Slayer

by Kiersten White

  “I don’t think my mom has done anything wrong.” I give Artemis a heavy look, but she frowns at me. Of all the times for us to be out of sync, this is quite possibly the worst.

  Eve nods. “Helen has done so much for the Council. I would never rush to judgment. But if it’s true she’s working with a demon, I am worried that she’s introduced danger to us—and especially you. Do you know where your mother’s book is? The one with the information on Slayers and demons? We have to make certain none of the other Slayers she knows about have been hurt or killed. And I can’t do that unless I can find them.”

  “Yeah. We should schedule a Council meeting.” A Council meeting will take forever. It’ll give me time to talk to Artemis alone and to get to Dublin. I’ll have Artemis take Jade, Imogen, and the Littles out of here. Rhys and Cillian will have to hide too, since Leo knows where they are and we can’t trust him anymore.

  I desperately hope Leo isn’t behind the attacks. Some of the information lines up but not all of it. I can’t think of when he could have gone to Dublin and killed Cosmina. And he seemed genuinely surprised and upset by her death. Rhys and Cillian are still fine. It doesn’t make sense for Leo to attack Cillian in the first place.

  But I can’t know anything for certain, so I’ll treat everyone except my friends as a threat.

  Eve stands, studying my bookshelf. Maybe she has no idea about Leo. It certainly isn’t unusual among Watchers to have no clue what their kids are doing or even what their kids are.

  “Artemis.” I very deliberately turn on the ceiling fan. I look up at it then back down at her, hoping she’ll get my meaning that there’s a threat. That we need to be careful.

  She frowns. And then finally she understands. Her features shift to weary annoyance. “Is that what you were doing in the woods, then? Hiding Mom’s address book?”

  I sigh dramatically. “Yes. Fine. I didn’t want to turn it over to the Council until I knew more, so I took it when she wasn’t looking. Then I went to confront her. But she’s not there anymore. She went to find Doug.”

  Eve straightens, turning around. Her red lipstick looks like a wound as she purses her lips. “Nina, dear, I can tell when people are lying to me. So either you are lying about what you did with the book or you are lying about what your mother has been up to. Let’s go get Wanda and—”

  “No!” Not her too. She’s been out to get our family forever. She might even have been working with Honora. Wanda Wyndam-Pryce in the castle, Honora outside of it. I need them to meet with each other, not with me. I have to get my friends out. “I really don’t think my mom has hurt anyone. And she’s off looking for Doug now anyway, so there’s no rush. Call a Council meeting.”

  “Who is Doug?” Eve asks.

  “He’s the demon. The one I had in Cillian’s shed, remember? It’s not a big deal. I’ll explain to the Council when you’re all gathered.”

  “I think it is a big deal.” Eve folds her arms, her expression stern. “I think it’s a very big deal when a Watcher uses our resources to actively conspire and consort with demons. And it hasn’t escaped my notice that when we met your mother, the Slayer we were looking for was already dead. Now Cosmina turns up dead as well. Tell me where your mother’s book is so we can confirm the other Slayers are unharmed. Then we’ll decide how to handle your mother’s extracurricular activities.”

  Artemis looks torn. “Maybe you should give it to them. That way we can prove Mom isn’t hurting anyone.”

  I’ve got to get Eve out of here so I can leave. Maybe if she knows I can’t get the book, she’ll give up that line of reasoning. “I’d really like that. But I lied. I don’t have the book. Mom took it with her. She’s trying to protect Doug.”

  Eve sighs, rubbing her forehead. “So she’s out protecting a demon, which means she’s not here. And she’s obviously hit some sort of crisis point. I wouldn’t put it past her to snatch you and run again. I can’t lose you.” She shakes her head. “I’m afraid we’re out of time.”

  “What do you mean, we’re out of time?”

  Eve lowers her hand, smiling. “Sorry. I meant you’re out of time.”

  Suddenly the lights go out. But not in the room.

  In Eve.

  Every shadow swirls, gathering on her. Her edges blur, her form becoming like something half remembered from a nightmare.

  From a nightmare I’ve already had.

