Slayer(86)

Leo gets back in, silent with his own internal strife. He starts the car, and we’re sealed in the hum of the engine and the road beneath the tires. No one talks.

I remember the split between the two girls in Cosmina’s photo. Slayers are supposed to be alone, Cosmina had said at the pit. Was that my destiny too?





26


LEO SLAMS THE CAR INTO park as we stop in the castle garage.

Something else has been bugging me, and I have to get it out. “Leo, we need to talk about the possibility that my mom was setting you up.”

“What?” Leo and Artemis exclaim at the same time.

I’ve had the whole miserable car ride to think about it. My mom with an out-of-the-blue demand that Leo—and Leo alone—go see a Slayer. When she’s never made any effort to bring a Slayer in. And no matter what that vampire said, she showed up right after we got there. When Leo was supposed to be there by himself. We can’t know that it wasn’t a setup.

“I don’t want it to be true,” I say. “But think about it.” I lay out my reasoning.

“That’s barely coincidence.” Artemis opens her door.

“Hear me out! There’s something else.” She pauses, and I cringe, realizing it’s yet another secret I kept from her. “There was another hellhound. It found me in Shancoom when I was checking on Cillian. I lured it here. Mom killed it. But she didn’t put the castle on lockdown or even tell anyone. Which means she must have been expecting it in some way or was at least confident that it wasn’t after us. So she had to have known it was after something else. And Doug said he had a contact he was supposed to meet. A Smythe.”

“You think Mom is setting up meetings with demons.” I can’t tell from Artemis’s voice how she feels about my theory.

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

“But why would she want me dead?” Leo asks.

“Maybe she figured out you were training me? She really doesn’t want me to be a Slayer.”

“Bad enough to try to kill Leo?” Artemis sounds dubious. I don’t blame her. It’s extreme.

But . . . is it? “She hid me. She never told us about my Potential status. Or about her mom. And . . . she left me. The day of the fire.”

“You can’t honestly think Mom wanted you to die!”

The silence fills the car until it’s palpable. I don’t think that. Not really. But I know she wanted Artemis alive more than she wanted me alive.

“All I know,” I finally say, “is that Bradford Smythe revealed my Potential status, confirming I’m a Slayer. And now he’s dead. Cosmina knew I was a Slayer, and now she’s dead. And Leo’s been training me, and he could have been killed tonight.”

Leo looks mildly offended. “By one vampire?”

“Regardless, our mom has a lot of secrets. And I don’t think we can trust her. With anything.”

“I don’t buy it,” Artemis says.

“Well, my other theory is it was all Honora. You wanna discuss that one?”

She folds her arms, answering with her silence.

“We should keep all this between the three of us,” Leo says. “Even if we aren’t certain who we can trust, we know we can trust each other.”

I look at Artemis. She doesn’t meet my gaze.

Leo continues. “No mention of anything to your mom. Or to mine.”

“But—” I start. He looks over at me, his brow furrowed. I trust his mom. And I need her advice. I wanted to ask her about my mom and about my conflicted demon feelings and even about that dumb prophecy and whether I should worry about it. She’ll be able to tell me if it’s something the Watchers are concerned about.

“No,” Leo says. “They’re both on the Council. They talk. We don’t tell them about Cosmina or Honora or Sean. Not until we know more.”

“What do we know, even?” Artemis asks. “Really. What have we learned?”

I lean against the dashboard. “That it’s not Doug.”

“Which narrows it down to one of the other thousands of demons roaming the earth.”

Leo’s eyes are cold and dark. “All we know is that the attacks have happened while they were sleeping.”

Artemis undoes her severe ponytail, shaking out her hair. “Assuming Bradford didn’t die of a heart attack. He was old.”

“If Slayer dreams warned me about people dying of old age, I’d have to break into every retirement community in the area trying to save them. It was demonic.”

Artemis lets out a long breath, but she nods. She’s mad at me, but she’s not unreasonable.

Leo opens his door. “We can’t be sure of anything. Which means the castle isn’t safe. Neither of you should sleep alone tonight.” Then he’s out of the car and striding toward the castle. I want it to be lit up like a beacon against the darkness, but the few lights in the windows only serve to emphasize how empty it is.

Was it only a few years ago that it was bursting with life? Bustling with Council members and aspiring Watchers and all the people behind the scenes who made our work possible?

But—it wouldn’t have been. Not really. Because even before the Council was blown up, there weren’t that many of us in my generation. We’ve been slowly bleeding out. Buffy’s rejection sent the organization spiraling, scrambling for a new place in the world.