Found

by P. C. Cast

  “Anastasia!” Zoey turned to the High Priestess. “Where can we find more weapons?”

  Anastasia was staring at the Sons of Erebus as they scattered and took cover. Tears poured down her pale cheeks. “I—I don’t know. The F-Field House is where we store the weapons.”

  “Nyx’s Temple—the basement. Hurry!” said Neferet. She met Zoey’s gaze. “I hid weapons down there as well as the basement beside the Field House. There are grenades, guns, and crossbows down there.”

  “Okay, you heard Neferet,” Zoey said. “Move this circle to Nyx’s Temple!”

  Slowly, they all began walking across the grounds toward the distant temple. Neferet put her arm around Lynette’s waist to help her stand, and then half carried, half dragged her with them.

  “Anastasia!” Neferet shouted at the High Priestess, who was still frozen and almost outside the moving circle. “You have to move! Now!”

  Anastasia turned and looked at her. She wiped a hand across her face and nodded weakly and then began walking toward her—and a bullet sliced through her leg.

  The High Priestess screamed and went down.

  “NO! ” Dragon’s roar was a clarion call of agony from across the school grounds.

  “Earth! Shield us!” Stevie Rae shouted, and a green bubble formed around their circle just as several more bullets ricocheted from it.

  “Help her!” Lynette said. “I can walk on my own.”

  Neferet rushed to Anastasia, and Rephaim met her there, along with Zoey and Aphrodite. Neferet pressed her hand over the bloody hole in the High Priestess’s thigh.

  “Someone give me something to make a tourniquet!” Neferet said as blood poured from Anastasia.

  Zoey ripped the hem of her shirt and handed it to Neferet, and she quickly wound it around Anastasia’s thigh, over the wound.

  Without looking up Neferet ordered, “Now give me something to press over the hole!”

  Rephaim handed his shirt to her. Neferet quickly folded it and pressed it against the wound as Anastasia moaned in pain. Neferet looked up at Rephaim. “Carry her!”

  Neferet stood as Rephaim lifted Anastasia. She stared at the carnage spread across what used to be her school grounds. The Sons of Erebus Warriors were losing—that was obvious. They had taken cover and were still shooting arrows, and even though they outnumbered the attacking soldiers, their modern weapons more than made up for that.

  Her tendrils were still fighting. They’d taken cover with the Sons of Erebus Warriors. They would dart out and strike at one of the Monstress’s black, eyeless creatures, but they were vastly outnumbered by her nest of vipers, and it was only a matter of time before they, along with the Warriors they protected, were overrun.

  Neferet’s gaze went to Kalona and her insane counterpart. Still, they battled. Kalona had several wounds that bled freely down his body, but he didn’t seem to be tiring. The Monstress was unwounded. Her smile was feral as she parried the immortal’s blows over and over again.

  He cannot defeat her—just as she cannot defeat him, Neferet thought. But she will keep him busy while her army slaughters everyone. And then what? Then who will Kalona protect? Neferet stared at the creature she’d almost become and saw nothing but a woman filled with power and madness, one who was completely devoid of happiness, friendship—and love—always love.

  Neferet turned to meet Lynette’s gaze. Her friend, her dearest one, smiled and nodded. “I believe you can do it.” Her voice was strengthened by the bubble of earth power that protected them.

  Beside her, Zoey said, “I believe you can do it too, and while you do, we’ll keep Lynette safe.”

  Aphrodite turned to Neferet and met her gaze. “You’re the only one who really knows how to stop her.”

  Bleeding in Rephaim’s arms Anastasia said, “You must stop her, High Priestess.”

  Tears filled Neferet’s eyes. “I have forsaken that title many times over.”

  Anastasia reached out and grasped Neferet’s blood-slicked hand. “But Nyx has never forsaken you—nor will she ever.”

  The truth of her words shivered through Neferet, and a dam broke within her, allowing the love of Nyx, her betrayed Goddess of Night, to pulse through her veins and fill her heart.

  “Zoey, promise me that you will care for my Lynette, even should I not return.”

