Slayer

by Kiersten White

  “Even after everything you saw tonight—everything Honora did and has done—you’re still taking her side?”

  “I’m not taking her side! I’m trying to tell you why you need to stop judging her until you have all the information.”

  “Then by all means, give it to me!”

  Leo pulls into a petrol station. “I’m, uh, going to fill up.” He gets out and closes his door.

  Artemis stares out the window. “She used to show up to training with her wrists covered in welts. When she didn’t perform as well as her mother thought she should, she’d be whipped. Did you know that?”

  “I—no.”

  “No, you didn’t. You have no idea what Honora went through. What her mother was like. So if Honora wants to use what she learned to try and have some sort of life, I guess I don’t blame her. She deserves some happiness.”

  “Does she? Does having a mean mom justify what she’s doing? She betrayed the Watchers by—”

  “They betrayed her by not taking care of her when her mother so obviously wasn’t! God, you talk like they’re holy. You’re the one who’s always questioning the Watchers’ traditions, telling me over and over that we can do better. But when it comes down to it, you’re totally fine with the Watchers staying the way we are. We find a friend in trouble, and you want to turn it right over to them. Let them discuss her. Censure her. Maybe even lock her up. Did you know that’s what the bottom floor of the castle is? It’s not ruins. It’s cells.”

  I take the information like a blow to the stomach. They told me the bottom floor was off-limits because it wasn’t safe. Not because it was a prison. “I—I didn’t know.”

  “No, because you’ve never seen it. You never have to see anything you don’t want to. You don’t see that the Watchers have become completely useless—a sad, broken society desperately trying to hang on to the glory days that will never come again.”

  “If you felt this way, why didn’t you talk to me? I thought you liked being part of it. You were so good at it.”

  Artemis finally sits back, letting out a long breath. “How could I tell you I wasn’t happy, when I had what you wanted? I knew you’d trade places with me in a heartbeat. You worship the Watchers.”

  “I don’t worship them.”

  “You do.”

  “It’s important to me. There’s a difference. It’s our family heritage. In his diary, Dad was—”

  “Dad’s dead. That’s our legacy. Dad’s dead, and Mom lied to both of us our whole lives. About everything.” She brings her hands to her face and covers her eyes. “I felt so bad that she chose me first in the fire. I wanted you to know that someone would always choose you first, always protect you. I wanted to be a damn Watcher so I could make the whole world safer for you. All these years, Mom could have mentioned that you’d be a Slayer one day and I’d be absolutely pointless.” Her shoulders shake, and I don’t know whether she’s crying or laughing bitterly.

  Would she really have left if it wasn’t for me? Does she want to now?

  “I’ll always need you,” I whisper. “You’re my sister.”

  “It’s not the same, though. We can’t pretend it ever will be again.”

  She’s right. As much as I don’t want her to be, she is. Everything is different. “I won’t say anything about Honora,” I offer as a bridge over the chasm between us. “You can decide what to do about that.”

  “Thank you,” she whispers, but she doesn’t look at me.

  Leo gets back in, silent with his own internal strife. He starts the car, and we’re sealed in the hum of the engine and the road beneath the tires. No one talks.

  I remember the split between the two girls in Cosmina’s photo. Slayers are supposed to be alone, Cosmina had said at the pit. Was that my destiny too?

  26

  LEO SLAMS THE CAR INTO park as we stop in the castle garage.

  Something else has been bugging me, and I have to get it out. “Leo, we need to talk about the possibility that my mom was setting you up.”

  “What?” Leo and Artemis exclaim at the same time.

  I’ve had the whole miserable car ride to think about it. My mom with an out-of-the-blue demand that Leo—and Leo alone—go see a Slayer. When she’s never made any effort to bring a Slayer in. And no matter what that vampire said, she showed up right after we got there. When Leo was supposed to be there by himself. We can’t know that it wasn’t a setup.

  “I don’t want it to be true,” I say. “But think about it.” I lay out my reasoning.

  “That’s barely coincidence.” Artemis opens her door.