  “Oh my gods,” I whisper.

  Eve smiles. “Quite the opposite.”

  30

  EVE WHIPS OUT A SHADOWY leg. Artemis screams as she falls. I jump at Eve but she moves as fast as a memory, sliding out of my reach before I can grab her.

  “I need her to be asleep.” Eve’s voice is like an icy breeze on the back of my neck. “But unconscious will work too.”

  I lunge for Artemis. Eve gets there first. Artemis goes limp and silent, hanging like a rag doll from Eve’s hands. I try to come at her from the side, but Eve mirrors me, keeping the wall at her back and Artemis in front of her.

  “Careful now.” Eve squeezes, and points of blood break through Artemis’s shirt from where Eve’s fingernails have extended into black claws. “Just a little pressure and I’ll puncture straight through to all the fragile, precious things that separate the living from the dead. And if you take too long to decide, I’ll rip away her life force and break her neck too, so your CPR will be worthless.”

  I trusted Eve. I thought she was helping me. And this whole time, she’s been using me. Of course she said she’d find out what happened to Bradford. She already knew.

  I can’t let her kill Artemis. Not for anything. “What do I have to decide? What do you want?”

  “Your power.”

  It takes me a moment to comprehend what she’s saying. “My power?”

  “The channel that opened up and connected you to a well of power women have drawn on for thousands of years. I was so surprised and delighted you were a Slayer, right here for the taking. Leo made me promise I wouldn’t hurt you. But I’ve tasted you while you were sleeping.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you notice? I tasted you all. Everyone shambling around the castle, pale and tired and quick to anger. But you! Are you really so strong you didn’t even notice I’d sampled?”

  The morning Bradford died. When I got out of bed I was dizzy. Weak. It passed quickly, so I ignored it. But it had been Eve. I shudder.

  She smiles, two black lines parting to reveal white teeth. “You’re more powerful than any of us could imagine. You’re the last one, after all.” She laughs, a sound that whispers like dry leaves around the room, creeping from under the bed and behind the closet door, surrounding me. I know it’s morning outside, but I feel as choked by darkness as though it were midnight.

  “It was you I saw. In the secret passages that night.”

  “Yes. Convenient for sneaking from bedroom to bedroom, eating.”

  Eve’s been snacking on us while we slept. “What about Cosmina?” I’m not trying to stall—I believe her when she says she’ll kill Artemis. I just need to understand.

  “I wanted to try it on her first. But that’s the problem with Slayers. They’re too strong. She fought back. Woke up halfway through, and the connection was broken. She still lost her Slayer power—and the shock of it killed her—but I didn’t get it either.”

  “Bradford Smythe?”

  “He really did have a bad heart. I’ve been nonlethal with everyone here. His misfortune that he couldn’t handle all of this.” She waggles her hips suggestively, the shadows shifting from side to side and trailing off her like smoke. “Twenty years, right under their noses, and they never noticed. Not how I had changed, and not what Leo was. And not when I invited Leo’s father to join us for particularly nice meals. For all their watching, they see nothing.”

  “And Cillian?”

  “You’re stalling.” She sings it, her shadows pulsing.

  “I’m not stalling! It makes no sense! Why did you try to kil
l Cillian?”

  “So you would understand what was at stake. So you would know loss.”

  I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s hollow and dark, like her soul. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I’ve always known loss, moron.”

  She squeezes Artemis. I hold up my hands. “Okay! Sorry. So if I don’t let you kill me, you’ll kill Artemis.”

  “I don’t want to kill you. I honestly think you can survive it. It’s in both our best interests if you do. That way I have time to get all that juicy power without you dying on me, and you have a shot at surviving the removal process. That’s why I wanted you trained. Wanted to push you to be at your strongest. And why I have to do this now, before your mother can come back and hide you. I had hoped to wait, gather more energy first, but the timetable has been moved up by so many outside forces interfering. And by my son.” She sighs.

  Leo. My Watcher. The only person who always had my back. He had been fattening me up for the slaughter.

