The Slayer chronicles tome 2 : Second chance

PROLOGUE

Kilian whipped around the corner of the building, his long hair flowing behind him, his coat billowing in the wind. His heart beat steadily in an unhurried pace. His breaths came even and smooth. But Kilian was terrified and didn’t know where to go, or who could possibly help him. He was alone now but for his tormentors. His brother, Jasik, was nowhere to be found. Perhaps they’d killed him. Perhaps Kilian had no brother now. He pressed his back against the brick wall, sinking as deeply as he could into the shadows, hoping against all reason that the vampires who’d been hunting him would give up their chase.

His stomach rumbled, and inside Kilian’s mouth, his fangs elongated. He was hungry. Famished. He hadn’t had a drop of blood to eat for two days. He needed sustenance. Especially if he was going to be forced to face off with four vampires who were much older, much craftier, and much stronger than him. But the city streets were eerily quiet, and even though Kilian was straining his ears to listen, he couldn’t hear any human heartbeats in the near vicinity.

But he did hear something. Something that made his breath catch in his throat, and his hands clench into nervous fists at his sides.

Laughter. And footsteps. He wasn’t certain which scared him more. But he did know that both belonged to four different people. And those people, those vampires, were headed straight for him.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” called a singsongy voice that he could only attribute to Boris. Kilian turned his head, peering down the street—at first in the direction that the voice had come from, and then the other way. There was no escaping them, that much he knew. He could run, but they would find him. They were relentless, and nothing he could do would stop their pursuit of him.

But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try.

With a deep breath, he darted down the street with vampiric speed. He came to a stop several alleys over. His ears were greeted with only a moment’s silence before the brothers found him once again. This time, it was Kaige who spoke. “You’d think a vampire would remember that a rush of adrenaline only makes the blood taste that much sweeter.”

Laughter, cold and hollow, followed. Then a smaller, less-confident voice chimed in with marked hesitancy. “The Council’s put a warrant out for us. Maybe it would be wise to stop killing humans in the open now, and beg for Em’s forgiveness. She might be lenient.”

“Lenient? When in Em’s existence has she ever proven to be lenient when a vampire has broken the law?” Their voices put them just around the corner from Kilian. And even though there were a million places he could run, Kilian felt trapped. A thread of panic tickled its way up his spine.

“Curtis is right, Sven. Em will kill us for our crimes. That is, unless we give her reason not to.” Kilian could hear the smirk on Boris’s lips. “That little stunt pulled by Slayers in the Catskills last summer? I just got wind that the Slayer Society’s calling that group in to deal with us. If we bring her the head of the Slayer responsible, she might find it in her stone-cold heart to forgive our crimes.”

“What about our friend here?”

Kilian darted his eyes all around, but couldn’t see them, couldn’t even sense their presence anymore as the terror took hold of him at last. He couldn’t breathe, could barely move, and the exhaustion of running from them was finally catching up to him.

“Taking the life of a fellow vampire would be breaking the highest law. Is handing over one Slayer really going to ease Em’s temper after that?”

His fingers were trembling as he traced his hand along the brick wall, stepping back, deeper into the alley. He had to get away from them long enough to regroup his thoughts, to quell his panic. If he didn’t regain control of himself . . .

“Over twenty died in that blast. I say we kill him.”

“So do it already.”

A hand reached out from the darkness.

Teeth followed.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SAD REALITY

Joss lifted his suitcase from the trunk of his dad’s car and turned to say something to his dad—something light and conversational about how it was good to be home, even though it wasn’t, not really—but the side door of the gray house that they now called home was already slamming closed. So much for his homecoming. The drive from the airport had been long and silent—a strange, indescribable tension hanging in the air between he and his dad. It was like riding in the car with a stranger who couldn’t stand the sight of you. Worse, though. Far worse. Because the stranger was his father.

The silence had given Joss time to reflect on the school year that he’d just spent away, however. Not that they were pleasant memories. In the beginning they had been. Joss had lived with his favorite cousin, Henry, and had befriended a boy named Vlad. Only Vlad turned out not to be a boy at all, but instead a vampire.

Just like Sirus.

Joss had been duped twice now by vampires, taunting him with the gift of friendship, only to have them rip it away again with their horrible, menacing fangs. He was done with friends. He was done with searching for companionship. He only had his want of vengeance now, and the sense of duty and honor that had been given to him by the Slayer Society.

And his stake, of course.

