A Tale of Two Demon Slayers (15 page)

Smoke curled from the egg where a white claw began peeking through. “It’s not a beak,” I said, taking an extra step back.

“It’s a tooth!” Pirate said, beside himself with excitement. I hadn’t seen him go this crazy since the time I’d baked him a dog-biscuit cake for his birthday.

Pirate was right. A full set of teeth poked out, followed by a slimy head, a scaly ridged back and a set of wet,
folded wings. Pirate rushed for it, his nose inches from the thing’s head. “It’s a lizard!”

“I think it’s a dragon,” I said, more than a little shocked as it flopped out of my tennis shoe. I don’t know why anything should have surprised me at that point.

It was the size of a hamster, with dirty white scales and black claws. Its teeth were sharp and uneven. I’d say they were crooked, if I knew anything about dragon dentistry. In fact, one particular snaggletooth stood out nearly sideways. The dragon gave a tiny roar, which I had to admit was kind of cute, before it turned those teeth on my already-abused sneaker.

“Go for the laces!” Pirate instructed. “Those are the tastiest.”

I resheathed my switch star and planted my hands on my hips. “You said you never touched my shoes.”

“Whoops,” he said, not sorry at all, his eyes on the beast. “Can we keep it?”

“Of course not. I don’t know what to do with a dragon.” Not to mention the fact that we already had the biker witches tearing up Dimitri’s estate. We didn’t need to start adding mythical creatures.

“But I need a pet!” he said, like the four-year-old he was.

“You are a pet,” I reminded him.

“Exactly,” he said, as if I was just catching up. “So I know how to treat a pet.” He made two full circles before plopping his rear down in front of the dragon. “First rule: no Healthy Lite dog chow.”

The dragon lolled out a snakelike tongue and licked Pirate on the nose.

“No,” I said. No pets. No tearing up the estate. And
while I was at it, no flying imps, no scheming griffins, no more attacks and no Amara.

If I could only have had half of what I wanted, I’d have been in pretty good shape. As it stood, there was a distinct possibility the world was indeed scheming against me.

“Get rid of the dragon,” I told Pirate. If I could have controlled one corner of my life, that would have been it.

Pirate’s ears flattened and his shoulders slumped. “Sure. Fine. All I wanted was a pet, but I don’t need no pet.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Never mind where the poor dragon is gonna go because I sure don’t know and I don’t think he’s got any friends and—”

“Pirate,” I interrupted. “Diana said something earlier about the ASPCC.”

His ears perked up. “The ASSP-what?”

“The All-Species for the Prevention of Cruelty to Creatures. I’m sure they’ll take good care of him.” They certainly wouldn’t insert him into the middle of the trouble we had going.

Pirate cocked his head. “But will they love him?”

“Pirate,” I warned.

He left with the dragon. I felt bad about it. I did. But I had my hands full enough with whatever was threatening me and this estate. Not to mention the biker witches. They’d switched to Merle Haggard. And karaoke. If I leaned out the window just so, I could see the smoke from their fire. I said a quick prayer that they’d started it in a fire pit.

In the field out back, I watched Dimitri join Amara. At least she’d left her clothes on this time. Maybe she
realized he wasn’t interested in her lacy pink bra, or maybe she figured she’d get to him later.

Soon she’d have him on her home turf, with her perfect griffin clan—the family he’d chosen to join.

They shifted together, their bodies shuddering and expanding. Massive forearms ripped through Dimitri’s black T-shirt as claws erupted from his hands. Lion’s fur raced down his back as red, blue, purple and green feathers grew into tremendous wings.

When they finished, two beautiful griffins stood side by side.

Dimitri called to her in a language only they understood, and she responded, spreading her silver wings and launching herself into the night. Dimitri followed and I watched them, majestic and proud, until they faded into the gathering darkness together.

That night, I dreamed of Diana’s Skye stone. She kept it on the dresser in a room draped with roses. It shone like a bright summer’s day, even in the darkness.

It wasn’t as brilliant when Talos held it. I wondered what would happen if I touched it. Even more, I craved it.

