Third Strike

by Heather Brewer

  By the time Joss turned his head to look at his cousin, Henry had already devoured half of his ice-cream cone. Joss took two licks of his, just as a measure of politeness, before dropping it in the trash. When Henry cast him a questioning glance, Joss merely shrugged. “Raspberry.”

  Henry looked at the trash can with an air of disgust. “Gross.”

  Joss pushed the door open, inciting that jingle once again, and held it for his cousin. Once they were outside, Joss eyed the edge of the tree line, hoping to find something that would definitively tell him whether this was a vampire killing or really just wild animals. He hoped for the latter. “Hey, Henry, I’ve gotta check out the woods for a second. If you don’t mind, I mean.”

  Henry shoved the last of his ice-cream cone into his mouth. Between chews, he said, “Whatever you say, killer.”

  The tiny hairs on the back of Joss’s neck bristled. But he said nothing in reply.

  5

  A BLAST FROM THE PAST

  After waiting for Henry to wipe his face clean with a too-thin napkin and then locate a trash can in which to throw it away, Joss crossed the road and entered the woods, hoping he’d be able to determine where the man who owned the ice-cream parlor, Mr. Driscoll, had died. He was very aware of Henry behind him—his feet tromping over fallen twigs and dead leaves, alerting any vampire within a twenty-mile radius of their presence. Joss understood that Henry hadn’t had the benefit of stealth training that the Society had provided him, but he also knew that if a vampire attacked them, he was going to have to save his cousin. After all, Henry was under the mistaken impression that vampires were kind, friendly people who just happened to have fangs and a thirst for blood, but really longed for peace between the species. It likely wouldn’t even occur to Henry that vampires were cruel, vicious monsters with an agenda all their own, fighting to drain every human vein they found dry of blood. Henry’s brain wasn’t wired that way. He’d grown up in a warm, loving household, where people were truly good and life would have a happy ending. Henry grew up not understanding the truth of the world: That it’s not always Grandma under the sheet, that the woodsman won’t come to save you, and that believing in happy endings will only get you eaten by wolves.

  At least, that’s how Joss had come to see the world. He knew the truth of things. He understood that sometimes horrible things happen to wonderful families—things that shatter those families into a thousand pieces forever. And that nothing and no one can ever bring those pieces back together ever again. He knew that there really were monsters that lurked in dark places. Monsters with friendly faces. He knew pain, and loss, and absolute fury.

  All Henry knew was joy.

  Joss hated him for that. And he hated himself for doing so. Just a little bit.

  “What are we doing out here?” Henry sighed impatiently behind him.

  Joss scanned the area with his keen eyes but saw nothing out of place. It was as if no attack had happened in this location, and he was beginning to wonder if maybe the report of the attack had been a cover-up. “What’s the matter, Henry, you don’t like hiking?”

  Henry stepped up beside him, shrugging. “I’m more of an indoor person most of the time.”

  Joss glanced at him with a furrowed brow. “What about sports? You and Greg play sports all the time. Aren’t those outdoors?”

  “Yeah, but we don’t run around in the woods for no purpose.” Joss was just about to tell Henry that he could see more purpose in hiking through nature than he could in chasing a ball around some field, when Henry asked, “Are you looking for something?”

  The woods all around them were quiet and serene. Every once in a while, a critter would dash from one bit of underbrush to the next, but other than that and a few chirpings from the birds in the branches above, the forest was silent. There was no sign of a struggle or footprints or anything that suggested a coyote attack. Joss shrugged. “Kinda. The man who owned the ice-cream shop died out here.”

  “And you’re looking for his body? Gross.” Henry’s face turned a bit green, but it didn’t last.

  Joss moved forward and his cousin came with him. As they crested a small hill, Joss said, “No, this guy died a few weeks ago. I’m just curious if it’s true what they say about him having been killed by coyotes.”

  Henry stopped Joss in his tracks with a hand to the chest. “Wait. So you found out that some old dude was ripped to shreds by some coyotes right here and you came out here willingly?”