Inside his right front jeans pocket, his cell phone buzzed to life. He withdrew it and flipped it open to read the incoming text message. It was her. Again.

He wasn’t exactly certain how Kat had gotten his cell number. But she’d been sending him messages for days now—each one more troubling than the last.

This one was brief: Are you going home for the summer, Joss? Must be nice to have a family to go home to. I’m coming for you. Don’t forget it.—K

He chewed the inside of his cheek briefly, considering a reply. But then thought better of it and flipped the phone closed again.

Kat would have to wait.

He shut the trunk and lugged his bag across the lawn to the door, remembering a time when he and his family had lived in a yellow house. A house that had been filled with sunshine and laughter and love. It felt like those memories had transpired over a million years ago, in a time that they’d all forgotten. For a brief moment, Joss wondered if that time—when Cecile had been alive and their family had been whole—had just been a dream. But then he shook his head. No. It couldn’t have been a dream. Not one of Joss’s, anyway. His dreams were dark. His dreams were awful, haunting images that never let the goose bumps on his flesh settle. His dreams were nightmares. Nightmares about Cecile.

As he moved toward the house, he thought about the dreams that had been tormenting him since his sister’s demise, about how they usually featured flowers in some way, and he wondered if they would ever stop. But he also wondered if they were just dreams, or if—as crazy as it sounded—Cecile was reaching out from beyond the grave, hell-bent on revenge. He didn’t like having those thoughts—so much so that he usually pretended that he never had them—but the fact was that he spent too much time worrying about his dream sister in ways that he had never worried about Cecile. The dream Cecile scared him more than anything, even vampires, and he always felt so powerless against her. She carried messages with her, messages of his impending doom, impending death, and he worried, as silly as it seemed, that his death would not come from his job as a Slayer. But from Cecile herself.

It was stupid to think those things. And if ever asked, Joss would have laughed off the notion that he believed his dreams could ever physically hurt him. But the truth was, he wasn’t at all convinced that they couldn’t.

As he pulled open the screen door and lifted his bag over the threshold, he spied his mother sitting at the dining room table, that faraway look in her eye. Joss knew that look well, as it had been growing steadily worse every day since Cecile had died. His mother was a fragile creature, in ways that she had never been fragile before. He kept his voice low, so as not to startle her. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

She glanced up from her sad fog and nodded, forcing a small smile. It made Joss’s heart break to see his mother acting as well. “Fine, Joss. I’m just fine. How was your trip, dear?”

Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him and sat his suitcase beside the laundry cabinet. “It was interesting. A lady sitting beside me on the plane was very chatty.”

“Nice chatty?”

In a moment of pure awkwardness, he simply nodded and smiled. They were both actors now, and he hoped against hope that his mother couldn’t see through his facade the way that he could see through hers.

He pulled a chair out and sat down at the table, grateful for this time, this moment with his mother before his father started in on him about something he’d done wrong in the five seconds he’d been home. Their relationship—his and his dad’s—had changed dramatically since Cecile’s funeral. His father had pulled away into a protective cocoon, and no amount of hugs or talks or high fives could break through that barrier. It was as if, through Cecile dying, his entire family had perished as well. He would have done anything to change it, to turn back time and have his family again. But there was nothing, Joss was slowly realizing, that he could do to restore their happiness. So he was doing the next best thing: hunting down the vampire that had destroyed them all. And when he found the beast, he was going to make it suffer.

“Joss.” The look on his father’s face as he entered the room was one of irritation. “Take care of your luggage. I shouldn’t have to tell you that. You’re old enough to start taking some real responsibility around here.”

Joss’s ears burned slightly. If his dad only knew that he was incredibly responsible, that he’d been charged with saving humankind, that he was someone that the world was unknowingly relying on for support. . . .

But his dad didn’t know that, would never know that. As Abraham had taught Joss, being a Slayer was a thankless job, and one that had to be kept in the strictest secrecy. Even from your parents.

“Sorry, Dad. I’ll take care of it right away.” Joss pushed his chair back and stood, reaching immediately for his suitcase.

As his father turned from the room, he grumbled, “And we still have to discuss that report card of yours, young man.”

Joss wrapped his fingers around the handle of his suitcase and picked it up, letting his eyes follow his father out of the room. He missed his dad more than anything—maybe even more than he missed Cecile—but he knew, deep down, that the father he had known and loved was gone for good, forever changed by an experience that haunted them all like a shadow in the corner of every room. With a heavy heart, he lifted his bag and moved up the stairs to his bedroom without another word.

