Slayer(106)

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.