Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

Yes, we established I couldn’t kill it – not yet – not without gaining more powers and strength, but I had to try.

Zatar laughed. It sounded like bells to me.

Everyone else fell to the ground, clutching their ears.

Damn, damn, damn. We hadn’t planned on that. We hadn’t figured out anything. We had no idea what this demon could do.

Roxie had a belt full of Max’s red stars. She was still at it, trying the Lizzie method of spending all your ammunition on something you can’t kill. Then I saw what she was doing.

She fired again and again, luring Zatar to the impact zone.

The witches rose to their feet. Dimitri too. He and Max stood surrounded by witches with deflector spells, waiting on our signal. Rachmort held steady with them.

They would protect Dimitri as he captured the dregs, and Max as he’d most likely eat them. I’d have to kill Max if he turned.

I wouldn’t expect Roxie to do that. Not after what I’d seen at the cabin.

Okay. Every muscle in my body tensed. Maybe we could get through this. “Hang on, Dimitri,” I murmured to myself. And hang on Max.

Battina slammed a Charm Spell into the catapult, practically falling sideways as she did it.

“You okay?” I asked. She looked green. All of them did.

“Damn it.” Betty Two Sticks staggered up on my left, her gray crew cut caked with dust. “We spelled this thing to be invisible. That could go to hell if you draw him over here.”

“You can barely stand and you’re giving me a lecture?” I had to shoot. I couldn’t be a demon slayer and not shoot. In fact, maybe it was good I had no weapons left because that’s all I wanted to do now. Fire and fire and fire switch stars until I’d finally killed that scourge.

I had the demon in my sights. Just a little more to the left.

Come on, Roxie.

Battina sagged against the machine.

Roxie got him close enough and I shifted the entire catapult a foot forward.

“What the hell?” Battina demanded as I fired.

“Demons out!” I conjured up images of the deepest reaches of hell. Zatar and his dregs could rot there.

The charm spell shot straight at Zatar, hitting him smack in the chest.

It worked!

He screamed as the dregs poured out of him and a silver portal opened up behind him.

Wind swept over the field, carrying dust and debris as the portal I’d created consumed Zatar’s earthly body. He shimmered at the edges, but the dregs flew straight out of him – toward us. There were dozens upon dozens – all deadly.

Why were they escaping? Why wasn’t Zatar gone yet?

Dimitri sprang into action, but there were too many – even with the witches deflecting for him, they swarmed the tiny group and there was nothing I could do but watch.

The witch in front of him fell, screaming as a dreg burrowed into her. Holy hell.

“Dimitri!” I hollered. A dreg burrowed into his arm. Another landed on his neck as he slammed a jar closed on three of them. They were thick as a swarm of mosquitoes.

Rachmort opened glowing white portals in front and behind Dimitri, catching dregs.

But where would those portals take them?

Or take Dimitri if he fell too far forward or backward?

Maybe once Zatar was gone, they’d lose some of their power.

Zatar fought the suction of the portal, inching away from the silver light.

“What are we going to do if the portal doesn’t work?” I demanded.

Battina shook her head and pointed to Roxie. She was running straight for Zatar.

“Get back,” I ordered, abandoning my machine and tearing across the field. The portal was weakening. No matter how heroic she wanted to be, she couldn’t go down with him.

I had to open up another one. Fat lot of good it would do. I had to do something .

“Now I’ve got you!” The demon lunged forward, seizing Roxie as the portal lost power and snapped closed behind him.

Dregs whipped around him as Zatar rose to his full height.

“Roxie!” Max flung himself at them, tackling Zatar.

Who in Hades tackles a demon?

Max drove a switch star into the demon, causing absolutely no damage beyond a paper cut.

H-e-double-hockey-sticks.

Zatar raised his hand to Max. I had to save them, right then and there or I was going to have to watch them die.

“Run!” I screamed to them. Zatar zeroed in on me and fired a volley of vox. I dove sideways as Betty Two Sticks took the full brunt of the demon’s fury. Her body incinerated as she fell to the ground dead.

I dashed back to the catapult, under a volley of vox. They slapped into the ground behind me, throwing up superheated soil and suffocating sulfur. The back of my throat burned and my eyes watered as I dove behind the machine.

Vox tore through the air, severing the main cord.

I about choked. I needed that cord! This demon could not escape. I could not fail.

Options flew through my mind as I gripped the wooden weapon. Belt? My utility belt was hard leather – no way to tie it up. Hair? I didn’t have scissors – or much hair left.

Pirate and Flappy soared overhead. Damn it. I told him no riding the dragon.

At least they were off the ground.

The dregs were everywhere.

The ground rumbled as Rachmort’s portal swallowed the dregs. There were too many. It was unstable. Rachmort fell.

“No!”

His face slackened with fear for a split second before he gathered his wits and calmed, falling backward into the abyss. Where had it taken him?

The witches threw spells, as more and more Red Skulls fell to the dregs. I watched in horror as at least two burrowed into Dimitri’s arms.

Tears burned the back of my eyes.

Oh my god – Dimitri.

He lowered his head and shifted. Claws erupted from his hands and feet, and thick lion’s fur raced up his arms. At least three more dregs tunneled into him as he shifted.

Why was he shifting?

Red, purple and blue feathers cascaded down his back and formed wings as bones snapped and his body expanded. Dimitri lifted his eagle’s head and called out into the night.

He had no hands, only paws now. It was suicide. He couldn’t catch them this way.

Then I saw the rippling under his skin.

The dregs! His skin flexed as it worked the poison out of him. The dregs crackled from his skin, broken to pieces. He shook them off like nettles.

Did he kill them?

Just then a half dozen griffins shot out of the dark. I recognized Kryptos with his gold and red jeweled necklace, and a pure blue griffin, probably the prince. They surrounded Dimitri and the witches, eating the dregs like candy.

Bad idea. Probably. Hell I didn’t know anymore.

But at least Dimitri had survived. My handsome griffin shrieked like an eagle and stomped at the dregs on the ground.

I swallowed a lump in my throat. Okay, so no more dregs. And no more Rachmort.

Max dragged Roxie away from Zatar, but they wouldn’t make it far.

Zatar laughed, firing vox straight into the griffins. They dodged his attack with lightening speed. For now. But it was only a matter of time.

He was toying with us. It hit me like a punch in the gut. Zatar knew he had us. He didn’t think we could win.

The winds whipped around him, burning out torches and plunging parts of the battlefield into darkness.

Black settled over us like death.

We had to axe this demon. Now.

Before he decided to wipe every one of us from the face of the planet.

The ground shook as I barreled back to the catapult. It vibrated up and down.

“Stop it, stop it,” I dove to the base of the catapult in a desperate measure to keep it in place. Zatar hadn’t moved. He was still in range. If only I could fix the rope and load it again.