The Accidental Demon Slayer

Chapter Seven

I had no idea how long we sprinted before we lurched to a stop. The woods screamed with insects, animals and—Please let it be just insects and animals. After the zigzag path we’d cut through the countryside, it was impossible to tell where we’d come from or where Dimitri was headed. My heart sank. I didn’t know how I’d ever find my way back to Grandma.
Dimitri pulled me behind a thick tree. The rough bark scraped against my back. Every one of my nerve endings erupted as his hard body pinned me. I clutched him, trying to gain a foothold in the fallen leaves and soft dirt underneath. Heat burned through his soft black T-shirt. I braced my fingers against his chest. At least he seemed as out of breath as I was. And dang, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on the man.
Enough.
“What do you want?” I asked, letting go of his shirt, wishing I could shove past him. “Because it had better be frickin’ amazing.” And I couldn’t think of anything worth Grandma’s life.
Dimitri was going to lead me back, whether he liked it or not. I hoped I wouldn’t be too late.
He planted his hands on each side of my head. “I’m saving you from what could turn out to be a very unpleasant evening.” He bowed his head, breathing heavily. Whatever he thought we’d needed to escape, we’d run full out. He lifted his head, listening to the sounds of the night swiftly turning to morning. “You can start by thanking me.”
He had to be kidding. “Don’t hold your breath, buster.” Something very bad had happened. My best guess? Grandma’s mind meld with Vald the demon hadn’t gone as planned. Frieda said Grandma had to draw herself closer than anyone else would dare. Grandma had rushed in without preparing and, after our night, she’d been bruised and tired. “Did it ever occur to you that I might have been able to help Grandma back there?”
He looked at me intently. “The Red Skulls can take care of themselves. They’ve been dealing with Vald for thirty years. You, on the other hand, could get yourself hurt…or killed.”
Killed. The way he said it chilled me to the core. Worse, he was right. As it stood, I was no match for a fifth-level demon like Vald. And if the witches did have a plan, I was willing to bet it didn’t include me. Or Pirate. My poor dog. Tears burned at the backs of my eyes. Pirate trusted me to keep him safe.
Focus.
I couldn’t let this get to me, or I wouldn’t be good for anyone. “Okay,” I told Dimitri, easing him off me. The crisp night air crept between us, tugging at my nipples. “I might be more of a liability than a help at this point. I’ll stay out of the way of anything big. But I need to get my dog.”
Doubt touched the back of my mind. I wondered if I truly should have helped the witches in some way. Is that why they’d tried to give me the potion? Vald had been chasing Grandma and the coven for thirty years. It couldn’t be a mistake that tonight, the night I arrived, he chose to attack. Well, if that was the case, they should have had the decency to let me in on it. As it stood, I had to make a difference where I could. And that meant protecting Pirate. From the way Dimitri was scowling, I could tell he didn’t like my plan one bit.
Tough tootsies. I was half cold, half sweating and completely tired of standing around. “So are you going to help me get Pirate or what?” I ducked around Dimitri. The cold night seized me, gelling the sweat and making me wish I had a lot more on than Frieda’s tank top. I took my best guess as to the direction of the coven and started walking.
Dimitri captured both my wrists in one hand. “Not on your life.” Heat crept up my arms, and I had an acute awareness of the crushing power he held in check.
“Do not fight me on this.” I bit at every word, locking down my frustration until I could barely stand it anymore. Dimitri’s fingers bit into my wrists and that was all it took. I let out a shout to rival any battle cry. I had to. If I didn’t let the frustration boil, I’d start crying. I couldn’t afford to fall apart now or someone could get hurt—or killed—and it would be my fault.
He yanked me against his chest, infuriated. “Has it occurred to you I’m trying to save your life?” he asked, his face inches from mine. “The witches have a plan. You don’t. If that really is Vald back there—and my guess is it is—he could suck out your soul before you could even begin to look for your little dog. There’s no foreplay. No warning. It’s gone. And so are you.”
Fear clenched my gut. “But I’m a demon slayer.” I was the only one who could—potentially—kill the jerk. That had to give me some kind of an edge.
He shook his head, a wry smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Not yet, you aren’t. Have you ever tried to steal a demon’s essence? Thrown a switch star?” His eyes narrowed at my obvious bewilderment. “Your grandma didn’t even tell you about the Three Truths did she?”
I shook my head.
“Dammit!”
So he had a point. This was bad. Maybe I didn’t have any business going back there and maybe Grandma and the Red Skulls could handle themselves. Lord knew it would have been easier to run, hide until I’d done my homework. But I didn’t have the luxury to wait. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to Pirate while I stood around and did nothing.
I blew out a breath and faced the man, looming above me in the moonlight. At that moment, he reminded me of an enraged mountain lion, as cunning as he was dangerous, with a territorial streak a mile wide.
