by P. C. Cast
“To repeat our special report on the gang violence in midtown Tulsa last night, Tulsa P.D. reiterates that the city is safe and the problem under control. To quote the chief of police, ‘It was an initiation ritual by a new gang that calls itself Mockers. Leaders of the gang have been arrested and the streets of midtown Tulsa are, once again, safe for our citizens.’” The newsman continued,
“We have one more community announcement: All House of Night staff and students have been recalled to the school due to the impending weather. Again, all House of Night staff and students have been asked to return to school. Stay tuned for updates. We return you to our scheduled programming.”
“There was no gang in midtown last night,” I said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“She fixed it. She manipulated the press and probably the public, too,” Erik said, looking grim.
“Is the ‘she’ that High Priestess who messed with my mind?” Heath asked me.
“No,” Erik said.
“Yes,” I said at the same time. I frowned at Erik. “He needs to know the truth to protect himself.”
“The less he knows, the better it is for him,” Erik insisted.
“No, see, that’s what I thought before, and that’s why everyone was so mad at me. That’s also why I made some major mistakes.” I looked from Erik to Heath. “If I hadn’t kept so many secrets and had trusted my friends to handle themselves, I might have talked more and messed up less.”
Erik sighed. “Okay, I see your point.” He looked at Heath. “Her name is Neferet. She’s the High Priestess at the House of Night. She’s powerful. Very powerful. And she’s psychic.”
“Yeah, I already know she can do stuff with her mind. That’s how she messed with me. She made me forget chunks of things that happened. I’ve just started to remember them.”
“Does it make your head hurt?” I asked him, remembering the pain I’d had to work through when I’d broken the memory blocks Neferet had put in my mind.
“Yeah. It hurts, but it’s getting a lot better.” He smiled his familiar, forgiving smile and my heart squeezed.
“Neferet is also some kind of queen for Kalona,” Erik continued.
“So she’s bad news all the way around,” Heath said.
“Bad news and dangerous. Don’t forget that,” I said. “Also, Kalona can’t stand to be underground. He couldn’t before he was imprisoned in the earth by Cherokee women, and now that he’s escaped, my guess is he’s going to be even leerier of the earth. So remember, you’re safe underground.”
“What about the Raven Mockers?”
I shook my head. “We just don’t know. None have come down here, but that doesn’t mean much.” I thought about the darkness in the tunnels below and the bad feeling it was giving me, but I didn’t know what the hell it actually was: Red fledglings? Raven Mockers? Some other faceless thing that Kalona was sending against us? Or was it as simple as my imagination? The only thing I knew for sure was that I’d sound like an idiot crying wolf if I babbled a bunch of maybes, which meant, for the time being, I kept my mouth shut.
“Well, it’s Saturday, but we don’t have school because it’s still winter break until Wednesday, and if this ice storm hits as hard as they say it’s going to, we might be out for the whole week,” Heath was saying. “It should be easy to keep safe, even if the Raven Mockers attack again and their attack moves from midtown Tulsa to Broken Arrow.”
My stomach felt hollow. “And they might. Neferet knows I’m from Broken Arrow, and she knows there are still people I care about there.”
“So she might send the Raven Mockers to Broken Arrow just to mess you up?” Heath said.
I nodded. “Especially when my group and I ignore the call to return to school.”
“But wait, Zo. You have to be at school around a bunch of vamps or you and all the rest of the fledglings will get sick, right?”
“I’m here,” Erik spoke up. “And so is another full vampyre. Not to mention Stevie Rae.”
“Isn’t she all gross and undead?” Heath said.
“Not anymore,” I said. “She’s Changed into a different kind of vamp, one with red tattoos. And all of the gross fledglings that tried to eat you—well, they’re red fledglings now, and aren’t so gross.”
“Huh,” Heath said. “Well, I’m glad your BFF’s okay.”
“Me, too.” I smiled.
