“How? How are you doing that? Is the demon bloke filled with helium or something?”
The grossness of what I’m holding comes over me again. “Open the shed—oh gods, the stickiness is seeping through my shirt. It’s my favorite shirt. I’m going to have to burn it. And also my skin. And everything. Just—hurry!”
As soon as Cillian opens the door, I push past him and drop the demon unceremoniously on the floor.
Cillian is possibly more freaked out by me than by the demon. “You carried that—that thing like it’s a bag of . . . things that don’t weigh much. And that’s after you went Terminator on the hellhound. You’ve never been like this. Did something happen when you killed that dog thing?”
“By thing, you mean demon. Just like this discolored horny thing.”
“Could we say ‘horned,’ not ‘horny’? Because I am already creeped out enough.”
Cillian pulls a chain hanging down from a bare bulb, which throws everything into yellow-tinged relief. His mother’s shed is as cluttered as Rhys’s bookshelves, holding what appears to be the detritus of at least a dozen different lives. Dream catchers, Buddhas, crystals and incense, a stack of Bibles along with what looks like a Book of Mormon and a whole pile of L. Ron Hubbard novels, several statues of gods and goddesses of various traditions and religions, and an entire bin of ghost-hunting and medium shows.
“Welcome to the shed of cultural appropriation.” Cillian sweeps his arms around with a bleak expression. “At least now my mum’s with ascetic monks, so she won’t bring back souvenirs. We’re already jammers with junk.”
In the middle of the chaos, the only item that is clean and dust free is a framed photo of Cillian’s dad. I’ve never seen him before. I pick it up to take a closer look.
“Twelve years he’s been gone,” Cillian says. “And she’s still trying to find some way to reconnect with him. With magic off-line, she’s desperate for anything else.”
“I can’t blame her. He’s handsome. He looks a little like Orlando Bloom.”
“Dammit, Nina! Orlando Bloom?” Cillian snatches the photo away from me. “I can’t unsee that! My feelings about my dead dad were already complicated; now I have to worry that I’m oedipal, or whatever the guy-crushing-on-his-own-dad equivalent is. I swear to God if you so much as breathe about more handsome men in connection to anyone I’m related to, I will never speak to you again.”
“You’re not messed up! I’m sorry. He looks nothing like Orlando Bloom. Or any other person you’ve ever had a crush on.”
“Just shut it and let me find the handcuffs.”
I turn away from Cillian’s definitely Orlando Bloom–look-alike father and wait, keeping a wary eye on the demon.
“Here they are!” Cillian holds up a pair of handcuffs triumphantly. He’s been rooting through a box labeled with his father’s name. There’s a stack of photos, what I guess is a 3-D metal puzzle made up of interlocking triangles, a heavy ring, and some loose photos. I wonder how many times Cillian has gone through the box that he knew the handcuffs were in there.
Artemis and I don’t have anything of our father’s. That’s part of why I love the library so much. At least I know he studied those same books, looked at those same pages.
I take the handcuffs, tugging lightly on the metal, afraid I might break it if I really try. “Do I want to know why there are handcuffs in here?”
“Stop creepifying my parents!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry. It’s been a confusing day.” I pause. “Seriously, though, why do they have handcuffs?”
“My father was a volunteer with the local police. I used to play with those, so I know they’re real.”
“Good.” There’s an exposed section of support beam in the back of the shed. I pull on it experimentally, and it barely budges. So unless the demon is stronger than I am—in which case we are in trouble, regardless—it should be enough.
I drag the demon closer, then cuff its wrist to the beam before tying its ankles together with some rope I find on one of the shelves, figuring it can’t hurt to double up. I pause over its wrists, where lingering bruises and sores indicate I’m not the first person to bind it.
It’s unnerving. I don’t want to cause any more damage. I need Rhys. He’s a freaking encyclopedia of demonic variations. I’ve done my homework—all of it, always—but the Council gives Rhys information I’m not important enough to have. Besides, my focus has always been on human bodies. For all I know, this demon can light things on fire with its mind, and as soon as it wakes up, we’re dead.
