Slayers (12 page)

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Authors: C. J. Hill

BOOK: Slayers
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Dr. B took the rings, and tallied the points in a notebook. “Tori,” he said without looking up, “why don’t you join the others for the next game?”
She wasn’t sure if he wanted her to learn the next skill or whether he’d decided she was hopeless when it came to leaping. As though he could read her mind, he said, “With so many members gone, Team Magnus is undermanned. They need your help during hide-and-seek.”
Hide-and-seek seemed tame enough, juvenile, actually. Well, at least until Kody explained the rules of the game. He sat out the first round and gave her a play by play. The game was actually tackle hide-and-seek. Two people—one from each team—were seekers while the others hid. When you were the seeker, you tried to find the members of the other team, but it wasn’t enough to find them. You had to tag them before they could run around the stone circle and touch their original hiding place. If they made it without being touched, they got ten points for their team. If you managed to tag them, your team got ten points. As a seeker, you could help your teammates by interfering with the other seeker’s ability to catch your teammate.
The game involved lots of very dramatic leaps where hiders tried to get around pursuing seekers. Seekers had no compunction about ramming into people, sometimes several feet in the air.
Tori watched it with her mouth ajar. She didn’t want to play this game. She couldn’t tell where any of them hid before they sprinted around trees or dropped from branches, and she was lousy at leaping. She was bound to lose every single time. Besides, the game looked a little savage. Wasn’t it enough that she’d already slammed into trees and boulders? Did she need to get knocked to the ground repeatedly? Lilly and Alyssa were both on the A-team, and they would probably enjoy sending her face-first into the dirt.
When the players had either scored or been caught, Kody stood up and stretched. “Ready to play?”
“Can’t I just give up my ten points and sit out again?”
Kody laughed and pulled her to her feet like she’d been joking. She hadn’t been.
The first three rounds went like she thought they would. When Lilly was seeker, she pounced on Tori from five feet away. Tori had no idea how to avoid people smashing into her that fast. She tried to leap over Kody when he was seeker, but she couldn’t regain her balance when she landed, and he scooped her up like a basketball on the rebound. The only reason she didn’t get tackled when Dirk was the seeker was that Jesse was the seeker, too. As Dirk bounded toward her, Jesse cut him off with a midair slam.
The next round, she and Alyssa were the seekers. Tori walked into the forest, searching, trying to keep track of where Alyssa went at the same time. Tori couldn’t spot anyone. They would most likely wait until she passed by their hiding places to dart toward the boulders. She took cautious steps forward, staying on the balls of her feet. Dead leaves crackled beneath her shoes.
Every once in a while, branches waved. She couldn’t tell if it was the wind or movement from someone hiding. She had just decided to go farther into the forest when Jesse dashed out from a nearby tree. Alyssa took off after him.
Was it better to block for Jesse or try to find one of the A-team hiders? Dirk didn’t give her time to decide; he jumped out from behind a tree to her left. She tore after him, cutting off his way to the boulders. He tried to leap over her, but she jumped up, twisting in midair. She grabbed hold of his shirt and pushed him to the ground.
It should have hurt him, especially since she landed on top of his chest. Instead, he lay on the ground, surprised, and let out a satisfied laugh. “Hey, maybe you’re one of us after all.”
Kody whizzed by them. “Typical Dirk,” he called over his shoulder. “Can’t keep the girls off him.”
Dirk smiled as though he agreed. Which is when Tori realized she should do something besides lie on top of him, exchanging pleasantries.
She stood up and bounded after Kody, dodging around the trees at high speed. She was almost to the clearing when a fireball the size of a dinner plate zipped past her shoulder. It smashed into a tree in front of her with an explosion of sparks. She spun around, her pulse hammering in her ears.
A whistling sound at her side told her another fireball was coming. An assault—Overdrake had found them. Her first thought was one of recrimination—she had said too much to Cole and David. Now they were being attacked, and it was her fault.
Tori didn’t have time to dwell on her guilt. She leapt up, trying to dodge away from the fireball’s path. It shot past her, so close that heat licked against her neck. Worse still, she crashed into a huge branch above her, slamming her head into the wood. The branch cracked apart, and both she and it fell to the ground. It landed squarely on top of her, a mass of leaves and bark splinters.
She lay there, stunned, wanting to breathe but finding her lungs uncooperative. Her back throbbed. The smell of acrid smoke surrounded her. If another fireball came at her now, she wouldn’t be able to move away fast enough to escape from it.
N
o other fireballs came. Instead, Jesse pulled the branch off her with one hand and held his other hand down to help her up. No fear flashed through his dark eyes, no worry, no frantic hunting for their attacker. It was over, then. They were safe. Tori didn’t take Jesse’s hand, didn’t move, just let air refill her lungs.
Dr. B came from somewhere and stared down at her. She knew he would ask if she was okay and wondered if she was. She shouldn’t be. Not after hitting her head, falling several feet, and having a huge branch land on her. She moved her fingers and wiggled her toes to make sure she could.
