Slayer(87)

I’d have thought that a sudden influx of Slayers would have made Watchers relevant again, but I can’t help feeling like all it did was make us even more archaic. Even more useless. Maybe Artemis was right.

Ugh. But that would mean Honora was right too.

I shudder, trying to get the bad taste of even thinking that Honora’s right off my brain and tongue. The Watchers hid in order to survive. I have to trust that the Council has a plan.

The Council, though . . . Ruth Zabuto, who can’t get over the loss of magic. Wanda Wyndam-Pryce, who is even worse than I had always thought. My mother, who hates Slayers and is definitely hiding more than we ever realized. And Eve Silvera. One for four I trust, then.

“I’m sleeping in Jade’s room,” Artemis says.

“Why?” I ask, hurt.

“It’s not—I need some time to think. That’s all. You should spend the night in Rhys’s or with Imogen.” She walks away. She’s taking Leo’s warning seriously. And leaving me on my own. All these years of being together, of taking care of each other. Well. Of her taking care of me. I clearly haven’t done a very good job of taking care of her. How much has she shouldered all this time? I couldn’t train with her, but I could have helped more. Taken more of the duties. But she never told me, never talked to me about how she was feeling.

Angry and hurt and confused, not to mention buzzing with excess I-want-to-beat-up-Honora energy, I turn and run into the forest. It’s asleep, all the insect hum and normal forest sounds muted and hushed so I feel like an intruder.

I push myself, trying to find my limits. I want to know the borders of my body, the edges of my powers. I need to. Because if I can define them, then I can understand them, and I can figure out who I’m supposed to be now.

I dodge branches, jump over logs, twist and turn through the depths of the trees. The castle is in a section of forest miles wide, untouched for centuries because the ground isn’t good for planting. It’s wild in a way that makes me feel small. For two years we’d been perfectly hidden here. I can’t escape the idea that the thing that is different—that drew hellhounds and demons and chaos and death to our seclusion—is me. Because nothing else has changed in the two years we’ve been here.

As a Slayer, death is my gift. Is it also my curse? By being built for it, do I attract it?

I veer toward an old, abandoned cemetery. No one has been buried there for almost a century. I found it not long after we arrived here. It’s been my little secret ever since. There’s something peaceful about it, the names and dates faded with time and the elements. I guess, in a way, it’s like Artemis’s secret passages. Made for something else, but serving as a refuge for me.

I’m lost in my thoughts until I’m close enough to see there’s a light. There should not be a light. I skid to a halt, then tiptoe closer. There’s a cheery fire in a pit. Sitting by the fire is Doug the demon. He’s bobbing his head in time to music playing from headphones, and there’s a book in his hands. I peer at it.

Nicholas Sparks. Doug really might be evil, then.

A twig snapping nearby warns me that someone else is approaching. I duck behind a tree, watching. Not knowing who I expect to show up. Honora? Sean? Another demon? Don’t they know this is my cemetery?

Nothing prepares me for the shock of who puts a hand on Doug’s shoulder before sitting across from him.

My mother.

It’s confirmed, then. Smythe, not as in Bradford Smythe. As in Jamison-Smythe. She is Doug’s contact. She’s the reason he ran here, the reason hellhounds attacked, the reason Honora came back into our lives to screw everything up.

Doug takes off his headphones. “Hey, Helen. Thanks for the stuff.” He gestures to a sleeping bag set up among the gravestones, his book, and an empty tote sack. The tote she had been carrying earlier in the hall.

“How’s your face?” my mother asks.

“Better. A lot better. Nina’s not half bad at fixing things.”

I tamp down my pride at his words. My mother has the small book that she took Cosmina’s address out of. Doug sets down his novel and leans close to her, looking over a page. He points to part of it. “He’s a good bloke. Messy. But should make a good ally. This is like a who’s who of the demons of Dublin. You found them all.”

“I’m good at my job.”

“What about Slayers? They could be a problem.”

“I know of at least a dozen we can get easy access to.” She points to another section of the book. “I can handle them.”

“What about Nina?” Doug asks. I freeze. “She’s not being exactly low profile. Far as I could figure, she’s told Cillian everything. Who else does she talk to?”

My mother shakes her head, her mouth a thin, sharp line. “I should have sent her away years ago, but I always hoped it wouldn’t come to this. I’ve worked for so long to avoid this mess. It was selfish of me to keep her.”

“Prophecies are tricky things.”

“So are daughters. But I’ll take care of it.”

I back up, horrified. My mother has a book full of demons and Slayers. She’s consulting with a demon on them. She has a plan for “handling” the Slayers, and one for taking care of me, whatever that means.

Doug mentioned a prophecy. I don’t have to wonder which one he was talking about. It has to be the same one I translated, the same one referenced in my father’s diary.