The Last of the Demon Slayers (5 page)

“Hold it together, Gertie,” Ant Eater warned her.

      
Grandma shook her head, focusing hard. “Damn it, Phoenix. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Because Phoenix, otherwise known as my mom, was a royal jerk. Not only did she shove off her demon slaying powers on me, it seemed she neglected to tell anyone she’d been running around with a fallen angel.

Grandma swallowed, collecting herself. “Sorry.”

Considering the circumstances, she was doing better than I was. My mind could barely hold a thought. I forced myself to slow down.

Relax.

Focus.

I’d always prided myself on my control, and if there was ever a time to shut up and take it in, it was now.

      
The rope grew still and began to smoke as Grandma redoubled her efforts. “Why, Xavier? Why did you come back now?” She struggled, her mouth hanging open, her eyes fixed on something none of the rest of us could see.

“Grandma?”

Her eyes bugged out. “Your dad’s been fiddling with the wrong side, Lizzie. He made some bad friends.” Sweat beaded on her forehead. “He might not have known what he was doing. Hell, he’d better
not
have known what his jackass friends were pulling. Either way, he got demoted.”

“Before or after he had me?” It was a selfish thing to ask, but darn it, I needed to know.

She just shook her head, concentrating. “He tried to work his way back, but now he’s really struggling. Dang it. I can see why he needs you. Hell and damnation!”

“What?” I demanded.

      
She struggled to pull out the last bit of information as the enchanted lariat caught fire. Grandma fought as it burned to ashes.

When it was gone, she lifted her head and stared right at me.

      
“What?” I repeated, leaning as far as I could without breaking the circle. “So I’m a half angel.” Or half fallen-angel. “He’s a fallen angel.” I was good. “He has to have some good, right?”

      
Grandma trembled slightly. “He does.” She glanced at the charred remains of my dad’s gift. “Even after this booby prize. I think it was hexed to compel you straight for Pasadena.”

      
“Like a magical lasso?”

      
Grandma frowned. “Or a noose.”

      
“Did he know I’d find all this out?” I asked.

“Nope. Most people don’t see us coming.”

Frieda grinned, but Grandma wasn’t in the mood. “I don’t want you going. I don’t want us to go,” she said to the group. “It’s foolhardy, and it’s dangerous. Xavier’s soul is not our problem.”

      
Okay, so I could tell Grandma had never been too keen on Xavier, but since when did she give a fig about foolhardy and dangerous?

I could tell there was something else. “What is it you’re not telling me?”

      
She eyed me. “If you don’t go, your father is going to fall farther,” she said, automatically. “He can’t help it. Forces are in motion against him.”

      
I didn’t understand. “But how can he fall more? He was an angel and now he’s not.”

      
Frieda squeezed my hand. Grandma planted her hands on her hips, searching for words. Ant Eater took the blunt approach. “He’s going to go demonic.”

      
“What?” I stopped for a moment, shocked.

Oh geez. Who was I kidding? Hadn’t I detected some demonic tendencies? Didn’t I smell the sulfur on him? He’d allied himself with death.

      
Grandma sighed. “I’m sorry, Lizzie.”

“Yes, well so am I.” This was my father we were talking about. Yes, he was creepy and I didn’t care for the way he’d tried to compel me or how he’d tried to trick me. But I wasn’t going to damn him to hell for it. “You say he’s going to go demonic unless we do something about it.”

      
“We?” Grandma balked.

      
“Fine. Me.” I was the demon slayer.

      
“Lizzie, you don’t owe that man anything.”

      
“Only my life,” I said. Technically, it was true. Even if I didn’t know him, I couldn’t help but feel for him. I owed it to him to at least see if I could help. If I didn’t try, I’d never forgive myself.

      
Grandma watched me, unhappy.

      
Dimitri would understand. Why couldn’t Grandma?

      
She could frown until her face froze that way. There was no way to ignore the final, awful truth. “You realize if he does fall all the way and becomes a demon, I am a demon slayer.”

      
“I know what you are,” she snapped.

      
I’d have to kill my own father.

I opened my mouth to say it and realized I couldn’t.

