I didn’t want Cosmina here because of how it would affect me. And because our last encounter made me reasonably reluctant to trust her. But I have so much that she never had. Life is harsh for Slayers out there alone, like Cosmina. It’s even harsh for Slayers who aren’t alone. Like my grandmother.
Whatever is in me that makes me a Slayer connected us. I shouldn’t deny that. “If I were out there, I’d want our help,” I admit. I’ve always had Artemis, after all. No matter how things are between us right now, ever since the fire, she’s been there for me. Leo trusts me. So I’ll trust him, too. “Oh, fine. Let’s go rescue Cosmina. Ideally with less carnage this time.”
Leo laughs dryly. “We won’t bring her back. She’ll have to work hard to gain some trust if she wants it after how she left you in the pit. But someone needs to check in on her.” Then his face turns thoughtful. Shy, even. Not blank like the mask he wears around the adults. “I’m glad you’re coming. It’ll be nice to talk.”
“Yeah.” My face betrays me by flushing bright red. “Talking is good.” It is good, with Leo. He actually listens instead of telling me how to feel. Honora interrupted us this morning. I’d love to talk more with him about being a Slayer. Or anything else, really. I’ve shifted from hating his presence to feeling like he’s someone I can truly depend on. Someone who believes I can do this, which makes it easier for me to believe it too.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” He climbs into the driver’s seat. “I haven’t been able to figure out how to bring it up, or when, or even whether I should. But—”
“Where are you going?” Artemis runs up to us from the direction of the forest, grabbing my door and holding it open. She was probably scouting for Doug. I hope Honora isn’t still out there, skulking around like a creep.
I hesitate, but only for a second. Artemis and I don’t agree on who to trust. We don’t even trust each other the way I once thought we did. But keeping secrets from her has only made things worse. “We’re going to Dublin to talk with Cosmina. Mom wanted us to check in on her.” I pause. “Well, she wanted Leo to. She definitely wouldn’t want me to.”
“My mother didn’t want either of us to do it.” Leo doesn’t so much as crack a smile.
“So you’re both disobeying your own mothers by doing what the other person’s mother asked you to.”
I try to sort through the tangle of connections. “Right. Wait, no. Well, yes. Sort of. No one’s mother wants me to go. Unless you know something about Wanda Wyndam-Pryce that I don’t.” Going to talk to a hostile Slayer who almost got me killed the last time I helped her? Wanda would probably approve, now that I think of it.
Artemis raises an eyebrow. Her tone isn’t critical. It’s almost . . . curious. Like she can’t quite understand it, but she maybe gets it. “You’re directly defying the Council.”
Leo shakes his head. “We’re Watchers. Athena’s a Slayer. This is our job.”
“I’m coming.” Artemis climbs into the backseat of the car. So much for talking with Leo. And I’m pretty sure he was on the verge of telling me something big. Personal, even. I really want to know what it was. She leans forward. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, Nina.”
I shrug, but Artemis is right. Even when I’ve disagreed with the Council’s tactics and ideologies, I’ve always done what they told me. But I can’t get over what Eve said—that if my mom wasn’t worried about the hellhounds, it means she had information we didn’t. Which means she’s connected to all this somehow. So whatever she doesn’t want me to do, I’m going to do.
I hate to go against Eve, but Leo’s logic makes sense too. My only real issue with talking to Cosmina is that I don’t want to. And good Watchers don’t get to make decisions based on their own feelings. Pretty sure Slayers don’t either.
Once again we head for Dublin. I stare out the window, hoping that the body count will be lower, if nothing else.
• • •
Leo’s fingers strangle the steering wheel.
“Maybe we could stop and get food?” I suggest.
“Why would we do that?” From the sound of her voice, Artemis’s jaw is clenched. I don’t dare look back. When she joined us I hoped it meant all was forgiven. But something still feels broken between us. I want to blame Honora, but I was the one who didn’t go to Artemis when I needed help.
