Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

“But we’re going to break him free, right?” I was all for knowledge, but Phil needed his brain unscrambled, the sooner the better.

“We’ll disconnect Phil as soon as we see what’s got hold of him. Trust me.”

“We know what’s got him—a succubus in a wedding dress. I don’t need to know anything else.”

“Yeah, okay, Einstein,” Grandma stopped at our door and dug the key card out of her jeans. “I didn’t survive all those years against Vald without learning a thing or two.” She pointed the key at me like a warning finger. “Information is power in this world, and until we know why a sex demon wants to get all holy at the altar, we’re behind the eight ball.” Grandma huffed. “I don’t want any surprises. Do you?”

Pirate danced and nipped at our heels as we opened the door to a surprisingly ordinary hotel room. Frigid gusts of air roared from a unit under the window, causing the gauzy white curtains to billow and goose bumps to break out all over my skin. Whew, the place reeked of carpet cleaner. Pirate gave a big, wet doggie sneeze that landed on my foot. Lovely. I rubbed my arms against the cold and fought the urge to wrap myself in the well-used hotel comforter.

“Serena’s not here,” Phil said to the empty room. Quilts in muted green and blue covered the two double beds. A hotel-issue lamp sat on an unremarkable desk.

I dumped my travel bag onto the bed nearest the window and reset the thermostat from an inhuman fifty-eight degrees to a livable seventy-five. The afternoon sun hung low behind the towers of New York New York. It was just dark enough to see the light pouring from the top of the Luxor pyramid.

Phil worried me. He wandered the room, running his hand along the low TV stand, peering into the ice bucket, attempting to straighten the picture of the iris that I didn’t have the heart to tell him was probably bolted to the wall. He seemed utterly lost, his forehead crinkling between bushy eyebrows. Finally, he said, “I can’t stay here.”

“We’ll call down and get you your own room in a minute,” Grandma said, tossing her backpack onto the bed closest to the door.

He reddened. “Oh, no. I have to find Serena.”

“Right,” Grandma said, watching me.

“Someone left us a present!” Pirate jammed his nose into the snack basket next to the television.

I dug through my bag and put on an extra shirt. “Is Phil going to be okay?” He was going downhill fast. At least I hoped my uncle didn’t routinely sprinkle dust from his pockets while calling for she-demons.

“Don’t worry,” Grandma said. “He can booty call her until he loses his mind for good. Which he might unless we fix him. But either way, there’s no way a succubus can get up here. Too many wards.”

“What if she has friends?” I said, thinking about the creepiness downstairs.

“Yeah, let’s fix this,” Grandma said, rifling through her pack and pulling out a pair of fat crimson candles.

She raked one of the candles against Phil’s fingernails, like a cat on a scratching post. My poor uncle merely mumbled as he watched the wax curl from under his nails and fall to the aqua carpet. Whatever hold Serena had on him was affecting his brain. I didn’t know how long a person could hold on in those kinds of conditions, but I didn’t want to find out.

Grandma spared a glance at Phil, before focusing once again on her task. “Watch and learn,” she said to me. “I’m going to open the pathway before we cut him loose.” Her voice dropped. “Then you can use that demon slayer mojo of yours to see what’s gone wrong in this city.” She eyed me from my uncomfortable leather pants to the Don’t Mess with Texas T-shirt I’d tossed over my lavender bustier. “Look. Don’t touch. We only want information.”

I nodded, tucking my hair behind my ears. It’s not like I could take on every succubus in Vegas.

Grandma dumped the clawed-up candles on the bed and unscrewed the top of the silver eagle ring on her middle finger.

Not possum tongue again. “Is this for Phil’s ceremony?” I asked.

A girl could hope.

Grandma dug put a finger full of rust-colored pulp. Maybe she was going to lend her stinky power to the man who had saved my life. And, I realized to my dismay, the man currently enlisting my dog as a ring bearer.

“Hold still,” she said, her breath tickling my bangs. She aimed the musky sweet goo for my forehead, hitting me square above the left eye. It felt sticky, wet and it smelled like roadkill. “You need all the help you can get.”

“Thanks,” I said, my learner’s permit burning a hole in my pocket.

“I have to go,” Phil said, breathing heavily as he leaned both hands on the windowsill. “She needs me. I need her. I need…” He trailed off, confused.

“Don’t worry, bro. We’re gonna fix it.” Grandma tossed a packet of dental floss at my head. Oral-B Superfloss, mint, to be exact. “Give me two long strips, Lizzie.”

I knew better than to ask.

Glad to be focused on Phil, instead of worrying about Dimitri, I unwound the floss until it curled at my feet.

“Now where’s my Scope? Blasted travel size sinks right to the bottom,” she said, digging past her spare jeans. “I hate to be a candy-ass, but sometimes I miss staying in one spot. Back in the day, we blessed a wood cabin in the garden behind the coven house. Ant Eater planted mint, motherwort, sage all around. They’re the pit bulls of protective herbs, smell nice too.” She whistled through her teeth. “Good times.”

Before the coven was betrayed. Before my mom shirked her duty and the witches were forced to run, go biker. I’d never realized Grandma missed her old home. She played the part of the road warrior so well.

I handed the lengths of floss to Grandma. She nodded, stuffing the candles under her arm. She jerked her head toward the bathroom and, past the travel Scope bottle in her mouth, said, “Thwiss way.”

She dumped the candles into the bathroom counter and spit the Scope bottle into the sink while I turned on the light. “No,” she flicked the lights back off. “We have to do this in total darkness, so you might as well get used to it.” She glanced at the door. “It’s the best way I know to see what the hell is after him. And us.”

Phil peered inside the bathroom, confused.

“Oh good,” Grandma said, filching his white bowtie. “Focus object,” she said, twirling it around her finger.

“Maybe we’d better get rid of Serena and be done with it.” I wasn’t a big gambler. Sure, I wanted to learn about what I’d have to face in the supernatural world, but not if it endangered Phil. As far as I was concerned, we needed to free him and get him out of here.

“Patience,” Grandma said, easing Phil into the other room before she closed the door on him. She placed the candles on either side of the sink, with the bowtie in the middle. Then she lined the strips of dental floss above the mirror and broke open the Scope. “Mint,” she said, sniffing the bottle. “It may not look as pretty as fresh herbs, but it’ll work.”

“The floss too?”

“This is road warrior magic. We have to use what we’ve got,” Grandma sprinkled the Scope all over the sink, adding a liberal dose around the base of each of the candles. “Mint on the altar is good for protection. It’ll help draw the magic too.”

I studied the plain hotel sink. So this was our altar.

Grandma tossed me the Oral-B packet. “Why don’t you floss up the place while I go find some matches?”

I wrapped the mirror in dental floss. I wound it in long strips over the top third of the hanging glass, letting some dangle like Christmas garland to get more coverage. Then I set to work, draping the sides until I’d used all two hundred yards of the stringy green trim.