The Accidental Demon Slayer

Chapter Fifteen

Rex dropped the knife and drew his shotgun, the double barrel aimed at my chest. I hurled a switch star without even thinking about it. It fired through the air like a rocket and cleaved Rex’s skull down the middle. The murderous werewolf didn’t even know what hit him.
The two halves of Rex’s head smoked as his body fell to the ground. His blood pooled in dark circles on the grass. There wasn’t much. The switch star had cauterized the wounds, leaving his head neatly sliced.
My stomach squinched. Yick. The smell of scorched flesh and hair made me want to gag. I rested my hands on my knees while I caught up with the adrenaline surging through me. I’d killed him.
I had to kill him. He would have shot us. But how I’d done it—clean through the skull—was awful. I clutched the switch star in my right hand. It had boomeranged back to me, not a drop of blood on it.
Dimitri took a deep breath, his gun cocked and ready. “We have to go.”
“Urgle.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the filet of wolf.
Dimitri checked on JR, then grabbed his backpack from the rear of the trailer.
Poor JR. How on earth were we going to take him with us? He was built like a water buffalo. His black T-shirt, wet with gore, was the only indication I’d reached my hand into his chest. The muscles and bone underneath pushed firmly against the wet cloth as he took short, deep breaths. Even asleep, he was a force to be reckoned with. I could feel the strength and power rolling off him.
I brushed the dirt from his black hair and noticed he’d begun to gray at the temples. I don’t know why I had to touch him again. Maybe I just needed to do something that didn’t involve gripping his heart in my hands.
What would JR be like when he woke up?
Dimitri threw his shoulder holster on. “Here.” He tossed me a set of keys. “Unlock him.”
I pulled my hand back. Sure, we had to take him with us, but I preferred my new friend chained. JR’s eyes clenched shut and he panted hard, like he was fighting something.
The black souls had flown the coop, but that didn’t mean JR wasn’t about to turn into a crazed werewolf.
Dimitri dumped a small arsenal out of his backpack, along with some first-aid equipment—the basic tool kit for taking someone apart or putting them back together. He glanced my way. “Sorry. I can’t guarantee he won’t turn furry. That’s what you’re worried about, isn’t it?”
“I’ve had enough of rampaging werewolves for one night.”
“Touché. But JR’s my friend and he’s going to need all the help he can get,” Dimitri said, clicking an ammo clip into one of the pistols. “He could be in trouble when the pack recovers from that paralyzing spell. No telling which side is going to wake up first.” He stuffed the gun into his shoulder holster. “With any luck, we’ll be on the road by then.”
“You mean we’re not taking him with us?” At least a dozen werewolves littered the ground around the trailer. It was impossible to know who was friend or foe until they woke up. And then it would be too late.
I didn’t want to know what would happen if Rex’s people got to JR first. Would they execute him like Rex did to their former alpha, Fang? Or would it be something even more horrible?
“We can’t just leave him here.” Call it selfish, but my conscience wouldn’t allow it. In my book, you didn’t leave your friends to get stabbed, slaughtered or eaten. “We have to save him.”
“We did,” Dimitri said, regret plain on his face as he placed two loaded pistols and a knife next to the fitful werewolf.
Dimitri located a beat-up Yankees cap in the corner of the trailer. JR’s, I assumed. He brushed the dirt off the brim and placed it on his friend’s head. “If he’s found with us, they’ll execute him on sight.”
He stood up to his full height, all business. He’d never looked more large or deadly. “You killed pack, Lizzie. You’re their enemy now—and JR’s.”
In what universe did that make sense? “Do the words ‘self-defense’ mean anything to these people?”
He shook his head ruefully. “I’m afraid not.”
I fumbled with the keys, shoving them into tiny locks and working the layers of cuffs away from JR’s thick wrists and ankles. In another life I would have been nervous. Lord knew we had reason. We still didn’t know if Pirate and the Red Skulls had escaped. I might be unchaining a crazy werewolf. And any time now, an army of hostile werewolves would wake up and find their alpha’s jugular slashed and their second-in-command with a large switch-star hole through his forehead.
