Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

I yanked at my hands until my wrists screamed in protest.

“Mother fudrucker!”

Dimitri should be in Greece right now—putting his family back together. He worked his whole life to do that. Instead, he’d put it off to help me. I’d rewarded him by muddying his pure griffin blood, serving him up as a snack for the demons, stealing all of his energy and now—failing at the one thing we’d sacrificed everything to do.

Sure, he’d come willingly, but that almost made it worse. I loved his loyalty and his courage and—dang—everything about him. He was like the light of a smoldering fire, warm and affirming. The man I wanted with me when things got rough, or to simply curl up with at the end of a long day. But I had to wonder if he’d have been better off if he’d never met me.

It was my fault. Dimitri, Phil, everyone had trusted me to do the right thing and I’d let them down. I buried my face in the black T-shirt he’d given me and inhaled his rich, warm scent, wishing I could see him one last time.

I’d lose my lover, my fairy godfather, my life and everything else that lived and breathed. All because I’d thought I could do this on my own.

Now who was going to save me?

“Joe!” I hollered with all of my strength. My voice echoed down the pitch-black hallway. “Joe!”

I didn’t know exactly where I was inside the sixty million tons of concrete that made up Hoover Dam, but I knew Joe wasn’t going anywhere.

Neither was I, if Serena got her way. My stomach roiled at the thought.

“Joe!” I yelled, over and over again until I grew hoarse. I felt the demons clamoring with excitement. With every pleading, desperate word, I yanked at my hands until my wrists screamed in protest and my back nearly gave out.

“Joe. I. Need. You. Now. Joe. I. Need—”

The magical world lurched as the fluorescent lights above me sputtered and died. Blackness chilled me. An orange emergency beacon pitched an oasis of light at the far end of the hall and my concrete tomb grew much, much too silent. I braced myself, knowing this was the intake of breath before the scream.

Maybe Serena’s plan wouldn’t work. Maybe America wasn’t watching Ricardo Zarro or everyone was at dinner or it wasn’t really true what they said about blackouts. Maybe not enough people would make love, or the succubi would fail to harness the carnal energy or… The temperature of the room plummeted at least twenty degrees.

Succubi. I felt their power grow. I closed my eyes and could almost see it. The back of my throat constricted as hordes of succubi pounded on the walls deep below the old prison. My stomach felt hollow. The iron weakened. The demons raged. And I knew it was only a matter of time.

Didn’t mean we wouldn’t go down fighting.

“Joe!” I started to panic. Where was he? Ghosts traveled fast.

Twenty demons burst through the portal at once and the shock of it almost took the breath out of me.

“Joe!”

My stomach flip-flopped as the demons swarmed. They piled on top of each other, through each other. At least forty more made it though. I could hardly count them all.

God, what was happening to Dimitri?

I’d failed tonight. Dots hovered in front of my eyes as I stared at the dark marble floor in front of me. Sweat trickled down my spine as I racked my brain for something, anything to do.

No one came.

They were coming fast. “A hundred and twelve!”

Maybe, if I tried hard enough, I could reach Phil. Never mind that it had barely worked before Serena married Phil, took over his free will and tasked him with an integral part of her plan for world domination. It was better than counting the demons flooding through the portal.

Sweat tickled between my eyes. I cocked my head and wiped my forehead on my shoulder. Cripes. I still wore Dimitri’s T-shirt. His musky scent short-circuited my brain and drilled warmth straight through me.

I had to do this—for him and for everybody. I closed my eyes and pictured my fairy godfather.

“Phil?” I called, pleaded really. I focused every ounce of strength and concentration into finding him. Maybe I could break through.

“Phil.” I clenched my jaw and willed him to answer. Through the soupy, murky distance between our minds, I scrambled for him. I ached for him. Last time, I’d found him in a hurry. This time, I couldn’t locate a trace of my quirky, funny, teddy bear of a guardian. The man who’d fought to protect me had disappeared from the astral plane as if he’d never existed.

I braced myself as Max’s demons broke free in a rush of bodies, tumbling, clawing, lashing out at whatever they could reach. They roiled toward the city, fracturing off along the way. The bitter taste of sulfur practically choked me.

Add the demons from the portal and we had one hundred eighty. Make that one hundred eighty-eight. No way I could recapture that many demons, or stop the destruction.

No more . I couldn’t watch. I forced my eyes open. I had to get away, even if it meant taking comfort in a deserted, dimly lit hallway. But I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. This place had changed too.

Yellow vapor clouded the light from the sconces and the stench of sulfur lingered. I could see my breath in front of me, as the hellish smog wound through my lungs. I renewed my battle against the forces that kept my hands pinned in the floor, now icy with the power of Hades. I couldn’t feel my hands any longer, but I knew I had to get out of there.

Now.

Fear surged through me. It was survival at its most basic. Because they were coming for me next.

I pulled until my wrists stretched nearly out of their sockets and thought, hoped, prayed I felt one move. This had to work because, frankly, nothing else had.

However late, I had truly believed Joe would arrive, or Grandma and Dimitri. Or maybe Phil would find the strength to defeat the demons that held him, however impossible it seemed. I refused to think Serena would win.

But she did.

“Three hundred.” And counting.

The demons rushed me in a wave of sulfur and rot. I could feel their leathery bodies, see the black shadowy figures surrounding me. Bony hands grabbed at my hair and clothes. They slipped under my arms, yanked me out of the floor and straight up.

My toes left the floor as we hurtled straight up into the air. “Blazes!” Pain lanced through my head as they smacked it up against the ceiling.

I breathed too close to one of them, inhaling the stench, and the back of my throat watered. They smacked my head against the ceiling again and my vision blurred.

“Halt!” ordered a raspy voice as they practically smothered me with their frigid bodies. “It’s human. It can’t pass through.”

Talons dug into my arms and I cringed at the multitude of icy hands pressing the top of my head against the concrete ceiling, as if they didn’t quite believe I could be so supernaturally inept. Acidic breath singed the back of my neck.

My freed wrists ached and cold, dark, freezing air prickled my face as they rushed me down the hall. My toes never quite touched the floor as we darted around a corner and up a flight of stairs. So this was it. Serena was strong enough to kill me and take my power. Most likely, my Uncle Phil was already dead. They’d drain Dimitri. The Red Skulls would be fighting a losing battle for their lives.

We burst into the control room and I winced against the glare. A second power source, most likely a backup generator, had kept the lights blazing and the control panels lit. Engineers’ stations lined three of the four walls, all the chairs empty, save one. Phil slumped over the control panels, his bulbous nose at rest next to a flashing orange button.