The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill (25 page)
Read The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill Online
Authors: Heather Brewer
Stiffly, slowly, and full of wondering disbelief, Joss turned back toward the creature. It sat up just as slowly as he had turned, its body drenched with blood, its fangs elongated, its eyes fierce. “That wasn’t very nice, Joss. I’m afraid you force my hand.”
Joss looked at its chest, confused. He must have hit a lung. It was the only thing that could explain the whistling, and the fact that the monster had survived. It leaped toward him, pinning him to the ground, its still-flowing blood soaking into his clothes, his hair. “Monster?” It growled. “Who’s the monster now?”
It reared back, opening its mouth wide, exposing its fangs. Joss struggled uselessly beneath it, but there was nothing he could do. The thing meant to have him for dinner.
He wondered briefly if he would see Cecile again.
Then, through the monster’s chest came a sharp gleam of silver as a stake burst out. Abraham stood over the monster and Joss, his stake triumphantly through the vampire’s heart. Abraham pulled the dead beast away and tossed it to the side, helping a shaken Joss to his feet. Then he handed the silver hatchet to his nephew and said, “I believe you dropped this.”
Joss moved over to the creature and raised the hatchet high, bringing it down again and again with terrified, furious shouts until there was barely enough left to burn. The forest began to swirl around faster and faster, as if it had been placed in a blender.
Joss’s world closed over him in black.
25
THE DARKNESS
Joss opened his eyes briefly—just long enough to see Abraham’s face and to realize that he was in an ambulance. His uncle pressed his lips together, a glimpse of concern crossing his eyes. “It’s okay, Joss. It’s going to be okay.”
As the darkness dragged him under once again, he heard someone—the EMT, perhaps—ask about his wounds.
“A mountain lion,” his uncle replied, and Joss laughed hysterically inside his mind. All of the Catskills was going to be on the run from make-believe mountain lions.
But the hysterical humor disappeared along with the ambulance, his uncle, everything. Joss was alone in the darkness, with nothing for company but the emptiness.
26
SECRETS REVEALED
The next day Ash opened the door of Abraham’s car and helped Joss out. “What did the doctors say?”
Ash already knew what the doctors had said—as did all of the Slayers. Abraham had called them from the hospital last night. Three doctors examined Joss, and each expressed deep concern over his wounds, which seemed suspiciously like abusive wounds. But Joss had convinced them, for the time being, that he had an abnormal interest in hand-to-hand combat, and that none of his wounds had been at the hands of his uncle. After many shaking heads and lots of whispering, they deemed Joss to be severely dehydrated—thus the fainting. They also deemed that he was sleep deprived and under an unusually high amount of stress for a boy his age.
They didn’t know the half of it.
He’d spent the night at the hospital for observation; now that Sirus was gone, the Slayers had to risk the authorities to get Joss the care he needed. Every time Abraham would leave the room, a nurse would enter and tell Joss that it was okay to talk to them, okay to tell them if his uncle had been hurting him. No, Joss insisted. None of these wounds had been Abraham’s fault. They’d been his. And that was the truth.
Abraham answered Ash very matter-of-factly. “They want him to rest, which shouldn’t be a problem. Joss’s training is at its end. With one more task—a sole hunt and kill—it’ll be complete, but that can wait until next summer.”
Joss nodded, and moved toward the house. Several other Slayers said their hellos on their way into the woods. On the drive back from the hospital, Uncle Abraham had told him to head straight to his room and pack so he could make the noon train. It was time to go home.
The other Slayers would be staying here for the duration of the summer, in an effort to locate the vampires’ hive. If they didn’t find it, they’d move on to other jobs and Joss would join them again the following summer to continue their search, until every inch of the Catskill Mountains had been thoroughly explored. The idea that their efforts might not be fruitful even after years of searching was exhausting, but it was a matter of duty and honor, and the Catskills had proven to be a desired location for vampire-kind.
