Page 27 of Mending Mayhem

I grabbed a butcher knife from the block and rushed down the stairs, not bothering with a jacket or shoes. Chaos and Ash followed, and when we exited the building, the imp yanked off a windshield wiper, gnawing on it like it was a chew toy.

Tiny pebbles in the pavement cut into my bare feet as I paced toward the van, and my arm hairs stood on end as if they could shield me from the cold.

“Stop,” Chaos said, and the bastard dropped the wiper to stand at attention for his master.

“Where’s the rift?” I adjusted my grip on the knife.

“I don’t sense one close by. He must have come through in another area and found his way here, attracted to our auras.”

“Good. That means I can vanquish the destructive dickwad.” I lifted the knife like Norman Bates, ready to go Psycho on the slimy sucker when Ash stumbled.

“Ow! Crap. I stepped on glass.”

Chaos, ever the protective boyfriend, diverted his full attention to my sister’s bloody foot, losing control of his minion.

The imp took a flying leap at my face.

9

EMBER

“Son of a basilisk!” I shouted, but I immediately regretted it. Imp slime oozed into my mouth as the bugger clung to my hair, its abdomen sliding across my face and coating my skin in goo.

It tasted like sour milk and disgust.

A tiny worm-like appendage flopped against my lips, and I tried my best to purge my mind of the fact that a gremlin’s wee-wee had just touched my mouth. So gross.

I pried the bastard from my face, but it wiggled and slipped from my grip, landing on the pavement with a splat. It was either dazed from the impact or Chaos had regained control, because it lay there in a puddle of slime, its eyes circling as if it were watching something spin.

I hurled the knife at it, but my makeshift weapon wasn’t weighted properly. I missed the bugger’s heart, slicing into its shoulder instead. The imp wailed and writhed, the blade pinning it to the pavement as it thrashed.

“Are you okay, Ash?” I called over my shoulder as I marched toward the bastard, scanning the ground for more shards of glass on my way.

“I’m fine.”

“Good. Chaos, will you hold this monkey still so I can vanquish it?” I yanked the knife from its shoulder and adjusted my grip, ready to stab it in the heart, but the blade had severed its arm. An idea began to form in my mind.

Under Chaos’s control, the imp couldn’t wail, but it let out a pitiful, muffled moan through its closed lips.

“Put it out of its misery.” Ash hobbled toward me, putting her weight on the heel of her injured foot.

“Wait.” I lowered the knife. “We can use it.”

“Use it for what?” Ash clung to her demon’s arm for balance.

“For its bones,” Mayhem said, as if he’d read my mind.

“Exactly.” I used two fingers to pick up the severed arm, and the hand contracted into a fist. “The phoenix spell said the bone dust has to be from the same or adjacent species.”

Ash gasped. “An imp is a type of demon.”

I turned toward her, holding up the arm. “And we already have a piece of it.”

“You are as brilliant as you are brave.”

The imp moaned, saving me from the flutter threatening to form in my stomach.

“If I vanquish it, will its arm go too?”

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