by P. C. Cast
Aphrodite said, “You’d think if someone died, at least their shitty non-fashion fashion sense would change. But no. Your bad taste is fucking immortal.”
“Aphrodite,” Stevie Rae told her firmly, “you really should be nicer.”
“And I say whatever to you and your countrified Mary Poppins outlook on life,” Aphrodite said.
“Mary Poppins was British. Which means she wasn’t countrified,” Stevie Rae said smugly.
Stevie Rae sounded so much like her old self that I gave a little happy shout and threw my arms around her again. “I’m so darn glad to see you! You’re really okay now, aren’t you?”
“Kinda different, but okay,” Stevie Rae said, hugging me back.
I felt an amazing wash of relief that drowned out the kinda different part of what she’d said. I guess I was just so glad to see her, whole and herself again, that I had to hold that knowledge safe and special inside myself for a while, and that need didn’t let me consider that there could be any leftover problems with Stevie Rae. Plus, I remembered something else. “Hang on,” I said suddenly. “How did you guys get back on campus without the warriors going crazy?”
“Zoey, you really gotta start paying attention to the stuff that’s going on around you,” Aphrodite said. “I walked through the front gate. The alarm’s down, which I imagine makes sense. I mean, I got the same school notification call on my cell about winter break being over I bet everyone else who was away from campus got. Neferet had to unzap this place or she’d go insane dealing with all the alarms the returning students would set off, not to mention the zillions of delicious Sons of Erebus who are descending on this place like yummy presents for us students.”
“Don’t you mean all the alarms would make Neferet go more insane than she already is?”
“Yes, Neferet is definitely batshit crazy,” Aphrodite said, for an instant in complete agreement with Stevie Rae. “Anyway, the alarm’s gone, even for humans.”
“Huh? Even for humans? How do you know that?” I asked.
Aphrodite sighed, and with a weirdly slow motion-like movement, she brought the back of her hand up and wiped it across her forehead, causing the outline of the crescent moon to smear and partially rub off.
I gasped. “Oh, god, Aphrodite! You’re . . .” My words sputtered out as my mouth refused to say it.
“Human,” Aphrodite supplied for me in a flat, cold voice.
“How? I mean, are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Damn sure,” she said.
“Uh, Aphrodite, even though you’re human, you’re definitely not a normal human,” Stevie Rae said.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Aphrodite shrugged. “Doesn’t mean shit to me.”
Stevie Rae sighed. “You know, you’re lucky you turned into a human and not a wooden boy, ’cause with all the lying you’re doin’, your nose would be like a mile long.”
Aphrodite shook her head in disgust. “Again with the bad G-rated movie analogy. I don’t know why I couldn’t have just died and gone to hell. At least I wouldn’t be bombarded with Disney there.”
“Would you just tell me what the hell’s going on?” I said.
“Better explain it to her. She’s almost cussing,” Aphrodite said snidely.
“You’re so hateful. I should have eaten you when I was dead,” Stevie Rae said.
“You should have eaten your countrified mom when you were dead,” Aphrodite said, bowing up like she thought she was black. “No wonder Zoey needs a new BFF. You’re totally a Pollyanna pain in the ass.”
“Zoey does not need a new BFF!” Stevie Rae yelled, turning on Aphrodite and taking a step toward her. For an instant, I thought I saw her blue eyes start to flash the ugly red that illuminated them when she was undead and out of control.
Feeling like my head was going to explode, I stepped between them. “Aphrodite, stop messing with Stevie Rae!”
“Then you better check your friend.” Aphrodite walked to the mirror that was over my sink, grabbed a Kleenex, and started to wipe what was left of the smeared crescent from her forehead. I noticed that for all her nonchalant tone, her hands were shaking.
I turned back to Stevie Rae, whose eyes were once again a familiar blue.
“Sorry, Z,” she said, smiling like a guilty kid. “I guess two days with Aphrodite has gotten on my nerves.”
Aphrodite snorted and I looked over at her. “Just don’t start again,” I said.
“Fine, whatever.” Our eyes met in the mirror, and I was almost sure I saw fear in Aphrodite’s gaze. Then she went back to work fixing her face.
