Slayers (11 page)

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Authors: C. J. Hill

BOOK: Slayers
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“My father never told anyone about the Overdrakes’ plans. You pay a person well enough and it’s amazing what he’ll keep secret.” Dr. B kept shaking his head. “My father knew what was happening to Nathan. Overdrake had warned him about Slayers, about the reason he kept pregnant women away from the plantation. So my father forbade Nathan to ever reveal his abilities or to go near the plantation again, but beyond that …” Dr. B let out a tired-sounding sigh. “My father was afraid that if Nathan knew about the dragons, he would want to kill them—that it would be in his nature because he was a Slayer.”
Tori mulled that over. Back when she was four years old, she must have wanted to kill her father’s glass dragon collection—she had turned the whole thing into worthless broken shards. And she had certainly killed the two miniature dragons on top of her birthday cake. But real dragons? She was pretty sure it was in her nature to avoid those.
She didn’t bring up this point, since Dr. B was continuing with his story. “My father thought all he needed to do to protect Nathan was to tell him to keep away from the plantation.” Dr. B rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “He should have known better. How can you keep a boy away once he knows a proximity will give him superpowers? By the time Nathan reached thirteen he’d not only gone back, he’d gone back enough times to realize he had another power besides the night
vision and extra energy—the power to throw up shields. He used to tease the bulls, race them across the pasture, and then throw up shields when they got too close. One night Langston Overdrake caught him at it.”
Dr. B paused for a long time. Tori nearly held her breath waiting for him to continue and wished he didn’t have to. It was clear it pained him to tell the story.
“Langston Overdrake killed my brother. Oh, it was reported as an accidental drug overdose, but my father knew what really happened. Overdrake hardly made a secret of it. That’s when my father told me everything. The dragons. The powers Nathan had inherited. And Overdrake’s plans.”
Dr. B’s voice was still calm, but his hands lying against his knees were clenched. “I was so angry, I stole my father’s keys, drove to the plantation, and broke into the dragon enclosure. I photographed both dragons, then turned the pictures over to the St. Helena police. They promptly destroyed everything—my camera, the pictures, our lives.” Dr. B grimaced at the memory. “I should have known that Langston Overdrake ran the police, as well as everything else on the island. If I hadn’t fled from the station, they would have probably thrown me in jail. I went home and told my parents what I had done. We had to leave right then, leave everything, in order to get off the island before Overdrake’s men got a hold of us. My father bribed a ship’s captain to smuggle us to England.
“We changed our names and got used to looking over our shoulders, checking to make sure Overdrake hadn’t found us. When I finally managed to get a new ID, I went to college and majored in medieval history. I learned everything I could about dragons so that I could help stop them.”
Tori’s hands trembled in her lap. She looked at them, at her manicured pink-polished nails. They weren’t the hands of a knight. “I’m
sorry about your brother. Really, I am. But if the dragons stay on an island, why can’t we just leave them alone?”
“Because they won’t stay on the island.” Dr. B leaned toward her, his face intent beneath his goggles. “Langston and his son, Brant, were never interested in protecting the dragons. They wanted power, the more of it, the better. Langston used his mind link to tell the she-dragon to choose the short gestation period for her eggs—fifteen to twenty years.
“Langston died nearly two decades ago, but Brant is still carrying out his plans. When the new dragons are grown, he’ll use them to try and wrest control of the government. That’s why D.C. is going to be the first target.”
In the background, Kody and Dirk laughed about something. They looked like they were playing fire Frisbee instead of training to fight monsters.
Tori tried to concentrate on Dr. B’s story and not the flames swishing by her. “But if you left St. Helena so long ago, how do you know that Brant is still planning on attacking D.C.?”
“Because Brant brought the eggs through the D.C. area seventeen years ago. All of the Slayers who’ve come to camp were born within eight months of each other. All of your mothers lived in the D.C. area when they were pregnant with you. The only reason Brant would have moved the eggs here is that it makes it easier for him to attack D.C.
