Slayed (13 page)

I mirror her grimace and then turn slowly, taking in the three-hundred-sixty-degree view. “Wow.”

To the north of the house, an old stone church steeple is peeking through the trees in the distance. To the south
is a wide lawn sloping down to the river. A skinny rock, maybe ten feet tall, stands sentry in the middle of the lawn surrounded by another garden lined with white stones. Across the river in direct line with the house, is an outcrop of jumbled boulders covered with stunted pines, their exposed roots looking desperately for purchase in the inhospitable terrain.

Kiki walks toward the windows facing the river. “This is why I like to stay here.” She puts a hand on the window and takes a deep breath. “No matter how crazy things get in California, just looking out these windows grounds me and I can pretend my parents aren’t billionaire kiddie-rock stars.”

I watch the river tumble by, carrying logs and various ducks as it goes. The knots in my stomach unravel as I take in the tranquil view. “This is really nice.”

She sighs. “But we can’t forget we have a big job ahead of us tonight. Let’s hit the hot tub and strategize.”

I watch a duck with a rounded black and white head dive under water. “Okay,” I say when it pops back up. “But I don’t have a suit.”

“We don’t need suits.”

My face flushes and Kiki laughs. “We have a bunch of extra suits we bought for shy guests. You can have your pick.”

“Thanks. I think I need to take the new-age slayer stuff one step at a time.”

I follow her down the spiral staircase wishing we could stay up here long enough to forget I’m a vampire slayer.

“I’ll meet you outside,” Kiki calls out from the other side of the bathroom door.

“Sure.” I go back to staring at myself in the mirror. I’m as pale as a vampire, but sporting this designer two-piece I can almost imagine myself in the pages of
Jennifer-Kate
’s swimsuit edition. Of course I have nothing on Kiki, who had unabashedly gotten changed in front of me, was tan, and totally rocked a Swarovski crystal-studded bikini she put on.

And then there is the trail of raw claw marks on my chest. Not exactly fashion forward.

Given a choice, it’s no wonder Tyler was smiling at Kiki and not me.

Not that I really care.

I head out and wind my way past the masks flanking the walls that are totally creeping me out. Some have strange shells for eyes that give the appearance the eye sockets have been sewn shut. Others have jagged bone teeth and tufts of what looks like real human hair jutting out from their wooden chins. Grotesque statues with twisted faces
and engorged body parts glare at me from dark corners of the rooms.

I simply can’t reconcile the image of Kiki’s parents singing in their pastel unicorn costumes with people who find these disturbing collectibles appealing. But maybe this macabre menagerie is what helps Kiki push The Disco Unicorns out of her mind.

A large, jewel-encrusted prayer wheel is mounted by the French doors leading out to the patio. I give it a good spin. “May my heart’s desire come true,” I whisper. I turn the wheel a second time for extra luck and wish I could remember the mantra Kiki had said.

I step out onto the cool blue stone patio and shiver. It’s almost five thirty and the sun has dipped just behind the tree line now and my chilled, aching muscles urge me toward the warm hot tub.

Kiki beckons me in. “Hurry up—time’s a wasting.”

“Sorry.”

She splashes water at me as I slide into the tub. “You don’t need to be sorry; you just need to get in.”

I slink down into the water, and the chlorine stings my cuts. Bubbles jump up and tickle my nose, but the warmth of the water brings back some of that relaxed feeling I had before. I look out at the large rock jutting up from the lawn and breathe deep. “If it weren’t for all
the masks and things in your house I’d move in here in a heartbeat.”

“They’re not so bad. When I was little I imagined they were here to protect me. I even gave them each a name. Saying hello to ‘George’ or ‘Ashley’ definitely reduced the creep factor. There are a few I avoid, but overall it’s like coming home to friends I never had.”

“But you’re not like me—you had actual kids to play with.”

She rolls her eyes. “The kids on the show abandoned me once Sugar came on board, and the ones at school only wanted to hang with me because of my parents. Once they realized I was nothing special they drifted off too.”

“I always wanted to go to school,” I say longingly.

