Slayer

by Kiersten White

  10

  THE FIRE WAS PURPLE.

  But not normal purple. Black-light purple, purple that felt wrong, that made my eyes want to slide away from it because they couldn’t quite make sense of it. Was it purple, or was it black, or was it nothing?

  Whatever it was, it was hot, blistering and cracking my skin even at a distance. The smoke attacked my lungs, ripping me out of sleep and throwing me, coughing, onto the floor of the bedroom I shared with Artemis.

  “Athena?” Artemis cried out. I slid across the floor to her, pulling her out of bed and down to me. The fire was, inexplicably, over the window. A solid sheet of flames blocked our exit. There was no way outside. I grabbed a book and threw it at the window. It disintegrated in the flames before ever reaching the glass.

  I crawled to the door. The doorknob burned my hand and left a shiny pink scar that I would never lose.

  “Stay down.” I ripped a sheet off my bed and gave it to Artemis, gesturing for her to breathe through it. I didn’t know if it would filter out the smoke, but maybe it would help. I was only eight, but I knew enough of the world to know this wasn’t a normal fire. It was magic. The bad kind. The kind my mother knew how to fight.

  She would come. She would save us.

  Why wasn’t she here yet?

  We huddled together, the flames eating past the window and onto the wall. But the window didn’t break. It stayed perfectly intact, still a solid flame that I couldn’t see how to get past. Maybe everything outside was on fire too. Maybe the whole world was on fire.

  Finally the door burst open. The flames ringed it, impassable, but in the center stood our mother. She glowed clean white, some sort of magical aura allowing her to stand in the flames without being burned. I tried to run to her, but it was too hot. She looked at us, her face far worse than the horrible flames. Nothing is more terrifying than seeing your mother afraid.

  She glanced over her shoulder. The whole house was consumed. She was the only safe harbor. After one more moment of hesitation, she rushed into our room and scooped up Artemis.

  I stared at her, uncomprehending. In that instant, my mother’s fear slid away, and her eyes went hard in the same way they did when she reprimanded us for not looking both ways before crossing the street.

  “I can only take one at a time,” she said. “Be strong.”

  Then she ran through the fire, her shield extending to the daughter she had chosen to take with her first.

  I was left behind.

  The flames spread. The smoke got worse. I waited, the room so hot that my tears felt cool on my face. And then everything went black.

  The paramedics resuscitated me. She had come back for me, but by then it was almost too late. She could have carried us both. I know she could have. She picked Artemis first, and I almost died. She was willing to lose me over Artemis. And none of us have ever forgotten it.

  • • •

  I hastily wipe away new tears. Am I crying or just remembering the smoke? At least the tears blur the body of the hellhound. I wonder if my mother will put the castle back on lockdown. I could have explained to her where it came from, what it was actually hunting, if she had given me a second to speak. But she never does.

  I drag the hellhound into the trees and tuck it against some roots. That way at least none of the Littles will stumble across it if they go outside to play. And if my mom asks where it is, I’ll tell her.

  She won’t ask.

  Corpse removal accomplished, I want to hide in my room. Maybe forever. I thought I was finally in control. Finally able to do things to make a difference. My mom showed me otherwise.

  I send Cillian a text to stay away from his house. He didn’t touch the demon, so any other hellhound on the hunt shouldn’t zero in on him personally. Unless my mom is going to hang out there with her gun, Cillian isn’t safe at home.

  At that thought, I hurry into the castle after my mother. She might not talk to me about it, but I can talk to her. “Hey!” I shout at her back. She stops but doesn’t turn around. “Don’t you want to know where it came from?”

  “I can determine that on my own. You aren’t needed for this, Nina. I thought that was apparent outside.”

  “I can—”

  She finally turns around. There’s a smile pasted onto her face. It’s almost as repellent as the gun—just as cold and metallic. “Sweetheart, take the day off. It’s been a confusing time for you. Go read or paint your nails. Or you must have some chores to handle in your clinic.”

  “You’ve never cared about my clinic.”

  “That’s absurd. I’m the one who suggested that course of study in the first place.”

  “Why did you, if you knew I was a Potential? You sabotaged me!”

