Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

“Gives me the heebie-jeebies just looking at her,” my new friend said, adjusting the gold and red shawl at her shoulders. “Bet she eats steak with a spoon. They say she’s been here for thirty years and only passed two people.”

“That’s ridiculous.” I hoped. Because unlike the witch behind me, I couldn’t afford to fail. I had to get into Las Vegas yesterday.

It seemed my Uncle Phil, who should have just signed up with eHarmony, had taken up with the wrong woman. And, no, I don’t mean a gold digger or the flavor of the week at the Double Trouble Gentleman’s Club. He’d fallen for a she-demon. Literally. A succubus, who’d charm a man silly before draining the poor guy of his life force and sometimes even his soul.

I tried to hide a grimace and failed. Succubi were the worst kind of demons because you couldn’t see them coming. Supposedly, they looked like beautiful people, right up until the time they drained you. I’d like to think—hope—I’d sense them. But right now, most of what I knew about succubi, I’d learned on Wikipedia.

In fact, most of what I’d learned about the magical world, my powers, everything—I’d learned through the back door. It had better be enough. Uncle Phil couldn’t afford to wait for me to master the Practical Demon Slaying Exam.

“See now,” the witch said, tapping me on the shoulder. “You want the Yeti.” I followed her chubby finger to a portly gentleman with tufts of snow white hair bursting from the vee in his uniform shirt. The same hair curled around the bald spot on his head and peeked out of his shirtsleeves.

I nodded. Come on, Yeti .

The bored-looking clerk at the only open window motioned me over. I handed my paperwork to Bradford, a mousy man whose name tag said he was happy to serve me.

Now or never.

Without a word or even so much as a glance in my direction, Bradford slapped a thin, pasty hand on top of the stack. “ Veritas probatum ,” he said, like he’d been asked to read the dictionary, “ dedecus impedio .” The area where his hand touched the paper glowed an orangish green. He sighed. “This would be a lot easier if you wouldn’t lie on your application.”

My breath caught in my throat. He was going to flunk me before I even got started . “Everything in there is true ,” I insisted. “I did make it to the second level of hell and back.”

He lobbed me a patronizing glance as he rifled through my stack of paper, ripping off the pink “anti-demonic practitioner” copies. “You weigh one-ten?”

I felt the color creep into my cheeks. “I did in high school.” After I’d had mono.

He made a notation on the form and handed me my packet. “Step outside the metal door to test area 3A and wait for your examiner.”

The metal door opened into a long, narrow yard fenced in with gray cinder blocks. The hot desert sun warmed my face and I could smell the acrid remains of magic in the air. The walls reached at least two stories high and I wondered why they didn’t enchant the yard like they had the front of the building. Then again, maybe they had. Unease settled over me. The cinder-block enclosure might not be there to keep random people out, as much as it was to keep creepy things in.

White stenciled markers divided the lot into three distinct sections. I walked through the sand of test area 1A and tried not to think too hard on the small jets of steam erupting like minigeysers. I edged past the dug-out water pit (I wouldn’t call it a pool) that was test area 2A and made it to an expanse of blacktop pavement with what looked to be ancient runes carved into the surface.

Harleys rumbled on the other side of the wall. I wished I could scale the thing and join them, even if it meant watching Ant Eater ride in that too-tight red leather halter top.

Just to have something—anything to do—I counted my switch stars. Five. The same as there were on the way over here. The same as I had this morning. Five.

I usually carried five, mainly because they fit comfortably on my utility belt. Heaven knew if that was the correct number. I supposed I’d find out.

I was about to check out a trench that ran along the outside wall when something down there growled.

I took three steps back, thought about it, and took two more.

Times like this, I wished for my old life back. I’d kept a tidy condo, a 10:00 P.M. bedtime and a secret stash of Junior Mints for when I felt naughty. My adoptive parents and I tolerated each other from noon to 1:30 P.M. every other Sunday, and I never, ever had to worry about she-demons or things that snarled under the parking lot.

Footsteps rang out behind me. I turned and saw the Dragon Lady.

Oh Sheboygan.

Spending the past seven years as a preschool teacher made it impossible for me to cuss, even in my head. But now would have been a good time to start.

The air itself seemed to heat another ten degrees as the Dragon Lady sauntered straight for me, with absolutely no mercy in her eyes.

She’d better not be a real dragon.

She was short—tiny even. It only made her scarier. She brandished her clipboard knowing she held my magical fate in her hands.

“I am Officer Ly.” The wrinkles around her mouth deepened as she scowled. “You are here for the Practical Demon Slaying Exam, Part A, with waivers C, D and E.”

I found myself nodding for no particular reason. A cool wind whipped the hair at my neck, but didn’t even seem to touch her.

“Stand away from the targets,” she commanded.

I followed her to the back edge of the lot and waited while she wrote something on her clipboard.

Her sharp eyes caught mine. “This exam is for basic slaying only. If you violate this, the Department of Intramagical Procedures will be forced to enact corporal punishment.”

As if I didn’t know.

She tilted her dyed black head over her clipboard.

“Lizzie Brown?”

“Yes.”

“Prepare your switch stars.”

I nodded. Switch stars reminded me of tricked-out Frisbees. I rested my hand on top of a star. My worn leather utility belt felt cool against my black leather pants. No matter what, the belt seemed to hover at about eighty-five degrees. No one knew why.

The switch star warmed as I slipped two fingers into the delicately carved holes in the center. It was flat and round, about the shape of a small dinner plate. Five blades curled around the edge. They’d been dull. When I touched them, they glowed a light pink.

Officer Ly eyed me like I’d taken too long. “What is the average standard velocity of a switch star as it impacts a target fifty meters away when said target is attacking with thirty-two metric tons of force?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Can you repeat the question?” I asked, swallowing an involuntary squeak.

She did. And it didn’t make any more sense the second time around. Nobody told me I needed to know these kinds of things. Grandma’s idea of studying magical theory involved a keg of cheap beer and a Ping-Pong table. And Dimitri? He’d been too busy helping me learn how to throw switch stars through the air instead of into the dirt. We hadn’t made it to math problems. My hands started to sweat. I had to work to keep a good grip on my switch star.

Fifty meters was about one hundred sixty-five feet, and who cared how fast something was attacking as long as I could kill it ? I was still trying to do the math in my head when an orange plastic target flew up out of the ground.

“Fire!” the Dragon Lady roared.

I half tripped, half spun and hurled the star fast and strong—straight into the ground ten feet in front of us. Chunks of asphalt spattered across lot 3A and the smaller bits rained down on us. I tried not to wince as a few pebbles of the testing area nestled in the Dragon Lady’s stack of black hair.