He’d only been to the room once before, just long enough to move some boxes inside. Then he was in the car and on his way to the airport, his dad lecturing him on how to behave while he was living at Aunt Matilda and Uncle Mike’s house. He hadn’t even had a chance to unpack before moving on to Bathory, to a life that would bring him in close contact with a vampire called Vladimir Tod. He clenched his fists at the thought before entering his room.

His bed was unmade, and lining the walls were piles of small boxes, containing most of Joss’s insect collection and books. The room looked more like a temporary storage facility than a teenage boy’s bedroom, and didn’t exactly provide the “welcome home” feeling he’d been daydreaming about. He lifted the bag and set it on top of the trunk at the foot of his bed, then retrieved a set of sheets, blanket, and pillow from the linen closet in the hall. For now, anyway, this house was home to him, so it was time to settle in and remind his parents in whatever subtle way that he could manage that they hadn’t lost both of their children that night. They still had a son.

After making his bed, he reached for a box on top of the nearest stack and pulled it down, setting it on the floor by his feet. He crouched and tore the lid free from the packaging tape that had held it closed. Inside, under a wad of newspaper, were a stack of carefully bubble-wrapped frames. At a glance, he recognized them as some of his favorite collected specimens. He lifted them out and set them gently on the bed, then returned his attention to the box. The remainder of it was filled with books. Looking around the room briefly, Joss located his bookcase, and picked up an armful of books. It was time to get to work. Time to put things away.

An hour later, his bed was crisply made, his bookcase was full and neatly organized, and the shelves on the wall were home to his favorite specimens. On his nightstand sat a small silver frame, containing a photograph of Cecile. Not nightmare Cecile, but real Cecile. The sweet, blond cherub who had brightened his life the moment he’d seen her in the hospital nursery.

He broke down the boxes as he emptied them, stacking the cardboard neatly in the hall outside his door. It was another mindless task—one where he didn’t have to think about his shattered family or his botched private job or the betrayal of his closest nonfamily friend to date—and he welcomed it. He had seen too much in the past year of his life that he couldn’t forget, that he couldn’t numb away with the aid of video games and mass quantities of caffeine. And now, with the betrayal of Vlad, he was in danger of losing his cousin Henry as well. It was unbearable, to be so alone, to know that he had no one who he could rely on, that—apart from the Slayer Society—he was on his own. And the idea that Henry could even consider siding with a vampire against him! It sickened Joss. It hurt him. In ways that Henry could never understand.

So Joss needed mindless tasks. He needed a void in which he could tumble and roll without a care in the world, so far away from the harsh bleakness of his reality.

As he peeled the bubble wrap back from the framed Black Corsair, Joss smiled. This time it wasn’t an act. This time it was a real, honest, actual smile, brought on by the love of his grandfather and the framed gift he’d bestowed upon Joss before he’d died. The Black Corsair was a large insect, and at first glance, there didn’t seem to be anything vicious about it at all. But just try explaining that to the May beetle, the preferred victim of the assassin Corsair. The Corsair would attack them from behind, and hold on to their prey with the spongy pads on their legs. They were sneaky, these assassin bugs. Deadly. And no one would know it by looking at them. Just like a Slayer.

He’d wished he’d known that his grandfather had been a Slayer, but it was probably for the best that he didn’t. It was important for a Slayer to keep his position secret, especially from his family. Having that secret revealed could endanger them, and that was inexcusable. Family was important. More important, maybe, than anything else in the world.

His smile slipped, fading away just as quickly as it had come, and Joss set his prized possession on the bed. Stepping over the pile of cardboard, he moved back down the stairs and rummaged in the junk drawer for a hammer and nail. The Black Corsair, as in every house they’d lived in since he was eight, would hang in its place of honor over his bed.

Digging through the drawer, Joss frowned. In this house, much like every house they’d lived in, the nails and screws and batteries and tools and flashlights and weird things that had no place found their home in the junk drawer. But not a single nail was in the drawer. Furrowing his brow, Joss said, “Hey, Mom, where’s a nail? I want to hang up my Black Corsair.”

His mother was still sitting at the table, but now a steaming cup of tea sat on the table in front of her. Her fingers curled around it, as if huddling for warmth. The tea-bag string dangled over the cup’s edge. He was about to ask her again, when something in her eyes shifted, as if the fog had momentarily lifted. “There’s a box of them in the garage. Your father can show you.”

