Loved

by P. C. Cast

  As if washed up by a crimson wave from the bowels of the earth, bodies began to appear. The first one lifted his head. His red-eyed glare roved around the circle in obvious confusion before he hauled himself from the broken tree to crouch, staring around as if he had no idea where he was. More creatures followed him, vomiting from the center of the circle. They all seemed disoriented, falling over one another to crouch together with uncertainty as more and more of them swam up from the bloody fountain.

  I shook my head, trying to shake off a deep, pulling exhaustion. It felt like I was running a marathon, only I was standing there—dizzy, breathing heavily, unable to ground myself.

  “Goddess, I don’t know what’s wrong with my head.” Behind me Shaunee sounded as dazed and drained as I felt. I glanced at her, and right away noticed that the flame of the red candle she was still clutching was burning so low it was in danger of being put out by the snow.

  But Shaunee is fire. She never has a problem keeping a flame lit.

  I looked quickly around my circle. Shaylin, Stevie Rae, and Aphrodite were all staring gape-mouthed at the red vampyre things that continued to pour from the tear in the ground. Shaylin looked so pale it seemed she’d turned ghostly. Stevie Rae rubbed at her eyes as if to try to clear them. Aphrodite stumbled, like she might fall over.

  And I understood what was going on.

  “Zoey, get out of there!” Stark shouted from the ridge above us.

  “No one gets out of here until I close this circle!” I yelled.

  “Those vampyre zombie things are siphoning the power of our circle,” I told Shaunee. “I gotta close it and cut off their power.”

  “Do it, girl! I’ll hold on until you release fire.”

  I nodded. “Shaylin, Stevie Rae, Aphrodite! They’re draining our elements. Hang on till I get to you and release them!”

  Piercing screams drowned their responses, echoing from the group of humans surrounding Aphrodite’s mom, though none of them moved—none of them bolted for their cars like they should have. They all stared at the creatures pouring from the bloody fountain—and I could see the red recording light was still blazing as the Fox camera filmed everything.

  Aphrodite planted her feet like she was part of the Broken Arrow Tiger’s defensive line. I saw her draw a deep breath, and with a herculean effort, she cupped her hands around her mouth to shout, “Mother! Get out of here! Now! Our circle is all that’s holding them, and we’re closing the circle!”

  More screams came from the group of journalists, but Aphrodite’s mother stood firm in the middle of them, her eyes huge as she stared at the creatures.

  “You summoned demons!” she shrieked at her daughter. “And now the world will see for themselves the aberrations vampyres create!”

  “They’re not vampyres, Mother. They’re zombies. We didn’t summon them, but they’re going to eat your skinny ass if you don’t get out of here!”

  “Go! Close the circle!” Shaunee told me. “Hurry!”

  I forced my feet to move through the fear, seeming as thick and deep as quicksand, toward the center of the circle and my spirit candle. The increasing mob of creatures swiveled their heads in my direction, and I stumbled to a halt, unable to breathe as they trained their glowing eyes on me.

  Some still looked muddled, shaking their heads and rubbing their heavy lids—a lot like the four members of my circle.

  But others stilled—their scarlet glares piercing through heavy snow.

  I was running out of time.

  Frantically, my eyes scanned the blood-soaked ground, trying to find my candle. It was there—beside the twisted rowan—and it was on its side, flame already extinguished. I breathed a quick sigh of relief, saying, “Spirit! I release you from my circle!”

  Staggering into an awkward sprint, I made a wide sweep, hugging the inside of the circle as I ran, counterclockwise, to get to north and earth.

  “I got your back, Z. I’m not moving until you send air away.” Aphrodite called as I ran past her.

  “Not moving either!” Shaylin’s shout sounded high and weak, but unwavering.

  “Standing strong!” Shaunee said grimly.

  I stumbled to a stop in front of Stevie Rae and paused only long enough to blow out her candle and say, “Earth! I release you from my circle!” I grabbled Stevie Rae’s arm as the element released her, and she almost fell.

