“Have you researched it?”
I take another cookie and shove it in my mouth. “Slayer now, remember? I don’t have to research.”
“You really are claiming your destiny. I’m so proud.” She puts her hands over her heart, laughing, then turns as a timer announces another batch of cookies is done.
The truth is, I didn’t research cambions because it hurt too much. If Leo were still alive, he would have come back. He saved us, gave us enough time to defeat his mother. Everything we’re building here is because of him. I just wish he could see it. It’s his legacy as much as anything else. Sometimes I let myself imagine that he survived. That we all yelled at him for lying to us about his mother, that we actually got to work through the anger to the good stuff on the other side.
But it hurts, just like the idea of researching him or probing the mess of unresolved emotions he left along with my renewed powers. I talk to Imogen’s back. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” It’s too sad and too special and Rhys would pull it apart to find out how it worked, and my mother would clumsily try to comfort me, and I can’t deal with either option.
Imogen mimes zipping her lips. “I am a perfect graveyard of secrets. They come to me and are buried snug and tight, six feet under.” She resumes waltzing around the kitchen while I finish off the cookies. She doesn’t talk again until I get up to stumble to bed.
“Next time,” she says, passing me a plate to take, “don’t hold back. You should never hold back. Promise me.”
I wave the cookies. Imogen is a bit of a mystery as always, but it’s nice to have her on my side. Almost like having my sister back. “Promise.”
5
I LINE UP THE BODIES.
One: Eve Silvera. Her lipstick is still perfect, her pantsuit unwrinkled. She should be broken beyond repair, but she looks like she’s sleeping. It’s nice.
Two: Next to her, Leo. I try not to look at him, but I can’t help it. His dark hair brushes his shoulders, his strong jaw not softened in death or sleep. His eyelids look so delicate, like they could flutter open anytime. But they won’t.
Three: Cosmina. I arrange the dead Slayer’s blue hair around her head like a halo. Pretty.
Four: Myself. No. Not myself. Artemis. Does she look more like me now, or do I look more like her? I cradle her a little longer, then sigh. It has to be done. I line her up next to the others. If she’s here, then she’s dead, and if she’s dead, then it’s my fault.
I want to cry, but here, in my childhood bedroom, surrounded by the static purple-black flames that once tried to claim me, I’m not allowed to. I have to take care of the bodies. I look up toward the door. So many more bodies waiting for me, arranged in neat triangles. I can see a few I recognize—Bradford Smythe. Cillian. Rhys. My mother. Everyone from the castle. But more behind them, waiting for me to bring them in and lay them nicely in a row.
So many bodies. How did I get so many bodies?
“Hello.”
I turn to see a pretty Chinese girl, late teens or early twenties, her long black hair in a single braid. “You’re not dead,” I say.
“No.” Her eyes keep flicking to my bodies. She holds out a hand. “Ice cream.”
“What?”
“You need ice cream.”
Puzzled, I take her hand. She tugs me, hard, and we leave my room. With a sudden rush of awareness, the truth slams into me:
I’m dreaming. This is a Slayer dream. And I’ve had it before. So many times. At least the bedroom-and-bodies part. Not this new development.
“Ice cream.” She points emphatically to a table with a huge bowl of ice cream and a spoon. I sit obediently, looking at our surroundings. The room is enormous, entirely white. Along the walls, childlike illustrations chase one another. One is a girl with a stake, stabbing a cartoon vampire. Another is the same girl, a monster behind her, vivid spurts of red crayon pulsing from her neck.
Oh gods, ice cream girl needs my help.
I smile encouragingly at her. But she’s just standing there, staring intently at me. She hasn’t sat down, doesn’t have ice cream of her own. “Are you going to have any?”
She wrinkles her nose in disgust. “No.”
There’s a buzzing, a low pulse of noise I can feel in my bones. I hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s been with us the entire time. I look behind me. The room extends forever, the illustrations continuing their macabre stories. But in the distance, a roiling nothingness creeps closer.
“Are you a Slayer?” I ask.
Her nose wrinkles in the same disgust she gave the ice cream, but she nods.
“Are you in trouble?” The last time I had a dream about a Slayer like this, it was Cosmina. She needed help, and I failed her. I won’t fail again.
“Eat your ice cream.” She folds her arms and glares.
“I can help you.”
She raises an eyebrow, her full lips pursed.
“The storm.” I point back at it. “Something’s coming. I can help. I’m a Slayer too.”
“It is not my storm.” She picks up the spoon, fills it with ice cream, and stuffs it in my mouth.
I sputter around the tasteless cold mess. “Stop!”
“Ice cream helps!” She swats away my hands and force-feeds me another bite. “It makes you sick, but it helps! Giles told me! I have to help!”
I push away, the chair tipping backward and dumping me onto the floor. A new woman appears above me. Dreadlocks frame a face covered with elaborate white face paint. I recognize her! The First Slayer! Buffy told me about her. I—
She raises a blade overhead and slams it into my stomach.
6
I WAKE UP WITH A gasp, my hands over my stomach. When I pull them away, I’m surprised they’re not slick with dark blood. It felt so real.
I lie back. Having a Slayer dream—one where I was at least a little in control—makes me realize I haven’t been having the same Slayer dreams I used to. Not since Leo gave me back my power. Though the bedroom, my old familiar nightmare, had been there too. And it was filled with …
The edges of the dream drift away like smoke, and I let them. All I remember is the cold burst of the ice cream and the colder pierce of the blade. Why did the First Slayer kill me? And why did the pretty Slayer lure me into that room for it to all happen?
Sleep permanently over for the night, I sit up and rub my eyes. I half turn to check if Artemis is awake before realizing, yet again, she’s not in the other bed.
When I was fourteen, I got a deeply ill-advised haircut, chopping my long locks into a chin-length horror. But for months after, whenever I got into a car or lay down in bed, I reached up to pull my long hair out of the way. Every time, it surprised me to find only empty air.
When will I stop reaching for Artemis where she isn’t?
I climb out of bed and throw on some clothes in the dark. I stop by the gym only to check on Pelly. It’s awake and hurries to my side, gentle eyes bright. I try not to look at the gym; it was the scene of so many of my moments with Leo. Instead, we head into the darkness. I run as fast and hard as I can, even though I’m only a few hours separated from my most recent run. Pelly keeps up. It’s fast—another detail that, coupled with the pairs of eyes placed on either side of its head more like a rabbit than a fox, makes it obvious Pelly’s breed of demon has always been prey. Never predator. Our Watcher texts didn’t bother mentioning that. I made sure Rhys noted it in his entry for Unpellis Demons.