Then again, maybe it isn’t only Artemis who needs to do the forgiving. Instead of supporting me through this maelstrom of suckage in my life, she’s been acting like I’m a problem she needs to solve. And she instantly sided with Honora over me. I want to blame Honora, and I still will. But that doesn’t mean Artemis is entirely without blame. Things were bad before Honora came back into the picture.
I spend the rest of the drive suffocated by Artemis’s steely silence. Leo isn’t any better. With Artemis here, he hasn’t said a word. I hadn’t pegged him for the teenage rebellion type, but this whole trip feels like him being mad at his mom for some reason.
When you’re a Watcher because of your family, but the Watchers take precedence over that family, it gets complicated. The three of us—sitting here sulking in a car as we defy our mothers—are evidence of that. Maybe we should ask Cosmina to take us in, instead of the reverse.
After two stops for petrol—this car has issues—it’s almost dark when we finally pull to a stop. The neighborhood leaves a lot to be desired, like safety and buildings that won’t fall down if someone sneezes next to them.
“Being a Slayer isn’t a very lucrative gig.” I stare up at the bleak apartments.
I used to resent Slayers, but now that I’ve felt some of their lives and fought some of their battles in my dreams, I get it. At least a little. It’s too much for one girl. Cosmina shouldn’t have to do this alone. I hope we can convince her of that.
Leo’s a good Watcher. Better than the rest of us, who are so bitter toward Slayers that we didn’t put any of them before our own safety. Maybe . . . maybe that’s what happened with Buffy all those years ago when she broke with the Council. It was the wrong choice, obviously. But I’ve seen behind the scenes. We don’t always work the way we should, or even could.
Maybe that’s why my mother made another unilateral move. She knew the idea of bringing Cosmina in would get deadlocked in the Council, and while they argued and debated, Cosmina would still be out here alone. Not in the castle where she could take my place.
My mother’s motivations might have been selfish, but Leo’s weren’t. He made the right call. He’s still that boy showing up in the darkness to help when things are dire. I glance over at him, glad he’s on my side. His expression is worried, his shoulders tense.
“We got this,” I whisper. His tension eases ever so slightly.
Artemis tries the door to the building, but it’s locked. She pulls out a lockpick.
“Allow me!” I say. She moves out of the way, waiting for me to kick it in. I push a random buzzer instead.
“What?” a voice grumbles.
“Let me up,” I say. “I’ve got the stuff.”
“About time.” There’s a buzz and a click, and the door opens.
“What stuff?” Artemis asks.
“I don’t know. It looks like the type of place where a lot of people are waiting for stuff. Worked, didn’t it?”
She walks past me without responding. Leo nods in approval, but his nervousness has only increased. It radiates off him with the same level of intensity as Artemis’s derision.
I follow them up four flights of stairs, half the lights broken and my shoes sticking on substances best left unseen. The building is even colder than it is outside. I shrink into Artemis’s leather jacket, wishing I had worn another layer. When we get to the door, I knock. No one answers.
“It’s dark,” Leo says. “She’s probably already out patrolling.”
“We can leave a note.” Artemis searches her weapons bag.
Leo leans against the wall, settling in. “I want to talk to her in person. Make sure
she’s okay.”
We can’t afford to hang around all night. The Doug problem is still waiting for me back at the castle, as well as the mystery of Bradford’s death. I want to press my mother for some actual answers. I bet Eve will back me up. Hell, Wanda Wyndam-Pryce will too, if only to catch my mom in wrongdoing again. I don’t want to believe it was my mom who’s been contacting demons and bringing them to the very castle she spent all this time keeping secret, but it seems more and more likely. That, or it really was Bradford, and he’s dead because of it.
Cosmina can’t take up too much of our time. She’s pretty low priority, all things considered. I knock harder, and the door swings open. It hasn’t been latched all the way. Dread pooling deep in my stomach, I force myself to step into the apartment.
Cosmina’s home after all.
Sort of.
23
I’M FIXATED ON THE YELLOW ducks. No girl wearing pajamas with yellow ducks on them should be lying dead on the floor.
