracked and broke. Her body rippled as she bowed her head and grew into a massive silver
griffin. She gave a pitiful roar as she beat her powerful wings and took flight toward the Callidora.

And I’d sent her there—to betray her brother and her family for a man she could never have.

Rachmort ducked out of the cave of visions and about gave me a heart attack. “You did good,” he said, flicking his wrist and unfolding a long scope. He peered through it. “Damn.”

A yellow fog trailed out of the cave of visions and the sulfur in the air intensified. “What were you doing in there?”

“Determining the strength and size of the enemy.”

“And?”

He removed the scope from his eye. “We’re screwed.”

Gangly tree nymphs chattered and danced around the necromancer. “Go to the hills,” he ordered the nymphs. “I can spot the rest without your help.” He folded the scope and hefted his weapon over his shoulder like the potato shooters we used as kids. “Now we do battle. And remember, you didn’t set this in motion any more than Amara did. Now that Dimitri knows what he’s up against, he can take care of himself.” Rachmort drew a spiral of magic from his hip pocket and shoved it down the barrel. “You can too. You know what they want.”

Yes.

Me.

And from the look of it, Dimitri’s entire family.

Grandma clapped my shoulder, her gray hair a tangled mess and fire in her eyes. “You ready to kick some ass?”

I slapped a hand against the five switch stars on my belt. “Bring it on.”

Excitement and fear roared through me as we raced for the Callidora. I could barely feel my feet under me as I hurtled through the forest. Witches had stopped along the sides to fire their weapons and reload. Imps streaked over us with a single purpose. They wanted what was at the Callidora.

Thick trees closed in on us from all sides, but I knew, I felt, I
saw
the danger ahead.

My hellish double—this doppelgänger—waited.

Blue flames catapulted from the house behind me. They soared, their magic like a thousand hot needle points to my back as they roared for the ancient ruins, taking out the flanks of the invading army.

We were close, so close.

I felt my toes hover for a brief second at the edge of the Callidora.

She will be lost at the Callidora, the first time in joy, the second time in death.

She will be split in two.

Holy hell.

My ears rang with the firing of the cannons, the clash of weapons and the screams of the imps and the witches. My eyes watered from the overpowering smell of sulfur and singed bodies, and my demon slayer radar screamed with danger.

I closed my eyes as the fear swallowed me whole. The battle raged ahead. My battle. I had a horrible sense of foreboding that I would not make it out of this place alive.

Think,
I said to myself as Rachmort’s words came back to me.

It doesn’t matter how you feel.

It matters who you are
.

“I am the demon slayer!” I yelled as I burst through in a blaze of switch stars.

Dozens of imps charged, hurling cursed arrows from both the air and the ground. Every tree, bush and blade of grass they touched turned to dust.

They stormed the witches, who fought back with Molotov-cocktail spells in Jack Daniel’s bottles. Frieda hurled a bottle at the imp closest to her as it reared back to attack. The bottle caught the imp in the throat and exploded into flames. His blackened body hissed and curled as it shrieked and fell to the ground.

“Don’t touch it!” I screamed.

“Fuck, Lizzie. You wanna tell me something I don’t know?” Her eyes widened as she looked past me. “Stryker!”

Three imps descended on the witch with graying dreadlocks. The witch dropped her empty weapons pack and drew a glowing orange knife out of her hip pocket.

It wouldn’t be enough.

I hurled a switch star at the attackers, taking off the head of the nearest one. Its scaly black neck smoked as it fell backward, one out-flung arm almost catching a band of artillery witches. They scrambled as their rusted cannon fell to dust.

Frieda grabbed another bottle from the fringed bag on her back. My second star hit the other imp in the throat. Frieda’s bottle flew wide as the battle shifted.

“Stryker!” Frieda screamed as the last imp dove onto the witch. Stryker brought up her knee and got it in the nuts before the touch turned her to dust.

The finality of it hit me in the gut as a blue-flamed
anti-imp charge slammed into the ground to my right. I leapt back, ears ringing, as it splattered me with hot magic.

Holy hell. I didn’t see how we were going to make it out of here alive.

Through the smoke and the clashing bodies, I saw Diana and Dyonne surrounded by a company of witches, battling their way through the ruins at the Callidora to the altar where at least a dozen imps hissed and spewed curses. Grandma flung magical Molotov cocktails to Diana’s right. I watched in horror as she firebombed the imp closest to Diana before she took out the creature going for her.

Another one came up from behind. She didn’t see it. “Grandma!” I wasn’t going to make it in time.

