Book series about a Southern debutante teenage girl demon slayer

Question

I think I read this about 5 years ago as an ebook from the library. Unfortunately, there's a lot of books in my history and I haven't noticed it on my list yet. The protagonist is a girl in high school. While in the school bathroom during a dance (I forget if there was a particular reason she was in there), she witnesses one teacher being attacked by another. The attacked teacher, with his dying breath, transfers his demon-slaying abilities over to her. As I recall it, it's a fairly typical package with her gaining the ability to detect demons and, when in their presence, gaining increased strength, speed, and durability. One of the non-combat conflicts going on is that, at the age of 15, she has her debutante coming-out coming up, and she has to spend time preparing for that rather than finding and killing the demons. I remember that there was a male love interest, another kid her age, who had his own mystic empowerment, although as I recall it one that was counter to hers. The only other thing I recall is that she had an older female teaching her to use her demon-slaying abilities, who I think she wasn't fond of from the start for some reason (part of me wants to say that they were an estranged relative who didn't really want to be in the position of teaching her).

On further exploration of my vague memories, some other things that popped into my head:

• The girl's parents are alive and well, and she gets asking with them, although one source of friction is that her demon-slaying (which she keeps secret from them) keeps making her late for her classes to prep for her Coming Out party.
• At some point in the book, it becomes plot significant that she knows that a neighbor has an empty pool in their backyard. I think she tricks a pursuer into falling into it.
• She figures out a way to tap into her powers arbitrarily, which enables her to descend the party stairway in heels
• The boy she's attracted to has some sort of prophecy powers. I think he draws them.
• Now that I'm thinking more on it, her enemy might be a set of magic-users with the demons just being one aspect.

Answer 1

About 23 pages into my reading history, I found Rachel Hawkins's Rebel Belle

Harper Price, peerless Southern belle, was born ready for a Homecoming tiara. But after a strange run-in at the dance imbues her with incredible abilities, Harper's destiny takes a turn for the seriously weird. She becomes a Paladin, one of an ancient line of guardians with agility, super strength and lethal fighting instincts.

Just when life can't get any more disastrously crazy, Harper finds out who she's charged to protect: David Stark, school reporter, subject of a mysterious prophecy and possibly Harper's least favorite person. But things get complicated when Harper starts falling for him—and discovers that David's own fate could very well be to destroy Earth.

With snappy banter, cotillion dresses, non-stop action and a touch of magic, this new young adult series from bestseller Rachel Hawkins is going to make y'all beg for more.

From the Kirkus review:

There’s no accounting for the title, which has virtually nothing to do with the book’s content, but laughs will be flying as fast as ninja kicks when the too-good-to-be-true student-body president, head cheerleader and 4.0 student with the Perfect Boyfriend finds herself transformed into a Paladin in the bathroom while waiting for the announcement that will crown her homecoming queen. Seventeen-year-old Harper just wants to get into a great college, marry longtime boyfriend Ryan and become the second female governor of Alabama. So being attacked by her scimitar-wielding history teacher comes as a surprise, but suddenly she can fight back with style. Now, though, she finds herself compelled to protect David—superdork, her rival for valedictorian and the bane of her existence since kindergarten. Worse, she must protect him to the death, an event that may occur, as the dreaded Ephors, guardians of the oracles, do not want a male oracle. Alas, David is that oracle. As the two spar, however, they also find themselves attracted to each other, a condition Harper strongly opposes. Comedy ensues. The story itself stands up as decent paranormal suspense, but it’s the snarky humor that gives it legs.