by P. C. Cast
“Banged up?” I was struggling to make sense of everything. “What happened to Heath?”
“Multiple lacerations, just like those other two kids. Good thing you found him and called me before he bled to death.” He squeezed my shoulder. A paramedic tried to move Marx from my side, but he said, “I’ll handle her. She just needs to get back to the House of Night and she’ll be fine.”
I saw the paramedic give me a look that clearly said freak, but Detective Marx’s strong hands were helping me sit up and his tall body blocked my view of the muttering EMT.
“Can you walk to my car?” Marx asked.
I nodded. My body was feeling better, but my mind was still all mushy. Marx’s “car” was really a huge, all-weather truck with giant wheels and a roll bar. He helped me up into the front seat, which was warm and comfortable, but before he closed the door I suddenly remembered something else, even though the effort made my head feel like it was going to split open. “Persephone! Is she okay?”
Marx looked confused for just a second, then he smiled. “The mare?”
I nodded.
“She’s just fine. An officer is walking her to the police stables downtown until the roads are clear enough to get a trailer back to the House of Night.” His grin widened. “Guess you’re braver than the Tulsa police force. None of them volunteered to ride her back.”
I rested my head against the seat as he threw the truck into four-wheel drive and navigated slowly through the drifts of snow away from the depot. There must have been ten cop cars, along with a fire truck and two ambulances parked with lights flashing red and blue and white against the empty, snow-curtained night.
“What happened here tonight, Zoey?”
I thought back, and had to squint my eyes against the sudden pain in my head. “I don’t remember,” I managed to say through the pounding in my temples. I could feel his sharp gaze on me. I met the detective’s eyes and remembered him telling me about his twin sister, the vamp who still loved him. He’d said I could trust him, and I believed him. “Something’s wrong,” I admitted. “My memory is messed up.”
“Okay,” he said slowly. “Start with the last thing you can easily remember.”
“I was grooming Persephone and all of a sudden I knew where Heath was, and that he was going to die if I didn’t go get him.”
“You two have Imprinted?” My surprise must have been easy to read, because he smiled and continued. “My sister and I talk, and I’ve been curious about vamp stuff, especially right after she first Changed.” He shrugged as if it was no big deal for a human to know all sorts of vampyre info. “We’re twins, so we’re used to sharing everything. A change of species just didn’t make that much difference to us.” He glanced sideways at me again. “You have Imprinted, haven’t you?”
“Yeah, Heath and I have Imprinted. That’s how I knew where he was.” I left out the stuff about Aphrodite. No way did I feel up to explaining the whole her-visions-are-real-but-Neferet-has-been . . .
“Ah!” This time I gasped aloud at the agony inside my head.
“Deep, calming breaths,” Marx said, shooting me worried looks whenever he could take his eyes from the treacherous road. “I said whatever was easy for you to remember.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m okay. I want to do this.”
He still looked worried, but continued with his questioning. “All right, you knew Heath was in trouble, and you knew where he was. So, why didn’t you just call me and tell me to go to the depot?”
I tried to remember and pain shot through my head, but along with the pain came anger. Something had happened to my mind. Someone had messed with my mind. And that really pissed me off. I rubbed my temples and gritted my teeth against the pain.
“Maybe we should stop for a while.”
“No! Just let me think,” I gasped. I could remember the stables and Aphrodite. I could remember that Heath needed me, and the wild, snowy ride on Persephone to the depot basement. But when I tried to remember past the basement the agony that speared through my head became too much for me.
“Zoey!” Detective Marx’s concern penetrated through my pain.
“Something has messed with my mind.” I wiped tears I hadn’t realized I’d shed from my face.
“Pieces of your memory are gone.”
It didn’t sound like a question, but I nodded anyway.
He was silent for a while. It seemed he was concentrating on the deserted, snow-covered road, but I thought I knew better, and his next words told me I was right.
