The Dangerous Book for Demon Slayers (18 page)

"You would have to say that."

The phone in my right hand chirped. I glanced down at the Caller ID.

Grandma.

"Answer it, hot stuff," Sid said, lurching the cab into a U-turn.

I grabbed the seat in front of me and held on. "Are you influencing the
future?"

"Oh yeah, I'm conjuring up all kinds of goodies," he said, an eye
on my ringing phone. "Now answer the damned phone."

With dread pulsing in my temples, I flipped open the phone.

"Lizzie!" Ant Eater's voice sounded hollow, and about a million
miles away. "Get back here! We're under attack!"

Not the demons. They couldn't break through the wards.

"Incoming!" she hollered before the line went dead.

I dashed down the ordinary twelfth floor and thrust open the door to the stairwell.
My demon slayer senses told me there were three of them waiting up there.
Three.
Could I even handle that many
? I had no idea. I just hoped the
witches had made it out all right. And poor little Pirate.

Don't think about it.

My boots pounded on the concrete stairs to the maintenance closet that led
to thirteen. I shoved my keycard at the door, hit it wrong and broke the thing
in half. Criminy!

Dimitri wedged his into the slot.

The air in this hallway used to be stale and metallic. Now the only thing I
could smell was the sulfur stench of demons.

I ducked past Dimitri and threw open the closet door, switch stars ready.

Where were they?

The waters of the magical hallway churned with a murky froth, like the ocean
after a hurricane. They'd gone from crystal clear to dishwater gray. A dead
fish floated past, tangled in seaweed. I stepped in and pitched forward when
the waters of the hallway swallowed me to the knees.

"What the… ?" I stumbled three feet and braced my hands on
the opposite wall. The water had gone from tropical to downright chilly.
Before, it had lapped at my toes, but left them dry. Now, I was wet. And cold.

Goose bumps skittered down my legs.

The sulfur in the air made my eyes water. I could actually taste it in the
back of my throat.

I fought back a wave of nausea.

Half the chandelier lights had been ripped from their sockets. Every Skeep
post down the long corridor stood empty. It was like a bomb had gone off on the
thirteenth floor. The air sizzled with energy, and yet the silence was deafening.

Like all hell had broken loose.

Dimitri braced his hands on each side of the closet doorway. I'd never seen
him so resolute, or so terrifyingly vulnerable. I could almost see them suck
him dry.

Well, not if I had anything to say about it. I waded back through the frigid
water, grabbed his key card, and slammed the door before he knew what I was
doing.

"Lizzie!" He pounded on the door.

I ignored him. He had to trust me on this one.

Who was I kidding? I had to trust myself.

I could feel them stalking me.

Shadowy forms floated beneath the surface of the water in the hallway.
Despite the chill, sweat pooled under my arms and on my palms. I wiped my
switch star hand on my shirt and began wading toward Battina's room full of
wards.

No way the witches would have gone down without a fight. I had to believe
they'd made it out or—my breath caught in my throat.

Grandma floated faceup in the murky water, her dirty hair tangled across her
forehead.

"Oh no." Shock slammed through me.

Grandma's mouth slacked open, and a thick rusty ooze bubbled from her
forehead. Oh geez. I touched it gently. Had to know if it was blood or magic
or… I would have plopped down from relief if I hadn't been so
scared—possum goo. Protective magic. Thank God.

Her skin felt cold and clammy, her neck worse as I felt for a pulse. It was
weak, but there.

Grabbing her around the shoulders, I lifted her out of the water with more
strength than I knew I had. Ice-cold water sloshed down my body.

I reached up for the handle and flung open the Exit door. Dimitri, the jerk,
had had been trying to jimmy the lock with my broken key card. "Emergency!
Take her." I unloaded Grandma onto him, swiped half the broken card and
slammed the door again, ignoring his cursing from the other side. No way they'd
make it out of this hall alive in a fight. Heck, I wasn't so sure even I'd make
it out.