I brush the demon’s wrists, and it whimpers in pain. The sound is soft and vulnerable. I feel it on a level I can’t quite explain. I know what it is to be hurt, to need help. In that moment, my mind is made up. I can’t get Rhys because he’d alert the Council, and so soon after the hellhound scare, they’re bound to be in kill-first-ask-questions-later mode. I don’t want anything else dead because of me.
Cillian moves a stack of gilded religious books off a table and sits. I lean as close as I dare to the demon. The wound on its face doesn’t look good. Black ichor oozes onto the cement floor. I glance around for a first aid kit, but the shed is a dumping ground, containing nothing useful. Unless I want to learn the Seven Secrets of Successful Spirit Summoners. Secret one: Live in a world where magic isn’t dead.
“Do you have a medical kit? I don’t know if demons can get infections, but I’d like to clean out this cut and close it. And I’ll try to fix its arm, too. I think it’s out of the joint. If it’s broken, there’s not much I can do here.”
Cillian nods, obviously relieved to have a task. He hurries from the shed. I shouldn’t fix the demon. But it nags at me, seeing something hurt and helpless. Knowing how easily—how willingly—I could have been the one to hurt it. Besides, if the demon dies of shock or infection, I can’t very well get information out of it. I need to know why it’s here. Why the hellhound was here. Who, if anyone, is behind it. And whether there’s another threat to the castle or if it’s all some big, sucky, sticky coincidence. It doesn’t seem likely, but a girl can hope. I might feel compassion for the demon, but I’m not dumb. It’s still a demon.
I examine what’s visible of the rest of the demon’s body—unwilling to undress it, because my sympathy definitely does not extend that far. There are some other cuts, some more bruising, and the dislocated arm.
Before I have time to rethink anything, Cillian’s back with supplies.
“Okay.” I shake out my hands to steady them. “If it wakes up, I need you to be ready to hit it on the head with something heavy.”
“So you’re going to try to fix the damage, and if it works, we’re going to hurt it again?”
“I don’t know!” I pour rubbing alcohol on my hands. “I guess only if it tries to attack. This is all new to me too.”
“Fine.” Cillian picks up a large metal clamp. “Before you assume anything disgusting, this is from my mum’s quilting phase.”
I pour some of the alcohol onto a strip of gauze, then, figuring I might as well get it over with, pour it directly into the wound. The demon flinches—Cillian raises the clamp—but it doesn’t wake up. I carefully pull the wound shut and tape the skin in place.
The demon’s left arm is definitely not the same as the right arm, in a bad way. “Does this look dislocated to you?”
“I don’t know!”
“Crap on a stake,” I moan. I’ll have to take a million showers to get the sensation of its skin off mine. Putting a hand against the demon’s shoulder, I hold on to its arm and pull. I feel the pop as it slides back into place. The demon shudders. Its eyes flutter open for a second, and I swear it whispers, “Thank you,” before going limp and unconscious again.
I can’t be sure, though. I’m too distracted by the way its shoulder popped. It reminds me of the hellhound’s neck. One pop to fix something broken, one pop to break something forever.
“I’m going to lose my supper,” Cillian says.
&nbs
p; I feel the same.
Cillian sets down the clamp out of reach of the demon. “Does that mean the demon will be in fighting shape when it wakes up?”
“It’s secured. We’ll be fine.” I hope. I rub at an itch on my ear with my shoulder. I don’t want to touch any part of myself with my demon-goo hands. What if it’s contagious? Sometimes demons can infect people with abilities or curses or other demony things. That’s why I was so paranoid about feeling different after the demon apocalypse day. And why I missed the huge, obvious truth that I, of all people, should have guessed. Though I don’t like “Slayer” any better than “demon infection.” It’s not even that different.
“Sooo,” Cillian says, drawing out the word. “When are you going to admit you’re a Slayer?” I flinch, and he grins. “Knew it. I mean, like, for the last ten minutes I knew it. Been thinking about it all day, and your strength tonight confirmed it. That’s brilliant, though, right? Slayers are the whole reason you lot do your job. Multitasking now.”
