Slayer

by Kiersten White

  I expect heat, but biting cold radiates from the hole.

  “It won’t be a large hellmouth.” Eve switches sides, trying to get a better grip. “Nothing like Sunnydale, or even Cleveland. But it will be our hellmouth. The Dublin Hellmouth. And we’ll take a tithe of power from every demon who crosses. My son and I will never be hungry again.”

  “Why do you need the other Slayers, then?” I ask.

  “You’re the best thing I’ve ever had.” She smiles, teeth showing white through the shadows of her face. “I’m going to drain every Slayer, and then this world will truly know power. It will know safety and protection. Because I will protect it.” She pushes, and the hole widens. “For a price.”

  A figure barrels into Eve, knocking her away. The hellmouth is almost big enough for a person to slip through. The air around it crackles, brittle and freezing. The tar hand reaches through, grasping at the air, pulling at the edges. But it can’t rip the hellmouth larger. Only Eve is strong enough to do that. Because of me.

  Eve screams in rage and frustration. I see who knocked her to the floor, who is keeping her down.

  Leo hits his mother’s clawed hands away as they rake against his chest, then pushes his own hand against her ribs, holding her on the ground. She bucks, trying to throw him off, but I know from experience that Leo can’t be budged. A shriek echoes through the space. The shadows shift, swirl. Leo begins to glow like a black light.

  “Nina,” Honora says, panicked. She’s holding her own shirt against Artemis’s side. “She’s bleeding too much.”

  I rush over to them. There’s nothing I can do down here. The cut is too deep, too long. “Can you carry her?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m out of my pills.” Tears stream down Honora’s face as she looks at Artemis, now alarmingly pale.

  “Allow me.” A pair of toxic-yellow hands reaches down and gently lifts my sister. Doug cradles her to his sticky chest. “Come on, little Slayer. Let’s run.”

  I look back at the hole in the world. I let this happen. And I have to fix it. “Take her out of here.”

  Doug hesitates, then hurries away. Honora, unable to stand, crawls after them. My mother pushes herself up. She looks at the new hellmouth, and she breaks. Her face, always so strong and remote, cracks like the barrier between our world and this hell dimension.

  I’ve seen this terror on her once before. When she had to choose which daughter to save first. But this is worse, because she knows what I do: If this hellmouth is left open, none of us are safe.

  “What do we do?” She looks to me for answers for the first time in my life.

  But I don’t know.

  I stare numbly past her into Sean’s office, so incongruously modern and clean, no indication that hell is quite literally outside its doorway. I wish Buffy were here. I wish I could talk to her again. I wish I were back on that rooftop, staring at the sea serpent, chatting with the Slayer who changed everything.

  You define being the Slayer, she said. I may not be a Slayer anymore, but I still get to make the choice of how I live. So what are the choices here?

  Stay, and definitely die.

  Run, and probably die.

  Find the third choice.

  A shimmer glinting from one of the walls in Sean’s office catches my eye. And just like that, I know. I know what to do.

  Eve screams. I spin around to see her on top of Leo, smashing his head against the floor. “How dare you! Give it back!”

  Another demon streaks across the floor and slams into her. Rhys and Imogen have done their job. Eve rolls, grappling with it. I dart to Leo, wanting to help him, to check his pulse. Instead, I reach into his sleeve and pull out the metal rod I know he keeps there.

  I rush back to my mother’s side. “Hide,” I whisper. She looks at me in confusion and fear. “Trust me. Please. Go hide.”

  And to my relief and surprise, she trusts me. “You’re strong enough for this. You always have been.” She goes down a few cages and ducks behind one.

  The attacking demon yelps once in pain, then lopes away as quickly as it came. Eve crawls back to Leo, shaking him. “I’ll take it all back, you little monster!” Leo’s head bounces, no tension in his neck. Either he’s unconscious, or he’s . . .

  “Okay, Mom!” I shout. “I’ll burn the book in here!” I hurry into Sean’s office and start digging through his desk drawer as though I’m looking for something.

  I feel the darkness in the doorway before I see it. Eve stands there trembling. She looks diminished by whatever Leo did to her. “Give it to me,” she snarls.

