Slayer

by Kiersten White

  “That’s cheating,” Imogen trills from where she’s reshelving.

  “It doesn’t count as cheating. We’re practically the same person!” No one calls me on the lie. Artemis shouldn’t have to do my homework on top of everything else, but she helps without being asked. It’s how we work.

  “Any word from Mom?” I ask as casually as I can manage, probing around the topic even more gently than I’m probing Jade’s ankle.

  “Nothing new since Tuesday. She should finish up South America in the next few days, though.” Artemis planned our mother’s whole scouting mission. I haven’t heard so much as a word from her since she left seven weeks ago, but Artemis merits regular updates.

  “Can you focus?” Jade snaps. She was on assignment in Scotland keeping tabs on Buffy and her Slayer army antics. It didn’t do us much good. Buffy still managed to trigger an almost-apocalypse. Now that Jade’s back at the castle without any magic, she’s not happy about it, and she lets us know.

  Frequently.

  “Rhys,” I say, mindful that Artemis would do it in a heartbeat, but her to-do list is already super full and I don’t want to add to it, “can you go to my clinic and get my sprain pack?”

  Rhys stands. He shouldn’t have to run my errands. He ranks far above me in pecking order, but he puts friendship before hierarchy. He’s my favorite in the castle besides Artemis. Not that there’s a tremendous amount of competition. Rhys, Jade, and Artemis are the only other teens. Imogen is in her early twenties. The three Littles are still preschoolers. And the Council—all four of them—aren’t exactly BFF material. “Where is it?” he asks.

  “It’s right next to the stitches pack, behind the concussions pack.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  He saunters away. The medical clinic is actually a large supply closet in the opposite wing that I’ve claimed as my own. The training room is amazing, naturally. We prioritize hitting, not healing. While we’re waiting for Rhys, I elevate Jade’s ankle by propping it on top of books that used to contain the blackest spells imaginable but now are used as paperweights.

  George Smythe, the youngest of the Littles, bursts into the library. He buries his face in Imogen’s skirt and tugs on her long sleeves. “Imo. Come play.”

  Imogen puts him on her hip. During teaching hours, Ruth Zabuto is in charge of the Littles, but she is as old as sin and far less pleasant. I don’t blame George for preferring Imogen.

  “Are you done?” she asks me.

  I hold up my paper triumphantly. “Got it!”

  Child of Slayer

  Child of Watcher

  The two become one

  The one becomes two

  Girls of fire

  Protector and Hunter

  One to mend the world

  And one to tear it asunder

  “There’s a postscript, like Arcturius can’t help but comment on his own creepy-ass prophecy. ‘When all else ends, when hope perishes alongside wonder, her darkness shall rise and all shall be eaten.’ ”

  Imogen snorts. “Devoured. Not eaten.”

  “In my defense, I’m hungry. Did I get the rest?”

  She nods. “With help.”

  “Well, even with Artemis’s help, it doesn’t make sense. And it doesn’t have any calamari recipes.” I tuck my papers back into the book.

  Rhys returns with the supplies just as the other two Littles break into the library and swarm Imogen. She’s the busiest person in the castle, other than Artemis, who has already left to prepare lunch for everyone. Sometimes I wish my sister belonged as much to me as she does to everyone else.

  Rhys strides toward me with the sprain pack. Little George runs at his legs, and Rhys trips just before he gets to me. The pack flies out of his hands. Without thinking I lunge and save the kit in midair with one hand, the whole motion feeling surprisingly effortless for my usually uncoordinated self.

  “Good catch,” Rhys says. I’d be offended by his surprise if I weren’t experiencing another ripple of anxiety. It was a good catch. Way too good for me.

  “Yeah, lucky,” I say, letting out an awkward laugh. I break the ice pack and wrap it into place around Jade’s ankle. “Twenty minutes on, an hour off. I’ll rewrap you when the ice comes off. That will help with the swelling. And rest it as much as possible.”

  “Not a problem.” Jade leans back with her eyes closed. She’s substituted all the time she used to spend on magic with sleeping.

  I know it’s been rough on her—it’s been rough on everyone, having the entire world change yet again. But we do what Watchers do: We keep going.

