Angie Fox - ADS 01 - The Accidental Demon Slayer

“Jumping jehosefets.”

“Can it, candy ass. We didn’t make any werewolves sick if that’s what you’re asking. I’d bet anything Rex is poisoning his own people. Makes for a hell of a power play.”

It was the only thing that made sense. Rex wanted power and with JR out of the way, Fang was vulnerable. If Fang looked like he’d put the pack in danger by taking in the Red Skulls, he could be left open for a challenge. And who knew what Vald was willing to pay for us. But that still didn’t answer my question. “So what did we do?”

“You know you’re supposed to collect black souls for the werewolves, right?”

Ah yes, the lovely assignment Ant Eater thrust on me. “What about it?”

“They’re gone.”

That should be a good thing, but from the look on her face, I could tell it wasn’t.

“Remember those shadows that used to lurk everywhere?” She studied me. “Come on, slick. I know you saw two in our trailer.”

The shadows I saw above Pirate and Ant Eater. “You said back there I got rid of them.”

“I lied.”

Wonderful. “Then where’d they go?” I asked, knowing I probably didn’t want to hear the answer.

“Into JR. He’s been compromised.” She clicked her teeth together. “Bound to happen sooner on later, the way he’s been on your tail.”

“I never met JR.” Right?

“He’s been following you for some time now.”

“Of course.” I threw my hands up. One whacked against a wind chime hanging from the low ceiling. “Why not?” I was so sick of being the last to know—everything.

“Stop playing dumb. You know Dimitri was out there guarding you, long before you met your grandma.”

I’d figured as much when Pirate had found his Phantom Menace. Sure all dogs bark at shadows in the backyard. Leave it to Pirate to find something real. But I didn’t know Dimitri had brought friends. “Wait. Grandma Gertie only felt me when I was about to change. How could Dimitri know?”

“Now how the hell am I supposed to know that?” She blew out a breath. “First we’d have to get him to admit he was actually skulking around in your rose bushes. Slippery cuss. Dimitri’s played kissy face with the pack over the past couple of years. You can ask him about that your damned self. Now, here’s where we’re screwed. JR, heir to the werewolf pack, was Dimitri’s backup. Like any asshole spy, he searched the house after you left, probably trying to guess where we were hiding out.”

“And Xerxes the demon came back.” My heart sank when I thought of that creature in my house again. Poor JR. I didn’t even know him and, yes, he was a dirty fink for spying on me, but nobody deserved to have a shrunken, razor-clawed demon on their tail, especially after I’d sent a few green glowy things through Xerxes’s skull.

“JR was attacked by black souls. A search party found him, strung out of his mind on your sofa.”

I knew my home had been invaded, but my stomach churned to think of JR attacked in my living room. “What are black souls?” I asked. Frieda had said something about black souls when she first told me about this suicidal quest.

“They’re trapped souls—too bad for heaven, too good for hell. If they don’t find their way to purgatory, the demons capture them and use them. These are nasty-ass spirits. JR fought them off when they invaded your house.” She shook her head. “Gives me the willies.”

I couldn’t imagine what it would take to fight off a black soul, but if it made Ant Eater squeamish, it had to be bad.

“They didn’t possess him,” she said matter-of-factly. “At first. But they followed him. They’ll wear you down after a while, especially when you’ve got dozens of ’em after you, like he did. Then he got caught up in the mess on the night the Red Skull imploded. A real fucked-up situation. Nobody knew he was Dimitri’s second. And it seemed Dimitri was busy with you. He didn’t know his buddy was trapped until the next morning.”

So that’s why he’d raced off on the morning he was supposed to train me .

Oh my God. I’d been ready to drag him off his hog when all he wanted to do was go rescue his friend.

“This time, JR wasn’t as lucky. Scarlet and Dimitri found him facedown behind the bar, possessed by black souls.”

Dimitri must not have seen him the night before, when he’d rushed inside, looking for my dog. A dog . I loved Pirate with everything I had, but guilt stabbed me in the gut when I thought of how I’d worried about an animal when there’d been a real person trapped in there.

“They’ll possess any body they can, make the person stark raving mad before they drain his energy and turn him into one of them.”

“Where is he?”

She shook her head. “Dimitri has him stashed in the woods somewhere. Fang found out right before he dragged us into the trailer. Dimitri thought he could trust Fang. Just goes to show you werewolves are animals. Doesn’t matter that JR is a big boy, or that he worked with Dimitri all the time. No telling what Fang’s gonna do if you don’t handle it.”

We had to fix this. Wait. I had to fix this. “How much time does he have?”

“A day, maybe less,” she replied, the glow from the van’s overhead light glittering off her gold tooth.

Why did everything have to be a frickin’ emergency? “Why didn’t you tell me?” I could have at least tried to prevent this. I was the slayer.

“Ha! As I recall, you happened to be cursing me with the anaconda spell. When I came to, the black souls had fled the trailer. Means they’d found an open body to possess. I didn’t know who until Scarlet told me.”

“Dimitri, then.” The jerk. “Why didn’t he find me before this had to happen?”

“Probably because you were off skulking around the garbage dump.”

Talking to Grandma. I would have done anything to have her with me right now. This was such a mess.

I shook off the self-pity. I had to try to save JR. He was Dimitri’s friend, and besides, he’d been out there helping us. Those sounded like much more noble reasons than the sheer fact that they were going to kill us if I failed.

“Tell me,” I said, “I have the power to pull these black souls out of JR and help them find their way.”

“No,” Ant Eater practically shouted. A tentative knock sounded at the door. “Go away!” she hollered. “Now you listen to me, missy. Your job ends when you pull the souls out of JR. Let them find their own way.”

It didn’t seem right.

“You’ve got a job to do. You do it. And only it. Don’t try to channel Mother fucking Theresa.”

How could she say that? “But I could save those people.”

“They aren’t people anymore!” Her gold tooth glistened with spittle. “They’re things.”

“You said yourself they’re lost souls. You don’t want the complication.”

“Damned straight. Look, Lizzie—that ain’t our problem.” She planted her hands on her hips, right above the Glock stuffed into her pants.

“Get your hand off the gun.” She was making me nervous.

Her eyes bored into me. “JR is possessed. Fang wants to kill us and Rex is gonna sell us straight to Vald if you fuck this up.”

Heavens, I hoped I could handle this. “Why didn’t Dimitri tell me any of this?”

Why was I always the last to know?

“ He didn’t want to freak you out. I don’t care.”

“Fine,” I snapped. I’d defeated Xerxes. I could walk through death spells. I had to believe I could maybe, possibly, hopefully do this too. And I absolutely refused to give anybody the satisfaction of seeing how afraid I was. “So now I’m up to speed.”

“That’s it?” She looked at me like I’d sprouted horns.