Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

Grandma tore open a bag and let the spells fly. Globs of goo ricocheted off each other like the Crazy Balls I used to play with as a kid.

They were Mind Wipers. Heaven help us.

“Sic ‘em, Gene! Ace, Paul, Peter!” Leave it to Grandma to name her spells after the original members of Kiss.

“Duck!” I hollered as a pointy black one zipped straight for Grandma’s head.

She sidestepped and caught it as it veered past her left ear. “Aw, come on, Gene. I thought I had you trained.” She tossed the spell toward the neighbor with the rifle. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

The man bolted back inside, his robe gaping to reveal a pasty white chest as he slammed the door. Curtains fluttered up and down the street.

“Geez, Lizzie, don’t just stand around with your mouth hanging open,” Grandma said, hauling me toward Phil’s broken window. “Get in there before the cops come!”

Right. Go ahead, break in. Don’t worry about the man with the gun. Or the police who are without a doubt barreling right for us, handcuffs ready. I needed to make sure I was actually inside the crime scene when they arrived. In the meantime, we pin our hopes on Gene, the Mind Wiper, who couldn’t seem to tell the difference between Grandma and a rifle-waving crazy with a comb-over.

Cold air streamed out into the dry, desert heat. I reached through the jagged hole and unlocked the window, careful of the glass littering the marble sill. I yanked a couple of cushions off the brown plaid couch in front of the window and, shaking them off as best as I could, laid them over the worst of the glass. My butt would be fine, but I didn’t want to catch glass anywhere else.

“Move it, princess!” Grandma hollered as Phil’s neighbor got off a shot.

Oh sure. Like I flung myself through broken windows all the time. And why had I thought it was a good idea to wear stiff black leather pants? For Dimitri. And while I was busy looking sexy for him, he’d left me with Grandma and the Mind Wipers.

I planted my rear on the cushion and straddled the window sill, one leg in, one leg out. Broken glass crunched underneath the pillow and where my right foot dug into Phil’s couch. I ducked inside, eyes adjusting to the cool, shaded interior of the house when I saw it. My legs went limp.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the mule,” I said, staring at the coffee table in front of me.

A mess of picture frames crowded the long wood table. Which wouldn’t have been strange, except for a certain person in almost every picture—me.

I was so shocked I almost slid right down onto the glass-covered couch. There was no way Phil could have been there to take pictures of my college graduation, my stint as a molar in Tommy and the Toothbrush , the time I’d trashed my dollhouse in the name of science.

Impossible.

Illogical.

The glass crunched under my bronze butt plate as I leaned over as far as I could. There I was at the sixth-grade science fair, powering up my dollhouse with a potato, and was that my old retainer, on his bookshelf, encased in glass? Of all the things I could have expected, this wasn’t it.

I braced my hands on the pillow and concentrated on taking long, even breaths. There had to be a logical explanation for this.

Yeah, right.

I’d never even seen Uncle Phil, technically my great-uncle. He was part of the package that came with meeting my real family. And that had only started happening a few weeks ago.

Legs shaking, I scrambled off the couch to inspect a picture of Pirate right after I’d picked him up at the Paws for Love pet adoption event. Phil had been there.

Grandma hadn’t known how to find me until I’d grown into my powers. You’d think Phil would have helped out, or heck, introduced himself. In an eerie way, I didn’t know whether to be wigged out at the idea of him following me all of these years or to be glad someone, anyone—besides my parents’ housekeeper—had actually made it to some of the most important events in my life. My adoptive parents, it seemed, always had a party or a charity function or a tennis match. Unless it was a “see and be seen” kind of event. Then they’d spend the whole time talking to other people.

From the look of it, Phil had been there for everything. And he’d certainly brought plenty of film. But why hadn’t he said anything?

More albums crowded two tall bookcases that flanked the entrance to the kitchen. I walked over to take a closer look and—holy moly. He had copies of my diaries. Every journal I’d kept since I’d learned how to write. I pulled one off the shelf.

Pages and pages of badly drawn horses—mine—from the days when I’d wanted to be a jockey. That was before I grew hips. And a butt.

I slammed the book closed.

“Aw, hell.” Grandma poked her head through the window behind me, her long gray hair tangling around her shoulders. “I was wondering what took you so long to open the door.”

I turned to her, diary in hand. “You’re not going to believe this.”

“Try me.”

I unlocked Phil’s door and flung it open. “Uncle Phil is an insane, lunatic stalker.”

Grandma didn’t look convinced. “Nah. He’s just your fairy godfather.”

“Fairy what?” I asked, scarcely believing what I’d heard.

“Not that kind of fairy.”

“Excuse me?” This didn’t make any sense.

“You need me to draw you a picture? Uncle Phil is your fairy godfather. You know, a guardian type, a do-gooder, bibbity bobbity boo and shit.”

I opened my mouth, then closed it. I didn’t know what to think.

A flicker of warmth caught hold of me. I thought I’d been all alone. For years, it was simply me. Then it was me and Pirate. I didn’t know anyone else had truly cared.

“I have a fairy godfather,” I said, letting it sink in. I was sooo not Cinderella.

A black and silver Mind Wiper buzzed past Grandma’s ear and dive-bombed me. I dodged and flicked it back into the front yard. “Out!” I told the wiper. Those things better leave my dog alone. Pirate chased spells like they were fireflies.

Dread tickled the back of my neck. “Where is Pirate?”

She snorted. “Playing rescue dog.”

I stared at her incredulously. “You mind-wiped my dog?”

Grandma looked offended. “Of course not,” she said. “He ate Peter.”

Dang it. Reason #512 why live spells are a bad idea. I scanned Phil’s barren front yard for any sign of my dog. When I didn’t find any, I squeezed past Grandma and dashed for the back of the house.

“Oh, come on, Lizzie. Pirate’s having a ball.” Grandma jogged behind me. “My Mind Wipers make you forget everything but who you’d most like to be.”

Sure enough, right past the rusty barbeque pit, Pirate had already dug a hole the size of his head. Dirt flew up behind him as he burrowed into Phil’s backyard. “Don’t worry, Timmy! I’ll save you!”

I knew I shouldn’t have let him watch Lassie on TV Land.

“We’re running short on time,” I told Grandma.

“I might have hit the old man with a Mind Wiper,” she said, kicking the door closed behind her. “It’s hard to tell.”

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Well if you didn’t,” and if this block had any sort of a neighborhood watch, “the police could be here any time.” My stomach dropped at the idea of being handcuffed in the back of a police car, having a mug shot taken, having a record. It would be the end of my dignity, not to mention my teaching career.

Bits of glass crunched under my feet as I stalked through my uncle’s cluttered living room. “We have to find something in here that tells us how to find Phil. You take this room.” I’d already seen enough. “I’ll go back to the kitchen. Then if we don’t find anything out front, we can check the bedroom in the back.”