No way around it. I should have been scared as a hamster at a rattlesnake convention. But I wasn’t. I was pissed. It wasn’t my fault Rex died. He’d been gunning for me from the start. He saw me as a weak link the minute we set foot in Shoney’s. Frankly, he might have been right. But I’d grown into my powers, and it was Rex’s own friggin’ fault he’d been too busy scheming to notice.
Rex had no right to mess with me or the pack. I yanked the chains from JR’s chest and his eyes flew open for a moment. “Eep!” I pitched backward and landed hard on my rear.
I might have had the demon slayer bit down, but I had a lot to learn about hard-ass.
Dimitri leaned past me. “JR.” He shook him. “Hey, buddy.”
JR squinted up at us through bloodshot eyes. Thank goodness they were brown instead of the sickly red they’d been before.
The wolf shuddered.
Dimitri squeezed my arm. “Good job, Lizzie.”
JR broke into a coughing fit. He gulped several breaths. “Talk about a hangover. I feel like the worm in the tequila bottle.”
“Don’t try to talk,” Dimitri told him.
JR waved him off, winked at me and nearly passed out again. “Oh good. You found her,” he said. His eyes focused on the chains hanging from the trailer ceiling. “This isn’t the bar.”
He still thought we were at the Red Skull. Good. He didn’t need to remember what had happened to him after that.
“You had an accident, but you’re okay. Your pack will explain.” Dimitri shook his head. “I hate to do this to you, buddy, but Lizzie and I have to split.”
JR coughed, catching his breath. “Something I should know about?”
“While you were out cold, the pack had a problem,” Dimitri said, diplomatically.
JR knew without us telling him. “Rex.”
“He’s dead.” Dimitri said.
“Good,” JR said, grunting as he pulled himself up.
“But, listen, we think Rex poisoned half the pack. And,” Dimitri said, clearly dreading what he had to say next, “Rex killed Fang.”
JR nodded, unable or perhaps unwilling to speak.
“I got Rex with a switch star,” I said to fill the silence. He needed to know someone tried to do something. “It was too late.”
JR kept nodding.
“Take this.” Dimitri gave JR a silver dagger. “These too,” he added, handing him the pistols he’d taken from his backpack.
JR’s eyes locked on something past my shoulder. “Go,” he grunted.
I followed his gaze out into the cemetery. Lights bobbed up the path.
With any luck, it meant the witches had safely fled. A bubble of satisfaction welled in my chest. If those wolves were looking for reinforcements, they were out of luck.
But I also knew there’d be no way to explain the wolves crumpled among the graves, or the executed alpha. Or Rex with his head cleaved in half. We had to get out of there.
Dimitri tossed the backpack over his shoulder and jumped from the trailer. I was about to follow when JR’s heavy hand gripped my arm. He squeezed once, twice. “Thank you,” he said thickly. I had a feeling he didn’t say it too often.
“Glad to help,” I told him. And I was.
Dimitri and I dashed through the dark cemetery. The werewolves could see a lot better and move faster, but if we had enough of a jump on them, we could make it out of there with our hides intact.
We raced past the lonely graves scattered over the far side of the cemetery. They were much older and—I stumbled through a thicket of weeds—untended. The families had probably died out.
Dimitri came to an abrupt stop before a blue granite structure. “Here.”
The name said Flier. A black Harley leaned against the back of the grave.
I climbed on behind Dimitri, pressing myself flush against his back and holding on for dear life as the bike pitched forward. My handsome protector introduced me to a whole new kind of terror, zigzagging between trees, over logs and past the few graves that reached beyond the confines of the cemetery.
My brain rattled over every rock and hole we hit. Dimitri wasn’t the best driver under ideal conditions. Now? I did everything I could to stay on.
Dimitri pitched the bike up a steep embankment and onto the road, a narrow strip of asphalt winding into the forest. He gunned the motor, and the wind whipped at our faces as we sped off into the night.
We’re coming to get you, Grandma.
