Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

I glanced around the casino. A huddle of fifty-somethings eyeballed the latest turn of a roulette wheel, while dealers wearing pink bow ties flipped crisp playing cards onto blackjack tables. Slot machine patrons, like lone rangers, manned their stations. I felt uneasy, like I should be seeing something I wasn’t.

Whatever this was, it didn’t want to kill us, at least not right now. But it felt altogether wrong at the same time.

Grandma lined her hand up with the bejeweled gypsy hand on top of a crystal ball. The slot machine clanged to life, clanking and spinning until its picture wheels rested on two moonstone rings and a black cat.

It spit out two topaz blue cards. The hotel’s key cards, I realized, as Grandma handed me one.

“Son of a gun,” I said as she shoved the other card into her back pocket. Another good thing to add to The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers —how to check into your basic magical hotel. I didn’t understand how anyone could be expected to just know this sort of thing.

“At least while we’re waiting, we’ll have time to work on Phil,” Grandma said.

“What do you mean? Unplug him from the she-demon?”

Grandma nodded.

I didn’t even know we could do that.

Well good. I reached out and gave him a comforting rub on the arm. I couldn’t help worrying about him. Besides, his close ties to Serena the demon wouldn’t exactly enable us to travel incognito.

“Something’s not right,” Phil said, furrowing his bushy brows together. “Or is it me?”

I was trying to decide on a nice way to put it when I noticed the absence of a certain furry companion. “Where’s Pirate?”

“He said you’d be okay with him wandering.”

“He lied,” I said, annoyed with Phil (and myself) for losing track of my dog.

I spotted Pirate down an aisle of island-themed slots and scooped him up.

“Hey now!” He craned his head back as I beat a hasty retreat with him. “I was only stretching my legs after the long ride over here. I mean, you did strap me into that pet carrier and you know I don’t like being strapped down. My fur’s smashed and I got bugs up my nose.”

“Not now.” Something was wrong. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but I didn’t want to stick around the lobby any longer than we had to.

“Elevator’s this way,” Grandma said, glancing behind us. We followed her toward the row of golden elevator doors.

“We’ll be safer once we hit the magical floor,” Grandma said, corralling our odd little party into the elevator.

I hoped she was right.

The doors eased together, trapping us as the elevator jerked and began its slow climb.

The presence grew stronger, even as the doors opened onto our floor. I took a deep breath and stepped out.

A pair of beige wingback chairs flanked a glossy brown table. On top of it lay fancy-looking books that were probably glued down. Sprigs of lavender, dry and lifeless, huddled in a plain glass vase. I didn’t feel magic. Only evil.

Phil drew a lavender stem from the vase and tucked it into his jacket pocket, like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Come on, kids.” Grandma led us down a seemingly endless hallway. We passed a normal-looking couple and their three (presumably) human children, off to the pool it seemed.

“What are they?” I asked Grandma, but she was several feet ahead of us, and making good time.

“New Yorkers,” she called back to me.

“Oh,” I said, eyeing the back of the man’s shirt. Red curling script read: Famous Ray’s Original Pizza .

I hoped Grandma knew what we were doing.

“I need to call Serena,” Phil murmured, rubbing his ring finger.

“You know she’s a succubus,” I reminded him gently.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he said.

“We’ll fix that as soon as we hit the room,” Grandma said. When she finally stopped, it wasn’t in front of one of the cookie-cutter hotel doors lining the endless hallway. She opened the industrial Exit door at the end of the hallway and motioned us into the stairwell.

I wrinkled my nose at the stale, metallic air. “You have a magical card from a slot machine that told you to go to the stairwell?” Maybe this wasn’t magic.

Let’s see, Grandma was born in 1931. I started counting backwards.

“Cut it, Lizzie,” she said, digging the key card out of her back jeans pocket. “This is our entrance.”

“The wall?” I stared at the cinder block in front of us. “Are we going through?”

Grandma rolled her eyes. “Sure, Hermione, whatever you say.” She slipped her key into the maintenance closet door and shoved it open.

Instead of vacuums, mops and jugs of industrial carpet cleaner, I saw a glittering hallway. “Oh my galoshes.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the carpet. It shone like a lake on a sunny day. “Can I walk on it?”

“Unless you want to string a rope from the ceiling,” Grandma said as she tromped right in. Incredible. I’d never seen anyone walk on water.

“Come on, Lizzie. This entrance is private for a reason.”

I stepped onto the liquid floor. It felt solid under my feet, even as I stared down into crystal clear waters. Schools of flat, impossibly bright yellow fish darted among twisting black eels and large puffer fish. Spindly sea urchins clung to coral reefs ablaze with color. I dipped my fingers into the warm water. It looked and felt like a tropical lagoon, but when I lifted my fingers away, they were dry. “This is amazing.”

“Yeah, it is pretty,” Grandma agreed. “You forget what it’s like to see it for the first time.”

The door shut behind us, and I felt the wards close in. At last. They were the magical equivalent of covering up in a warm blanket after a long, hard day. I glanced at Phil. Too bad we still had work to do.

Grandma led us down the porcelain white hallway.

The brightness of the place, paired with the reflections from the water, made me wish I had my sunglasses handy. Every few feet, alcoves cut into the wall held bright burning orbs. “Are these for light?” I asked.

Grandma laughed. “Look up, buttercup.” A series of ornate chandeliers lit our way. “These balls of fire are Skeeps. A concierge service, if you will. Pluck one from the wall, ask him his name and then ask him to do your bidding. But remember, if you use one, make sure to give him very, very good instructions. You don’t want these little suckers filling in the blanks.”

I’d remember that.

“Oooh!” Pirate scrambled out of my grasp, his doggie claws scraping my arms. He splashed down onto the carpet and raced into an alcove. “Snacks!” Pirate adored vending machines.

“Hey,” he called, “Why are there crickets next to the Cheetos?”

“For the harpies,” Grandma answered.

“Let’s just find our room,” I said. We had bigger things to think about—like recovering Dimitri and fixing Phil.

“Right,” Grandma said, two steps ahead of me. She shot me a look over her shoulder. “We’ll take care of Phil’s, er, problem.” I followed her gaze to Phil practicing the wedding march behind us. Grandma shook it off. “She’s got hold of him all right. Why she feels the need to marry him? Well, we’ll find out soon enough.”

“What do you mean by that?” I asked, watching Phil wind two gold rings around his finger and straighten his tuxedo tie. We couldn’t possibly know why a demon would want to marry my uncle. And he was in no condition to tell us.

“I have an idea,” Grandma said.

Oh no. “Let’s keep it simple, okay?” We had enough to worry about with unhooking Phil from the succubus and getting Dimitri back.

Grandma ignored me. “What those demons don’t realize is we can use their link to learn a few things.”