The Slayer Chronicles: First Kill Read online

  Abraham sat there in quiet contemplation for a moment, before giving Joss’s back a gentle pat. After another moment of silence, he stood and moved down the aisle to the coffin. He’d come here to pay his respects and had somehow gotten wrapped up in his nephew’s newly bloomed madness. Clearly, he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Joss didn’t blame him.

  But to Joss’s surprise, moments later, his uncle had returned to his seat beside Joss. Abraham nodded. “It seems you are correct, Joss. Something, not someone, did take young Cecile’s life. I suspect the guilty party is a vampire.”

  Joss looked at his uncle, trying to gauge whether or not Abraham was playing some sick joke on him at his sister’s funeral. All he saw was complete honesty and understanding. But his mind couldn’t shut out the questions it begged. “How can vampires possibly be real? And how could we not know about them all this time?”

  Abraham’s eyes were on the mourners as they passed by Cecile’s coffin. Joss should have been up there, too, but he just couldn’t bear it. Maybe Abraham understood that. Or maybe he was just waiting until they finished their conversation to see if Joss would go. “Do you know how big snakes get? Or how many grains of sand are in the deserts? Or exactly what lurks on the bottoms of the oceans’ floors?”

  Joss thought about each query. He dug deep into the recesses of his mind, but came up empty. “No.”

  “Well, if you can’t answer those simple scientific queries, then what makes you think that mankind is smart enough to discover vampirekind’s existence?” Abraham raised an eyebrow at his nephew then. He’d made a valid point.

  Who was to say that humans knew all that there was to know about our planet? Joss thought about the so-called scientific evidence behind vampirism that he had read about in the books at the library. So much paranoia, so many graves dug up, all because corpses would bloat, making their bellies look full, while gums shrank, making their incisors appear as fangs? Joss hardly thought so. It sounded like a lame attempt at an explanation to him.

  So maybe his uncle was right. Maybe vampires really existed. Maybe one had killed his sister.

  “I have connections to that world, if you want justice, Joss.” Abraham’s chin was strong, his jaw set, as if he very much wanted justice for Cecile as well. “All you need to do is swear on it. Swear on your dedication to taking those monsters down, and I will give you every tool you require to do so.”

  Joss looked down at the picture in his hand before allowing his eyes to trace along the room to the white coffin at the other end for the first time. He swallowed hard and said, “I swear.”

  Abraham leaned closer, his voice just above a whisper. “We are called the Slayer Society, and you now belong to us. We’ll train you. We’ll protect you. We’ll be closer to you than any family could. I can’t begin training you yet—the rules dictate that you must first be eighteen years old before that can happen. But in the meantime, you should start honing your natural skills.”

  “But I don’t have any natural skills.” Joss shook his head adamantly. He was just a boy. Just an ordinary person.

  “Of course you do. You have incredible agility and speed, amazing reflexes.” Abraham spoke without question, and Joss couldn’t help but wonder how he could know these things about his nephew. The nephew he’d only rarely seen or spent time with. “Use the next few years to practice running, archery, wrestling, anything that you can to become the best. Then, after you turn eighteen, I’ll send for you. When you see a red wax seal on a letter, hide away and read it alone. It’s a secret. As is everything to do with the Society.”

  Joss nodded, taking this all in. “Can I tell Henry?”

  “No. You can tell no one. Nor can you discuss anything pertaining to the Society with anyone but those within the Society.” Abraham stood and reached into one of his outer pockets. What he withdrew, he placed into Joss’s hand. “This was your grandfather’s. He would have wanted you to have it. He was a Slayer as well.”

  Joss squeezed the pocket watch in his hand. Grandpa had been a Slayer, too. No wonder he’d looked on death as an adventure. Death, after all, was just a continuation of life to Grandpa, and it seemed his life had been a series of secret adventures. Death was just the next one. Grandpa was a Slayer. And now Joss was, too.

