That thee must and always be golden
Erebus’s mate!”
Mother Earth completed her incantation, and Kalona felt a weariness he had never before known. The women’s song raised around him until it seemed that the red smoke his mother had drained from his wounds began to swirl in time with the rhythm of their song. And then the smoke congealed to form the shape of a person. Kalona blinked fast, trying to see through his fading vision. There was a flash of scarlet light that left a naked form crouching inside the circle.
As the person stood, Kalona felt his own body begin to sink. At first he thought it was just a symptom of his weariness, but as he shifted his gaze around, Kalona could see that he was literally sinking—as if the earth was opening gently to embrace him more fully.
But I want to see her! Erebus’s mate!
As if hearing his thoughts, Mother Earth’s newest creation turned to face Kalona and his mother. And Kalona thought that he was, truly, beautiful. A perfectly formed man stood before them. He was tall and lean, and his skin was the color of a fertile field. His eyes were a striking green that reminded Kalona of the moss in the grove on the island from where he’d called Mother Earth.
“Ah! Well, this is a small surprise,” said Mother Earth as she studied the young man. “I shall call you Eros, which means love.”
Eros bowed low to Mother Earth. When he straightened his curious gaze met Kalona’s.
Kalona wished he could have spoken—wished he could have welcomed Eros to their family—or at the very least laugh and shout, Nyx, you were right again! Nyx had always told Kalona that Erebus would be more content with a male lover than a female. She was right … my beloved is always right …
Suddenly Kalona was sinking faster. He looked up—feeling a flutter of panic. Mother Earth smiled kindly down.
“Close your eyes, my precious son. You must rest so that you may one day awaken. I shall join you as soon as I introduce Erebus to his love.”
But I want to stay! I want to see how happy Erebus is!
“Shh, my son. Sleep. Just sleep. Sleep, my son. Sleep, my precious firstborn, sleep …”
Mother Earth’s words became waves rocking Kalona gently, gently, until his eyelids closed and the light in his amber eyes went out.
Then, deep in the earth, under a sentinel oak in the heart of what would one day become Tulsa, Oklahoma, Kalona slept.
6
Other Neferet
The day Stark betrayed her and usurped from her the position of High Priestess and leader of the vampyre army was the second worst day of Neferet’s long life. Somehow a High Priestess—more than likely one she had showed mercy to and left alive—had masqueraded as that Redbird bitch and managed to poison Stark against her, as well as the strange red vampyre named Kevin and her army. And then they manipulated the Old Magick sprites to join their side. Neferet had been forced to flee from her place of power by hurling herself from the football stadium window. Thankfully, her dark ones—the tendrils Neferet had begun to think of with a depth of affection most people reserve for children—were more loyal than her generals or her armies. They broke her fall and shielded her from prying eyes as she fled Skelly Field with the keening of her suddenly emasculated Red Army filling the cold Tulsa night.
Across the street from the stadium, Neferet limped into the first welcoming establishment she came to—Ed’s Hurricane Lounge. The instant Neferet opened the door, stepped inside, and breathed the urine- and beer-soaked ambiance, she knew the place was no “lounge.” It was a bar. A disgusting, seedy bar located next to a dirty laundromat. Ed’s Hurricane Lounge was so far beneath an establishment Neferet would usually patronize that for an instant she felt dizzy and utterly out of sorts.
Then a thick, smooth tendril curled up her leg to twine around her waist. Automatically, Neferet stroked the creature’s flawless skin, instantly bolstered by the touch of her loyal child.
“What is it, my darling? What do you need?” Neferet spoke softly, intimately to the tendril—and in return she was washed with a voracious need for blood and flesh. “Ah, I understand perfectly. Yes, saving me was difficult work. It is time for you to feed.” Other tendrils slithered up Neferet’s body, wrapping around her waist, arms, and even around her neck like macabre living jewelry. She’d never felt them so fully until the moment they’d broken her fall and aided her escape from the stadium—and she’d also believed that they’d never been visible to anyone else, but when Neferet finally looked up from the tendrils, every man and woman in the crowded bar stared at her in open horror.
