A Tale of Two Demon Slayers by Angie Fox

exposed—I’d have felt something .
    Dimitri looked as horrified as I felt. “From the blue of the flame, I’d say it’s been two weeks. About the time you were hanging out with Max in Vegas.” He couldn’t let it go.
    “Oh, so Max broke in here and did this?” Dimitri had blamed a lot of things on the half-human, half-demon Max, but this was stretching it even for him.
    “No,” he said with a forced calm. “I’m merely giving you a timeline. Whoever—or what ever—has taken this thread of your magic hasn’t used it yet. Or you’d know it.”
    Diana’s fingers shook as she brought them to her mouth.
    I was both relieved and disturbed. “Why would theytake part of my magic and not use it?” It didn’t make sense. “Are you sure I’d feel it?”
    “Yes,” Dimitri said, with more conviction than I would have liked.
    “Lizzie?” Pirate called from the hallway. “Ohhh biscuits,” he said, his voice wavering. “You have to see this.”
    “Whatever it is, don’t sniffit, don’t lick it and don’t eat it.” I threw open the door and barely avoided running right into Dimitri’s killer slime.
    Son of a sailor.
    “Pirate?” I fought to keep my voice even. “Don’t move.”

Chapter Five
    Dimitri and I stood dumbfounded as Pirate hovered on the other side of the door. My dog drifted a foot above the slime, doggie-paddling in midair.
    “Pirate?” My jaw slackened. “What did you do?”
    “Nothing, Lizzie. I didn’t do a thing, I swear. I was sniffing the hallway, minding my own business, and bam!”
    “Bam?” I stared at his furry paws churning in the air. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that.”
    Pirate gave me the startled, wide-eyed innocent doggie look he’d perfected after years of sneaking Pup-per-roni Bites out of my purse. “I hit a cold spot and it was like hopping in the bathtub at the Posh Pooch. Only not so smelly.” He did a doggie version of the breaststroke. “I’ll bet I look fierce.”
    Concerning was more like it. “Dimitri?” I hoped he’d have some explanations. And fast.
    “This isn’t my magic,” he said, watching Pirate doggie-paddle into the room. “Diana?”
    “Not Skye magic.”
    I reached down to touch the air under Pirate’s paws. “It’s cold.”
    Pirate’s tail hadn’t quit. “I know. It surprised me too, but you get used to it after a while.”
    I crossed my arms over my chest. “It doesn’t feel demonic.” At least not like anything I’d ever seen.
    Pirate’s tail stopped wagging. It was a valid concern. If Dimitri and his sisters hadn’t created it—and I certainly couldn’t fly—it stood to reason that someone else had left it behind.
    “Come on, Pirate.” I reached down for him. “Time to get out of the pool.” While I was glad the power hadn’t come from the imps, I still didn’t want Pirate playing around with unknown entities. He must have seen the look on my face, because he started paddling harder—in the other direction.
    “Hey.” I lifted Pirate off his invisible airstream.
    “Aw, Lizzie.” He scrambled against my arms. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
    “Stick close to me,” I said, “and don’t go near those arrows over there.” Exactly how did one go about cleaning up curses?
    Dimitri left and came back with an industrial broom. He used it to sweep away the toxic remains of the imps, as well as the char marks on a section of red slate.
    “Do you have an extra broom?” I asked. I was used to cleaning up messes in preschool. Granted, imp parts were worse than baking-soda volcanoes and half-digested hotdogs, but I wasn’t going to complain.
    “I don’t have anything else soaked in enough protective magic,” Dimitri said, ignoring the fact that a quite a few of his broom bristles had, indeed, turned to ash. “If you can handle the curses, I’ll get the rest of it.”
    “Deal.”
    Dimitri began piling the imps in the fireplace while I went looking for curses.
    I found both of