A high-pitched whistle sounded, and before I could think about it, a demon
dropped out of a chandelier. It screeched, claws outstretched. I nailed it with
a switch star, just in time to see two more coming from behind. A sulfuric wind
threw me face-first into the water, my eyes stinging with salt water. No way I
could recover in time to switch-star them. I dove straight down, forcing my
arms to pump as hard as I could, fighting the numbing cold.

I could feel the mass of demons in Vegas, like an army of locusts. I could
sense their hunger, their need to suck the living energy out of everything they
encountered. Maybe a city like Las Vegas could handle a few, but not this many.
It was like they were using Grandma, Ant Eater, the energy of the witches to
open a gateway. They were feeding, taking and growing stronger and more
menacing with every passing minute. I felt them like a weight in the very pit
of my stomach.

The dark mark throbbed against my palm. It recognized them, and it wanted
them. Yeah, well so did I.

My hair tangled around my face and my lungs burned. The dirty water heaved
with broken bits of seaweed and remnants of paradise. Bubbles forced their way
up through the underwater nightmare, but I knew better than to give in to the
desire to break for the surface. It churned above me, surrounded by the pure
white walls of the hallway and the slick black shadows of not one, but two demons
landing on the surface. Yellow talons attached to black leathery legs broke
through the water right on top of me. I couldn't let them corner me. But I
couldn't throw switch stars though the water, could I?

I said a quick prayer and zinged one for the demon right above me. The thing
shattered into a million flecks of light. Yes!

Lungs ready to explode, I broke through to the surface. I scrambled out of
the depths like I was climbing out of a pool, though I could make it out only
to my knees. The salt water stung my eyes and dripped down my lips. I gave them
a quick wipe and crouched, shaking as the air-conditioning of the hallway hit
me like an arctic wind. "You found your slayer!" I screamed down the
deserted hallway.

Switch star in hand, I sloshed down the corridor. "Come out, come out
wherever you are."

I could feel the last one siphoning the energy from the floor. It didn't
even need to be in devil form. These things could exist anywhere.

"Come on, girlie. Let's see what you've got."

She rushed me from behind. I turned at the last second, switch star out,
ready to throw. She slammed right into it, burning me with countless pinpricks
of energy. The impact seized me like an electric charge. I closed my eyes
against the glare as the impact punched me backward into the murky water.

The ocean swallowed me whole. My face, arms, chest shocked and useless. Salt
water flooded my mouth and I choked. Terror gripped me as my arms refused to
move.

Sweet switch stars. I couldn't survive a triple demon attack only to drown
in the aftermath. I forced my legs to move. Nothing. My arms. Nothing.

I held my breath, salt water going up my nose. If I choked, I'd breathe in
more water. It was the only thing I could control.

Holy mother, I was sinking fast. My left side caught a sharp coral reef and
I winced at the impact. Dark blood—my blood—clouded around the
wound, reaching with gauzy tendrils until it faded into the suffocating waters.
The murkiness consumed the streaming light of the surface until it took too much
energy to bother to look up at it.

I closed my eyes. Numb. And I thought of the dark mark.

Maybe I couldn't move my hand, but I could feel the power of the mark on my
palm. I called out to it, invited it to flow through me. This mark had been
given to me for a reason.

My cheek hit the soft, sandy bottom and my hair streamed around my face. I
kept my eyes closed tight and focused on the mark. Flooded with a cool calm, I
let the power of the mark wash over me like the water that was killing me. I
felt it snake through my fingers, burn through the veins of my arm. It pricked
into my chest, into the very core of me. I floated in the mire and let it come.

Give me the power to save them and to save myself. Give me the power to
make a difference.

The pain ebbed and for a moment, I thought I was dying. It wasn't as
unpleasant as I'd imagined—almost a way out of an impossible situation.

At least I still had my soul.

Suddenly, my arms and legs crackled to life. They tingled as if they'd been
asleep. I pumped my way to the surface and burst through. I spit water and
inhaled sharply, ready to choke as I scrambled for the safety of a wall. I
couldn't stop shaking. I was half standing, hands braced against the white
swirling wallpaper when I realized I was breathing normally.

"Son of a gun," I murmured, feeling a raw burning in the back of
my throat, the only indication that I'd been practically breathing salt water.