I reached for the stone and was shocked to find that it shimmered against my fingers. I took it, cradling it in my palm and luxuriating in the warmth and power it sent flooding up my arms.

This energy was mine.

I raced from the room, through the house and out to the back gardens. Two of the Red Skull witches had fallen asleep in wrought-iron porch chairs, their chins against their chests. I rushed past them, out to the far edge of the garden. I ducked around an ancient oak and down a narrow path, over a bridge and to a secluded spot where the knapweed and wild orchids buzzed heavily with insects. I buried the stone at the base of a wild pomegranate tree growing crooked against a rock.

Soon it would begin. Fire would rain down. The earth would split and I would be the only demon slayer—the most powerful one of them all.

The sun was barely over the horizon when a pounding at the door had me sitting straight up in bed. My head ached.
I hadn’t slept well, which meant I’d probably been having bad dreams. This one hovered at the edge of my consciousness, barely out of reach until Pirate flipped over next to me, taking the covers with him. “Lizzie, there’s someone at the door!” His paws dug into my hip as he made a mad dash off the bed.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, shoving my way toward the bedside clock. Usually when someone woke me up at five thirty in the morning, our world had just gone to h-e-double hockey sticks.

I stumbled past the sleeping dragon, unlocked the door and found Talos on the other side, his black hair an unruly mess and his narrow face etched with concern.

“Diana’s Skye stone is missing,” he said, wasting no time on niceties. “Tell me you know something about it.”

“No,” I said, concerned and mildly annoyed as he glowered down at me. “What do
you
know about it?”

He’d taken it the night the sky had turned green. What was to say he hadn’t stolen it a second time?

He had the nerve to look offended. “It wasn’t me. I gave my word I wouldn’t touch it again.”

Oh, well wasn’t that a comfort? “And your word is…?”

“Everything to a griffin,” he said. “I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation. Diana needs the stone to focus her power and recover her magic.”

Not to mention protect us all.

I didn’t need the hand-puppet version. I knew what was at stake.

“I’ll be ready in one minute.” I left him in the hallway while I changed into black leather pants and my lucky
purple bustier. I threw my hair back into a ponytail and slid on my black leather boots.

I’d been trying so hard to be on vacation. Now it almost felt good to get back into my work clothes, like I was no longer in denial. This getaway had been over before it began and I might as well admit it. I hitched my demon slayer utility belt around my waist and fastened the crystal buckle. No telling what we’d have to face today.

“Okay,” I said, pleased at how Talos took a step backward when I opened the door. “Take me to Diana.”

“I can’t,” he said, stiffly. “Diana and Dyonne have gone to their private retreat. We dare not interfere.”

“Fine.” They could handle it their way; we’d hit it from our end. “Come on,” I said, slapping Talos on the shoulder and heading down the hall toward the stairs. “We’ll enlist the witches.”

He gave a slight gurgle. “Do you think that’s wise?”

“Probably not,” I answered truthfully. The Red Skulls tended to complicate things wherever they went, but I’d bet my last switch star they knew more about Skye magic than I did.

“Truly. You’re a demon slayer! What of this internal locator system you have?” he asked as we hurried down the stairs

He said it as if I were a human metal detector. “It’s more like a sixth sense for danger, and it only pings when something is about to attack me.”

“Too bad,” Talos answered. I resisted the urge to shove him down the last two steps. The griffin needed an edit button.

“Answer me this,” I said, stopping at the bottom of the stairs. “What can someone else do with Diana’s Skye stone? You told me yourself you couldn’t use it for anything but to see where their magic had weakened.”

“Yes,” he said, like I was the slow contestant on
Jeopardy!
“But if our enemies can’t use it to gain power, they can still use it to make Diana lose power. The end result is the same. I’m strong, but I can’t defend this entire estate by myself.”

He saw my shock and it only urged him on. “Make no mistake, we will die for this place. We pledged ourselves and we shall go down fighting.”

“Frankly, I’d like to find another way,” I said, heading for the back hall. I wasn’t optimistic enough to think I’d survive this if Talos didn’t.

“I agree,” he said.

