Slayer Read online

  Imogen pokes her head out of her suite. I go in there only to do well-child checkups. Measure their growth, listen to their heartbeats, deliver lollipops. Whenever I do, I’m reminded with a pang of kindly Nurse Abrams. She taught me back at the old headquarters. She used to wear an apron with the front pockets filled with lollipops, even though she mostly worked on adults. “Even Watchers need sweetness,” she told me once. “Especially them, I think.”

  We lost so much more than our headquarters to the First. We lost our heart, too.

  “What’s going on?” Imogen always looks exhausted, but there’s a new and frantic layer of fear on top of it. “Has there been another attack? Your mother walked by. She’s never in the dorms.”

  “No new attacks,” I say. “Our mom was just . . . saying hi after her trip.”

  Imogen doesn’t believe me, and I don’t blame her. But she has enough grace to pretend like my mother stopping by for a friendly maternal visit is something that might have happened. Imogen glances over her shoulder at the door cracked open, the Littles gathered around a table and playing with clay. “They don’t know we’re on lockdown.” She pauses, then juts out her chin as though daring us to challenge her. “We’re not telling them. They’ve had enough things to be scared of in their lives. If it gets dangerous, I’m loading them in a car and I’m not looking back.”

  I wonder why we didn’t do that in the first place. But if we lose the Littles, we lose the next generation of Watchers. The last one, quite possibly. And they would never know their heritage or what their parents died for.

  “Rhys’s on patrol with Jade.” Artemis pats a sleek walkie-talkie hooked onto her belt. I hadn’t noticed it before, and I’m instantly jealous. Of course they’ve never given one to me. All I have is the castle cell phone with its terrible reception. Half the time it doesn’t even send texts. But I’ve never mattered like Artemis. Do I matter now? Do I want to, if it means being a—?

  I shudder. It’s hard to even think the word.

  Imogen nods curtly. “Let me know if there are any updates on the hellhound.” We all know the Council won’t bother to tell her. I might be walkie-talkie-less, but the Council never loops in Imogen, either. She’s the only person more sidelined than I am. Selfishly, I’ve always been grateful that she’s lower on the rungs, even if it is completely unfair. Otherwise I might have gotten stuck with nanny duty, and while I like the Littles, I definitely do not like them that much.

  Artemis leads to me to a section of the castle that’s closed down. Various relics of bygone eras—a grimy toolbox, a moldering wall hanging, a mushroom-print shirt crumpled in a corner, and a stuffed rabbit with cotton spilling out like guts—litter the floor. Artemis moves past it all to a splintering door and tugs it open. The interior is pitch-black. I can already feel the spiderwebs clinging to my skin, and I haven’t even walked in yet. I just know it’s a spider closet.

  “Come on,” she calls. I step in, holding out my hands, but I don’t bump into Artemis. A tiny point of light waves and I see a hand sticking out of a person-size hole at the bottom of the wall. I would never have thought to look down there.

  The penlight jerks impatiently. “Come on,” Artemis repeats. I get onto my knees and crawl through. There are no spiderwebs. So either there are no spiders, or this particular secret crawl space is frequently used. I suspect the latter. Which means Artemis has never told me about it.

  I’m hurt. We might not be finish-each-other’s-sentences twins, but we don’t keep secrets about our different lives here at the castle.

  Except, of course, I did keep something from her. Something so much bigger than a secret passageway. I can’t help asking anyway, “Why didn’t you tell me about this?”

  She shrugs. “I was worried it would trigger your asthma.”

  I’ve had mild asthma since the fire. But she could have at least told me. It’s yet another reminder that this castle holds more than I’ll ever have access to. I scramble through, finally able to stand. The space is narrow and frigid, and other than Artemis’s tiny penlight, it’s completely dark.

  “This way,” she whispers. I follow her as the passage twists and turns. Sometimes the black gapes to either side, hinting at other passages.

  “How many rooms does this go to?” I whisper.

  “A lot.”

  “What have you used it for?”

  “Spying.”

  “Really?”

