by C. J. Hill
Up until that point, Tori had been pretty sure that the most humiliating part of the evening would be the time she’d spent clinging to an angel statue like a love-struck groupie, but no. At least when she had done that, no one was around to critique her performance. The same couldn’t be said for the parking lot.
This early in the evening, a constant stream of people were walking by. Tori was dressed in a black Kevlar suit, a black helmet, black boots, and black gloves—which might not have been so bad if she hadn’t also been crouching behind parked cars, surveying the area, and then darting to the nearest car.
Everyone who strolled past them stopped and stared. Many of the mall-goers felt the need to comment.
“Hey,” one teenage boy called to Tori, “I think you need to go back to ninja school. I can see you.”
“What a bunch of freaks,” his friend added, and they both laughed.
A little girl shuffled by holding her mother’s hand. “Mommy, what are those scary people doing?”
The mother glared at Tori and pulled her daughter closer. “Some Halloween thing. Ignore them and they’ll go away.”
Perfect. This was an awesome superhero moment: Tori in a mall parking lot, scaring children.
Jesse got to Alyssa’s car first. That was the cue for the others to stop, take a position, and cover him. An empty space sat next to Alyssa’s car. Tori dashed into that opening. She backed up to the next car and scanned the area around them. The Slayers had guns hidden in a slot of their boots. Tori put her hand on the butt of her gun, ready to pull it out. Jesse did a quick survey of the car, then tried to open Alyssa’s door. It was locked.
Jesse tapped on the window. Alyssa’s blonde hair was disheveled and she had a few mascara smudges on her cheeks. Her head flopped from one side to the other but she didn’t open her eyes. Drugged probably. Tori had expected as much, yet it still made her stomach drop. Unless Dr. B found a way to reverse the process, the Slayers were down one more member.
Jesse inserted a pick into the lock. It looked like a metal centipede. He pulled a pin from the end, then fidgeted with the centipede legs, turning them. “Alyssa,” he called. “Can you hear me?”
She didn’t answer.
When Jesse had the legs aligned where they were supposed to be, he twisted one end. Nothing happened. He went back to fiddling with the little metal legs. Dirk was the expert at lock picking. They had depended on him for it. And now … Tori didn’t let herself think of Dirk. She couldn’t.
After a few more attempts, Jesse gave up on the driver’s side lock and went around to the passenger side to work on that door. It remained locked. Jesse grunted and tried again.
A couple of middle-aged women walked by him. One of them paused and frowned at him. “Are you breaking into that car?” she demanded.
“No,” he stammered.
She let out a disbelieving humph and marched off toward the theaters. “I’m telling the mall security what you’re doing.”
“I’m not breaking in,” Jesse called after her. “It’s my friend’s car. See, she’s sitting right there.” Unconscious. Everything was clearly normal.
Kody got up from his spot and strode over to the car. He took a metal wire from his jacket pocket and worked it into the window seal, trying to open the door that way. Lilly was the next to abandon her post. She darted over to the car and banged on the window. “Alyssa! Alyssa, can you hear me?”
Alyssa opened her eyes, then shut them again.
After that, Rosa went over. “I’m her counterpart. Maybe I can get her to wake up.” Rosa put her hands on the window near Alyssa’s head and leaned toward it. “Alyssa, open the door. Reach out and push that little button. I know you can do it if you’ll just wake up.”
Bess sighed and left her post as well. “If Overdrake hasn’t shot us all by now, I doubt he’s here. But as long as the rest of you are gathered around the car like a willing target, I might as well put up a shield to protect us.”
Which meant Tori was the only one unshielded. Was it better to stay here crouching by this car or should she join the others? The cramp in her leg decided the matter for her. She got up and slunk over to Alyssa’s car.
As she did, Kody managed to push the lock button with his wire. He flung open the driver’s side door. Lilly reached in and grabbed Alyssa’s arm. “Alyssa, wake up!”