She knew.

It was too much. My head hurt. I rubbed at my temples, knowing it wouldn’t make a lick of difference. “Do you want to be on the run again?” I asked. “What if he comes after me because I didn’t help him?”

      
What if he came after me and I couldn’t destroy him?

I’d rather not have to find out. I really didn’t want to know that yes, I could kill my father. To save my friends and my new family, I would. It would be gut wrenching and horrible and I knew I’d never be the same person again if I did it.

      
“Face it, Grandma,” I said to her and the rest of the Red Skulls. “Saving him is a lot easier than the alternative.”

      
Besides, it was the right thing to do.

      
Grandma stared at me long and hard.

“We just got here.” A witch in the back protested.

“I know.” It was a lot to give up. These witches hadn’t had a home in more than thirty years. “We can come back,” I said.

“When?” Another witch grumbled.

I didn’t have an answer to that. I was asking them to sacrifice for a person they didn’t know. Heck, I had barely met him. They’d worked my entire lifetime to get back to the place where we now stood and I was asking them to give it up.

“Can it wait?” Frieda asked. “I haven’t even finished cleaning the cobwebs out of the shower curtains.”

That, I could ignore.

“This isn’t our battle,” Grandma said to the group, her eyes still on me, “but I haven’t known any of you to walk away from a fight that needs to be won.”

She dug her hands into her pockets. “I’d like to settle down too, but I don’t think I could relax knowing we could save a man from eternal damnation. Lizzie hasn’t always asked for our help, and sometimes we’ve wanted to skin her for it. Now she’s asking. I’m not going to say no.”

The witches began murmuring among themselves. Grandma spoke louder. “Anybody who wants to stay here, that’s fine. You’ve earned the right. We won’t say a word about it.” She drew a deep breath and let it out. “Anybody who sees fit to join us, we’re leaving tomorrow morning at dawn.” She paused, her eyes fixed on the floor, finding the words.

“I always used to think we were running and fighting because we had a demon on our tail. And that’s a damned good reason.”

The biker witches chuckled.

Grandma shook her head. “It was more than that. Somewhere along the line, we stopped fighting for just us. I don’t want to eek out a living hidden behind wards and our spells. I want to look the devil in the eye and kick him in the teeth. I want to say to these creatures, ‘No. You will not win. You will not corrupt us or enslave us. You will not own us.’”

She climbed up on the keg. It rattled with her weight, but Grandma was beyond caring. She stood, her black Harley flame boots planted firmly on either side. “We are in charge of what happens in this world. Not them.
Never
them.”

“Never!” Several witches bellowed from the back.

“We owe it to everything good to stand up and fight,” she bellowed. “So I will go to Pasadena. I will take that man back from the demons. And I will tell them to
go to hell
.”

      
The walls echoed and chandeliers swayed with the stomps and cheers of the biker witches.

Creely slapped me on the back. “I’m there.”

      
“Me too, honey.” Frieda hugged me from the side. “We’ll get your daddy back.”

      
The flood gates opened as the witches shouted out their support. The circle broke, gin glasses clinked and I stood there like a fool with a smile plastered across my face. I had a whole coven of bikers behind me.

      
“We’re in this,” Frieda brushed a lock of lavender hair from my shoulder, “whether you want us or not.”

      
I did. The decision was made. Dang it all. We were going to Pasadena.

      
Heaven help us when we got there.

Chapter Four

I stepped out of the phone booth and let it slide closed behind me. Most of the biker witches were still celebrating downstairs, and probably would be for a while. Me? I had some things to figure out.

So far in my time as a slayer, I’d killed the baddies instead of trying to rescue them. I wasn’t sure how rehabilitation worked. Even if we could track down my dad, what would we do next? What would we be facing?

I took stock of what remained of my dad’s gift, still in the jar. Judging from what he’d given me, I wondered how badly Dad wanted to be saved.

The ashes had settled into a circular groove along the base. I shook it out so they spread across the entire bottom. Within seconds, the particles had flickered back to the edges.

Maybe it was just gravity.

Yeah, right.

