“You sure you want this fight?” The need for a fight is roaring inside of me, begging for it. Nobody gets to hurt my friends. Nobody gets to take someone I love. I tremble with the effort of holding it all back.
She snarls and slashes. So I don’t hold back anymore. I catch her arm, twisting until it pops. She screams and drops the knife. I let her hit me with her good arm, barely feeling it as I lift her and pin her against the brick wall. She kicks and I press against her dislocated shoulder.
Sweat breaks out on her face. She groans in pain, gritting her teeth, but there’s nothing she can do against me, and we both know it.
I hold her there. “You can tell Sean he’s never touching Doug again.”
She laughs, pain making the laughter sound discordant and unhinged. “You think I take orders from Sean now? He’s little leagues, love. And you’re in over your head. Everyone you love is already his. You just don’t know it yet.”
I grab her neck. Rage so ancient it defies understanding pulses through me. It’s ready to devour something. Better her than me. Something slips from her sleeve into her good hand, and she slams it into my side. I seize up, grabbing her collar as she electrocutes me. Time seems to pause in brilliant, bright white pain. She twists away, her necklace coming off in my hand, and then she runs. I stumble, falling to my knees as the memory of the current makes it feel like it’s still happening. But she ran in the opposite direction as Doug. I glance back.
He’s sitting up now, holding the kitten. Safe.
I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t tased me. Shaking from the adrenaline and the electricity, I shuffle to Doug and take the kitten, holding it against my chest. I wrap the necklace around its neck and fasten it like a collar, the triangle pattern familiar. The woman was lying about not working for Sean. It’s the same symbol from his demon-power-infused tea. The same symbol that was on the book Artemis stole. I hope that means Artemis is fighting him. If so, why didn’t she ask for my help? I can do so much now!
I almost did something very bad, though. The kitten purrs, unaware how close I came to murdering a woman. Doug’s expression makes me think he isn’t so oblivious.
“Let’s go get the car.” I turn to the alley exit, quite certain in this state the guardian demons wouldn’t let me anywhere near their conference.
That’s when the screaming starts.
11
THE SCREAMING IS COMING FROM inside the conference center.
I hand the kitten back to Doug. “That woman must not have come alone. Looks like Sean’s going shopping for new merchandise, after all.” I flex my fists, shaking off the remnants of the tasing.
“Jason’s in there.” Doug looks at the door with a stricken expression.
“I’m on it.” I fling open the door and take a step inside—
And am thrown back into the alley with such force it leaves me winded. The way in isn’t even visible anymore. It’s solid shadow. “I’m trying to help!” I shout.
“They can’t sense motivation.” Doug paces in front of the door while I stand and brush myself off. The screaming hasn’t stopped. There’s definitely a brawl going on inside. There are so many demons in there. Humans, too. “The guardians have no way of knowing that you want to go in to help, only that you’re going in with violence on your mind.”
“Oh, you bet I am. All the violence.” I can’t punch a shadow, and I don’t see any way around them. They’re at every door. Guess I won’t use a door, then.
I back up as far as the narrow alley allows. I close my eyes, reach for that well of power inside me. And this time, on purpose, I reach for the darkness swirling around it. I breathe in. Breathe out. Focus on all the rage that I’ve been trying so hard to keep under control. Then I open my eyes and run.
I slam into the wall shoulder first. It cracks and gives, and I’m through in a shower of brick and plaster. My elation at my success is more than dampened by how much that hurt. But I’m inside. And, good news for my strength and bad news for Sean’s creepy cloaked minions: I’m more pissed off than ever.
Doug climbs in behind me. “Why didn’t I think of running straight through a wall? Oh, right, because I’m not completely off my trolley.”
The conference floor is utter chaos. Booths and tables are overturned and scattered. Demons are trying to flee, but most of them can’t get past the guardian bouncers, which unfortunately seem to work in reverse, as well. If the demons are feeling violent—which they should be—they can’t get in or out. In the midst of the melee, more black-cloaked Ren Faire rejects are tasing everything that moves. A few of the attackers are lying prone and unmoving, though. Some of these demons are more than capable of handling themselves. But not all of them.
