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

Every bit of my training had brought me to this point. I had to trust it—trust myself.

No matter what it took, I had to take down the doppelgänger.

My fingers, slick with sweat, curled around the handle of my final switch star. I couldn’t fire it. She’d catch it. I couldn’t get close enough to bury it in her chest without her impaling me.

But if I didn’t kill her now, if she gained the power from this place, there would be no stopping her. This was my last chance.

Sacrifice yourself.

I’d never wanted to do it. I wanted to have a life—with Grandma and Dimitri and Pirate. I finally had a real family.

Now, here at the Callidora, I had to sacrifice what I loved in order to save it.

“Lizzie!” Amara broke through the imps. Our eyes met for a brief second and I saw through to her soul. She loved this family as much as I did. Maybe she would survive this. The thought of it warmed and chilled me at the same time.

Hell and damnation.

I fired.

At the same moment, my double let loose with her arsenal of switch stars. I consciously slowed time as they hurtled for my head, my neck, my chest. I’d had this power. I’d only used it once before, locked in my bathroom. But now I felt it. For the first time, I deliberately used it.

It wasn’t enough.

The barrage of switch stars hurled toward me and anywhere I could even think of moving—or levitating. I could see the impact of each one, the twisting blades, and there was nowhere to go. No time to escape them all.

Amara shouted to my left. At least there would be someone left who could love Dimitri.

Maybe Diana and Dyonne would survive. Maybe the clan could go on.

I did my best.

In that split second before the end, my eyes locked with Amara’s. I saw her terror, felt her rage. This was a woman who had also been betrayed.

At least I’d seen this before, in my vision. It would be over soon.

I braced myself and waited for the crush.

Amara dove forward with the speed of a griffin. Precise and deadly, she leapt into the hail of fire and took the switch stars meant for me.

“Amara!” I shouted, stunned as the blast shoved her backward onto me. Her blood smeared my chest as several of the switch stars broke through her body.

I grabbed the nearest one and fired it at the doppelgänger. She’d already thrown up her hands in victory.

Amara slid away from me as I watched the switch star tear a hole through the doppelgänger’s chest.

The monstrosity howled and fell to the ground dead.

She will be lost at the Callidora.

It had been about the doppelgänger. I’d seen death through her eyes, not mine.

I gulped, tears threatening. I was saved, but Amara . I touched her lifeless shoulder.

And what about the others?

The battle raged on all sides. I raised my head to see Diana and Dyonne reach the altar with Grandma at their side. They were surrounded, outnumbered as the imps surged forward. Grandma was out of weapons. Instead she clasped both hands around her turquoise necklace and chanted.

“Digredior. Digredior. Digredior.”

It slowed them, but it didn’t stop them.

I scrambled for a switch star as Talos fell from the sky, crushing the mass of imps at the ruins. Diana and Dyonne clutched at the altar of their ancestors, pushing, focusing, fighting for their life and their powers.

Dimitri kicked away the body of Talos and landed next to his sisters. Grandma shot out defensive fire as he lowered his head and shifted.

I hurled a star, beheading an imp as two more took its place. The limestone altar glowed under the sisters’ hands as they chanted, desperately trying to draw even a fraction of the generations of power from the rock.

“Dimitri!” I yelled over the crash of battle. “The jewelry! Get it off them!”

He broke the coral from their necks and dropped it, smoking, onto the ground.

Dimitri stood in front of his sisters, fending off the imps with a bronze sword while Grandma’s magic deflected the cursed arrows.

But for how long?

I took out another imp, but we had no hope of defeating the mass that continued to rain down from the sky. The Dominos army was too fast, too powerful. And they wanted the sisters. I lost sight of Grandma and Dimitri as the blackened mass closed in.

Holy Hades. Just what good had it done to defeat the doppelgänger if I couldn’t save what remained of my family?

Diana and Dyonne clung to the ancient altar, fighting like wild women as they held the remains of their legacy.

A wind blew the imps back, and they struggled for their footing as raw cerulean power shot from the rocks. Their hair blew and the skies above us thundered as the magic poured from them.

Diana and Dyonne channeled it into the altar where the women of their line had been initiated into their Skye magic, and where those same women—before they succumbed to the curse—had given the last of their strength, their power and their love at the Callidora.

Their magic rose out of the very stones and into the twins. Until the altar itself shot out streams of light. With a rush of heat and hot white energy, the limestone slab transformed into lustrous blue Skye stone.

Diana raised her arm, pure energy flowing from her as she decimated the horde of imps.

They fell in writhing piles, taking out trees and at least one cannon. The witches scattered as the creatures fell, turning the grass, weeds and fallen bodies to dust.

Dyonne raised a hand to the sky, sealing the estate.

A great thunder clapped over head, followed by an eerie silence.

We stood for a moment in a haze of smoke, charred bodies of imps littering the battlefield. Witches chanted softly. At least one wept.

“Lizzie!” Dimitri knelt among the ruins of the Callidora, near the broken body of the doppelgänger Sweat coated his broad back and glinted off his olive skin. He turned to me, his hands covered in blood.

“Lizzie,” he called out, his face twisted in anguish. Bloody wounds streaked his chest and sliced across his neck.

Talos lay in human form, dead at his feet.

“I’m here!” I said, choking on the relief of it. “I’m not hurt.”

Dimitri broke out in a dead run for me. He swept me into his arms for a crushing kiss. “Thank the heavens, Lizzie,” he murmured across my cheeks, into my hair. “I thought I’d lost you.”

“It was Amara,” I told him, easing away, showing him the place where her body lay.

She lay crumpled on the ground, fear etched on her face, so alone. I cradled her in my lap, easing her hair away from her face. My throat tightened as I closed her eyes.

“She died for me,” I said, as Dimitri wrapped his arms around me and touched his forehead to my shoulder.

“She gave her life to restore what her family took away.”

The shock of it surged through me—joy for those of us who had survived, horror for the ones who had not. And a great ache for the ones still unknown.

At that moment, Grandma let out a mighty war cry. She climbed the sacred ruins to the topmost portion of the wall and stood. “Eeeeeya!”

The witches answered with a chorus of shouts. A cannon rang out.

“Give me a minute,” I said to Dimitri, trusting him, letting him watch over me while I touched the training bar in my pocket.

My heart raced as I prayed there would be enough life left in the psychic.

I dusted my fingers over the glassy surface of the training bar before gripping it tightly.

Like running through a tunnel, I rushed toward my vision, throwing the door open on Amara. She lay in my arms, her chest a mass of blood and her beautiful black hair plastered to her forehead.