“H-high P-p-priestess?” The fat man behind the bar spoke in a trembling voice as he wiped sweat from his forehead with a bar towel, his eyes riveted on the pulsing tendril that draped around her neck. “W-what can I g-get you?”
Neferet looked from the ridiculous, tacky bumper stickers that “decorated” the walls behind the dreary bar to the cooler that held cheap beer and even cheaper wine. But before she could speak—could tell the bartender that there was absolutely nothing she desired in this miserable establishment except a place to hide and think—a rotund woman with bleached-blond hair, fire-engine-red cowboy boots, and short-shorts that left no cellulite to the imagination emerged from a dark hallway that said restrooms. She took one look at Neferet and her eyes widened.
“ohmygod, are them snakes?” When the tendrils turned eyeless faces in her direction she opened her mouth, screamed “snakes!” and then bolted for the door.
“Stop her,” Neferet told the tendril that hung around her neck like a fat rope.
Instantly it detached from her and rushed down the priestess’s body to slither with preternatural speed, beating the screaming woman to the exit door she was attempting to escape through. The tendril lifted so that its head was at about the level of the doorknob, opened its fanged mouth, and hissed.
“Oh, Jesus! Oh, lord! Snake! Snake! Snake!” the woman shrieked in hysteria.
“Shut her up,” Neferet commanded in a calm voice.
Perhaps her reasonable tone was why the couple dozen or so other people in the bar didn’t panic. Instead, like Neferet, they watched the tendril that blocked the door speed forward to the woman. Her mouth, open with hysterical screams, became the serpent’s target. It hurled its body up, between the woman’s lips, filling her mouth, sliding down into her throat, choking her screams. The woman clawed helplessly and staggered. She finally fell to the floor as the tendril burst from her neck in a bloody explosion. Her dying body convulsed and then was still as the tendril began feeding noisily.
“Well, isn’t that interesting?” Neferet spoke above the biting and slurping sounds her tendril was making. The other creatures had remained wrapped round her body, but she could feel their tension and their need. Neferet looked from the bloody body of the dead woman to the slack-jawed, terror-filled stares of the humans. She stroked the heads of the tendrils that writhed around her. “This is going to be much simpler than I imagined.” Neferet walked quickly to the door of the bar, being careful to step around the expanding pool of blood and gore that surrounded the dead woman. She smiled to herself as she heard the relieved sighs of the bar patrons who erroneously believed she was leaving. Neferet clicked the lock on the door, turned off the switch that illuminated the tacky neon ed’s hurricane lounge sign, and then faced the humans. She smiled and continued to stroke the tendrils that were trembling with anticipation. “Kill them all, my darlings.”
Neferet leaned her back against the locked door and observed the tendrils as they did her bidding—enthusiastically, efficiently, and except for the brief, terror-filled screams of the doomed humans, almost soundlessly.
She was amazed at how quickly it was over. Several of the tendrils paused in their feeding and dragged one of the fresh kills to Neferet. They bowed their eyeless heads, clearly offering the treat of the very fat, very bloody bartender to her.
“Oh, my darlings! How extraordinarily
considerate of you! But this is your meal. I fed earlier, and I shall feed again later. Now it is your time to enjoy.” The tendrils wriggled in delight, reminding her suddenly of kittens as they returned their attention to the body and continued slurping and tearing.
Neferet pressed the back of her hand against her mouth, utterly disgusted and trying not to gag at the sight of the offal that used to be a slovenly bartender. Neferet had killed before, of course, but she never fed from any human who hadn’t been carefully chosen by her. The High Priestess insisted on beautiful or handsome donors who were made ready for her—meticulously washed, dressed, and prepared. She often restricted donors’ diets for weeks before she fed. Neferet most enjoyed the subtle nuances in the delicious taste of blood that came from a controlled source. Feeding would help her heal from her fall quicker, but the dead bartender did not meet her standards. One more glance around the bar told her that no one there met her standards. Thus, she could not bring herself to taste their below-average blood, though she did very much enjoy watching her children drain the bar patrons and tear their flesh from their bodies.