“Bed’s cold,” Artemis says. “But it looks like she was in it before this happened. Check the body for marks.”
Leo’s frozen at my side. We came to help her. We were too late. I was too late. My dreams gave her to me, and I failed her. My father died to save a Slayer. I wouldn’t even risk losing my spot in the castle for her sake.
“Window’s secure, and we’re four stories up. They probably got in through the door. Check the body!” Artemis snaps her fingers impatiently.
She’s not my Watcher. But she is the only one of us who seems capable of coherent thought. I half expect her to tell me to leave the room, to shield me from this, but she’s done doing that, apparently. I kneel next to Cosmina’s body. She’s lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. According to movies I should close her eyelids, but it feels disrespectful. She met death open-eyed and fighting. Who am I to pretend she’s at peace?
“No marks.” I check her neck and exposed skin. “Her knuckles look raw, but that might have been from before.” She’s stiff, too. I haven’t studied dead bodies as much as living ones, but I suspect she’s been dead for more than a few hours. Possibly a full day.
“Was it your demon?” Artemis asks.
“First of all, he’s not my demon,” I snap. “If anything, he was Honora’s. And second of all, Cosmina’s been dead awhile, probably since before Doug got free. Maybe it was the fighting pit people.” Cosmina knew they were dangerous. They’d already proven as much. Why didn’t we force her to come with us then? Protect her?
It would have been against her will, though. I don’t know that we could have. She’d been a Slayer a lot longer than me.
And now she’s dead.
Artemis steps around a fallen lamp, her boots crunching brightly in the glass. “You don’t know Doug’s not a killer. And there was definitely a struggle.”
“This wasn’t Doug,” I repeat, but I’m distracted.
Cosmina was probably asleep when she was attacked. And there are no marks on her. It’s too much like Bradford Smythe. I want Eve’s other theory to be true—the one where I dreamed Bradford’s death because my super Slayer senses clued me in that he was sick—but the similarities are too much to discount. Which makes two dead bodies. But what do Bradford and Cosmina have in common? Or rather, what did they?
“Why do you think Mom decided we needed to help Cosmina right now? And only wanted to send Leo?” I ask. “Doesn’t it seem suspicious that Mom wanted to track down Cosmina specifically? The one Slayer we secretly already knew?”
“And who was already dead.” Artemis frowns, staring at the body. “Where did Mom get her information?”
“She had a book full of addresses. She must have taken her Slayer database off the computer.”
“It is weird,” Artemis says. I fight back the deeply inappropriate elation I feel that she agrees with me. “And why send Leo? Why didn’t she come herself?”
“She could be helping take care of Bradford’s body,” Leo says. It’s generous of him. But it doesn’t seem right.
“She was going somewhere. When we ran into her and she told you to do this. Remember? She had a bag. I don’t think it was anything to do with Bradford.”
“Don’t jump to any conclusions,” Leo says. “You don’t have all the information. I—”
“Looks like I don’t need an invitation anymore.” A vampire steps across the door’s threshold, grinning. Before we can react, she jumps at Leo, going straight for his neck. He ducks under her lunge, twists, and throws her against the wall.
She lands in a heap, then stands, laughing. “Whoops. Should have gone for the scrawny one first.” She winks at me.
Artemis pulls out a stake, doing a super-intimidating move where she spins it over the back of her hand and catches it again. I spent a whole summer when I was fourteen trying to learn it. Emphasis on “trying.”
“Who sent you?” Artemis demands.
The vampire bares her teeth at us. “No one sent me. I was here to pick up Cosmina.”
“Someone sent you to get the body?” I ask, horrified.
“I didn’t know she was a body. We’ve been working together to eliminate the zompire problem in the city.” She shakes her head. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”
I know she has no soul, but apparently she somehow managed to care about Cosmina. There were cases—rare—of vampires who worked around their demonic natures. Most of them dated Buffy, actually.