He hesitated before he moved, mostly because he knew what would happen if he asked his father for a nail. They’d discuss his grades, or the fact that Joss needed a haircut, or something else that had nothing to do with the fact that his dad was still grieving and had turned Joss into the Invisible Boy. He bit the inside of his cheek until he couldn’t bear it anymore. Then, on his way back upstairs, said, “It’s okay. It can wait until later.”

“Oh. Joss? I forgot. This came for you earlier.”

When he turned back, his mother was sliding a large white envelope across the table toward him. Joss moved back down the steps, retrieved it, and headed upstairs. He was in his bedroom before he ripped the end of the envelope open. When the small parchment bundle tumbled out, his heart picked up its pace some. It was wrapped in a burgundy ribbon, and held closed with a wax seal that bore the initials S.S., meaning that it could only be from the Slayer Society. He wagered they were simply requesting his final notes on the reconnaissance he’d convinced them he’d done in Bathory, but hoped it was his new assignment, and that it would take him far away from this house and the emotional ghosts that haunted it.

Joss,

Your presence is required in Manhattan in two days time. There is private business to attend to. Bring your supplies and pack enough clothing for the entire summer. All arrangements have been made.

—Abraham

Downstairs, the phone rang shrilly, its metallic jingle echoing through the entire house. Joss heard his mother’s voice, but not her words. Then moments later he heard his father’s deep tones. Opening his suitcase, he emptied it of clean and dirty clothes and began repacking. If Abraham said he was going, he was going. And soon.

“Joss. Downstairs. Now.”

His father’s voice shook him to the core. What once had been immense and immeasurable sadness was now manifesting in his dad in strange, angry ways, and Joss wasn’t sure which he preferred (though he honestly preferred neither). But he knew that whenever his father barked that he should immediately drop whatever he was doing and hurry to wherever his father was barking from, or he’d have hell to pay. So he jumped lightly over his cardboard pile, noting that he should pick it up before his dad saw the mess, and hurried down the stairs, where his parents were now both sitting at the kitchen table. Mom’s mug of tea was now half gone, its wrinkled tea bag lying on a spoon to its left. Joss stood at the end of the table somewhat awkwardly. “Yeah, Dad?”

“Your uncle Abraham just called.” The look in his father’s eyes said that this was something that shouldn’t surprise Joss, like he’d orchestrated whatever excuse Abraham had given for getting Joss to Manhattan for the summer. But Joss stood stone-faced, revealing nothing that might so much as hint at the fact that he was privy to more information than his suspicious father. After a moment, his father spoke again. “He’s working in conjunction with the Natural History Museum in New York this summer, and thought it might be a good experience for you to tag along, act as an intern. He thought that perhaps the discipline of a job might spark some semblance of responsibility in you. And your mother and I agree.”

Relief flooded through Joss—relief that he hated to feel. Those feelings made him a bad person, a bad son—didn’t they? He was thrilled to be going somewhere, anywhere, out of this house, away from the stress of being there, away from the pain of his day-to-day life. Anywhere was better than the shadow of his parents’ grief. Besides, he was looking forward to seeing his fellow Slayers again. The summer before this one felt like it had happened a million years ago. He missed them. He even missed Abraham, and wondered if it was possible that Abraham had missed him—in ways that his own parents, apparently, had not.

“You get on a plane in two days, so you’d better get packed.” Joss nodded and turned around, ready to walk back up the stairs. But he was given pause by his father’s next words. “But pick up the damn boxes and stick them in recycling first.”

His feet felt lighter with the aid of his newfound relief as he moved back up the stairs, and the first thing that Joss did, without complaint, was to gather the pile of broken-down boxes into a heap in his arms and carry them downstairs and out into the garage. While he was out there, he retrieved the hammer and a single nail.

Once back in his room, he tapped the nail into the wall above his bed and carefully hung the Black Corsair in its place. He hoped that wherever his grandfather was in the ether, wherever he was on his Next Great Adventure, that he was looking on his grandson with an approving smile. Because Joss might not be the greatest student, the greatest cousin, the greatest friend, or even the greatest son . . . but he was a Slayer, like his grandfather before him. He was dedicated to a cause full of nobility and purpose. He was driven. He was bent on revenge for his withered home life. And though the reward would never be anything concrete, Joss knew that he was doing good. For mankind. For Cecile. For his grandfather.

And maybe, just a little, for himself.