Slayer (Slayer 1)

“What?”

“Didn’t you notice? I tasted you all. Everyone shambling around the castle, pale and tired and quick to anger. But you! Are you really so strong you didn’t even notice I’d sampled?”

The morning Bradford died. When I got out of bed I was dizzy. Weak. It passed quickly, so I ignored it. But it had been Eve. I shudder.

She smiles, two black lines parting to reveal white teeth. “You’re more powerful than any of us could imagine. You’re the last one, after all.” She laughs, a sound that whispers like dry leaves around the room, creeping from under the bed and behind the closet door, surrounding me. I know it’s morning outside, but I feel as choked by darkness as though it were midnight.

“It was you I saw. In the secret passages that night.”

“Yes. Convenient for sneaking from bedroom to bedroom, eating.”

Eve’s been snacking on us while we slept. “What about Cosmina?” I’m not trying to stall—I believe her when she says she’ll kill Artemis. I just need to understand.

“I wanted to try it on her first. But that’s the problem with Slayers. They’re too strong. She fought back. Woke up halfway through, and the connection was broken. She still lost her Slayer power—and the shock of it killed her—but I didn’t get it either.”

“Bradford Smythe?”

“He really did have a bad heart. I’ve been nonlethal with everyone here. His misfortune that he couldn’t handle all of this.” She waggles her hips suggestively, the shadows shifting from side to side and trailing off her like smoke. “Twenty years, right under their noses, and they never noticed. Not how I had changed, and not what Leo was. And not when I invited Leo’s father to join us for particularly nice meals. For all their watching, they see nothing.”

“And Cillian?”

“You’re stalling.” She sings it, her shadows pulsing.

“I’m not stalling! It makes no sense! Why did you try to kil

l Cillian?”

“So you would understand what was at stake. So you would know loss.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. It’s hollow and dark, like her soul. “Haven’t you been paying attention? I’ve always known loss, moron.”

She squeezes Artemis. I hold up my hands. “Okay! Sorry. So if I don’t let you kill me, you’ll kill Artemis.”

“I don’t want to kill you. I honestly think you can survive it. It’s in both our best interests if you do. That way I have time to get all that juicy power without you dying on me, and you have a shot at surviving the removal process. That’s why I wanted you trained. Wanted to push you to be at your strongest. And why I have to do this now, before your mother can come back and hide you. I had hoped to wait, gather more energy first, but the timetable has been moved up by so many outside forces interfering. And by my son.” She sighs.

Leo. My Watcher. The only person who always had my back. He had been fattening me up for the slaughter.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Eve’s voice, which I had found so motherly and comforting before, is like claws skittering across a stone floor. “Leo doesn’t want this. But he needs me. He can’t live without the energy I take. So in a way you’ll be saving him too.” She tightens her grasp. Artemis groans but doesn’t wake up. “That’s the choice. Give me your power, whole and intact, willingly. Don’t fight it. Save Artemis and your mother and your fellow pathetic Watchers and your little village friend. Even save Leo. Choose to give it up. Choose to stop being Chosen.”

I clench my hands into fists. “I’m strong enough to kill you.”

“You keep your power, you could kill me. But . . . can you? Look at your room. Look at your bookshelves. You want to fix things. You want to heal, to save. Do you really think you can look me in my human eyes—the mother you wished you had, don’t deny it—and end me? I don’t think you can. And you can’t do it before I snuff out your sister. So you’d be choosing to kill her in order to kill me.” The shadows lift, then fall, darkness seeping from her more steadily now. Artemis looks pale.

“Stop! You’re already draining her!”

“You’re out of time.”

I know Eve will use my power for something awful. She’s already a murderer. And for her to work this hard, for this long, she has to have some bigger goal in mind. Something that requires more juice than normal people can provide. Maybe even something so bad there’s a prophecy all about us. I thought I’d break the world myself, but what if it’s my power that makes it happen?

The irony of all this is so devastating it’s almost funny. I’m finally facing the Watcher’s test. The same one Artemis took. The one she failed, because of me. I know what the Watchers would have me choose: the world. Let my sister die so I can stop the demon’s plan. And I know what Artemis would want me to choose: Let her die so that I can be strong enough to save myself.

But Artemis is my world. She always has been. Looks like neither of us was really cut out to be a Watcher in the end.

Numbly, I nod. “What do I have to do?”

“Go to sleep.” Eve drops Artemis and slams a book into my head.

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