A Tale of Two Demon Slayers Read Online Free Page A

him warm and fuzzy, I had to figure out a way to tell him I’d not only complicated his homecoming with visions of my own death, but now I was adding biker witches and demon slayer training. In the end, I figured the direct approach was best.
    “Grandma is coming,” I said, running my fingers down his arm. “She wants to start my training on Santorini as soon as she arrives.” I’d give us less than a week alone. Tops.
    “She told me,” he said with a slight edge to his voice. Dimitri and Grandma hadn’t always seen eye to eye. “In light of the circumstances, I can’t think of a better way to spend our time together.” A slight wariness entered his voice. “Did she mention what I was doing when she interrupted me?”
    “Surprisingly, no.” Grandma wasn’t the best at keeping secrets.
    He seemed relieved. “Okay, well then it’s best I explain when we have some time in private.”
    Wait a second. “So it would be okay to tell me if Grandma already spilled part of it? What did she catch you doing?”
    He fiddled with the airflow knob above us. “I’ll explain later.”
    “Lovely. Can I at least have a hint?” All I knew was that it was important enough to keep him from going to the airport with me.
    He made sure his tray table was in the upright and locked position. “Everything has checked out so far.”
    “Famous last words.” I hated when he tried to take care of things for me. And I had a feeling that whatever this was, I wanted to know. “So are you going to tell me or…oh!” I gasped and gripped his arm. “There’s a creature on the plane,” I hissed. “Th ere!”
    I pointed to a small, brown, scaled thing scrambling in circles on the cockpit door. It was a lizard with immense pointed ears and a tail as long as my arm. Its feet were like a monkey’s, complete with tufts of brown hair at the wrists and—holy cow—the creature turned to stare at me, its weathered face breaking into a crooked sneer that showed off a set of jagged teeth.
    I gripped the seat in front of me and craned my body up for a better look as I reached for a switch star.
    Dimitri stilled my hand. “Hold it, Lizzie. It’s only a gremlin.”
    “What, like that Twilight Zone episode? ‘Nightmare at Twenty Thousand Feet’?” We hadn’t even made it off the runway.
    “You do realize you have a flair for the dramatic,” Dimitri said, keeping his eyes on me while the creature wiggled its eyebrows at us.
    I looked around the cabin. The other passengers were still settling in, some of them grazing the monster as they passed. It gave them slimy kisses and reached into their pockets.
    Dimitri leaned closer. “Gremlins like to cause trouble, especially with electrical systems, but they’re not going to bring a modern plane down. They sneak onboard all the time. And believe me, you want them here rather than on the ground switching around your luggage tags.”
    The stewardess brushed right past the creature as it stood on the cockpit doorknob and began what I could only describe as a most obscene dance.
    “She’s not going to do anything?”
    “That’s right,” Dimitri said, as if he understood what I couldn’t possibly comprehend. “You haven’t flown since you gained your powers.”
    “I’ve been busy,” I snapped.
    “She can’t see him,” Dimitri said. “No one can. Well, unless they have magical tendencies. Even so, one would have to be looking for problems.” He made sure to emphasize that last part.
    “Well excuse me.” Yes, I was a demon slayer, and so far, it had brought me nothing but trouble. Now with this added death threat, I’d be crazy not to keep an eye out. As much as I would have liked to make this a private vacation for just me and Dimitri, I was glad Grandma would be there to begin my training. Maybe then I’d know more of what to expect.
    The creature popped its head out of the galley. It ripped open a bag of snack mix and began chomping it loudly, with its mouth open.
    “Of all