  My phone beeps. We avoid contact with the outside world. Paranoia is a permanent result of having all your friends and family blown up. But one person has this number and he’s the highlight of our tenure here in the forest outside a sleepy Irish coastal town. “Cillian’s almost here with the supplies.”

  Rhys perks up. “Do you need help?”

  “Yes. I don’t know how I’d manage without you. It’s absolutely essential that you come out with me and flirt with your boyfriend while I check over the boxes.”

  The great hall of the castle, always chilly, is lit with the late-afternoon sun. The stained-glass windows project squares of blue, red, and green. I fondly pat the massive oak door as I step out into the crisp autumn air. The castle is drafty, with questionable plumbing and dire electrical problems. Most of the windows don’t open, and those that do leak. Half of the rooms are in disrepair, the entire dorm wing is more a repository for junk than a living space, and we can’t even go in the section where the tower used to be because it isn’t safe.

  But this castle saved our lives and preserved what few of us are left. And so I love it.

  Out in the meadow—which has finally recovered from having a castle magically dropped into the middle of it two years ago—old Bradford Smythe, my great-uncle, is sword fighting with horrible Wanda Wyndam-Pryce. Though sword bickering would be more accurate, since they pause between each block and strike to debate proper stance. The mystery of the Littles escaping is solved. Ruth Zabuto is dead asleep.

  I watch her across the meadow to make sure her chest is moving and she’s only dead asleep, not dead dead. She lets out a snore loud enough for me to hear from this distance. Reassured, I follow Rhys to the path outside the castle grounds. I can still hear Wanda and Bradford arguing.

  Cillian is on a scooter, boxes strapped to either side. He lifts a hand and waves brightly. His mom used to run the sole magic store in the whole area. Most people have no idea that magic is—was—a real thing. But his mom was a decently talented and knowledgeable witch. And, best of all, one who could keep her mouth shut. Cillian and his mother are the only people alive who know there are still Watchers in existence. That we didn’t all die when we were supposed to.

  We haven’t told them much about who we are or what we do. It’s safest that way. And they’ve never asked questions, because we were also their best customers until Buffy killed magic. But even now, Cillian still makes all our nonmagical supply deliveries. Weirdly, online retailers don’t accept “Hidden Castle in the Middle of the Woods Outside Shancoom, Ireland” as a proper address.

  Cillian stops his scooter in front of us. “What’s the story?”

  “I—”

  There’s a flash of movement behind Cillian. A snarl rips apart the air as darkness leaps toward him.

  My brain turns off.

  My body reacts.

  I jump, meeting it midair. We slam into each other. The ground meets us, hard, and we roll. I grab jaws straining for my throat, hot saliva burning where it falls on me.

  Then I twist and snap, and the thing falls silent, still, a dead weight on top of me.

  I shove it aside and scramble to my feet. My heart is racing, eyes scanning for any other threats, legs ready to leap back into action.

  That’s when I hear the screaming. It sounds so far away. Maybe it was happening the whole time? I shake my head, trying to force the wor
ld back into focus. And I realize there’s a creature—a dead creature, a creature I somehow killed—at my feet. I stagger backward, using my shirt to rub away the hot sticky mess of its drool still on my neck.

  “Artemis!” Bradford Smythe runs up. “Artemis, are you all right?” He hurries past me, bending down to examine the thing. It looks like hell’s version of a dog, which is accurate, because I’m almost certain it’s a hellhound. Black, mottled skin. Patchy fur more like moldy growths. Fangs and claws and single-minded, deadly intentions.

  But not anymore. Because I killed it.

  I killed it?

  Demon, a voice in my head whispers. And it’s not talking about the hellhound.

  “Nina,” Rhys says, in as much shock as me.

  Bradford Smythe looks up in confusion. “What?”

  “Not Artemis. That was Nina. . . . Nina killed it.”

  Everyone stares at me like I, too, have sprouted fangs and claws. I don’t know what just happened. How it happened. Why it happened. I’ve never done anything like that before.

