Angie Fox - The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers

My fairy godfather wasn’t dead. Not yet, anyway. I could feel it.

I wondered if anyone else knew that.

Windows along the fourth wall overlooked a massive sunken room with six truck-sized generators, each of them silent. Serena watched them, knowing I was there.

It ticked me off.

It was bad enough to be powerless, weaponless—without her rubbing it in.

I had to figure out a way to destroy her before the demon army reached six hundred sixty-six. Because after the gates of hell opened, well, I didn’t know what could stop them.

Five hundred and one.

Triumphant, Serena flipped her pageboy haircut and strolled straight for me.

Son of a mother. I wasn’t surprised, but I had a hard time containing the dread. She wore Dimitri’s emerald.

She followed my gaze. “Oh, this old thing?” she said, her French-tipped nails lingering over the teardrop-shaped stone at the hollow of her throat. “He’s not coming. For all I know, someone else finished him off. He was quite tasty.”

My stomach hitched. I wanted to kill her.

I needed to force my emotions down or I’d never be able to focus. I had a job to do. Plain and simple. No telling how I’d destroy Serena, recapture the succubi and save Phil, but I knew I had to try.

Five hundred eighty-two.

A blue bubble formed in Serena’s palm, pulsing with a life of its own. Claws erupted from her fingers and her hands took on their true, skeletal form. I took an involuntary step backward and into a wall of freezing cold demons. They shoved me forward and I almost stumbled.

Serena rubbed at the bubble with a taloned finger. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You won’t feel a thing.” The bubble grew to the size of a basketball. “Besides, you scream too much and I’ll send you to the third layer of hell with Max’s other slayer.”

I stiffened. “ You took her?”

Serena winked. “Turned her. Same difference, really.” Demons seized my arms. “Now, hold still.” Serena gripped the bubble, wound back like a boxer and slammed it into my chest. Ice tore through my veins and at the same time I felt like I’d collided with a live electrical wire. Energy flooded my system and I realized, to my utter horror, that I could use none of it to move. It was like she’d bug-zapped me into complete paralysis.

Six hundred five.

The energy flowed between us in a frigid blue stream as I felt her searching inside me.

“Oh you are a fun one.” Her perfectly arched brows knit. “I felt you take the mark,” she muttered. “Now where did you put it?”

Sweet happy puppies! She must need the mark to get a grip on my power. And I’d gotten rid of it. My knees sagged in relief as the demons at my sides shoved me forward, upward, closer to Serena.

I’d thought I wanted that extra edge, hoped like heck I hadn’t needed it. Max’s other slayer must have thought the same thing. But while she’d kept her mark, I’d shed Serena’s leash.

Now what was I going to do about it?

I swallowed hard, gathered my strength as Serena’s power prickled inside me. I knew I had one shot. One. Before I lost the element of surprise.

It was a classic maneuver, like old J. Bennett used to do at the Springdale Country Club pool. He’d reach up, ask you for a hand out of the deep end and then—whammo—he’d yank you in, flip-flops and all.

If he could do it, I could try. Problem was, for this plan to work, for me to seize all her power, I had to free all mine. I had to open myself up to her completely.

Sacrifice yourself.

I didn’t know what her dark power would do to me. Jaws clenched, I served up everything I had and laid it bare. I’d never felt more raw or vulnerable. To my shock, I felt Phil join me. His presence felt like a warm hand on my back. A steady hum surged through my body as he mingled his life force with mine.

Please let this work . I surrounded her energy as it searched me, and braced myself as I chose the precise moment to attack.

Now or never.

I took a deep breath, shot both hands through the blue stream connecting us and grabbed her power at the base of her white minidress. She shrieked as my fingers closed around it. Yeah, well she was going to do a lot worse than that. I kicked her backward and yanked her power into me.

Serena gasped and tried to pull away. I pulled harder, but she’d already started to fall. Wet, red energy flooded my limbs, filling me up. Her sopping power streamed through my fingers and out onto the floor. The more of her power I had, the more I could get until it surged into me. Serena’s claws dug into my arms. Ha! They didn’t even make a scratch. She couldn’t hurt me anymore, and there was nothing she could do. She’d already plunged headfirst into my trap.

It felt amazing.

She stumbled backward as I went back for more, sopping up the remnants until I’d drained her. Then I flung off her measly blue current and shoved her shell of a body to the floor. Strength rushed through me until I was almost giddy with it, drunk on power.

I spun and faced the demons behind me. They’d backed away, but not far enough. I thrust my hands out like Tasers and incinerated them on the spot. No switch stars required.

Good gravy, I could get used to this.

Ohhh, and if I wasn’t mistaken, I had a mental map of every demon from here to Panama City. Make that Quito. I could see them, like fire ants scurrying around the mound. And lucky for me, it turned out I could zap them mentally. I squashed the first two, marveling at how I could decide for them not to exist and—whammo. It was almost fun. But I didn’t have time to indulge myself.

Nope, I might have been Lizzie the all-powerful, but I was also Lizzie the efficient. I torched the six hundred five in Las Vegas, then exterminated them in waves from here down to the Andes Mountains and out into California, until they were no more than hissing stains on the ground, or in one case, oozing down a circular staircase. Talk about a grand entrance for the ultimate demon slayer. Like a well-aimed can of Raid up into Canada and sweeping the United States until I hit ocean on every front.

To make sure they’d never come back, I incinerated the portal. I had no trouble finding it now—a burning hole between our world and theirs. I could see why a chilly demon would have a hard time passing through. I fried it until it was no more than a churning mass of burnt embers, and to make it even better than before, wrapped it in a double layer of protection so nothing could dig itself out.

I turned to the demon at my feet. Serena had shed the rest of her glamour. A leathery thing lay in place of the petite brunette. Hair sprouted in wiry clumps from her chin and blackened skull. Her cadaver-like hands scratched feebly at the industrial linoleum. I drove my hand forward to finish her and with a rush of shock, yanked my shot at the last minute.

Phil was still attached to Serena.

My wayward power surge zapped a gaping hole in one of the monitoring panels. Sparks zipped across the engineers’ board along the left wall. I raced for Phil, lifting him off the panel as live wires crackled and the whole thing started to smoke.

God bless America.

We had to figure this out. Fast. I didn’t want Serena melting into the floorboards with my uncle in tow. And I wasn’t sure how the succubi had managed to keep everyone official out of Hoover Dam, but I didn’t expect to have the same kind of luck. No way I could explain the blown-out turbines or the scorched control board or the fried demon holes in the floor.

With Serena damaged, I could feel Phil’s strength building.

“Hey,” I held his head in my hands and brushed his thinning gray comb-over out of his eyes. “I need you to think. She’s got you. Is there a way to pull away from a succubus?”