Slayers: Friends and Traitors

by C. J. Hill

  The president looked nervously around again. The chatter in the room lessened. People noticed his reaction, noticed Tori. In another moment, her parents would come over to see what was wrong.

  “What?” the president asked, all the humor gone.

  She knew her eyes were still wide, staring at him in shock. She couldn’t help herself. “Um…” She gulped hard. “I’ve got a French essay, too.”

  “Well,” the president said, clearly offended, “I won’t take any more of your time then.” He turned his attention to the next person in line, dismissing her.

  The security agents nearest the president glared at her, as if she were trying to create a scene. She walked woodenly over to where her parents stood waiting for her. Aprilynne had already gone off to find friends, or cute guys, or both.

  The music was so loud in Tori’s mind that she barely heard her father’s voice. “What was that all about?”

  “Nothing,” she said.

  Tori’s mother brushed a piece of lint off Tori’s shoulder, giving her an excuse to stand closer. She had a rigid smile, the kind ventriloquists wore. “It didn’t look like nothing. It looked like you did something to upset the president.”

  “No,” Tori said. “Not really.” She didn’t hear any other sounds in her mind. Just the music. But then, she shouldn’t expect dragons to cry for food like baby birds. When dragons hatched they were the size of lions and could hunt just as well.

  “Not really?” Her mom’s eyebrows arched. “I had to keep your father from marching over there to see what was wrong.” Her voice took on a staccato rhythm. “That’s not the sort of scene we want to make here, is it?”

  “Sorry,” Tori said. Really, all she’d done was gasp and stare. You wouldn’t think a guy with dozens of security guards would startle so easily.

  “You look pale,” her father said. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “No,” Tori said. “I mean, no, I’m fine.” If her parents thought she was sick enough to leave the president’s dinner party, her mother would take her home and hover around her for who knew how long. She needed to go someplace where she could call Dr. B.

  Tori’s mother kept talking, but Tori only half listened. She opened her purse and dug through it. If the eggs had hatched, Dirk would have seen it. Maybe he already called Dr. B. Maybe Dr. B sent out a message to the Slayers and Tori hadn’t gotten it because she wasn’t wearing her watch.

  “What are you doing?” her mother asked in exasperation.

  Tori found the watch and pulled it out. The face wasn’t lit up. That meant she didn’t have any messages. At least not yet. Tori slipped the watch onto her wrist. “I don’t want to lose track of the time.”

  Tori’s mother let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine,” she said, clearly abandoning whatever point she’d been trying to make. “Go find your friends.” She turned and looked around the room locating the people she wanted to talk to.

  Tori’s father studied her for another moment. “Our table is near the podium.”

  Tori wasn’t sure whether he was telling her this so she could find them at dinner or whether he was warning her she would be in the president’s line of sight.

  Her parents turned and walked toward the middle of the room. Her mother’s dress swished elegantly behind her, every movement calm and regal. Her father was already smiling at someone, heading toward him with an outstretched hand. Tori strode out of the East Ballroom, looking for a private place. There weren’t as many of those as you would expect in the White House. Not with secret servicemen and marines stationed everywhere.

  She headed to the ladies’ restroom. As soon as she stepped inside, she knew she couldn’t make a private call from here. Even the restrooms in the White House were tourist locations. The room was decorated with portraits of the first ladies, and several women were perched on the chaise lounge in the sitting area, snapping pictures of themselves with the paintings in the background. A line of women waited for their turn in the stalls. Someone was bound to notice if Tori went into one and started a conversation with herself about dragon hatchlings.

  Tori went back out to the Cross Hall. The large hallway connected the East Ballroom and the State Dining Room, and also gave people access to the Blue, Green, and Red Rooms. It had chairs along the walls and large columns that a person could stand behind. A few scattered secret servicemen were around, making sure guests didn’t wander off where they weren’t supposed to.