Feeling utterly confused, I tried to pick up where the conversation had gotten way weird. “So, what’s the deal with you saying Aphrodite isn’t normal? And I don’t mean her abnormally bad attitude,” I hastily added.
“Easy-peasy,” Stevie Rae said. “Aphrodite still has visions, and visions aren’t normal for humans.” She gave Aphrodite a so there look. “Go ahead. Tell Zoey.”
Aphrodite turned from the mirror and sat on the little stool I kept close by. She ignored Stevie Rae and said, “Yeah, I still have my visions. Whoop-tee-fucking-do. The only thing I didn’t like about being a fledgling is the only thing I get to keep now that I’m a stupid human again.”
I looked more closely at Aphrodite, seeing through the I’m all that façade she liked to throw up. She was pale, and there were dark circles beneath the cover-up she had slathered under her eyes. Yes, she definitely looked like a girl who had just gone through a bunch of crap, and some of it could be one of her draining, life-changing visions. No wonder she was being such a bitch; I was a moron not to have noticed it before then.
“What did you see in the vision?” I asked her.
Aphrodite met my gaze with a steady one of her own and for a moment let down the steel wall of arrogance she liked to keep around her like a shield. A terrible, haunted shadow crossed her beautiful face, and her hand shook as she raised it to brush a strand of blond hair behind her ear.
“I saw vampyres slaughtering humans and humans killing vampyres right back. I saw a world filled with violence and hatred and darkness. And in the darkness I saw creatures that were so horrible, I couldn’t tell what they were. I—I couldn’t even keep looking at them. I saw the end of everything.” Aphrodite’s voice was as haunted as her face.
“Tell her the rest of it,” Stevie Rae prompted her when Aphrodite paused, and I was surprised by the sudden gentleness in her voice. “Tell her why all of that was happening.”
When Aphrodite spoke, I felt her words as if they had been shards of glass she’d smashed into my heart.
“I saw all of it happening because you were dead, Zoey. Your death made it happen.”
CHAPTER FIVE
“Ah, hell,” I said, and then my knees gave way and I had to sit down on my bed. My ears had an odd buzzing sound in them, and it was hard for me to breathe.
“You know it doesn’t mean it’ll come true for sure,” Stevie Rae said, patting me on the shoulder. “I mean, Aphrodite saw your grandmamma, Heath, and even me dying. Well, I mean me dying a second time. And none of those things happened. So we can stop it.” She looked up at Aphrodite. “Right?”
Aphrodite fidgeted uneasily.
“Ah, hell,” I said for a second time. Then I forced myself to talk around the big lump of fear that had lodged in the middle of my throat. “There’s something different about the vision you had of me, isn’t there?”
“It could be because I’m human,” she said slowly. “It’s the only vision I’ve had since turning back into a human, so, yeah, it doesn’t seem too wrong that it would feel different than the ones I had when I was a fledgling.”
“But?” I prompted.
She shrugged and finally met my eyes. “But it did feel different.”
“Like how?”
“Well, it felt more confusing—more emotional—more jumbled up. And I literally didn’t understand some of what I saw. I mean, I didn’t recog
nize the horrible things that were seething around in the darkness.”
“Seething?” I shivered. “That doesn’t sound good.”
“It wasn’t. I was seeing shadows inside shadows inside darkness. It was like ghosts were turning back into living things, but the things they were turning back into were too terrible for me to look at.”
“You mean like not human or vampyre?”
“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”
Automatically I rubbed my hand, and a skittering of fear slithered through my body. “Ah, hell.”
“What?” Stevie Rae said.
“Tonight there was something that, well, kinda attacked me when I was walking from the stables to the cafeteria. It was some kind of cold shadow thing that came from the darkness.”
“That can’t be good,” Stevie Rae said.
“You were alone?” Aphrodite asked, her voice sounding flintlike.
“Yes,” I said.
“Okay, that’s the problem,” Aphrodite said.
“Why? What else did you see in your vision?”
“Well, you died a couple different ways, which is not something I’ve ever seen before.”
“A—a couple different ways?” It just kept getting worse and worse.
