“Can the decay hurry up so we don’t have to listen to you anymore?” Honora lets out a long, annoyed breath, then pounds on the front door to the manor. An ancient butler answers it. “We’re expected.” Honora walks in right past him. Artemis follows with the rest of their entourage behind them.
A white man with a severely broken nose and some suspect bruising around his neck is sitting in a leather chair in a study. He stands, shocked, when Honora and Artemis enter.
“You!” he says, pointing at Artemis. She’s never seen him before in her life. Which can only mean … he knows Nina. And judging by the damage to his face, she’s guessing their acquaintance is recent. Which is bad news for all of them. She can’t let Sean and his people decide to go after Nina. It would be a lot easier if Nina would stop sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.
“Nope, not me,” Artemis says, shaking her head. Honora makes a slashing motion over her throat, then puts a finger over her lips. His eyes widen and he shuts his mouth. The rest of the men shuffle in, the Sleeping One wandering to the window.
“We’re in the market for something in your possession,” Sean says.
“I’m, ah, afraid my inventory is depleted.” Von Alston keeps looking nervously at Honora and Artemis, licking his dry lips. “We had a mishap last night. If I had known you were coming, I would have held it for you.”
“You do not have what I need?” The Sleeping One doesn’t turn around, but his voice is as cold as the depths of winter.
Von Alston tugs on his collar. “I have many useful contacts. I own half the House of Lords. You’ll find working with me is most advantageous. You want me as an ally.”
The Sleeping One shakes his head. “I do not even want to breathe the same air as you. Filling your greedy lungs and then spewing poison to corrupt me.”
Von Alston laughs nervously. He looks at Sean instead of the Sleeping One. “You know me. My reputation. I can get him back. I will get him back. Let’s sit down, discuss terms. I have a feeling we’ll see eye to eye on everything.”
The Sleeping One turns and crosses the room to Von Alston. He reaches out and puts his thumbs through Von Alston’s eyes. Artemis jumps at the screaming, startled by the sudden, unannounced violence. Honora has stepped forward, an arm out in front of Artemis, a knife in one of her hands.
Von Alston drops to the floor, twitching and screaming. The Sleeping One holds the two eyeballs in his palm. “Ruined. I cannot see through these. Everything gets ruined. Everything decays.” He drops the eyeballs on the floor, then wipes his hands clean on Von Alston’s suit. “Everything dies.” He steps on Von Alston’s neck until it snaps.
And Artemis stands there and watches it all. She knows she should stop it. But if she does, she’ll lose her chance. She just watched a man die—a human man, however dubious his business—and she did nothing. Make the hard decisions. Make the acceptable sacrifices. She learned those lessons well as a Watcher, but she knows this moment will haunt her for the rest of her life. She has to make sure it’s worth it.
When it’s clear the Sleeping One is not going to murder Artemis, Honora quietly sheathes her knife. “No leads, then. Dead end.”
Things have to progress. She wants to protect Nina, but how can she without power? It’s Nina’s own fault. Artemis warned her about taking in demons. “He recognized me,” Artemis says. Honora shoots her a look as sharp as a knife. She was lying to protect that information. Artemis gives her a tiny shake of the head. “Which means he’s met Nina. She must have beaten us here and taken what we need. So we know where he is.”
Sean lets out an exaggerated sigh, staring up at the ceiling. “That Slayer is a pox. Always nicking my things. And this is bad news for us. You’re still vulnerable right now, pardon me for saying so, your, uh, unholy grace.” He waits, tense, but the Sleeping One merely nods. “The ginger Slayer isn’t vulnerable. We’ve got to make sure we know exactly what we’re facing. No mistakes this time.”
“Where?” the Sleeping One asks.
“Our old home. Two hours north of Dublin, along the coast.” Artemis feels less guilt for saying this than she should. Sean knows where the castle is. She’s not telling them anything new, and she has to be the one in charge. Because if she’s in charge, she’s in control. She can protect those fools even if they refuse to protect themselves by making smarter choices. “Honora and I know that castle inside and out. We’ll make the plan and lead the raid. Safest if the Sleeping One isn’t there. The Slayer doesn’t know about him, and there’s no reason to let her.”
Honora relaxes slightly next to her. She gets it now. They’re protecting the Watchers by attacking them. By keeping this monster out of their home.
“The coast,” the Sleeping One says. His eyes are fixed above her head. “I cannot go there. The call of the ocean, the weight of the stones, the press of humanity. If I go, will I want to stay? I stayed once. Longer than I should have.”
“Right,” Sean says. “We’re keeping you far away from the little ginger Slayer. Let’s get you back to Dublin before the bobbies get wind of this”—he gestures with disgust toward the still-warm body—“and then you leave it to my girls.”
Artemis struggles to hide her disgust at Sean’s possessive words. Honora looks at her nails, stained nearly black with her favorite fingernail polish. Artemis tries not to think about how her own nails used to be cheerful rainbows once a week thanks to Nina and their manicure and movie nights. She tries not to imagine how much blood must be under the Sleeping One’s fingernails right now.
Sean pulls out a handkerchief and gingerly retrieves the eyeballs. “Did you want these for some reason?” he asks the Sleeping One.
“I want only the power to save this corrupted world and this corrupting form.”
Artemis is even more bothered by how much she relates to that than she was by Sean’s possessiveness. She brushes it off, though. One of them wants power to dominate the entire world. One of them wants power to protect it. She’s nothing like this monster.
“Cheers to that.” Sean hands the eyeballs to one of the goons. “All right, ladies. Demons to steal, gods to recharge, bills to pay. Don’t disappoint me.” He tries to sound intimidating, but he’s not the threat and they all know it.
The Sleeping One fixes his eyes on Artemis’s. “This one is hungry,” he says. “She needs. She will bring me my prize.”
“I will.” She’ll attack her own family to do it. She’ll break Nina’s heart forever. And she won’t apologize for any of it, because a Watcher makes the hard sacrifices. A Watcher makes the choices no one else can. The test she failed was a simulation; she won’t fail the real one.
16
MARICRUZ LEANS INTO THE SPACE between the front seats. Doug is driving, and I’m in the passenger seat losing my mind. “Wait, so you are a Watcher, or you were a Watcher, or … ,” she asks.
“It’s complicated.”
“Okay, but Watchers have, like, a crap-ton of research, right? So tell me this: Mermaids. Real or not? Because if all these other monsters and demons are real, can’t we at least have mermaids, too, to balance the scales?”