  “I give you my word that if you fall, I will take Lynette back to my world with me and give her a home at the House of Night,” Zoey said solemnly.

  “Oh, holy shit! I understand the vision now,” blurted Aphrodite.

  Neferet turned to her. “Will you tell me—truly—what your vision foresaw?”

  “Yes, High Priestess, I will,” said Aphrodite. “I saw Lynette fall—and with her fell two worlds. But now I get it. We’re here to protect Lynette. It’s not about Kalona. It’s not about us or weapons or Warriors. It’s about you. With your friend safe, you can take on Batshit.”

  Neferet nodded. “With my dearest safe, I take on another version of myself, a version that could’ve so easily been my fate, and hope that for the first time since the day I was Marked, good will triumph over evil in my life. It did that day because it made me a vampyre, but I did not see that then. I saw only what had been broken within me and my desperate need to never be broken again. I know better now.”

  Aphrodite fisted her hand over her heart and bowed to Neferet—and everyone in the circle, as well as the four who still held the circumference—did the same.

  “If I survive this, I will be different,” said Neferet.

  “You already are,” said Zoey.

  Neferet squared her shoulders and smoothed her tattered dress. “Let me walk free of the circle.”

  Zoey smiled at her. “We don’t have to let you. Those who are in the service of Nyx can enter and leave it whenever they want.”

  Neferet drew a deep breath. “Then the first step is to see if our Goddess has forgiven me and taken me back into her service.” She turned her head and met Lynette’s gaze one last time. “I love you, my dearest sister.”

  “I love you too. And I’m so, so proud of you.”

  Neferet walked free of the circle, feeling only a caress of warmth as she broke through the green barrier.

  35

  Other Neferet

  Neferet started forward, moving to the place where the Monstress still battled Kalona. She glanced back over her shoulder to see Zoey and her friends—her family—surrounding Lynette protectively, keeping her safe within their shield of earth and power.

  Neferet had always longed for that—the safety of a family. But she’d forever been on the outside looking in at others who had attained it. Even when she was the High Priestess here, she’d never felt as if she belonged.

  So, she’d chosen power and control and even fear because she’d believed they would keep her safe. Neferet had never tried love. Until Lynette, she’d never let love in, and she realized then that unless you allow love in so that it can shine light on the loneliness and destroy the Darkness, love cannot exist.

  Which brought her to what she must do.

  Neferet felt very calm as she strode toward the monster that was the darkest version of herself. Bullets whizzed by her but they did not strike her. She knew deep within her newly awakened heart that Nyx had granted her a small bit of protection. The Goddess would allow her to do what she must. Neferet fervently hoped the Goddess would continue to accept her afterward, but she did not let herself dwell on that hope. She was not doing this for Nyx, though she was content that this would serve the Goddess.

  Neferet was doing this for love.

  Some of her tendrils began detaching from the Warriors, but Neferet lifted her hand and called across the green. “No, children, remain with the Warriors.” Then she kept walking.

  Her voice had caught the Monstress’s attention, and like a praying mantis, her hea
d swiveled, and her lips lifted to expose her teeth in the parody of a smile.

  “Ah, good! We were hoping you would come to us of your own will!” she said as she continued to battle Kalona.

  “Kalona of the Silver Wings—step aside,” commanded Neferet.

  The immortal did so, though he backed off only a few feet, hovering above the wall and the creature who crouched before it with her bloody spear.

  The Monstress stood as Neferet came to her and stopped—just out of reach of that spear.

  “We would ask whether you’ve come to your senses and joined us, but you already answered that question when you ordered your children to continue to beleaguer ours. So, do you simply come to embrace your inevitable death?”

  “Perhaps,” Neferet said honestly. “But first, I’d like to ask you something.”

  “How interesting. Ask, weak, pathetic version of what you should be.”

  Neferet raised a brow. “You’re right about that. I have allowed myself to be a pathetic version of what I was meant to be. I hope to rectify that now. Tell me, Emily Wheiler, did he brutalize you too, the night you were Marked? Did he leave you broken and bleeding—raped and wronged?”