Too bad I still didn’t trust him. I wasn’t about to take his word that he couldn’t do anything with a stolen Skye stone. If only Dimitri were here. He’d know whether Talos was telling the truth.

I thought about calling him and realized my Sprint calling plan didn’t include Greece, much less ultrasecret griffin clan meetings. Maybe Diana or Dyonne would know how to reach their brother.

This was the second break-in since I’d arrived. We had a traitor among us, and I was willing to bet he’d just yanked me out of bed, pretending to help.

I pushed my way out the doors to the patio. The garden looked almost serene in the early-morning light. Birds chirped and hopped over the muddy hole where the sundial fountain had been. The witches had also cleared out a large swath of rosebushes that had blocked the stone
house, and installed a barbecue pit made from half a wine barrel. Classy.

Maybe they’d know what to do with Talos. “Where were you last night?” I asked him as we approached the armory.

He walked with me through the remains of the rose garden as if he expected to step on dog poop. “Believe it or not,” he said, with no small amount of disgust, “I spent the night with your biker witches.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“I wish I were. A woman named Ant Eater shoved homemade whiskey under my nose. Being hospitable, I tried it.” He winced at the memory. “The next thing I remember was a man named Bob rolling his wheelchair past my head this morning, asking if I’d like bacon.”

“So they know what’s going on?” I asked. Good.

“No, I’d returned to my room when Diana sounded the alarm. I came straight to you.”

Lucky me.

Frieda threw back the wooden front door so hard it bounced against the wall. “Talos! How ya doing?” she waved. “Your head feeling any better?”

“No,” Talos said.

She wore lime green leather pants and a zebra-print halter top. “Would you like a hangover spell?” she asked, chomping on gum. “We got plenty brewed up in the house.”

“No,” he repeated.

There was no time for Talos’s headache anyway. “We need to talk to Grandma and Ant Eater. We have a situation.”

Good thing the biker witches were used to things
going wrong. Grandma and Ant Eater rushed right out, along with the half dozen or so other witches who liked to eavesdrop. They munched on bacon while Talos and I explained the situation.

“Who did it?” Grandma demanded, tossing the last of her breakfast to Pirate. Sneaky dog. I thought I’d locked him in the room.

Ant Eater shook her head. “Talos was with us, Dimitri and Amara are gone, our witches are clean, the sisters are clean.” She tapped a finger against her gold front tooth. “Nothing from the outside came in through the wards last night.”

“How do you know?”

She gave me a look that could tan leather. “I know.”

“Fine.” I believed her. “So we don’t know who took the stone or where it is now.” It was completely unacceptable. We needed a plan.

Frieda patted her stack of blonde hair. “We could work up some magic traps, and unlike the time in Little Rock—”

The witches glared at her.

“What happened in Little Rock?” I asked.

Scarlet, the red-haired witch, winced. “Frieda got eaten.”

Frieda shook her head, remembering. “Lost a perfectly good pair of hot-pink platform shoes, rhinestone buckles and all.” She sighed wistfully. “But never you mind. This time, we’ll make sure our magic is immune.”

“You’re forgetting about the wards around this place,” Grandma said. “Traps would pull them down.”

We were interrupted by a wide-eyed Diana rushing out onto the patio, followed closely by Dyonne.

“It’s gone!” Diana announced, tears in her eyes. She sank into a wrought-iron patio chair. “I thought if we did some meditations, focused our remaining strength, we could sense where it is. But…” She gestured helplessly.

“This won’t do,” Talos said. “Diana, you must try to track your magic.”

“I can’t,” she wailed. “One minute it was on my dresser and the next minute—poof!”

Grandma shook her head. “It can’t just disappear.”

“It did!” Diana insisted, clutching at her pink silk nightgown.

Grandma inspected Diana’s pupils, then started looking under Diana’s fingernails for who knew what.

In the meantime, I tried to think of something, anything, that would help us look. The Skye stone was no bigger than a billiard ball. I could see it disappearing to a safe place. It glowed with an inner magic from the moment Diana touched it during training. It shone even brighter in my dream. I remembered it now. It had been so real.