  “I’m not invited to every meeting, but everything they decide impacts me. So I invite myself. Also, sometimes I don’t want to be found by Wanda Wyndam-Pryce and her endless list of things she can’t be bothered to do by herself. So I hide in here.”

  I imagine Artemis sitting alone in this black space just so she can have a moment to herself, and my resentment snuffs out as Artemis turns off the penlight. That’s why she never shared it. It wasn’t a happy secret. It was a tired, cold, dark secret, and she’s always tried to shield me from things like that. Being on the inside isn’t always a privilege.

  “Not far now,” she says. I place my hand on her back and follow as she confidently navigates a turn. Another void opens up beside us, and suddenly a figure lunges toward me.

  I grab their arm, spinning the person and slamming them into the wall.

  Rhys gasps. “It’s me!”

  I have him pinned, my forearm against his throat. I release him, embarrassment burning my cheeks. What is wrong with me that my first reaction to everything today is attack-injure-kill?

  Slayer, my mind hisses.

  “Thanks a lot, Artemis,” Rhys whispers.

  “Yeah, that was Nina.” Artemis sounds annoyed.

  “Sorry?” I reach out blindly and pat Rhys’s shoulder. “I honestly didn’t mean to.” I’ve never hit a person before, never attacked anything, and—

  A memory forms. A cemetery. A stake.

  But I can never recall the details of that memory. It’s so far from who I became. Maybe I remember it wrong. Surely Artemis was the one with the stake, not me. I should ask her. It feels important all of a sudden. But we don’t talk much about our childhood, what with the giant fire right smack in the middle. Neither of us wants to reminisce about that.

  Artemis pulls me next to her. Rhys takes a spot on my other side. Their faces are pressed against the wall. Several tiny holes have been drilled into the stone, pinpricks of light. They’re so small you wouldn’t notice them unless you put your eye right up against them. Which is what I do.

  It’s the Council’s room. Our view is behind the Council members, their backs to us. But I don’t give them a second glance once I see what—or rather, who—the meeting is about.

  I desperately wish all the hellmouths hadn’t closed, because I’d like nothing more than for one to swallow me up. Any hell dimension would be preferable to this new reality.

  Because standing in front of the table is Eve Silvera.

  And her son, Leo.

  • • •

  The first time I met Leo Silvera, I almost died.

  We weren’t supposed to be outside. Artemis and I had just turned twelve. It was our last night together—Artemis, Rhys, Jade, and me. The next day Rhys would move to the dorms to begin his immersive training for the top levels. I was sad and jealous and . . . excited. Because I would have Artemis all to myself. I wouldn’t have to share her with her books and training. She’d still have work to do as they determined where to place her, but it wasn’t the same as being in full Watcher training. It was being on the sidelines. Like me. Like Jade, too, who had failed the test. No one was surprised when that happened, but when Artemis failed . . . none of us knew how to react. Me least of all. Artemis didn’t fail at anything. Somehow only Rhys had been chosen to progress as a Watcher destined for active duty and eventually the Council. It didn’t make sense. Rhys was smart, but Artemis was too. And she beat him in magic and in physical combat skills across the board.

  How had she failed?

  “Hurry up, slowpokes,” Jade said. She walk
ed fast, and I didn’t bother trying to catch up. We were all heading for the same ice cream, anyway.

  Rhys stayed back with us, silent and distracted. Ever since the test, he wouldn’t quite meet our eyes. I assumed he felt bad that he had made it and Artemis hadn’t.

  Artemis had been even more affected by the test. When she had come back, she’d looked . . . haunted. “I don’t want to be a Watcher,” she had said. But being a Watcher was what she had always wanted. I couldn’t wrap my head around her not being on the Council someday in the distant future. In my mind, she already was.

  When I tried to talk to her about the test, she refused. For the last four years she had been there for me, but I didn’t know how to offer her the same support, so I pretended like nothing was different. She let me. It was easiest for both of us.