  “Sabotaged?” She has the audacity to look hurt, and for a second, she almost—almost—meets my eye. But right as she comes close, a shadow passes over her face and she lifts her chin. “I am a member of the Council and your mother. Everything I do is for the good of the Watchers. Don’t question my decisions.” And then she walks away. Again.

  I stare after her, trembling with emotion. Then I lift my middle finger at her back.

  “Um. Hey.”

  Leo is standing in the door to the training room. Which is where my mother and I had our entire conversation, in perfect hearing range. His hands are shoved in his pockets as he leans against the door frame. “She’s jet-lagged,” he says. “It was a long trip back.”

  “Don’t make excuses for her.” I hastily wipe under my eyes. I cannot handle another humiliation. And tears in front of Leo—the star of my greatest humiliation ever? Not happening. I won’t let him see what my mother obviously sees: That I’m weak. That I don’t deserve to be a Slayer. That no one needs me to be one.

  When she first assigned me to the medical branch of study, I was proud. It felt like she noticed I’d be good at it, and I worked so hard in order to prove her right. But she was really just putting me out of sight, out of mind. Where no one would ever see my potential.

  Including me.

  I stomp past him into the room. I barely got any sleep last night, but I’m as buzzed as if I’d had four cups of tea. I want to hit something. “I’m ready.”

  He follows, taking his time. “Watcher mums are . . . hard. Even the good ones.”

  “You’re lucky you have a good one.”

  “I meant your mum.”

  I snort. “Well, you obviously don’t know her.”

  “No, I don’t, I guess. But I’ve been alone with mine for three years. It was—” His face darkens, then he shakes it off. “I’m just saying . . . what I was trying to say earlier. That I’m glad to be back. I feel lucky to be back here with you. With all of you. The happiest times of my life were when I was training.”

  Ugh, I do not want to soften toward him. But I think about what he said, and I wonder what he’s been through in the last few years, out there on his own with Eve. He’s probably lived through trauma I can’t begin to imagine.

  “Well, some of us didn’t get to train. So let’s make up for that now.” I gesture meaningfully to the walls. I still wish that none of this were happening—that I didn’t have this simmering, powerful force inside me. It doesn’t escape my notice that I should be exhausted and instead my body feels . . . disappointed that I didn’t get to fight.

  My mother took control away from me again with the hellhound. I don’t want that to happen anymore. I can use my power to be who I want to be.

  And now a part of me wants to turn into the baddest, most kick-assingest Slayer ever. Then I can rub my prowess in my mother’s face.

  So: priorities. Change this disaster into something okayish by training so I can take full advantage of whatever I am. And prove my mom wrong by doing so.

  Leo positions himself in the center of a wide mat that takes up most of the floor. There’s a hint of stubble along his narrow jaw. His cheeks hide the dimples I know are there, lurking beneath the surface. The dark circles under his eyes are
new, though. He gives me a gentle smile.

  I want to hit him. Hard. I should have asked Artemis how she sprained Jade’s ankle.

  I hate the violence coursing through my veins. But I still remember the way it felt that horrible poetry day, seeing Leo return to practice as though nothing had happened. I can’t reject his help, though. No matter how much I want to. So I steel myself and pretend like I’m not the kid crying on the balcony anymore. Because I’m not.

  I’m a Slayer.

  Leo finally clues in to my body language and stops smiling. “Your natural instincts and strength are already there. We can’t teach you those—and we don’t have to. But what we can teach you is technique. Drill into you the best ways to react, the best ways to hit, so that, combined with your inherent Slayer abilities, you’ll be as efficient and capable a fighter as possible. We’ll also focus on weapon training.”

  Weapon training. Ugh, of course. I avoid them all except stakes. I guess that has to change now. As long as I’m going against my nature, I might as well choose the last thing I’d ever decide to pick up. I grab a wickedly heavy-looking set of nunchucks. “Sounds good.” I spin them experimentally, then faster. They blur in the air. I’m going to show Leo I’m not the innocent, weak little girl he remembers.

  The last thing I see is one of the wooden clubs coming right for my face before everything goes black.

