by P. C. Cast
“Not once,” he said.
“Then how do you know she’s not listening to you?”
Kalona shook his head. “Have you been sent to me to be my conscience?”
It was Shaunee’s turn to shake her head in denial. “I haven’t been sent to you, and Goddess knows I have enough trouble dealing with my own conscience. I sure as hell can’t be anyone else’s.”
“I would not be so sure, young fiery fledging … I would not be so sure,” he mused, and then, abruptly, Kalona turned away from her, took several long, swift steps, and launched himself into the night sky.
Rephaim
He didn’t mind all that much that most of the other kids still avoided him. Damien was nice, but Damien was nice to just about everyone, so Rephaim wasn’t sure if the boy’s kindness had much of anything to do with him. At least Stark and Darius weren’t trying to kill him or keep him from Stevie Rae. Recently Darius even seemed a little friendly. The Son of Erebus Warrior had actually helped him when he’d stumbled onto the bus the night before, still weak from his magickally healed injury.
Father saved me and then pledged himself as Death’s Warrior. He does love me, and he is choosing the side of Light against Darkness. The thought of it made Rephaim smile, even though the former Raven Mocker was not as naïve and trusting as Stevie Rae and the others believed him to be. Rephaim wanted his father to continue on Nyx’s path—wanted it badly. But he, better than anyone except the Goddess herself, knew the anger and violence the fallen immortal had wallowed in for centuries.
That Rephaim existed was proof of his father’s ability to cause other’s great pain.
Rephaim’s shoulders slumped. He’d come to the part of the school grounds where the destroyed oak lay—half against the wall of the school—half on the ground inside. The center of the thick old tree appeared as if it had been struck by a lightning bolt hurled by an angry god.
Rephaim knew better.
His father was an immortal, but he wasn’t a god. Kalona was a Warrior, and a fallen one.
Feeling oddly disturbed, Rephaim’s gaze moved from the gash that was the destruction at the center of the tree. He sat on one of the downed limbs well toward the edge of the tree’s broken canopy, studying the thick boughs that rested against the school’s east wall.
“That needs to be fixed,” Rephaim spoke aloud, filling up the silent night with the humanness of his own voice. “Stevie Rae and I could work on it together. Perhaps the tree is not a complete loss.” He smiled. “My Red One healed me. Why not a tree?”
The tree didn’t answer, but as Rephaim spoke he had the strangest sensation of déjà vu. Like he’d been there before, and not just during another school day. Been there before with the wind in his wings and the brilliant blue of the daylight sky beckoning to him.
Rephaim’s brow furrowed and he rubbed it, feeling a headache build. Did he come here during the day when he was a raven, when his humanity was hidden so deeply within him that those hours passed as a shadowy, indistinct blur of sight and sound and scent?
The only answer that came to Rephaim was the dull throbbing in his temples.
The wind moved around him, rustling through the downed boughs, causing the sparse, winter-browned leaves that still clung tenaciously to the old oak to whisper. For a moment it seemed the tree was trying to speak to him—trying to tell him its secrets.
Rephaim’s gaze shifted back to the center of the tree. Shadows. Broken bark. Splintered trunk. Exposed roots. And it looked like the ground near the center of the tree had already begun to erode in upon itself, almost like there was a pit forming beneath it.
Rephaim shivered. There had been a pit below the tree. One that had imprisoned Kalona within the earth for centuries. The memory of those centuries, and the terrible, semi-substantial existence filled with anger and violence and loneliness that he had lived during that time, was still part of the heavy burden Rephaim bore.
“Goddess, I know you have forgiven me for my past, and for that I will always be grateful. But, could you, perhaps, teach me how to truly forgive myself?”
The breeze rustled again. The sound was soothing, as if the tree’s ancient whispering could be the voice of the Goddess.
“I will take that as a sign,” Rephaim spoke aloud to the tree, pressing his open palm to the bark beside him. “I will ask Stevie Rae to help me make right the violence that shattered you. Soon. I give my word. I will return soon.” When Rephaim walked away to continue his patrol of the school’s perimeter, he thought he might have heard a stirring deep beneath the tree, and imagined it was the old oak thanking him.
Aurox
Aurox paced in agitation, covering the small, hollowed-out space beneath the shattered oak in three strides. Then he turned, and took three short strides back. Back and forth, back and forth, he went. Thinking … thinking … thinking … and wishing desperately that he had a plan.
His head pained him. He had not broken his skull when he’d fallen into the pit, but the lump on his head had bled and swollen. He hungered. He thirsted. He found it difficult to rest within the earth, though his body was exhausted and he needed to sleep so that he might heal.