“My sister”—he smiled and glanced at me—“her name is Anne, warned me once that if I ever pissed off a High Priestess I would be in serious trouble because they had ways of erasing things, and what she meant by things was people and memories.” He glanced from the road to me again, and this time his smile was gone. “So, I guess the question is: what have you done to piss off a High Priestess?”
“I don’t know. I . . .” My voice trailed off as I thought about what he’d said. I didn’t try to remember what had happened that night. Instead, I let my memory drift lazily backward . . . to Aphrodite and the fact that Nyx was still blessing her with visions, even though Neferet had spread the word that her visions were false . . . to the small, almost imperceptible sense of wrongness that had grown like a fungus around Neferet, until it culminated Sunday night in her undermining the decisions I’d made for the Dark Daughters . . . to the nasty scene I’d witnessed between Neferet and . . . and . . . I braced myself against the heat that was starting to throb through my head and, along with a flash of piercing pain, remembered the creature Elliott had become feeding from the High Priestess’s blood.
“Stop the truck!” I yelled.
“We’re almost at the school, Zoey.”
“Now! I’m going to be sick.”
We slid to the side of the empty road. I opened the door and dropped to the snowy street, staggered to the ditch, and puked up my guts into a snowbank. Detective Marx was beside me, pulling back my hair and sounding very dadlike as he told me to breathe and everything would be okay. I gulped air and finally stopped heaving. He handed me a handkerchief, one of those old-fashioned linen ones that was folded neatly into a clean square.
“Thanks.” I tried to hand it back to him after wiping my face and blowing my nose, but he smiled and said, “Keep it.”
I stood there, just gulping air and letting the throbbing in my head go away as I stared across a field of untouched snow to some distant oaks that grew along a massive stone and brick wall. And with a start of surprise, I realized where we were.
“It’s the east wall of the school,” I said.
“Yeah, I thought I’d take you the back way—give you more time to collect yourself, and maybe restore some of that memory.”
Restore . . . What was it about that word? Tentatively, I thought hard, trying to remember while I braced myself against the pain I was sure would come. But it didn’t, and into my memory came the vision of a beautiful meadow, and the wise words of my Goddess . . . the elements can restore as well as destroy.
And then I understood what I had to do.
“Detective Marx, I need a minute here, okay?”
“Alone?” he asked.
I nodded.
“I’ll be in the truck, watching you. If you need me, call.”
I smiled my thanks, but before he’d turned to go back to the truck I was walking toward the oaks. I didn’t need to be under them—to actually be in the school grounds, but being near them helped me center myself. When I was close enough to see how their branches entwined like old friends, I stopped and closed my eyes.
“Wind, I call you to me and this time I ask that you blow clean any dark taint that has touched my mind.” I felt a gust of cold, like I was being battered by my own personal hurricane, but it wasn’t pressing against my body. It was filling my mind. I kept my eyes tightly closed and blocked out the throbbing ache that had returned to my temples. “Fire, I call you to me and ask that you burn fro
m my mind any darkness that has touched it.” Heat filled my head, only it wasn’t like the hot spear that I’d felt earlier. Instead it was a nice warmth, like a heating pad on a pulled muscle. “Water, I call you to me and ask that you wash from my mind the darkness that has touched it.” Coolness flooded through the warmth, soothing what had been overheated and bringing incredible relief. “Earth, I call you to me and ask that your nurturing strength take from my mind the darkness that has touched it.” From the bottoms of my feet, where I was connected firmly to the earth, it was as if a faucet had opened and I imagined putrid darkness running down and out of my body to be consumed by the strength and goodness of the earth. “And, spirit, I ask that you heal what darkness has destroyed in my mind, and restore my memory!” Something snapped within me and a white-hot familiar sensation shot down my back, dropping me heavily to my knees.
“Zoey! Zoey! My God, are you okay?”
Once again Detective Marx’s strong hands were shaking my shoulders and he was helping me to my feet. This time my eyes opened easily and I smiled into his kind face.