“Darlings!” Neferet clapped her hands to get their attention as she moved around the scavenged carcasses and made her way to the bar. “We will not be safe here long, so eat swiftly. I’ll look for keys. One of these,” she paused and shuddered, “humans must have a decent vehicle we can use.”
The tendrils paused in their feeding to listen, wriggled in response, and then returned to their bloody meals, ripping, tearing, and lapping with renewed focus as she searched behind the bar where she did find a hook in the shape of a big bronze breast that held several sets of keys dangling from its grotesquely long nipple. Grimacing with distaste, she spread the keys out on the bar and then began to look through the subpar alcohol selection until she found an unopened bottle of twelve-year-old Macallan single malt scotch.
“Average. Completely average, but at least palatable.” Neferet held a highball glass up to the light to be sure it was clean before pouring herself a double. She drank it in one gulp and then poured herself another. There was a stool behind the bar, which she sat on as she sipped her second mediocre drink and considered the future.
“Now I can think.” Neferet sighed and flicked a piece of dirt from her red silk jumpsuit. She grimaced as she finally had time to notice the horrid state of her clothes—and only then realized that she was shoeless and had lost one large diamond earring. “This is unconscionable. I need a decent meal, a long bath, and a change of clothes.” She tapped the cheap glass highball with one pointed, red fingernail. “It isn’t safe to return to the House of Night. Nor can we go to my penthouse suite at the Mayo. Not until I know who is in charge and who is coming after me,” Neferet ruminated aloud. Her tendril children continued to feed, though they did often turn their adorable dark heads in her direction and hiss agreement. “Artus’s death is definitely inconvenient.” Neferet’s lips lifted at the corners in more of a sneer than a smile. “But I rid myself of all High Priestesses, either killing, banishing, or demoting them, which means the House of Night will be desperately lacking in leadership. Isn’t that a shame?” She laughed sarcastically, pleased to note several of the larger tendrils paused in their feeding to hiss their own version of amusement. “Oh, darlings, I adore you more and more—” She stopped short when the far wall of the bar drew her attention. It appeared to move, shift, change. It reminded Neferet of heat waves rising from a pot of lobsters being boiled alive. Her tendrils noticed as well. As one they turned their heads toward the wall and opened their bloody mouths in angry hisses.
There was the sound of thunder—a great cracking that shook the bar—and through the wall strode an enormous bull. Its head and chest were huge—its horns scraped the ceiling. The bull’s breath was a cloud of foulness that seemed oddly familiar to Neferet until she placed it—death, the bull’s breath smells of death.
His coat was white, but not the color of milk or snow or anything as innocuous. The creature’s coat brought to mind one thing above all others—the color a person’s eyes turn just after death claims them—the white of an absence of life and an unfathomable depth of nothingness.
“Ah, Neferet, it has been many, many years.” The bull’s voice rumbled with barely controlled violence—a harbinger of danger just as thunder is lightning’s precursor to destruction.
“Children, to me.” The High Priestess stood and made a slight gesture with her hands. The tendrils stopped hissing and instantly slithered to her, wrapping around her as they kept their heads turned in the direction of the bull. Newly engorged with blood and meat, they comforted her with the thickness and strength of their snakelike bodies. She stroked them soothingly before she returned her attention to the bull.
Neferet knew who he was—any priestess of power knew the story of the White Bull who personified Darkness, just as the Black Bull personified Light. She knew the two creatures were eternally locked in the struggle between good and evil, always trying to tip the scales to one or the other.
But she’d never spoken with the White Bull. Until that moment she’d only paid cursory attention to the warnings about him, as well as the aggrandizements of the Black Bull. With a sense of shock she easily concealed, Neferet heard the impostor Zoey Redbird’s voice lift from her memory, replaying the vile things she’d said to her in the TU press box not long ago, I also know that you’re playing with the idea of being Consort to pure Darkness—the White Bull. Well, she hadn’t been—at least not then. Neferet collected herself. She understood she would have to be wise in her dealings with the creature, especially until she discovered exactly what he wanted from her.
