Slayer Read online

  But I doubt it. Of all the trauma in my life—and I’ve had plenty—hearing my lovesick poetry read aloud to my crush remains among the worst. Gods, the least Honora Wyndam-Pryce could have done was also kill me on the spot. But she has zero capacity for mercy.

  No one knows if Leo Silvera and his mother are still alive, as they haven’t been heard from in years. In Watcher society, that means they’re more than likely dead. The Giles line is gone now, along with most of the Zabuto, Crowley, Travers, Sirk, and Post. Causes of death, respectively: neck broken by former ally, demon, demon, exploded, exploded, and arm-cut-off-while-being-struck-by-lightning. That last one was Imogen’s mom. Poor Imogen. I’m glad she’s here to give me perspective. My mom actually could be worse.

  Regardless, there are so few of us left. I hope that, somewhere out there, the Silveras are still alive.

  Just as fervently as I hope I never have to see them again.

  I don’t know why all this terror has made me think of Leo. Wait. No. It makes perfect sense that heightened, terrible emotions trigger my memories of him.

  “A demon,” I repeat, trying to refocus. “There are a lot of different types. Some of them are transplants from hell dimensions. Some of them are part demon, part human. True demons don’t usually exist on this plane, but sometimes they can infect people. Like vampires.”

  “Vampires?” Cillian squeaks as he turns to Rhys. “Those are real. Vampires are real. I thought—I knew about magic, obviously, but I thought you were just some divvy cult. You never mentioned vampires. That seems like pretty critical information you could have given me sometime in the year we’ve been dating. ‘Hey, Cillian, you’ve got nice lips and also did you know there are demons and vampires in the world?’ ”

  Rhys barricades the bookshelf door with a table. He looks mildly abashed. “I didn’t want to talk business with you. I like that you aren’t part of this. And I kind of assumed you knew, what with your mother being a witch and all.”

  “That was crystals and chanting and shite! Some light levitation! None of this. Exactly how many demons are there in the world?”

  “Too many to count? Thousands. Maybe tens of thousands. And it depends on how you classify them.”

  Cillian leans back so abruptly in his chair he tips over, landing roughly on the ground. “Tens of thousands? Why isn’t the government doing anything about it?”

  “Which government?”

  “Ours! Nina’s! Anyone’s! Surely someone is taking initiative.”

  “Sometimes they do. But demons are good at being secret.” I move to tug on my hair but freeze. I grabbed a hellhound’s jaws with these hands, snapped its life away. Shuddering, I tuck them into my pockets and let Rhys fill in the rest. Demons have been around forever. Portals, hellmouths, and magic allow them to hop in for visits from their dimensions. Hard to track. Hard to fight.

  “That’s where we come in,” Rhys says. “Our group has been working since the darkest of dark ages to help protect humanity. We know all the prophecies, the demons, the looming apocalypses. But even from the start, we couldn’t do it alone. We—they—imbued a girl with demonic powers so she’d become the Slayer and hunt demons.”

  Cillian raises an eyebrow. “So these ancient blokes thought, hey, let’s pick just one girl to keep humanity safe? What kind of stook plan was that?”

  “Those are our ancient ancestors you’re criticizing,” Rhys says, mildly hurt.

  But I’ve gotta admit, I’m with Cillian on this one. Except that’s why there were Watchers, too. We didn’t give Slayers that responsibility and then abandon them.

  They abandoned us. Buffy led the charge, as always. She was the first Slayer in our entire history who rejected our guidance. Our knowledge. Our help. Like we were holding her back instead of supporting her.

  My head is spinning. I keep feeling the crack of the neck. “But then Buffy, the most recent Slayer—”

  Rhys interrupts me. “The most recent-ish. All Slayers started out as Potentials. When the current Slayer died, the next one was called. So there was only ever one. Most Potentials never became Slayers. Anyway, Buffy died once—”

  “Twice,” I correct.

  “Irrelevant to the current explanation,” Rhys huffs. “She died, so another Slayer, Kendra, was called, but then Buffy was resuscitated, so there were two Slayers, but then Kendra died, and the Slayer after her was—”

  “Give me the Wikipedia version, for God’s sake,” Cillian says.