“I’m sure he didn’t mean to let the eggs go anywhere near pregnant women. He wouldn’t have wanted to trigger powers in babies who could then grow up to fight his dragons. But through some mistake, piece of luck, or divine providence, it happened.”
Dr. B. hadn’t asked her if her mother had been living in D.C. when Tori was born, but then that information was easy enough to look up. Her father had become a senator the year before she was born. “If you
know Brant Overdrake is in the United States you should tell the authorities, and they could—”
Dr. B waved away her words. “Brant wouldn’t be so careless as to use his own name. I imagine he’s even altered his appearance. Wherever he is, he has the resources to carry out a well-planned attack. And once the eggs hatch, we’ll have less than a year before the dragons reach full maturity.”
A noise like glass shattering came from the area where the advanced campers were goofing off. Tori turned in time to see pebbles falling to the ground.
Dr. B put his hand on Tori’s arm, pulling her attention back to him. “Overdrake knows Slayers have been created. I fear it’s only a matter of time before he finds our camp. In fact, an attack is probably long overdue. You’ll need to be careful from now on. If anyone asks you suspicious questions here or after you go home, get away and alert the others. I have a special phone for you to use. I’ll give it to you after practice.”
His eyes trained in on her. At least, she thought they did; it was hard to tell through the goggles. “Make sure nobody sees you using your powers. No one can know about what goes on at this part of camp. Not your friends, not your parents. Letting the secret slip will not only risk your life and the other Slayers, but all the lives we won’t be able to save. Do you understand the gravity of this?”
“Yes.” The conversation she’d had with Cole and David earlier in the evening ran through her mind. She shouldn’t have told him about Jesse or said she thought anything odd was going on, but she couldn’t take it back now.
Jesse, Dirk, and the others had finished whatever game they’d been playing, and they strolled back toward the ring of boulders, talking and laughing. They were even stronger, more confident up here where they could exercise their powers.
“How many Slayers are there?” Tori asked.
“Ten came the first three years the camp opened. You’re the only one to come since then. I know there’s at least one more—somewhere—but his parents won’t let me train him. I hope they’ll change their minds, or that he’ll find us. Beyond that, I doubt there are others. Their obsession with dragons would have led them to the camp. Like yours finally led you here.”
Her obsession. It wasn’t some deep-seated fear turned into psychosis. She was normal, after all. Well, normal in a really different sort of way.
Dr. B gestured toward the campers as he spoke. “So far the heirs’ extra skills have come by twos. Two can douse dragon’s fire, quenching it for several minutes. Two can throw up shields to protect themselves and bystanders, and two can send out both fireballs and freezing shocks. Two have the power to heal dragon-inflicted wounds. One can fly, and one can see what the dragon sees.”
See what the dragon sees? What did that mean? And how did someone quench fire or send out freezing shocks? She wanted to ask him, but he didn’t give her time.
“My guess is that your extra power will either be flight or sight, since those abilities don’t already have doubles. But who knows? Perhaps our pairing of talents is random coincidence. You might repeat an ability that two slayers already have, or you might have something altogether different.” He stood, then clapped his hands together in anticipation. “Let’s get started. You’ve been in contact with the simulator since you checked in to cabin twenty-seven, and you’re getting a strong dose now.”
For the first time, Tori turned her attention to the machine sitting near the shed. Wheels attached to its cylindrical body, making it look more like a hot dog cart than a dragon.
“Along with your night vision, you should have extra strength. In
fact, your legs will now allow you to leap better than an Olympic high jumper.” Dr. B raised his voice, calling over to the group. “Who wants to show Tori a leap?”
Kody stepped forward. He bent his knees and swung his arms upward, launching into the air. It happened so fast, she didn’t track where he went.
Tori scanned the clearing, trying to see where he landed. “Where did he go?”
Her question made everyone laugh. She searched even harder, but couldn’t find him. Finally Kody called to her from a tree branch about eight feet up in the air. He waved and jumped down, landing on the ground as gracefully as a gymnast. He strutted back to the others, grinning.