“Forgive me—I do so loathe rudeness,” Neferet said. “Of course I recognize you, mighty White Bull. It is an honor to meet you.” Neferet pressed her hand against her heart and bowed—gracefully and slightly. “I have heard stories of you, but I do not recall meeting you before now.”
The bull’s laughter filled the bloody bar. “Ah, my heartless one, I have known you since you were a child. How do you think the tendrils found you?”
Neferet’s emerald eyes narrowed. “The tendrils are manifestations of my power.”
“Your power?” The bull chuckled again. “Eventually several of them remained with you because of your insatiable quest for power, but they originated with me. Behold!” The air around them changed, darkened, and became frigid. Countless thick and eyeless tendrils exploded from around the bull. They writhed together in seething nests of reptilian blackness relieved only by a flash of sharp fangs.
Neferet’s hands continued to stroke the tendrils that remained wrapped around her body. Though they hadn’t originated with her, she did not believe her children would leave her—not after all they’d been through that day. As if reading her mind, they clung more tightly to Neferet, quivering under her caressing hands.
“I drew the tendrils to you long ago,” the White Bull continued, and as he spoke the air around them normalized and the mass of new tendrils dissipated. “Do you not remember the fountain in the garden of your childhood home? The garden where Emily Wheiler knew her only peace.”
Neferet’s gaze turned hard. She did remember the garden, and with a sense of shocked realization she also recalled the huge fountain. It had been adorned with a centerpiece of a white bull spouting water from his mouth, and it stood in the center of the sanctuary and was often her only companion. But Neferet had closed her mind to her past long ago and she had no intention of opening it. “Emily Wheiler died more than a century ago. I killed her.”
“Well, that is certainly one way of looking at it.”
“It is the only way of looking at it. Mighty Bull, I do acknowledge that my tendrils originated with you.” She bowed her head slightly again. “I thank you for gifting me with such perfect companions—but they are now my companions and have been mine for many, many years.”
“They do show incredible loyalty to you,” sa
id the bull.
Neferet shook back her thick auburn hair, wishing she looked presentable—and then an idea came to her and she met the bull’s bottomless gaze. “They do, indeed. Especially today, when I have been so cruelly betrayed and usurped.”
“I have followed your life’s path eagerly and with much interest, especially after you declared war on humans—a war that was, for quite some time, even successful.” He nodded his massive head, causing the tips of his horns to gouge the ceiling.
“My war will be successful again as soon as I remove the traitors in my army and regain my proper place as their High Priestess and leader.”
The bull’s head cocked to the side as he studied her. “And is that all you desire? To be High Priestess and hold dominion over mortals as well as vampyres for your long, but still finite, lifespan?”
Neferet’s response was immediate. She observed the bull carefully as she spoke. “What is it that you desire, Mighty One?”
The White Bull went very still. Neferet saw the depth of intelligence and cruelty in his gaze—saw it, understood it, and appreciated it. So, she waited, silently, while she stroked the tendrils that clung to her.
“I desire a Consort worthy of me,” the White Bull said.
Neferet felt a rush of relief. He may be the personification of evil, but he is also male, and their desires always make fools of them.
“And what makes a Consort worthy of you?”
“Intelligence, preternatural beauty, and insatiability.” The White Bull spoke quickly, eagerly.
“I have those things in abundance.”
“Ah, my heartless one, as I said, I have been watching you carefully, and I agree that you do indeed.” The creature took a step closer and the tendrils cringed away from him, clinging to her even more closely.
Neferet didn’t cringe away. She was intrigued by his power. He wore it like his skin. It pervaded everything about him. It radiated from him to pulse against her body. Like all males, he’d already forgotten that he’d asked what she desired. Neferet had learned early that men liked to mouth words that said they cared about how women felt, but their actions always spoke louder—always shouted that their true compassion and concern was only for themselves.
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