Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

Roxie hesitated on the sidewalk. Smart girl. Still, I knew she’d try the wards. She wasn’t a coward. I looped my switch star belt around Flappy’s neck and shoved my Maglite and GPS into my back pocket.

When the wards blew Roxie back onto her Capri-covered tush, I held out my hand for her weapon. She stalked over to me, shaky on her feet, not happy about giving up her last switch star.

“If I can’t recover, I have to end it. I don’t know how I’m going to kill myself without switch stars,” she seethed.

“Would it make you feel better if I told you I was getting closer and closer to wanting to kill you myself?”

She gave me a look that could have peeled paint.

“I brought some magic for you,” I said, handing her an all- purpose jar. They wouldn’t slow down a demon, but they could come in handy.

She held it with two fingers. “What kind of a demon slayer are you?”

Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “I’m the kind who’s going to get us out of this alive.”

By skill, luck or unusual weapons.

“This is a disaster,” she said, still coming to grips with the biker-witch way of doing things.

“It’s the best we can do.” I checked one last time to make sure my utility belt was firmly looped over Flappy and then dug into a side pocket for a pinch of Grandma’s locking powder. “This won’t hurt, Flappy,” I said, sprinkling it over my belt and his neck. “It just keeps it on tighter.”

Flappy sneezed.

Roxie gripped her switch star belt, not ready to give it up. “I don’t want to be taken by a demon. Do you know what they do to slayers?”

“No,” I said. “Keep it to yourself.” I couldn’t afford to lose my nerve. “This brand of magic has saved my skin more than once. Besides, if there was a demon in that house, we’d feel it.”

“Zatar could appear in an instant.”

Didn’t I know it.

I kept my mouth closed as I walked through the thick, warm ward. It tasted like rot and death, as it had before. Only this time, I detected a faint trace of sulfur as well.

Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the mule. I cringed. Something nasty had been this way.

Roxie held back.

“Come on,” I said, making my way up the twisting front walk, keeping an eye out for zombie doormats.

Tension rolled off my reluctant partner. Finally, she looped her belt over her horse.

Good slayer.

Gripping Grandma’s magic jar, I made my way to the darkened front door. Even from the front porch, I could smell the coppery tinge of blood.

You can do this.

I stepped over the threshold and clicked on my Maglite.

Roxie hurried up behind me, as if she didn’t want me leaving her alone in the barren front yard. “It’s too quiet,” she whispered.

“I know,” I said in my normal voice.

Whatever was in there knew we were coming.

I found a light switch and tried it. Nothing.

The walls groaned and shifted as my pool of light filtered across the dirty carpet to the walls with their bloody scrawl. Subvenio arranagnato Zatar unum levis letum. Was it a warning, a threat…or promise?

Roxie sucked in a breath. “He’s calling the demon.”

I froze. “What?” I didn’t hear anything.

She pointed to the wall. “ Subvenio arranagnato Zatar unum levis letum,” she whispered.

I traced my flashlight over the gruesome letters. “I don’t speak Latin.”

“It’s not Latin. It’s Harken, the language of the other worlds.”

More things to learn. It was one of the most frustrating parts of the job because I liked to know everything going in. And then I liked to plan it, map it or file it…or at the very least type it out.

“I didn’t do the academic side of training,” I said to Roxie. Just the killing part. “What do you mean he’s calling a demon?”

She shook her head, the faint light bathing her face in shadows. “He’s helping it.”

My heart thudded against my chest. Heaven save us if that were true.

But it didn’t make any sense. Why would my dad be in league with a demon if he was trying to escape it? He’d called me, begged me, to find a way for him to be free.

“I’ll say one thing for him. He gets around,” Roxie murmured, as she followed the word Zatar , scrawled in blood on the side of an oak bookcase, the ceiling above us to the front door that clicked closed on its own.

“Dad?” I stepped over the books cluttering the room, trying to ignore the dark power radiating from the cracked and worn volumes.

There was no answer.

I didn’t appreciate the way Roxie had barged into my life but I had to be thankful that I now had someone – an experienced slayer – who could help me figure out what was happening to my dad.

Roxie struck a match. The sizzle of it filled the room, along with the heady scent of sulfur. “Look at this,” she said, excited.

She lit a fat red candle, similar to one of Grandma’s ritual candles.

“Are you so sure that’s a good idea?” I asked.

“You can’t draw power with just one.” She positioned the candle on a low table and opened a medieval looking volume. The cover was carved wood, painted in grotesque images of hell.

“Can we look at these?” I asked, still reluctant to spend too much time with the books.

“We can if we’re careful. If you start to enjoy it or lose yourself in a book, get out right away.”

Got it. “There’s a picture of Zatar somewhere around here,” I said, shining my pool of light over endless books. My eye caught a red leather-bound volume with the name Evangeline embossed in gold lettering on a black background. Tiny golden clover flowers, and holy heavens, switch stars formed a border.

“Look at this. This is from a demon slayer,” I said, taking it and opening it in the light from Roxie’s candle.

“It looks like a diary,” she said, as we examined the stained pages. Precise notes, written in vintage script detailed imp sightings, water nymphs in freshly dug wells and whether or not the Pony Express had been infiltrated by valkyries.

Roxie sniffed at that last one. “As if they’d let women ride.”

I ran my fingers over the precisely written notes. It was basically an 1800s version of my own Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers.

Roxie shook her head. “It’s even indexed, by hand.”

Well, sure – that made complete sense. I indexed my hand-written notes too. This Evangeline was a smart cookie.

A low moan echoed from the back of the house. The hairs on my arms stood on end as a chill ran through me.

I handed the diary to Roxie. “Keep this. See what else you run across. I’m going to find my dad.”

My breath hitched as I moved into the next room, a small kitchen. The linoleum was gritty under my feet. Bloody messages trailed up the country wallpaper. They called for Zatar.

Oh no, Dad.

Sweat slicked my palms.

Where was he?

The walls groaned and shifted. I could taste the rotten fear of this place.

The zombie crow skittered across the counter toward me.

“Caw!”

“Go away,” I said under my breath.

“Caw!” Its milky white eyes followed me.

There were no doors in this part of the house, no way to escape. It was like walking farther and farther into the mouth of the whale. And the sadistic thing was ready to swallow me whole.

“Lizzie.” His voice barely carried from the next room.

A small flood of cockroaches skittered out from under the door. “Lizzie?”

“Dad?” My hand traced down to where my switch stars used to be. “I’m coming. Hold on.”

Steady does it.

I cracked open the door. Dad lay sprawled on the floor next to a makeshift altar. His chest heaved, and his breath came in small pants.