Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

“Path,” I repeated, taking a second look at the map while at the same time resisting the urge to touch my head. “Oh no. We’re not taking any paths. We need the interstate.” I had to get to my dad as quickly as possible.

His bushy brows shot up, deepening the cascade of wrinkles etched into his forehead. “Last I heard you weren’t in charge of trip planning, demon slayer.”

I snorted. “I am if you’re going to lead us down Willy Wallup Way.”

“Nether Wallup Way,” he said through clenched teeth.

“Whatever.” It was ridiculous no matter how you said it.

Ant Eater cracked an egg into a glass of tomato juice and handed it to Sid.

“Your boyfriend is trying to lead us down the primrose path,” I protested. “And what’s with the eggs?”

“Protein,” she answered. “And what’s the deal? You think Sid doesn’t know his stuff?”

The short, stocky fairy gulped at his power drink and slapped Ant Eater on the rear. She tittered and wiggled her hips at him, which I really didn’t need to see.

I ran a finger down the corkscrews and round-abouts that made up the fairy path in question. “What I’m saying,” I said, assuming my teacher voice, “is Nether Wallup Way would mosey us about two hundred miles south instead of west,” and mostly in circles.

If we were going to get to Pasadena any time soon, we needed to take the most direct route, which meant interstate highways. “Look,” I said, bending over the map, “we take I-80 all the way to Sacramento. Hang a left at either 99 or 5, preferably 5…”

Sid shook his head, sprinkling silver glitter onto the map like a bad case of dandruff. “That’s all fine and dandy, but the fairy paths run through Philly and then down south.” He pointed to a series of winding trails through Virginia and Kentucky. “We’ll take a short detour down Filligan’s Rut into Nashville, and then head west from there,” he said, as if it were obvious to anyone with a touch of otherworldly intelligence.

Not happening.

“The interstate works just fine.” I was all for magical hoo-ha. It had saved my rear plenty of times, but, “we have banshees on our tail and time issues to consider.” Magic for the sake of magic was just plain foolish.

He looked at me as if I had a screw loose. “About those banshees, I had to clean up the mess you left outside. Poison skin, poison fangs, poison spit. I’ll bet those suckers even have poison poop and you just want to rocket down the highway and see if they can catch up to us. Not me. I’m going with fairy magic. If you want to be stupid about it, then you can go by yourself.”

“Oh sure, let’s break up the group,” I said, realizing just how serious he was. What was with this guy? We needed speed as well as safety in numbers. “We’re in a race to save my dad’s soul. We don’t have time to fool around.”

“Lizzie –” Grandma clapped a hand on my shoulder.

But I was on a roll. “Give me a fast Harley and a belt full of switch stars.”

“Now you sound like a biker witch,” Grandma said, her gravelly voice ringing with pride. “I hate to tell you that in this case, Sid is right.”

Oh please. “Did you hit your head on something pointy?”

“We’re talking about ancient protection here.” She shrugged. “Fairies have been running these routes since George Washington was in diapers.”

“Try Ramses,” Sid smirked.

Grandma ignored him. “Every fairy that travels a route deepens the magic. We’re talking generations and generations of strength and protection.”

Okay, well, Sid hadn’t bothered to explain that part. “Have you done this before?” I asked.

“Hell, no,” Grandma said. “We never knew where they were. Now we do.”

Frieda handed us both a glass of tomato juice. “Drink up.”

I took a sniff. It held the bitter tang of something besides tomatoes. Of course knowing the biker witches, it could mean they’d added anything from vodka to vitamins.

Nothing could be simple. “Will fairy magic protect us against banshees?” I asked.

And anything else that might be hunting us?

Grandma took a long drink, considering the question. “It’ll muddy up the waters, make it harder for them to track us. And hopefully we’ll run into lots of other magical folks who can tell us what’s ahead.”

When she put it that way, it wasn’t such a bad idea. I could use some extra knowledge about what we were facing, especially after the attack outside, and what my dad had tried to pull.

Sid threw his stubby hands out in front of him. “Do you trust me, or not? Because I don’t have all day to sit around and decide who’s going to lead this parade.”

“Okay, fine,” I said, depositing my tomato juice surprise on the bar.

If Grandma trusted him, so did I. We were heading out into the open, and if the fairy magic could act as a shield, we’d be crazy not to take advantage.

Besides, I had a feeling Ant Eater would use my head as a bongo drum if I harassed her main squeeze.

“Let’s leave in ten,” I said, pulling my gloves out of my back pocket. If all else failed, we could always head back to the main highways.

“No problem.” Sid shook a bit of dust from his sleeve. The map shivered and began folding itself.

Nice trick.

We assembled the witches in less than five minutes, which never failed to amaze me. I strapped Pirate to my chest in true biker dog style and adjusted his Doggles riding glasses.

“You’d better lay off the puppy treats,” I said, knowing the problem was probably donuts. I scratched Pirate between the ears. He’d eaten two this morning and we were on our last notch on the black leather baby-style carrier.

He ran a cold nose along the inside of my wrist. “Are you kidding? I can’t pass up a donut. You know anybody that can say no to a chocolate long john?”

Not my dog.

“Besides, I’m using them to train Flappy and he hasn’t been getting many of his tricks right. So I have to eat the donuts. Well I do give him some donuts, whether he sits or not, because well, I can’t just eat donuts in front of him.” Pirate’s tail thumped against my leg. “Sometimes Flappy even sits down when he eats them so that sort of counts.”

Flappy. I craned my neck back at the dirty white dragon licking water out of a battered gutter of Big Nose Kate’s. Good thing only magical people could see Flappy. He wasn’t exactly subtle.

His snaggletooth dredged entire shingles off the roof.

According to Dimitri, the dragon’s wings should have been the size of a man and sparkle like glass. Flappy’s were less than half that size and they only sparkled the one time Pirate decided to play dragon makeover and sprinkle them with glitter. Flappy didn’t care either way, but Pirate had been a glittery mess and I was still finding sparkly bits in my bedroll.

In short, it was pretty safe to assume Flappy had been the runt of the litter, abandoned by a sleeker, sparkly clan. We had no clue which because as far as anyone knew, there were no white dragons.

I’d rescued Flappy from the side of a cliff while he was still in the egg. At the time, I hadn’t planned on adopting a dragon. Of course plans change. I should know that by now.

The dragon let out a juvenile skreeek as the Red Skulls began cranking up their bikes.

“Oh yeah,” Pirate hollered, “you like to ride, now don’t you Flappy?”

Teeth-rattling engines roared on all sides as I made sure Pirate was strapped in safe and made a final check on my helmet.

My bike wobbled slightly as we revved out of the battered driveway and toward a series of side roads that would take us to Nether Wallup Way.

Sid and Ant Eater led the group, followed by Dimitri, Pirate and me. Grandma took up the rear position, with Flappy above her. I snuck a glance past the line of bikers behind us to the hulking mess of Big Nose Kate’s.