She scoffs. “School sucks. Granted I didn’t make it a full year, but I had all these big plans to be ‘normal’ and try out for cheerleading and shit like that. Of course starting school at age twelve was a huge mistake. Twelve-year-old girls are the definition of ‘suck’! But with my dance background I thought I was a shoe-in for the cheerleading squad.” She wrinkles her nose. “Apparently they didn’t like chubby kids any more than the producers of the Pink Pony Playhouse.”

“But what about high school? Don’t you think it’d be
fun to go to the prom? You know, dress up in a gown, dance with some incredibly hot guy, and then take a limo to a hotel afterward….” I trail off, not ready to share my prom fantasy with Kiki.

“It sounds nice, Daphne, but all of the guys I meet are jerks who want me to pay for everything because they know my parents are rich. And I’ve had my fill of fancy dresses and limo rides—unless they’re used to take me to my next vampire.”

“I don’t get it, Kiki; why
do
you want to hunt vampires? Especially after what happened today.”

She shrugs. “What else am I going to do? Other than singing and dancing—something no one wants to pay me to do—I have no marketable skills. And what’s wrong with wanting to help people? That’s a hell of a lot better than having a multiplatinum record, right?”

“You could work with orphans in one of a gazillion needy places, or feed the poor, or read to old people.”

“Anybody could do that stuff, but like I said before, the second you killed that vampire behind The Rusty Rudder, I knew I’d finally found my calling.”

“If you say so.”

“Look, I know you’re all disenchanted with the biz, but think about all the lives you’ve saved.”

“If I quit there’s always going to be some lunatic who
will take my …” Kiki is glaring at me. “I mean
eager
new slayer who will take my place.”

“Maybe you’re burned out and you need a vacation. Or …” She sits up, her eyes glittering. “You need to remember how it felt to kill your first vampire. My parents are totally into this thing called ‘talk therapy.’ I’ll walk you through it and see if I can help you get your mojo back.”

“
I don’t want my mojo back
. I want to go to school, eat lunch in a cafeteria, and go to prom! I want a house and a dog and a goldfish and a room where I can hang posters on the walls.”

“
I hear you saying
you don’t want your mojo back,” she says serenely.

I give her a pained look. “This is stupid.”

“
I hear you saying
you think talk therapy is stupid.”

I bury my head in my hands. “This isn’t going to help my rediscover my love for slaying.”

“
I hear you saying
you once
loved
slaying.”

I give a start and look up. “No! I mean maybe I did … a little, when I was little. But I was a delusional kid living in a fantasy world.”

“How old were you when you killed your first vampire?”

I look her in the eye. “I killed my first vampire around the same time you were trying out for cheerleading.”

“I hear you—”

“Please stop that.”

She holds her hands up. “Fine. Tell me about your first kill,” she says placidly.

“It’s not a pretty story.”

“That’s okay. Just talk.”

“Fine. After my senile grandfather was taken away—for staking a nonvampire …”

Kiki’s eyes widen.

“My parents had been bringing me along to all the police briefings and, by the time I was ten, house-cleanings, so I could learn the family business. I was twelve when we got called to Oak Hill, Arkansas, population twenty-eight, for a do-it-in-your-sleep kind of job. The cops were supposed to call for a lockdown using the ‘felons on the loose’ story that’s protocol in cases like this to keep people from unwittingly inviting any vampires into their homes.”

“Go on,” she says encouragingly, like a talk-show host pumping her guests to spill their guts.

“After a twenty-hour nonstop drive, we arrived just after dusk and Sheriff Jeffries welcomed us into his cement-block office for a briefing. Unfortunately, while we were on our way, Jeffries and his second-in-command got themselves turned. They closed the door to the office and jumped us.”

Kiki winces and totally blows her pseudo-psychiatrist-judgment-free facade. “Ouch.”

“Yup. Jeffries went right for Dad’s throat. Mom was fending off the other guy so I knew it was up to me to help my dad. I grabbed the knife I’d recently started wearing and with the help of crazy amounts of adrenaline, I managed to separate a good deal of Jeffries’s neck from his body. When he finally fell, my dad was staring at me. Blood was gushing from under his chin. His shirt was soaked. His eyes rolled up and he fell to the floor.