A rush of orange flame burst past me. The imp fell backward, drowning in fire, as I looked to the sky. Flappy the dragon had grown to the size of a Buick. Black smoke shot out his nostrils as he huffed in pleasure at his imp-frying abilities. And on his back rode Pirate.

Oh no.

“Get yourself and that dragon home!” I bellowed. “Right now!”

Pirate ignored me. “Fire in the hole!” he shouted as Flappy took out an imp swooping down out of the sky.

Holy Hades. Pirate had strapped himself to the dragon Harley dog–style.

We were right below the tear in the protective magic. The witches had at least two more cannons set up underneath and they were shooting at anything in the air.

“Home. Now!” I hollered. I knew that dragon was going to be trouble.

Flappy fired off a shot and seared something behind me, no doubt saving my worried butt.

“Whoo hoo!” Pirate whooped. “I am Rescue Dog!”

Flappy shot straight up into the air, ending the debate, as I watched Diana and Dyonne close in on the ruins. The witch ahead of Grandma fell. An imp hissed and drew back to attack.

She’d never make it.

I raced for them. An imp screeched behind me and I turned, burying a switch star into his chest, the impact blowing me backward, bombarding me with countless pinpricks of energy. The impact seized me like an electric charge. I sat for a moment, stunned, as the battle raged around me.

Frieda and Ant Eater had turned a cannon on a horde of imps. They couldn’t kill them all. I couldn’t even count them all. Two griffins battled at the edge of the forest. Dimitri! He had a huge bloody gash across his neck and another ripping across his side. Talos circled him, limping as he lunged, one wing completely torn away, his beak a crush of blood. I couldn’t tell who was winning, only that Dimitri’s feathers had gone slate gray.

Please, God. Don’t let them take Dimitri.

I stood, ready to fire, when I realized my switch star hadn’t come back. They always raced back. Switch stars were the ultimate supernatural boomerangs.

That’s when I saw my double.

The doppelgänger wore my black leather pants, my lavender bustier. She’d pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail and she grinned like a maniac as she walked straight up to Scarlet.

“I got you covered, Lizzie,” Scarlet called.

Only she spoke to my double. Holy Hades.

“Scarlet—no!”

Scarlet tossed the doppelgänger an anti-imp charge before firing one, taking out the creature making a beeline for Frieda and the artillery witches. Then Scarlet uttered a choked shout as she watched the demon slayer, who she thought was me, bury a switch star in her heart.

Tears burned the back of my eyes. I knew Scarlet. I’d liked her. And now she was dead on the ground because she’d trusted me. I hadn’t seen this warped reflection of me until it had grown powerful enough to have my strength, my powers—my body.

I whipped out a switch star, waited for a clean shot and fired it at the doppelgänger’s head.

She caught it.

Shock slammed in my throat as she held my switch star, the pink blades churning for her as they did only for me. The same way she’d fired my own weapon at me in the forest. She turned, a contemptuous smile curling the sides of her mouth.

My magic recognized her.

Bloody hell on earth.

I fired another star, and another, in quick succession. I aimed. I shot. I aimed again. I shot. It was the only thing I could do—what I was trained to do. She couldn’t catch them all.

She did.

She laughed, cold and hard, as she held up my five switch stars.

Her icy arrogance struck me like a blow.

I felt a burning on my left side and leapt aside as a
curse flew past. The arrow buried itself into the ground near my ankle.

A hail of fire rained down behind me.

“Damn, Lizzie!” Pirate craned his neck to see my double while Flappy roasted my attacker. The blackened imp fell in a heap next to two startled biker witches.

My double turned her hollow eyes on my dog.

“Don’t you even think about it.” I strode right for her. “You want me?” I asked the doppelgänger, one final switch star—the one I’d taken from Dimitri—at the ready. “Call off your imps and we’ll fight this out.”

Slayer to slayer.

“Oh, this is precious. Give us some space,” she called, and the imps fell back. I stared at her across the narrow space. I just hoped my dog listened half as well as her imps. Pirate didn’t need to be anywhere near this.

She waited, smirking, for me to fire my last round.

My heart pounded in my chest and every nerve ending blazed. I curled my toes inside my black boots.

Calm down.

Every bit of my training had brought me to this point. I had to trust it—trust myself.

No matter what it took, I had to take down the doppelgänger.

My fingers, slick with sweat, curled around the handle of my final switch star. I couldn’t fire it. She’d catch it. I couldn’t get close enough to bury it in her chest without her impaling me.