Chosen (Slayer 2)

“—projected margins are—” Sean stops midsentence, then points to Artemis with the laser pointer. “Which one is she?” His face has gone several shades redder.

“The good one,” Honora says with a shrug.

“Good as in morally good as in a Slayer, or good as in—”

“Good as in here with me. So what do you think?”

Sean glares but goes back to his droning speech about projections and quarters and other nonsense. All the men at the table are rapt, nodding along and tapping notes onto their devices.

But one of the men, a white guy with black hair and piercing dark eyes, is staring into space. Artemis can’t quite look away from him. He’s like when an older movie is shown on one of those super-high-def televisions, so everything looks somehow too real, which then makes it look fake. Like he’s 3-D on a 2-D background.

“It’s all imaginary,” he says, his voice a soft, melodious tenor. “All these numbers, all this money, all these things you fight a

nd die for.”

Sean smiles patiently. “Right, yes, but we like our imaginary numbers to be very, very high.” The rest of the men laugh uneasily. Sean keeps talking.

The man turns toward them. Artemis’s breath catches. She was right. This is him. This has to be him. He’s not a man at all. He frowns, his eyes lingering on Artemis’s hair. “Autumn is the saddest season. All seasons are sad. Time is death. It’s so quiet here. Do you ever want to pierce the silence?” He has a slender knife in his hands, one finger running up and down the edge.

“Can’t say as I do,” Honora says. Her arms are folded, and she’s not betraying any fear.

Artemis isn’t afraid either. She’s thrilled. If only Rhys were here, he’d pee his pants at this real-world research opportunity. The book she took was right. It’s all going to work. She smiles, and the Sleeping One, the one with no name, the three-form god, tilts his head as he considers her.

“Right, so, supplies.” Sean switches the slideshow off. “Big opportunity coming up. Honora, if you’re back, I’m assuming you’ll lead?”

Honora snaps her gum. “Not a problem.”

“We can’t guarantee we’ll find the right specimen, but there’s a good chance something like this will draw one out. Or at least provide someone who knows where to find what we need. And, hey, maybe we’ll luck out and find another option. Gotta be flexible. It’s how we stay young.” He grins the desperate please acknowledge I am still young grin only a man in his early thirties would.

“I have never been young,” the Sleeping One says. “I have always been here. I will always be here. I cannot stay here under these circumstances. To know infinity and be powerless to touch it is the cruelest fate of all.”

The demon bound in the corner whimpers. Artemis feels a pit of dread in her stomach that they’re going to see a crueler fate in a few minutes.

The Sleeping One slides the knife right into his own ear, as far and deep as it will go. Sean turns a shade of green more often found on demons. Honora pops her gum. Artemis watches. The Sleeping One slowly withdraws the knife. It oozes with a shimmering luminescence that fades to nothing in the air.

“Still so quiet,” he says.

“Time for the quarterly sacrifice.” Sean straightens his tie and tries to brusquely move them back to business as usual as he pulls out a sword and approaches the demon in the corner.

Means to an end, Artemis thinks to herself, not taking her eyes off the hellgod she’s going to defeat all on her own.

Suck it, Slayers.

8

DOUG AND I DRIVE TO the port in Dublin, where we steer onto the cheapest ferry to England. I didn’t want to take a car at all—with this one gone, the castle only has one vehicle left, and apparently sleazebags are our only options for enough money to replace them—but public transportation isn’t really an option with Doug’s obviously not-human face.

As it is, he sits in the passenger seat with a hoodie on, hood up over his horns and his face as shadowed as possible.

I climb back into the car in the bottom of the ferry with two Cokes and some snacks. I hold out one of the Cokes, and Doug looks at me as though I’m daft.

“Right. Sorry.” I forget sometimes just how demon-y Doug really is. He fits in so well at the castle. The differences between us don’t seem to matter. Differences like the fact that I eat food and he eats emotions.

His stomach rumbles in response to my thoughts. “No offense, Nina, love, but you are barely a snack these days. More like an after-dinner mint. One of those unwrapped buttermints that’s been in a tin for years, and when you try to pull it out, it’s stuck to three others, and you know you don’t want it, but you’ve already committed, so you pop it in your mouth and regret every decision you’ve ever made that brought you to that point.”

“I think I should be offended by that.”

Doug shrugs. “I think you and I should talk about why you’re so unhappy.”