Alyssa opened her eyes, saw them, and let out a startled scream. She batted Lilly’s hand, jerked away from the door, and screamed again.
Lilly pulled off her helmet. “It’s me, Lilly. Are you okay?”
Alyssa stopped screaming and put her hand to her chest. “I was until you scared me to death.” Her gaze darted between the other Slayers. “Who are the rest of you?”
“It’s all of us,” Jesse said. “The Slayers. You need to come with us. This isn’t a safe place.”
Alyssa squinted at him. “Jesse? What are you doing here? Why are you guys dressed like that?”
“Can you walk?” Lilly asked.
Alyssa looked around, noticing her surroundings for the first time. “Wait, how did I get here?”
“Sorry about this,” Kody told her, “but it’s gotta be done.” He reached into the car, picked her up, and flung her over his shoulder.
“What the—” Alyssa yelled. “Hey, put me down!”
Dr. B had pulled up with the van. The door slid open. “Get in,” he called to them.
Kody climbed into the van with Alyssa, the rest followed. Kody set Alyssa down in the middle seat, and everyone moved toward their seats or lookout positions. The door hadn’t shut all the way before Dr. B was roaring through the parking lot toward the street.
“How is she?” Dr. B asked.
“We’re not sure,” Bess answered, making her way to the back of the van.
Alyssa looked at the group warily. “Okay, this has been a great Halloween prank—sneaking up on me and freaking me out with your costumes. Not nearly as good as that time Bess sewed up my sleeping bag, but still really good.”
Kody had taken a gun from his boot and stationed himself by the front window, checking the cars around them.
Dr. B barely paused at a stop sign before he pulled onto the street. “Is anyone following us?”
“Not that I can see,” Kody answered. With their night vision, the Slayers could see farther than Dr. B’s rearview mirror allowed.
Bess peered out the back window. “It’s clear back here.”
Alyssa watched them and laughed in a forced sort of way. “This is fun. Really. And it’s good to see all of you again.” She gestured in a fluttering motion to them. “Are the rest of you going to take your helmets off, because they’re still sorta freaking me out.”
Everyone but Kody and Bess did. They kept theirs on in case they had to lean out of the window and exchange fire.
Dr. B made a quick turn, lurching the van onto another street. “Alyssa, what’s the last thing you remember?”
Alyssa’s smile dropped and her eyebrows knit together as she tried to remember. “I was going to a costume store…” She pulled out her cell phone from her pocket and checked the time. “Is it really quarter to seven?” She looked outside at the passing street. “Wait, what was I doing in the mall parking lot?”
Lilly was sitting beside her, straight backed and stoic. Tori could tell she was preparing for the worst while still holding on to threads of hope. Such thin, thin threads. “Do you remember anything about Overdrake taking you?”
“Overdrake,” Alyssa repeated. “That name sounds familiar. Was he going to the party?”
The air went out of Lilly. She slumped in her seat, threads snapped.
One more Slayer was gone. Now, when they needed all the help they could get, they’d lost Alyssa.
Rosa’s large brown eyes filled with worry. “You don’t remember Overdrake?” She was really asking, You don’t remember you’re my counterpart?
Alyssa shook her head. “It’s weird. I don’t remember anything since I pulled up
to the costume store.” She ran a shaky hand through her hair. “Look, I appreciate you guys picking me up and taking me to”—she stared at their outfits again—“whatever party you’re going to. I think I should go home, though. I don’t feel good.”
Dr. B switched lanes. “We’ll take you home.” His words were calm, but his grip on the steering wheel was tight. “You should get some rest. We’ll talk about this later when you’re feeling better.”
“I live off Old Courthouse Road,” Alyssa said. “It’s not far from here.”
She would have never announced her address if her memory was intact.
Lilly gulped. Her disappointment hung about her. “Alyssa, think hard. What do you remember about being a Slayer? There must be something.”
Alyssa shrugged like she wasn’t sure why Lilly was asking. “Slayers? That’s what we called each other at camp while we played those games.” She smiled in a nostalgic sort of way. “It seems like that happened so long ago, but it’s only been a few months.”