  “Hear me out! There’s something else.” She pauses, and I cringe, realizing it’s yet another secret I kept from her. “There was another hellhound. It found me in Shancoom when I was checking on Cillian. I lured it here. Mom killed it. But she didn’t put the castle on lockdown or even tell anyone. Which means she must have been expecting it in some way or was at least confident that it wasn’t after us. So she had to have known it was after something else. And Doug said he had a contact he was supposed to meet. A Smythe.”

  “You think Mom is setting up meetings with demons.” I can’t tell from Artemis’s voice how she feels about my theory.

  “I don’t know. Maybe?”

  “But why would she want me dead?” Leo asks.

  “Maybe she figured out you were training me? She really doesn’t want me to be a Slayer.”

  “Bad enough to try to kill Leo?” Artemis sounds dubious. I don’t blame her. It’s extreme.

  But . . . is it? “She hid me. She never told us about my Potential status. Or about her mom. And . . . she left me. The day of the fire.”

  “You can’t honestly think Mom wanted you to die!”

  The silence fills the car until it’s palpable. I don’t think that. Not really. But I know she wanted Artemis alive more than she wanted me alive.

  “All I know,” I finally say, “is that Bradford Smythe revealed my Potential status, confirming I’m a Slayer. And now he’s dead. Cosmina knew I was a Slayer, and now she’s dead. And Leo’s been training me, and he could have been killed tonight.”

  Leo looks mildly offended. “By one vampire?”

  “Regardless, our mom has a lot of secrets. And I don’t think we can trust her. With anything.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Artemis says.

  “Well, my other theory is it was all Honora. You wanna discuss that one?”

  She folds her arms, answering with her silence.

  “We should keep all this between the three of us,” Leo says. “Even if we aren’t certain who we can trust, we know we can trust each other.”

  I look at Artemis. She doesn’t meet my gaze.

  Leo continues. “No mention of anything to your mom. Or to mine.”

  “But—” I start. He looks over at me, his brow furrowed. I trust his mom. And I need her advice. I wanted to ask her about my mom and about my conflicted demon feelings and even about that dumb prophecy and whether I should worry about it. She’ll be able to tell me if it’s something the Watchers are concerned about.

  “No,” Leo says. “They’re both on the Council. They talk. We don’t tell them about Cosmina or Honora or Sean. Not until we know more.”

  “What do we know, even?” Artemis asks. “Really. What have we learned?”

  I lean against the dashboard. “That it’s not Doug.”

  “Which narrows it down to one of the other thousands of demons roaming the earth.”

  Leo’s eyes are cold and dark. “All we know is that the attacks have happened while they were sleeping.”

  Artemis undoes her severe ponytail, shaking out her hair. “Assuming Bradford didn’t die of a heart attack. He was old.”

  “If Slayer dreams warned me about people dying of old age, I’d have to break into every retirement community in the area trying to save them. It was demonic.”

  Artemis lets out a long breath, but she nods. She’s mad at me, but she’s not unreaso
nable.

  Leo opens his door. “We can’t be sure of anything. Which means the castle isn’t safe. Neither of you should sleep alone tonight.” Then he’s out of the car and striding toward the castle. I want it to be lit up like a beacon against the darkness, but the few lights in the windows only serve to emphasize how empty it is.

  Was it only a few years ago that it was bursting with life? Bustling with Council members and aspiring Watchers and all the people behind the scenes who made our work possible?

  But—it wouldn’t have been. Not really. Because even before the Council was blown up, there weren’t that many of us in my generation. We’ve been slowly bleeding out. Buffy’s rejection sent the organization spiraling, scrambling for a new place in the world.

  I’d have thought that a sudden influx of Slayers would have made Watchers relevant again, but I can’t help feeling like all it did was make us even more archaic. Even more useless. Maybe Artemis was right.

  Ugh. But that would mean Honora was right too.

  I shudder, trying to get the bad taste of even thinking that Honora’s right off my brain and tongue. The Watchers hid in order to survive. I have to trust that the Council has a plan.

  The Council, though . . . Ruth Zabuto, who can’t get over the loss of magic. Wanda Wyndam-Pryce, who is even worse than I had always thought. My mother, who hates Slayers and is definitely hiding more than we ever realized. And Eve Silvera. One for four I trust, then.

  “I’m sleeping in Jade’s room,” Artemis says.

