Angie Fox - The Last of the Demon Slayers

Neal didn’t even blink. “This is how it was in the old days. We don’t need clothes to define us.”

“Right-o.” I patted him on the back and moved on, knowing there were some things I could never change, namely Grandma, Neal and anybody who had ever hopped on a Harley and decided to follow me anywhere.

“Lizzie,” he called after me, purple sunglasses still on his head, “I found your dad asleep next to the picnic table.”

Oh geez. “Is he okay?” I asked, trying to see.

“He’s fine.” Neal patted my arm. “I wanted to tell you I just helped him to his bus. It’s the green one. You can’t miss it.”

“Thanks,” I said, appreciation welling up inside me, bordering on affection. I stamped that last part down, even as I closed a hand over his. “I appreciate it. And everything, Neal.”

He gave a small smile and a shrug.

Roxie lay on the ground, still coming around. She sat up on her good elbow, groggy.

“I’ve got you.” Max knelt over her, embracing her as if she was the most precious thing he’d ever seen, which was another first for Max. She ran her fingers along his jaw.

“You saved me,” she murmured, tears in her eyes. “Nobody saves a slayer.”

Max drew her into his arms. “I like to do things differently.”

He kissed her long and hard. I’d never known the hunter could embrace anything other than the idea of death.

She pulled away, her lips swollen. “I still hate you for what you did at the Tic-Tac Club.”

“I know,” Max thundered, moving in for more.

Okay. I turned my back on them. We’d consider her cured of the dreg. I let out a deep breath. That meant Zatar’s awful tag-you’re-it way of killing slayers was finally broken.

As for Max and Roxie? They’d have to figure out anything else on their own.

Neal was wrong. Dad wasn’t on the green bus. He stood next to it. He seemed twenty years younger than when I’d first seen him — his health restored, his shoulders squared. He was whole and healthy, grinning from ear to ear with life. I could tell right away he was cured.

“Dad!” I launched myself into his arms and he spun me around like I was a little girl again.

He winked and set me down. “You did it, Lizzie.”

He showed me his hands. They were free of the demon’s mark. He’d chosen the light.

“Did you see my angelic powers?” I asked, still not quite believing it.

“Like father, like daughter.”

If I smiled any wider my face was going to break. “It was you too, Dad. We did this together.”

He laughed and borrowed one from me, “A father-daughter kick-butt team.”

Dad grew serious. “Thank you, Lizzie,” he said, his eyes traveling over me as if he were trying to capture the memory. “I won’t forget this.”

“Are you kidding?” I was glad to help him. I’d found my father, that piece of me that had been missing my entire life. This was just the beginning. I had questions about him, his life, angels, you name it. I couldn’t wait to get to know him. “You’ll fit right in with the Red Skulls,” I said, “not that you need to travel everywhere with us.” He had a life. “Besides, New Jersey isn’t that far.” It was the same country. “You could visit.” I could spend weekends in California. We had the fairy paths. Or Dimitri and I could make the journeys together – at griffin speed. It wouldn’t be quite as fast, but we weren’t in a hurry. I could savor this time, this life, with both Dimitri and my Dad.

We’d be one big, happy family.

Dad hovered on the edge of my emotional bubble. “The thing is, Lizzie,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “I have a life.”

Didn’t I know it. “I can’t wait to hear about your life. I’ve never known an angel.”

“I’m not sure I want to be an angel,” he said, heading back for the green bus, taking the steps two at a time. He emerged with a rainbow knapsack, already packed, courtesy of Neal, no doubt.

Wait. “How could you not want to be an angel?” It was his chance to do everything right. He could be the embodiment of love, order, all that was good and true and whole.

Dad hesitated in front of me. “I gave that up, Lizzie. It’s not me.” He gave the same look my equestrian trainer used to give me after practice: Do I really have to tell you that you stink? “Neither is being a dad.”

Fear nibbled through me. “You can learn,” I said with forced optimism.

He could do this. He couldn’t think that he didn’t need to be my dad. “I need a dad,” I said, heart churning, insides mushing, afraid that by even suggesting he didn’t need me that I’d somehow talk him into this idea that was cold and awful and wrong.

My mind swam as he backed away from me.

“I’ve come all this way,” I said. “I’ve done everything right.”

I deserved to have a dad.

“I’m sorry, Lizzie,” he said, turning to leave. “I’m not dad material.”

“But what about everything you said?” I asked, following him away from the buses, toward the lane, toward Neal’s beat up VW bus.

He wouldn’t even look at me.

“You said you wanted to get ice cream together. We were going to sit in a park. You said you wanted to get to know me and tell me about angels and life.” I stumbled on my words and caught them and plowed forward. “You said you wanted me.”

He lowered the driver’s side visor and a set of keys fell onto the seat. “I was desperate Lizzie. I lied. It’s how the world works.”

I stood numb, watching him retrieve the keys. I’d saved his life and his soul.

“What happened with you and Zatar?” Why did he lie?

“Look,” he said, jingling the keys, “Zatar needed to siphon some power. He paid me good. It was a living, right? But then he got greedy and I was in trouble.”

“You sold your power?” Why would anyone sell a gift? Having power isn’t easy. Responsibility is never easy. But it was who my dad and I were. What we were born to be.

“I don’t want it. It’s not me.” He held the door open, regarding me as if I were a clueless child that wasted his time with silly questions and made up fairy tales. “You’re smart, Lizzie. You’ll do fine without me.”

“I wanted a dad,” I said, my voice so small I barely heard it.

He looked at me as emotionless as if this were a business meeting and I was an associate and I hadn’t just followed him across the country and down into purgatory and out to Neal’s bus. His mouth twitched with what might have been regret. “I don’t want a daughter.”

He slid into the VW, closed the door and drove out of my life.

I felt it most in my hands. They shook as tears flowed down my cheeks. I stood in a swirl of hurt and betrayal and soul-shattering loss.

He meant what he’d said.

My dad was gone.

I didn’t seek out Dimitri. Or Grandma. Or even Pirate. I didn’t need anyone. Shock and hurt thundered through my body as I put one foot in front of the other – alone.

Slow and deliberate, I placed a shaking hand on the handrail of my red school bus, climbed the stairs and shivered my way to the soft bed in the back.

I clutched the pillows to my face, sobbing into them as if that would take the hurt away. And somehow in the midst of it, I fell asleep.

“Lizzie!” Pirate’s toenails clattered down the aisle. “Lizzie?” The soft weight of him pulled at the covers as he landed next to me. A wet nose invaded the dull ache around my head. “You okay?” He swiped a warm tongue over my cheek. “I’m a dog. I can sense when you feel sad.”

“Come here.” I reached for Pirate as he tried to turn in his usual two circles before lying down. I caught him midturn, which always screwed him up. He twitched his back legs as I drug him up against me.