“What would it mean to you,” Lilly asked, “if I told you the dragon eggs have hatched and they’ll be full grown in less than a year?”
Alyssa shrugged again. “It means you’re still really into dragon games.” As she turned in her seat, she noticed the guns in Kody’s and Bess’ hands. “Those aren’t real, are they?” She scooted farther away from them and laughed nervously. “You know, you guys are a little too intense for me tonight.”
Rosa stared at Alyssa and made a pitiful sort of whimper. She’d lost her counterpart. Lilly had lost her friend. A-team had lost their healer. And new dragons had hatched. This fact kept presenting itself in Tori’s mind, circling her with its immense desperation. Last summer, when they all fought together—with Dirk’s help—they barely managed to kill one dragon. How could they fight three without Dirk or Alyssa? And how many other Slayers would Overdrake be able to pick off before the dragons attacked?
Alyssa felt her pants pockets. “Does anybody know where my car keys are?” She put her hands in her jacket pockets, and as she did the front of her jacket moved, revealing a piece of paper pinned to her shirt. She looked at it with confusion, ripped it off, and then held it up to read it.
“What is that?” Jesse asked, leaning over his seat to get a better look.
“Oh, this is nice,” Alyssa said sarcastically. “You guys pinned your addresses to my shirt while I was sleeping in my car. I’m going to pretend I don’t find that creepy.”
“What?” Jesse grabbed the sheet from her hand and scanned it. His eyes widened with shock. “It is. This is my address.”
Dr. B muttered something low and angry under his breath. “Overdrake tracked you.”
Great. Dirk’s computer-hacking skills were apparently as good as his lock-picking skills.
Alyssa kept checking her pockets for her keys. “You know, if you guys want to get together sometime, I need your phone numbers, not your addresses.”
Tori took the paper from Jesse’s hand. All the remaining Slayers names and addresses were listed. Jesse Harris. He lived in Silver Spring, Maryland. Kody Wright lived in West Virginia. Shang Lao lived in New York. New York? No wonder he wasn’t here. Rosa Lopez, Alyssa Gustafson, and Lilly Schiete lived in Virginia. Bess Bartholemew lived in Maryland. Tori’s address was listed in McLean, Virginia. “Mine is right, too,” she said.
Rosa plucked the paper from Tori’s hand, glanced at her address, and let out a short scream.
Alyssa blinked at Rosa, then scooted closer to the van’s door. “Dr. B, um, you can just let me out here. I can walk the rest of the way to my house. I know the way.”
Dr. B pulled a phone from his jacket, a small silver one that Tori had never seen before. He pressed a speed dial button on the phone and put it to his ear. “I need to talk to Sam. It’s an emergency.”
Sam. Jesse had told her last summer that Sam funded the camp. Judging from all the special equipment the Slayers had, Sam was wealthy. Beyond that, the Slayers didn’t know anything about him—or her. They didn’t even know if Sam was a real name.
Into the phone, Dr. B said, “It’s a code two.”
Tori was about to ask what a code two was when she noticed something was different. It took her a moment to realize what: The music by the dragons had stopped. For the first time in months, that part of her mind was silent. It didn’t last. Overdrake’s voice twined into that space.
“Hello, Tori. It’s time for us to have a private chat.”
Overdrake was by the eggs. He had stopped the music to get her attention.
She shut her eyes and let the sound expand in her mind. “Overdrake is speaking to me,” she announced.
Jesse said something; she didn’t hear what. She was doing her best to block out the other sounds in the van—Dr. B talking on the phone and Alyssa’s nervous commentary about people who heard disembodied voices.
