"You don't have anything to fear from the dead."
At least, that's what her mum had told her as she stood quivering at her dad's funeral, tears dripping off the point of her chin like silver. She'd stroked Erin's hair and crooned in a voice usually reserved for bedtime lullabies. This was before they'd learned the truth; it had been vampires rather than thugs in Nottingham that left him bleeding all over the cold concrete in a dark, dirty backstreet.
That had been rather a hard truth to process. Mum hadn't handled it well at all, but she was convinced enough to send both her children off to what the lady with the mocha-coloured skin and business suit had convinced her was a special boarding school for victims of the undead.
Now, that sounds rather a lot more sinister that it was, really. None of the pupils were undead, in fact, they were far from it.
Ryan had fit in straight away – older than her and more willing to get involved. He was twelve and she was ten and he understood more clearly what had happened. He needed revenge and didn't care how he might acquire it… but Erin was always more in tune with her morals. When they practiced throwing stakes from a ten-foot distance she cheered along with all the rest when one sunk pointy-end first into the chest of a crudely erected vampire with monstrous, bloody fangs but her heart skipped beats and it was always hard to keep one of those jaw splitting smiles on her face.
She was taught that they were monsters, things to be despised and dispatched of quickly. She was taught of all the heinous crimes they had committed against poor, weak, innocent humans and slowly she felt a hazy iron shield erecting itself over her heart.
Naturally she was a compassionate little creature; at home she had been drawn to broken things, so that she could patch them up and tend to them and watch them knit carefully back together until she could set them free, a blackbird with a broken wing, a poorly hedgehog, even a tiny little lamb she found lost and shivering on a back road on the walk home from school. Naturally, she is a compassionate little thing; but these things can be fixed.
The day she saw the lady with the mocha-coloured skin and the business suit again was when everything changed:
"Erin," the sound snaps her out of her daydream, "there is someone to see you in the head's office," she'd been rolling a pencil between her finger and thumb and staring out of the windows (her teacher always told her she needed to get her head down out of the clouds), so she smiles sheepishly and ducks her head as if in apology.
"Yes miss," she says quickly, trying not to scrape her chair against the floor when she stands, and pushing her things off the table into her bag in a most effective manner.
Quick reflexes, and all that.
Ryan, her older brother, is waiting outside the office when she arrives, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. He looks… fierce, determined, though he quickly straightens up and grins when he sees her coming. She sits down opposite him, and for a quiet moment they stare at each other in that suspicious, knowing way that only siblings can.
"This is something serious," Ryan confides, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth, "it's the woman with the business suit. From the funeral."
"Mm," she agrees, nodding her head before examining her fingernails (a nervous habit), "what do you think it is though? Oh, god, I hope mum's okay…" Erin can't think what else this unexpected visit might be about – her brother is nineteen now, about the age to undertake his first mission, and he's eager enough, but why would she be called along as well? And what purpose does the business suited woman serve? She groans a little in confusion, and worry, and wishes Ryan would come over and slip his arm around her shoulder like he had in the old days.
"I'm sure mum's fine, Erin, don't worry about silly things like that," but how could she not, and how was it silly? It was downright terrifying! It's her turn to chew solemnly on her lower lip and the silence consumes the two of them, falling down like a red velvet curtain to a stage.
"Ryan, Erin, you can go in now," the young, blonde secretary sitting behind a computer screen tells them disinterestedly, perpetually more interested in what was happening on Facebook than with any of the students.
They cast confused sidelong glances at each other, then stand and enter the room, Erin following meekly behind her brother. The room is empty but for the business suited woman, looking perfect and demure with not a hair out of place at the end of the table.
"Please, sit," she tells them in a lightly accented voice, her hands folded neatly atop a stack of papers, "it is nice to see you two again, though I had hoped we wouldn't meet so soon," and neither of them can tell where she comes from. Her accent isn't English in any way, though there's a hint of Irish… Erin hears American and Ryan hears African and both of them hear a bit of Russian, "nor under such unfortunate circumstances."
She smiles then, and Erin is worried. It's a smile that could be likened to a crocodile, to a switchblade.
"Introductions must be made though, of course, silly me," she continues pleasantly, with just a hint of gravity lingering under her breath, "you'll have to excuse my bad manners, I have not been in… polite company for quite a while now. I am Rhiannon Delgado, current acting chairperson for Slayers International, in particular the South America branch. You might wonder what I want with the two of you, and it is merely this; I wish to inform of your father's killers' whereabouts… we have reason to suspect that the clan responsible for your father's death are currently residing somewhere in North Wales. If you wish to further investigate the matter you will be granted full leave from your educational duties to track them."
Rhiannon stops with a neat little puff of breath (that goes perfectly with every other aspect of her), and when Erin looks over at her brother nervously, his eyes are narrowed and flaming and she knows she would never be able to dissuade him from this… she doesn't know what else to call it but suicide mission.
As if she notices the concern and apprehension on Erin's face, the older woman begins to talk again, in her voice as smooth as coffee beans or butter; "I understand you are very young to undertake this mission, Erin, even by my standards," (neither of them understand the reference of course – Rhiannon Delgado is an enigma at the best of times) "but slayers we are, and I understand the thirst we have for revenge."
Erin thinks she makes them sound just like the monsters they are fighting, but she keeps her thoughts to herself, and squeezes Ryan's hand under the table. When he speaks, his voice squeaks and he's close to slapping his palm against the wood table in his fervour.
"Of course we want this mission! Right, Erin?"
He looks over at her and his eyes are just so big and bright that she can't refuse him. She smiles thinly and nods assent.
"Of course we do."