The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill (9 page)
Read The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill Online
Authors: Heather Brewer
In the dark wilderness, it didn’t take long for paranoia to set in. Every cricket’s chirp was a vampire. Every breeze through the trees was a vampire. Joss slumped against a tree, his heart beating softly inside his chest, his tongue so dry inside his mouth, his stomach ripe with hunger pains. There had been no vampires—not even a single little sign of the creatures—since his purification had begun. He was beginning to think he’d imagined Cecile’s murder, as well as the vampire he’d stopped from killing Kat. Maybe he was crazy, and all of this was simply a part of his imaginary world. Maybe everyone—all the Slayers, even—were part of his imagination, too. This thought crept into his hungry, exhausted mind, and disappeared again like a whisper. Vampires were real, he knew that much. It was just his lack of food and sleep that was making him wonder such ridiculous things.
He watched the sun setting behind the trees, and it wasn’t long before darkness took him over.
8
PICKING FLOWERS
In the distance, Joss could hear someone humming. The sound was soft and sweet and reminded him of home. Though he was certain it had been night just a moment before, daylight filled the clearing now, illuminating every inch of the forest as far as he could see. Standing, Joss followed the lyrical sound of the humming until he came upon a field of wildflowers. A young girl was crouched in the middle of the field, plucking purple flowers from the ground and placing them in the bunch grasped tightly in her left hand. Her blond curls were pulled up in a ponytail that just barely brushed against her tan skin. She was wearing a yellow sundress that reminded him of the color of his mom’s kitchen.
He knew the girl, but feared speaking her name out loud. Because something was wrong with this scene, but Joss couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was. “Cecile, what are you doing out here?”
She turned her head to the side at the sound of his voice, but didn’t speak. Joss wasn’t certain why, but he was relieved to see her cheek clean and tan. When she went back to picking flowers, he crossed the field, daisies bouncing against his ankles as he moved closer to his sister. “Cecile, what are you doing here? Mom wouldn’t want you out here, you know.”
“I’m picking flowers, Jossie.” She turned her head to the side again to glimpse her brother.
Joss’s heart skipped a beat. Something was on Cecile’s cheek. A dark line. It looked like blood.
Then he remembered. Cecile was dead. She was dead and it was all his fault.
He slowed his steps, stopping just a few feet behind her. His fingers were trembling. “Why are you picking flowers, Cecile?”
“To take them with me.” She turned around then. Once again, her eye sockets were black, soulless tunnels. Deep within those dark tunnels, Joss could see flames. When she opened her mouth to speak again, a large centipede crawled out. “There are no flowers in hell, Jossie.”
Joss shoved his sister away. He felt terrible for doing so, but he was so frightened, he could hardly breathe. His chest tightened in panicked breaths and he backed away. “You’re not in hell, Cecile! You’re not!”
Cecile crawled after him in a twitching hurry, her mouth oozing all sorts of insects, her eyes devoid of all life. She clutched his ankle, crying. “Oh, yes I am. And you put me there, Jossie. You did this to me.”
Her tears disappeared quickly as her mouth contorted into a grin. Inside her mouth were fangs. Fangs covered in blood.
9
A SIMPLE MISTAKE
Joss woke with a start. Warmth, glorious wonderful warmth covered his cheek, and he sighed in relief that he was no longer in that field of flowers. But his relief didn’t last.
Joss sat up and whipped his head around in a panicked frenzy, his mind focused on one thought—a thought that echoed through his head repeatedly.
Abraham’s going to kill me!
Abraham’s going to kill me!
His heart raced. He’d fallen asleep. Somehow, despite walking around for hours, despite promising himself that he wouldn’t even doze, he’d fallen asleep and it was now morning. Sun filtered through the trees above. The clearing was alive with the energy of daytime ... and empty, but for Joss, and Malek’s unused tent.
