A Tale of Two Demon Slayers by Angie Fox Page A

the arrows near the back wall. They were rough-hewn and brown, made from a materialI didn’t recognize. It could have been wood, except for the small moving particles inside. The points of the arrows had dug chunks out of the plaster wall, meaning they were sharp, or powerful—probably both.
    “Stand back, baby dog,” I said, wondering if it would be safe to switch-star these things with other people in the room.
    But Pirate wasn’t listening. He’d found Diana. Since she couldn’t clean, she’d plopped right back down on the windowsill and given Pirate a nice lap. He lolled his head off the side of her leg and arched his back as she scratched his belly and cooed sweet nothings into his ear. Some guys had all the luck.
    I stowed my mom’s magical box on the fireplace mantel before returning to the arrows on the floor. I didn’t have much experience with demonic curses. If I tried to blow them up with a switch star, would they scatter cursed bits like a land mine? Would they rear up and attack? It didn’t look like they were alive, but then again, things had a way of popping up and surprising me.
    “Dimitri, I’m going to have to fire on this,” I said, unhitching a switch star, hoping I was right.
    “Okay, Lizzie. Give me a second.” He tossed the last imp into the fireplace. “Hell and damnation.” He patted himself down. “My matches were in the desk.” We both looked to where the desk had been. Only a few scattered ashes remained.
    “Diana?” he asked.
    The breeze from the window blew wisps of hair about her face as she stroked Pirate’s belly. “I quit smoking. Dyonne too.”
    “Good,” he said, and then as an aside to me, “I’ve been after them for years.”
    “Subtle as a sledgehammer,” Diana added. “But truly, why go to the trouble of quitting if we were going to be dead by age twenty-eight? It’s not as if we had to worry about our lungs, or even frown lines, for that matter.” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as Pirate bucked and squirmed at the interruption. “Anyway, we’re alive and we quit,” she said, as if daring Dimitri to push it.
    He didn’t.
    “Do you need to burn the imps right now?” I asked. Dead was dead, when it came to imps. “I’d rather get rid of the curses.”
    Dimitri used the broom to push a path through the slime outside his office. Then the three non–demon slayers took shelter behind the spelled door while I pulled out a switch star and—I’ll admit it—said a little prayer.
    I hit the first curse with a switch star and it exploded with a screech worse than fingernails on a blackboard. I winced and heard Pirate howl. An acidic dust settled on my face and arms. I held my breath and blinked as my eyes watered. I could feel particles of it behind my eyelids, like hot sand. I used the inside of my shirt to wipe some of it away. My mouth tasted metallic. Still, I wasn’t writhing on the floor, so I took it as a good sign.
    The thing had dented my switch star, however. I held my finger in front of the spinning blades in order to stop them. With some effort, I managed to bend the metal back into place. One blade remained a bit rumpled, but…well, I was about to damage it yet again. I threw the starat the second curse. That one wasn’t as bad, probably because I was expecting the shriek and the stink.
    A breeze from the open window took some of it away as my friends ventured back into the room.
    “Makes me wonder what they’d have done if they hit me,” I commented to no one in particular.
    “Most of them fling you to hell,” Dimitri said. “Hence the expression.”
    God, they tasted awful. “Excuse me?” I asked, sweeping up the remains of the curse.
    “Go to hell.”
    “Right.” I deposited the particles in the fireplace. We were going to have one big evil bonfire before we were through.
    “Now that we’ve got that handled…” Dimitri popped open a floor panel to reveal a black metal door with a combination lock.
    The rest of