  I feel sick and also—elated? That can’t be right. My hands are trembling, but I don’t feel like I need to lie down. I feel like I could run ten miles. Like I could jump straight over the castle. Like I could fight a hundred more—

  “I think I need to throw up,” I say, blinking at the dead thing. I’m not a killer. I’m a healer. I fix things. That’s what I do.

  “That was impossible.” Rhys studies me like I’m one of his textbooks, like he can’t translate what he’s seeing.

  He’s right. I can’t do what I just did.

  Bradford Smythe seems less surprised. His shoulders slump as he pulls off his glasses and polishes them with resignation. Why isn’t he shocked, now that he knows it wasn’t Artemis? The look he gives me is one of pity and regret. “We need to call your mother.”

  2

  “HOW COULD THERE BE A hellhound in Shancoom?” Wanda Wyndam-Pryce’s tone, along with her pinched and furious expression, seems to indicate that it was my fault. Like I signed up to provide doggy day care and accidentally checked the “Unholy Hellbeast” column.

  I can’t stop staring at it, there, on the ground, dead.

  Dead.

  How did I do that?

  Bradford Smythe smooths his walrus mustache. “It is troubling. Shancoom has always had natural mystical protections. It’s part of why we picked this location.”

  “No mystical protection left.” Ruth Zabuto retreats further into her cocoon of scarves and shawls. “Can’t you feel it? Everything is gone. Only evil is left.”

  “What are you all doing?” Artemis demands, hurrying up to us. She takes in the hellhound and, before we can explain, throws herself between me and the dead demon. Her first instinct is always to protect me. “Lockdown! Everyone into the castle. Go!”

  Rhys startles, and the older Watchers—three-fourths of what’s left of the once illustrious and powerful Council—have the sense to look scared. If there’s one threat, there might be more. They should have known that. Artemis didn’t have to think about it. Rhys grabs Cillian and pulls him along.

  Cillian frowns. “The castle’s off-limits to me, innit? What was that thing?”

  “Go!” Artemis jogs backward, scanning the trees for more threats. Sticking close to me. She’s the one with training. The one who can handle this sort of thing.

  Crack went its neck.

  I hurry along the path to the castle doors. I should be terrified that there are more of those things out there, but it doesn’t feel like there are. Which worries me. How would I know that?

  Once we’re inside, Artemis bars the door, barking out orders. “Jade and Imogen will guard the Littles in the dorm wing. Bradford, go tell them. Rhys, take Cillian and Nina. Barricade yourselves in the library. There’s a secret room behind the far shelf with a window for escape if we lose the castle.”

  “There’s a secret room?” I ask, at the same time Rhys says, with genuine hurt, “There are more books I didn’t know about?”

  Cillian steps toward the door. “Barricade? Losing the castle? Bloody hell, what is this?”

  Artemis holds up an arm to block his way out. It’s not lost on me that Rhys was assigned to protect Cillian, the innocent civilian, and me. She has no idea I killed the hellhound myself, and I don’t know how to tell her. It feels like it happened to someone else. I’m . . . embarrassed. And terrified. Because if it felt like something else took over, that means all the weirdness in my body I’ve been ignoring the last couple months is definitely, super, for-sure real.

  Artemis opens a dusty old chest beside the door and passes out weapons. Wanda Wyndam-Pryce recoils from a large crossbow. Artemis glares up at her. “Would you prefer a wooden switch?”

  “Watch your tone,” Wanda snaps. I don’t understand the exchange, but Wanda takes the crossbow and hurries away. Rhys gets a sword. Bradford Smythe takes another crossbow. Ancient Ruth Zabuto pulls a wicked-looking knife from a sheath on her thigh beneath her swirling, layered skirts.

  “What about—” I start.

  “Library!” Artemis barks. “Now!”

  Bradford Smythe shoots me a heavy, mournful look. He seems like he has something to say. I half expect him to pull a hard candy out of his suit pocket and give it to me with a pat on the head. That’s about the extent of our interactions over the last several years. There’s never any reason for the Council to talk to me. After all, my mom is on the Council, and she never needs me. Why should any of the rest of them?