  I clutch the notebook to my chest. I don’t have to pretend to be shaking in fear. It’s not an act. I back up against the glass of the aquarium. “I won’t let you hurt another Slayer.”

  “All that power was wasted on you,” Eve spits out. “It has always been wasted. Given to foolish little girls who don’t know what to do. You should thank me for taking it. And you should do it quickly, on your knees, while giving me that book, if you want to live to see another day. You’re not a Slayer. You’re not even a Watcher. You’re nothing. There is nothing special about you. Now give me the book.”

  She steps toward me. I smile. It’s enough to make her hesitate.

  “I may not have taken the Watcher tests, but I was always a Watcher. A Watcher studies. A Watcher waits. And I learned from my dad that a Watcher does whatever it takes to protect their Slayer. I am a Watcher. All the Slayers are mine.” I think of them, their fury, their fear, their joy. I think of Cosmina. I think of Buffy, sitting on that rooftop, the strongest and the loneliest of us all. Waiting. And watching. Perhaps she learned more from us than we gave her credit for. And I’ve learned from her too. “You might have taken my strength, but I’m still a Slayer.” I pause, and Eve blinks, confused. “First rule in the Slayer handbook? When in doubt, hit something.”

  I drop the book, then slam the metal rod I took from Leo into the remora demon’s aquarium. Eve lunges for the book. I twist around her, diving for the door. The tank glass cracks, spiderwebbing.

  And then it shatters.

  The remora demon spills out, writhing as it hits the air, finally freed from the confines of the water. Without that pressure around it, a remora demon will grow to fill whatever space it’s in.

  An office.

  A cellar.

  Or a tiny new hellmouth.

  Eve screams, trapped beneath it. I hear a crunching noise, but before I can look for her, rubbery skin pushes against me, expanding so rapidly it shoves me out the door. If I hadn’t put myself there, I would have been smashed to death against the wall. I fly into the main room, falling on all fours. The remora’s one eye, a pleasant hazel, regards me impassively as it finishes filling the office and begins tumbling out through the door. At this rate, it will fill the cellar within minutes.

  I’m almost positive the cellar is strong enough to contain the remora from growing out into our world. Gods, I hope so. The far end past Leo has a giant metal door. I’ve never been on the other side of the space, but all I can do now is hope it’s blocked off too. Otherwise I traded an opening to hell for a demon that will eventually grow to take over all of Ireland.

  “Rhys!” I shout. “Time’s up! Get everyone out!”

  “On it!” he calls back.

  The remora demon’s side bubbles free from the office, bumping up against the hellmouth. The demon arm desperately clutching at our world is smashed against the edge, then sliced clean off. There’s a roar of pain and rage, and then the hellmouth is covered, filled. The remora demon will never stop growing in that direction.

  I did it. I sealed it. Nothing can get out now. And if I don’t hurry, I’m not getting out either.

  I rush to Leo, grab his arms, and tug. And tug. And tug.

  He doesn’t move so much as an inch.

  I couldn’t move him when I was at full Slayer strength. And now I have nothing left. I doubt I’ll be able to run out of here myself. All my years of studying, of try
ing to become someone who could save people, and I’m still too weak to do any good.

  Leo lied to me, kept secrets from me. And he also saw me for who I really was, all these years, long before I ever did. Today he made the Watcher choice. He sacrificed himself to save the world.

  I collapse next to him, emptied out. The mossy green slick of the remora demon inches closer to us. Someone takes one of Leo’s arms and pulls. My mother. With a strangled cry, I push myself up again and join her, renewing my efforts. But it’s no use. We can’t move him.

  “We have to go,” she says.

  “I can’t leave him!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I will never leave you behind again.” My mother picks me up. I’m too weak to fight her. She races past the edge of the remora demon. The walls around us groan under the pressure. I watch over her shoulder as Leo is cut off from view by the expanding demon.

  She carries me like a child, and I watch Leo.

  Left behind.

  I could still fight her, I know. I could crawl back so that Leo won’t be crushed alone. But it won’t save him, and it will kill me.

  Being chosen is easy.

  Making choices will break your heart.

