Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

“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.

It was to the point where I almost expected a candy store when Sid opened the gate to Gooey Gumdrop Lane.

Instead, large pink and yellow mushrooms sprouted as far as I could see. They even covered the road. Sid broke off a chunk of the nearest one and stuffed it into his pocket.

“And that is?” I asked.

“None of your beeswax,” he shot back.

We fired up our engines and took off down the lane.

As night fell, Sid pushed open the bamboo gate that opened onto Las Vegas Boulevard. A few tourists paused outside, expecting a show as we roared our bikes out of a row of palm trees and past the Treasure Island Casino pirate ship.

If they only knew.

It wasn’t the first time I was glad non-magical humans couldn’t see large scaly dragons.

Sid closed the gate with a grunt as Dimitri pulled up next to me.

“Look,” I pointed to a billboard, “Dale Fiehler is building a new mega casino.” He was the Donald Trump of Las Vegas, only with better hair. The twenty-foot-tall Fiehler smiled down on us, not knowing just how close we’d come to having no Vegas at all.

Dimitri revved his bike. “Let’s keep moving.”

I knew Dimitri wasn’t happy about being back in Las Vegas with Max. Worse, the last time he’d been here, he’d nearly been consumed by she-demons. Succubi look at griffins the same way Pirate sees pork chops – the ideal snack. I’d exterminated them, but it didn’t make for happy vacation memories.

We eased into the traffic on The Strip. Cars streamed up and down, honking over the sound of tourists calling out to each other. Bright lights from dozens of casinos and restaurants flashed up and down the street.

I wouldn’t have dragged us here if I’d had a choice, but we needed to know what level of demonic creature I was carrying around. The jar on my belt rattled as the plasticky creature threw itself at the glass. Vicious little beast.

“Max could be anywhere,” Dimitri said.

“I know where to find him,” I said.

“You do?” He didn’t sound happy.

“I know where he lives.” He’d be there, unless he was out hunting. If that was the case, we’d just have to wait. “Follow me.”

Dimitri and I took the lead. Grandma and Flappy moved to the rear of the line. My bike shook and rumbled. Asphalt under my tires felt strange and slow after the speed and exhilaration of the fairy paths. Sid was going to spoil us.

I glanced back at the line of biker witches behind me, and to the dragon chasing the swooping spotlight on Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower.

We snaked down Las Vegas Boulevard in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Flappy dove low over New York, New York, clipping the top of a skyscraper with his big toe. “Rrr-eek!”

Oh geez. I winced as bits of plaster rained down.

Flappy didn’t notice. He’d perched at top of the Empire State Building to inspect his stubbed toe.

He was like a snaggle-toothed, naked King Kong. Without the girl. Which was good. I didn’t need to find any more dragon eggs.

“Hey,” Pirate called from Sidecar Bob’s lap, “maybe I should ride with Flappy.”

I took one last look at the dragon, whose face lit up as soon as he noticed me watching. “Not on your life.”

We turned onto Highway 70 out of Vegas and followed it until the neon and strip malls ceased and we were instead surrounded by desert scrub and emptiness.

The headlights of the other drivers became scarcer and disappeared completely when we turned off onto a lonely side road. We cut through the dry, cool desert night until we came to an abandoned prison thirty miles outside of Harrison.

I’d known exactly where it was. I could feel the demons.

Gray metal guard towers loomed above rusted fences. Barbed wire twisted along the tops, its loops capturing Styrofoam cups and fast food wrappers. Weeds littered the ground and sprouted between the concrete basketball courts in the yard. A dented sign read South East Nevada State Women’s Minimal Security Correctional Center .