  “I’ve got you, Stevie Rae!” Rephaim was suddenly there, beside Stevie Rae, putting a strong arm around her waist to support her, and brandishing what looked like little more than a pocketknife in his other hand.

  Great. Had no one but Stark brought real weapons? I already knew the answer to my question. No one had expected our well-intended protection spell to turn into the zombie apocalypse. We were woefully unprepared for everything that happened next.

  “Follow me!” I told Rephaim.

  With Stevie Rae and Rephaim, I staggered to Shaylin.

  “Water! I release you from my circle! Stay with us. Hang on to Rephaim if you can’t walk. We’re getting Shaunee and Aphrodite!”

  Shaylin nodded and grabbed Rephaim’s arm. We lurched to Shaunee.

  “Get out of the way, boy! You’re messing up the camera’s shot.”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Aphrodite’s mom was screaming at Darius, who had taken a stand between our circle and the group of journalists. He’d drawn a sword (thank Goddess for the training of the Sons of Erebus Warriors)—obviously ready to protect them if the zombie things started to attack.

  “He’s all that’s standing between you and death!” Aphrodite said.

  “He’s all that’s standing between me and showing the truth to the world!” Francis LaFont shouted back.

  “Fire! I release you from my circle!”

  But Shaunee wasn’t even looking at me. She was staring over my shoulder at the middle of the circle. She pointed a trembling finger, saying, “Fledglings! Oh, Goddess. There are fledglings puking out of that mess.”

  I barely took time to look, but what I saw fueled me with enough adrenaline to push me around the circle. With Stevie Rae and Shaylin clinging to Rephaim, and Shaunee hanging on to me, I closed the last yards to Aphrodite.

  “Air! I—”

  “JACK!” The cry overpowered my words with the force of its agony. I looked up at the ridge. Damien was there beside Stark. Stark was holding his arm as he struggled to get free, his eyes huge with shock he stared behind me at the center of the circle.

  “Don’t look. Just finish closing the fucking circle!” Aphrodite said.

  “Air! I release you!” I blew out the yellow candle, and with a small sizzle, like a snuffed-out flame, the glowing thread that held our circle together extinguished. The five of us reeled as we were released from the terrible drain that had usurped the power of our circle from us.

  A heartbeat after, there was another terrible sound—only this one was less a ripping than an explosion. I turned to see the twisted rowan had been sucked into the ground. Nothing remained of it or the ritual symbols I’d placed beside it. All that remained was a circle of gore filled with salivating, hissing monsters that had definitely been released from whatever confusion had contained them.

  At the middle of that circle stood Jack Twist, looking pale and confused. In the center of his sallow forehead was the outline of a red crescent moon.

  “We are free!” cried one of the creatures whose face was Marked with the fully formed tattoo of an adult red vampyre. “Devour them!”

  Then all hell broke loose. Literally.

  The red vampyres began pouring out of the circle. Half of them closed on us, while the other half faced off with Darius, who was still standing between them and the group of humans.

  “Get up here! Now!” Stark shouted. I glanced up as arrows rained down on the creatures. Damien was lying in a crumbled heap at Stark’s feet.


  “Go! Go! Go!” I said. “Get up there!”

  Stevie Rae, Shaylin, and Shaunee ran for the stone stairs. Rephaim was backing away more slowly, his knife raised against the hissing horde, but the creatures had paused as they batted at the arrows fired one right after another from Stark’s deadly bow.

  With a sick stomach, I realized that none of the creatures were mortally wounded. Sure, they’d paused, but they were simply pulling the arrows from their bodies and throwing them to the ground—like they were annoying insects.

  “Stark! It’s not working! Add intent!” I yelled to him, then I grabbed Aphrodite’s arm. “Come on!” She shook me off and started forward.

  “Not leaving Darius,” she said firmly.