“When the fireball came at you,” Dr. B said slowly, “what was your first instinct?”
The breath whooshed from her lungs for a second time. This hadn’t been an attack. It had been a test to determine her power.
Just as slowly, Tori said, “My first instinct was to yell at someone for throwing fireballs at me.”
“And after that?”
“I wanted to find out who threw the fireballs and hurt them.”
Dr. B let out a huff of exasperation. “As a means of protecting yourself, what did you want to do?”
Tori pulled herself to a sitting position and wiped at bits of dried leaves that clung to her. “I thought I should duck, but I’d spent all of that time learning how to jump, so I did that instead. As you saw, that worked out real well.”
She stood up and ran her hand over her hair. Part of it felt twiggy. And short. She held up her hair to check. A huge section by her face was now six inches shorter than the rest, and the ends curled together like melted plastic. She gasped at it, unbelieving. She would have to cut all of it now.
The thought stung worse than crashing into the tree branch had. Her long, beautiful hair was gone, sizzled, breaking off into ashy pieces in her hand. And it could have been much worse. It could have been her face.
She turned to Dr. B, still gasping. It was his fault she’d been scared out of her mind and hurt and had now lost six inches of her hair. “Look what you did! You don’t hurl fireballs at people! What is
wrong
with you?”
She didn’t wait for an answer. His shocked expression was answer enough. He wasn’t sorry. Her anger seemed to surprise him. She spun on her heel and stormed off toward the trail.
As she walked away, each quick step carrying an exclamation mark, part of her realized that real superheroes didn’t care about their hair. The rest of the campers were probably watching her with disdain. Well, she hadn’t asked to be a dragon knight—or Slayer, or whatever ridiculously out-of-date name they called themselves. And if these were the people who were supposed to be on her side in the fight, they could forget about her help. She didn’t want to be part of their competitions anyway. They were probably more likely to kill her than any dragon was.
Dr. B called her name. She didn’t turn around, didn’t slow down. She wasn’t running, not yet. She wasn’t about to let them see her run away. Still, she pounded down the trail, thinking about the places she could have gone this summer. Places with oceans and cable TV and sidewalks instead of dirt trails.
Besides,
if
dragons existed, it was the military’s job to take charge. Who was Dr. B to say they couldn’t do it? She would just have to figure out a way to explain the whole situation to her father and let him take care of it.
She didn’t realize Jesse was behind her, floating off the ground, until he spoke. In a voice that he probably meant to sound consoling but that came out patronizing, he said, “If you aren’t ready for an attack, you’ll end up with a lot more than singed hair. It’s part of your training. We’ve all gone through it. Being under attack is what usually gets your extra skill to manifest itself.”
She didn’t slow her pace. “What if one of those fireballs had hit me in the face?”
“Then Alyssa would have healed you, and Dr. B would have given you extra work for not being careful.”
Tori shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“This isn’t a game. People’s lives are at stake.”
“Yeah, tonight my life was at stake.”
“It always has been,” he said softly. “You’re a Slayer.”
“Not anymore. I quit.”
He came around her side so he hovered in front of her. “Why don’t I fly you back to camp, and we’ll talk?”
She didn’t answer. She wasn’t giving in. She didn’t want Jesse to think he could talk her into anything. Still, she did want to try flying again now that she wasn’t so shocked by the whole idea. This time it might feel like the flying she did in her dreams.
“Carrying me doesn’t make you tired?” she asked.
He swooped down and grabbed her around the waist. The next
moment, they soared upward as effortlessly as a plane lifting from a runway. “Nope. We’ve got increased strength. You could carry me if you tried.”
She rested her arms over his, liking the security of his embrace. Facing forward was better. She no longer felt like she was about to slip. A breeze rushed against her face, bringing the rich scent of the outdoors with it.
“Scared?” he asked.
“No.”
“Then we won’t take the direct route.” He dipped into the forest and slowly swerved around several trees. As they went past an especially tall oak, he turned on his side. They flew like this for a few moments, and then Jesse swerved around another group of trees and turned on his other side. If Tori had held out her hand, she could have run her fingers across the new growth at the branches’ tips. She wanted to, but didn’t dare let go of Jesse’s arms.
He glided upward and out of the trees, then rolled on his back so she lay against his chest, facing the stars. Their studded light streamed down on her. It was like her own personal amusement ride, floating up here between the forest and the moon. She had to admit, it was incredible.
If she had the gift of flight, she would be out here every night, backstroking under the stars. But she probably didn’t have that ability. Dr. B had said she most likely had the gift of sight, which even Dirk thought was boring. Who wanted to see what dragons saw, when dragons were such horrible, blood-thirsty creatures?
Besides, if Dirk could do it, why did they need her?
