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

Ant Eater slapped me on the back. “Isn’t it great? There’s more downstairs.”

“You can’t train me here.” We wouldn’t make it a day without someone impaling themself, losing an eye or chopping their head off—hopefully not all three.

“Why not?” Grandma asked. “This place is secure.” She gave it a once-over as if she were a decorator approaching a particularly challenging job. “It’ll be even better once we set the booby traps. Plus, there’s no question about it,” she said, pointing a stubby finger at my chest. “You need training.”

“I know that.” I’d been trying to figure out what I was doing from the moment I became the Demon Slayer of Dalea. Talk about a surprise—locked in my bathroom, needing to get to my thirtieth-birthday party, having no idea this was in store.

And now, with part of myself gone, death threats breathing down my back and the wards on the estate weakening, well, let’s just say I needed all the help I could get.

Focus on the problem at hand.

I rubbed a hand over my face. Because even if I trained to be the perfect slayer, I’d never be a griffin and never be what Dimitri needed to make his family whole.

“Rachmort will be here tomorrow,” Grandma said. “He’s already instructed two generations of our family.”

I stood a bit taller. “He trained my mom?”

“Nope. Your Great-great-great-aunt Evie.”

She was the greatest slayer of all. “And you just tracked him down now?”

Grandma looked quite pleased with herself. “Do you know how hard it is to get on his schedule?”

I had no idea. “There can’t be that many slayers.” The power ran in a very select, distressingly small number of families. Every third generation, these families would produce a pair of slayer twins.

Demon slayers were treasured, trained, given every advantage. Of course, my mother had used her knowledge and gifts to foist off her destiny on me before she dropped me at the adoption agency.

I was the accidental demon slayer. The clueless one. I’d never even known we existed until I stumbled into my powers—and what remained of my family. I’d never met another one of my kind.

“Listen to Rachmort,” Grandma said, accepting a war hammer from Ant Eater. The thing was immense, with a sharp pick on one end and a blunt crushing plate on the other. “He’s the best. And don’t get on him for being late. Most families search for an instructor as soon as they learn they’re going to have twins. That’s what we did with your mom and your aunt, God rest her soul.”

Well of course, but, “You have to admit I could have used a little help before now.”

Grandma hefted the hammer and I took three steps back. “Zebediah Rachmort usually gets five years, nine months’ notice. So I think it’s pretty good that he dropped everything to see you in a few months. Anyways, he was in purgatory with the Department of Intramagical Matters’ Lost Souls Outreach program. Took a while to track him down.”

“Lost Souls Outreach?” I’d never heard of such a thing. “What does he do?”

“He’s a necromancer.” Grandma rested the weapon on her shoulder like a baseball bat. “He spends half the year in purgatory and the rest in Boca Raton.”

I stared at her.

“You wouldn’t believe how out of hand purgatory has gotten. There’s no law. Demons walking around all glamored up, tricking people into hell. Rachmort finds people. He helps them remember their goodness so they can rise up out of there.”

I shook my head. “I had no idea.”

Grandma shot me a conspiratorial grin. “Personally, I think he’s also there to keep an ear to the ground. Rumor has it, there’s something brewing in hell. Worse than usual.”

“Lovely.”

“He’s the best, Lizzie.”

“Good. Because there’s something you need to know.”

Grandma’s eyes widened as I told her about the attack on me, and the green sky.

She planted her war hammer into the ground. “Pea green?”

I nodded.

“And you say it burned you?” She scrubbed a hand across her face.

“It stole a piece of me.”

“And a green sky means something evil has been created.”

I told her about the dark-haired woman—how I’d felt the hate rolling off of her, how she’d touched me and disappeared.

Grandma planted her hands on her hips, the jelly jars on her leather-studded belt clanking together as she looked to the sky. “I’m getting too old for this.”

“Really?”

“No.”

“Well, I’ve had enough. Between stolen magic, death prophecies and cursed imps—”

“Hold it!” she threw a hand up. “Cursed imps?”

She wasn’t going to believe it. “They fly and throw these cursed arrows and—”

“I know what they do,” she said, her voice going cold. “Those are Vald’s.”

Impossible.

“Vald is dead,” I reminded her. I’d killed him myself.

“You kill all his little friends too?” she asked. “That demon liked to experiment. Cursed imps are his creation, part of his personal army.”

“Why didn’t Dimitri know about this?”

“Lover boy didn’t have Vald chasing him for thirty years. My coven has seen enough to make the Odyssey look like a three-hour tour. No question about it, Lizzie. The demon might be dead, but that doesn’t mean his followers aren’t bent on revenge.” She stopped cold. “Or perhaps they want a demon slayer of their own.”

Holy Hades.

“I’m strong,” I told her.

She looked me up and down, clearly worried. “You’ll be even stronger after Rachmort trains you. Listen to him, Lizzie. You’re in more danger than we ever imagined.”

I chewed at my lip. If Vald’s followers were behind this attack on me, then it stood to reason they wanted Dimitri’s sisters too. We needed to know more. “We need to go into the cave of visions.”

Grandma’s eyes narrowed.

My previous experiences with a cave of visions involved a Dumpster and a covered wagon in a replica Wild West town. Neither had been pleasant. Then again, I knew the magic worked.

“I’m not tied to this,” she warned.

“I know.” I cringed.

“That means I can’t go in there with you.”

“I know.” I avoided her gaze. I knew what she was thinking. The last time I’d gone to the cave of visions, I’d landed right in a demon’s trap. It could easily happen again. “Maybe Rachmort can help me prepare.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You?” She was the one who’d rushed into the cave of visions—right before it sent her to the second level of hell.

“Believe it or not, I learn from my mistakes.”

“You know we have to do it.”

She eyed me. “Then we do it my way. You give me and my witches the time we need to prepare the cave right.”

“Agreed.”

“In the meantime, you listen to Rachmort,” Grandma ordered. “Learn,” she said, as if ordering could make it so.

“Grandma…” I began. I knew the risk I was taking. Besides, I’d learned a lot since my showdown with the Vegas demons.

She looked past me, lost in thought. “We’ll build it for you as soon as we get settled here.”

“Where will it be?” I asked. Hopefully not in Dimitri’s living room.

“Leave that to me.”

I didn’t press. “What’s Rachmort like?” I asked.

“Tough,” she said, with uncharacteristic brevity.

Never mind. I’d find out soon enough.

Besides, tough was good. I needed it. I’d craved it since I first gained my powers.

“You’ll need your mother’s training bar,” Grandma said as we headed back out into the gardens.

“Anything else?” I asked, watching the witches roll a sundial past a shrieking Amara.