I hesitate, then blurt, “Can I tell you a secret?”
“Besides the massive number of secrets you’ve dumped on me in the last twenty-four hours? By all means.”
I don’t know what anyone expects of me now. What it will actually mean to be a Slayer among the Watchers. If they’ll expect a lot from me. Or if, being me, they’ll continue to expect nothing. Artemis seems upset, my mom is livid, and Rhys and most of the Watchers are confused. But I know how I feel. “I hate Slayers. I don’t want them to exist, much less be one.”
Cillian surprises me by folding me into a hug. In all the Slayer talk, no one had asked me how I felt about it. Artemis wanted to fix it. Rhys couldn’t believe it. Eve and the Council thought it was great. My mom denied it. But in this moment I know exactly what I want, what I’ve needed all day:
Someone to just be there for me.
Cillian’s expression is gravely sincere. “You’ve lost a lot, and that always leaves a mark. It’s okay to feel that way. You have my permission to freak the hell out.”
I snort, and he pats my back.
“I’m glad we’re both sharing things, though. You’re sharing your new scary Slayer status. And I’m sharing the demon in my shed. Do you think it’ll wake up?”
Its skin is textured like a drought-stricken riverbed, all cracked and flaking, with the black sections between cracks shining with ooze. I don’t know if that means it’s unhealthy or if that’s standard. The horns are black, as are the fingernails and, I suspect, the teeth. Its ears are pierced with delicate gold hoops, and its Coldplay shirt has a cheerful rainbow on it.
“I don’t know. We have lots of books on demons, but they all revolve around, like, how to summon, control, and destroy. None of them talk about how to administer first aid.”
“You did your best. Hopefully the demon takes that into account when it wakes up and eats us.”
“Most demons don’t eat humans. Or at least, not the whole human. Certain organs, for sure. Hearts. Sometimes brains. Or just your blood. There’s an entire subspecies of demon that survives on eating human teeth, which is actually where the tooth fairy mythology came from! But they don’t take them from underneath your pillow. They take them from—”
My story is cut short by my phone chirping in my pocket. I pull it out to see the castle’s main line. Busted. Someone knows I’m gone. I don’t answer, because I don’t want to lie.
“I gotta go. I can’t have them come looking for me, not until we figure out what this thing’s deal is.” I pause. “I don’t want to ask you to keep secrets from Rhys, but . . .” But the Council has kept secrets from me. And I feel so out of control right now, like everything is spinning away from me. For once in my life as a Watcher, I want to be in charge.
I know it’s irrational to protect a demon. But it also feels like a rebellion against my Slayer calling, and I’m all about the rebellion lately. I’ll tell Artemis, though. She’ll know what to do. She can handle anything.
“Text me if it wakes up,” I say. “I’ll come back later to secure it with more chains. Until then, stay out of this building. You should sleep in the shop.”
I see Cillian safely there and hurry back to the castle. I run faster but feel slower, weighted by so many unanswered questions.
It took her too long to find them again.
Their mother knew what she was doing. She disappeared. And not only did she disappear from conventional means of tracking, she used magical wards and shields to prevent mystical tracking as well. But the hunter was patient and had plenty of resources. Eventually the mother would make a mistake, and then the hunter could finish the job.
A little more than a year after the vampire’s failure, her opportunity came. Watchers were creatures of habit, and even in hiding, the mother responded when a Council member asked to meet. The hunter knew the date and time of the meeting.
She stood outside a nondescript house in a Phoenix subdivision. Everything here was beige. The landscape. The houses. The auras. It was the least magical place she had ever encountered. It might have been the opposite of a hellmouth—a demonic dead spot. Even hell was preferable to Arizona.
That was probably why the mother had chosen it. With the heat of the day still radiating from the pebble-strewn excuse for a yard, the hunter crouched low and watched the house. The lights were on. She waited until she saw one flash of red curls. Then two. They were inside.