  As Tori strolled over to the closest column, she took off her watch and pretended to reset the time. Three buttons curved around each side of the watch. She pushed the first one once, the second twice. Dr. B’s call code.

  After only a moment, Dr. B answered with a “Hello?” His voice came out louder than she’d expected. A button on the other side of the watch controlled the volume. She pushed it a few times, lowering the sound so it was barely audible, then held the watch to her lips. “It’s me, T-Bird. Do you copy?” As a security measure, Dr. B had given them all code names, something Tori thought was pointless since Overdrake already knew their first names.

  “I copy. What’s wrong?” Dr. B’s voice was calm. If she hadn’t known that he always sounded that way, she would have thought he was unconcerned.

  “I heard noises that sound like hatchlings screeching. Has Hawk called? Has he seen anything? Over.”

  One of the security men was staring at her. Tori brushed her hand through her hair, pretending she was just out here primping—while still holding her cheap black, unmatching watch. Yeah, he probably didn’t think she was acting odd at all.

  “I haven’t heard from Hawk,” Dr. B said. “I’ll call him and call you back. Over and out.”

  Over and out. Even after training at camp Tori still wasn’t used to the military way of signing off. What was it with guys that they couldn’t come up with a decent way of saying good-bye? But then, maybe the phrase was more accurate. Maybe guys just wanted things to be over and for themselves to be out. Clean breaks.

  While Tori waited for Dr. B to call back, she fiddled with her watch. Her thoughts made panicked circles through her mind. Within a year of hatching, dragons were full grown. Overdrake probably wouldn’t wait long after that to attack. And the Slayers didn’t know how many eggs there were. They had assumed it was two because dragons laid their eggs in clutches of two—one male, one female. But there could be more.

  Tori twisted the watch strap between her fingers, her dread picking up speed. It was the end of September now. Even if Tori got another summer of training in, it wouldn’t be enough. Dr. B would have to call some interim training sessions. How would she explain it to her parents? How could she ever be ready to fight flying, carnivorous monsters?

  Tori looked up and noticed Clint and Penny walking down the hall toward her. Penny’s dark hair had been swept up onto the top of her head so that her dark curls fountained down around a garnet-studded clip. She was looking at Tori, but walking possessively close to Clint. He held a plate piled with shrimp from the appetizer table. He dipped one into cocktail sauce as he strolled up.

  “There you are,” Penny said. “What are you doing out here by yourself?”

  Clint took a bite of his shrimp. “Besides making all the secret servicemen nervous, that is.”

  “What?” Tori asked. She tucked her arms behind her back, hiding the watch. “I’m not doing anything.” She knew it sounded lame. She had never been a good liar.

  “Right,” Clint said. “You were just talking into your watch for kicks.”

  “No,” Tori said, her hands still behind her back. “I … I wasn’t.”

  Clint picked through the shrimp on his plate. “I don’t blame you. Hey, what fun is life if you can’t jerk around the president’s bodyguards once in a while? Everybody needs a power trip now and then.”

  Penny tilted her head at Tori. “Are you acting all suspicious to get back at the president for his dodecahedron comments?” She shook her head with disapproval. “You really shouldn’t make
him nervous. You’ll get in trouble.”

  “I’m not,” Tori insisted. “I just came out here to get some fresh air. I wasn’t feeling well.”

  Her watch let out a chime. Dr. B had called her back. Tori ignored it. Maybe Penny and Clint would think it was coming from somewhere else. “Well, it was great to see you guys,” Tori said, prodding them to leave. They didn’t. Her watch chimed again.

  Clint raised his eyebrow at Tori. “You’re ringing.”

  Penny shook her head again with even more disapproval this time. “You snuck in a cell phone? If it goes off during the president’s speech, you’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “She’s right,” Clint said. “Amy Carter is still getting grief for roller skating in the East Ballroom and scratching the floor. It’s the reason my dad won’t let me skateboard in there.”

  Tori’s watch chimed again. Clint and Penny weren’t going to go away, and apparently Dr. B would keep calling until Tori answered. She sighed, pressed the speak button, then held up the watch to her ear. “Yes?”