“First priority is Jason,” I say. “Stay close. When we find him, you two get out and go to the car. You’re not violent; you shouldn’t have a problem.”
Doug tucks the kitten safely into his shirt. “Second priority?”
I crack my knuckles, shake out my sore shoulder. Fun, I almost say. Then I run straight into the middle. There’s a whole group of the black cloaks surrounding several stunned demons, including my new friend Clem.
“Hey!” I say brightly. They turn to look at me. They’re all human, as far as I can tell, and each holding one of those stupid shock sticks. “What do you all have in common with vacuums?”
“What?” the man closest to me says, confusion shifting his placid expression.
“You suck.”
One of the women gives me a witheringly dismissive shake of her head.
“Oh, come on,” I say, a little hurt. “I’m a new Slayer. I’m still working on the banter. But I’m good at this part.” I pick her up and throw her into the others. Three of them go down in a tangle of limbs and cloaks. Bad idea, all that extra material.
I hear the crackle of electricity and duck as a shock stick jabs where my neck had been. I could break her neck, smash her ribs beyond repair.
People, I remind myself with gritted teeth. A well-aimed kick results in a crack and a scream of agony. Dislocated knees aren’t fatal, and they’re very effective. And satisfying. I duck and roll and spin among the remaining attackers, taking out knee after knee after knee. The incapacitated demons are recovering, scurrying away. I give Clem a hand up.
“I’m so full I might puke,” he says, holding his stomach. He eats fear, and every demon trapped in here must be positively reeking of it. “Thank you, pet. You’re a good girl.”
I backfist a cloaker trying to sneak up behind me, and he goes down screaming, clutching his broken and bleeding nose. Clem seems to know this space judging by the professional level of his setup. “If you were trying to kidnap—demonnap, I guess?—in bulk numbers, how would you do it?”
Clem points to an area blocked off by curtains at the back of the conference floor. “Loading dock there. That’s how we got my booth in. I’m not getting the deposit back on that, am I?” He looks morosely at the wreckage of materials and steps gingerly over the nearest cloaked woman. “How did you get past the bouncers?” he asks her.
She laughs, a hollow, unnerving sound. “Our intent isn’t violent or malicious. It’s essential. You’ll see. You’ll all see.” She jabs at him with her shock stick.
“Okay, creeper.” I take her shock stick and snap it in half. “Clem, I’ve got more punching to do. I’d recommend running away.” I glance over the group I’ve already taken out. I feel bad for how bad I don’t feel. It’s not like me. But I don’t want to be me right now. I want to be Buffy. Even Artemis. Someone who knows what they’re doing and doesn’t stop to feel bad about it. The darkness inside of me agrees. This is who we should be.
The injured cloakers are surrounded by demons now. The woman in the pin-striped suit with suction cups on her hands has an evil glint in each of her three eyes. She reaches out to help the nearest one stand. He lifts a hand, confused but grateful.
“She’s going to … ,” I start, then stop. Well. They did kind
of ask for it. And the cloakers mostly still have their shock sticks. They just can’t drag demons away now. I feel comfortable with my decision to leave them on their own in the middle of the convention they were terrorizing. Once I’ve made certain no demons are being hauled off and after I’ve stopped whoever is out there, I’ll come back and keep the cloakers from being totally sucked dry.
Probably.
A flash of yellow catches my eye, and I whirl to see Jason dragged past the curtains toward the loading dock. There are twelve adorable baby demons waiting at home for him, and I will not let them be hurt the same way I was. Leaping over tables and chairs, I tear through the curtains to see a huge corrugated metal door has been opened. A moving truck is in the loading bay, doors open, several demons already inside.
“Need some help?” I ask.
The nearest cloaker, the one awkwardly dragging Jason, smiles gratefully at me. “Yes.”