  “Yeah. Basically.”

  Henry’s eyes bugged out of his head. “What if there are still coyotes out here? And what if they’re still hungry?”

  All Joss could do was shrug. Pretty much because he hadn’t really thought that there might still be coyotes out here to deal with. He didn’t believe that coyotes had killed the man in the first place. Slayers weren’t sent to deal with wild animals. Slayers were sent to eradicate vampires.

  “You’re either incredibly stupid or incredibly cool.” Henry stepped back, shaking his head. The corner of Joss’s mouth lifted in a small smile—one that didn’t last. Henry put an end to it as quickly as he was able to. “I’m leaning toward option number one.”

  It bugged Joss that Henry couldn’t just enjoy a moment with him, that he had to keep Joss at bay, all because of an incident that had very little to do with him. What had happened between Joss and Vlad was between them. Not Joss’s cousin. Not Vlad’s drudge. Was it so wrong that he wanted to experience just one moment where they were simply cousins, and not two people on divided sides of an argument? Joss shook his head and went back to surveying the area around them. “Just let me know if you see anything.”

  “Like blood and guts? Or like vicious wild animals running at me? Because either way, I’m letting you know. Probably with a girlish squeal.” Henry looked around at the woods, but Joss didn’t see much real worry in his eyes. It was mostly boredom, and irritation at having been dragged into nature unexpectedly.

  “I’ll have you know that there are some pretty interesting species of insects that feed on corpses.”

  “You and bugs, man. It’s weird.” Henry shook his head. Obviously, Joss’s love of entomology completely escaped him. Joss would never understand it. Insects made the world go round. They were the planet. They were life. Without them, humans would be nowhere.

  Something bold and bright and not at all natural to the forest setting caught Joss’s attention. It looked like a bit of cloth or a flag or something. Whatever it was, it was bright yellow and flapping around in the breeze. It looked, from this distance, as if it had caught on some weeds or a branch. Joss moved toward it, happy to have something other than tree trunks and dead leaves to look at. “You see anything out of the ordinary, just let me know.”

  “So what horrible Slayer task are we here to accomplish, anyway?”

  Henry’s words stopped Joss dead in his tracks. He turned back to face his cousin. All playfulness was gone from each of their expressions now. Now they were all business. Joss frowned, ready to defend his duty. “I never said we were here on any Slayer business. And if I said that it was?”

  Henry set his jaw, the anger and defensiveness already rising up inside of him in an acutely visible way. “I’d kick your—”

  “Henry.” Joss held up a hand, softening his tone. “I’m just trying to help the kid in that shop by tracking down who or whatever killed his dad. Okay?”

  “Yeah, right. I’m not killing anyone. And just so we’re clear, when I go back home, I don’t plan on speaking to you ever again.” Henry walked past him then, even though he hadn’t seen the yellow thing, and had no real direction to go in. As he passed Joss, their shoulders hit. He glared at Joss, as if Joss had done it on purpose. In response, Joss simply held up his hands in mock surrender. Henry kept walking.

  As Joss approached the bright piece of yellow, he recognized it as a piece of police tape. Crouching, he saw that it
hadn’t just blown here freely—it was actually tied to a small shrub. The rest of the tape had been ripped away, but Joss was certain that he and his cousin were now standing at the crime scene. Signs of that were all around him. Leaves had been moved away, revealing the forest floor. Small, low hanging branches had been broken free from the surrounding trees. The footsteps of the investigators, and perhaps the victim himself, littered the ground. But the curious thing was that there were no paw prints in the dirt, nothing at all to suggest that a coyote or a group of coyotes had attacked the man at all. If rain had washed away the coyotes’ prints, it would have washed away that of the people, too, and it hadn’t. So Joss’s curiosity level ticked up a notch. Maybe the Society’s instincts were right. Maybe a vampire had killed the owner of the ice-cream parlor.

  “Why didn’t you apologize?” When Joss looked over at his cousin, Henry was standing just a few feet from him, eyes locked on Joss in a way that suggested he wasn’t going anywhere until he had the answers he sought. “You could have at least apologized to Vlad after stabbing him with that thing. But he said that even when you came to see him at the hospital, you didn’t apologize to him. Why?”

