Slayer

Rating

update: should have written this as I was listening to it, but alas. I don’t remember some of the names or a couple of other tidbits, so take this review with a grain of salt. It’s essentially the “rough draft”

Athena, aka Nina,  and Artemis (A&A)  are twins.  Nina is a medic and Artemis is a kick-ass watcher assistant.

The book is loosely based on Buffy the vampire Slayer …but like alternate reality Buffy.  Buffy was something called a Slayer. Aka, one who slays vampires (demons) with enhanced powers. In short, slayers were created partly due to her.

A&A’s deceased dad was  a watcher: one who essentially  manages a Slayer; a handler of sorts. Anyway, Dad wasn’t just a

When A&A were young, they were trapped in a fire. Their mom took Artermis first and ran, leaving Nina behind. Nina now has a lot of mommy issues. Nina has always felt abandoned, knowing she was the twin her mom loved less and chose not to save.  Nina has always wanted to be a bad-ass, like Artemis, but her mother pushed her into medic training.

While Artemis kicks-ass, Nina spends time treating and talking often to Imogen, another person who was not allowed to become a watcher. She is the compound’s glorified babysitter.  She also spends time with Reese, another watcher in training who did pass his trials.

One day, a watcher family returns to the compound after being away for many years. It is hunky Leo and his mother Eve. The same Leo who embarrassed Nina and broke her heart years before. Desperate for anyone who “saw” her, Leo helped Nina and made her laugh. He called her Athena when no one else did. A clear point in the book that no one thinks Nina lives up to her goddess name Artemis.

She had a teenage girl crush on him and wrote all about him in her diary. That is, until a petty girl named Anoura showed it to Leo and humiliated her as he didn’t feel the same way. He left the compound with his mom shortly after.

Anoura is also back, unfortunately, and it becomes clear to Nina she and Artemis are  close friends. Turns out, all these years, Anoura and Artemis have been writing letters to each other. Despite their close bond, Anoura seems to hate Nina.  Anoura,  tells Nina Artemis purposely failed her watcher trials and became a watcher assistant so that she could continue to watch over Nina. This worries Nina because everyone always wondered why Artemis didn’t pass as she has amazing skills and  is highly talented in combat.

When Artemis is suddenly in danger, Nina puts her life on the line and saves her. This brings out her dormant slayer abilities.  Everyone is obviously surprised as they expected it from Artemis, not Nina.  Something traumatic like has to happen in order for Slayer abilities to kick in. But Nina has been protected and never allowed to do anything dangerous her entire life. When her mother finds out her slayer abilities are activated, she is devastated. She tells Nina she is not a slayer and forbids her to act on her slayer abilities. Eve, Leo’s mom, is delighted. Slayers are very rare and to have one in the compound is a great honor and high privilege.

Hurt by her mother’s lack of confidence in her, she meets with the watcher council (of which Eve is a part of) and they decide she needs to be trained in secret as her mother is against it. Each slayer is assigned a watcher and Nina wants Artemis to be hers. Eve says that Nina needs to have the best watcher with more experience and nominates her son Leo who is already a watcher of a few years.

At first Nina disagrees but decides it’s better not to tell Artemis. After all, Artemis has mercurial mood changes as to what it means that Nina is a slayer and she is not. She starts speaking down to Nina like she needs to protect her, even though the girls are very close. Nina agrees it can be Leo, even though it’s the last person she wants after her childhood crush.

Nina is called a way by her friend Killian. He tells her to tell no one and to meet him at his place. Killian is the boyfriend another watcher in training named  Reese. Nina finds that Killian has an unconscious demon in his backyard. She asks him why he didn’t call Reese about this and Killian response that he wanted someone who heals. Nina is genuinely touched that he thinks that about her. The demon is wounded but she can’t just leave him like this. So she ties him up and tries to mend his injuries. She did then tells Killian to give her a call if you wakes up.

Back at the compound Nina’s mother tells her that she plans on sending Nina away to boarding school. Nina’s hurt when her mother says Artemis needs to stay at the compound with her.

The demon in Killian’s backyard eventually wakes up and they find out his name is Doug. Doug thanks them for mending him up and says he’s a chill dude and doesn’t want them hurt. He tells them to let him go before another demon named Sean can find him. Nina tells him she can’t just let Doug go. Doug says he’s never hurt anyone because he feeds off happiness off humans. He doesn’t take any away but get energy from them being happy, that’s his goal in life is to make as many people happy as possible. She doesn’t believe him though.

Doug eventually escapes.

Nina gets a prophetic dream about another Slayer being in trouble. (I can’t remember her name, we’ll call her slayer two. ) She gets Artemis and Leo to come with her to Dublin to find the girl. They find her in trouble and they save her but she is absolutely nasty to them and tells them to go away.

Eventually A&A’s mother reports Slayer two  is in danger and urges Leo to go help her. Obviously A&A go with.  They wonder where A&A’s mom got this information. Nina does not want to go however because her mother wants to send her away to boarding school and bring Slayer two to the watcher compound instead. It feels like her mother is trying to replace her. Also, Slayer two was pretty mean. In the end, she relents though, as if the girl is still in trouble, she deserves their help.

They find Slayer Two dead in her apartment. They are too late and Nina feels guilty because she had dreams about Slayer two being in trouble, but ignored it because of Slayer two’s nasty demeanor and  her mommy issues.