“Gross. Not you.” I kick her knee and she falls, screaming. Doug appears behind me and grabs Jason under his arms. “Go. I’ll make sure no one follows you.”
Doug nods and drags his semiconscious cousin away. I turn back to find five cloakers, each armed with shock sticks, moving to surround me.
Imogen was right—I should follow my instincts. All this time I’ve been trying not to feel the way I feel. Embracing it is awesome. So much easier. This must be what it’s like to be Buffy! No more worrying and overthinking and being afraid of doing things the wrong way.
I hold up a hand; I’ll at least give them a chance. “I’m going to stop you right there. You’re already looking at a massive physical therapy regimen for your friends back there. It’s gonna be months before they regain full movement in their knees. And they’ll need help in the meantime. They’re not going to be very mobile. Depending on which knee I took out, they’re also not going to be driving, so they’ll need rides to and from their appointments. What I’m saying is: Do you want to help them? Or do you want to join them?”
“When the Sleeping One reaches his third form,” a turnip-faced man says, raising his eyes to the ceiling rapturously, if a turnip can ever be said to be rapturous, “we will live in his light and walk across the backs of the prostrate masses and—”
“Wait—hold up. The what masses?”
He looks at me, glaring at my interruption. “Prostrate.”
“Oh, okay, whew. That is not what I thought you said. Whole different meaning there. I would choose a different word if I were you. One that’s not quite so easy to confuse with certain reproductive organs. Anyway. You guys are zealots, apparently.”
“All should be zealously engaged in—”
“Cool story about zealots. They blew up almost everyone I’d ever known or cared about. So guess who gets to have more than their knees broken?” I punch him square in the face.
A shock stick gets me in the side. I push through the disorienting jumble of pain to grab the arm holding it. I jerk up, dislocating the arm. She drops the shock stick, and I kick her knee. And then I punch her in the face too, for good measure. The remaining three come at me at once. I grab the first and throw him into the other two. It feels dirty to kick them while they’re on the floor. I do it anyway, one-two-three knees, no one able to follow me out.
The truck is idling. Whoever is driving it can’t see what’s going on behind them. They’re in for a nasty surprise. I jump and catch the top of the truck, pulling myself up. I walk across the roof of the back of the truck, then jump down onto the hood. I crouch there and turn around.
“Nina?” Artemis stares at me in shock from the passenger seat. She rolls down her window. “What are you doing?”
“What are you doing?” She must have gone after the cloakers and been kidnapped! But … she’s wearing a seat belt. And Honora is in the driver’s seat. No. No no no. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. Artemis was supposed to be out there fighting evil in her own way. Not chauffeuring for it. I feel sick.
“Hey,” Honora says. “How’s things?”
My fists clench. I could punch through the windshield. Rip Honora out and throw her to the side like trash. Artemis shakes her head once, somehow anticipating my thoughts.
I focus on her instead. “Artemis, how could you?”
She lifts an eyebrow. “How could I help capture demons? It’s literally what I trained for my entire life. Did you forget?”
“When we talked in the library, you said—I thought—”
“You have no idea what’s going on here. Get down. You look like an idiot up there.”
I flinch. I had imagined how I would look leaping onto the hood of the car, and in my imagination I was Buffy. I was badass. I was … like Artemis. But she saw, and she’s embarrassed for me.
Honora looks in the side-view mirror. “Hell’s bells, Wheezy, what did you do in there?” I want her to sound scared or impressed, but she just sounds annoyed.
“Get in.” Artemis opens her door.
“What?”
“Get in. Come with us. I’ll explain on the way.”
“On the way to free these demons?” My voice can barely muster a hopeful tone.
“On the way to deliver them.” Honora drums her fingers on the steering wheel. “Come on, Wheezy. In or out. We have a schedule to keep and loyalty to prove. We’ll give you this one chance to join.”
Artemis frowns at her. “No, we’ll drop her off somewhere safe. I don’t want her to be part of this.”
“Part of what?” I want to stomp my foot, but it feels petulant and immature.
