Slayer

by Kiersten White

  We haven’t even left the car, and I’ve already made a bad decision. In the castle, I could wear whatever I wanted. No one cared what the medic looked like.

  And medics don’t need to sneak around in the shadows.

  What have I gotten myself into? Will the others expect me to jump into the lead? Take command? Fight? I don’t know how to do any of this. I still don’t know if I even want to. Being strong enough to help people is one thing, but tapping into those violent Slayer instincts again is quite another. In my dream the vampire wasn’t killing Cosmina. Maybe there’s still time for reasoning. For strategy. Maybe the kidnapping hasn’t even happened yet!

  “Do you need to wee?” Cillian asks.

  My discomfort must be obvious. And embarrassingly misinterpreted. I stop squirming and slouch further into my seat, avoiding Leo’s questioning gaze. “No! I’m fine.”

  At last we hit the outskirts of Dublin. It had taken longer than planned—we had to stop at a petrol station, the Range Rover surprisingly gas guzzling. And even though I did need to pee, I wasn’t about to go inside after Cillian’s awkward question. By the time we entered the city, afternoon was rushing toward evening, the slanting sun lighting the buildings gold.

  “So, we’re expecting vampires?” Cillian asks. We’ve filled him in on the basics. “Exciting, innit? I mean, Dracula and so forth.”

  Rhys clears his throat, knowing how heavily Artemis’s and my history is hanging in the car. “Not exactly. Vampires are demons that walk around wearing the bodies of people you loved. People with families. They kill those people, and when the soul is gone, they take the remaining shell and use it to kill. Demons exist to prey on humanity. They aren’t native to this ecosystem.”

  Cillian makes a yikes face. “Sort of like cats in Australia.”

  I take another root beer from him, pressing the cool bottle against my face. “If the cats also sucked out people’s souls or ate them or disemboweled them or occasionally tried to trigger the apocalypse to bring about an all-cat dimension on earth, then yeah.”

  “I know that should be scary,” Cillian says, “but an all-cat dimension still sounds kind of snuggly. And no one can convince me that cats don’t actually suck out people’s souls.”

  “Fair points.” I stare at the neighborhoods of Dublin passing by us. I suddenly wish we were here for fun, to see the city, to be normal. Like a normal group date with my friend, his boyfriend, my sister, and the boy I never wanted to see again and would prefer still lived on the opposite side of the world. It’s truly a testament to what we’re facing that hanging out with Leo sounds more pleasant in comparison.

  Dublin is only two hours from Shancoom, but somehow, I’ve never been. Watchers aren’t big on sightseeing or vacations. They used to regularly visit hellmouths and demon portal hot spots, but those trips were less about relaxation and more about decapitation.

  I close my eyes. Don’t think about decapitation or disembowelment. I have to focus, to prove that I can do this. I’m a Jamison-Smythe. Fighting demons is my heritage. The Watchers need me—which is a thrilling and terrifying new sensation. All I’ve ever wanted was to make people’s lives better. And if being a Slayer will help me protect humanity from—

  “Pizza!” Cillian shouts.

  Pizza! We never have pizza. We can’t exactly call for delivery to a hidden castle. But Leo shakes his head. “Demons first. We don’t know how Athena’s dream compares to reality. It could have already happened or might not happen for another few days.”

  “Who the hell is Athena?” Cillian asks.

  I raise my hand.

  “Oh, that makes so much more sense. I had questioned your mother’s intelligence, naming one of you Artemis and the other Nina. The whole point to having twins is to give them matching names.”

  “Yes,” Artemis deadpans. “That’s why our parents had us.”

  Artemis was the goddess of the hunt; a protector. It fits my sister perfectly. Athena was the goddess of wisdom and war. It’s never escaped my notice that everyone thought Nina fit me better than my real name.

  Everyone except Leo.

  “If we have twins someday,” Rhys says, “we’ll give them matching names.”

  Cillian nods in agreement, then claps his hands together. “Little Sonny and Cher will be so adorable.”

  “Jane and Austen,” Rhys says.

  “Meryl and Streep,” Leo offers without looking back.