  “I spoke to Hawk,” Dr. B said. “He hasn’t seen anything to indicate the dragons have hatched.”

  “Good,” Tori said. Clint and Penny were both watching her, clearly questioning her sanity.

  “It’s possible that Hawk is connected to different eggs than you are. It’s also possible Overdrake is keeping the dragons in a completely dark room. Although it’s much more probable that Overdrake is playing screeching noises near the eggs as a sort of psychological attack on you. Perhaps he wants to make you anxious. Or perhaps he wants you so used to dragon noises you won’t notice when the eggs really do hatch.”

  That didn’t seem likely. It would be hard to fool both her and Dirk. Tori didn’t comment on Dr. B’s theory, though. She couldn’t in front of Clint and Penny. “Okay,” she said cheerily. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  She ended the call without over and outing, something she would probably hear about later from Dr. B. She shoved the watch back into her purse.

  Penny and Clint were still staring at her.

  “You know,” Clint said popping the last of the shrimp into his mouth, “the secret service guys aren’t big on practical jokes. Unless you want to spend a portion of the evening spread-eagle against a wall being frisked, I wouldn’t do that sort of thing again.” He turned to Penny. “I’m done with my shrimp. Let’s get some caviar.”

  “Eww.” Penny wrinkled her nose. “That stuff is so gross.” She turned and went with him, leaving Tori alone.

  Tori leaned against the column, limp with relief. The dragons hadn’t hatched. They might not hatch for years. She had time to train. And what’s more, she had time to find Ryker Davis so he could train.

  That had been her goal from the day she left camp, and this evening’s scare made her more determined than ever to find him. Granted, Dr. B had been searching for seventeen years and hadn’t turned up the whereabouts of Ryker’s family, but Tori had an advantage. Her father had access to government databases.

  Strictly speaking, senators weren’t supposed to use their government connections to find people. When Tori had asked her father to track down her camp friend’s address and phone number, he’d given her a lecture about privacy, ethics, and security. Tori was forced to go on and on about how Ryker had asked for her number, and then she’d left before she could give it to him, and he’d given her his phone number but somehow she’d lost it. Ryker’s parents didn’t let him do any online social sites, so she had no way to contact him. He would think she didn’t care and she would die heartbroken because of all of this.

  Tori’s father was decidedly unconcerned about her dying of heartbreak. He did finally consent to look up Ryker’s address, though.

  Once Tori had it, she would send it to Dr. B so he could recruit Ryker. An extra Slayer could mean the difference between success and failure, between life and death for any of them.

  Now Tori pulled herself together, tried to match her mother’s self-assured composure, and went back into the East Ballroom. Everything was normal. Everything would be fine. She minimized the sound near the eggs as much as she could to block out Overdrake’s sounds. It didn’t matter. Half a dozen times during the president’s dinner speech, the screeching shrieks pierced through Tori’s mind. Sometimes they were accompanied by bangs or thuds, as though there were two dragons and they were fighting—or something was crashing around trying to get away from them.

  Every time Tori heard these sorts of noises, she startled. She automatically focused on the sound, making the volume in her mind shoot up, which in turn made her flinch. People around the room kept glancing at her as though she looked pained and twitchy because of the things the president was saying. Her mother nudged her under the table. Aprilynne leaned over and whispered, “Would you stop doing that. What’s wrong with you?”

  “My dress,” Tori whispered. “Something keeps poking me.”

  Her father sighed and pointedly ignored her. Every time the president’s gaze wandered in Tori’s direction, he sent her a cold glare.

  What a great night this had turned out to be.

  Was it a coincidence that Overdrake started playing the screeching noises when Tori was in line to talk to the president? If it wasn’t coincidence, how did Overdrake know when to play the new noises? The only people who could have known the exact moment she was meeting the president were other people in the room.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought at all.