  “Oh, sweetheart.” Eve’s voice, which I had found so motherly and comforting before, is like claws skittering across a stone floor. “Leo doesn’t want this. But he needs me. He can’t live without the energy I take. So in a way you’ll be saving him too.” She tightens her grasp. Artemis groans but doesn’t wake up. “That’s the choice. Give me your power, whole and intact, willingly. Don’t fight it. Save Artemis and your mother and your fellow pathetic Watchers and your little village friend. Even save Leo. Choose to give it up. Choose to stop being Chosen.”

  I clench my hands into fists. “I’m strong enough to kill you.”

  “You keep your power, you could kill me. But . . . can you? Look at your room. Look at your bookshelves. You want to fix things. You want to heal, to save. Do you really think you can look me in my human eyes—the mother you wished you had, don’t deny it—and end me? I don’t think you can. And you can’t do it before I snuff out your sister. So you’d be choosing to kill her in order to kill me.” The shadows lift, then fall, darkness seeping from her more steadily now. Artemis looks pale.

  “Stop! You’re already draining her!”

  “You’re out of time.”

  I know Eve will use my power for something awful. She’s already a murderer. And for her to work this hard, for this long, she has to have some bigger goal in mind. Something that requires more juice than normal people can provide. Maybe even something so bad there’s a prophecy all about us. I thought I’d break the world myself, but what if it’s my power that makes it happen?

  The irony of all this is so devastating it’s almost funny. I’m finally facing the Watcher’s test. The same one Artemis took. The one she failed, because of me. I know what the Watchers would have me choose: the world. Let my sister die so I can stop the demon’s plan. And I know what Artemis would want me to choose: Let her die so that I can be strong enough to save myself.

  But Artemis is my world. She always has been. Looks like neither of us was really cut out to be a Watcher in the end.

  Numbly, I nod. “What do I have to do?”

  “Go to sleep.” Eve drops Artemis and slams a book into my head.

  31

  “SHH,” EVE CROONS, STROKING MY face so that the darkness swirls off her and around my eyes.

  • • •

  The rage of a thousand beating hearts pulses through my veins. Abandonment. Betrayal. Disappointment. Confusion. All funneled into a white-hot tunnel of hatred swirling around the woman on the edge of the roof.

  She took my father. Ruined my mother. Turned her back on the generations of my people who tried to help her. Made me a Slayer. Put a target on me and everyone I love.

  And there she is.

  Alone.

  Maybe I should hate her. But I don’t.

  She stuck a sword into the man she loved, sending him to hell in order to save the world. She dove into a dimensional portal, closing it—and dying—so her sister wouldn’t have to. She destroyed the Sunnydale Hellmouth. She defeated the First Evil. She gave up being an actual goddess so she could save our sad, broken little world. Her life has been an endless series of impossible decisions that she’s had to make, because if not her, then who?

  And she’s still just a person. Just a young woman. Trying to do her best with an incredible burden of power and responsibility.

  Understanding cuts through me, separating me from the rage and letting me step to the side of it. I can still feel it. Can rejoin if I want to. But instead I focus. I take shape, form, reclaiming myself from the communal Slayer subconscious. Then I walk across the roof and sit down next to Buffy.

  “Hey,” I say.

  She looks over, surprised. “Hey?”

  “This is nice.” I gesture to the dreamscape, a San Francisco exaggerated and sharpened.

  “Yeah. I guess.” She looks back out over it. If she can control her dreams like I can, then this is a choice. Every time I’ve seen her, she’s been here. Not at the Slayer rave. Not visiting her own past trauma. But waiting. Available. Almost like she’s always here in case someone needs to talk.

  Someone like me.

  “I just wanted to say—” I take a deep breath. There are so many things I had imagined saying to her over the years. So many awful things, designed to hurt her. I let them all fall away. “I just wanted to say, I forgive you.”

  She frowns. “Confusing much?”

  “My name is Athena Jamison-Smythe.” She startles in recognition at my surname, and tears well in her somber green eyes. I push on. “I forgive you, Buffy Summers, for being Chosen. And I forgive you for every choice you’ve made since then.”