  While Rhys tells the story, I climb up on a chair in front of the high window and peer out at the trees. I don’t want to listen to what Rhys is saying. I already know it. Two years ago when Buffy was fighting the First Evil, she was going to lose. So she did what she always does: She broke something. This time it was the binding of the Slayer power. The rules that had been in place, that had worked since the beginning of time, were eliminated.

  Suddenly every girl with the potential to become a Slayer did become a Slayer, or would become a Slayer when she was old enough.

  She let the Watchers die, and then she flooded the earth with almost two thousand new Slayers. And then she got around a thousand of them killed in battle, because of course she did. There’s a reason there was only supposed to be one Slayer and a whole organization of Watchers. And having all those new Slayers didn’t tip the balance in favor of good. It did the opposite. Demons content to slurk through the night, doing their demon-y things? Suddenly felt threatened. The more Buffy pushes, the more the darkness pushes back. And it pushed back so hard, the world almost ended.

  I give up on the window. There’s nothing out there. I don’t know how I know, but I do. And I feel sick with dread at what all these new abilities and senses might mean. For sixty-freaking-two days I’ve been able to ignore them. But I can’t anymore.

  Rhys has caught up to Buffy’s most recent terrible exploits in his explanation. “Do you remember a couple months back when the world almost ended?”

  “The world almost ended?” Cillian asks, aghast.

  “Oh, right.” Rhys rubs his forehead. Maybe this is the real reason we don’t talk about this stuff to anyone who isn’t a Watcher. It’s complicated. “The world almost ended because another dimension was taking over ours.”

  “Sixty-two days ago,” I whisper. And we had to sit here in our castle, watching it unfold, because if we revealed ourselves, odds were we’d die in the crossfire. I hated it. Artemis about went mad. But what bothers me the most is, even without our help, it worked out. Sort of. “In order to prevent the end of the world, Buffy destroyed the Seed of Wonder that fed all magic on earth.”

  Cillian whistles low and soft. “I thought it was just . . . one of those things. Like we lost the magic Wi-Fi signal or something.”

  “Didn’t you notice that day the sky burst open and there were earthquakes and tsunamis and stuff?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “Global warming.”

  Rhys has gotten lost in the spines on the bookshelves. It’s hard for him to focus, looking at all these books he didn’t know we had. So I continue. “Right. Global warming, and also transdimensional global threat. And all of this—the broken magic, the new Slayers, the almost end of the world—it’s all because of Buffy.”

  Cillian snorts. “Sorry, I just. I can’t get over her name. Buffy.”

  I fold my arms, glaring. “What, she has a girly name, so she can’t destroy the world?”

  Cillian holds up his hands defensively. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “She was a cheerleader before she became a Slayer,” Rhys says.

  Cillian bursts out laughing.

  I don’t want to defend Buffy—ever—but I’m annoyed anyway. “Have you seen a cheerleading competition? Each and every one of those girls could take you, even without mystical Slayer powers.”

  “Is that how you killed the demon thingy out there, then? You’ve trained as a cheerleader?”

  I feel the crack all over again. “That’s not the point. I don’t even
like Buffy. All she ever does is react. She never thinks through the consequences, and my family keeps paying the price.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “And the whole world too. Because this last time, she also broke it. No more magic. No more connections to other worlds. And no more new Slayers. Ever. She blew the door wide open, and then she slammed it shut.”

  “She needs to make up her mind,” Cillian says. “Make more Slayers! End the Slayers. Break the world! Save the world.”

  Rhys takes over my chair at the high window, looking out. “To be fair, a lot of people have tried to destroy the world over the years. It’s a whole thing.”

  “Huh. Who knew?”

  “We did,” Rhys says.

  “Fair enough.” Cillian grabs my hand and makes me sit next to him. “So, what’s your story, Nina? This Buffy. It’s personal, innit?”

  I close my eyes, words that have been drilled into my brain since birth swimming into focus. Into every generation a Slayer is born: one girl in all the world, a Chosen One. She alone will wield the strength and skill to fight the vampires, demons, and forces of darkness; to stop the spread of their evil and the swell of their number. She is the Slayer.

