Angie Fox - ADS 01 - The Accidental Demon Slayer

I kept my eyes on the snake, its fangs jutting from its gaping mouth.

“That’s it. Okay. Reach behind you.”

My hand caught hold of the black T-shirt, still warm from his body.

The snake reared back, fangs out. Not good. “Fast! Fast! Fast!” I wound my fingers around the cotton of his shirt and scrambled up the rock wall, my injured ankle burning with the effort. Dimitri gripped my hand in his and pulled me to safety. I let him have his T-shirt back and stood there, catching my breath. Yikes. That was close.

Dimitri’s gaze slammed into me. I’d ticked him off, or at least worried the snot out of him. Good.

I shook the dirt and leaves out of my hair. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he enjoyed standing there shirtless. Of course he looked fabulous. His chest—well-muscled, but not overdone—gave him an air of understated sexiness. A swirl of black hair traced its way down his lower stomach and down toward his…oh my. I blame my overt interest at a time like this on either head trauma or years of reading Johanna Lindsey, probably both.

He saw me watching him and his lips quirked into a predatory grin. “We can do something about this attraction if you’d like.”

“Yeah, let’s make out. That’ll solve everything.” Besides, if he thought I wanted to touch him after what he’d pulled, he’d better think again.

I stared out at the trees surrounding us, trying to get my bearings. “I should have ducked into the cave,” I said. Then I might not have needed him at all.

“Bad idea. There are bats in there.” He pulled his shirt over his head. “Three of them have rabies. Guess which three you would have found?”

My ankle throbbed. I leaned against a tree for a second. I planted my hands on my knees and blew out a long breath. “Why?” I asked, not even expecting an answer anymore.

“Simple. You’re a demon slayer. That means you’re attracted to danger, problems, things that need to be fixed.”

Oh, I had a problem all right. He was standing right in front of me.

“Think of it as a slayer skill,” he said, “a very valuable one. You need to be able to sense evil. Your powers give you an understanding of the nature of whatever it is you need to face. Now, if you were trained properly, you would have been able to make your way back to the coven. And I would have let you go. But, sadly, you are untrained. Uneducated. Underdeveloped. When you tried to focus on finding your way back, instead you began sensing every potential danger and running right for it, with no distinction between the supernatural and a cottonmouth snake.”

Boy, he sure knew how to make a girl feel good. “So you’re saying my supernatural compass is broken?”

He considered the question. “Not broken. Untrained. Weak. Immature.”

“Got it.”

“Coarse. Unpolished.”

“Zip it, Obi-Wan.”

He raised a brow. “I can train you, strengthen your powers. With my help, you can use this ability to your advantage. So that you can sense evil, even before it closes in on you or those you care about.”

Very tempting. I gritted my teeth. So if I’d known my magic from a hole in the ground, I might have even prevented whatever had happened tonight. Talk about a guilt trip.

Dimitri dangled one heck of a carrot. Maybe I would take him up on his offer to train me. But first I had to get back to the coven. Pirate was in trouble. I didn’t need the powers of a demon slayer to know that. Please don’t do anything brave, doggy . “Get me back there.”

He cracked a smile. “Not until we’re done here.”

“Oh, we’re done.” He could play hide-and-seek in the woods all he wanted. I had more important things to do.

He was having none of it. “I’ll tell you about Vald.”

“Yes, you will. Later. Now we find my dog.” He was stalling me. I knew it. I’d seen it at naptime at Happy Hands. I recognized the signs.

I planted my hands on my hips, wishing I had a clue which way to head. Which sparked an idea…

Dimitri needed me safe. I had no idea why he cared so much. At the moment, it didn’t matter. That was my bargaining chip. And I’d use it on him like I used Goldfish crackers on my three-year-old preschoolers.

“Hey,” I said, tugging at his black shirt, right above a bulging bicep. “If you don’t take me back to the coven right now, I’m going to jump back in with the snake.”

He seemed almost amused. “It left.”

“What?” I reached out with my mind. Blast. He was right. Worse, I didn’t even have a desire to jump into the hole, which meant even the rabid bats had wandered off. Just my luck.

I cleared my mind, focused my thoughts. I could feel danger to my left, fifty yards. I limped as fast as I could in that direction, hoping my ankle would loosen up. Or fall off.

His humor faded. “Where are you going?”

“Over here,” I huffed, pain slicing through my foot.

Whatever I find, please don’t let it be too horrible . How far was I willing to go?

“What are you trying to pull?” Dimitri’s voice betraying a hint of concern. “Okay. Hold it. Lizzie!”

But still, he let me hobble closer to…it. Arrogant jerk—why didn’t he stop me? I didn’t have time to be fighting everything in the woods. I struggled to see something, anything in the darkness ahead. It was no use. I couldn’t see more than four or five feet in front of my face.

Still, I hurried as fast as my ankle would allow. I had no idea what I’d find. An angry bear? Axe murderer? Deer stampede? I supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, I headed right for it.

“Wait!” Dimitri blocked me. “Don’t.”

I lifted a brow.

He refused to back down.

“Take me back or I’m never speaking to you again.” I practically spit venom myself. He looked as angry as I felt. “I don’t even need to go in. You can go. But we need to head back now.” I stared him down. “Do what I say or whatever it is you want from me, you won’t get it. I promise you that.”

He stood there, indignant.

“You wanna go again?” I asked. “I sense something nasty back behind that tree over there.”

A muscle twitched in his neck. “Fine.” He gripped my shoulders, too tightly. “I’ll take you to the coven. But you’re not going to like what you see.”

It looked like someone had detonated a bomb inside the Red Skull biker bar. Crimson smoke poured from the rickety two-story structure. I felt a wave of pain for the witches, for how scared they must have been when the coven had come under attack, for what they had undoubtedly lost.

I covered my mouth with my hand, as if I could somehow block the acrid sulfur burning down my throat with every breath. Dimitri squeezed my shoulder. It felt good to have him there. I wouldn’t have wanted to be alone at that moment. The forest around the house had fallen silent—not a cricket dared to chirp. The air felt heavy, foreboding.

A strange vapor curled from the edges of the Employees Only door at the back. It hissed from every window frame and—I gasped—it billowed from the open window of Frieda’s second-floor room. It was eerily similar to the mist I’d seen filtering out of the Yardsaver shed earlier tonight, when Grandma had communed with the demon Vald.

I checked out the storage shed and saw it had melted at the edges. A trail of charred grass and cooked asphalt led from the shed to the bar. My heart skipped a beat. “Holy Hoodoo.”

Dimitri’s shoulder brushed mine. “I wouldn’t call it holy.”

Pirate was nowhere in sight.

Every idiot demon slayer instinct I had ordered me—no, screamed at me—to race into the house and face whatever lurked inside. Dimitri had been right about one thing. I was enthralled with anything and everything that could snap my limbs or chop my head off.