  35

  MY MOTHER SLAMS THE METAL door to the cellar and locks it. It holds. She stumbles on the stairs, dropping me. I crawl up them and hurry numbly through the employee break room, past the rows of coffee shaking with the tremors, and into the parking lot. The ground rumbles but doesn’t cave in. I pray my decision was right, that the cellar space is enough to contain the remora. That it will grow only to that space, and then expand forever into the Dublin Hellmouth, not into Dublin itself.

  The ground stops shaking. Silence settles over the parking lot. After a moment, the ragged group of survivors—me included—lets out a huge sigh.

  I did it. I didn’t let Artemis die, and I didn’t let Eve win. I found another way, even without Slayer powers.

  I stumble over to Honora. She’s holding Artemis, tenderly stroking her hair. The skinless demon has pulled off its own arm skin like a sleeve and is carefully pressing it against Artemis’s side. Already it’s sealing off the gash, stopping the bleeding. I take Artemis’s wrist. Her pulse is faint, but it’s there. My mother crouches next to them, tending to Honora, who has ignored her own wounds.

  “Thank you,” I whisper to Honora. Then I turn to the skinless demon. “And thank you.” I think it smiles.

  I survey the parking lot. Sean is locked in his car, talking angrily on his cell phone, dried blood crusted around his nose. He’s eyeing the parking lot warily, a gun in his free hand. But he isn’t moving to attack any of us. Not an immediate priority for me, then.

  Doug is helping Rhys calm down two extremely short, extremely purple demons. When they won’t stop screaming, Doug puts his hands over their mouths. They sit, grinning. There are several other demons, but a few are already slinking away.

  Imogen is on the hood of our car, a faraway look on her face. She glances down at me and her eyes narrow. “I thought you were going to die.” Then she smiles. It looks almost deranged. I probably look the same way.

  The handful of demons that haven’t left mill about, free from cages but still trapped on an earth that has no place for them.

  “What now?” Rhys once again turns to me for answers.

  I look at my fellow Watchers. We’re as lost as these demons. As directionless. I remember Cosmina. Leo. It hurts, so much. If we had given them a place, if we had let them be themselves without fear, without judgment, maybe they’d both still be here with us. Maybe Cosmina would have trusted us. Maybe Leo would have been able to tell us the truth before it was too late. I can’t really blame him for hiding his demonic heritage in the middle of a group dedicated to destroying his kind.

  But Leo was good. He tried to help me. And in the end, he saved us all by giving me time to defeat Eve.

  I look at Doug—who only wants to make people happy, and also get backstage passes to Coldplay. I look at the poor skinless demon. Even Honora. All without a place to be. Imogen, Rhys, Artemis. None of us asked to be here. None of us chose to be Watchers. Not my mom, whose life was stolen from the moment she was born. Not Artemis, who always should have been more.

  And none of these creatures chose to be here. I don’t doubt they all would have preferred to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Somewhere they weren’t other, weren’t hunted, weren’t used.

  And suddenly, I know a place they can go.

  I pull the book—the real book, not the fake notebook I brought with me as a decoy—out of my shirt. It’s filled with other demons like Doug. It’s filled with Slayers, out there all alone. Targets because of a power they never asked for. I hold the book close to my heart, and I remember what we’ve lost. I remember my vow to be the Watcher for every Slayer.

  “Now,” I say, smiling at Rhys. “Now we change what it means to be Watchers. We protect the vulnerable. Whoever they are.” I take off my coat and put it over the skinless demon’s shoulders. It snuggles in, and this time I’m certain it’s smiling.

  • • •

  “I will not have demons infesting my castle!” Wanda Wyndam-Pryce shrieks, slamming her fist down on the table. We’re in the Council room. It used to intimidate and awe me. Now all I see is an empty, useless room with a too-big table and only one person sitting there. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed for her. “This is an outrage! You will remove them immediately.”

  I smile. “I’m sorry. You don’t have the authority to demand that.”

  “I’m on the Council!”

  “You’ve been voted out.” Rhys takes off his glasses and polishes them.

  Wanda glares down her long nose at him. “By whom?”

  “By the next generation of Watchers.” Jade pops her gum. She puts her feet up on the table, crossing them at the ankles. “We’re in charge now.”