The door to the outside rattled on its hinges.

Correction, it was mostly off its hinges as Dimitri cursed up a storm on the
other side.

"Hold up!" I called.

I glanced up and down the deserted corridor. The hallway felt clear. For
now.

Legs tingling, I tested each step on my way to let Dimitri into the hallway.
Grandma had looked terrible when I handed her over to him. Fingers numb, I felt
my face and inspected my skin. My arms looked sunburned, the water at my knees
sizzled, and my dark mark positively glowed. I touched it to the door lock and
heard a sharp intake of breath on the other side.

I did what I had to do.

The situation had gone from bad to completely terrifying. Still, I didn't
regret using the dark mark. Dimitri may not like it, but this was the supernatural
gift I needed to help us survive hell. I'd be a fool not to use it.

I'd barely turned the lock when Dimitri exploded into the murky hall,
running straight into me and sending up a wave of water.

"Lizzie." He gripped my shoulders like he wanted to pick me up and
drag me back to Greece with him.

"How's Grandma?"

"She woke up right when everything went quiet with you. What
happened?"

She woke up when the demons died. There'd be more. "We have to get out
of here." I looked past him and saw Grandma braced against Sid.

Her mouth sagged and dark circles ringed both eyes. "They'd been
hitting the wards all day. Typical. Like a raptor testing for a weak spot. I
don't know how they found one."

I nodded. "Can you walk?"

We sloshed our way down the hallway reviving witches, most of them still in
their rooms. They'd all suffered severe energy drain, but at least they were
alive. Dimitri kicked in doors in a way that was both scary and efficient.
After being held back by the dead bolt in the hall, he was enjoying himself a
little too much.

White streaked his hair. We had to put a stop to this, before I lost him
entirely. If he'd been whole, a dead bolt wouldn't have held him back. He'd
have shifted in the maintenance closet and burst into the hallway, a huge utterly
majestic griffin. The only reason he didn't do it today, I feared, was because
he couldn't.

He was fading. It wasn't just his eyes anymore or the white in his hair. I
could see his magic dull along with the emerald he'd given me. His protective
necklace had morphed into body armor when I needed it, tied me to a tree when I
didn't and had even offered butt protection during my foray through Uncle
Phil's living room window. Now, twice when I'd been under demon attack, it had
remained utterly still. I fingered the teardrop-shaped stone that used to be
warmed by Dimitri's magic. It still tied him to me. And I felt,
I knew
,
that it still protected me. Still, it was a painful reminder of what had
happened to him—to us—as it lay cool and lifeless around my neck.

Because I couldn't stand to watch him a second longer, and well, because
Pirate needed me, I sloshed down the hallway to my room.

"Hey, doobie." I listened for Pirate's clawing as I slid Grandma's
key card into the door. "Pirate?" I opened the door to a disaster.
The television had exploded, along with the light sockets and every other
electrical gadget in the place. And worse—no Pirate.

Panic flooding through me as I searched the remains of our room. He wasn't
under the bed, in the bathroom, or behind the drapes. My chest tightened as I
tried to think of other places he'd hide during a storm.

Tears burned the backs of my eyes. What good was it to sense every demon
from here to Hoover Dam if I couldn't find the one little guy who depended on
me to protect him?

"Lizzie."

Dimitri-the-door-basher stood in the entryway, cradling Pirate. Blood seeped
from my pup's left leg, his coat stood on end and his ears dangled lifelessly.

"Oh my god. Is he… ?" I took his scruffy body in my arms.

"No," Dimitri said quickly. "He's fine. He's just beat."

I buried my face in his wiry neck and felt his heartbeat against my palm.
Relief whooshed through me. Through the cold, matted fur, I could feel an
undercurrent of warm, doggie heat.

As if he knew what I was thinking, Pirate curled into me and buried his wet
nose in the crook of my elbow.

Mmm… wet dog. My wet dog. "I'm gonna get you out of here. I
promise."

In fact, we had to get everyone out. Pronto.

"What's the latest on the witches?" I asked Dimitri.