Joss lifted his suitcase and set it on his bed, tossing his clothes inside. He retrieved his toiletries from the bathroom and tucked them near the bottom, then plucked up Cecile’s photograph from his nightstand. He ran the tips of his fingers across her face, drawing soft lines across it in the light layer of dust on the glass. Then he placed her picture inside his suitcase, and the pocket watch inside his jeans pocket, and zipped the suitcase closed.
He carried his bag down the stairs and set it near the front door. As he entered the kitchen to grab a snack, his eyes fell on the stove, which brought his thoughts back to Sirus, back to Kat. With but a moment’s hesitation, Joss headed out the back door and across the yard. He wanted to say good-bye to Sirus and Kat before he left. Even if they weren’t really there to hear it. For all he knew, he might never see either of them again, and he just couldn’t bear the thought of leaving things unsaid. It was a weakness he still possessed, but he promised himself he’d work on it. He’d work on all of his weaknesses, until he became a Slayer that even Abraham would envy.
He pulled open the door and stepped inside, a strange sadness settling over him. He felt like he was mourning his friends, not just saying good-bye, and couldn’t put his finger on exactly why he was feeling that way. As he moved through the house, he thought about every happy memory they’d shared. By the time he’d reached the kitchen, he was smiling. The kitchen, more than any other room, reminded him of Sirus. The smell of cooking food and the sight of clean dishes being put away. The sounds and smells and sights of comfort and home. All of that meant Sirus to him. Sirus was a caretaker, after all, and he was very good at his job.
Joss leaned up against the counter, cursing under his breath when he realized he’d somehow gotten spaghetti sauce on his shirt. Sirus must have been cooking before he disappeared with Kat and gotten some on the counter without realizing. Joss moved into the bathroom and rinsed his shirt off in the sink, ringing water from the cotton, hoping it wouldn’t stain. Musing that there might be something in the medicine cabinet to help remove the stain, he opened the cabinet door. To his surprise, he found it filled with six different kinds of sunscreen.
Joss furrowed his brow. That was an awful lot of sunscreen for just two people. Or maybe he’d been storing it for all the Slayers’ use, for the duration of the summer.
A strange stillness filled him as his eyes fell on the cabinet below the sink. Surely it would contain nothing more than bathroom cleansers. Nothing unusual at all.
He stretched out his hand—it seemed like it took hours to do so—and opened the cupboard door slowly. Inside there were neat stacks of tubes of sunscreen. Rows and rows of them. Joss slammed the door and heard the neat piles collapse within. He stood there for a long, lingering moment, trying desperately not to put the puzzle pieces together, wishing he’d never entered Sirus’s house to say good-bye. What a stupid idea, anyway! Saying good-bye to people who were already gone. What was he thinking?
It meant nothing, had to mean nothing. Because if Sirus’s large collection of sunscreen meant what Joss feared it meant, then that would mean that Sirus was a liar. And a rather stupid one at that. If Sirus was a—he couldn’t bring himself to use the “v” word; not even in thought—then why wouldn’t he take more care to hide his sunscreen? Or had he hoped that someone would see it, and maybe put him out of his misery?
He looked down at the stubborn stain on his shirt and pressed his lips together tightly before moving back into the kitchen. His eyes moved from the small smear on the counter to the refrigerator and never before in his life had he wanted to see spaghetti leftovers sitting on a shelf in a refrigerator so badly. He placed his hand on the refrigerator handle and took a deep breath, holding it in his lungs as he pulled the door open.
The refrigerator was almost completely empty.
Except for a single item.
Joss’s hands shook as he retrieved the bag from the top shelf. It was plastic, full of a crimson fluid, and marked with various stickers—one of them a biohazard sticker. Another sticker read Type A Positive.
Blood. He was holding a bag of blood. And what’s more, it was a bag of blood from Sirus’s refrigerator.
At first, he tried to rationalize it. Sirus was the caretaker. Maybe he kept the blood around in case he needed to perform a transfusion of some sort. Maybe he was worried about not reaching a hospital in time. After all, they were in the mountains, and the hospital really was pretty far away.