  “Hell yes, you are!” I shoved her into Rephaim. “Get her out of here!” Rephaim nodded, hooked his arm around her slender waist, lifted her, and as she kicked and screamed he kept backing to the stairs.

  “Darius! Time to go!” I yelled, retreating to follow Rephaim as, finally, one creature shrieked and fell to the ground. Stark’s arrow had caught him through the throat, burying itself to its feathers. A bloom of metal and blood sprouted from the back of his neck.

  Darius was fighting a closing half circle of creatures. Most of them were running after the journalists who had finally stopped listening to Aphrodite’s mom and were rushing with a lot of hysterical screaming to a line of cars parked illegally on Twenty-First Street. Aphrodite’s mom hadn’t followed them. She was cowering behind Darius, whose sword was singing in a loop around them, catching a random creature’s arm as they hissed and circled.

  “Sever their spines! That’s the only way to kill them!” Stark shouted. “Zoey, get your ass up here!”

  “Getting!” I yelled. “Darius, grab LaFont and let’s go!”

  Darius did exactly that. In one motion he picked up Frances LaFont and flopped her over his shoulder in a classic fireman’s carry. With his free sword hand, he plowed through the snarling creatures, taking off the nearest vampyre’s head. The creature crumbled, twitching spasmodically, but it definitely didn’t get up.

  And just like that, the red vampyres scattered. Later, when I had time to think, I remembered that they’d been hissing words of encouragement to each other, but after Stark and Darius figured out their weakness, those whispers changed. It seemed the creatures shared a brain and, Borg-like, the horde scattered, fading into the snowy darkness.

  “Come on, Darius!” I called to him.

  Hefting LaFont, Darius jogged across the circle, and ran right into Jack.

  Jack hadn’t moved. He hadn’t followed any of the adult vampyres. He was still standing in the blackened ruins of what used to be a twisted rowan tree. Darius staggered to a stop not three feet from him.

  “Jack?” he said, taking a step closer to the boy.

  “I—I can’t.” Jack had his arms wrapped around his chest, like he was trying to hold himself together. His voice was his own, and not his own. It hit me hard when I realized who it reminded me of—Stevie Rae. When she was a red fledgling. Before Aphrodite’s sacrifice. When she had little to no control over her feral urges.

  “Darius, don’t—” I began the warning too late.

  “Can’t … Need to feed!” Jack hissed and gathered himself, obviously ready to leap on Darius. The Warrior’s eyes widened in understanding. His raised sword wavered, and for a horrible second I thought the Son of Erebus Warrior was going to get eaten by sweet, zombie Jack.

  From the ridge above us, Damien screamed Jack’s name.

  Jack hesitated just long enough for Aphrodite to run past me and jab him with something that had him collapsing to the ground in a jerking, spastic fit.

  She looked over her shoulder at me. “Taser. I came prepared.” She made an impatient gesture at Jack and told Darius, “Well, put her down and grab him. Mother can walk.”

  The instant LaFont’s feet touched the ground she whirled on Darius, lifting her hand to slap him hard across the face.

  “No!” Aphrodite was on her in a heartbeat, grabbing her raised arm and getting right in her face. “He just saved your life.”

  “My life wouldn’t need saving if you hadn’t summoned demons!” LaFont spat the words at her daughter.

  My anger boiled over. “Your daughter didn’t summon anything. I did. Accidentally. I was trying to protect Tulsa. You interfered. You caused this!”

  “Lies! You monsters killed my husband and took my daughter from me. Now you’ve loosed a plague on Tulsa!” Her slit eye gaze lit on Aphrodite. “May you rot in hell with the vampyres you love more than your own people!”

  “Mother. Once and for all. I. Am. Not. Human.”

  Aphrodite didn’t yell. She didn’t do anything except stand up to her bat-shit-crazy mom. But she shimmered with power in a way I’d never seen until that moment, as if Nyx had sprinkled glitter over her.

  Mrs. LaFont shrank back from her, staggering several steps before turning and rushing off toward Twenty-First Street.