Honora wrinkles her nose in distaste. “I hate to admit it, but if it’s all as big as you say, we could use her help.”
“No.” Artemis turns toward me, and her face is set in such hard lines I can barely see my sister there. “Floor it.”
Honora blows a huge gum bubble. It pops. She grins, and then she does as she’s told. I’m thrown off the hood and roll, tumbling hard against the asphalt. The truck wheels squeal as Honora careens out of the alley, the back doors flapping wildly, several demons still inside.
Artemis. What is she doing?
I stand with a groan. I can still catch them. I can—
A blinding jolt of electricity freezes me. Someone has a shock stick against my spine. They hold it there. The edges of my vision start to go fuzzy and black. And then I fall to my knees as the current is cut off. The cloaker slumps to the ground next to me. A neon-yellow hand reaches out to me, and I take it.
“I got Jason in a cab,” Doug says. “He’ll be fine. And I didn’t see any other trucks, so they’re not going to be hauling off more demons. But we should get out of here. I don’t like any of this, Nina. This wasn’t Sean’s MO at all. Too big. Too coordinated. Something else is going on. And I don’t think it was about me, either. They grabbed Jason, yeah, but so many others.”
“It was Honora,” I whisper. “And Artemis. In the truck. They’re helping.”
Doug doesn’t say anything. But he puts his arm around me for more than just balance as I limp and stumble back to our car.
12
DOUG EYES ME CRITICALLY. “ARE you sure we should be doing this right now? We have no idea what kind of threat Von Alston is, and you were jolted with so much electricity you could power the castle for the next month. Plus, you ran through a wall and got thrown off a moving vehicle.”
I pull down the sun visor and look in the little mirror there. There are bits of brick and plaster still in my hair. A bruise is forming on one cheek—I don’t remember what caused it—and now that it’s been an hour and all my adrenaline is gone, my shoulder is so stiff I can barely move it. “It’s fine. Except for my shoulder.”
“That’s why people generally use doors instead of walls.”
“I’m a trendsetter.” I pick as much of the rubble out of my hair as I can. Doug is probably right. This Von Alston might be more than we can handle right now. If he was behind everything and can launch an offensive that big, I don’t feel safe about the castle being withou
t my protection. I thought Sean was our biggest foe. It could still be him—the Honora connection, plus the symbol from his tea. But the last time I saw the ponytailed wonder, he was running a drug-dealing business out of the basement of a health-food store. No cloaked zealots in sight. He had mentioned something about powerful allies, though. Maybe it’s Von Alston.
All I have to go on is the triangle symbol on the necklace, which is still on the kitten curled up asleep on our backseat. I should never have let Artemis take that book. I thought I was making it easier for her to come back. Not easier for her to hurt me.
We need more information on everything. But going home means reporting on what we found. And that means telling everyone that I’ve seen Artemis twice now and let her walk out with one of our books. Rhys will never forgive me—or her. And slightly graver than taking a book—though Rhys will disagree—is that apparently she’s working with Sean’s crews. And she told Honora to throw me off a moving vehicle.
Saying it out loud will make it hurt so much worse than my shoulder does. For so long it was Artemis and me against the world. And I can’t let go of the idea that we can return to that. Like if I can figure this out fast enough, I can get her out of whatever she’s mixed up in and no one will ever have to know how she’s betrayed us.
How she’s betrayed me.
I’ve lost so much. I refuse to lose Artemis or the hope that she’s going to be my sister again. We’ll rule Von Alston out or in, and then we’ll go from there. I’ll find Artemis before she’s in too deep. No one has to know but me. We let the Watchers tell us who to be and how to be it for so long. I’m keeping this just the two of us.
I sigh and try to rotate my shoulder to ease some of the stiffness. “This is our only possible lead on the nameless threat, right? If we go back, we’ll have to talk it over with my mother, and she’ll say no to confronting him. But if we play this right, we’ll get the scoop on Von Alston without revealing we’re with the Watchers, in case we do need him as an ally in the future.” I turn to Doug and wait expectantly.
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