We’d done more than play pack politics tonight. I’d learned I could face off in a battle and win. I could live by the demon slayer Truths and trust myself, get outside myself enough to release my powers, even if I didn’t fully understand them. It had to be enough.
Grandma had looked terrible when she appeared to me. She didn’t have much time left. I couldn’t afford to wait. We’d meet up with the witches at the Dixie Queen’s casino. Then I’d learn what I needed to do to find Vald. It probably wouldn’t be too hard, I thought with a shiver. The demon wanted me.
Ant Eater told me I’d know it when the witches arrived at their new hideout. Somehow, I’d instinctively understand how to find them. I reached out with my feelings, searching for the comfort that everything was all right. Instead, I sensed dull emptiness and fear. No telling whether it came from the coven or from my own dark thoughts.
I gripped Dimitri tighter, feeling his warm skin through his black T-shirt. For a moment, just a moment, I allowed myself to take comfort in his closeness. I knew I shouldn’t want him. He was nothing but trouble. But I couldn’t help it. I needed a little good in my life after Rex, after the werewolves, after everything that had happened since Grandma pulled up to my front door on her pink-and-silver Harley.
I finally understood why Dimitri had sought me out and why he couldn’t tell me the truth right away. The other day on the side of the road, I wasn’t ready to hear about the fifth-level demon who’d taken his family. I didn’t want to know I was destined to face that demon or that I’d lose someone too. I wasn’t ready for my future or for Dimitri. But that had changed.
  
“I’m going to pass out.” I sat on the side of the road with my head between my knees. The sunrise sent a tumble of red and orange streaks across the sky. I’d made Dimitri pull over in Tupelo, Mississippi. We had to keep moving. I knew that. But my arms felt so weak, my body so tired, I was afraid I’d fly off the bike like a tiddlywink if Dimitri hit one more pothole.
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked, rifling around in his backpack.
“Not a good idea,” I said, my stomach threatening to riot. “I’m just…exhausted.”
“Come on.” Dimitri gathered me up in his arms. Yum. It felt too good. His warm, masculine scent nearly undid me. But as utterly content as I felt at the moment, I couldn’t, I wouldn’t go back to that bike.
“Oh no,” I said, muffled in his shirt as he strode toward the Harley. “Let me die on the side of the road. I’m not cut out to be a biker babe.”
“Hold on,” he said, placing me back on the hog. “We gotta get you out of the open. I noticed a safe spot a few miles back. We’ll go slow, okay?”
I nodded. “Where are you taking me?” Did he know of another hideout nearby? If werewolves ran Shoney’s, perhaps a dragon BBQ joint would be just the spot—or maybe Dimitri knew of a Denny’s run by leprechauns. I’d even be open to a mermaid water park. Anything to get me off this bike for an hour or two. “Where in the world of weird creatures are you taking me?”
“Motel 6.”
  
I never would have thought of Motel 6 as a great place to take a break from werewolf fights and black soul possession, but we sure could have done worse. The bored teenager who checked us in was too busy chomping her gum to notice the switch stars I’d forgotten to take off my belt. She simply twirled a Kool Aid–red lock of hair and informed us we had a room at the back of the hotel, second floor.
This place was the Taj Mahal compared to the trailer I’d shared with Ant Eater. Much cuter company too, I mused, as Dimitri tossed his backpack onto the king-size bed.
Wait.
Dimitri was assuming a heck of a lot.
I eyed the humongous bed with its quilted seashell comforter. “Planning to sleep in the bathtub, are you?”
Dimitri flashed a smile that was pure sin. “If you’d been paying attention to the clerk instead of trying to hide your switch stars behind the gumball machine, you’d have heard for yourself. They only have kings left.”
“Yeah, well don’t get fresh.”
Just my luck he listened.
Dimitri didn’t try to peek when I took a shower, refused to look when I climbed under the covers and allowed me to sleep unmolested for the next fourteen hours.
Jerk.
My head felt hazy when I woke up to find him propped up in bed next to me. He held a small object in his hand, like a pocket watch. Inside glowed the image of two girls, asleep.