  Darius started to follow her, but Aphrodite’s cool voice stopped him.

  “Let her go.”

  The Warrior paused. “But the creatures are out there. They could kill her.”

  Aphrodite nodded tightly. “Yes. They could. And that would be exactly what she deserves.”

  “You might want to rethink—” I began, but she stopped me.

  “No. I might not. Let’s go, High Priestess. We have an emergency situation to deal with, and saving my mother is not part of it.”

  “All righty then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  Like he didn’t weigh much more than a child, Darius picked up the unconscious Jack, and we headed up the stone stairs to join our friends.

  Aphrodite pulled on my sleeve as we crossed the bloody circle. “I was wrong about the vision,” she told me, speaking softly and quickly. “It wasn’t Damien’s death that I witnessed.”

  I gave her a question-mark look. “I don’t understand.”

  “Nyx sent me a vision of my own death.”

  I felt the jolt of shock and stared at her. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means whatever this cluster fuck is, it isn’t as simple as us getting rid of zombie red vampyres and making sure Damien doesn’t lose his damn mind over zombie Jack. It means I’m at the heart of this mess, not Damien. And if a Prophetess of Nyx is being targeted, we could be looking at something much darker than we thought.”

  “Ah, hell,” I said.

  12

  General Dominick

  There was a dark, feral intelligence that went with the horde. It wasn’t a community consciousness, though they did share thoughts, as their psychic gifts were vast. At the moment they were released from the spell that rent the fabric of their world, transporting them to an alternative reality, two thoughts were foremost in their minds—feed and flee to the tunnels!

  Dominick led them. He’d been the first to enter the strange opening, drawn by the scent of the blood of a High Priestess and by her intent as well. He felt her. He heard her. Dominick was well used to listening to the commands of a High Priestess. He was, after all, her second-favorite general.

  As soon as the Warriors realized how to kill them, Dominick ordered his small army to flee. It was obvious where they were—Woodward Park in Tulsa. Only this Woodward Park was drastically changed from the one he knew, and not only because everything was carpeted with snow. The park looked off. Where were the old oaks? The mounds of huge azalea bushes?

  Dominick pushed aside such inconsequential thoughts.

  He was a Warrior. A leader of the Red Army. He had one job—to do his High Priestess’ bidding. He had only one desire beyond that: to feed.

  And as this strange summons had awakened him and this small portion of his army in the middle of their coma-like sleep, so his need to feed was strong—so st
rong it even surpassed his confusion at where or when he really was.

  He’d ordered his unarmed men to flee the barrage of arrows and the deadly sword the Son of Erebus wielded against them—against them! They must be part of a rebel pack. How had they captured the High Priestess? Where was her Red Guard? More importantly, where was she?

  Dominick shook himself. Search for the High Priestess later. They must get to safety. They must find weapons. But first, they must feed.

  Huddling beneath the snow-shrouded arched bridge that was east of the area they’d materialized, Dominick paused, trying to order his thoughts. It was difficult. Even he—the leader of the Red Army—had trouble concentrating when the hunger filled him.

  “Feed!” hissed the pitiful few of his army that pressed close around him.

  “Quiet!” he barked at them. They cringed away from him, well aware of what would happen should they become the focus of his wrath. “Wait here,” he commanded. Then he stepped out from under the concealment of the bridge.

  The vampyres whose circle had drawn him here were gone.

  The humans were not. Foolishly, they were leaving the cars they’d fled to earlier, and had returned to the bloody circle.

  Dominick whistled once. The sound split the snowy air. He saw the humans pause and glance around nervously.

  But they were human. Their night vision was inadequate, even if the darkness hadn’t been shrouded in thickly falling snow. And soon they continued to gather the equipment they’d dropped, oblivious to their own danger.

  Dominick waited until the shadows stirred and the second half of his people joined him. They grouped around him, whispering their hunger. One of them approached.