“I’m more than okay. I remember everything.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
“You’re sure this is how it has to be?” Detective Marx asked for what seemed like the zillionth time.
“Yep.” I nodded wearily. “It has to be like this.” I was so damn tired I thought I could fall asleep right there in the cop’s ginormic monster truck. But I knew I couldn’t. The night wasn’t over yet. My job wasn’t over yet.
The detective sighed, and I smiled at him.
“You’re just gonna have to trust me,” I said, sounding a lot like he had earlier that day.
“I don’t like it,” he said.
“I know, and I’m sorry. But I’ve told you everything I can.”
“That some homeless kook is responsible for Heath and the other two boys?” He shook his head. “Feels wrong to me.”
“Are you sure you’re not a little bit psychic?” I smiled tiredly at him.
“If I was, I’d be able to figure out what feels wrong.” He shook his head again. “Explain this—what happened to your memory?”
I’d already thought about my answer for this one. “It was the trauma of tonight. It made me block what happened. And then my affinity for the five elements helped me to overcome the block and remember.”
“That’s why you had all that pain?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess so. It’s gone now anyway.”
“Look, Zoey, I’m pretty sure that there’s more going on here than what you’re telling me. I want you to know that you really can trust me,” he said.
“I know that.” I believed him, but I also knew that there were some secrets I couldn’t share. Not with this really nice detective. Not with anyone.
“You don’t have to deal with whatever it is on your own. I can help you. You’re just a kid—just a teenager.” He sounded totally exasperated.
I met his eyes steadily. “No, I’m a fledgling who is leader of the Dark Daughters and a High Priestess in training. Believe me, that’s a lot more than just a teenager. I’ve given you my oath, and you know from your sister that my oath binds me. I promise I’ve told you everything I can, and if any more kids disappear, I believe I can find them for you.” What I didn’t say was that I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how I was going to do that, but the promise felt right, and so I knew Nyx would help me keep it. Not that that would be easy. But I couldn’t betray Stevie Rae’s presence, which meant no one could know about the creatures, or at least not until Stevie Rae was safe.
Marx sighed again, and I could see that he was muttering to himself as he stomped around to help me down from his truck. But just before he opened the door to the main school building Marx (annoyingly) ruffled my hair and said, “All right, we’ll do this your way. Of course, it’s not like I have a choice.”
He was right. He didn’t have any choice.
I walked into the building before him and was instantly engulfed in the warmth of its familiar scents of incense and oil, and the soothing gaslights that flickered like eager, welcoming friends.
Speaking of . . .
“Zoey!” I heard the Twins squeal together, and then I was being smushed in the middle of them as they hugged me and cried and yelled at me for worrying them and talked nonstop about being able to feel it when I tapped into their elements. Damien was not far behind them. Then I was in Erik’s strong arms as he hugged me and whispered how scared he’d been for me and how glad he was I was okay. I allowed myself to rest in his arms and return his hug. Later, I’d figure out what to do about Heath and him. Right now I was too tired, and anyway, I needed to save my strength to deal with—
“Zoey, you gave us quite a scare.”
I stepped out of Erik’s arms and turned to face Neferet.
“I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to upset everyone,” I said, and it was the truth. I hadn’t wanted to worry or upset or scare anyone.
“Well, I suppose there’s no harm done, darling. We’re all just so glad you’re safely home.” She smiled at me with that wonderful mom smile of hers that seemed so full of love and light and goodness, and even though I knew what that smile hid, I felt my heart squeeze and wished desperately that I was wrong, that Neferet was as wonderful as I used to believe.
Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good. The Goddess’s words echoed through my mind, giving me strength.
“Well, Zoey is definitely our hero,” Detective Marx said. “If she hadn’t been tuned into that boy, she could have never called us to that depot in time to save him.”
“Yes, well, that’s a little problem she and I will have to discuss later.” She gave me a stern look, but her tone told everyone there that I wasn’t really in much trouble.