But the voice of reason kept invading his panicked thoughts, reminding Joss that while he’d seen Sirus cook many elaborate meals, he couldn’t once recall having witnessed Sirus eating any of those meals. And the sunscreen ... so much sunscreen.
Joss dropped the bag to the floor. It landed with a splat, but the plastic held, still containing the blood.
Horror crept over every inch of his insides, piercing his soul. Sirus was a vampire. Joss had been duped this entire time. What’s more, he now knew why Sirus had run. The Slayers had been getting too close to discovering exactly who had turned on them, who was responsible for the deaths of Malek and Chazz. Sirus had killed them. Sirus was now working for the enemy.
Sirus
was
the enemy.
was
the enemy.
Joss’s heart pounded so loudly in his ears that he almost didn’t hear the scream coming from somewhere in the direction of the clearing. Instinctively he bolted out the door and toward the clearing, stopping only when he saw his uncle on the ground, his right leg bending at an odd angle, Sirus crouching over him with his hands covering Abraham’s mouth. Abraham’s stake had been flung across the clearing, no more than three feet from where Joss was standing. Sirus was pressing Abraham’s mouth hard, the look on his face one of panic. “Shut up, Abraham! Just shut up. Let me think.”
Joss bent down and stretched out his hand, grasping the stake in his hand. It was heavier than he’d expected, and he blamed its heft on the silver that snaked its way around the wood, coming together at its silver tip. Then he looked at Sirus and said—in a tone that seemed so calm and determined, in a voice that he barely recognized as his own, “What’s there to think about, Sirus?”
Sirus stiffened at first, then sighed heavily, his shoulders sinking some. “Joss. Of all of them, it would have to be Joss, wouldn’t it?”
Joss waited, getting a feel for the weapon in his hand. He knew what he would have to do, and reminded himself that it was Sirus who had brought him to this. It was Sirus who was forcing his hand.
Then Sirus lifted a finger to his lips and gave Abraham a pointed look, telling him to hush. He stood slowly and turned on one heel to face Joss. His friend. “This isn’t what it looks like. It’s not what it seems. So think about that before you stab me with that thing and force yourself to live with a regret you may not recover from.”
Joss gripped the stake, comfortable with its weight now. He turned it over in his hand and held Sirus’s gaze. “Are you a vampire, Sirus?”
Sirus’s eyes filled with sorrow. “I’m not your enemy, Joss. Please. Put the stake down.”
Joss felt a lump form in his throat. He needed answers, but wasn’t getting them. “Did you kill Malek and Chazz?”
“No. I swear to you that I didn’t.” Sirus held his hands out in a pleading gesture. “Joss, you know me. Do I look like a killer?”
In all honesty, he didn’t. But Joss couldn’t shake the image of all that sunscreen—enough for hundreds of normal people, not to mention that blood bag in the refrigerator. But this was Sirus. His confidant. His friend. Relaxing his grip on the stake some, Joss shook his head. “I’m a little confused.”
Abraham lay there quietly, his eyes squeezed tight, as if he were in immense pain and doing all that he could just to remain conscious.
Sirus shook his head slowly, looking pained. “I was bitten three years ago. And though I resisted, I was sent here time and time again to gather information about the Slayer Society. This was supposed to be my last Catskills mission.”
Suddenly, Joss knew exactly what had happened to Sirus. He’d been bitten, once, and turned into a vampire’s human slave. The Slayer manual had spoken about such an occurrence. He remembered that it was referred to as being made into a drudge. And what a horrible fate it was, unable to resist your vampire master’s every command, no matter if it went against your beliefs or morals. That had to be it. Sirus was a drudge, and his vampire master had sent him back here to spy on his fellow Slayers, against his will. He looked at Sirus, at his friend, and wondered if it were possible to free someone once they were trapped by the binds of vampire control.
And the sunscreen. It was so obvious. Clearly, Sirus had to keep sunscreen around for his master. Joss suspected that master was Zy.
“It was never my intention to hurt you or the others, Joss. I swear it. I had no choice.” The truth rang through in each of Sirus’s words.
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