  As Abraham moved through the crowd, saying his good-byes, Joss looked down at his grandfather’s pocket watch. Setting the watch in his lap, he tore the photograph of Cecile, until he’d made a circle around her face, then placed it inside his grandfather’s watch. It was a reminder to himself to never forget, and to always, always remember those that you care about. He slid the pocket watch inside his front pants pocket and sat back in his chair, musing over exactly what the Slayer Society was, and exactly how they were going to help him take down the monster that had killed Cecile.

  “Hey.”

  Joss looked up to find his cousin Henry, wearing a suit that was too big on him, and looking like he felt very, very awkward. Normally Henry was a really funny guy, but even he, it seemed, knew when an occasion called for a more somber approach. “Hey, Henry.”

  “I’m sorry you’re not coming to spend the summer with me after all.” Henry’s eyes went wide, as if he’d just said the dumbest thing ever. “And about Cecile. She was a nice kid.”

  Joss nodded, trying hard to keep his thoughts away from his sister and the body lying in the coffin at the other end of the room. “Maybe next summer.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.” Henry hung his head. He didn’t speak anymore, just stood there awkwardly, likely wishing that he had some words of comfort to offer his cousin, but Joss knew that there was nothing Henry or anyone else could say. This pain ran deep, and only by erasing the cause of this pain would it ever go away.

  The man with fangs had caused this pain, and he would pay dearly for it.

  A preacher stood and said words that Joss couldn’t bear to listen to. After he was finished, everyone began filing out. Henry, who was sitting beside Joss, looked perplexed. “Where’s everybody going?”

  “To the dinner.” Joss furrowed his perplexed brow for a moment. “Isn’t it weird how people feel the need to eat after funerals?”

  Henry nodded. Then his mood brightened some. “Do you think they’ll have cake?”

  4

  INTRODUCTION

  Joss slipped his pen inside one of the small pockets of his backpack and turned his attention back to the leather-bound journal on his lap. It had taken three years—three long, tormented years—for him to put pen to page and fully describe what had happened the night he’d lost Cecile. It was as if the pain of her death had somehow sealed the descriptive abilities within him and receiving his Uncle Abraham’s letter last week had finally set his pen free.

  He hadn’t told his parents about the Slayer Society. His uncle had strictly forbidden it. They wouldn’t have believed him anyway. Who could blame them? If he’d rambled on about some secret club that would help him hunt down the horrible vampire who drank his sister’s blood and touched his temple, erasing the memory of its face from Joss’s young mind, they would have put him away in some asylum somewhere. In the nuthouse, as his father was fond of saying. Joss’s aunt Margaret was put in the nuthouse ten years ago. From what his father had said, having to put her there had almost made Abraham crazy enough to go to the nuthouse, too. But then something made Abraham’s sanity snap firmly back into place. Time had passed, Cecile had died, and last week, Abraham had sent Joss a train ticket. All that had accompanied it was a letter explaining to Joss’s parents that he wanted Joss to spend the summer with him, teaching him survival skills, out at a cabin in the woods.

  The letter was a lie.

  “I swear,” Joss whispered in remembrance of the day he had vowed to hunt down his sister’s killer and those like him. He closed the journal and slid it inside the largest pocket of his backpack. He was ready for whatever his uncle had in store for him. Even though he had no idea at all what that might be.

  He had tra
ined for three years, running as far and as fast as he could manage, perfecting his archery, building up his senses in the wilds of the woods near his house—all things that Abraham had written to him about and instructed him to do. And in the three years since Cecile’s death, Joss had come to understand that he wasn’t just looking to erase the vampire who’d killed Cecile simply to ease his pain. He wanted the beast to suffer for what he did. Joss wanted justice.

  The train jostled and bumped along the tracks. He’d been on trains for four days, traveling the long road from Santa Carla, California, to Rhinecliff, New York. A plane would have been faster, and probably cheaper, but still, his uncle had sent only the train ticket, and the simple note. He trusted that there was a reason for this choice. After all, his uncle seemed a reasonable man. So who was he to argue?