  There’s a painful lump in my throat when I speak. “Every Slayer used to get a Watcher. And Buffy got the best.” I open my eyes and smile. “My dad was her first Watcher.”

  When Merrick Jamison-Smythe found her, she had no idea who she was or what was coming for her. My dad had worked his whole life training Slayers, teaching them, helping them. And he watched those he trained before her die. So when faced with a choice between allowing himself to be used against Buffy or dying, he chose the Chosen One.

  He saved her. And we lost him. Rupert Giles took over, becoming the Watcher everyone remembers. Their relationship—his indulgent refusal to follow rules or establish needed structure, his rejection of his own heritage—was the beginning of the end of everything. And still when anyone thinks of Buffy’s Watcher, they think of Giles. Not my father.

  “So who is your Slayer now?” Cillian asks, deftly changing the subject. But he puts his hand on my shoulder, a light, reassuring pressure. He understands dead dads.

  “We don’t have one.” Rhys climbs down from the chair at the window.

  “Shouldn’t you have, like, a bunch, since there are so many?”

  “After most of us got—” Rhys pauses. Blown up, I think. He chooses the more tactful “With so few of us left, we’ve been trying to determine our best course of action.”

  We don’t know how Slayers would react to being contacted by us. How Buffy would react if she found out there was still an active group of Watchers. I honestly don’t know if we’ll ever fix the rift Buffy created between Slayers and Watchers. But in the meantime. . . . “Trying to determine our best course of action” feels like Watcherspeak for hiding. Doing nothing. I get that it was in our best interests to lie low and pretend the Watchers Council was gone for good. Disbanding for real was never a question. We are still Watchers—protectors—no matter what. But now that the world is filled with Slayers (Buffy’s fault), magic is dead (Buffy’s fault), and all the interdimensional portals are dead (Buffy’s fault), things have changed yet again. That’s what my mom is out there doing. Making sure we understand how everything has changed, what the new threats are.

  I’m not sure what the Council’s long-term plan is after my mom’s scouting work is finished. Still, if we don’t check that every hellmouth and portal is actually closed, who will?

  That’s why it’s so important that the Watchers remain. In a world remade again and again, where the rules keep changing, where a Chosen One becomes Chosen Many, where magic disappears, where the old ways are broken, we are the one constant.

  We still keep watch.

  It’s not enough, though. The Council hasn’t been able to decide what to do. Because there are so few of us now and so many of them. How do we pick one Slayer with so many options? And how do we risk our own lives, knowing what Slayers inevitably bring? Their gift is death.

  And that’s my struggle, the truth of my life among the Watchers, growing up and aiding a society that exists because of Slayers: I hate them. What they are, what they do.

  And I hate none of them as much as I hate Buffy.

  3

  “ALL CLEAR,” JADE SHOUTS FROM the other side of the bookshelves. “And they’ve called a meeting.” When we open the hidden door, she’s waiting there, cringing in pain. Her ice pack is gone, her ankle poorly wrapped.

  I kneel to fix it. The meeting will be Rhys, Bradford Smythe, Ruth Zabuto, and Wanda Wyndam-Pryce. Artemis will be there to take notes. And my mom would be there, if she were here, which I’m glad she’s not. As castle medic, I don’t merit a spot. Usually this bugs me—one more way in which healing isn’t valued. Today I’m relieved.

  “I’ll walk Cillian back to his scooter when I’m done with your ankle,” I say nonchalantly, hoping that with all the chaos, no one will ask me questions. Hoping they’ll be so focused on the hellhound they’ll conveniently overlook the fact that I was the one who killed it. They’ve ignored me for years. Surely they can keep doing it.

  “Cillian can wait.” Jade pops her gum, brushing her choppy brown hair from her eyes. “You gotta go. They’re holding the meeting about you.”

  Fear twists me in its grip. I can’t go to that meeting. I’ve known something was wrong with me for two months. Now everyone else knows it too. And Watchers don’t exactly have a good track record of being gentle with demons or those corrupted by them.

  “That’s okay,” I blurt, fastening the sprain wrap and then hurrying past her. “I don’t need to go.”