  She stares at me for a moment, and then her mouth quirks up. “This is really weird,” she says, but she leans her head on my shoulder. The dreams of other Slayers pulse behind us. She must feel them every night as she sleeps. A thousand girls like us, the only ones who understand what it is to be a Slayer, and she’s apart from even that. Buffy Summers, destroyer of worlds, ruiner of lives, and the loneliest girl on the planet.

  “My dad would be proud of you,” I say.

  “Would he really?”

  “I have no idea. I don’t really remember him. It seemed like a nice thing to say, though.”

  She laughs. “It was nice. Thank you.” We watch as the sun rises over San Francisco. The air shimmers like water, and a sea monster elegantly wraps itself around the Golden Gate Bridge. It reminds me of something I can’t put my finger on.

  “Can I give you some advice?” Buffy asks.

  “Please do.”

  “Oh.” Her eyebrows rise in surprise. “Wow. I kind of thought you would say no. Everyone else in the big dreamy blob of rage hates me.” She jerks her head back to the Slayer energy behind us. “Except the First Slayer. Have you met her yet?”

  I shake my head.

  “Well, there’s a super-special grunty judgment treat you have to look forward to. But that’s a tangent.” She turns toward me. I had always thought she looked sad in photos. But now I see that it’s the shape of her eyes. Maybe her genes had known what her life would hold, and they prepared her face for it. Then she narrows those eyes and all sadness is replaced with a strength and determination that instantly makes me feel stronger. I understand why a thousand Slayers followed her into battle. I understand why my father recognized potential in a tiny blond teenager. And for the first time, I begin to understand what I can be, maybe, someday.

  Buffy speaks. “We were Chosen for something we wouldn’t have picked for ourselves. But you were Chosen because of who you are. So don’t let being a Slayer define you. You define being a Slayer.”

  I define being a Slayer.

  I define being a Slayer.

  I’ve been so consumed with fear that embracing the Slayer inside me would mean the end of the person I was—the girl who wanted to make the world better by healing, not hurting.

  I don’t have to choose one or the other. If I want to, I can be both. And maybe be stronger for it. All the fear that being me made me a bad Sla
yer evaporates.

  Tears burn. But unlike the burning of the rage, this feels cleansing. I nod, mute with gratitude. Then I finally find my voice. “Thank you. And I am sure of one thing. My dad would be glad you’re still alive and fighting. I am too.”

  Buffy snorts. “Well, that’s good. I’m glad I’m still alive too. I tried the whole death thing. It’s fine for a while, but I’m kind of over it in a long-term sense.” Then her face softens, and when she reaches over to hug me, I hug her back.

  When we pull apart, Buffy’s face relaxes into a peaceful smile.

  “This dream has been a lot better than most of my nights,” she says. “You would not believe how often Kennedy shows up. I know it’s petty, but she’s so annoying. Anything else I can help with while you’re here?”

  “Oh, actually.” Everything rushes back. “There’s this demon thing? She’s a succubus? And if I’m thinking correctly—which I’m not sure I am, because that giant sea serpent on the Golden Gate Bridge is waving at me—the succubus is going to try to pull out my essence or my power or whatever, and it might kill me, and it will definitely make her stronger, so I don’t know if I should let her, but if I don’t she’ll kill my sister, and also I kissed her son and sort of have feelings for him, but if she’s a succubus and her husband is something demony too, then Leo is definitely not human, and—”

  “Oh my god. Let me give you my number.” She writes something on her hand. We both squint at it. The numbers are all jumbled. It’s a dream, after all. I never could read in dreams. But in the middle of them is the triple triangle symbol I saw on Sean’s tea labels. “Weird,” she says. “What does that mean?”

  “It’s—”

  A ringing noise shatters the stillness of the dawn. Buffy grimaces. “Time to wake up,” she says. “Evil to fight. Coffee to pour. It was nice to meet you, Athena Jamison-Smythe. Good luck with the succubus. And remember, whatever you do, don’t—”

  • • •

  The dream pulls away. I can stay asleep. Or I can wake up and fight.

  I define being a Slayer.