  Joss had smiled a false smile at his parents—who’d waved the invisible boy away, still locked tightly in their grief—and packed clothing for a summer vacation that would never happen. This summer, after all, wasn’t about camping or hiking or learning about the ways of nature. It was about a new beginning. It was about vengeance. Even though his uncle hadn’t precisely said those words, Joss knew he’d meant them. It was time for Joss to begin his search for the monster that had killed Cecile.

  He had wondered why Abraham had sent for him now, and hadn’t waited until Joss turned eighteen, but he was sure his uncle had his reasons, and would explain them once he reached the cabin. His knee bounced in anticipation of the train stop. He was anxious, anxious to begin his official training and start his life anew.

  “Rhinecliff! Next stop, Rhinecliff!” The conductor’s voice boomed through the car, jolting Joss from his thoughts. There was something old-world about it, and Joss couldn’t shake the feeling that he was going back in time. To a place where people traveled by trains and were shouted at by conductors. The part of him that had watched every episode of The Twilight Zone wondered briefly if, when he stepped off the train, it would be into his time, or another; his world, or another. The thought worried him, unsettling his stomach a bit, so he pushed it down deep and gathered up his belongings, waiting for the train to slow.

  Once the train jerked to a stop, Joss descended the narrow stairs, luggage in hand, and stepped for the first time onto the platform of the Amtrak station in Rhinecliff, New York.

  His eyes swept across the platform, but he didn’t see his uncle anywhere. After a moment, he followed the ebbing crowd—which consisted of merely six people—up the long staircase and through the hangarlike room into the train station itself. Once again, he looked around, and once again, he didn’t see his uncle. Suddenly nervous, Joss wheeled his suitcase over to one of the wooden benches and took a seat. There was little he could do now but wait, and hope like hell that his uncle hadn’t forgotten about him.

  Rapid footfalls drew his attention to the door that led to the section of building that resembled a hangar. Someone was running, their shoes slapping against the floor in a hurried pace, one that suggested they meant business. Behind them was another set of footfalls. Joss watched the open door, waiting to see the runner.

  A girl burst through the door, her eyes wide and frightened. Joss hadn’t noticed her on the platform before, but she was here now, running from where the train had been, looking scared out of her mind. Behind her was a man, dressed in black and gaining ground. The girl whipped past Joss and out the front door of the station. Just as the man passed him, Joss reacted instinctively and put his foot out. He didn’t know what made him do it, only knew that the man was chasing that girl, and she’d looked so scared. He had to stop it, whatever it was, from happening.

  The man stumbled over Joss’s ankle and went down hard, but before he hit the floor, he caught himself, somehow, without touching anything at all that Joss could see, and stood back up. Slowly, he turned his head to face Joss, his eyes piercing and dark. His face was very pale. He searched Joss’s face for a moment, as if something about him seemed familiar. Joss straightened his shoulders and opened his mouth to speak—even though he was half convinced that all that would come out would be a squeak. He was surprised how confident his voice sounded, and how steady his words were, despite the fact that he was shaking. “Leave her alone.”

  The man smiled then, again slowly, and it occurred to Joss that the man before him had to focus to do anything slowly at all. Because he was used to being unnaturally quick. This thought both surfaced and descended back into the recesses of Joss’s mind very quickly, almost unnoticeably.

  Then the man’s smile grew into a maddening grin, revealing two sharp fangs within his mouth. Joss jumped backward at the sight, his heart racing. Broken images of the monster who’d killed Cecile filled his thoughts—images of fangs and blood, but no face. The man—the thing, the vampire—in front of him laughed. “I don’t know who Cecile is, but I’m afraid I haven’t had the pleasure. Now, why don’t you have a seat and mind your own business, Slayer. This girl is of no consequence to you.”

  Slayer. The monster had called him a Slayer. What did that mean? How did this thing know about the Slayer Society and Cecile? Joss shook his head, shaking all images of Cecile’s face from the forefront of his mind. He thought of the girl who’d run outside, how frightened she’d seemed. He could only imagine how scared Cecile had been the night she’d died. Joss tightened his jaw. “Like hell she isn’t.”