Why had he believed it a good idea to return to this school—to hide on the very grounds where the professor he had killed, as well as the boy he had attempted to kill—lived?
Aurox put his head in his hands. Not me! He wanted to shout the words. I did not kill Dragon Lankford. I did not attack Rephaim. I chose differently! But his choice hadn’t mattered. He had transformed into a beast. That beast had left death and destruction in his wake.
It had been foolish of him to come here. Foolish to believe he could find himself here or do any good. Good? If anyone knew he was hiding at the school he would be attacked, imprisoned, possibly killed. Even though he was not here to do harm, it would not matter. He would absorb the rage of those who discovered him, and the beast would emerge. He would not be able to control it. The Sons of Erebus Warriors would surround him and end his miserable existence.
I controlled it once before. I did not attack Zoey. But would he even get an opportunity to try to explain that he meant no harm? Even have an instant to test his self-control and to prove he was more than the beast within him? Aurox resumed his pacing. No, his intent would not matter to anyone at the House of Night. All they would see would be the beast.
Even Zoey? Would even Zoey be against him?
“Zoey shielded you from the Warriors. It was because of her protection that you were able to flee.” Grandma Redbird’s voice soothed his turbulent thoughts. Zoey had shielded him. She’d believed that he could control the beast enough not to harm her. Her grandmother had offered him sanctuary. Zoey could not want him dead.
The others would, though.
Aurox didn’t blame them. He deserved death. Regardless of the fact that he had, recently, begun to feel, to long for a different life, a different choice, it did not change the past. He had committed violent, vile acts. He had done anything Priestess had commanded.
Neferet …
Even silent, an unspoken word in his mind, the name sent a shudder through his agitated body.
The beast within him wanted to go to Priestess. The beast within him needed to serve her.
“I am more than a beast.” The earth around him absorbed the words, muffling Aurox’s humanity. In despair, he grabbed a twisted root and began to pull himself up and out of the dirt pit.
“That needs to be fixed.”
The words drifted down to Aurox. His body froze. He recognized the voice—Rephaim. Grandma had told him the truth. The boy lived.
Aurox’s invisible load lifted slightly.
That was one death that did not need to be on his conscience.
Aurox crouched, silently straining to hear to whom Rephaim spoke. He didn’t feel anger or violence. Surely if Rephaim had any idea whatsoever that Aurox was hidden so close, the boy would be filled with feelings of vengeance, would he not?
Time seemed t
o pass slowly. The wind increased. Aurox could hear it whipping through the dry leaves of the broken tree above him. He caught words that floated with the cool air: work … tree … Red One healed … All in Rephaim’s voice, absent of malice, as if he just mused aloud. And then the breeze brought him the boy’s prayer: “Goddess, I know you have forgiven me for my past, and for that I will always be grateful. But, could you, perhaps, teach me how to truly forgive myself?” Aurox hardly breathed.
Rephaim was asking for his goddess’s help to forgive himself? Why?
Aurox rubbed his throbbing head and thought hard. Priestess had rarely spoken to him, except to command him to execute an act of violence. But she had spoken around him, as if Aurox had not had the ability to hear her or to formulate thoughts of his own. What did he know about Rephaim? He was the immortal Kalona’s son. He was cursed to be a boy by night, a raven by day.
Cursed?
He had just heard Rephaim praying, and in that prayer he had acknowledged Nyx’s forgiveness. Surely a goddess would not curse and forgive with the same breath.
Then with a little start of surprise, Aurox remembered the raven that had mocked him and made such a noise that it had caused Aurox to fall into this pit.
Could that have been Rephaim? Aurox’s body tensed as he readied himself for the seemingly inevitable confrontation to come.
“I give my word. I will return soon,” Rephaim’s voice drifted down to Aurox. The boy was leaving, though temporarily. Aurox relaxed against the earthen wall. His body ached and his mind whirred.
That he could not stay in the pit was obvious, but that was all that was obvious to Aurox.
Had Rephaim’s goddess, the one who had forgiven him, also led him to Aurox’s pit? If so, was it to show Aurox redemption or revenge?
Should he turn himself in, perhaps to Zoey, and take whatever consequences were meted out?
What if the beast emerged again, and this time he could not control it at all?
Should he flee?
Should he go to Priestess and demand answers?
“I know nothing,” he whispered to himself. “I know nothing.”
Aurox bowed his head under the weight of his confusion and longing. Tentatively, silently, he mimicked Rephaim with his own prayer. It was simple. It was sincere. And it was the first time in his life Aurox had ever prayed.
Nyx, if you are, indeed, a forgiving goddess, please help me … please …
CHAPTER NINE
Zoey
“Neferet must be stopped,” Thanatos said with no preamble.
