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

“Thank you, Amara,” I said, tears wetting my cheeks. “You did it. You set things right.”

Her eyes opened, glassy and distant. She smiled faintly. “Tell Dimitri I did it for him.”

“I will. You helped save his family, Amara.”

“No…” She shook her head weakly. “His sisters did that.” She patted her hand over my wrist. “I saved his soul.”

And with that, she left me.

I looked out over the battlefield strewn with bodies, weapons and debris. We defeated them. We won.

But what did we have to sacrifice in order to gain that precious victory?

When Amara’s family didn’t want her back, we buried her next to the pergola in the garden. The witches said incantations over her as we willed her body to the place she’d loved most in life. A place that in her vision, she knew she’d never leave.

Later, we gave Talos to the Aegean, the waters of his ancestors, although with less fanfare and no tears.

Diana, for her part, had inherited a cat. The fancy white Persian took an immediate liking to Flappy.

The Dominos clan refused to acknowledge what had gone on that day, insisting that they were longtime allies of the Helios and always would be.

I only hoped most of their imp army had been destroyed.

We didn’t need another rendition of hell on earth to know that they would remain vigilant, ready for another chance to seize power.

In the meantime, we cleaned up as best we could, toasted the dead and vowed to conduct ourselves in a way that would honor the sacrifices they had made.

Some of us even remembered to smile again.

I carried an ice-cold Diet Coke out onto the patio under the slightly charred pergola and joined Dimitri at a wrought-iron table. Sidecar Bob grilled weenies to the tune of “Won’t Get Fooled Again.”

Darned straight.

The witches played lawn darts in the remains of the rose garden. Pirate and Flappy chased bees with the tree nymphs, and Zebediah Rachmort chuckled and made his way up the gray slate stairs.

Somewhere along the line, he’d found a pipe. “The hell-bent-creatures trap is empty and I have a negative-three reading on the protective wards.”

“That’s good,” I said. “Right?”

I glanced at Dimitri, who merely grinned.

“It’ll keep out the Dominos clan,” Rachmort grunted, taking the seat across from me.

Dimitri let Ant Eater pour him something brown and foamy. “We’ll have to keep an eye on the Dominos clan,” he said. “I don’t think they’ll look at this as a failure, only a setback. And they’re more powerful than they were before.”

“But we beat them once,” Ant Eater added, urging the glass closer to Dimitri.

“You’re seriously going to drink that?” I asked, thinking of the way she’d laid Talos out flat.

Dimitri brought it to his lips and took a long swig. “Best root beer I ever had.”

Ant Eater broke out into a wide smile. “Damned straight.”

“At least we know our enemy now,” I said, as Frieda and Creely launched homemade bottle rockets out over the garden.

“We also have the strength of our ancestors.” Dimitri said.

“And you have us.” Diana bonked him in the head with the feathered end of a lawn dart.

“It’s no fair when you two play,” Ant Eater said to Diana and to Dyonne, behind her. “They control the wind,” she said to us, with more awe than anger in her voice.

“I swear we don’t do it during the game,” Dyonne protested. “Much,” she added under her breath.

I shook my head, enjoying the sun on my cheeks. “Just don’t let Grandma keep score.” The witches used creative math. Between the Red Skulls and Dimitri’s sisters, it should be a high-scoring game.

“Yeah, I heard that,” Grandma said, a shish kebab in one hand and a mess of darts in the other. She looked out over the lawn. “I’m telling you, Lizzie, that has to be the ugliest dragon I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you still going to set him loose?” Rachmort asked.

“Just because he has a snaggletooth?” Grandma protested.

“It’s not because he’s ugly,” I protested. “We don’t have time or space for another pet. I told Pirate—we absolutely, positively, can not get another one.”

Grandma shifted her lawn darts to a spot under her arm. “I hate to tell you this, Lizzie, but it looks like you’ve already got one.”

“I know,” I said, reaching for Dimitri’s root beer.

“The dragon would have died on that cliff if you hadn’t taken in the egg,” Dimitri said. “That’s why your demon slayer radar went off. He needed you.”

“It was bad enough when I had a floating dog. Now I have a flying one,” I said, watching Pirate climb up onto Flappy’s back and give the ears-up signal.

“ that’s how Talos broke into Dimitri’s office,” Grandma said.

“Yes,” I said. “He used water magic to float over the slime.” And Pirate, as always, managed to find the leftovers. Talos had broken in once for my magic, but failed to retrieve the shard of Skye stone in Dimitri’s safe. The imps would have handled the job, if we hadn’t interrupted them.

Grandma scratched her chin with the end of a lawn dart. “I thought only the cheater sisters could use stones.”

Dimitri shook his head. “Talos had stolen enough of their magic that he was willing to give it a try. It might actually have worked.”

“If Lizzie hadn’t whupped the cursed imps,” Grandma added.

There she went, bragging. It felt strange and good at the same time. I changed the subject so I wouldn’t have to think about it.

“So it’s true,” I said to Rachmort, studying the swirling brown liquid in the root-beer mug. “I’m the last of the demon slayers?”

The thought frightened me more than I cared to admit.

Rachmort nodded. “It is your destiny—the one you were born to fulfill.”

I hated to admit this, but…“In case you didn’t know, I was a mistake.”

I was never meant to be a demon slayer. My mother foisted her powers off on me. I was an accident.

Rachmort bestowed me with an indulgent turn of the mouth. “Not a mistake. In your case, destiny rearranged itself. We will consider it a gift.”

He leaned to the side and pulled a scrap of parchment from his back pocket. Yellowed and crumpled, the paper had seen better days.

“I came to train you, yes, but also because of this. There is trouble brewing in Hades, young Lizzie.”

“Oh no.” I looked out over the gardens, the villa, this place that I could call home, if only for a little while.

“Yes, yes,” Rachmort said, following my gaze. “Enjoy your peace while it lasts, for”—he shook out the paper and lowered his rounded spectacles—

My jaw loosened and my eyes shot to Dimitri. Curse the man. He was smiling.

“I knew it,” he said, with no small amount of pride.

“What?” I stammered. “I thought you said to ignore prophecy. I can create my own future.”

“True,” he replied, “but I can’t think of a more worthy future for you.”

I shook my head. The greatest demon slayer? I had so much more to learn. Besides…

“You belong here,” I told Dimitri.

His fingers closed around mine, warm and strong. “You belong here too. For a time. And when we are called, we will go.”

“All of us?” I asked, looking out over the witches and their lawn darts, Pirate and his dragon and, of course, the man I loved above all else, Dimitri.