  The Monstress’s emerald eyes narrowed. “Yes, our father did leave us thus—and since then we have shunned all human weakness that allowed us to be used so.”

  Neferet felt a sick jolt of shock. “Our father raped and beat you? Not our betrothed, Arthur Simpton?”

  Mirrored shock flashed across the creature’s cadaverous face. “Arthur? That coward! No, he only abandoned us, as did our mother—leaving us to our father’s vile lust.”

  Neferet took a step closer to her twisted, broken mirror image. She felt lightheaded with shock. “Did your mother not die along with your brother at his birth?”

  “Yes, of course. That is what we said.”

  “No. You said she abandoned you like Arthur did.” She took another step closer to her counterpart.

  “It is the same thing!” The Monstress’s elegant brows lifted and her emerald eyes glinted with spiteful humor. “Do you think you can destroy us? You, a weak mortal and unfinished version of us?”

  “No, I do not,” said Neferet. “You destroyed yourself long ago. I am only here to witness the end of it. You see, I know you, Emily. I know your pain and your sorrow—your loneliness and your disappointment. How you seek happiness or even mere contentment—but how both always evade you. And now I know why.”

  The creature’s laughter was poisonous. “Oh? Then why, foolish, unfinished one?”

  “Because you lost your capacity for love, and without love and family and friends, life is only one day leading into another in an interminable repetition of nothingness that no amount of money or power can alleviate.” Neferet took the last step to her and stared into eyes that were mirror images of her own. With so much compassion that her voice broke, she said, “I know how tired you are. I’m the only person who knows that. Do you not long for it all to simply end?”

  The Monstress’s two-pointed spear wavered and then lowered slightly. She stared at Neferet for a long moment before finally dropping the hand holding the spear so that it hung loosely at her side. So quietly that only Neferet could hear her she said, “Yes.”

  “Then now it ends.” Neferet closed the remainder of the space between them and grasped the center of the spear—her hands on either side of the creature’s—and she struck, plunging one ivory horn tip into the her other self’s chest so that it went all the way through her emaciated body with such force that it was driven into the wall behind her.

  “Oh!” The Monstress’s eyes went huge and round. Blood sprayed from her lips as her chest heaved. “You cannot kill us,” she gasped. “We are immortal.”

  “I didn’t. You murdered yourself more than a century ago. I only helped you complete the job today. Remember, you admitted you long for an end.” Neferet felt only sadness as she watched the creature struggle for her last breaths. “I do not know what happens to you next, but I want you to know that I feel only sadness and pity for you. I’ll pray to Nyx to have mercy on your soul.”

  The Monstress looked at Neferet, and her scarlet lips lifted in a final, vicious smile. “And I have only hatred for you!” With the last of her strength, her insectile arms reached out and seized Neferet by the shoulders and pulled her into a deadly embrace, impaling her on the other end of the spear.

  Neferet felt only a tug and the warmth of her life’s blood leaving her as she stared into the eyes that were so like hers until the light went out of them. She heard Lynette’s scream of anguish, and felt her friend’s heart break along with hers.

  “No!” Kalona swooped down to gently pull Neferet from the spear and lay her on the bloody ground.

  She looked up at him with his white wings gleaming and his handsome face crumbled in sadness and thought, This is where angels came from.

  Neferet closed her eyes. Forgive me, Nyx. I have been a very great fool.

  Zoey

  “This is not going to end well for Neferet,” Aphrodite whispered to me as we watched her approach Batshit.

  “Yeah,” I whispered back so that Lynette, who was crying softly as she stared across the grounds at the scene unfolding by the wall, didn’t hear us. “But she knew that.”

  “She’s sacrificing herself,” Stark said.

  James nodded in agreement. “It’s hard to believe, but I agree with you.”

  I glanced at the two Starks. They were out of arrows. Everyone, even the traitorous soldiers and the tendrils from both Neferets had stopped fighting and were watching the two powerful women—one a vampyre, one a Tsi Sgili demon—meet.

