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

We were close, so close.

I felt my toes hover for a brief second at the edge of the Callidora.

She will be lost at the Callidora, the first time in joy, the second time in death.

She will be split in two.

Holy hell.

My ears rang with the firing of the cannons, the clash of weapons and the screams of the imps and the witches. My eyes watered from the overpowering smell of sulfur and singed bodies, and my demon slayer radar screamed with danger.

I closed my eyes as the fear swallowed me whole. The battle raged ahead. My battle. I had a horrible sense of foreboding that I would not make it out of this place alive.

Think, I said to myself as Rachmort’s words came back to me.

It doesn’t matter how you feel.

It matters who you are .

“I am the demon slayer!” I yelled as I burst through in a blaze of switch stars.

Dozens of imps charged, hurling cursed arrows from both the air and the ground. Every tree, bush and blade of grass they touched turned to dust.

They stormed the witches, who fought back with Molotov-cocktail spells in Jack Daniel’s bottles. Frieda hurled a bottle at the imp closest to her as it reared back to attack. The bottle caught the imp in the throat and exploded into flames. His blackened body hissed and curled as it shrieked and fell to the ground.

“Don’t touch it!” I screamed.

“Fuck, Lizzie. You wanna tell me something I don’t know?” Her eyes widened as she looked past me. “Stryker!”

Three imps descended on the witch with graying dreadlocks. The witch dropped her empty weapons pack and drew a glowing orange knife out of her hip pocket.

It wouldn’t be enough.

I hurled a switch star at the attackers, taking off the head of the nearest one. Its scaly black neck smoked as it fell backward, one out-flung arm almost catching a band of artillery witches. They scrambled as their rusted cannon fell to dust.

Frieda grabbed another bottle from the fringed bag on her back. My second star hit the other imp in the throat. Frieda’s bottle flew wide as the battle shifted.

“Stryker!” Frieda screamed as the last imp dove onto the witch. Stryker brought up her knee and got it in the nuts before the touch turned her to dust.

The finality of it hit me in the gut as a blue-flamed anti-imp charge slammed into the ground to my right. I leapt back, ears ringing, as it splattered me with hot magic.

Holy hell. I didn’t see how we were going to make it out of here alive.

Through the smoke and the clashing bodies, I saw Diana and Dyonne surrounded by a company of witches, battling their way through the ruins at the Callidora to the altar where at least a dozen imps hissed and spewed curses. Grandma flung magical Molotov cocktails to Diana’s right. I watched in horror as she firebombed the imp closest to Diana before she took out the creature going for her.

Another one came up from behind. She didn’t see it. “Grandma!” I wasn’t going to make it in time.

A rush of orange flame burst past me. The imp fell backward, drowning in fire, as I looked to the sky. Flappy the dragon had grown to the size of a Buick. Black smoke shot out his nostrils as he huffed in pleasure at his imp-frying abilities. And on his back rode Pirate.

Oh no.

“Get yourself and that dragon home!” I bellowed. “Right now!”

Pirate ignored me. “Fire in the hole!” he shouted as Flappy took out an imp swooping down out of the sky.

Holy Hades. Pirate had strapped himself to the dragon Harley dog–style.

We were right below the tear in the protective magic. The witches had at least two more cannons set up underneath and they were shooting at anything in the air.

“Home. Now!” I hollered. I knew that dragon was going to be trouble.

Flappy fired off a shot and seared something behind me, no doubt saving my worried butt.

“Whoo hoo!” Pirate whooped. “I am Rescue Dog!”

Flappy shot straight up into the air, ending the debate, as I watched Diana and Dyonne close in on the ruins. The witch ahead of Grandma fell. An imp hissed and drew back to attack.

She’d never make it.

I raced for them. An imp screeched behind me and I turned, burying a switch star into his chest, the impact blowing me backward, bombarding me with countless pinpricks of energy. The impact seized me like an electric charge. I sat for a moment, stunned, as the battle raged around me.

Frieda and Ant Eater had turned a cannon on a horde of imps. They couldn’t kill them all. I couldn’t even count them all. Two griffins battled at the edge of the forest. Dimitri! He had a huge bloody gash across his neck and another ripping across his side. Talos circled him, limping as he lunged, one wing completely torn away, his beak a crush of blood. I couldn’t tell who was winning, only that Dimitri’s feathers had gone slate gray.

Please, God. Don’t let them take Dimitri.

I stood, ready to fire, when I realized my switch star hadn’t come back. They always raced back. Switch stars were the ultimate supernatural boomerangs.

That’s when I saw my double.

The doppelgänger wore my black leather pants, my lavender bustier. She’d pulled her dark hair back into a ponytail and she grinned like a maniac as she walked straight up to Scarlet.

“I got you covered, Lizzie,” Scarlet called.

Only she spoke to my double. Holy Hades.

“Scarlet—no!”

Scarlet tossed the doppelgänger an anti-imp charge before firing one, taking out the creature making a beeline for Frieda and the artillery witches. Then Scarlet uttered a choked shout as she watched the demon slayer, who she thought was me, bury a switch star in her heart.

Tears burned the back of my eyes. I knew Scarlet. I’d liked her. And now she was dead on the ground because she’d trusted me. I hadn’t seen this warped reflection of me until it had grown powerful enough to have my strength, my powers—my body.

I whipped out a switch star, waited for a clean shot and fired it at the doppelgänger’s head.

She caught it.

Shock slammed in my throat as she held my switch star, the pink blades churning for her as they did only for me. The same way she’d fired my own weapon at me in the forest. She turned, a contemptuous smile curling the sides of her mouth.

My magic recognized her.

Bloody hell on earth.

I fired another star, and another, in quick succession. I aimed. I shot. I aimed again. I shot. It was the only thing I could do—what I was trained to do. She couldn’t catch them all.

She did.

She laughed, cold and hard, as she held up my five switch stars.

Her icy arrogance struck me like a blow.

I felt a burning on my left side and leapt aside as a curse flew past. The arrow buried itself into the ground near my ankle.

A hail of fire rained down behind me.

“Damn, Lizzie!” Pirate craned his neck to see my double while Flappy roasted my attacker. The blackened imp fell in a heap next to two startled biker witches.

My double turned her hollow eyes on my dog.

“Don’t you even think about it.” I strode right for her. “You want me?” I asked the doppelgänger, one final switch star—the one I’d taken from Dimitri—at the ready. “Call off your imps and we’ll fight this out.”

Slayer to slayer.

“Oh, this is precious. Give us some space,” she called, and the imps fell back. I stared at her across the narrow space. I just hoped my dog listened half as well as her imps. Pirate didn’t need to be anywhere near this.

She waited, smirking, for me to fire my last round.

My heart pounded in my chest and every nerve ending blazed. I curled my toes inside my black boots.

Calm down.