“So are three adult vamps enough to keep you guys from getting sick?” Heath asked.
“We’ll have to be. Heath, you need to go,” Erik said abruptly.
Heath and I looked at him. I realized I’d been grinning a lot at Heath and really liking that he and I were talking again.
“The ice storm,” Erik continued. “It’s not smart for him to get stuck here, and that’s what’s going to happen if he’s still here when the sun sets.” Erik paused and then said, “Which is going to happen in about half an hour. How long did it take you to get from Broken Arrow to here?”
Heath frowned. “Almost two hours. The roads are bad.”
It should have only taken him about thirty minutes to get from his place to the depot. Erik was right. Heath had to go home. Not only were we clueless about how much danger we might be in from Kalona, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure Heath would be safe around the red fledglings. Besides my questions about them, the truth was no matter what they were or weren’t now, Heath was one hundred percent human, with lots of yummy, fresh, warm, sexy, pumping blood (I ignored the fact that my mouth was watering just thinking about it), and I had no idea about their willpower limits.
“Erik’s right, Heath. You can’t get stuck outside tonight, especially this close to midtown. Besides the ice, we don’t know what’s up with the Raven Mockers.”
Heath looked at me like he and I were completely alone. “You’re worried about me.”
My throat felt dry. This was so not a conversation I wanted to have in front of Erik. “Of course I worry about you. We’ve been friends a long time.” I could feel Erik’s eyes on me. I forced myself not to fidget guiltily and added, “Friends worry about friends.”
Heath’s smile was slow and intimate. “Friends. Right.”
“Time for you to go.” Erik sounded pissed.
Without looking at Erik, Heath said, “I’ll go when Zo tells me to.”
“It’s time for you to go, Heath,” I said quickly.
Heath’s eyes stayed locked with mine for several heartbeats. “Fine. Whatever,” he said. Then he turned to Erik. “So you’re a real vamp now, huh?”
“Yes.”
Heath looked him up and down. The two guys were close to the same height. Erik was taller, but Heath was the more muscular of the two. Still, both guys looked like they could handle themselves in a fight. I felt myself tense. Was Heath going to throw a punch at Erik?
“People say male vamps are big into protecting their priestesses. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” Erik said.
“Good. Then I expect you to be sure Zoey stays safe.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to her as long as I’m alive,” Erik said.
“Make sure it doesn’t.” Heath’s voice had lost the charming, easygoing tone with which he usually spoke. It had gone hard and dangerous. “Because if you let anything happen to her, I’m going to find you, and vampyre or no vampyre, I am going to kick your ass.”
CHAPTER 11
I moved quickly, putting myself between the two of them. “Stop it!” I shouted. “I have way too much to worry about right now to also have to pull you two off each other. Jeesh, talk about immature.” Both guys kept glaring at each other over my head. “I said, stop it!” And I smacked their chests. That made them blink and shift their attention to me. Now it was my turn to do the glaring. “You know, you two are ridiculous with your puffing up and your testosterone and crap. I mean, I could summon the elements and kick both of your butts.”
Heath shuffled his feet and looked embarrassed.
Then he grinned at me, like a cute little boy whose mommy had just yelled at him. “Sorry, Zo. I forget you have some major mojo going on.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Erik said. “I know I don’t have anything to worry about with you and him.” And he finished with a smirk at Heath.
Heath looked at me like he expected me to say something like well, actually you need to worry way too much, Erik, because I still like Heath, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. No matter what was going on between Erik and me, Heath was part of my old world, and he fit better in my past than in my present or future. Heath being one hundred percent human meant he was one hundred percent more vulnerable to being seriously hurt if something attacked us.
“Okay, I’m out of here,” Heath said into the awkward silence. He spun around and started to walk toward the door to the outside and was almost there when he paused and looked back at me. “But first I really do need to talk to you, Zo. Alone.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Erik said.
“No one asked you to,” Heath said. “Zo, would you come outside with me for a minute?”