Dr. B leaned toward her, and in an air of confidentiality said, “He makes it look easy, but I assure you, it took all of them several tries before they could land on the branches.”
Several tries? She’d done leaps for years in ice skating and couldn’t even imagine jumping straight up that high.
She remembered the blur of colors she’d seen earlier in the forest. Now it made sense. She’d seen Dirk jumping up into a tree. Had he been spying on her or simply practicing?
Dr. B headed toward the shed. “We’ll have the other Slayers give you demonstrations of their powers and then see what you can do.”
Tori took a deep breath, and then took another. Dragons. One of her ancestors had been a knight. With powers. Maybe flight. She tried to remember everything Dr. B had said, but the words slipped over the edges of her mind, like water over a glass filled too full. Two people could douse fire and two people could send out freezing shocks. What were the other powers?
She shook her head, trying to clear it. This sort of thing just didn’t
happen—dragons hatching and villains trying to take over the country. Yet Jesse had flown her up here. That had been real enough. And she could see in the dark. Was it possible that all along her genes had been forming her into some sort of a superhero and she had never known it?
D
r. B took something out of the shed. At first she thought it was a fire extinguisher, but the nozzle wasn’t right. He fiddled with it, and foot-long flames seared out of the opening. “If Bess or Leo were here,” he said, gesturing with the blowtorch as though it had been a piece of chalk in one of his lessons, “we could demonstrate throwing up a shield. But as they’re both gone, I’ll simply tell you that if you have the power of shielding, you can put up an invisible forcefield that’s about …” He turned toward Dirk, and the torch flame arced in that direction.
Tori winced. Really, was it a good idea to wave a blowtorch around so much kindling?
“How big would you say the forcefield is?” Dr. B asked Dirk.
Dirk hooked his thumbs through his belt loops. “About five yards by five yards.”
Dr. B turned back to Tori, pointing the flame in her direction again. “It’s a good size. If you throw it in front of yourself or anyone the dragon is trying to bake, you can save quite a few people.” He held the
blowtorch closer, and the heat from the flame shimmered near her face. “Do you have an urge to throw a forcefield up?”
Tori leaned away from the flame. “Mostly I have the urge to kick the blowtorch out of your hands, but I’m being polite.”
Dr. B nodded, as though noting her reaction on a mental checklist, then he addressed Lilly and Shang. “Which one of you wants to show Tori how to douse fire?”
Lilly stepped forward, one hand smugly on her hip. She obviously liked doing something Tori couldn’t. Without moving any closer to Dr. B, Lilly flicked her hand and the flame from the blowtorch blinked out.
“Well done!” Dr. B smiled at her proudly. “It’s a handy skill to have around here, as cabin twenty-six tends to get rather rambunctious during cookouts. This way I don’t have to worry about anyone accidentally burning down the camp.”
Dr. B waved Kody over, then told Tori, “Watch.”
Dr. B picked up a palm-size rock and threw it toward the trees. Before it could hit anything, Kody pushed his hand through the air in one quick motion. The rock made a sound like dropped china and splintered into pieces. They rained down on the ground with tiny thuds.
“Well done,” Dr. B said approvingly. Then he told Tori, “Kody and Danielle can send freezing shocks great distances.”
Kody put his fingers together and cracked his knuckles. “It won’t kill a dragon, but it’ll tick him off real bad.”
“What
does
kill a dragon, then?” Tori asked.
Neither Dr. B nor Kody answered her question. Dr. B picked up a broken branch from the ground and held it up. “Here’s another part of Kody’s talent.”
With a snap of Kody’s fingers, one end of the stick caught on fire, making it look like a giant birthday candle.
Dr. B showed the burning branch to Tori so that she could see it
was legitimate fire. “I suppose this gift is for those times when you need to fight fire with fire.” He stepped toward Shang and called cheerily, “Extinguish this, please.” Shang flicked a finger and the flame went out.
