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I’M ON THE FLOOR WITH Pelly when Imogen finds me. With Artemis gone and Jessi taking over the care of the Littles, Imogen has shifted to the kitchen. Food quality in the castle has improved tenfold. It feels like everyone has settled into roles that truly suit them. Except me. I don’t know what I want.
“You look like you could use a cookie,” she says, hands on her hips. She’s wearing cheerful pink lipstick and has her hair in two low pigtails. She’s been in a really good mood ever since we stopped the apocalypse prophecy when I blocked Eve Silvera’s new hellmouth. Preventing an apocalypse cost me my Slayer powers (briefly) and Leo Silvera (permanently). In my darkest moments, when I wake up from a nightmare alone in my room without even my sister to comfort me, I’m not sure it was a good trade. Would a new hellmouth have been that big of a deal? We’ve dealt with them since the beginning of time. Surely we could have handled a new one.
But I know that’s selfish. Arcturius the Farsighted had a whole prophecy devoted to Artemis and me, all about breaking and healing the world. I made the right call. It just cost so much. It took away his warm eyes and long-fingered hands and swift, sure movements. His soft lips. The most dazzlingly elusive smile. And the one person who ever really saw me.
The two people, actually. Leo died, and Artemis left. And I’m here on the floor snuggling a demon. I wish Arcturius had seen this, too. They never talk about how hard the part after the hard part is.
I look up at Imogen. “I could use a cookie, yeah. Actually, cookies. Plural.”
“Cookies should never be singular.” Imogen holds out a hand to help me stand. My phone rings. The caller ID is the number we designated for demon scouting trips. Today, and most days, my mother is on the other end of the line.
When we first started meeting with demons for potential acceptance into Sanctuary, I was always with her. But a month ago, there was an … incident. I hadn’t slept at all that night, and I was already on edge, so when I turned around and saw the dead black eyes of a shark staring at me, I punched first and asked questions after. Turns out it was a demon with a shark head trying to escape some bad debts. My mother assured me he wasn’t a good fit for Sanctuary anyway, but the fact that I attacked him didn’t exactly do our reputation any favors. Word of mouth (or whatever the demon species equivalent of a mouth is) matters in finding demons who need our help. So I basically blew it.
I still feel bad about it. I like sharks! On television. Underwater. Where I am not. I can’t even think about the incident without feeling roiling guilt. When did I become a punch-first-ask-questions-later Slayer? And it made me a liability instead of an asset. My mother tried to make it sound like she needed me at the castle for scheduling reasons, but we both know it was to protect me. Or to protect the demons. I don’t know which is worse.
Working together is already awkward enough. She’s trying to be my mom again, but she doesn’t really know how to, so it comes across like those aggressively friendly employees at grocery stores who constantly ask how you are and if you need help and if you’re finding everything okay, and all you can do is smile and answer back in the same bright voice when really you know where the cereal is, thank you very much. And there’s the added pressure of feeling like I have to reward all her efforts, even when I don’t want to. I appreciate it, I really do, but I wish I had Artemis to share the burden of Mom Version Four, or at least to complain to. She’d get it. No one else does.
I answer the call. “Mom? Everything okay?”
There’s a popping noise in the background that sounds distinctly like a gun. I keep the phone to my ear and sprint outside.
“Hello, Nina. I didn’t want to interrupt your work today, but we’ve been pinned down and I didn’t bring the firepower necessary to get out.” By her tone, she might as well be calling to ask if we need more milk. My mother is baffling and also slightly terrifying.
“Is it Sean?” I don’t mean to sound so excited, but it’s almost a relief. I’ve been waiting for demon drug dealer Sean to make a play for Doug again. Doug’s happy-time skin secretions were Sean’s biggest moneymaker. And with ex-Watcher and worst person ever Honora among his former and possibly current allies, Sean knows more than enough about our operations to be very dangerous to us. Plus, I sort of destroyed his entire operation by unleashing a remora demon to crush everything. I can’t imagine he thinks fondly o
f any of us.
Today’s demon outing was a first meeting with a family of werewolves. Werewolves are low-risk, so my mother went alone. Normally, she takes Tsip, Jade, or Rhys. But we should have known better. Nothing in our world is ever truly low-risk. I wave frantically to Rhys, Cillian, and Doug. Jade doesn’t even look up. She’s probably blissed out on Doug right now. Useless. My sober friends jog up to me as I open the garage.
“No,” my mother says. “This isn’t Sean’s MO. It appears to be some aggressive freelancers. I believe there are two in sniper positions. I’m using my ammunition sparingly to avoid running out, but it won’t be much longer before they feel confident launching a full attack.”
“We’re on our way! When you run out of ammunition, hide. Don’t engage. And don’t risk yourself, okay?” It sounds horrible to say, but I don’t want my mother to die protecting strangers. Not when I’ve just started to get her back after years of being strangers to each other. I want her to annoy me for decades to come.
“Thank you. See you soon. And, Nina?” Her voice gets softer, more tentative. For the first time, she sounds a little worried. “Be careful. You’re not bulletproof.”
The silence hangs between us. I struggle to fill it, to close that gap. Because this mom who is open about caring about me? It’s new, and, like being a Slayer, or my anger or my guilt or my grief, I still don’t know how to react. So instead of telling her to be careful too, I default to something less emotionally fraught. As soon as I start joking, I know it’s the wrong choice, but it just keeps going, and I can’t stop it.
“Yeah, we should totally take that up with our ancient ancestors who created the Slayer line. Bulletproof would have been useful to add alongside prophetic dreams, superstrength, and killer instincts. Though I guess bullets would have been an unfamiliar concept on account of this all happened thousands of years ago.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, be careful, Nina.”
I take a deep breath. I wanted my mother to be mine for so long. Now I have to be strong enough to let her be, to trust that this won’t go away. “I will be. Promise. You too.” I hang up. Cillian, Rhys, and Doug are all waiting for instructions. Tsip has wandered over too.
“Can you teleport me?” I ask her.
“Yes!” The fangs jutting from her lower jaw are showcased in an enthusiastic smile. “But I can only teleport short distances. And you have to be able to reconstitute yourself after being disintegrated on a molecular level while shifting through the void beyond reality. It hurts quite a bit, but you get used to it.”
“I’ll drive then, yeah?” Cillian grabs the keys and starts the car.
Doug looks scared but determined. “Sean?” The fact that he’s willing to come and face the man who held him captive for years speaks volumes about him.
I put my hand on his arm and shake my head. “Mercenaries. With guns. I don’t think you’re going to be any use. Wake Jade up and make sure you’re all on alert while I’m gone, okay?”
Doug nods, holding a hand up in farewell. Tsip waves energetically as we pull away.
“The void beyond reality?” Cillian navigates the forest dirt road far faster than is safe. “Demons. Total nutters, the lot of them.”
“I like Doug.” Rhys checks his crossbow.