  The creature glared at him and for a moment, Joss was certain it was going to lunge forward and rip his throat out. Joss briefly glanced around the station, but it seemed no one else had noticed the fangs.

  “Do we have a problem, gentlemen?”

  Joss flicked his eyes over to the man who’d interrupted their tension. Young, mid-thirties, slate gray eyes, and dirty blond hair, sheared into a short military cut. He was lean, but Joss could tell by the way the fabric of his shirt lay on his frame that he was also muscular. And he was hoping that muscular meant strong, because he was going to need every ounce of help he could get if this thing came to blows. The man raised an eyebrow at the vampire, setting his jaw, as if he were very much aware of what kind of monster he was dealing with. “Is there something the boy or I can help you with?”

  The vampire emitted a low, guttural growl. It came off as a territorial warning, but Joss wasn’t entirely sure why. “Sirus.”

  The corner of the man’s mouth twitched slightly. His hand slowly moved to the leather satchel on his hip. He dropped his tone so that no one else in the station would hear. “The boy is one of ours. And if you’re informed enough to know my name, you must know the girl is mine. I’m willing to turn the other cheek this time, but if you make a move, I’m authorized and fully capable of taking you down, despite the complication of exposure. So think about your next move before you make it—think long and hard—and then do it. But do it knowing that I’ll take great pleasure in killing you.”

  The vampire seemed to weigh Sirus’s seriousness for a moment. Then, judging him to be an honest man, it nodded and moved out the door. Sirus shook his head and turned back to Joss. “Good to have you aboard, Slayer. I wouldn’t have wanted to face him myself, truth be told. Not in a public place. It could have gotten messy, and judging by his calculated movements, he’s accustomed to moving among vampires more than humans, which means he’d be strong. Maybe too strong for the likes of me. But the two of us. We probably could have taken him.”

  Joss blinked in mild confusion. “Taken him? You mean taken him down? But he’s a ... vampire.”

  The word fell off his tongue and tumbled to the floor in a whisper. It felt strange. It felt surreal.

  Sirus nodded. “And we are Slayers.”

  “I’m not a Slayer. I’m not even sure I know what that is, but I assume it means someone who kills vampires. And I’m not that.” But even as he uttered the words, he knew them not to be true. After all, wasn’t that why he’d come here? To avenge his sister’s death? Surely that would involve a little killing on his part. Joss swallowed, but his throat was
parched.

  Sirus seemed to size him up for a bit before speaking again. “But you are a Slayer, Joss. You swore an oath three years ago, and every day since then has been preparing you for this day.”

  At the back of his mind, Joss heard his ten-year-old self responding to his uncle with a determined voice. “I swear.”

  Sirus kept his voice even, as if he possessed an immeasurable amount of patience. “Yes, you did. And the next day your father was hired by a new company. A company that unbeknownst to your family is owned and run by the Slayer Society. A company that moved you to how many different places in just three years, Joss?”

  “Too many.”

  “And each of those cities was chosen for a reason. Some of the most talented Slayers in the Society are stationed in those places. You were being moved around so that each of those Slayers, highly respected members of the Society, could size you up, and confirm that you are as we are, a Slayer.” He reached a hand forward as if to give Joss’s shoulder a comforting squeeze, then thought better of it and dropped his hand to his side. “After they’d analyzed you, it was time for you to come here, to be trained in the art of slaying and eventually, indoctrinated into the Society. And to be honest, I was hoping that Abraham would be the one to explain it all to you.”

  Joss shook his head. Not in utter disbelief, but in shock that he had somehow missed the exquisite detail of the Society’s plans. At the time it had seemed like just a bit of luck when his father scored a wellpaying position at a seemingly reputable company. It had been a bit strange that the company was willing—no, eager, Joss recalled his dad saying—to move his family along with him. And Joss had faced each move with grave determination, knowing that it would be just another house, and never home. Straining now, he couldn’t seem to recall anyone who’d obviously been a Slayer. But then, he supposed, they had just been incredibly good at their job and blended in. He wished, much like Sirus, that his uncle had told him that he was being reviewed by the Slayer Society.