  11

  A GIRL PACES THE CRACKED linoleum floor of a tiny apartment. Her blue hair shimmers like it’s underwater, and I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I feel it—bright red pulses of anger, with an undercurrent of darkest black seething fear. There’s a picture of the Golden Gate Bridge stuck to the wall with a long, sharp knife.

  “Buffy,” we whisper at the same time.

  Then the girl’s in a warehouse, everything black except a light hanging over her head. She’s bound to a chair, her face bleeding. A woman licks the blood, smiling as her true face is revealed. Vampire.

  “Dublin is ours, Cosmina,” she says, petting the girl’s head. “You know that.” She hits the light and it waves wildly, revealing a faded sign for O’Hannigan Ironworks, then swinging back to illuminate the girl’s blue hair.

  The flash of blue turns into a blinding blue light that revolves into red, then blue again. A girl who looks impossibly strong and powerful—every muscle full, her core like a barrel of gunpowder—is handcuffed and put into the back of a police car. The police hold out a bag, puzzled by the stakes inside.

  Red and blue and red, red, red; the Slayer’s anger flashes with the lights.

  “Buffy,” we say together.

  A flash of red makes me close my eyes, and when I open them, I see a figure sitting on the edge of a building rooftop. She’s small, like me, blond hair done in two buns on top of her head. Cute. Sweet. Maybe to combat all the things she’s done.

  I can’t see her face, but I can see in her body—she’s sad. Exhausted.

  And all around her, pulsing with my own heartbeat, I feel the fury of a thousand Slayers just like me. It licks the air, caressing me, swirling me closer and stoking the flame inside me higher and higher until I can’t understand how she can breathe, much less sit there without feeling it.

  “Buffy,” we breathe in unison.

  She looks up.

  Before I can break away from the collective rage to tell her how I feel—how I hate her, how she ruined my life, how she’s selfish and doesn’t deserve anything she has, anything that was sacrificed for her—I’m pulled away. Walrus-faced Smythe lies snoring in bed. The darkness around him swirls, then takes form and settles, a blacker black, on top of his chest. He smiles, and his face is filled with longing so intense I feel icky just witnessing it. His breathing becomes labored. His eyes behind the lids roll wildly, but he doesn’t open them, doesn’t move.

  “You’re so stale,” a voice like shadows croons. And then it pauses, slowly turning toward me. I open my mouth to scream, and—

  • • •

  “I don’t know!” Artemis shouts. “Nina’s the one who knows everything about concussions.”

  “Uneven pupils,” I groan. I try to sit up but can’t. Why am I on the floor? “Unconsciousness. Dizziness. Confusion. Are you okay? How did you get a concussion?”

  Rhys shoves his face right in front of mine. “Well, that makes three out of four. Let me see your pupils.”

  “No!” I jerk my head away, which makes it swim. “They’re mine! Did anyone check on Cosmina?”

  “Athena,” Leo says, and I freeze. Oh no. No no no. The nunchucks.

  “I’m fine! I remember what happened.” Unfortunately. I allow Rhys to stare at my eyeballs until he’s satisfied they’re the same dilation. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” I say.

  “Leo ran out for help. I was the first person he saw. So I guess I know you’re training now.” Rhys grins at me. I’m relieved he knows. We can trust him, and I don’t want any extra secrets right now. The ones I have are plenty. Artemis presses an ice pack to my forehead. I’m annoyed, because that means she rifled through my things in the clinic. That is my place. I’m also annoyed that Eve has joined us. She’s watching everything with a concerned eye, but at least she’s not fussing. I’d be even more embarrassed if she were.

  “So maybe we’ll start with something more basic and practical than nunchucks.” Leo holds out a hand to help me up, but I use Artemis’s instead.

  “Who is Cosmina?” Eve asks.

  “Blue hair. Kidnapped by vampires.” I pause, frowning. “We don’t know anyone named Cosmina, do we?”

  Concerned, Artemis leans in to examine my pupils too. “No, we don’t.”

  I gently push her away. “Just weird dreams. They seemed so real. Have you seen Bradford Smythe around?”

  “I saw him at breakfast,” Artemis says.

  “And he looked . . . fine?”

  “Well, as fine as the crusty old man ever looks. Why?”