  CHAPTER 9

  The screeching in Tori’s mind eventually stopped. Then it started again at two in the morning, accompanied by more banging. By then Tori was so used to the sounds, she only woke up long enough to groan and minimize the sound in her mind again. She grabbed the white-noise maker from her nightstand and put it on the pillow next to her. Eventually she fell back to sleep.

  All through school the next day, Tori had a hard time focusing on her classes. She kept waiting for the next hungry, high-pitched shriek to cut through her mind. She looked for a pattern, some sign the noises were repeating themselves. If Overdrake was playing a recording, the screeches would repeat themselves at some point. They didn’t, not that she could tell.

  So was it some sort of random, horrible noise generator or something else?

  Tori wanted to talk to Dirk about it, wanted his reassurance that the eggs really hadn’t hatched. Would it constitute an emergency if she needed to call him for her own sanity?

  Tori was pacing back and forth in front of the living room windows when her father came home from work. Out in the front yard, the wind rustled through the maple trees. She barely noticed them. She kept searching the sky. It was stupid, really. Even if the dragons had hatched, they wouldn’t be flying around her neighborhood. She knew this. Still, she kept watching the clouds as though any moment they would scatter out of the way to reveal a growling dragon. It was probably some inborn instinct she inherited from her Slayer knight predecessors. If you sense danger, look up. That’s where it’s coming from.

  Her father patted his coat pocket. “I have something for you. About that boy from camp.”

  “Dirk?” she asked. His name came to her first because once or twice a week he sent a letter to Tori by way of her father’s office.

  Jesse had never written to her, probably wouldn’t ever consider bending the rules that way, but Dirk’s first letter had come the day after she got home. She realized from the postmark that he’d mailed it from D.C. the day they’d all left camp.

  Her father’s staff always opened his letters before they passed on any to him, something that Dirk must have known would happen, because he didn’t mention any of the Slayer stuff.

  “I know you weren’t expecting to hear from me so soon,” he’d written—which was an understatement. She hadn’t expected to hear from him until next year at camp—“I still remember how hard it was to adjust to normal life after spending the first summer away, so I thought I’d write you. Don’t worry, pretty soon you won’t think
of camp that much. You’ll be able to go out in a crowd and not search for one of us. Spend time with your friends. Do everything you did before camp. Even though none of it seems important right now, it is. Normal is important. If you want to write me back, you can send a letter to 12 S Braddock Street, Winchester, VA.

  “P.S. Stop moping about Jesse.”

  The letter had made Tori smile. She wrote Dirk back, feeling a little wicked for knowing his address, but special, too. It meant he trusted her. It also meant she wasn’t completely adrift in the normal world. She had a link to camp, to her Slayer friends.

  Since then, Tori’s and Dirk’s letters to each other were frequent, but always short and vague. They never had any information in them that would let anyone know they were part of a covert group. To be on the safe side, though, Tori kept Dirk’s letters hidden in the wall safe in her bedroom.

  Now she expected her father to produce another letter from his coat pocket. He didn’t.

  Upon finding his coat pocket empty, he reached into his pants pockets. “Not Dirk,” he said. “That other boy.”

  Tori’s heart missed a beat. “Jesse?” Was it possible that he’d written her?

  “Jesse?” her father repeated, searching his suit pockets now. “Who’s that?” He pulled out a folded piece of paper. “And how many boys were you seeing at that camp?”

  Tori felt her hopes sink silently back to the floor. She should have known Jesse hadn’t written.

  Her father unfolded the paper. “Ryker Davis,” he said. “I’ve got his address narrowed down to one of three. Did he come from California, Colorado, or New York?”

  Tori went and peered over her father’s arm at the addresses, doing her best to memorize each of them. “I’m not sure. Are there that many Allen and Harriet Davises?”

  “Yes,” her father said, clearly frustrated. “These were the ones left over after we narrowed down the age bracket. Your friend never mentioned, say, the Rocky Mountains, or surfing, or the Empire State Building?”