Angie Fox - ADS 03 - A Tale of Two Demon Slayers

My fingers dug into the switch star at my belt and it took all I had not to fling it into the nearest tree.

Fight me, you miserable cowards. Fight me!

As if in answer to my prayer—or my worst nightmare—my senses zeroed in on the path directly in front of us.

“What is it?” Dimitri asked.

He tried to step in front of me. With more determination than strength, I stood next to him instead.

“Don’t know,” I whispered, shaking my head. Even when I wasn’t trying to recover my strength, my new powers had been somewhat unpredictable in the woods. I tended to home in on angry badgers and blood-thirsty mosquitoes as often as purely evil entities, but this felt like controlled evil.

I took a deep breath, feeling more like myself.

“Let’s get it,” I said, forcing my legs to work. I didn’t like going in weak, but we needed to figure out what had just happened, and our best chance would be to attack when it was fresh.

“What do you see?” Dimitri asked as we took off through the woods.

I couldn’t even tell him. But I envisioned it like a dot in my mind. It was malice in the flesh, like nothing I’d ever felt before. And it was off the trail to our right.

“This way,” I said, storming through the underbrush. Brush and sticks slashed at my feet and legs.

I could hear Dimitri behind me. He hadn’t pulled out the light, and I sure didn’t need it. I knew where I was going.

“There!” I pointed to a large evergreen tree to our right, shadowy and almost completely dark.

Dimitri shone the Maglite on the fleeing form of a woman.

“Amara?” I yelled.

“Too short,” Dimitri said as we both took off after her.

He was right. Amara stood at least a head taller, and she had long black hair. This dark-haired woman had hers clipped to her shoulders.

Dimitri quickly outpaced me, his light bouncing through the woods and catching the woman. Even as she ran, I felt her rage—like that of a startled beast.

I didn’t know what would happen if she turned around. Would she talk? Would she attack?

Would I have to shoot?

She tore through the woods like she was born to it. Dimitri too. His griffin nature made him faster, more agile. I could hold my own thanks to my demon slayer mojo.

But what did she have?

“Lizzie,” Dimitri stopped dead. “Do you see her?”

I reached out with my senses, past him, around us.

She was close. “She’s—” I nearly screamed when she rushed toward me from the left. I drew a switch star, ready to use it, shocked as anything when she tagged me on the shoulder and ran.

Her touch stopped me cold. I recognized the burning power of it, knew it like a forgotten memento or a memory I couldn’t quite place.

And then she was gone.

“I don’t feel her anymore,” I told Dimitri as he halted at my side.

“What do you mean?” he asked, out of breath.

“She’s gone,” I said, shocked to the core.

“How is that possible?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

Dimitri, bless his heart, didn’t ask again. We made a thorough search of the area and found nothing. When we finally admitted to ourselves that we’d lost her, Dimitri took my hand and led us back to the trail, where we walked in silence.

She couldn’t just disappear. No immediate threat had ever dropped off my radar before.

I didn’t understand it.

She couldn’t go from enraged to benign that quickly. Something had to have happened when she touched me.

Pinpointing that moment of change both comforted me and terrified me.

Whoever that woman was, she’d been using my magic. I knew it in my bones.

I stopped dead. “She’s the one who stole that part of me.”

Dimitri’s features hardened. “We’ll find her.”

“We’d better.” We didn’t have a choice.

“Lizzie.” Dimitri touched my arm. “Are you sensing anything right now?”

I stopped cold. “No.”

“Well, I hear something.”

Dimitri tensed for battle. He flicked off the Maglite and reached for the knife at the back of his belt.

The woods rose thick and menacing on both sides of us. There wasn’t even anything to duck behind. We stood firm, side by side, welcoming the fight.

I held steady, waiting for my emerald to change, hoping it could give me some indication of what we were about to face. It lay flat against my chest.

A beam of light streaked across the trees in front of us. At least it was human.

I hoped.

The switch star in my hand spun and hummed.

Voices filtered down the path. “Are you going to tell her?” a feminine voice asked.

“No,” a male answered. “And you won’t either.”

We waited with our light off and weapons drawn.

Both flashlights trained on us. At the same time, Dimitri blinded them with his light.

“Hold up!” I yelled.

It was Amara and Talos, squinting against the glare.

My limbs tingled with released tension while my heart pinched with disappointment.

Dimitri lowered his high beam. “What are you two doing out here?”

With the dark-haired thief on the loose. Right after the sky turned green.

Amara slapped a delicate hand to her chest. “Dimitri!” Perspiration dampened her cheeks and hairline, and uncertainty rolled off her in waves. “You scared me to death.” She gave a brittle laugh. “We were just checking up on some of the Skye magic your sisters used earlier.”

Right.

“You know what that is?” I asked, pointing to the sickeningly green sky.

Talos all but shivered. “Yes, it means someone is working some scary fucking magic against us.”

“Would you happen to know who?” Dimitri stepped closer.

Talos shook his head. “No. Isn’t that what your demon slayer is supposed to do?”

“While you’re doing what?” Sneaking around in the woods. I didn’t trust either one of them.

Talos stiffened. “I’m trying to keep this entire place from crumbling around us. Look, Dimitri. You know your sisters aren’t strong right now.”

“What’s your point?” Dimitri grumbled.

“Talos has been helping them improve,” Amara said. “Slowly. But something bad happened tonight while we were out trying to help Lizzie.”

Everyone’s eyes settled on me.

Talos sighed. “Before tonight, I’d encouraged your sisters to hold back, to let their powers return gradually. Tonight they tried to use the full force of their magic and discovered they’re growing weaker instead of stronger.”

“Why didn’t they come to me with this?” Dimitri demanded.

“They were devastated.” Talos ran a hand through his hair. “And quite unreasonable. Why women think they can solve their problems with near hysterics is beyond me.”

“We decided to see what we could learn,” Amara said, effectively cutting off her brother. “Their magic is indeed weaker than we expected. In fact, we’re detecting some irregular pathways in the energy guarding the estate.”

That was exactly what we didn’t need. “Are you fixing it?” I asked. Those energies were the only thing keeping my stolen magic in this dimension.

Talos winced. “Not exactly. We’re of the sea. We can observe Skye magic, but we can’t directly influence it.”

“We’re doing everything we can,” Amara said.

But they weren’t telling me everything. Eight years of teaching preschool had given me an instinct for the truth. More than that, the clanging in my head hadn’t gone away. “What’s in your pocket?” I asked, rubbing at my temples, knowing it wouldn’t make a darned bit of difference.

Talos appeared startled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But he’d paused for a fraction of a second too long.