I point at the well-armed castle denizens. “I didn’t tell them to show up here like this! Seriously, what’s going on?” I ask Rhys. “Is it the Littles? Are they okay? Oh gods, did—”
“Step away from the van.” Rhys crosses the space to us and yanks open the sliding door to the van. “Leo, get out and get on your knees.”
“If this is about tall, dark, and semi-unconscious, can we get back in the car?” Maricruz opens her door and ushers Taylor back inside. Chao-Ahn stays out and on alert.
I swat away Rhys’s crossbow. Leo is struggling to sit up. I shake my head at him. “Stay where you are. What in the many, many hells are you doing, Rhys?”
“Ian Von Alston is dead,” my mother says. “He was murdered.”
“What? When?”
Rhys jerks the crossbow free of my grip. “The last time we had Silveras in the castle, people died. We won’t risk that again.”
“But Leo warned us, remember? He told you the truth, and he saved us all by taking on his mother and stopping her hellmouth progress! He’s one of us!”
Rhys looks grim. “So was his mother. So was Imogen’s mother. A past as a Watcher cannot and will not excuse betrayal in any form. And how do we know he’s not like his mother? A man is dead.”
Doug takes a step toward the van. “Ian was alive and well when we left him. Leo was already outside, with me. Nina was the last one to …” He pauses. Rhys and my mother turn toward him, the silence weighted and pressing down like the night around us. Doug clears his throat. “The last one to talk to him.”
“No, you mean Nina was the last one to see him alive,” I say. “Do you think I killed him?”
“No! No. But you pushed him back into that room in the house, and when you came out, you
… I … well, it’s just, Leo was unconscious, and as soon as he woke up we were with him the whole time, so it couldn’t have been Leo, could it?” Doug looks down and to the side, avoiding my gaze.
“I left him alive.” How could he think otherwise? I cringe, closing my eyes. He knows better than anyone how I feel on the inside. He can’t get away from knowing, not trapped in confined spaces with me like he has been. And the truth is, I could have killed Von Alston. Part of me might have even wanted to.
Gods. Do I smell like a murderer? What is wrong with me?
“Nina?” My mother puts her hand on my arm. If she had the gun, it’s gone now. “Tell us what happened and why you went to Ian Von Alston’s estate.”
“We went to the convention. There was an attack. Sean’s people, I think, though there’s a new element. Humans, black cloaks, necklaces. Seem like zealots. I stopped the attack. I ran into …” I pause. This doesn’t feel like the right time. Everyone is literally up in arms already. If I tell them about Artemis, who knows how they’ll react? Rhys told me himself he doesn’t care about our past with someone if they betray us. And I can’t imagine they’ll view Artemis working with zealots as anything other than a betrayal.
I have to be careful. I can be as pissed off at her as I want, but when things crash and burn for her, which they will, I need her to feel terrible and guilty but be able to come home. She’s still my sister. My misguided sister, but mine. I won’t leave it up to other people whether or not she deserves her place in my home.
When we get back to the castle and I have a minute to breathe, I’ll call her. Explain that I haven’t told on her. That she can give the book back and there won’t be any consequences. It’ll help fix things between us and prevent complications at the castle.
Besides which, Artemis might be messing with things she shouldn’t, but it’s not like she’s my enemy. She can’t be. I continue, deliberately leaving her out. Doug stares at me, but I trust he won’t contradict me. “I ran into a few weird demons. Anyway, we got some information that led us to Leo. And to Oz, and these three Slayers, all of whom were in immediate mortal peril thanks to your ally, Von Alston.” My mother’s face twitches, but she doesn’t interrupt me. “I didn’t leave him on polite terms, exactly, but I definitely didn’t kill him. And he didn’t know I was a Watcher. He thought I was a rogue Slayer.”
“So you didn’t gouge out his eyes and then snap his neck?” Rhys asks.
I give him the most brutal glare I’m capable of. Chao-Ahn would approve. “Pretty sure I’d remember it. A girl never forgets her first eye gouging, or so I’ve heard.”
“That’s true!” Tsip chirps cheerfully.
“And you’re positive it couldn’t have been Leo.” Rhys peers into the van, then deflates and lowers the crossbow. Leo is in no state for neck-snapping. And that wouldn’t be his method, anyway. Incubi and succubi drain life force from victims, but usually only when they’re sleeping so there’s no resistance.
“His eyes were gouged out?” I ask, puzzled.
“Gone.” Rhys pushes his glasses back into place. “They were either taken for some reason, or eaten.”
“Eew,” I groan.
“What? We were all thinking it.”
“No. Nope. None of us were until you said that.”
“Well, I can research demons that consume eyes. Though none of the guards had their eyes removed. So it might have been for fun, rather than a specific pathology. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t narrow down suspect species. If only I knew whether the eyes were eaten.” Rhys stares into space, already absorbed with his theories and doubtless planning the research he’ll do as soon as we get back to the castle.