  Rhys grabs Cillian’s hand to tug him along, and I run after them to the library. Jade is gone, hopefully back to her room, where Bradford Smythe can find her easily. Rhys locates a lever on the far shelf and it swings open to reveal a cramped, dusty room. We shut ourselves in.

  “Explanations,” Cillian says, panting. “What was that thing? And why are we locked inside the castle? And am I finally allowed to ask how the hell you lot moved a castle here in the first place? Because I have been working mightily to pretend otherwise, but I’ve lived in Shancoom my entire life, and I’m certain if we had always had a castle in the forest, I would have known about it. And, Nina, what—what—how did you do that out there?”

  His gaze on me is searching and incredulous. We’ve been friends since before he and Rhys started dating. He’s more freaked out about what I did to the hellhound than the fact that there was a hellhound. I stare at the well-worn floor planks, polished by generations of my people walking here, learning here, planning here. Resting here.

  The castle was never our main headquarters. It used to be a retreat for Watchers. But two years ago, way before the Seed of Wonder fiasco, the old Council and nearly every member of the Watcher society got blown up by fanatic followers of an ancient entity known as the First Evil. And it all happened because Buffy threw the balance of good and evil so out of whack that it left an opening for the First to wriggle through.

  The First sent out its acolytes to murder everyone who could fight it. That meant all the potential future Slayers it could find—girls who were born with the possibility to someday take up the mantle of Slayer when the previous one died. It also meant all the Watchers. Even after Buffy rejected us, the First knew we were a threat. Buffy ended up defeating it and saving the world.

  But she didn’t save a single Watcher.

  Those of us who survived were either out on assignment in deep cover—only Bradford Smythe and Wanda Wyndam-Pryce’s daughter, Honora—or here on a field trip. Rhys Zabuto, Jade Weatherby, Artemis, Imogen Post, the Littles, and myself. My mother, Ruth Zabuto, and Wanda Wyndam-Pryce brought us to see what we could look forward to someday, to get some fresh air, and to undergo a few ritual cleansings to prepare for magical training.

  I wasn’t going to do those. No magical training for me, just like no physical training. I was supposed to watch the Littles while Imogen went through it. Back in those days she took care of them part-time. They wouldn’t let Imogen train to be a full Watcher, because her m
other, Gwendolyn Post, had betrayed the Watchers and tricked the Slayers into giving her a weapon of unimaginable power. It had always nagged at me that Imogen was held accountable for something she hadn’t even done. We were here because of our parents, sure, but that didn’t mean we were them—or even who they wanted us to be. I knew that better than anyone.

  But Ruth bent the rules for Imogen because she wanted everyone who could to have basic spell training, and the best place for it was our seat of ancient power. So our heritage saved our lives. The castle protected us from being blown up along with the rest of our people.

  “We should be out there with them.” I place my hand against the shelf sealing us in. I don’t say what I really mean, which is that Rhys should be out there with them. He’s the one who got picked to train as a future Council member. But we both know why Artemis is running the defense and Rhys is hiding here with us.

  First, Artemis is more skilled than he is. She always has been.

  And second, Artemis put Rhys in here to protect me. Bradford Smythe had called me Artemis out there. He assumed that I was her. Because I couldn’t do something like I did. It’s impossible. I’ve never trained, never fought.

  Never been allowed to and never wanted to.

  Rhys stares at me as if I were a stranger. “The way you moved out there. What you did. You looked like a . . .”

  Cillian interrupts us. “Again, what the hell? Would someone please explain this to me? What was that thing out there?”

  I lean against the shelves, grateful to have to explain things to Cillian so I don’t have to think too hard about what I did. What Rhys might have been about to say. “It was a demon.”

  “A what now?” Cillian rubs his hair, buzzed close to the scalp. His mother is British-Nigerian, and his father grew up in Shancoom. Cillian is the first person since Leo Silvera I’ve had a crush on, and it lasted all of three minutes before I realized he was not and could never be into me. Lucky Rhys.

  But still better than my last crush, which ended in such a humiliating disaster that I haven’t managed to work up another viable candidate in the last three years. Maybe in another three years I’ll finally get over my Leo Silvera mortification.