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

I sensed her now.

She wasn’t getting away this time.

I tracked her malice and her anger. I fed on her hate as I dogged her through the dense woods. Sweat trickled down my back as I crashed through the underbrush, my breath coming hard as we dodged and weaved.

She was mine.

Mine.

Maybe Dimitri was right. I could take control of my own destiny.

She wasn’t just angry—she was jealous. The dot of light turned into a smothering cloud. Suddenly, her rage boiled all around me. Fear gripped my chest as I dove for cover behind a thick sweet-gum tree.

Overheated and shaking, I had the sickening thought that maybe this thing had drawn me away from Pirate and Flappy on purpose.

I gripped my switch star until my fingers turned white in the handles. No. Sure as I’d been shown my own death, I knew she was after me.

At that moment, something flew toward my head as I threw myself to the ground. I don’t know how or why I knew how to fall, only that I had to check to make sure I was still in one piece. Heart pounding, I rolled and ducked behind a fallen log, scanning the trees for my attacker.

Like a fog, the danger in the air lifted away. I was left digging one hand into rotting tree bark. The other still gripped the switch star. And when I stopped looking for the dark-haired woman in the trees and started to take it all in, I found the switch star that had gone missing earlier today.

It was buried in the tree where my head had been.

With a shudder, it dislodged itself and sailed back to me.

“But why do we have to stay with you?” Pirate asked as we charged through the woods as fast as Flappy’s wings would go.

“Because I don’t know what’s out there.” We needed to talk to Rachmort. Now.

Unfortunately, we stumbled on Frieda first.

She wobbled on red, white and blue platform sandals much better suited for the mall. “Hold up, Lizzie Brown. Where’s the fire?” she asked, hands on her white leather pants.

“Someone just tried to chop my head off,” I said, all in one breath.

Frieda shook her head, her red Vegas dice earrings swaying against her neck. “Again?” she asked. “Well, seeing as you’re in one piece, can I borrow your dragon for one teeny-tiny second?”

“Why?” I asked, not appreciating the holdup. Then again, the witches were reinforcing the wards, so I’d be a fool not to help if I could.

“Ingredient gathering,” she said, chomping on her gum.

Oh great. This could take forever.

Frieda clucked at Flappy like he was some kind of pet. “Now, Flappy.” She pointed to the high branches of a spindly tree. “You think you could get that broken-down bird’s nest up there?”

The little dragon let out a puff of smoke and beamed with pride.

“We need feathered mud to thicken up the wards,” she said as Flappy began his laborious ascent. “Don’t want anything slipping in.”

“Fine,” I said, taking off. “You’re in charge of the dragon.”

“Breathe for a minute, Lizzie,” she called after me. “You try to stir too many pots and you’ll end up putting vinegar in the pudding and vanilla extract in the turnip greens.”

I didn’t even know what that meant.

“Later!” I hollered back to her. Like when someone wasn’t trying to kill me.

Then again, that could be a long wait.

I found Zebediah Rachmort near the crooked oak, reviving a stomped-upon anthill. He crouched over the little black ants, murmuring and touching his knobby fingers to each one. They wriggled their legs and came back to life under the necromancer’s touch.

I stopped short. “Holy hoodoo.” I’d never seen anything like it.

He grinned and kept at his work. “Ants are simple. They don’t have souls.”

“Can you do that to people?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no. People, dogs, dragons,” he said, glancing out into the trees where I’d left Pirate and Flappy, “elevated life-forms have souls that travel to the beyond when they die. Necromancers who follow the path of the light would not revive a soulless shell.”

“But you could,” I said slowly, grasping the depth of his power.

“But I would not .” He tapped at the ants.

When he’d revived the hill, I told him about the dark-haired woman in the woods.

“I could suddenly sense her in a way I couldn’t before. I don’t know if she chose it or if I did.”

Please let it be me .

“Where’s your gold cord?” he asked.

It took me a second to remember what he was talking about. “It was bothering me. I took it off in the woods. Why does it matter?”

Rachmort nodded. “It was a simple test. Will you follow my instructions or your own instincts?” He wrapped a hand around my wrist, where the golden tie used to be. “It looks like you let go and followed your gut—in more ways than one.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way. “I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right,” he said. “You decided you didn’t need my gold cord. You decided seeing the dark-haired woman was more important than knowing you couldn’t. Lesson learned.”

The truth of it crept over me.

Well how about that?

Rachmort studied me carefully, cradling his chin in his hand. “On the downside, we know for sure you are connected somehow to this dark-haired woman, or else she never could have used one of your switch stars against you.”

“She stole a part of me. But I don’t always feel a tie,” I said, my eyes dropping to his bronze ring. “I can’t be sure I’ll detect her again.”

Rachmort hung on my every word and then some. “It stands to reason that you wouldn’t always be able to feel yourself.”

“But she’s not me. She’s evil.” I’d felt her rage when she attacked.

He rubbed the side of his chin as he thought. “Hmm…Yes.” I could see the ideas whirling in his head. “But it does seem she possesses a connection, perhaps even a small part of you. We must seek to understand this new threat.”

Despite my agitation, I felt a twinge of relief. “Grandma and the Red Skulls are going to build a cave of visions.”

“Perfect,” he said, searching for the glasses that were propped on top of his head.

“I’m scared,” I admitted.

“The cave of visions is top of the line,” Rachmort said. “Unconventional. But it works much better than anything I’ve ever seen. I’ll even go with you, if you’d like.”

“I would,” I said, grateful again for this man.

Rachmort folded his hands behind his back as walked. “Don’t worry. You are strong. You are capable. We will learn what the dark-haired woman wants from you.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“That’s up to you, demon slayer.”

The front lawn was not only covered with tarps, but Sidecar Bob was roasting turtle knees in an array of heirloom griffin armor. I cringed and hoped the pieces were darned near indestructible. In any case, the damage had been done. Bob had lined the priceless shields and breastplates with tinfoil to make crude roasting pans. He’d set them in fire pits all along the front drive.

He made his way up the line, stirring them with a new—and expensive-looking—brass kitchen spoon. A scraggly witch followed him, carrying a baby-shampoo bottle, now filled with muddy sludge. She muttered to herself, her gray dreadlocks covering her face as she measured out capfuls of the slop.

Of course that was nothing compared to the giant planks that Creely the engineering witch was pounding into the villa’s front door. She was too busy hammering to even notice me as I came up behind her and tugged on her brown leather pants.

“Lizzie!” she called to me, her green-streaked hair swaying with every pound of the hammer into Dimitri’s pristine home. “It doesn’t look like much, but this sling is going to be a beaut.”