  While everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere, I spoke urgently to my Warriors, “Stark, James, Rephaim—get to the temple. Go to the basement and grab as many weapons as you can, then get them to Dragon and his men. Now!”

  Rephaim carefully put Anastasia on the grass, then the three young Warriors sprinted through the bubble of protection and raced to Nyx’s Temple, disappearing inside—and I turned my attention back to the Neferets.

  “I wish I knew what they were saying,” said Aphrodite.

  “My lady is confronting the Darkness within herself,” said Lynette, wiping her eyes. “Her whole life has led to this moment. She is calm—serene even. And she is sure the Monstress will defeat herself.”

  “Like Stark did!” I blurted.

  My circle had come in close so that we were just a few feet from each other. Still in the northerly position, Stevie Rae was standing in front of me. “What do you mean, Z?”

  “To get into Nyx’s Realm to save me, Stark had to face and defeat himself. Only he didn’t, really. He realized he had to love himself—even the bad parts—and accept who he really was. When he did that, the good in him defeated the bad.”

  “He killed himself. Sorta,” said Stevie Rae.

  “And that’s what Neferet is doing,” said Damien.

  “Well, what she’s trying to do,” said Aphrodite.

  “She will do it. She’s stronger and better than you know,” said Lynette firmly.

  I looked at her. “I believe you.”

  Lynette smiled. “Thank you.”

  From the corner of my eye, I saw three figures, laden with weapons, running as they hugged shadows of the school, heading toward Dragon and his men.

  Then Lynette screamed, and my gaze whipped back to the Neferets in time to see the good one be embraced by the monster—and impaled on the two-pointed spear.

  Then everything happened really fast.

  Lynette took off. Hugging her broken shoulder with one hand, she ran through the green barrier.

  “Shit! I gotta get there too!” said Aphrodite, sprinting after her.

  “Go to her! Help them!” said Anastasia from the ground.

  “Well, hell,” I said
. “Guys, break the circle and come with me. We’re gonna have to trust that our Warriors will keep the soldiers off us.”

  “Done, Z! Let’s go!” said Stevie Rae.

  We ran across the grass, racing toward the Neferets. We got there just behind Aphrodite and Lynette. Our dark Neferet hung from the wall like a macabre scarecrow, lifeless and covered in blood. Kalona had pulled this world’s Neferet from the spear and placed her on the ground.

  Lynette dropped to her knees beside Neferet as her beloved friend closed her eyes. She took Neferet’s hand and held it to her own breast as she cried.

  “My lady! Open your eyes! Don’t leave me—please! You can’t leave me!”

  I watched Neferet’s bloody chest rise one last time and then Aphrodite was there.

  “Help her!” Lynette sobbed. “She’s not dead. Our Imprint has not broken!”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll help her.” Aphrodite bent and rested her palm on Neferet’s forehead, saying, “I grant you a second chance.”

  Instantly, Neferet’s body began to writhe uncontrollably. Lynette fell backward, sobbing hysterically. I had zero clue what the hell was going on, so I grabbed the woman under her arms and dragged her away from Neferet’s contorting body.

  Neferet’s tendrils rushed to Lynette. I stepped back as they surrounded her and crawled onto her lap while they made terrible keening noises.

  I tried to find Batshit’s tendrils of Darkness, but they had completely disappeared, leaving only ugly, dark stains on the brown grass.

  I heard the pop of gunfire, and Kalona suddenly went airborne. He soared to the House of Night where soldiers and our Warriors had squared off against one another. Kalona landed between the two groups. Wings spread, he was as magnificent as he was terrifying. His deep voice boomed, “ENOUGH! Put down your foolish weapons and witness the honorable death of a High Priestess! ” He faced the traitorous soldiers and brought his hands together in a mighty clap that battered them, causing them to drop their weapons and clasp their ears.

  Dragon and the surviving Warriors were on them in an instant, kicking their rifles out of the way and forcing them to the ground.