  I hated myself for it, but a part of me was glad. My mother never let me train, so I never had a shot at being a full Watcher. I had always been jealous that, once again, Artemis had been chosen. And now she wasn’t. I didn’t talk to her about it because I didn’t know how to make it better and because I didn’t want it to be better. We’d be sidelined together. Working Watcher support together. I wouldn’t lose her to the field like our father, or, worse, to the Council like our mother.

  The air outside smelled like freedom. The dorms smelled like burning dust from the ancient heating system. It made my nose and lungs tickle and gave me bad dreams. Anything that smelled like smoke did. Next to the dorms was the building where the Council members were housed. It had been converted from a cathedral, and it was beautiful—the spires pointing to the sky like a warning to creatures of the night.

  The other benefit of its conversion was that it was positively unwelcoming to vampires. Unlike the dark, wild grounds we slinked across to get to the nearest street.

  None of us should have been surprised when a vampire stepped out from behind a tree. Of course there was a vampire. Of course it had been watching the Watchers’ compound, waiting for someone to be alone or vulnerable. We weren’t alone, but we were definitely vulnerable.

  Or I was, at least.

  “Down!” Artemis shoved me to the ground as the vampire lunged. She twirled to the side, drawing it away. I knew I should run for help, but I couldn’t move. Fear and panic paralyzed me. A vampire had killed my father. One had attacked us after we buried him. Had we survived just to be killed by one today?

  “Jade!” Rhys shouted. I heard the sound of a fist connecting with flesh, and then somebody landed heavily next to me. Rhys. He was unconscious.

  “No!” Artemis jumped on the vampire’s back. He spun in circles, trying to get her off.

  And he was laughing. He was having fun.

  After making sure Rhys was still breathing, I reached into the interior pocket of my jacket. My trembling fingers almost dropped the vial of holy water, but I managed to uncap it.

  The vampire got ahold of Artemis and tore her off his back. “You wanted to protect her?” He dragged her toward me with his hand around her neck. “The weak one? She would have slowed me down. You could have saved yourself. Now you’ll have to watch her die, and then die yourself.”

  Artemis answered, but her tortured voice addressed me—not the vampire. “I’ll never leave you behind again.”

  The vampire loomed. Artemis’s eyes were filled with tears, and fear. But they were not a mirror to mine. Because they also contained a fury more frightening to me than the monster that held her. The vampire smiled. He held Artemis over me, so close I could hear every strained breath.

  I threw the holy water. The vampire barely flinched. “I want you to be close enough to hear the life leaving her body,” he said to Artemis. She closed her eyes. She refused to watch me die. I didn’t want her to, but I felt so much more alone, not having her to witness it.

  The briefest flash of surprise crossed the vampire’s face, and then he disappeared in a shower of dust. I lay on the ground, coughing and gagging on his remains. Artemis crawled to my side, but I could only see our savior.

  He was older than us but still young. A teenager. He had dark hair that curled almost to his shoulders, dark eyebrows, full lips. He was beautiful. And he had saved me. He reached for my hand, his long fingers soft and cool against my own. We weren’t going to die. And it was all because of this boy.

  “I’m Leo Silvera,” he said, like we were meeting in the cafeteria. “I’m going to help train Rhys.”

  “I’m Athena,” I gasped, my asthma mildly triggered. I didn’t know why I introduced myself that way. No one here used my real name. But I wanted to sound older, more confident than I felt. Which was difficult, since I was struggling for air.

  “Everyone calls her Nina,” Artemis said from where she was checking Rhys’s head. I should have done that, but I was too focused on my own breathing. Jade ran up. She had come back either too late or just in time.

  Leo ignored Artemis, focusing only on me. “Just breathe. In and out, in and out. You’re going to be okay.”

  “Promise?” I whispered.

  “I promise, Athena.” His smile was softer and darker than the night around us. It was a smile I wanted to curl into; I wanted to live forever in the way it made me feel. “Now, where were we going?”

  “For ice cream.”

  “Fantastic. I love ice cream.” With Leo leading us, the night held no terror. He bought me a double scoop of mint chocolate chip, and by the end of the hour, he had us all laughing about an encounter with a chaos demon who had taken over a dry cleaner’s just to try and keep its clothes clean from its own secretions. We had forgotten how close we had all come to dying.