“Hell no,” Erik said, moving toward me possessively. “She’s not going anywhere with you.”
I was frowning up at Erik, about to tell him that he really wasn’t the boss of me, when he did something that totally, utterly, and completely pissed me off. He actually grabbed my wrist and jerked me toward him, even though I hadn’t taken one step to follow Heath.
An automatic reflex had me yanking my wrist from his grasp.
His blue eyes narrowed at me. At that instant he looked mad and mean, and seemed more a stranger than a boyfriend.
“You’re not going anywhere with him,” he repeated to me.
My temper spiked. I cannot stand being bullied. It was one of the reasons my mom’s new husband and I never got along. At his core, the step-loser was nothing more than a big bully. Suddenly I was seeing that same attitude reflected in Erik. I knew it would break my heart later, but just then my anger was burning too hot for any other emotion to cool my reaction.
I didn’t yell. I didn’t scream and smack him like I really wanted to. Instead, all I did was shake my head and say in my coldest voice, “Erik, enough. Just because we’re back together doesn’t mean you can tell me what to do.”
“How about does it mean you don’t cheat on me again with your human boyfriend?” Erik snapped.
I gasped and took a step back from him like he’d slapped me. “Why the hell do you think you can talk to me like that?” My stomach clenched up so hard I thought I was going to be sick, but I ignored it, meeting Erik’s angry glare with a steely stare of my own. “As your girlfriend, you’ve just pissed me off. As your High Priestess, you’ve just insulted me. And as someone with a working brain, you’ve made me wonder if you’ve lost every bit of your sense. What do you think I’m going to do in the minute or so I’d be alone with Heath standing outside in the parking lot during an ice storm? Lie down and let him do me right there on the cement? Is that really the kind of girl you think I am?”
Erik didn’t say anything; he just kept glaring at me.
In the electric silence Heath’s chuckle was supermocking. “Hey, Erik, let me give you a little advice about our Zo. She really, really, really doesn’t like it when you try to tell her what to do. And that’s how she’s been since, uh, I dunno, third grade or so. I mean, even before she got the vamp mojo from her goddess, she hated to be bossed around.” Heath held out his hand to me. “So would ya walk outside with me for just a sec so we can talk without an audience?”
“Yes, yes I would. I think I need some fresh air,” I said. Ignoring Erik’s pissed-off stare and Heath’s offered hand, I stomped over to the metal grating that looked way more closed and secure than it was and with an annoyed shove pushed it aside and walked out into a very nasty winter evening. The blast of cold wet air felt good on my heated face, and I breathed deep, trying to calm down and not shriek my frustration with Erik up into the bruised gray of the sky.
At first I thought it was raining, but pretty quickly I realized it was more like the sky was spitting little pieces of ice. It wasn’t coming down thick, but it was constant, and the parking lot, railroad tracks, and the side of the old depot building were already starting to take on the weird magical look of being gilded with ice.
“My truck’s just over there.” Heath pointed to where his truck was parked at the edge of the deserted parking lot under a tree that had obviously at one time been planted as an ornament near the sidewalk that wrapped around the depot. Years of being ignored and not pruned had really messed with it, though, and instead of fitting neatly into its circular opening in the cement, the tree had grown way bigger than it should have and its roots had broken the sidewalk around it. Its ice-slick limbs swayed precariously close to the old granite building; some of them were actually leaning on the roof. Just looking up at the tree made me cringe. If we got much more ice, the poor old thing was probably going to shatter into zillions of pieces.
“Here,” Heath held one side of his coat up over my head. “Come on over to my truck so we can talk out of this mess.”
I glanced around at the gray, soggy landscape. Nothing seemed frightening or freaky—as in half-man, half-bird grossness. It was just wet and cold and empty.