  “Why?” I ask, hurt.

  “It’s not—I need some time to think. That’s all. You should spend the night in Rhys’s or with Imogen.” She walks away. She’s taking Leo’s warning seriously. And leaving me on my own. All these years of being together, of taking care of each other. Well. Of her taking care of me. I clearly haven’t done a very good job of taking care of her. How much has she shouldered all this time? I couldn’t train with her, but I could have helped more. Taken more of the duties. But she never told me, never talked to me about how she was feeling.

  Angry and hurt and confused, not to mention buzzing with excess I-want-to-beat-up-Honora energy, I turn and run into the forest. It’s asleep, all the insect hum and normal forest sounds muted and hushed so I feel like an intruder.

  I push myself, trying to find my limits. I want to know the borders of my body, the edges of my powers. I need to. Because if I can define them, then I can understand them, and I can figure out who I’m supposed to be now.

  I dodge branches, jump over logs, twist and turn through the depths of the trees. The castle is in a section of forest miles wide, untouched for centuries because the ground isn’t good for planting. It’s wild in a way that makes me feel small. For two years we’d been perfectly hidden here. I can’t escape the idea that the thing that is different—that drew hellhounds and demons and chaos and death to our seclusion—is me. Because nothing else has changed in the two years we’ve been here.

  As a Slayer, death is my gift. Is it also my curse? By being built for it, do I attract it?

  I veer toward an old, abandoned cemetery. No one has been buried there for almost a century. I found it not long after we arrived here. It’s been my little secret ever since. There’s something peaceful about it, the names and dates faded with time and the elements. I guess, in a way, it’s like Artemis’s secret passages. Made for something else, but serving as a refuge for me.

  I’m lost in my thoughts until I’m close enough to see there’s a light. There should not be a light. I skid to a halt, then tiptoe closer. There’s a cheery fire in a pit. Sitting by the fire is Doug the demon. He’s bobbing his head in time to music playing from headphones, and there’s a book in his hands. I peer at it.

  Nicholas Sparks. Doug really might be evil, then.

  A twig snapping nearby warns me that someone else is approaching. I duck behind a tree, watching. Not knowing who I expect to show up. Honora? Sean? Another demon? Don’t they know this is my cemetery?

  Nothing prepares me for the shock of who puts a hand on Doug’s shoulder before sitting across from him.

  My mother.

  It’s confirmed, then. Smythe, not as in Bradford Smythe. As in Jamison-Smythe. She is Doug’s contact. She’s the reason he ran here, the reason hellhounds attacked, the reason Honora came back into our lives to screw everything up.

  Doug takes off his headphones. “Hey, Helen. Thanks for the stuff.” He gestures to a sleeping bag set up among the gravestones, his book, and an empty tote sack. The tote she had been carrying earlier in the hall.

  “How’s your face?” my mother asks.

  “Better. A lot better. Nina’s not half bad at fixing things.”

  I tamp down my pride at his words. My mother has the small book that she took Cosmina’s address out of. Doug sets down his novel and leans close to her, looking over a page. He points to part of it. “He’s a good bloke. Messy. But should make a good ally. This is like a who’s who of the demons of Dublin. You found them all.”

  “I’m good at my job.”

  “What about Slayers? They could be a problem.”

  “I know of at least a dozen we can get easy access to.” She points to another section of the book. “I can handle them.”

  “What about Nina?” Doug asks. I freeze. “She’s not being exactly low profile. Far as I could figure, she’s told Cillian everything. Who else does she talk to?”

  My mother shakes her head, her mouth a thin, sharp line. “I should have sent her away years ago, but I always hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I’ve worked for so long to avoid this mess. It was selfish of me to keep her.”

  “Prophecies are tricky things.”

  “So are daughters. But I’ll take care of it.”

  I back up, horrified. My mother has a book full of demons and Slayers. She’s consulting with a demon on them. She has a plan for “handling” the Slayers, and one for taking care of me, whatever that means.

  Doug mentioned a prophecy. I don’t have to wonder which one he was talking about. It has to be the same one I translated, the same one referenced in my father’s diary.

  The prophecy is about me. About us.