  We may have gotten the all clear, but I feel pursued. I hurry toward my bedroom. Those of us who are not on the Council share the dormitory wing of the castle. Once, these rooms were packed with young Watchers-in-training, competing and studying and vying to be given the ultimate calling: a seat on the Council.

  Most of the Council had some experience working with Slayers, though their knowledge tended to be more academic than practical. With one Slayer and a full Council, most Watchers never worked directly with the Chosen One. Watchers who were actually assigned Slayers had . . . reputations. For being too close to the darkness. For lacking the level of professional detachment and farsightedness required to make difficult decisions. That’s why my father and mother were such a good team. He was on the ground; she was up next for the Council.

  Still, there were so many Council hopefuls who tested high enough that people like me—people who would never be an active Watcher or qualify for the Council—wouldn’t have been allowed in the dorms. Legacy Watcher family members like Jade, Imogen, and me would have been shuffled to soulless office buildings to do accounting, far-flung outposts to study magic, or, if we were lucky, assigned as support staff for the Council or special ops. We were never destined for this castle. Then Buffy took destiny and pummeled it to bloody, broken pieces. And here we are.

  Dorm rooms for younger trainees were once lined with bunk beds. We cleared all those out two years ago, quietly and without ceremony. Now the Littles are bunked together with Imogen in a suite. The rest of us have our own rooms, except for Artemis and me. Not because there isn’t space—if there’s anything in the Watcher ranks now, it’s space—but because Artemis didn’t want to be far from me, even while sleeping.

  I hate sleeping.

  Every night in my dreams, I’d be left behind in the flames. And it was Artemis who woke me up from the nightmares. Though lately I’ve been having a hard time falling asleep. As soon as the world darkens, my body begins buzzing with adrenaline and nerves. And when I do sleep, my dreams are not so often about being left behind. Usually they’re not about me at all.

  I’ve been hiding in our room for only a few minutes before Artemis finds me. She slips in and hugs me so fiercely I can feel her trembling. It stuns me. We haven’t hugged in years. She shows her love for me in the most Artemis ways possible. Monitoring my
diet to be certain I’m getting the correct nutrition. Making sure my inhalers are always filled. Sleeping close in case I need help.

  Physically affectionate Artemis makes alarm bells go off. If she’s hugging me, I’m right. Something is seriously wrong.

  “I had no idea what actually happened,” she says, pulling back and inspecting me, searching my face to confirm I’m okay. “When I saw the dead hellhound outside, I assumed Rhys killed it. God, Nina. I should have been there.”

  “You couldn’t have known. None of us could have.”

  “How did you kill it?”

  I swallow the rising panic. There’s so much I’ve kept locked away inside, unwilling to confront it myself. So much I couldn’t say aloud, because that would make it real. The dam finally opens. “It was like—like I wasn’t me anymore,” I admit. “Artemis, I’m scared.” My eyes fill with tears.

  “The closet?” Artemis’s tone is gentler than I’ve heard in a long time.

  Suddenly she’s not Castle Artemis. She’s my Artemis—my twin sister, who I can trust with anything. We climb into the closet and sit shoulder to shoulder. We used to do this in our old house, hide in our closet when we were little and did something naughty. Later, it was where she’d take me when the nightmares were too bad and I was too scared to sleep. It’s our place for telling secrets.

  And I’ve never had a bigger one.

  I scoot so that my back is against the wall, smashing the hanging clothes. Mine are all bright, rainbow colors, pieces that make me happy when I need it. Artemis’s are all black, utilitarian. If she ever needs cheering, she doesn’t have time to look for it in what she wears.

  She mimics my posture. “Tell me.”

  I take a deep breath. “I didn’t know what I was doing when the hellhound attacked. It was like instinct. My body took over completely and I killed that thing without even thinking.”

  She doesn’t respond.

  The thing I’m most scared of, the thing I’ve been ignoring, comes to the surface like a demon crawling from the blackest depths. I should have told her the day I first felt it. But what if Artemis can’t fix this? Artemis fixes everything, but this might be too much for even her. What will that do to her, if she can’t help? What will it do to me?