“Okay, yeah,” I said, and let Heath lead me over to his truck. I probably shouldn’t have let him hold his coat over me and tuck me close to his side while I clutched on to him to keep from falling on the ice-slick pavement, but it felt so familiar and easy to be with him that I didn’t even hesitate. Let’s face it, Heath’s been in my life since I was in grade school. I was literally more comfortable with him than with anyone else in the world, except for my Grandma. No matter what was going on, or not going on, between us, Heath was like family to me. Actually, he’s better than the vast majority of my family. It was hard to imagine trying to treat him all formally like he was a stranger. After all, Heath had been my friend before he’d become my boyfriend. But he can never just be my friend again; there’ll always be more between us than that, whispered my conscience, but I ignored it.
We got to his truck and Heath opened the door for me, the interior smelling of an odd, familiar mixture of Heath and Armor All. (Heath is a neat freak about his truck; I swear you could eat off the seats.) Instead of sliding in, I hesitated. Sitting next to him in the cab of his truck was just too intimate, too reminiscent of the years I had been his girlfriend. So instead, I pulled a little away from him and half sat, half leaned on the end of the passenger’s seat, enough out of the icy rain to stay semidry. Heath gave me a sad smile, like he understood that I was doing my best to resist being with him again, and leaned against his side of the open door.
“Okay, what did you want to talk to me about?”
“I don’t like you being here. I don’t remember everything, but I do remember enough to know that the tunnels down there are bad news. I know you said those undead kids have changed, but I still don’t like you being down there with them. It doesn’t seem safe,” he said, looking serious and worried.
“Well, I don’t blame you for thinking it’s disgusting down there, but it really has changed. The kids are different, too. They have their humanity back. Plus, it’s the safest place for us right now.”
Heath studied my face for a long time, then he let out a heavy sigh. “You’re the one who’s the priestess and stuff like that, so you know what you’re doing. It just feels weird to me. Are you sure you shouldn’t go back to the House of Night? Maybe this fallen angel guy isn’t as bad as you think he is.”
“No, Heath, he’s bad. Just trust me on this one. And the Raven Mockers are seriously dangerous. It’s not safe to go back to school. You didn’t see him when he rose out of the ground. It’s like he can put a spell on fledglings and vampyres. It’s really creepy. You already know how powerful Neferet is. Well, I think Kalona is even more powerful than her.”
“That is bad,” Heath agreed.
“Yeah.”
Heath nodded and didn’t say anything. He just looked at me. I looked back at him, and somehow got caught by his sweet, brown-eyed gaze. I’d been sitting there in silence for a while, just looking into his eyes, when I started to be intensely aware of him. I could smell Heath. It was the nice, soapy, Heath smell that I’d grown up with. He was standing close enough to me that I could feel the heat from his body.
Slowly, without saying a word, Heath took my hand and turned it over so that he could look at the intricate tattoos that decorated it. He traced the pattern with one of his fingers.
“It’s really amazing that this has happened to you,” he said softly, still studying my hand. “Sometimes when I’m waking up in the morning I forget that you’ve been Marked and you’re at the House of Night, and the first thing I think is how much I’m looking forward to knowing you’re going to be at the game Friday night watching me play. Or that I can’t wait to see you before school getting sausage rolls and your brown pop at Daylight Donuts.” He looked up from my hand and into my eyes. “And then I wake all the way up and remember that you won’t be there for any of those things. That wasn’t so bad when we were Imprinted, ’cause I still felt like I had a chance, that I still had a part of you. But now even that’s gone.”
Heath made my insides tremble. “I’m sorry, Heath. I—I just don’t know what else to say. I can’t change any of this.”
“Yes, you can.” Heath lifted my hand and pressed my palm against his black Broken Arrow Tigers football shirt just over his heart. “Can you feel it beating?” he whispered.
I nodded. I could feel his heartbeat, steady and strong, if a little fast. It reminded me of the incredibly delicious blood that was pounding through his veins and how good it would feel to take just a tiny little bite of him…And now the pounding of my heart was beating in double time along with his.