He moved quickly, searching the clearing with his eyes, then physically walking it until it was clear that Malek wasn’t there. Then he moved outside the circle, searching carefully, all the while wondering if Malek had returned to the house to tell Abraham of his failure. Or maybe worse. Maybe the Slayers had left him here in the mountains alone. He turned toward the trail that led down the mountain and just as he was about to begin his descent, he noticed something on the trail.
Something moist. Something red.
Joss’s steps slowed, but he still moved forward, as if he was naturally drawn to the substance on the ground. He crouched beside it, disbelief filling him until he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. As he stretched his hand out to touch it, the voice in the back of his head, his reason, his good sense, screamed not to, but still Joss stretched his fingers forth, stopping only when they met with the moist ground. Moist with blood.
It smelled metallic. And slightly rotten.
As if he hadn’t been suspecting all along that the substance had been blood, Joss jerked his fingers back, shaking them. His eyes never left the blood. Was it Malek’s? Or maybe a vampire that Malek had taken out while he’d been dozing? He hoped for the latter, but couldn’t be sure until he saw a body. He also couldn’t shake the urge to follow the trail and confirm that it wasn’t merely animal blood. Standing, he traced the blood trail into the undergrowth, over a fallen tree trunk, and behind a large boulder ... where he encountered an arm. Joss froze, terrified, his heart racing, his bladder threatening to release the little liquid it contained at any second.
The arm was pale and looked as if it had been ripped away from the torso it belonged to. It wasn’t attached to a body—not anymore—and there was no sign of a body anywhere around. At first, he didn’t see any other sign of the owner of the arm. But then, hidden in the bushes to his left, he saw something that sent a scream tearing through him. A scream that he wasn’t certain made any actual sound, but ripped through every cell of his body with fear and understanding.
Malek’s head was lying in the bushes, its dead eyes staring wide, right at Joss.
Strong hands shook Joss from his maybe-silent scream. “What happened? My god, man, what happened to Malek?”
It was Ash, the Slayer with the kind smile. Only he wasn’t smiling now. Joss shook his head, his eyes locked on the gruesome scene. “I ... I fell asleep.”
Ash’s eyes moistened with anger. He turned abruptly and hurried down the hill to the cabin below. Joss’s thoughts filled with questions. Had a vampire really snuck by him late at night and managed to silently tear Malek limb from limb? Had he actually slept through the attack? What would happen now? The police would have to be involved, that was for certain. Vampires or not, a man had been brutally murdered and the authorities would most certainly have to be told. And if the police were involved ... would Joss be in danger of going to jail? After all, he was the only person around when Malek was killed. They might think he did it. But would they really believe a young teenager could be capable of such a horrible, brutal attack? Joss nervously touched his face with a trembling hand, Malek’s blood smearing across his cheek. Yes, he thought. Police might suspect just about anybody when a man has been torn to pieces.
Soon—Joss had no idea how soon as time became twisted into a vortex of shock—the sound of many footfalls filled the woods as the remaining members of the group hurried up the hill to where Joss now stood. Their eyes moved from this bloody horror to that, but all came to rest on Joss, who was standing there in utter shock, his entire body trembling now, uncertain what to say or do. Abraham stepped forward and barked orders to the rest. “Clean it up. Now. I’ll notify Headquarters so they can get a fitting explanation to Malek’s family. And Joss ...” Joss looked up at his uncle, Joss’s lip shaking more than he ever deemed possible. He was hoping to hear words of support, of encouragement even, but he knew that would never happen. All Abraham said was, “Come with me.”
His uncle led him down the hill, but instead of turning toward the house, he turned away from it, leading Joss to another clearing, this one occupied by a large fallen oak tree and a small wooden shack that had once been painted blue. When they got to the new clearing, Abraham turned to face him. “I didn’t want to say this in front of the others, but it needs to be said, and you need to hear it.”
Joss swallowed hard. His skin felt prickly, and he was having a difficult time standing still. He blamed it on nerves. Would Abraham suspect he was involved in Malek’s death in some way? Was the murderer still lurking somewhere nearby? And why were they here in this clearing? Shouldn’t they be tracking whoever, whatever, did this to Malek?