  My mother knows—and Doug the neon-yellow demon knows. I turn and run for the castle. Maybe her leaving me behind in the fire was about more than me being a Slayer. Maybe the prophecy is so bad, she risked my life to save Artemis. She would have known, as soon as I was identified as a Potential, that I’m the world breaker. I have demonic power in me, after all. And in spite of all her efforts, she couldn’t keep it from coming out.

  I finally get why my mother has pushed me to the side all my life. She doesn’t just hate the Slayer in me. She’s afraid of me.

  My eyes burning and streaming with tears, I rush through the castle, straight to our room to get the prophecy and bring it to Artemis. We’re two parts of one person, two parts of one foretold doom, and I can’t do this alone.

  I almost trip over the body in the hall outside my door.

  “It’s me!” Leo says, sitting up. I cover my mouth to muffle the scream that almost escaped. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  I take in a shaky breath. I don’t know where to begin, and I’m afraid that once I do, I’ll lose my grip completely. “I’m okay,” I lie. “Just tired. But what are you doing on the floor outside my room? I thought you were a dead body. And I am all dead-bodied out for the night. I don’t have another dead-body opening in my schedule for at least a week.”

  It’s dim, the only light a bulb at the other end of the hall. But I can feel Leo smiling. I can hear it in his voice.

  “I’ll do my best to clear your schedule of dead bodies, then. I’m sorry. I thought you were inside, asleep.”

  “Weirdo.” I reach past him to open the door. But I’m secretly touched that Leo was worried enough to come guard me.

  “Where’s Artemis?” He peers inside as I flip the light on.

  “Sleeping in Jade’s room tonight. She’s still pis
sed at me.”

  Leo hovers in the doorway. Seeing his hands jammed into his loose sweatpants pockets and his mouth twisted to the side is kind of adorable. He’s embarrassed and feeling awkward. I’m so fricking glad it’s not me for once that I’m instantly at ease and no longer feeling so desperate to get to Artemis right away. She didn’t want to talk about the prophecy before. I don’t know if that has changed. And I can’t handle another rejection if she refuses.

  Doug’s camping and still being hunted. He’s not going anywhere. Neither is my mom. I’ll figure this out on my own. “Oh, come in,” I say. “It’s silly for you to be out on the floor. Besides, I’m a Slayer, remember? I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “And I’m your Watcher. It’s my job to protect you.”

  “It’s your job to train and guide me. The protecting is my job.”

  “Agree to disagree.” Leo finally steps into my room. His eyes take it all in, and I look at it as though for the first time. Artemis’s side of the room is tidy, weights stacked neatly next to demonic texts she’s been studying. A row of weapons hangs from a shelf above her bed.

  My side of the room . . . less tidy. I have a bookshelf double-stacked and crammed with everything imaginable. CPR instruction manuals, anatomy books, first-year medical student texts I begged Cillian to buy me off eBay, my Redheads of Literature shelf. There’s the stack of the demon books I was looking through to find information on Doug. And there’s a huge pile of notebooks.

  Ah, there’s the awkwardness I had been missing! I’m sure that Leo is eyeing the notebooks. Or am I just paranoid? “They’re notes. Not poetry! Anatomy. Health stuff. I watch a lot of medical tutorials and write down what I think will be useful. I also keep logs of stuff. So mostly it’s records of the Littles having a fever or a stomach bug. But Imogen takes good care of them, so even that’s not a lot.”

  Leo nods. Then he looks up at the ceiling and his eyes widen. “Are those fan blades actual blades?”

  I rub the back of my neck. He’s perceptive. “Oh. Right. Um. You know we lost our dad, and then there was the fire. After all that, I started having bad nightmares and was scared to go to sleep at night. So Artemis and I decided to set booby traps. Squirt guns with holy water hidden everywhere. Stakes. Actually, in the kitchen, every wooden stirring spoon still has a sharpened end. Anyway, as we got older, they got more elaborate. The fan was our project when we moved here and both needed a distraction from what happened with the Council going boom and all.” I go to the spot right under the fan. “See here? This board is loose. On a fulcrum. There’s a spring on the other side. The idea is you lure the vampire or whatever to this spot, then stomp on the board. Ta-da! Instant decapitation.”