The vampire’s face goes back to normal. It’s a plain face. Unremarkable. Wistful, even, as she stares at Cosmina’s body. “We had one nest left to clear, and then we were done. We would have cleaned up all of Dublin.” She looks devastated.
I don’t really know how to comfort a vampire. I had never considered a scenario in which a vampire would need comforting.
“Were you two close?” I try tentatively.
She gives me a withering glare. “Are you touched? She was my reward. She didn’t know, of course, but when we were done with this nest, I was going to drain her. I’ve been looking forward to it for months! Someone beat me—and they didn’t even take her blood, which makes it all the worse. All cold and clotted now. Sticks in the teeth. What a waste.” She pauses, tilting her head to the side for a few moments. She takes a deep breath, then her eyes light up and she smiles sweetly. “Hey, since you’re here, maybe you could help me?”
Leo steps between us. Artemis holds up a cross and forces the vampire against the wall. I’m left standing in the middle of the room. They don’t need to protect me, but they can’t help themselves.
The vamp snarls at Artemis. “You’re a little girl with some toys and a few desperate tricks.”
Artemis punches her, hard.
“Stop it!” I shout. We already have all the weapons and the upper hand. Something about adding extra violence on top makes my stomach turn.
Artemis looks at me with as much derision as the vampire had. “She was going to kill Cosmina. She’d have already killed you if we weren’t here. And she’s going to tell me what she knows before I stake her.”
That’s not fair. I wouldn’t have been dead if Artemis wasn’t here. It’s like she wants me to be weak, to prove to both of us that I still need her to protect me. Or that she’s still better than me.
The vampire laughs. “Darling, you’re not going to kill me. I know where the last zompire nest in Dublin is. If I don’t clear them out, they’ll spread.”
Artemis hits her again, then backs up. “Fine. Do you have any idea who did this?”
The vampire adjusts her shirt, smoothing back her hair. “Word on the street is a couple big demons—real powerful nasties—turned up dead. No marks on them.”
“Did they have enemies?” Leo asks.
“They were demons, darling. They have enemies just by existing.”
“Any suspects?” Leo seems troubled by the demon deaths. I can’t see the connection. But maybe he suspects something I don’t.
She laughs. “Why, yes, Officer! We’ve got t
he tip lines ringing off the hook! Everyone is real cut up about the deaths.”
“Did they die in bed?” I ask.
“How do you imagine demons sleeping? All tucked up in their four-poster queen? I don’t know how they died. Just that they were alive, and then they weren’t. No struggle, no marks. Could be the same thing, could be unrelated. It’s a bloody world out there.” Her stomach rumbles and she winks. “Not bloody enough, lately. Anyway, Cosmina also ran into trouble with some vampire heavies for an underworld type. Not sewer underworld. Human underworld. Sean something or other.”
Sean. Doug’s Sean. Which confirms that the same man who kept Doug captive was also running the demon-dogfighting rings. The one that almost got Cosmina and me killed. If we hadn’t been trying to keep our activities secret, we could have acted like real Watchers and investigated them. Maybe Cosmina would still be alive if we had. Instead, we ran back to the castle and pretended like nothing happened. Gods, Honora is right. We really have been hiding.
The vampire shrugs. “That’s all I know. We were zompire-cleanup partners. She didn’t exactly confide in me. Now, do any of you see her phone?”
Leo looks around the floor. “Do you think she had info on there that might help us?”
“No, I think she had at least a month more paid on her account, which means free phone for me until they shut it off.” She grins at me, tapping her nose. “I can smell it on you too. This is a preview of coming attractions for you, little Slayer. Ain’t it great to be Chose—?”
Artemis slams a stake into the vampire’s chest.
“What did you do that for?” I shout, shocked, as the vampire disappears into dust.
If a look could kill, I’d be as dead as the vampire. “You’re a Slayer, Nina. Try to remember.”
“But the zompire nest!”
“I don’t believe for a second she was going to take care of this alleged zompire nest. But I know for certain Dublin is better off with one less vampire. Let’s finish up.”
Slayer Page 23