Grandma said my dad’s creature couldn’t harm me now. She told me it was as dead as the zombie crow. I wasn’t so sure.

Before I became a slayer, a pile of ashes was a pile of ashes. Now a jar was a magical trap, a spell meant a new hairdo and I still wasn’t sure how the biker witches were playing “Freebird” on the jukebox when we technically had no power.

My Jack Russell Terrier bounded up to me amid tables crowded with Burger King takeout bags. Sidecar Bob was in charge of catering. My dog followed him everywhere.

“It’s a feast!” Pirate said, skidding right into my leg, his tail thwacking my shin at a hundred and eighty beats a minute. “We have French fries and cheeseburgers and double cheeseburgers and double bacon cheeseburgers…”

“Chow time!” Bob yelled down to the speakeasy. Boots thundered on the metal stairs.

“Bob, have you seen Dimitri?” I asked. He should have been back by now.

Bob tossed Pirate a French fry and shook his head ‘no.’ “Don’t worry,” he said, as the first of the biker witches clambered out.

Easy for Bob to say. I scooped Pirate up and buried my nose in the wiry hair of his neck. The heavenly aroma of flame grilled burgers and piping hot fries made my stomach rumble.

Pirate licked my fingers, my arm, my shoulder, pretty much anything he could reach. “You smell fantastic. Smells like you’ve been roasting meat. Of course you burnt that one,” he said, sniffing my jar, “but that’s okay. I’ll eat it.”

That wasn’t saying much. Pirate would eat anything. In this case, he couldn’t have my dad’s crispy minion.

The front door banged open. Everyone in the bar jumped, including me. Dimitri Kallinikos, my long-awaited griffin boyfriend stood in the doorway with a massive white dragon behind him.

“Oh thank God,” I said. He was here. He was safe and he was mine.

Dimitri was well over six feet, with the broad shoulders and sculpted body of an ancient Greek statue. He had a square jaw, olive skin and striking green eyes. Dimitri was out of place in this dingy biker bar, even though he wore jeans and a dark black T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders.

He had the ability to hold perfectly still, which is lost on most people these days. Even now, his movements were precise as he peeled one of Grandma’s thorny wards away from his leather jacket.

I let the tension leave me as I started for him, amazed he still managed to look polished after flying for two hours. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, back straight and always alert. Or maybe it was simply the fact that he really was from another world.

“Flappy!” Pirate scrambled out of my arms and broke into a run the second his paws touched the concrete floor. My dog dashed straight for Dimitri and through his legs as he greeted the dragon.

Flappy’s happy squawk ended in an adolescent croak. As usual, Pirate blew the curve when it came to happy reunions.

Still, I wasn’t too shabby myself.

“Hey there,” I said to Dimitri, feeling my mouth quirk into a grin. Heaven knew I’d missed this man. I didn’t like him going out in search of trouble, and not just because it could be dangerous. I just wanted him with me.

“Lizzie,” he said with a slight Greek accent that made my name sound almost lyrical. He looked me up and down. “Nice hair,” he said without a trace of irony.

Heat crept up my cheeks. Yes, it was ridiculous. I was embarrassed enough. The last thing I needed was for him to remind me.

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’d just found out I was part angel. That trumped the hair thing. Besides, it was good having him back. I’d been more worried than I wanted to admit.

“What happened out there?” I asked as he touched his forehead to mine and closed his eyes.

He’d been fighting. The emerald in his eyes betrayed him.

“I’ll tell you in a minute,” he said. “Not here.” We savored a quiet moment and when he opened his eyes again, they’d gone back to a rich chocolate brown.

I reached for him and noticed his ebony hair curled with moisture at the ends. I ran the damp strands between my fingers.

He replied with a melting brush of his lips on mine.

“Why do you always assume we have trouble?” he said against my mouth.

“Other than the fact that we usually do?”

He rumbled out a laugh and pulled me into his arms. “You’re just worried about our date.” He smelled like warm leather and campfires. I snuggled against him as a toasty feeling wound through me.

Yes, well I had every reason to worry. Ours hadn’t been what you’d call a typical relationship.