  “That’s the one!” Rhys shouts.

  “You can be their godfather.” Cillian beams. Artemis rolls her eyes so hard I can almost hear it. Cillian refocuses. “Right, then. Looking for vampire evidence. Perhaps one of them left a business card? Or a punch card. ‘Drain ten humans and the eleventh goes free’ or something.”

  I appreciate his attempts at humor, but I can’t manage a smile. Does every Slayer feel like this when they start out? I know so much more than most new Slayers would. I can’t tell if that makes it better or worse.

  Buffy’s first threat was in Los Angeles, pre-Sunnydale. An ancient, powerful vampire named Lothos was hunting her specifically. I’ve never thought how terrifying that must have been for her. A whole new life dropped onto her, complete with instant mortal peril. I’ve only thought about how her calling devastated me. How would I feel if my first days as a Slayer were spent being stalked by unspeakable evil?

  At least I’m doing this on purpose. I’m helping, not being hunted. We might not know what, exactly, we’re heading into, but my dream showed only one vampire, and there are five of us. We can handle a vampire. Hell, we can probably scare her off.

  I remember the snap of the hellhound’s neck and flinch. Just one vampire, I think to myself. Just one. They’re already dead. Killing them shouldn’t bother me.

  I know it still will.

  We enter a district where the charm of Dublin has been consumed by the cement monotony of industry. Leo stops the car in front of a block of buildings. The outsides are dingy, in the utterly soulless way of everything built in the eighties. What happened during that decade that caused architects to hate themselves and the rest of the world so very, very much?

  “My sleuthing says we’re in the right place.” But Cillian looks as dubious as I feel. We all sit, unmoving, staring out at the twilight. There’s not a soul in sight. “Kind of . . . dead around here, innit? You could almost say it was undead.”

  “No,” Rhys says. “You could not. We are done punning tonight.”

  “Fine. But aren’t you a wee bit bothered?” Cillian gestures around. There are no lights. No people. Only a couple of cars parked, but they look like they haven’t been moved in months.

  “It’s an industrial district,” Leo says. “Everyone is probably home for the night.”

  “So how come we haven’t gotten out of the car yet?”

  My finger is pressed against the lock button so hard it’s gone bloodless and white. I slowly release it. “Just assessing the situation.” I unlock the car, and the click sounds far louder and more ominous than it should have. That’s when I realize I have no weapons. What kind of Slayer goes into potential battle without weapons?

  Oh, right. The dead kind. Or the dud kind. Probably both, in my case.

  Artemis slings her bag over her shoulder, and it clinks. She remembered weapons. Of course she did. I open my mouth to ask for one, but her comment about me being a loaded weapon in a child’s hand comes roaring back. I’m proving her right already.

  Leo pops the trunk and removes a duffel bag filled with supplies. He holds out a stake to me, catches my relieved expression, and grins. A pang I thought I had long since smothered catches me by surprise. Suddenly he’s the guy who passed me an extra cookie just because he knew it would make me happy. And back are those dimples I had hoped to never see again. The one on the left is deeper than the one on the right. I hate that I still notice that.

  “I’m a Watcher,” he says. “It’s my job to prepare you. It’s your job to slay.”

  Ah, right. He
’s not thinking of me me. He’s thinking of Slayer me. And we’re all about to be disappointed, because I know I’m not prepared for this. Artemis has straight up told me as much, and soon Leo and Rhys will know it too. They probably already do. After all, the most damage Leo has seen me do is to my own head. I wish he had seen me kill the first hellhound.

  Ugh. That’s a terrible way to think. I wish he had seen me kill something because then he might think I’m not a screwup! As if it takes murder to prove your worth.

  Although in our world, it kind of does. It’s why no one has ever taken me seriously before. And why I’m afraid killing things is the only way to get them to believe in me now.

  “Wait in the car,” Leo says to Cillian as he climbs out.

  “Right, because I want to be the scene in the horror movie where you run back to the car, flooded with relief that I’m at the wheel, until you put your hand on my shoulder and I fall over, and you scream, but I can’t scream because I’m dead, and the monster is already behind you and I can’t warn you because, again, I’m already dead.”

