Chosen (Slayer 2)

“Leo, can you take it back?” I don’t turn around, keeping my squinted and watering eyes in Artemis’s general direction.

He sounds as worried as I feel. “Maybe. Probably. But the pyramid thing was an amplifier. The power’s so much more than what I put in there. Even if I can hold it, I can’t hold it for long. It’ll have the same effect on me. We need something to transfer it into.”

“We can play hot potato until we figure out where to put it.” I turn and hold my hand out toward him.

“Oh, come on!” Imogen shouts. I look at her, confused. “After everything she did, you’re still trying to help her?”

“Nina!” Rhys is backing away from Imogen, his crossbow raised and trained … on her. He has his phone in his free hand. “My grandma woke up. It wasn’t Artemis.”

“What?”

“Artemis didn’t try to kill her. Imogen did.”

Imogen flicks her wrist, extending her sleek metal baton. She swings it up, catching Rhys under his chin and sending him sailing off the catwalk and down into the cavern.

“No!” Cillian screams. He scrambles back along the catwalk, looking for a way to get to his boyfriend as Rhys tumbles down the side and lands at the bottom near the pile of demon corpses, still and unmoving.

“If you want a prophecy done right,” Imogen growls, turning toward us, “you do it yourself.”

30

IMOGEN PULLS A KNIFE OFF her well-stocked belt and throws it at Leo. He dodges, but she pulls another, bigger blade. She’s between Leo and me, blocking him from getting to Artemis. I want to help him, but that would mean leaving Artemis unprotected.

“I spent my whole bloody life trying to keep their prophecy from coming true. Protecting the world.” Imogen ducks a swing from Leo, dodging nimbly around him. I hope she’ll try to sweep his legs or push him—I know from experience gravity’s claim on him is so intense both are impossible—but she’s been paying attention. She moves faster than him, blades whirling, making sure he can’t get past her. “But you know what? The world sucks.”

Leo rushes her. She twirls away with a dancer’s grace, then, to my horror, grabs his arm and uses his momentum to spin him right off the catwalk. He looks at me as he falls over the edge, his horror mirroring my own.

He’ll be fine. He has to be fine. But now I’m on my own. Against … Imogen?

“I don’t understand.” I keep myself between Artemis and Imogen. Imogen is barely breathing hard, knife still in hand. “You’re my friend. You’ve always been my friend.”

“I’ve always been there for you, that’s true. Because I was assigned to you. To kill you, actually. Well, one of you.” She shrugs. “My mother decided to take a shortcut and go for more power since the Watchers wouldn’t let her just mercy-kill one of you. The prophecy needed two, after all. And it’s not like your mother didn’t have a spare.”

“The fire at our house!” The realization is horrible, but then I do the math. It doesn’t match up. “But your mother was already …”

Imogen smiles. “Yes, after my mother died horribly, the mantle was all on my shoulders. The fire should have worked, but no, you two just had to survive. And then your mother ran back to the Watchers. I waited for years. I couldn’t risk getting caught and missing my chance. If I wasn’t there to do it, no one would. And, god, they were so protective of you two.”

I’m braced for attack, but she’s just standing there. After the last blast from Artemis, I’m still shaking and off balance. I don’t feel anywhere close to myself. “The fire was you. You. You’re …” My head is spinning. “All this time, you wanted us dead?”

“Only one of you. I would have killed Artemis, if it makes you feel any better. But then last fall happened. And for a few brief moments, I thought that was it. I thought it was your apocalypse, and that we had failed to prevent it. That I had failed. And you know what? I was relieved. Happy, even. Because all these years my job has been protecting a world that couldn’t give a shit about me or my mother. I’m sick

of it. I’m sick of all of it. Your prophecy was the very last one in the book, and I’d hate to deny the earth its grand finale.”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Follow your instincts, Nina,” she says, her voice a syrupy sweet corruption of herself. “If you feel like it’s right, then it’s right. I even made your sister a murderer, and you still forgave her! All you had to do was shove that sword in her stomach and release the power to end it all. God, you are so hard to corrupt, you know that?”

I shrug. “Hufflepuff.” My mind is reeling, but I finally realize why she’s telling me all this. Why she isn’t attacking. She doesn’t need to. She only needs to delay us all long enough that the power becomes too much for Artemis. I draw a stake and throw it straight at Imogen’s head. The blunt end hits her forehead, snapping her head back. She staggers, then rights herself.

“Actually, I know which one of you I can kill, finally. It’s pretty obvious who the world breaker is. I won the bet with my mother. She never did pay her debts, though.” She moves a wrist in a lightning-fast flick, and a sharp pain hits my shoulder. I look down to see a knife embedded in it. “If it’s any consolation, you’ll only beat us to the finish line by a few minutes.”

“What about the Littles? You took care of them. You can’t want them dead.” I tug the knife free, hissing at the pain. If I were in charge of treating myself, I would have cautioned myself not to remove the knife until professional help was available. But I’m not in charge of treating myself. I’m in charge of fighting Imogen. I need to get Imogen out of the way so I can figure out how to help Artemis. A quick glance over my shoulder reveals my sister trembling so fast her edges are blurring. Her eyes are squeezed shut, and she’s got her arms wrapped around herself like she’s trying to hold it together through sheer force of will.

Imogen laughs. “Like they’re really better off growing up? I’m doing everyone a kindness. Putting this whole spinning hellhole out of its misery. Did you ever think about why every other dimension is a hell, but somehow ours isn’t? Joke’s on us. We’re the original hell dimension, baby. We’re just too stupid to realize it.” She launches herself at me in a flurry of fists and kicks and flashing blades. My shoulder and the disorientation from Artemis’s discharge slow me down. I’m fighting to keep her away from Artemis but not to kill. Imogen is holding nothing back.

She grins, swiping a knife across my forearm as I try to block her. I get in a kick to her side, but she twists, absorbing the blow and elbowing me hard in the face. I stagger back. A searing pain, and I look down to find yet another knife sticking out of my lower abdomen. How many knives does she have?

I tug it out, my hands slick with my own blood as my brain registers yet another stern caution for removing a knife from a wound without any way to stop the bleeding. I can barely see Imogen because of the light behind her.