  Joss stood his ground, calmly, but firmly. “Because I did nothing wrong.”

  Disgust visibly washed over Henry. “You put a stake through his internal organs, Joss. You nearly killed him. That, at least, deserves an apology.”

  “Do soldiers apologize when they take down a terrorist? No. Because they did nothing wrong. They’re just following orders by taking out a threat to innocent people. Which is what I was doing.” Joss was trying everything that he could to keep his voice calm and even, but it was a challenge. Henry was acting like he was some terrible villain, like he was the Joker, when clearly, he was Batman.

  Henry stepped closer and dropped his voice to a near-whisper, holding Joss’s gaze as he spoke. “Have you ever stopped to think about who’s giving you those orders? What if you’re mindlessly obeying the instructions of the bad guys?”

  Joss shook his head, clenching his jaw. “The Slayer Society is noble and right and good, Henry. You have no idea what you’re talking about. They’re good people.”

  “Vlad’s a good person.” Henry tilted his head. He’d never listen to Joss. He’d never listen to reason. And it was seriously ticking Joss off.

  Without thinking, Joss gave Henry a light shove and then pointed a finger at him angrily. “You only think that because he’s got you under his spell. Your mind is lost in a vampire-induced haze. You’re his human slave, Henry!”

  At that, Henry balled his fist and as he brought it up, Joss dodged out of the way. But it wouldn’t have mattered if Joss had stayed right where he was, because something moved out of the surrounding forest and whipped past Joss’s face, carrying Henry with it. In a blink, Joss saw his cousin slam against the trunk of a white birch tree. His eyes rolled over white, and Henry slid down the trunk of the tree in an unconscious heap.

  Joss immediately reached for the leather holster that was hidden on his hip, beneath his shirt. But before he could grip his stake, the creature rushed by again, knocking the wooden weapon away before he could grab it. Joss scrambled, spinning around, trying to locate his missing stake and get a look at whatever it was that had attacked his cousin and then disarmed him. But he couldn’t see the creature anywhere.

  Which told him that this wasn’t just some lightning-quick animal. This was a vampire.

  Joss braced himself for anything and reached up, snapping loose a section of low-hanging branch. The wood was dead, but solid enough to work. He listened to the sounds of the forest for anything that stood out as unusual. Breathing, footsteps, anything. But there was nothing.

  From nowhere, Joss was slammed against the tree, his head bouncing off of its trunk. The sharp section of branch was ripped from his hand. And when he looked at what it was that had pinned him, his heart sank. His throat closed with heartbreak and sorrow. His entire being filled with confusion. The fight had left him—something that filled him with shame as well. Because a Slayer should fight. A Slayer would fight. Especially in this situation.

  The eyes were just as kind, just as sympathetic as Joss could remember. The mouth—Joss couldn’t look at it for long, due to the horrible fangs inside—was the same. Everything about him was the same as the last time that they had spoken. The lines in the face no worse, as the man was now frozen in time. A vampire. Forever. And there was nothing that Joss could do to reverse his condition. When Joss spoke at last, his voice came out shaking from utter shock. “Sirus?”

  Sirus nodded slowly. He looked to be sizing up how much danger he was in. Joss shook his head, not knowing if what he was seeing was real, or some twisted image his sleep-starved brain had conjured. “Sirus? I thought you died. That explosion. I thought I—”

  “You didn’t kill me, Joss, but you did do a lot of damage.” Sirus relaxed his grip on Joss, and gave a small, grateful smile. Joss could only assume that Sirus was grateful that Joss had engaged him with words rather than combat. When Sirus smiled, it broke Joss’s heart a little bit more. Sirus said, “It’s good to see you, too.”

  Joss had so many questions, he didn’t know where to begin. Sirus had survived the explosion in the cabin? How? And what was he doing here now? Where was Kat? Did she know her father was still alive? What was he here to do exactly? The questions jumbled around in his mind, until they were all just a big blur. He stammered. “H-h-h-how?”