  Ruth Zabuto, knitting in the corner, giggles. “This should be fun.” Her wrinkled face is mischievously gleeful. I told her she could keep her library. She didn’t much care what we did after that.

  I escort a huffing and indignant Wanda to the gate. We’ve already packed one of the cars with all her things. She snatches the keys from me, pausing only to give a withering glare to the skinless demon playing a game of tag with two of the Littles. Rhys joins Cillian, who’s attaching a rope swing in the deep shade of an oak tree. The tiny purple demons, whose names I don’t have the right mandibles to pronounce, critique their every choice.

  “Disgusting,” Wanda spits. Then she climbs in the car and takes generations of Watcher tradition with her.

  “Good riddance.” Jade wanders off to join Doug in setting up a game of croquet. She’s taken to him nicely. I suspect it’s because he’s quite liberal with doling out his happiness boosts.

  Back in the great hall entry, Imogen is lying on the floor, coloring next to little George. She looks up at me and smiles, her sleeves pushed up, revealing pen doodles all along her forearms. She was amazing during our time of need. We won’t neglect her like the Council did. We all know that our parents don’t determine who we are.

  I bend down to ruffle George’s hair, then keep going to the residence wing. My mom is confined to bed for a while yet. Eve broke three of her ribs, puncturing a lung. And she still managed to carry me out to safety.

  She tries to sit up when I come into her room.

  “Hey, relax.” I pull up a chair and sit next to her bed.

  “How did Wanda take it?”

  “About as well as you’d expect. I’m glad she doesn’t have magic anymore. I think we’d all be cursed if she did.”

  A grin works at the corner of her lips. “I wish I could have seen it.” A puff of air escapes her, and then she closes her eyes. Her eyelids are thin, almost translucent. They make her look fragile. “You should take Doug with you when you contact more Slayers or demons. He’s a good go-between. If things get tense . . .”

  “He happies them right up.”
I take out the book and stare at the entries. Tonight I’ll open it to the Slayer section. I can’t reach them in my dreams anymore, but I can find them in person. And even though I’m not strong, I have something to offer them. To offer the world. The world I’m no longer capable of breaking. So that’s a relief, at least. We’re free from all the history of the Watchers, including the dumb prophecy. If I had to lose my Slayer powers in order for the apocalypse to be averted, it’s an acceptable sacrifice. After all, I didn’t have to die. I got off way easier than Buffy.

  Weirdly, I miss her. I wish I could have gotten her number in that dream.

  “This is so much more than I was planning to do,” my mother says. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

  “Actually, yeah, I am. It’s important. It’s more than important: It’s right. We’re going to take anyone who needs a place to live, free from fear. Slayers. Demons. Those that don’t fit anywhere else. No requirements or expectations, except that everyone protects each other. We’re calling it Sanctuary.” I pause, blushing. “Is that too pretentious?”

  My mother smiles. “I think it’s perfect. And I’m proud of you.”

  A while ago, I would have given anything to hear her say that. But after everything I’ve been through, I find I don’t need to hear it anymore.

  It’s still nice, though.

  Rhys knocks on the door. “You better come out here,” he says. I rush outside, worried that something has gone wrong. Instead, I find Artemis, her side healing up nicely, holding a motorcycle helmet. Honora, clad once again in her gray leather, is waiting with a motorcycle idling.

  “Where are you going?” I say, running up to them. I’m not as fast as I was. I never will be again. I wish I didn’t have the comparison, but someday I’ll get used to being un-Slayer me again.

  Artemis sets down the helmet and finger combs my hair back from my face, then pulls a band off her wrist and ties it back in a ponytail. “There.” She steps back to admire her work. “Much better.”

  She’s not going for a joyride with Honora. The plea bursts from me. “I want you to stay.”

  Artemis looks as lost as I used to feel. “I wanted to be a Watcher so badly. But I wasn’t. And if we’re being honest, they weren’t Watchers either. Not really. I don’t think any of us have been for a long time. I’m tired of watching, of waiting. Of biding our time until the world is about to end again and we have to figure out how to stop it. And I’m not going to sit here while you try to make some demon utopia. We know what goes bump in the night. We know what darkness is out there.” She shrugs, zipping up her jacket. “I’m going to figure out what I can do about it.”