His sisters.
It hurt to think about everything he’d lost. All the same, I was glad he finally trusted me with the truth about why he’d hunted me down and why he wanted Vald dead.
I was about to ask him about his sisters when another thought hit me like a riptide. I sat up so fast I nearly knocked the thing out of his hand. “I know where the witches are,” I gasped.
The Dixie Queen was moored in a deserted inlet of the Yazoo River, just south of the Tallahatchie. Before that moment, if anyone had asked me to find the Yazoo, I wouldn’t have been able to point it out on a map. Now I knew exactly how to get there. I didn’t know how I knew, I just did. Every one of the Red Skulls had made it. Thank goodness.
Dimitri shoved the object in his pocket. “Yeah, I know too,” he said, somewhat annoyed. “Ant Eater got me on my cell.”
Of course.
Speaking of slaying fifth-level demons, we had to get moving. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You need all the strength you can get.” He gazed at me intently. “A window will open, Lizzie. Tomorrow. It’s time to face Vald.”
Holy schniekies. A little warning would have been nice. I didn’t even like pop quizzes in school, much less a surprise ultimate face-off with an evil demon. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“You were throwing switch stars in the dirt.”
Yeah, yeah, and beheading the Shoney’s Big Boy. I didn’t need a reminder of how much I’d screwed up.
“Adding a deadline didn’t seem like the best approach,” Dimitri said matter-of-factly.
Truth be told, I was glad. Grandma needed help, the quicker the better.
“Vald has been drawing strength from your grandma, and from the remains of my family. But drawing energy is like sucking soda from a straw. Every once in a while, you have to take a breath. Tomorrow at midnight, Vald will take that breath. He’ll be open, more vulnerable. It’s the best time to strike.”
“Okay,” I said, nodding one too many times. “How do you know all this?”
“Everyone knows,” he said, too matter-of-fact for my taste.
“Oh sure. Why not?” Everyone but me.
He shrugged. “Your grandma saw it in her vision before she was taken. Scarlet was there.” So Scarlet knew and Dimitri and the coven. Heck, I’m sure Pirate had even heard of it by now.
“Fine,” I said. We were going to deal with this. Later. In the meantime, “What’s the plan?”
“We rest. Prepare. Tomorrow morning, we’ll head out and meet the coven at the Dixie Queen. We’re about four hours out.” He checked his watch absently. “They’re expecting us at noon. We’ll discuss strategy. Then we face him and win.”
Or lose. No, don’t think of what could happen if we fail.
In less than twenty-four hours, I’d be facing off with a fifth-level demon. My training had led me to this moment, to tomorrow’s showdown. I hoped I was up to it. Grandma deserved more than to die in the second layer of hell. Dimitri’s family deserved to be avenged. And afterward, I deserved to sleep for about a year. It blew my mind to realize that if I actually survived this, I’d be free to go home, to resume my life, to teach my preschool class. I wondered if I could ever go back. I hoped I could.
I dug my hand into the pocket of my khakis and found the jeweled griffin hairpin Dimitri had given me. I smoothed it into my hair.
Dimitri caught my hands and held them in his, palms up. My breath caught in my throat. Black marks singed my hands and fingers where I’d touched the black souls.
He brought my hands to his lips and kissed each black stain. “I thought I’d lost you back there,” he said, lingering over my fingertips. “I would never have forgiven myself.”
I nodded, fascinated as his lips and teeth grazed my skin. He was my protector. Yow. Who was going to protect me from him?
“You are so damned dangerous,” he said, his mouth sinking into mine.
I responded with everything I had. Oh, yes. This was exactly how it should be. I wrapped my arms around him, threaded my fingers through his hair.
He eased his rough-and-tumble demon-butt-kicking body over me and I squirmed under his delicious weight. “Hot for teacher” didn’t even begin to cover it. I was no slut puppy, but serve up a sexy protector, a couple of near-death experiences and—oh my word was that him on my thigh? A girl can only resist so much.
I tore my mouth from his. “Back off now,” I said,fighting the urge to wriggle against the hard ridge jutting from underneath his jeans, “or I’m not responsible for my actions.”