A vampire walk through the door and sees Slayer two dead. she explains that Slayer two and she were hunting down all the vampire nests and cleaning them out in Dublin. Of course the vampire wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of her heart, but her reward would be to suck Slayer Two  dry. Of course, Slayer two didn’t know that. It is what Sean promised her. She then says, they can make up for Slayer Two’s death and let her suck Nina dry. Artemis and Leo immediately go to protect Nina, which pisses her off since she is a Slayer and has powers. They get Sean’s location and kill the Vampire.

Apparently Sean owns a grocery store/tea place of sorts. They knock over rows of coffee and create a bunch of hassle to get Sean’s attention.  He is, surprisingly polite and civilized. He wants to also know about Doug’s whereabouts. Doug was his employ (slave employee) While they want to find Doug, they don’t necessarily want to hand him over. They leave with no leads on Doug’s location.

They return to the compound and Nina finds her mother In cahoots with Doug.  She also finds out that her mother was adopted from a Slayer family and realizes that she hates slayers and that must be why she hates Nina.

The group then gets a report that Killian is in danger via Nina’s prophetic dreams. They rush over to his place and find him still on the ground. Nina performs CPR and revives him, just.

They find Doug and he once again says that he just wants to make people happy and they believed him. As for their mother, she’s been trying to prevent a prophecy involving Nina and Artemis. One is supposedly supposed to heal the world and the other destroy it. She knew that Nina was a Slayer and did everything in her power to prevent her from fulfilling the destiny of the destroyer. She also explains to Nina that she saved Artemis first in the fire because she knew that Nina would survive because of her Slayer nature. She could not carry them both out and the only way to get them both out safely was to carry Artemis first. If she had carried Nina out first, Artemis would have died.

Stuff happens in the middle that is not incredibly important to the story but when she and Leo are out and he’s trying to keep her away from the compound, she apologizes and says she has to go back.  He then apologizes to her, swings her over his shoulder, and says he can’t let her do that. Nina starts to realize that it isn’t her mother who is evil but maybe it is Leo and Eve who have been committing these murders/ attempted murders. Leo tells her that they have no time to explain right now,  but Reese will explain everything soon. She tries to fight him off but he is extremely strong. He should not be able to fight her and her Slayer abilities but he does. It becomes clear to her that he is neither a watcher nor human. They get close to where Doug had been hiding out and Nina sees Doug’s shirt.

She remembers Doug telling her that  his sweat/goo/secretions contains psychotropic properties.  She shoves it in Leo’s mouth and he immediately relaxes, high as a kite. he tells her how beautiful she is and how all the lost magic in the world was pinpointed on her. He does not tell her, unfortunately, why he is kidnapping her.

She leaves him on a bench nearby and races to find Artemis. Unfortunately she is chatting with Eve, Leo’s mom. Eve makes her move and knocks Artemis out.It is revealed that Eve is a succubus and Leo’s father is a Incubus. Leo is a Cambrian. Eve has wanted Nina’s Slayer power the entire time.

Eve has been secretly feeding off of everyone’s energy at night, leaving them all tired and irritated, except Nina. Leo has not been stealing energy though. Leo can only get energy from his mother. If she dies he is doomed as well.

She threatens to kill Artemis if Nina does not lie down and surrender her power. Slayer 2 was her trial run but she died after the shock of losing her slayer power and the power was lost to Eve. Nina will go along more smoothly because of how powerful she is and how careful Eve will be. She is keeping Nina alive after because it was Leo’s request.

Nina remembers that Artemis failed her trial because she chose Nina over saving the world in her trials scenario. Nina also knows the Artemis would want her to keep her Slayer power and let her die. Nina feel if she cannot do that and says Eve can take her power. Eve flings a book at her head, knocking her out.

In her dreams, she finds Buffy The Slayer sitting in a room. She tells Buffy she forgives her for the choices she made in her life, knowing she did what she could given the cards she was dealt. Buffy offers her advice and Nina says she’ll accept. Buffy is surprised because every other Slayer has scorned her advice and holds her in contempt. Nina tells Buffy about all the shit going down in the real world and Buffy scribbles down her number on a sheet of paper. Nina can’t read it but she sees a familiar symbol she also saw in Sean’s office.

She wakes from her dream and finds Leo, Reese, and Artemis there. She  also realizes she no longer has her Slayer powers. Reese explains that Leo told him about what he was and they wanted to get Nina out so his mother couldn’t hurt her. Leo wasn’t trying to hurt her, but save her. They believe everyone in the compound is in danger and Imogen to help save the children in the watcher compound.

In the end,  with Imogen’s help, they kick Eve out of the council of watchers. They tell her it is on the authority of the new generation of watchers. She leaves in a huff. Nina decides to make a safe place for people like them in the world. A place where people like Imogen aren’t pushed to the side. A place where watcher children can be safe.

 Artemis decides to leave with an Anoura to find herself as  everything she has ever done was always for Nina. She knew how much it hurt Nina that her mother chose to save Artemis in the fire first, and so she always wanted Nina to know that she would choose Nina first. Now that this issue is moot point. Artemis is finally able to leave. She never wanted to be a watcher. She wanted to decide for herself.   (It is also revealed earlier, that Anoura is the way she is because her mother wanted her to be the best watcher. She was abused as a child when she wasn’t the best. ) She wants answers as to why she’s not a Slayer and she can only find her peace by leaving. The sisters embrace and and Anoura gives Nina the finger before racing away on her motorcycle with Artemis.

The epilogue it’s told from imogen’s point of view. Imogen turns out to be a traitor and wants to see the ruin and destruction of the world. She is clearly frustrated now that the lines have been blurred and she does not know which twin is the healer in which twin is the destroyer. Whoever this destroyer is, she plans to stay by their side and help. And if she chooses the wrong twin, she’ll just have to destroy the healer.