Slayer (Slayer 1)

Leo lied to me, kept secrets from me. And he also saw me for who I really was, all these years, long before I ever did. Today he made the Watcher choice. He sacrificed himself to save the world.

I collapse next to him, emptied out. The mossy green slick of the remora demon inches closer to us. Someone takes one of Leo’s arms and pulls. My mother. With a strangled cry, I push myself up again and join her, renewing my efforts. But it’s no use. We can’t move him.

“We have to go,” she says.

“I can’t leave him!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. But I will never leave you behind again.” My mother picks me up. I’m too weak to fight her. She races past the edge of the remora demon. The walls around us groan under the pressure. I watch over her shoulder as Leo is cut off from view by the expanding demon.

She carries me like a child, and I watch Leo.

Left behind.

I could still fight her, I know. I could crawl back so that Leo won’t be crushed alone. But it won’t save him, and it will kill me.

Being chosen is easy.

Making choices will break your heart.

35

MY MOTHER SLAMS THE METAL door to the cellar and locks it. It holds. She stumbles on the stairs, dropping me. I crawl up them and hurry numbly through the employee break room, past the rows of coffee shaking with the tremors, and into the parking lot. The ground rumbles but doesn’t cave in. I pray my decision was right, that the cellar space is enough to contain the remora. That it will grow only to that space, and then expand forever into the Dublin Hellmouth, not into Dublin itself.

The ground stops shaking. Silence settles over the parking lot. After a moment, the ragged group of survivors—me included—lets out a huge sigh.

I did it. I didn’t let Artemis die, and I didn’t let Eve win. I found another way, even without Slayer powers.

I stumble over to Honora. She’s holding Artemis, tenderly stroking her hair. The skinless demon has pulled off its own arm skin like a sleeve and is carefully pressing it against Artemis’s side. Already it’s sealing off the gash, stopping the bleeding. I take Artemis’s wrist. Her pulse is faint, but it’s there. My mother crouches next to them, tending to Honora, who has ignored her own wounds.

“Thank you,” I whisper to Honora. Then I turn to the skinless demon. “And thank you.” I think it smiles.

I survey the parking lot. Sean is locked in his car, talking angrily on his cell phone, dried blood crusted around his nose. He’s eyeing the parking lot warily, a gun in his free hand. But he isn’t moving to attack any of us. Not an immediate priority for me, then.

Doug is helping Rhys calm down two extremely short, extremely purple demons. When they won’t stop screaming, Doug puts his hands over their mouths. They sit, grinning. There are several other demons, but a few are already slinking away.

Imogen is on the hood of our car, a faraway look on her face. She glances down at me and her eyes narrow. “I thought you were going to die.” Then she smiles. It looks almost deranged. I probably look the same way.

The handful of demons that haven’t left mill about, free from cages but still trapped on an earth that has no place for them.

“What now?” Rhys once again turns to me for answers.

I look at my fellow Watchers. We’re as lost as these demons. As directionless. I remember Cosmina. Leo. It hurts, so much. If we had given them a place, if we had let them be themselves without fear, without judgment, maybe they’d both still be here with us. Maybe Cosmina would have trusted us. Maybe Leo would have been able to tell us the truth before it was too late. I can’t really blame him for hiding his demonic heritage in the middle of a group dedicated to destroying his kind.

But Leo was good. He tried to help me. And in the end, he saved us all by giving me time to defeat Eve.

I look at Doug—who only wants to make people happy, and also get backstage passes to Coldplay. I look at the poor skinless demon. Even Honora. All without a place to be. Imogen, Rhys, Artemis. None of us asked to be here. None of us chose to be Watchers. Not my mom, whose life was stolen from the moment she was born. Not Artemis, who always should have been more.

And none of these creatures chose to be here. I don’t doubt they all would have preferred to be somewhere else. Somewhere safe. Somewhere they weren’t other, weren’t hunted, weren’t used.

And suddenly, I know a place they can go.

I pull the book—the real book, not the fake notebook I brought with me as a decoy—out of my shirt. It’s filled with other demons like Doug. It’s filled with Slayers, out there all alone. Targets because of a power they never asked for. I hold the book close to my heart, and I remember what we’ve lost. I remember my vow to be the Watcher for every Slayer.

“Now,” I say, smiling at Rhys. “Now we change what it means to be Watchers. We protect the vulnerable. Whoever they are.” I take off my coat and put it over the skinless demon’s shoulders. It snuggles in, and this time I’m certain it’s smiling.

• • •

“I will not have demons infesting my castle!” Wanda Wyndam-Pryce shrieks, slamming her fist down on the table. We’re in the Council room. It used to intimidate and awe me. Now all I see is an empty, useless room with a too-big table and only one person sitting there. Honestly, I’m a little embarrassed for her. “This is an outrage! You will remove them immediately.”