The facts clicked into place in my mind.

I had a logic teacher who always said you should never discount an answer simply because you didn’t expect the data to lead you there. And boy, did I love logic.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, backing away from the group.

“Lizzie, are you on to something?” Grandma asked.

“Maybe—just give me a minute,” I said, heading down the stone path and into the garden. “Alone,” I added, before I had a herd of witches and griffins following me.

I didn’t want to try to explain where I was going. I didn’t even know if the hazy place in my mind existed in real life. Pirate’s nails clicked on the slate path behind me as I made my way toward a spot at the very edge of the gardens. Subtle he was not.

“I’d rather do this alone, Pirate,” I said, searching for the overgrown trail leading into the thick of the garden.

“Um-hum,” he said, his nose tickling my heels. “I saw how you looked when you took off, like you’re about to go get the mail without me.”

I dug around one of the pink flowering bushes invading the walkway. Yeah, well getting the mail with Pirate took twenty minutes. He had to sniff every rock, tree and blade of grass within twenty feet of the curb.

“Stick close,” I said. “This could be nothing or…” I didn’t know what, but I wasn’t about to ignore anything that could help me find Diana’s stone.

“Um-hum.” Pirate huffed, his hot breath tickling my leg. “You need a watchdog.”

We made our way down the tangled path together. Pirate kept his nose to the ground while I searched the thick garden foliage for anything out of the ordinary.

“You know I asked Ant Eater about the ASPCC,” Pirate said, leaping over a prickly branch like it was a track-and-field hurdle.

Sweat trickled down my back. “Pirate, buddy. We don’t have time.”

“She said dragons are wild animals and they don’t take wild animals. So see? That dragon needs me.”

This trail, overgrown as it was, seemed so familiar. Yet I knew I’d never been here before. “If dragons are wild,”
I said to my dog, trying to make sense of this place, “then you can let him go. He’ll be fine.”

We, on the other hand…

I stopped dead when I ducked around the branches of a prickly, flowering bush and spotted an ancient oak like the one I’d seen last night. To the right of it, I found a narrow path, almost invisible among the crush of bougainvillea bushes and overgrown olive trees.

“This is it!”

Pirate danced in place. “Oh, Lizzie. You think so?”

The branches scratched at my arms as I followed the besieged trail from my dream. Pirate dug his nose into the ground as he launched into full protective mode. His body stiffened and his stubby tail quivered. Lucky for me, he took his job as a guard dog seriously.

“You okay, buddy?” I asked as I swatted gnats away from my face.

“Are you kidding? I am on duty. Hole!” he hollered.

I looked down and saw a crater in the ground, deep enough to turn an ankle. “Nice watch-dogging.”

Pirate puffed out his chest. “I know you need me.”

I was about to reach down and pat him on the head when I saw a wooden bridge around the bend—exactly where I expected it to be. This was no longer a coincidence.

“Come on,” I said, clearing the hole in a single leap. “Let’s move.”

We crossed the bridge and came to a secluded spot where the knapweed and wild orchids buzzed heavily with insects. The strangest sense of déjà vu overtook me, although I knew it wasn’t just a feeling. I
had
been here before.

Straight ahead, at the base of a wild pomegranate tree growing crooked against a rock, I’d find Diana’s stone.

I found a broken tree branch and started digging.

Pirate slipped in at my elbow. “Oh, no,
no
. Allow me.”

His front paws went to work like a mini–trench digger, the volcanic soil flying out behind him. I knelt to the side, watching, until his paws hit pay dirt. “It’s slippery!”

“It’s the stone!” I lifted Pirate out of his hole with one hand and used the other to pull the brilliant blue Skye stone from its hiding place. Even caked in grime, it was majestic. I wiped it against my pants and it shone even brighter.

Amazing.

“Now how’d you know to look here?” Pirate asked with a tilt of his head.

“You’re not the only one who’s going to ask me that,” I said grimly.

Right then, a chill slid up my back as I spotted the dark-haired woman watching us from the trees. “You!” I struggled to see her face through the leaves.