If only they knew.
“Detective, did you catch the person who has been taking the boys?” Neferet continued.
“No, he escaped before we arrived, but there’s plenty of evidence that someone has been living in the depot, actually it looked like he was using it as some kind of headquarters. I think it’ll be easy to find proof that the other two boys were killed there by someone who was trying to make it look like vampyres had taken the teenagers. And now, even though Heath doesn’t remember much of anything because of the trauma, Zoey has given us a good description of the man to go by. It’s just a matter of time before we catch him.”
Was I the only one who saw surprise flash through Neferet’s eyes?
“That’s wonderful!” Neferet said.
“Yeah.” I met the High Priestess’s eyes. “I’ve told Detective Marx a lot. My memory’s really good.”
“I’m proud of you, Zoeybird!” Neferet came to me and put her arms around me, hugging me close. So close that only I heard her whisper into my ear, “If you speak against me I will make sure no human or fledgling or vampyre will believe you.”
I didn’t pull away from her. I didn’t react in any way. But when she let me go, I made my final move—the one I’d planned since the white-hot familiar sensation had seared the skin on my back.
“Neferet, would you please look at my back?”
My friends had been chattering among themselves, clearly giddy with the relief they’d felt since I’d called them while Detective Marx and I talked outside the school and asked them to meet me inside the main building, and to make sure Neferet was there, too. Now my weird request, which I’d been sure to ask loud and clear, shut them up. Actually, everyone in the room, including Detective Marx, was looking at me like they wondered if I’d perhaps hit my head sometime during my adventures and some of my brains had leaked out.
“It’s important,” I said, and grinned at Neferet as if I were hiding a present just for her under the back of my shirt.
“Zoey, I’m not sure what—” Neferet began, her tone carefully pitched between worry and embarrassment.
I gave an exaggerated sigh. “Jeesh, just look.” And bef
ore anyone could stop me, I turned so that my back was facing them, and lifted the bottom of my sweatshirt (being careful to keep the front of me covered).
I hadn’t really been worried that I might be wrong, but the gasps and exclamations of awe and happy surprise from my friends were a relief to hear.
“Z! Your Mark has spread.” Erik laughed and tentatively touched the newly tattooed skin of my back.
“Wow, it’s awesome,” Shaunee breathed.
“Totally cool,” Erin said.
“Spectacular,” Damien said. “It’s the same labyrinth pattern as your other Marks.”
“Yeah, with the rune symbols spaced between the spirals,” Erik said.
I think I was the only one who noticed that Neferet said nothing at all.
I smoothed the bottom of my shirt back down. I was seriously looking forward to getting to a mirror so that I could see what I’d only been able to feel.
“Congratulations, Zoey. I imagine this means that you continue to be special to your Goddess,” Detective Marx said.
I smiled at him. “Thanks. Thanks for everything tonight.”
Our eyes met and he winked. Then he turned to Neferet. “I’d better be going, ma’am. There’s a lot of work left to be done tonight. Plus, I imagine Zoey is eager to get to bed. Good night, everyone.” He touched his hat, smiled at me again, and left.
“I am really tired.” I looked at Neferet. “If it’s okay, I’d like to go to bed.”
“Yes, darling,” she said smoothly. “That would be just fine.”
“And also I’d like to stop by Nyx’s Temple on the way to the dorm, if that’s okay with you,” I said.
“You do have quite a bit for which you should thank Nyx. Stopping by her temple is a good idea.”
“We’ll go with you, Z,” Shaunee said.
“Yeah, Nyx was with all of us tonight,” Erin said.
Damien and Erik made sounds of agreement, but I didn’t look at any of my friends. I kept eye contact with Neferet and said, “I will thank Nyx, but there’s really another reason I’m going to her temple.” I didn’t wait for her to question me, but continued earnestly, “I’m going to light an earth candle for Stevie Rae. I promised her I wouldn’t forget her.”