“Maybe we should wait awhile and see if Aphrodite has another vision that’ll make things clearer before we talk about this,” Stevie Rae said, sitting next to me on the bed.
I didn’t look away from Aphrodite’s eyes, and I saw there a reflection of what I already knew. “When I ignore visions, they come true. Always,” Aphrodite said with finality.
“I think some of it might already be happening,” I said. My lips felt cold and stiff, and my stomach hurt.
“You’re not gonna die!” Stevie Rae cried, looking upset and totally like my best friend again.
I slipped my arm through Stevie Rae’s. “Go ahead, Aphrodite. Tell me.”
“It was a strong vision, filled with powerful images, but it was totally confusing. Maybe because I was feeling it and seeing it from your point of view.” Aphrodite paused, swallowing hard. “I saw you die two ways. Once you drowned. The water was cold and dark. Oh, and it smelled bad.”
“Smelled bad? Like one of those nasty Oklahoma ponds?” I said, curious despite the horror of talking about my own death.
Aphrodite shook her head. “No, I’m almost one hundred percent sure it wasn’t in Oklahoma. There was too much water for that. It’s hard to explain how I can be so sure, but it just felt too big and deep to be something like a lake.” Aphrodite paused again, thinking. Then her eyes widened. “I remember another thing about the vision. There was something close by the water that looked like a real palace on an island all its own, which means tasteful old money, probably European, and not some tacky upper middle class version of oooh-I-have-money-let’s-go-buy-an-RV.”
“You’re seriously a snob, Aphrodite,” Stevie Rae said.
“Thank you,” Aphrodite said.
“Okay, so you saw me drown near a real palace on a real island maybe in Europe. Did you see anything else that might be in the least bit helpful?” I asked.
“Well, besides the fact that you felt isolated—I mean really alone in both of the visions, I saw a guy’s face. He was with you not long before you died. Someone I’ve never seen before. At least not till today.”
“What? Who?”
“I saw that Stark kid.”
“He killed me?” I felt like I was going to throw up.
“Who’s Stark?” Stevie Rae asked, taking hold of my hand.
“New kid who just transferred here today from the Chicago House of Night,” I said. “He killed me?” I repeated the question to Aphrodite.
“I don’t think so. I didn’t get a good look at him, and it was dark. But it seemed like, even in the last glimpse you had of him, that you felt safe with him.” She raised her brow at me. “Looks like you’ll get over that whole Erik/Heath/Loren mess.”
“I’m sorry ’bout all of that. Aphrodite told me what happened,” Stevie Rae said.
I opened my mouth to say thanks to Stevie Rae, and then I realized that she and Aphrodite didn’t know the depth of the Erik/Heath/Loren mess. They’d been away from the school, and the human media hadn’t reported anything at all on Loren Blake’s death. I took a deep breath. I’d almost rather hear about my deaths than talk about this.
“Loren’s dead,” I blurted.
“What?”
“How?”
I looked up at Aphrodite. “Two days ago. It was like Professor Nolan. Loren was beheaded and crucified and nailed to the front gate of the school with a note that quoted some terrible Bible verse about him being detestable staked through his heart.” I spoke very fast, wanting to get the taste of the terrible words out of my mouth.
“Oh no!” Aphrodite turned a yucky shade of white and sat down heavily on Stevie Rae’s old bed.
“Zoey, that’s so awful,” Stevie Rae said. I could hear the tears in her voice as she put her arm around me. “Y’all were like Romeo and Juliet.”
“No!” Then because the word had come out more sharply than I’d intended, I turned to Stevie Rae and smiled. “No,” I repeated in a saner voice. “He never loved me. Loren used me.”
“For sex? Ah, Z, that’s crappy,” Stevie Rae said.
“Sadly, no, even though I did utterly mess up and have sex with him. Loren was using me for Neferet. She told him to come on to me. She was his real lover.” I grimaced, remembering the heart-ripping scene I’d witnessed between Loren and Neferet. They’d been laughing about me. I’d given Loren my heart and my body and, through our Imprint, a piece of my soul. And he’d laughed at me.
“Hang on. Go back. You said Neferet had Loren come on to you?” Aphrodite said. “Why would she do that if they were lovers?”