“If you can still put a sentence together, I’m doing something wrong,” he said, yanking off his black T-shirt with one hand. “Maybe this’ll help.”
If there’s ever a time for a man to exceed all expectations, it’s in bed.
I knew Dimitri was stacked, but—yee, hee lucky me—he had the chest of a Greek god. I ran my fingers over his olive skin. Mmm…his nipples were particularly dark, and rigid. I grazed them with the barest, teasing touch until they stood at attention. Hmm. And hello, abs. The man could have been an underwear model. I let my fingers curl into the black hair that ran down his lower stomach and disappeared under the waistband of his jeans.
He flicked his eyes up to mine, and his lips curled into a wicked smile. “Are you done fondling me?”
“Not by half.” I scraped one of his nipples between my teeth and was rewarded when he gasped and about doubled over. Told him not to mess with me. He ran his fingers through my hair as I teased each nipple in turn, rolling them in my mouth.
“My turn,” he gasped, gripping my head and plastering me with a hot, demanding kiss. He was all tongue and teeth. He stroked and demanded until my entire body threatened to implode. I squeezed my thighs together. If he could make me wet and aching without even touching down there, what would happen if…?
He drew a sharp breath as I shifted my body to bring him in line with the part of me that screamed for his touch. Eureka! He felt rock hard, amazing. It had been way too long.
His mouth grazed the thin material over my breast. God, who knew a white button-down could feel so good? I threw my head back, brimming with pure rapture.
“Watch me, Lizzie,” he said, his lips hovering over me.
I stared at him, unable to speak, as he slowly started to unfasten each white button on my blouse. It felt like huge, honking bottle rockets were going off at the juncture between my thighs.
“Oh please,” I croaked, wild with anticipation.
Dimitri chuckled. He drew back my bra with his thumbs. He caught his breath and his look of wonder brought hot tears to the backs of my eyes. He slowly lowered his mouth, his eyes fixed on mine as he took one screaming, begging nipple between his teeth. “Oh thank God!” I nearly exploded.
I wanted him. Now. Naked against me.
Which meant, oh geez, “Dimitri,” I panted. I clutched his head, scooted that awful inch away from him. “We have to stop.”
“Are you trying to kill me?” he gasped against my breasts.
“Of course not,” I said, staring at the ceiling, trying to get a grip. “I may have wanted to maim you a few times, but that’s in the past.”
As far as our future together? Well, I didn’t know. And there was the problem. As much as I liked to pretend I could have a night of blazing hot sex with no consequences, I wasn’t the type. Damn, I hated being responsible.
“We don’t need to stop,” he murmured, “Stopping is bad.” His lips found my other nipple. Another wave of pleasure seized me, sending spirals of heat through me until I was ready to surrender.
I knew he wasn’t just talking about tonight. Somewhere along the line, he’d wound himself into my heart—for better or worse. There was no turning back now, no getting him out of my system. I wanted Dimitri with me. I wanted this.
Think. Stop and think.
I curled my fingers into the bedsheets to keep them from finding his beautiful butt. I was usually more rational. I decided how far to go before he, oh geez, his hands moved to my thighs and I nearly passed out from anticipation. I didn’t plan this. But I could touch him a little, right? My hands wandered down his sides. It was like I hadn’t had chocolate cake in a year and I couldn’t stop with one bite. Only it had been more like two years and he tasted better than super-double-fudge icing and it would be so easy to slide my hand under the waistband of his Levi’s 501s.
He ground his mouth against mine and I gave myself up to the sensation. Ribbons of electricity wound through me.
“Are we stopping?” he whispered against my lips. “I need to know. Now.”
We both inhaled sharply as I slid my fingertips under the waistband of his jeans. His skin was super-heated, his breath jerky. It wasn’t fair. I had to decide once and for all. I touched the firm flesh of his lower stomach, felt the hair curl under my fingertips, knew if I moved a little more…
“No.” I slid my fingers beneath his silk boxers. “We’re not stopping tonight.”