Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

My dad sprawled between me and Rachmort. He was starting to come around.

I tried to hold my head steady, hoping it would help the ringing in my ears. It didn’t. “You okay?” I caught a whiff of the ammonia and sulfur of purgatory on him. No doubt I stunk too.

He winced as I helped him to his feet.

“I’ve been better,” he groaned, holding his dislocated shoulder.

No kidding. At least both of us were upright. That was progress.

I made it over to Rachmort, realizing too late that I’d lost my cutters.

Rachmort lay on the ground, still bound to his chair, bracing himself with his free hand. I bent down to help steady him. “Are you okay?”

“Your cutters are in the Joshua tree.”

“How do you-?” I began. “You know what? Forget it. I don’t want to know.

I made a bee line for the Joshua tree. And there, at the base, I saw a pasty white butt, a silver ponytail and, “Oh my God,” I spun away, covering my eyes.

“Hey, get your own – Oh wow, it’s Lizzie!”

And that was Neal.

I didn’t dare look again, even though I was pretty sure who was with the flower-powered menace.

Grandma chuckled. “It’s the most natural thing in the world, Lizzie.”

No it wasn’t. Not when it was my grandmother, at the base of a tree, en flagrante.

“Can you stop making out?” We had problems here.

She didn’t even have the decency to be embarrassed. “We weren’t making out, we were making love.”

“Too much information.”

“Besides, you were the one who ran off. Looks like you did good. Hey, Rachmort!”

“Gertie!” The necromancer waved his free hand. “I was aiming for you. I figured you’d be somewhere fortified.”

Oh please. “Get dressed,” I barked. “And hand me those cutters.”

“No wait!” I corrected myself as Neal began to stand up. “I’ll get them myself.” I reached into a high branch for the gleaming silver shears.

I still couldn’t believe Grandma and Neal had been doing the horizontal pokey while we fought for our lives in purgatory.

Grandma had no business being out away from camp, especially with an aging hippie who couldn’t keep his Birkenstocks to himself.

There were banshees on the loose for heaven’s sake! Deadly cutters flying through the air! Although, frankly, I was more annoyed by Neal.

Not that I’d seen anything truly gruesome. It was dark. But the thought, the hint, the notion of Grandma doing that or anything leading up to it was a bit more than my brain could handle.

While Neal put his peace sign back in his pocket, I knelt beside my mentor and tried to focus on something I could control, like freeing him.

My hands shook with pain, but I held the cutters as steady as I could and sliced the last bond from Rachmort’s wrist.

“How long do you think before Zatar tracks us?” I asked, helping him uncurl his wrist from the back of the chair.

Rachmort sagged to the ground, his white hair stark and bright against the brown soil. “Not long.”

I got to work on the bands at his ankles.

Rachmort ran a dirty hand over his face and back into his hair. “How long have you been able to -” He winced as I nicked him with the cutters.

“Sorry.”

“How long have you been able to handle a demon’s vox?”

I cringed as his ankle bonds snapped and the kickback made my cutters vibrate against the burns on my hands. “It came with the powers.” Grandma had locked me in my bathroom to undergo the change. I’d been mad and scared. “A few seconds after I turned into a demon slayer, a demon showed up on the back of my toilet bowl, spitting vox. I’d killed him with it.”

Rachmort broke out in a smile and for the first time that night. He looked like his old self. “Splendid, Lizzie. Well done.” He scooted away from the chair, his legs free.

Well it’s not as if I had much of a choice. “How long have you been able to summon portals?”

He flicked his hand. “It’s a common necromancer’s trick,” he said, massaging at his freed wrists. “I’ve never met a demon slayer who could touch vox, much less hold it,” he said, barely containing his excitement. “And you threw it back!” He made a tossing motion. “Pow!”

“Yeah.” He made it sound fun, when in reality it was downright terrifying. “You mean I’m not supposed to do that?”

He shook his head wildly. “No. It’s completely baffling. Isn’t that wonderful?”

I wasn’t so sure. “Should I keep doing it?”

“Of course.” He touched my arm, his expression more like a father’s than I’d ever known. “You have gifts, Lizzie. It’s your moral duty to use them well.”

Grandma sauntered up to us, boots grinding against the sandy earth. “My turn to interrupt the love fest.”

“Your shirt’s on backward,” I said.

She snorted. “Stop being picky. I had to do something while you were off saving the world.” She straightened the silver rings on her fingers. “You said we had problems.”

“Right.” Rachmort scrambled to his feet, brushing the worst of the dirt from his brown trousers. “Zatar is going to be able to use that portal to track us.”

“I don’t know,” I said, ignoring the pounding in my head as I stood. “I may have bought us some time. You see I had one of Grandma’s jars left-”

“ You stole my jars?”

“Borrowed,” I corrected her. There was a difference. Maybe. “Anyhow, it broke and I felt Zatar fade.”

“E-yah!” Grandma slapped me on the back. Grandma planed her silver ringed hands on her hips, coming as close as she ever had to beaming. “You unloaded an all purpose jar back there? That’ll hold him back for three hours. Maybe four!”

“Then let’s prepare,” Rachmort said.

I nodded. “Okay, listen up.”

Dad and I explained what happened in purgatory. Well, I did most of the explaining. Dad sat down against the Joshua tree. He’d gone pale and weak.

Grandma whistled under her breath. “How long did the demon have you?” she asked Rachmort.

He tugged at his goatee. “What month is it?”

She raised her brows. “March.”

“Two months then.” He blew out a breath.

Wow. He’d been taken almost the moment he’d left us in Greece.

He waved off our concern. “There’s no time for that. Although I will thank you, Lizzie. And you, Xavier, for rescuing me. That was a fine piece of work. Most impressive.” He winked. “Now.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “The demon wants you dead, Lizzie. I heard him talking. He’s made it his mission to eliminate the slayers.”

Thanks for the reminder. “Roxie and I figured that out.”

“Roxie?” He beamed with surprise. “She’s alive?”

That’s right. He didn’t know. “I’m not the last demon slayer.” To see his expression you would have thought it was Christmas morning, Easter and his birthday wrapped into one.

“There are six others,” I told him, “including Roxie. They went into hiding.”

“Brilliant!” He beamed. “I knew I trained them well.”

Yeah, well training only got you so far. “We have a problem. Roxie’s infected with a dreg. She’s afraid she’s going to pass it on to her sister.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. You could see the wheels turning in his mind. “We’ll protect them. We’ll make it our mission to stop the dregs and eliminate Zatar.”

Dad started coughing. Hard.

“Are you all right?” He looked terrible. His eyes had gone glassy, his breathing was shallow and the cuts on his chest had begun to ooze.

“I’ll take him back,” Neal slipped an arm under Dad’s uninjured shoulder. “We’ll snap that joint back into place too. Come on, buddy.” The Bohemian bane of my existence was actually quite gentle as he helped my dad back to his feet. Neal didn’t even flinch at the blood or the smell. He gave Dad a reassuring smile. “We’ll find you a comfortable spot on your very own bus.”