“Neferet wanted to get me alone.” My heart froze as the pieces of the puzzle began to fit together.
“Huh? That doesn’t make sense. Why would Loren acting like he was your boyfriend get you alone?” Stevie Rae asked.
“Simple,” Aphrodite said. “Zoey had to sneak around to see Loren, being as he was a professor and all. My guess is she didn’t tell any of the nerd herd she was playing bad little schoolgirl with Professor Blake. My guess is also that Neferet had something major to do with our boy Erik finding out Zoey was doing the dirty with someone who was definitely not him.”
“Uh, I’m right here. You don’t have to talk about me like I left the room.”
Aphrodite snorted. “If my guesses are right, I’d say your good sense left the room.”
“Your guesses are right,” I admitted reluctantly. “Neferet made sure Erik walked in on me being with Loren.”
“Damn! No wonder he acted so pissed,” Aphrodite said.
“What? When?” Stevie Rae said.
I sighed. “Erik caught me with Loren. He freaked. Then I found out that Loren was really with Neferet and he didn’t care about me at all, even though we’d Imprinted.”
“Imprinted! Shit!” Aphrodite said.
“So then I freaked.” I ignored Aphrodite. It was already awful enough. I definitely didn’t want to dwell on the details. “I was bawling when Aphrodite, the Twins, Damien, Jack, and—”
“Oh, shit, and Erik. That’s when we found you crying under the tree,” Aphrodite interrupted.
I sighed again, realizing I couldn’t ignore her. “Yeah. And Erik announced the news about Loren and me to everyone.”
“In what I would call a very mean way,” Aphrodite said.
“Dang,” Stevie Rae said. “It must have been really hateful for Aphrodite to say it was mean.”
“It was. Hateful enough for her friends to feel like her sleeping around with Loren had been a slap in the face to them. So follow Erik’s ‘Zoey’s a slut’ bomb with the ‘Zoey’s been keeping Stevie Rae’s undeadness a secret, too’ bomb, and you have a gaggle of totally pissed nerds who won’t want to trust Zoey again.”
“Which means then Zoey is al
one, just exactly as Neferet planned,” I finished for her, finding it disturbing that it was so easy to fall into talking about myself in the third person.
“That’s the second death I saw for you,” Aphrodite said. “You’re completely alone. There’s no last glimpse of a cute boy and no nerd herd. Your isolation is the overriding image I got from the second vision.”
“What kills me?”
“Well, that’s when it gets confusing again. I get an image of Neferet as a threat to you, but the vision gets jumbled up all weird when you’re actually attacked. I know this is going to sound bizarre, but at the last moment I saw something black floating around you.”
“Like a ghost or something?” I swallowed hard.
“No. Not really. If Neferet’s hair was black, I’d say it was her hair blowing around you in a big wind, like she’s standing behind you. You’re alone and you’re really, really scared. You try to call for help, but no one answers you and you’re so terrified you freeze and don’t fight back. She, or whatever it is, reaches around and somehow, using something dark and hooked, slashes your throat. It is so sharp, it cuts through your neck and severs your head from your shoulders.” Aphrodite shuddered and then added, “Which, in case you’re wondering, bleeds. A lot.”
“Gross, Aphrodite! Did ya have to go into detail?” Stevie Rae said, putting her arm back around me.
“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly. “Aphrodite has to give all the details she can remember—like she did when she saw visions of the deaths of you and Grandma and Heath. It’s the only way we can figure out how to change things. So, what else did you see about my second death?” I asked Aphrodite.
“Just that you call for help, but nothing happens. Everyone ignores you,” Aphrodite said.
“I was scared today when whatever it was came at me out of the night. So scared that for a second I just froze and didn’t know what to do,” I said, feeling shaky just remembering.
“Could Neferet have had something to do with whatever happened to you earlier?” Stevie Rae asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. There was nothing for me to see but some creepy blackness.”
“Creepy blackness is what I saw, too. As much as I hate to say it, you’ve got to make sure the nerd herd isn’t pissed off at you anymore, because you being friendless is not a good thing,” Aphrodite said.