  “No one is going to die,” Rhys says, “and no one is going to scream, because—”

  A high-pitched scream tears through the night.

  Instinct takes over, and I run toward it. I can hear Leo and Artemis behind me. I turn into an alley two down from where we parked and spot a girl slumped on the ground. At the far end of the alley, a shadow disappears. I crouch beside the victim. She’s breathing. But her neck is bleeding and she’s glassy-eyed with shock.

  “Which way?” Artemis demands.

  I point. Artemis sprints away, followed by Leo.

  “She bit me,” the girl says. She’s maybe eighteen, twenty tops. Curls that put anyone’s to shame framing a sweet face. A face that’s going alarmingly pale. I gently remove her hand from her neck. I know what I’m doing. I’ve studied for this exact scenario. I can do this. I can.

  “Someone get me a clean cloth,” I say, peering at the wound. It’s bleeding, but the flow is steady, not pulsing or spurting. “There are no air bubbles. That’s good. That means your esophagus wasn’t punctured. Your breathing won’t be affected. You’re still getting plenty of air, so let’s focus on steady breaths. Deep, steady breaths. Do you do yoga?”

  “A little bit,” she says.

  “Good! Good for you. Think about your breathing. Focus on that. We’re going to put pressure on this wound.” I hold out my hand for the requested cloth. Rhys hands me his outer flannel shirt. I fold it and press it against the girl’s neck. “You’re doing great. Breathe in, two three four, out, two three four.”

  A light hand on my shoulder tells me Cillian is here too. “Cillian, call emergency services. We don’t know how much blood she’s already lost. Tell them to hurry.” I look at the ground, knowing I won’t see anything helpful. And sure enough, there’s no pool of blood.

  Vampires are efficient, I have to give them that.

  “You’re doing great,” I say. “What’s your name?”

  “Sarah,” she whispers, locked onto my eyes like I’m the only thing anchoring her to consciousness. I probably am.

  “Sarah! I love that name. Just try to take nice, deep breaths. I’m going to keep pressure on the wound, and soon the paramedics will be here to get you to a hospital.” I keep my tone low and soothing, the way I would want to be talked to. The way Artemis used to talk to me when I woke up from nightmares insensible with terror.

  “I don’t see anything,” Artemis shouts. “Are you sure?”

  “Kind of busy!” I shout back. Sarah tries to look in Artemis’s direction. “Hold your head still for me, okay? That’s good.”

  Artemis runs back to us. “Your attacker. Did she make you drink blood?”

  I glare at her in exasperation. Sarah needs to relax right now, though I get why Artemis is asking. If the vampire had forced Sarah to drink its blood and then she died, she’d come back as a vampire. But she isn’t nearly so far gone, which Artemis would understand if she knew as much about human bodies as she does about vampire attacks. Or if she had asked me.

  Sarah keeps her focus on me. “No. We met online. She seemed nice. Said there was a cool club hidden back here. And then she— God, do you think she was rabid?”

  “It might be good to get checked out.” That’s probably a less horrifying scenario than reality. Poor Sarah.

  “Nina,” Artemis says, “we’re losing time.”

  I take Sarah’s wrist with my free hand. Her pulse is weak but steady. The vampire didn’t take too much if Sarah’s still coherent enough to talk. She must have heard us coming and run.

  Leo rejoins us, shaking his head. “Nothing.”

  “Did you call emergency services?” I ask Cillian, ignoring Leo.

  “Yes. They’re on their way.”

  Leo speaks again. “We need to go.”

  “She won’t come back,” I say. “Not with all of us here.” Surely Sarah is safe now, and I don’t want to risk moving her.

  “No.” Leo’s voice is as slow and careful as my own, as though I were the one bleeding out on the ground. “I mean we need to go find Sarah’s friend. She probably needs attention too. You should be good at finding this type of person.”

  “Should be,” Artemis says, emphasizing the first word.

  My face burns with shame. My instincts are all wrong. I’ve been thinking about keeping Sarah stable rather than chasing after the monster that hurt her in the first place—a monster that could end up hurting so many others if we don’t take it down. I’m thinking small. Like a medic.

