Slayer(60)

And this means that my grandmother was a Slayer too. I wish I could talk to her. I wish I could talk to anyone who understands what I’m going through. I wish Cosmina had been nicer. Gods, I’d even take a chat with Buffy right now.

I could always go find Eve Silvera. Or even old Bradford Smythe. He knew my grandmother. He could tell me about her. But I don’t want either of them. I want actual family.

I want my dad. Artemis didn’t want to read my father’s diary, but I need to.

I get it from under my bed, grab Bradford’s from where it’s lying open in the corner, and hurry toward the gym—where I almost run right into Eve Silvera.

“Nina!” She steadies me with her hands on my shoulders. Does she ever sleep? “Where are you off to?”

“Training room?” I don’t want to tell her I’m trying to read my dad’s diary in peace.

She smiles approvingly. “I didn’t find you yesterday to talk after what happened in Dublin, but I thought you might like a day to decompress. None of it demands immediate attention. I’m so sorry you ran into such a mess. I feel like I’ve failed you, sending you into something without having all the information.”

“You couldn’t have known! You were supporting me. You believed me about Cosmina.” That means a lot. And it also means a lot that she cares about my feelings.

“I will always believe in you. And while I regret my haste in sending you, what you did in Dublin is incredible. Especially considering that you’ve had no training. Your abilities are genuinely astonishing. I guess there is something to the notion of saving the best for last. Apparently even when it comes to Slayers.”

It’s so much the opposite of my mother’s reaction—even Artemis’s reaction—that I stand there stunned. Eve not only wants me to be a Slayer; she thinks I’m doing a good job.

She squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t worry about Cosmina or Dublin. Bradford Smythe and I are looking into it. Best to keep it quiet, though. Your mother, Wanda, and Ruth don’t know, and I would like to keep it that way.”

“Right. Of course. Anything I can help with?”

She shakes her head. “You already did your part, and you should be very proud.” She beams, then walks away to wherever she was going.

Happier, I settle on a pile of mats in the corner of the gym. I need to research more about the Coldplay demon too, but he’s not going anywhere. Cillian has texted me regular updates, so I know he’s safe. For now my own questions about being a Slayer feel more pressing.

My father’s diary is thick, the pages worn and wrinkled. He wasn’t only Buffy’s Watcher. He had two other Slayers before her. I was always proud that he got to be Watcher to so many Slayers. But now that I’m a Slayer, I realize that means he had to bury two Slayers. Because Slayers don’t retire. They die.

I crack the book open to somewhere in the middle. I don’t recognize his handwriting, which makes me feel a sharp pang of loss. It’s messy, but his thoughts are well organized. This section has notes on training techniques that have had more success than others, as well as an anecdote on his Slayer facing a gang of vampires that had taken over a small town. The Slayer lured them to a cemetery, where my father had set up booby traps to take them out one by one so the Slayer’s odds would be better.

A tear splashes down onto the page, making the word it fell on blurry and indistinct. Even though he never told us about this, Artemis and I have used half these booby traps in our own rooms over the years. I know fighting vampires isn’t genetic, but between his skills and my grandmother’s Slayer status, maybe I really was born for this.

I feel a sudden intense connection to my father. I might not remember him very well, but we’ve carried on his legacy in more ways than we realized.

And I’m certain that my father would be proud of me being a Slayer. My mother might hate it—might even hate me for it—but my father would be as proud of me as he is of this girl he writes about with professional affection. I wish he were here to train me. He wouldn’t have kept my Potential status hidden. He would have prepared me. Would have used our years together to help me become the greatest Slayer ever.

For the first time, I’m genuinely happy about being a Slayer. Not just elated over the physical tricks I can do or high on adrenaline. But truly happy. Because I can see how much my dad cared, how proud he was of this girl, in the way he writes about her.

And I can pretend it’s me. I can imagine that he would have extended that same pride and care to my own training. My father loved these girls like they were his own. How much more would he have loved a Slayer who really was his own? If he were alive, everything would be different. My mother would still be herself. Artemis would never have had to take care of me, because he would have. And I would have been trained, prepared, truly watched over.

Wiping away my tears, I skip ahead. Half of me hopes there will be entries on his family, even though I know this was a professional journal, not a personal one. And then I stop. I’ve hit the section where he’s preparing to meet a new Slayer.

Buffy.

It’s close to the end of the book. Because it’s close to the end of everything.

“I’m concerned about the prophecy,” he writes. “Helen insists we needn’t worry, but these things are always more complicated than they seem on the surface. I told Helen I wasn’t going to take the assignment. But this new Slayer is the least-prepared girl I have ever seen. I got the preliminary surveillance. It is, quite frankly, terrifying. I am not one to judge the system, as the ancient power knows more than I do about whose potential will translate into the Slayer most needed for our time, but . . . surely it chose wrong?”