And he wasn’t going away. “I understand where you’re coming from,” I told him. “Heck, under other circumstances, I’d agree with you. But in the last twelve hours, I’ve lost my home, my job, my friends, my clothes…” Did he really need me to go any farther? “Hell’s bells, I’ve lost any sense of what is normal in the world. I’m not losing my dog!”
He didn’t even have the courtesy to blink.
I shoved past him. “Fine. If you’re not going to help, you can get the frick out of my way.”
Endless trees loomed in every direction. I took my best guess at a direction and set off.
“Lizzie. Hold on. You can’t.”
On the contrary, I could and I would.
Besides, when Dimitri first took Grandma and me to the coven, he’d been worried about the troll hitmen after us. Maybe I’d get lucky and only find assassins. What would the old Lizzie have had to say about that?
He caught up with me, lingering a step behind, casting his long shadow over mine in the moonlight. “Don’t go back there. It’s…dangerous.” He sounded worried.
“Déjà vu,” I said. “We already had this conversation.”
“There are things at work that you cannot understand.”
Okay. That ticked me off. “If you’re even thinking about turning into mystery man again, you can forget it.” I needed as much information as I could get right about now. If he couldn’t be honest with me, then I didn’t need him.
Of course I couldn’t let it go. “And another thing,” I said, pounding my way through a thick swash of fallen leaves. “I know you’re not human. And you know what? I don’t care. I don’t. But if you’re going to do a light show with your eyes and then practically fly through the woods with me, then you can drop the act, okay? It’s not working.” Lies, all lies.
I couldn’t hear him behind me, which was creepy, but I knew he was there. Finally, he said, “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah, well so am I, buddy.”
All things considered, I thought I was handling my new life pretty darn well. I may have had to put up with demons, imps and a crazy grandma, but I didn’t have to put up with any b.s. from Dimitri. I tromped through the underbrush, kicking at it as I went. Maybe I’d sic Ant Eater on him.
Just move. And listen for the screams. Or barks. Please be okay, Pirate.
I had to find my way back, or this would all be for nothing. I forced my anger away, opened my mind. I had to start using some of the magic that had screwed up my life or I’d never be any use to anybody. I felt the cool breeze of the night on my face. My mind reached out in front of me like fingers through water. I could almost hear it. I shifted direction. This could be it.
Calm down. Feel this. Let go.
“Give it up, Lizzie.”
Ignore him. Feel. I started to jog through the trees, their branches whipping against my arms and shoulders. My breathing fell into a steady rhythm. I saw the coven like a dot of light in my mind.
My feet dodged fallen tree limbs and roots. I didn’t even need to look down anymore, I realized with a start. This felt right.
Dimitri might think he could keep me from Pirate, but there was one thing he hadn’t counted on. I had an inner compass. I could sense it. I knew it like I knew my way home. Excitement, satisfaction, pure joy swelled inside of me. This is what I was meant to do.
“Stop!” Dimitri tore through the woods, hot on my heels.
No way.
Hold on, little guy, here I come.
So I didn’t drink the protective potion. I made a mistake. Now I was about to make things right.
“Lizzie, no!” Dimitri yelled as I felt the earth give out beneath me.
I fell. It was like falling in a dream, until I hit the ground hard. My head rang with the impact. Pain shot through my ankle, my shoulder. I lay on the rocks and dirt for a moment. What happened? I stared up at the rock walls surrounding me, illuminated by the bright moon and stars above. I’d fallen into a crack in the earth. Grass and weeds clung to the top, about five feet up. I wiped the dirt from my forehead, tried to stand. “Crimeny!” Pain seared my ankle.
I could hear water trickling. I turned around and saw the entrance to a cave. I knew what this was, a cave fissure. It had been a passageway until part of the cave collapsed and formed a ravine of sorts. Thank you, Discovery Channel.
Dimitri appeared at the top of the hole. Oh goody.
“Make yourself useful and get me out of here.”
“Don’t move, Lizzie.”
Yeah, right. I didn’t have the luxury of slowing down. I tested my ankle. It hurt like heck, but I had to keep moving.
“Listen to me,” he said, serious as death. “Look to your right. Turn slowly.”
I didn’t like that tone. I turned. The fissure ended about six or seven feet to my right, the rock forming a vee. And in that vee…Oh no. I saw movement. I squinted, my heart slamming in my throat. A big, black snake coiled in a nest of fallen leaves.
“Yaak!” I jerked back and it hissed, its white mouth illuminated in the moonlight. Cripes.
“Wait,” Dimitri said. “Wait until it calms down.”
That could take a while. I tried not to breathe too deeply.
“That’s it,” Dimitri said. “That’s it. Now back away.”
I gulped and took three steps back.
“Slow,” Dimitri cautioned. “Easy. That’s it. Easy. I’m lowering my shirt. Grab on to it and I’ll pull you out.”
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.”