  “Joss, I’m sorry about your cousin, and about your head, but I don’t have much time and I had to get him out of the way and you unarmed. I’m here to warn you. There’s . . . something in the woods. It’s coming for you. And it’s far worse than Em.” Sirus looked sharply to his left then, deeper into the woods. The look in his eyes was one of sheer panic.

  Joss glanced around, but saw nothing. “How do you know that? And how do you know that Em’s after me?”

  Henry moaned softly from where he lay at the base of the tree. Slowly, he was stirring into wakefulness, but he wasn’t quite there yet.

  “Listen to me.” Sirus pressed him against the tree again, with more force than Joss wagered he’d intended. It was his vampire strength—probably difficult to control. Sirus moved so close that Joss had a brief worry that he might bite. Instead, Sirus gripped Joss’s collar with one hand and pressed his stake into his palm with the other. His words were those of absolute sincerity. “Trust your dreams. They’re more real than you realize.”

  “How did you know where to find me?” Silently, Joss swore not to report this part to the Society. Not yet. He needed some time to wrap his head around the strangeness of it all, and to make certain that he hadn’t lost his mind entirely.

  Sirus smiled again, and oh, how Joss hated that his heart lit up to see it. Sirus. Still alive. It was a miracle. “We share a friend who told me where to find you. By the way, Dorian sends his greetings. He says he looks forward to seeing you again.”

  Then, in a light breeze, Sirus was gone. The stake felt heavy in Joss’s hand. He spun around, searching the trees for any sign of his long-lost friend. “When will I see you again? I have things to ask you! Sirus? Sirus? Sirus!”

  But Sirus was gone.

  6

  THE FRAGILE LIAR

  Joss brought the ax down hard, splitting another log, this time with ease. As he did so, he was reminded of his initial Slayer training, and how horrible that summer in the Catskills had been for him. It was for the good of the cause, he supposed, but it was difficult to see while he was in the moment, and if he was honest, even more difficult to see as time passed by. But he wasn’t really thinking about the Slayer Society at all as he chopped firewood for his dad, who thought that they should probably get things ready for the coming fall and winter, even though summer had only just barely started. Instead, he was thinking about Sirus, and about what he probably should have done when he saw Sirus, but didn’t. And wh
y he didn’t.

  He should have killed Sirus. He knew that. But he hadn’t acted on it.

  The truth was, when he saw Sirus’s face and had realized that his mentor, his friend, his father figure was still alive, he was relieved. More relieved, maybe, than when he’d seen Vlad, lying in the hospital, and had learned that he’d survived as well. Because Vlad had been his friend, but Sirus had been his . . . well . . . like a dad to him. Guiltily, he glanced at the house in the growing darkness. He probably shouldn’t think that way, or feel that way, or be that way, but there it was. Sirus had been a kinder, more attentive father than his own dad had been capable of in recent years. And despite those damned fangs in his mouth, Joss had been utterly overjoyed at seeing him once again.

  Joss stuck the blade into a nearby log and stood back, wiping his neck with a handkerchief and feeling like the worst son in existence. He hated that he liked Sirus better than his own dad. But how do you change the way that you feel? Isn’t something like that ingrained on your heart, if not your DNA? After shoving the handkerchief half into his back jeans pocket once again, Joss retrieved the ax and set up another log. As he lifted the tool, his thoughts drifted to Henry.

  Once Sirus had disappeared into the woods, Joss shook Henry into consciousness and helped him to stand. The entire walk home, Henry was in a daze and holding his head. Joss wasn’t sure what to say to his cousin about what exactly had slammed him against that tree, so he said nothing about it at all. Once they returned home, Henry went in the guest room and Joss was given chores all day. They hadn’t spoken since. Joss was kind of relieved about that.

  After all, how do you explain to your vampire-adoring cousin that a vampire just knocked the snot out of him without provocation? You don’t. You just chop some wood and hope the whole thing blows over in time for dinner.