Next, Dr. B turned the blowtorch knob until a small flame protruded from the end. Kody walked back to the group, and Alyssa came forward, replacing him. Unlike Lilly, she didn’t look smug. She ran a hand through her hair, then shook out her hands nervously.
“I don’t like to do this,” Dr. B told Tori. “But it’s important for you to see the power of healing.” Without further warning, he pulled back his sleeve and ran the flame across the back of his wrist.
He only flinched as his skin charred white and broke open, but his short, quick breaths revealed his pain. Alyssa immediately put her hand above the wound. She waved her fingers, plucking, pulling, making swirling motions. After a few seconds, Dr. B relaxed. “Well done.” He patted her shoulder. “You get faster every year.” He walked closer to Tori and held up his wrist for her to see. Only a faint white scar ran across his hand, as though a smaller wound had happened there years ago. “In an attack, make sure to protect Alyssa and Rosa so they can heal your battle wounds.”
Battle wounds.
Tori gulped at the words.
“You’ve already experienced the gift of flight. The last is the gift of sight. This ability isn’t easy to demonstrate. I can only have Dirk tell you what it’s like.” Dr. B waved Dirk over, giving him the floor.
Dirk crossed his arms. “When I concentrate, a split screen opens up in my mind and I can see what the nearest dragon sees. Since they’re still in eggs at this point, all I see is a faint red glow when it’s daytime and black when it’s night. And I can only catch snatches of it, like a TV with a bad cable signal. Hopefully when the dragons hatch and get closer, I’ll be able to make a stable connection. Until then, it’s not a real exciting skill.”
He turned around and walked back to the rest of the group without waiting to see if she had questions. Which she did, but not for him.
“How do I know which skill I have?” she asked.
Dr. B regarded her with his binocularlike glasses. “When I showed you the others’ powers, did you feel a sharp instinct to do something?”
“Not really.” Although when he’d told her she would have to fight a dragon, she’d felt a clear and insistent need to run as far away from here as she could.
“When you flew with Jesse, did you want to try it on your own?”
No, mostly she’d wanted to cling to him. And if she was being completely honest, some of her thoughts strayed into the realm of noticing how built he was. But she wasn’t about to tell Dr. B that.
“I didn’t want Jesse to let me go.” As soon as the words left Tori’s mouth, she wondered if flying might be her gift after all. Her favorite dreams were the ones where she flew, drifting above unknown buildings and streets. It felt so natural to twist through the air. But everyone dreamed of flying. It didn’t mean she could actually do it.
“Shut your eyes and concentrate,” Dr. B told her. “Can you see the split screen Dirk spoke about?”
She shut her eyes. There was nothing but darkness and the feeling that everyone was staring at her. She shook her head and opened her eyes.
Dr. B looked upward for a moment, considering, then said, “Perhaps you have the gift of sight. All you would see right now is blackness. And it might be hard for you to tune in a real dragon anyway. You can’t see what’s in the simulator’s mind because it doesn’t have one.” He shrugged. “Then again, perhaps the shock of the night is interfering with your instincts.”
Or perhaps she just didn’t have an extra ability. Was that possible?
“I’ll have you practice with the others. Whatever your talent is, it’s bound to manifest itself before long.” Dr. B smiled and with his binocular eyes, it looked ominous. He motioned to Alyssa. “Why don’t you work with Tori on her leaps? That’s probably the easiest thing to teach.”
Alyssa let out a sigh, clearly not thrilled by this assignment, but she took Tori across the clearing. When they got to the far side, she said, “The whole point of leaping is to avoid the dragon. You know, like if he happens to shoot flames at you or tries to swipe you with his tail or claws.” She pointed toward the boulders. “See if you can leap to the fire pit.”
The boulders were about fifteen feet away. There wasn’t much of a chance Tori could reach them. “Um, aren’t you supposed to give me some instruction? Isn’t there a trick to it?”
“Yeah. Run a few feet, swing your arms, and jump.”
The other campers had moved slowly to the edge of the forest. They were about to go somewhere, but apparently they wanted to see her attempt at leaping.