Abraham set his jaw. He didn’t raise his voice, but when he spoke, Joss could hear the dark sincerity in his tone. “The fact is that you fell asleep on the job, Joss. And because of that, a man is dead. So I’m going to do you a favor.”
“What’s that, Uncle?” He blinked and shuffled his feet awkwardly, afraid to ask for clarification and wondering just exactly what they were doing in this clearing with a shack and not in the house with a phone, calling the police. And what exactly had he meant when he told the others to “clean it up,” anyway? Clean up the body? The evidence? That didn’t sit right at all in Joss’s stomach. In fact, it sat like a hard lead ball of wrongness right at the center of his being.
“Get out. Walk away. Leave your training behind. You aren’t cut out for this kind of life. So go.”
Joss let his uncle’s words settle into his mind for a moment before shaking his head. “No. I’m not going anywhere. I screwed up. Because of me, Malek is dead. I have to stay. I have to help find his killer. I have to complete my training.”
Abraham sighed heavily. “Your purification was a complete failure. How are you supposed to be purified now?”
Joss didn’t know, but he did know that if he walked away from this, he might never sleep a dreamless sleep ever again. An image flashed in his mind then—the image of a large centipede crawling out of Cecile’s mouth. She would never let him rest. Not until vengeance was had.
His uncle paused then, his eyes moving to the small shed. “Of course ... there is another way.”
Shuddering, Joss said, “I’ll do whatever it takes.”
With a nod, Abraham opened the shack’s door and said, “Remove your shirt.”
Joss blinked. He couldn’t possibly have heard his uncle right. Remove his shirt? Why?
Abraham reached inside the shed and pulled out something long and coiled. He put his arm through the center and looped it over his shoulder. It resembled a very thin snake. Joss recognized the item from an old Indiana Jones movie he saw once with his dad. It was a whip.
Abraham’s tone remained emotionless as he rolled up his sleeves. White cotton against tan skin. “Remove your shirt, Joss.”
Inside Joss’s chest, his heart raged. Did his uncle really mean to hit him with that thing? He shook his head, his eyes locked on the weapon, his thoughts scrambling around the notion that Abraham had almost ended up in the nuthouse not so long ago, after his aunt Margaret had been committed. His reply came out in a terrified whisper. “No.”
Abraham’s voice softened some. Just enough for Joss to know that he hadn’t gone completely insane. “You said you’d do whatever it takes. Well, this is what it takes. Either you face the whip, or you walk away from your training. This will hurt, yes. But we have to complete your purification. Believe me, nephew, I’d rather have you go without sleep and come about your purification with moderate ease than face the whip, but Malek is dead, and Headquarters won’t allow us to take you on without purification. We’re down a Slayer, Joss, and we need you. Now tell me ... can you man up and get through this so we can catch the beast, or should I send you packing like a boy?”
Joss looked from his uncle to the whip on his shoulder and swallowed hard. He thought of Cecile and how he’d never avenge her death if he couldn’t put up with a little pain. Besides, how much pain had she experienced, all because he hadn’t been there to protect her, to save her? A little pain was the least he deserved. “How many?”
“Ten more hours left until the day is done, marking your third day out. So, ten licks. That’s nothing. You can do this. Malek did it, and he faced down twentyseven licks without as much as a yelp. You just have to focus on something and breathe slow and deep.”
Ten. That wasn’t so bad. If Malek, who now lay in pieces on the side of a mountain, could do twentyseven, Joss could do ten. Couldn’t he? The whip looked so simple, just a braid of coils in a long strand. But the idea of being hit with it repeatedly sent a shock of fear through him. He’d never been hit by anything before. Not so much as a single fistfight or one event of paddling. What would it feel like to be whipped? The closest he’d come to that was being hit in the eye with a swing, and that had been a pain beyond any he’d experienced. It had been accidental, and this would very much be on purpose. Purposeful pain, he imagined, would hurt more somehow. Much more. But this was for Cecile, and for Malek now, too.
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