  Not like a Slayer.

  “Rhys and I will stay with her,” Cillian says.

  Rhys eases his hand under mine. “You go do what you need to. We’ve got this.”

  I press to show him the right amount of pressure. “Keep talking to her. If she passes out, note the time so you can tell the paramedics how long she’s been unconscious.”

  “I want her to stay!” Sarah says, eyes getting wider. “I want you to stay, please.”

  “Nina,” Artemis says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, avoiding Sarah’s desperate gaze. “You’re going to be fine. I promise.” Everything in me knows it’s wrong to leave her. This is what I want to do, how I want to help. But it’s not my calling.

  I take off for the darkest end of the alley, where the vampire disappeared and where, according to Cillian’s map, we’ll find the warehouse. Running by my side, Leo passes me the stake I had left behind on the ground. It feels like a promise that I’m not sure I want to keep.

  13

  ARTEMIS PAUSES AT THE ALLEY’S end. Buildings stretch in either direction, their facades as blank and unhelpful as a dead cell phone. “We wasted too much time back there.”

  Anger flares, but Leo speaks before I can. “Athena saved that girl’s life.”

  It sounds like he’s talking about someone else. Maybe that’s what I liked about him when I was thirteen—it felt like he saw someone else when he looked at me. But now I worry he still sees someone else: Someone capable. Someone who can do this. Someone like Artemis, not me. Because I did save Sarah. But what if the vampire kills someone else before we stake her? That’s on me.

  Artemis looks from side to side, checking for threats. “Which way is the warehouse?”

  I’m disoriented too. Most of the lamps are broken. The buildings back here are derelict. It’s almost totally dark now, the full moon obscured by clouds.

  I look to the left and see nothing. I look to the right and see nothing either, but there’s a sick twist of my stomach and a spike of adrenaline that make me suddenly sure I do not want to go that way. Not for anything in the world.

  Artemis turns and stalks to the left.

  “Down here, I think.” I point to the right.

  “How do you know?” Artemis asks.

  She’s the one who wanted me to chase the vampire, and now she’s questioning my instincts? “Because I’m terrified and I also feel like I could lift a car over
my head.” Slayer feelings are no joke. It’s like little jolts of electricity are shooting through my body, pumping my blood closer to the surface of my skin. I’m attuned to every physical sensation inside, and every emotion and potential in the air outside of me. I feel myself being pulled in the direction of danger.

  Artemis grits her teeth but nods. “Behind me,” she says, prowling forward.

  I should be the one taking the lead since I’m technically the strongest, but as soon as that thought pops up, it disappears. I may be the strongest, but Artemis is the most competent. And even with my new powers, I don’t see that changing.

  My shoes sound loud, though not as loud as the pounding of my heart. Up ahead there’s a building with the windows boarded up. Every window, in fact. Most of these buildings have the windows smashed out, with nothing replacing them. Why board up these? Unless there’s something inside that has a personal reason to avoid sunlight.

  I stumble, my body tensing with remembered trauma. Leo’s not going to save me from a vampire tonight. Now it’s my job to save people. And I know this is our building as surely as I know I’m not ready to go in.

  “There,” I say.

  Artemis stares up at the building, hands on her hips. “There has to be a way in. Leo and I will scout. Nina, you stay by the door and alert us if anyone is coming.”

  “Shouldn’t Athena—”

  Artemis cuts Leo off. “We’re the ones with training. We’re not putting her in harm’s way any more than we have to.”

  Part of me is glad she’s taking charge. But part of me is annoyed. It’s my Slayerness, my dreams, that brought us here. I shouldn’t be on lookout duty. Except I don’t want fighting duty either.

  The closest door is boarded up from the outside. Huge new planks have been nailed in place. Why did the vampire do it from the outside, instead of the inside? It looks more Keep In rather than Keep Out.

  There’s a ladder halfway up the building’s brick wall, rusted iron from the looks of it. It’s hard to tell in the dark if it goes all the way to the roof, but my guess is it does. And if there’s a ladder leading up, that means there’s probably a way to get in from the roof.