  “No reason.” So that rules out prophetic dreams. Though I’m not sure if he was actually threatened or not. He seemed to be enjoying—whatever was happening. I shudder.

  Artemis frowns thoughtfully. “Although, now that you mention it, he was a bit paler than usual. I think all this stress with you turning out to be a Slayer and the hellhound may be starting to get to him—”

  “Bradford has weathered worse,” Eve interjects. “It’s his job to handle this stress and far more. Let’s stay on target. Time may be of the essence here.” She purses her dark-stained lips. “This Cosmina—you say she’s been kidnapped? Do you think it may have been a Slayer dream?”

  I tenderly probe the borders of the goose egg on my forehead. It’ll be nice to be reminded of this newest embarrassment every time I look in the mirror. If being a Slayer does nothing else for me, please let it heal this bruise in record time.

  “Umm, maybe? There was a lot happening. Flashes of things I couldn’t quite understand with vampires, and Buffy, and a—” I grimace, my thoughts suddenly back to Bradford Smythe. That one I’ll chalk right up to the head injury. “Part of it definitely wasn’t.”

  “So this Cosmina, do you think she was a Slayer?”

  I grasp for the remnants of the dream. The picture on her wall. Mentioning Buffy. And the vampires . . . “She could have been? Yeah. Probably a Slayer. And if that part’s true, then maybe the rest was. She needs help.” I know it in a way I can’t explain.

  Fortunately, judging by the look on Eve’s face, I don’t have to. “How can we find her?” she asks. Leo shuffles his feet, something shutting off in his face. He must be deferring to her. So even though he’s my Watcher, she’s still in charge of him. I like that. I trust Eve. And I’ve never written a single poem about her.

  “Do we need to find her?” Artemis bites her lip, clearly debating something internally. I don’t need twin instincts to tell me she has information she wishes she didn’t.

  “I don’t think I would have dreamed about her if she didn’t need help.” I remember the oth
er dream I had, the one with the Slayer and the demon horde. “The last time I dreamed about a Slayer, she died. In the dream. But Cosmina wasn’t dead yet. Maybe that means she can still be saved.” I say it thinking Eve and Artemis will do the saving. My mouth goes dry as I realize it was my dream. My responsibility. I’m not ready to be super-saving girl.

  “So it’s life-or-death,” Artemis says.

  “I mean, I can’t be positive. But it felt life-or-death.” I want Artemis to believe in me. I need her to. She’s always been the one who’s there for me, the one who has my back. I’ve never had the chance to have hers, not in any meaningful way. And I know she’s worried I’m not ready to be a Slayer, but if I can save Cosmina—if I can prove that I can be a good Slayer by helping people instead of just hurting them—maybe she’ll feel better about it. Maybe I will too.

  Artemis sighs. “I know how we can find her. There’s a . . . database. Of Slayers.”

  “What?” Eve does not look pleased. “Why wasn’t I told?”

  Rhys and I share equally puzzled looks. “Since when?” I ask.

  Artemis pulls out her ponytail, redoes it even tighter. “Mom has one. She said it was classified and I was never to mention it. So I think the rest of the Council doesn’t know.”

  I try not to show how hurt I am that, yet again, Artemis has been keeping secrets from me—and this time it’s worse, since it’s a secret she has with our mom. When it comes to Mom, I always thought Artemis and I were a team. Us against her. But I guess that’s not the case. “Why would she have a Slayer database? Mom is the one who’s always been opposed to getting new Slayers to work with. She said it was a security threat.”

  “She set it up not long after we moved the castle here. I only know about it because I had to teach her how to use all the programs. The Watchers Council isn’t exactly known for being tech savvy.” Artemis glances sheepishly at Eve, who laughs.

  “That’s true. Perhaps if any of them had a cell phone, I could have found you all two years ago. But I’m intrigued by this information. And if it can help us save Cosmina, then we’re obligated to use it. Slayers are vulnerable out there, alone. It’s our duty to protect them. I don’t know why Helen didn’t share this or make Slayers a priority. It’s concerning.” She picks up the nunchucks and returns them to their place on the wall. “She’s been keeping too many secrets from the Council. I respect your mother, tremendously, but I can’t understand her decisions. What if we ask her for the database and she refuses?”