Page 16 of Eat, Slay, Love

Where did it happen? Could it have been us? Could it have been me?

Forty years ago, it’s possible. I was alive. I was training. I was… eager to prove myself. But I would remember, wouldn’t I? Have I ever paused long enough to practice discernment? Or have I simply trusted that if my magic sensed something, the killing was justified?

I didn’t falter ten years ago. The memory presses in at the edges of my mind⁠—

My magic screams. The familiar signature of a demon hits first, a single, sustained note I’d recognize anywhere. But beneath it comes something sharper, a second current that slices straight through me. No jittery static. No strange fluctuations like I’ve felt for the past twenty-four hours. This signal is clean and focused, almost vicious in its clarity. Whatever my magic has been trying to tell me lately, it isn’t confused about this one.

I whirl around.

A slender demon casually stands a few yards behind me, as if he’s been a permanent fixture of this alleyway for ages. His suit is immaculate. Blond hair is artfully swept back from a face far too perfect to be human—not that he looks particularly human, considering the foot-long horns on either side of his head. His smile is sharp and severe. Cold.

Both my hands move without conscious thought—left diving into my pocket for the salt-and-ash mixture, right settling around the hilt of my dagger.

We begin to circle each other, slow and deliberate. I let the salt sift between my fingers as I move, scattering it at my feet in what looks like nervous pacing.

An arc first.

“You’re in my way, Slayer,” the demon croons, voice smooth as oil.

“You’re… in my way… DEMON!” I shout back and cringe immediately.

The arc is almost closed. I edge backward until my shoulders brush the concrete wall of the soup kitchen. Just a few more inches and⁠—

The metal door beside me slams open.

Jonah steps out, eyes wild and frantic—searching—until they land on me. “Mayari,” he breathes.

Then he spots the blond, and his expression shifts instantly into recognition and fury and hatred.

I clock a number of things immediately and simultaneously: Jonah’s not wearing the hoodie anymore, the bandages on his arm are soaked dark with blood, and he is still healing from me. Jonah is injured.

This blond demon is not.

For once, I don’t hesitate.

I slam my shoulder into Jonah’s chest and shove him back through the gap in the salt. Before either of them can react, I drop low and sweep the remaining salt from my palm in one decisive line, sealing the break.

The circle seals with a sharp, compressed pop. The air shifts, and the barrier rises, locking me and the blond demon inside.

Jonah is safe outside the circle. “No!” he shouts, slamming his palms against the invisible wall. “What the fuck are you doing, Mayari⁠—”

Inside the circle, the blond demon smiles wider. “Oh,” he says softly, gaze sliding over me. “Now this is interesting.” He doesn’t move at first. He studies me the way one might study an unexpected inconvenience, like a giant puddle at a crosswalk, his head tilted slightly. His expression reads, if I step in this, my socks might get wet. Thoughtful rather than threatened.

“You’re very small,” he says pleasantly.

“You’re very dead,” I snap stupidly, and lunge.

I’m fast. Not demon fast, but “decades of training and discipline combined with some inherent slayer skill” fast. The dagger whistles toward his throat, Baybayin script along the blade igniting as they taste demon energy. The circle hums in answer, the salt line glowing faintly beneath our feet as the magic tightens its hold.

He catches my wrist with both superior speed and strength.

“You’re one of the Magdangals,” he says, as if recalling a fact from memory. “Manhattan’s little watchdogs.”

My chest constricts.

Behind him, Jonah strikes the barrier with his palm. “Mayari, do not engage him head-on—he’ll overpower you,” he grits out.

“I’m already engaged, Jonah!” I remind him, wrenching my wrist free with a twist my brother drilled into me when I was fifteen.