“Jeffries—even with his esophagus severed and his head bent back at an unnatural angle—started to drag his sorry undead ass across the tiles to where my dad was lying. Without thinking, I grabbed a stake from Mom’s bag and plunged it into his chest and I hit a home run my very first time. I used my knife to hack the rest of his neck off and make a clean break.

“I turned back to my dad and my mother was stitching his wound shut. With each loop of thread, the skin was drawn back against his neck and I was feeling good because I knew everything was going to be okay. But when she was done she fell on his chest, crying and begging him not to leave us.

“Seeing my mom like that, well, I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach, and for the first time I realized
my parents had left out a crucial part of the ‘hunting vampires’ scenario. They’d neglected to tell me it was kill or be killed.”

I look her in the eyes. “Did I mention I was twelve?”

Kiki stares at me with her mouth open.

“So you could say my first kill wasn’t a kick-ass cool adrenaline rush. It was more like
I’m a kid and it just dawned on me that at any time my parents could be killed, I would be an orphan, and they don’t seem to care.
”

I fold my arms across my chest and sink down until my chin is just above the water. I close my eyes and torture myself by playing the Oak Hill scene over again in my head.

“I’m sorry, Daphne. I didn’t know.”

I purse my lips in an effort to steel myself against the tears gathering in my eyes.

“You need to talk to them,” she says. “You need to find out why they’re doing it; otherwise it’s just going to keep eating at you.”

I sit up and sniff. The cool air bites at my chest. “What about you? You told my parents off, but can you do it to yours?”

She shakes her head. “Easier said than done. I’ve always been afraid the truth will just make me feel worse.”

“I know what you mean.”

Kiki turns and her eyes widen as she looks out toward the river. “Hey, is that Tyler?” She stands up and points down toward the shore “I think it is, and he’s got some sort of stick.”

I get up and squint. Tyler Harker and his father are walking along the river’s edge. They have their heads down and they’re both holding something sticklike that bobs along with each step they take. “What are they doing?”

“I have no clue.” She waves her hands over her head.
“Tyler! Up here!”

He jerks his head up in surprise.

She cups her hands to her mouth like a megaphone.
“What are you doing down there?”

I swat her arm. “Kiki, stop! Remember what my mom said.”

“How is your mother going to know you were with Tyler?” She pulls on her bikini straps, making her large breasts move up and down. “And maybe we can use our feminine wiles to get some info that’ll help team Van Helsing.”

I look down at my bathing suit, knowing I don’t have as much to work with as Kiki. I turn back to shore where Tyler is conferring with his father. Mr. Harker nods, points the end of whatever he’s holding in our direction, and then the two of them head our way.

“Oh, shit.” I hop out of the tub and grab a towel and wrap it around me, making sure I’ve got my bite marks covered up.

“You’re hiding your feminine wiles,” she chastises as she tries to pull my towel off.

I slap at her hands. “Stop it!”

“Fine! I guess I’ll have to do the dirty work.”

I hug the towel tighter around me and as they get closer and I see they’re each gripping some of sort of wooden dowel with a stiff wire a little over a foot long attached.

Tyler’s eyes widen as he takes Kiki in. “Dad, this is Kiki—she’s the one who gave me a ride back to the motel.”

Mr. Harker grunts but his focus is on the large stone rock jutting out from the garden. “I knew we were on the right track. The lines don’t lie,” he says to no one in particular. He takes a few steps and the wire in his hand points toward the ground as if tugged by an invisible force. “They’re all converging here. This is the nexus point.”

He points to the stone. “Do you see that, boy? That’s the
standing stone
. You’ll find tall stones jutting out of the earth like this wherever multiple lines converge.” He looks to the river. “There,” he says, his eyes watering up. His lip quivers as he points a shaking finger straight in front of him, his eyes glued to the outcrop across the water. “That’s where they hunt from. That’s where I’ll find her,”
he whispers. He turns to me and I step back. “And finding you here is just icing on the cake. It’s all coming together like it was predestined.”

Tyler looks like he’d be more than happy to have the earth swallow him up, and Kiki’s face is screwed up like someone just handed her a rotten egg. She picks up her towel and wraps it around herself. I’m pretty sure she’s regretting her decision to work her feminine wiles on the likes of Nathan Harker.