Evening slipped into night. She imagined the mundane tasks that were happening inside. Baths. Were the girls old enough for showers now? Brushing teeth. Perhaps a story, one where monsters were defeated and then the book ends.
But monsters never respected endings in real life. They just kept coming and coming and coming. They never stopped needing to be defeated.
The bedroom light went off. And then, as promised, the mother stepped out of the house. Her movements were furtive, suspicious. She climbed in her car and drove away to her clandestine meeting.
The mother should have known better.
The hunter popped a piece of bubble gum into her mouth. She had the just-released video of Titanic at home waiting for her as a reward for finally finishing this task. “I’ll never let go, Jack,” she whispered to herself as she cut her hand and began activating the runes that would end the prophecy once and for all.
7
THE CASTLE LOOMS OVER ME in the night. It’s not a fairy-tale castle, made of spun sugar and happily-ever-after dreams. It’s not even a nightmare castle filled with spikes and creeping darkness. It’s the castle equivalent of an urgent care clinic. Its job is to keep you alive. That’s it.
The windows are mainly narrow slots, left over from the days of arrows and crossbows. To be fair, we still use crossbows a lot. A few of the windows have been expanded in the living quarters, but those were done artlessly, like the wrong eyeglasses for a face shape. The only tower crumbled before my great-grandparents were alive, so the entire building is a squat rectangle. The outer wall is gone, along with matching outbuildings, left behind when Ruth Zabuto and my mom transported the castle here. Instead, we have several cheap sheds. There’s one long garage that was converted from a preexisting abandoned stable. The entire thing is as grouchy as Bradford Smythe and as unpleasant as Wanda Wyndam-Pryce. And as lacking in magic as Ruth Zabuto.
Still, it’s home.
Which means it’s full of people I can’t risk running into right now. I half suspect that if I bumped into someone from the Council, I’d blurt out everything. It’s a huge tenet of Watcher society that you listen to the Council. You obey them. And, less explicit but more of an unspoken tenet, you don’t hide demons in your friends’ sheds without telling them about it.
So instead of going in through the front, I circle around to the back and locate what I’m pretty sure is my window. It’s on the second story. The whole first story of the castle is off-limits. They shut it down when they moved the castle here. There’s a light in my window, like a beacon. If I can get to my room, I’ll be
able to tell Artemis what happened, and she’ll know what we should do. She always has a plan.
I mentally calculate. It’s about fifteen feet up. There’s a wide stone ledge; the walls are a foot and a half thick, and the window is set toward the inside.
If I can run super fast now, then maybe . . .
I crouch low and jump. With my arms straight up, I manage to catch the ledge with the tips of my fingers. I expect to fall, but they hold. I pull myself up, laughing, and haul my whole body into the space in front of my window, folded and crammed up against it.
That’s when I remember it’s locked—and it swings out when it opens, not in. I might have Slayer strength, but it didn’t improve my ability to think plans out thoroughly in advance. Maybe that’s why Buffy always reacts instead of planning. When your body can do amazing things, it’s easy to try first, regret later.
A face pops into view and I scream, almost falling backward. My scream has a mirror image in Artemis. Then she scrunches up her face and shouts.
“What the hell are you thinking?”
“Obviously I wasn’t!”
She gestures at the window hinges. I’m blocking its ability to swing outward.
“Give me a sec.” I lean out, trying not to think about the empty air below me. The stone above the window cavity is rough enough that I manage to find finger holds. I climb a few feet up the wall, holding myself above the ledge.
“Come on!” Artemis says. Her voice is no longer blocked by the glass.
I swing myself down and through, landing in a crouch on our rug.
“Did you forget we have a door?” she says, unamused. “What’s wrong with you? You could have been hurt!”
“But I wasn’t. I handled it.”
“Because I was here to open the window! What would you have done if I wasn’t here?”
“I would have—”
She waves a hand, cutting me off. “You have no idea what you would have done. Because I’m always here. You can’t act like things are different now. They’re not.”
Slayer Page 7