“I suppose by now,” Overdrake went on, “you’ve had time to find Alyssa, get reacquainted, and noticed the note I left for you. As you can see, I know where the Slayers live. I haven’t hurt any of you before because I promised Dirk I wouldn’t. All bets are off now, though. I’m offering you one chance to surrender yourselves or your families will pay the price. Do you remember the land Dirk took you to? Bring the other Slayers there. Someone will be waiting for you who can relieve you of your powers. Then you can go home and return to your normal lives—the lives you should have had all along. Isn’t that what you want, Tori—a normal life?”
One of the dragons screeched. Overdrake shushed it angrily and it fell silent. “You can’t win,” Overdrake said. “I know your plans, your strategies, and your weaknesses. I know everything you know. And now you’re down by two more Slayers. Be reasonable. Persuade the others to go to the property. If it makes it easier for you, you don’t have to tell them that my men are waiting for them. Tell them something else. You’ll be doing them a favor, saving their lives.”
Tori’s heart pounded. Overdrake wanted her to betray the other Slayers, wanted her to finish what Dirk had started.
The music resumed. Tori opened her eyes. “He said we have three hours to go to Winchester and turn ourselves over or our families will pay the price.”
“Not a chance,” Jesse said.
Dr. B didn’t say anything. Tori wasn’t sure he even heard the ultimatum. He was still talking on the phone.
Kody made a growling noise in his throat. “Nobody had better mess with my family. I’ll go after Dirk myself. What high school did you say he went to?”
“John Handley High,” Tori said. “Although I doubt he’ll be there on Monday. He’ll disappear.”
Lilly hit the side of the van with her fist. “We had him with us all summer.” She turned to Tori, eyes narrow, her lips an angry red slash. “How come you didn’t know then that Dirk was double-crossing us?”
“None of us knew,” Jesse said.
“We weren’t his counterparts.” Lilly waved her hand at Tori accusingly. “When Shang’s family moved, I could tell just from the stress he felt every time somebody talked about going back home or starting a new school year. Last summer, I could tell Shang’s girlfriend dumped him the first time I talked to him at camp. How could you not know that Dirk was massively lying to all of us?”
Tori’s stomach twisted. Lilly was right. Tori should have known, should have picked up on clues earlier. She had never felt that deceit from him at camp, though. All she could do was shake her head. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?” Lilly repeated. “He and his father are trying to take over the nation. How did that fact slip by you for an entire freaking summer?”
“Stop it,” Jesse broke in. “Blaming Tori won’t do any good.”
Lilly spun on him. “If you and Tori hadn’t always been off in the forest, maybe she would have noticed Dirk was leading a double life. But no. She was too busy making out with you.”
“That’s enough!” Jesse’s expression didn’t leave room for argument.
Lilly put her hand on Alyssa’s arm. The anger she had just leveled at Tori and Jesse was gone. Her voice was earnest, pleading. “Listen to me, I’m going to help you remember who you are. You can’t smoke or drink—not even those energy drinks—nothing with drugs. You need to let the pathways in your brain regrow.” Alyssa tried to pull her arm away from Lilly, but Lilly held on tightly. “I’m going to come over to your house every weekend and make sure you don’t inadvertently put more drugs in your system. It will be fun. We can hang out someplace where there’s lots of security and not do drugs.”
Alyssa slid farther away from Lilly. “I’m really busy during the weekends.” She looked out the window again. “Dr. B, you need to turn around.”
Dr. B had finished talking on the phone. He pulled the van over to the side of the road, then turned and attempted a smile. It looked pained. “I’m sorry, Alyssa. Something has come up, so I can’t drive you home after all. Booker is in the van behind us. He’ll take you where you need to go.”
“Oh,” Alyssa said. “Okay. See you guys later.” She opened the van door and nearly leapt outside.
Dr. B leaned out the window to speak to her. “I’m sorry you aren’t feeling well. Maybe we’ll get together another time.”
She didn’t answer. She had already shut the van door and was going to talk to Booker. Maybe to insist that she would be safe enough to walk the rest of the way home. She probably would be. Overdrake had already taken her powers and her memory. She wasn’t a threat to him anymore and wouldn’t be again unless Dr. B found a way to restore her powers.