I might not be one of them,
Tori thought.
It might all be a mistake—my night vision might be a fluke like my hearing.
She wasn’t sure if this was a comforting thought. On one hand, it would be nice to have a pass on fighting a dragon. But if she wasn’t one of them, what would they do? She knew their secrets.
She clenched her fists, took a few running steps, and jumped toward the boulders. She zoomed toward them too quickly. Her speed and height surprised her so much that when she landed, she nearly tripped. She only saved herself by taking stumbling steps into one of the boulders.
An assortment of laughter floated toward her from where the others stood. She wasn’t sure whether to glare at them for laughing, or laugh herself because she’d done it. She had jumped a huge distance.
If she could have this extra strength with her when she ice skated she would blow the crowds away.
“A fine start,” Dr. B called to her. Then to the others, he said, “Don’t you have some eggs to find?”
“Oh, come on,” Lilly called back. “We want to see her flatten a few trees.”
“You’ll never find them if you just stand there,” Dr. B said. “Points are at stake.”
At that, Lilly and the others faded into the forest. When they’d gone, Alyssa yelled over, “Now jump back here!”
Tori did. She thought it would be easier to control now that she knew what to expect. She ran and jumped, but when she landed, she pitched forward again, this time stumbling into a tree. The trunk shuddered and dropped a shower of leaves onto her. Tori’s palms stung from where she’d hit the trunk. She shook them, trying to get rid of the pain, and was surprised she only had tiny scrapes on her skin.
This was cool.
“Next time try to avoid the trees,” Alyssa said.
“Yeah, thanks for the tip.”
Alyssa sat down on the ground, and waved a dismissive hand at Tori. “Okay, keep at it until you get the hang of it. Once you get the basics down, I’ll teach you a few of the fancier moves.”
Tori ran and leapt toward the ring of boulders and again slammed into one. A piece the size of a bread loaf broke off. She picked it up. It felt as light as a book. She really was stronger now.
“You’re supposed to be
leaping
,” Alyssa called.
So she did. Tori leapt back and forth, running into boulders one way, trees the other direction. Her landings always made her feel like she’d stepped out of a moving car. She couldn’t keep her balance. Her only consolation at being so bad at this was knowing that everyone else must have struggled, too. Otherwise Lilly wouldn’t have expected her to flatten trees.
Dr. B divided his time between watching the other campers in the forest, and shouting words of encouragement to Tori. Alyssa just said things like, “So, you understand that the point of this is to get
away
from the dragon, right? It won’t do you much good if you leap away from his claws and then crash into his body.”
Very helpful.
A few times she managed to avoid solid objects, and a few times she fell down when she landed. She always checked her hands, surprised they weren’t bloody. Apparently her skin was stronger, too. Her landing powers, however, remained unchanged.
“Why don’t you try straight up for a while?” Alyssa suggested.
The idea of launching straight up into the air frightened Tori. Well, not the jumping part—the falling straight down and dying part.
She tried a hop, went a couple feet into the air, and landed with a thud. Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Come on. You can go higher than that.”
Tori jumped again, this time adding another foot to her height.
“Are you even trying?” Alyssa asked.
Tori jumped using all of her energy and went so high she screamed. On landing, she pitched forward and had to take several steps to steady herself.
“Well,” Alyssa said with forced cheerfulness, “the dragon probably won’t hatch for a while, so you have time to practice.”
That was the most encouragement she’d gotten during her jumping lessons from Alyssa. Tori never tried to land gracefully on a tree limb like Kody had done. She was afraid she’d end up impaling herself.
After half an hour of this, the other campers came out of the forest, carrying an assortment of diving rings—the kind kids play with at pools. Tori couldn’t see how they would help fight dragons. “What’s the point of finding rings?” she asked.
“It’s not finding them,” Alyssa said. “It’s retrieving them from the trees. You’ve either got to leap up there to get them or throw
something to knock them out, and you’ve got to do it fast because the other team is gathering them, too.”

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