  When my mom found out, I was grounded and restricted to the dorms for the next six months, but I didn’t mind. Any time a vampire reared up in my nightmares, Leo appeared behind it to save me.

  With a start like that, was it any wonder that I developed an agonizing crush on him?

  And was it any wonder that it ended in disaster?

  5

  “OF COURSE WE LOOKED FOR you,” Eve Silvera is saying. “But the castle was missing from where it had stood for centuries. We assumed it had been destroyed along with everything else. Imagine our shock when Helen found us in Costa Rica! We thought we were the only ones left.”

  It feels weird to hear my mom casually called Helen. Like she’s a real person.

  I had forgotten what Eve Silvera looked like. We didn’t interact much. I only took notice of her because she was the mother of my crush. She’s tall, and there’s something powerful in the way she holds herself. Her body offers no apologies for its presence in the world. She wears a red blazer over crisp black pants, and her heels manage to be elegantly aggressive. Combined with her red lips and her black hair, she is everything I aspire to be (and probably never will). Her voice has a quality that makes it sound as though she might break into laughter at any moment. It softens her, makes her human.

  I didn’t remember any of that. In my memories, she was just . . . tall.

  Leo, unfortunately, is exactly as I remember him. His hair falls in waves to his shoulders. Black eyebrows frame his large, dark eyes. I spent countless hours in contemplation of those eyes. Imagining them turning to me. Widening as he realized that we were meant to be together.

  I didn’t think about his lips once. Because I literally never stopped thinking about them. They were the subject of one of the poems Honora read aloud.

  Your lips are a promise

  I’d love to keep

  They haunt me when waking

  And tease when asleep

  His poetic lips part as he answers a question about Costa Rica. I’m annoyed with them for taking up time. Shouldn’t the Council be talking about the hellhound? And me? Even when I do something that should have been impossible, actual trained Watchers take precedence. Typical.

  Leo has changed, though. It’s been years, after all. He’s taller. He was always lean, but what had been youthful skinniness has filled out into muscles, much like his face h
as settled into the best version of itself. If anything, he’s handsomer than ever.

  What an absolute butthead.

  His jerk mouth opens and his jerk voice answers another question about his time in South America. “Yes, sir. I continued my training. We had to be flexible, of course, lacking the resources of the Council. My Watcher project was more of a practical examination than a scholarly presentation. I studied the habits of a parasitic demon in Venezuela and determined a magical inoculation that prevented it from feeding on the people there, killing it.”

  “What have you been doing here?” Eve Silvera asks the Council. She seems so nice that I feel bad resenting her. But I want them gone. I can’t imagine they’ll stay here long. Leo will probably do what Honora did—she’s out hunting demons, her ear to the ground so we’ll know if anything big is coming. After all, what’s a Watcher without—

  “Slayers?” Eve asks, finishing my thought for me. “You mean to tell me you haven’t brought in any of the new Slayers? What have you been doing all this time?”

  “There were the children to think about.” Bradford Smythe’s voice is so low it sounds growly even when he’s being cheerful, which he isn’t right now.

  “Yes, but there have always been children. We’re all that’s left of the Watchers. We have a responsibility to do our jobs, and our jobs don’t exist without a Slayer.”

  My mother answers. I don’t remember her having a British accent when we were little, but now her words are clipped, efficient. Vowels are wrangled into perfect order. Even her voice changed when we rejoined the Watchers. “Safety was the first priority. We couldn’t risk revealing our location after the attack. With so many new Slayers, they couldn’t be properly vetted. And then the world changed yet again with the destruction of magic.”

  “But you were looking for Slayers,” Eve says. “That’s where we found you. Outside that poor girl’s village. We were all too late.”

  My mother’s words grow even more deliberate, as though each is chosen for its utter lack of meaning. “I was conducting Slayer-related field observations in conjunction with confirming the closing of all hell-dimension access points.”