Jesse turned so they faced the forest again, and a calm sea of branches spread out beneath them. His arms held her snuggly, and everything seemed so tranquil. So intimate. He was sharing the stars and the trees with her; sharing spins and glides and lifts. It was like
they were ice skating in the air. She felt close to Jesse in a way she couldn’t explain—a connectedness. She let the feeling sink into her, saturate her.
“Okay, this is amazing,” she finally said. “But it doesn’t make up for the fireballs.”
He lifted and took her straight up, speeding faster than he’d gone before. “Do you want me to let you go?”
She grabbed hold of his arms, panicked. The warm feelings she had for him evaporated. “Is that a threat? You’ll drop me unless I stay?”
“No,” he said slowly, “I was asking if you wanted to try it on your own.” He let out a sigh of disappointment. “You don’t seem to have the instincts to fly.”
Well, she might have wanted to try it if he’d put the question differently. Why was everything these people did some sort of test? That ticked her off, too. Mostly because she’d failed the tests. Or at least, it felt like failure.
Jesse drifted downward again. “You can unclamp your hands from my arms now. I’m not going to drop you.”
She made herself relax her hold. His arms had white spots where her fingers had gripped them. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I just really hoped you had the gift of flight.”
“Why?”
He didn’t answer for a few seconds, then said, “The original dragon knights had all the powers. Besides having night vision and extra strength, they could shield, shock, fly, heal, douse fire, and see into the dragon’s mind. They must have been incredible to watch, to be …” He let the sentence, the wish fade into the air. “Chromosomes split when you pass them on to your children and most of the gifts split apart, too.”
Jesse dipped down into the trees again, tilted on his side, and headed off in a new direction. “Do you remember back at the Easter
grounds when Kody said his freezing shocks couldn’t kill a dragon, and you asked what could?”
“Yes.”
“No one answered because they didn’t want to scare you if you were a flyer. When it comes down to it, the rest of the gifts are just support. The other Slayers contain the dragon to minimize damage so the flyers can get close enough to kill it.” He said this unemotionally as though it didn’t worry him. “I have to puncture the dragon’s heart and make a big enough hole that it can’t reseal itself. They used swords and spears in the Middle Ages. We’re hoping that guns and arrows—if enough of them hit the target—will do the trick, too, but if not, I’m the only one who can go after a dragon in flight with a sword and reach the vulnerable part of its underbelly.” He glanced down at her face. “You probably think I’m horrible for wishing you were a flyer, don’t you?”
“No,” she said, glad for the first time she wasn’t one. What must it be like to know you not only had to face a dragon, but kill it? “Wow. By yourself. I’m sorry.”
“I won’t be by myself. I’ll have the others with me. I’ll have you, too.” He said it like it was a statement, but she knew it was a question.
She didn’t answer. He watched her, waiting for a response. She kept her gaze on the passing branches, all of them reaching for her. It felt like she was falling, falling into the darkness even though Jesse still held her close.
He flew higher up out of the trees again and increased his speed. Now that she could see the surroundings, she realized they were heading up the mountain, flying away from the camp.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I want to show you something.”
They climbed the mountain quickly, hugging the tree line. The air was colder up here, and the wind chilled her cheeks, ears, and
legs—everything that wasn’t pressed next to Jesse. The rustle of leaves and branches sounded like the roar of the ocean.
They came to a rock outcropping, and he straightened, then landed. She let go of his arms and he walked over to the ledge and sat down. His legs dangled over the edge. She nearly told him to be careful, and then remembered he didn’t have to. He could fly.
He turned and motioned for her. “Come look at this view.”
She took small steps over to him, testing her weight with each footstep until she stood behind him. Underneath the ledge, way, way down, the tops of trees spread out beneath them in a lumpy silhouette. Off to the right, the lights from Hollings, the nearest town, glowed in protest to the darkness. She wasn’t sure what Jesse wanted her to see. “It’s a nice view,” she said.
He patted the rock beside himself. “Sit down.”
She didn’t move. “I could fall.”
“If you do, I’ll go after you.”
She wondered what speed people fell at, and if he could beat her to the ground. “It’s okay. I’ll stand. I can see the view from here.”
He let out a sigh—probably of disappointment. How many times had she heard that sigh since she’d come to camp? Gritting her teeth, she walked to the ledge and sat down beside him. Her legs dangled down into nothingness.
She shifted her weight, moving back a little. “How long can you be away from the simulator signal before you lose your powers?”
“A half an hour. We’ve been out of range for about ten minutes. Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing.”
She sat stiffly on the ledge, her hands pressed against the rocky surface.
His lips twitched, fighting a smile. “If it helps, you can hold on to me.”
She didn’t want to. She didn’t want to admit how frightening it
was to sit on the edge of an abyss. Her hand didn’t share the same pride, however. It grabbed hold of Jesse’s hand and interlocked her fingers with his.
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Look at the city lights.”
She did. They glowed like facets of a jewel against a black canvass.

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