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

“She led a most extraordinary life.” He straightened as he began to unscrew a large brass dial at the top of his cane. “I was there when Evie had to make a portal in the middle of the blizzard that nearly buried Tulsa. It was the only way to do it back then. You modern demon slayers don’t know how lucky you have it.”

He had no idea. “We need to talk,” I said. Where to begin? “First off, there’s this—”

“Patience,” he instructed.

He had to be kidding.

“Trust me, demon slayer,” he said, a bit too amused for my taste. “I’ve done this before.”

Yes. Exactly how many years had old Rachmort been teaching?

I studied him from his gold-buckled spats to the garnet stud in his left ear. “You don’t look like a necromancer.”

Not that I’d ever seen one, but still—he looked positively cheery for one who manipulated death.

“Why does death have to be gloomy?” he asked.

Why indeed?

No matter. From day one, I’d said I needed instruction, and here he was.

Rachmort turned his cane over and tapped the open end to the ground. “Go on,” he said. “Get some air.” Three dark-skinned humanoids tumbled out onto the grass. No larger than my hand, they were bug-eyed and spindly, made up mostly of arms and legs.

“Um,” I said as the creatures began shoving large fistfuls of grass into their mouths. They chewed noisily with mouths open as half of what they jammed in fell right back out. “Should you be letting those go here?” I asked. “Most countries have rules about foreign plants and animals.”

“Ha!” Rachmort snorted with glee. “Oh, you’re serious,” he said, shooing them into the garden, where they chattered loudly and climbed the nearest tree.

“Yes,” he said. “Well, these little fellows were most useful in purgatory. They’ve earned a break.”

“What are they?” Not that I wasn’t used to strange magical creatures by now, but I at least liked to know what we were setting loose on Dimitri’s estate.

Rachmort polished his round gold spectacles on his burgundy waistcoat. “North American tree nymphs, and excellent trackers, I might add. Hmm…” He pulled a chambray hankie from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “The Lakotas first found the Canotila and named them, but believe me, plenty have found their way to the Mediterranean. If you ask me, they have a little too much fun with the dryads.” He made tsking sounds to himself as he added a purple flip-down sunglasses attachment that seemed to appear from midair. “I forgot how sunny it is up here.”

If I ever considered myself nonmagical (and I did), Zebediah Rachmort was my opposite.

“Well at least let us set up a room for you in the house,” I said, leading him toward the back porch. He didn’t need to be staying with the biker witches, if only to protect him from whatever drink had flattened Talos.

“Oh goodness, no need,” Rachmort said, adding a bifocal attachment onto his overloaded spectacles. “I’ve been offered the owner’s suite of rooms off the main tower.”

I stopped. Dimitri’s rooms?

“I’ve inspected them and they are more than appropriate. There I will be close enough, should you have questions.”

Of course. Why not? It wasn’t as though Dimitri was using them. I watched a Canotila scamper from one tree to the next.

Rachmort pulled his starched collar away from his neck. “I came straight from purgatory and have all the wrong clothes. It’s a bit nippy there, you know.” He yanked off his gold cufflinks and rolled up his crisp white sleeves. “Not to worry. My housekeeper is sending a few things.”

“Sure,” I said.

A part of me rebelled at the idea of anyone else being up in Dimitri’s rooms. I hadn’t even made it up there. He’d moved down to be closer to me. It brought home again just how much I’d disrupted his life without even trying.

Not that a room change was a big deal. It was more of an inconvenience. Still, it had been a quiet one. Dimitri had done it. I’d accepted it, the same way I had when he’d chosen to stay in Las Vegas for me when his family needed him here, or the way he’d given up his prospects of marrying a pure griffin in order to be with me.

Slow, cold realization crept over me. If the situation were reversed, I didn’t know if I would have made the same choices.

Rachmort tilted his head. “What are you thinking, demon slayer?”

I hesitated, annoyed that everything I thought tended to show up on my face.

He removed his top hat. “The better I understand you, the more effective I will be in your education. While I sculpt your skills, I also work on what is up here,” he said, tapping the mess of white hair on his head.

“It’s nothing big,” I lied. “I’m only thinking that perhaps Dimitri is too loyal.” Sure, I needed him, and he’d needed me in the past. But that’s not what it took to build a long-term relationship.

“Ah, that he has sacrificed his own future—his pure griffin blood, the fiancée who fits into his world and would help him recover his clan. That he has done this in order to secure your future.”

“You have done your homework.”

“It would be a disservice to you if I didn’t.”

“Good point.” On that and on so many other levels. This estate was Dimitri’s life. I had no doubt the Dominos clan would have been here in a heartbeat to defend it if it was going to be Amara’s future home. And what if we did manage to save his home? What then? I couldn’t live like a happy housewife in Greece—even if we were heading toward marriage, which we weren’t. Not yet. I’d have to leave to do my duty, and Dimitri would either have to come along…or he wouldn’t.

Did I even want to do that to him?

He was a sacrificing person, and for the first time I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to sacrifice all this goodness and beauty and magic for me.

“Yes, yes. Such heavy thoughts,” Rachmort murmured. “This is good, Lizzie.”

“Good?” What universe was he from?

“You must stop confusing what is good with what is comfortable,” Rachmort said. “True learning will come when you are willing to step outside of what you think you know about yourself, the people you love, your abilities. I’m not saying it won’t hurt. It will. Embrace that.”

He began walking with me toward the house, his hands behind his back, his walk not unlike that of one of my favorite professors in college. “It is my understanding that some of your best moments as a demon slayer have come when you were experiencing this discomfort you seem to want to avoid. Be reassured that I shall endeavor to make you as uncomfortable as possible.” He grinned. “That’s when you’re going to step out of your old ways of thinking and start looking for new possibilities, new ways to do things.” He glanced at the house. “Now go fetch your training bar.”

“Of course,” I said, even though I dreaded the thought of touching the bar again.

Understanding change was one thing. Facing the thing that had predicted my death was another.

“Wait,” I said to Rachmort as he began polishing his pocket watch on his waistcoat. I explained what I’d dreamed last night and what I’d seen in the woods right before he arrived.

He frowned, tapping his finger on his angular chin. “It’s an unusual situation. You suspected that already, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I said, appreciating the fact that he hadn’t reacted like the others. Rachmort didn’t doubt me or give me any funny looks or tell me I was imagining things. He took me at face value. It was a refreshing change of pace.

“We may be able to use this connection.” He looked at me as if the weight of the universe hung on what he had to say next. “Do you trust me to teach you?”