“Sounds like good news to me. Finally,” Aphrodite said. “So is the entire High Council showing up here to call bullshit on her stupid press conference, or is Duantia coming by herself?”
“I can’t wait till the humans hear the real deal about her,” Stevie Rae spoke after Aphrodite, sounding as pissed as Aphrodite and not giving Thanatos a chance to reply. “I’m dang tired of Neferet smiling and batting her eyes and making everyone believe she’s all sugar and spice and everything nice.”
“Neferet does much more than bat her eyes and smile,” Thanatos said grimly. “She uses her Goddess-given gifts to manipulate and harm. Vampyres are subject to her spell—humans have little defense against her.”
“Which means the Vampyre High Council has to stand up and do something about her,” I said.
“I wish it were that simple,” Thanatos said.
My stomach clenched. I had one of my feelings, and that was almost never good.
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t it be that simple?” I asked.
“The High Council will not mingle humans in vampyre affairs,” she said.
“But Neferet’s already done that,” I said.
“Yeah, talk about closin’ the barn door after the cows have already gone out,” Stevie Rae said.
“The bitch killed Zoey’s mom.” Aphrodite was shaking her head as if in disbelief. “Are you saying that the High Council is just going to ignore that and let her get away with murder and talk shit about all of us?”
“And what would you have the High Council do? Expose Neferet as a killer?”
“Yes,” I spoke up, glad I sounded tough and mature instead of scared and about twelve, which was really how this whole thing was making me feel. “I know she’s immortal and powerful, but she killed my mom.”
“We have no proof of that,” Thanatos said quietly.
“Bullshit!” Aphrodite exploded. “We all saw it!”
“In a reveal ritual set in motion by a death spell. Neither can be repeated. The land has been washed clean of that act of violence by all five elements.”
“She took Darkness as her Consort,” Aphrodite argued. “She’s not just in league with evil, she’s probably doing the nasty with it!”
“Eeew,” Stevie Rae and I said together.
“Humans would never believe any of it, even if they had been there.” We all turned to look at Shaylin, who until then had been standing silently and watching the four of us with what I’d thought was a kinda glazed, shocky expression. But her voice was steady. Sure, she looked nervous, but her chin was lifted again and she had what I was coming to recognize as her stubborn face on.
“What the hell do you know about it and why are you speaking?” Aphrodite snapped at her.
“This time last month I was a human. Humans don’t trust vampyre magick.” Shaylin faced Aphrodite without flinching. “You’ve been around all this magick too long. You have totally lost perspective.”
“And you have totally lost your mind,” Aphrodite snarled, puffing up like a blowfish.
“Squabbling children again.” Thanatos didn’t raise her voice, but her words cut through the almost-girl-fight tension between Aphrodite and Shaylin.
“They don’t want to fight,” I spoke into the sudden silence. “None of us do. But we’re all frustrated and we expected you and the High Council to do something, anything, to help us against Neferet.”
“Let me show you the truth of who we are, and then you might understand more about this fight you are insisting we take to the humans.” Thanatos lifted her right arm, holding her palm up at about chest level away from her body. She cupped her hand, breathed in deeply, and with her left hand, swirled the air above her upraised palm, saying, “Behold the world!” Her voice was powerful, mesmerizing. My eyes were drawn to her palm. On it a globe of the world was taking form. It was awesome—not like those boring globes history teachers/coaches use as dust-gatherers. This one looked like it was made of black smoke. The water rippled and rolled. The continents emerged, carved from onyx.
“Ohmygoodness,” Stevie Rae said. “It’s so pretty!”
“It is,” Thanatos said. “And now behold who we are in the world!” She flicked the fingers of her left hand at the globe, as if she were sprinkling it with water. Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, Shaylin, and I gasped. Little sparkles began appearing, dotting the onyx landmasses with tiny diamond lights.
“That’s beautiful,” I said.
“Are they diamonds? Real diamonds?” Aphrodite asked, stepping closer.
“No, young Prophetess. They are souls. Vampyre souls. They are us.”
“But there are so few lights. I mean, compared to the rest of the globe that’s all dark,” Shaylin said.
I frowned and stepped closer along with Aphrodite. Shaylin was right. The earth looked huge compared to the sprinkling of sparkly dots. I stared and stared. My eyes were drawn to the clusters of shininess: Venice, the Isle of Skye, somewhere in what I thought was Germany. A cluster of light in France, a few splotches in Canada, and several more sprinkled around the continental U.S.—several more, but still not very many.
“Is that Australia?” Stevie Rae asked.
I peered around to the other side of the globe, catching sight of another spattering of diamonds.
“It is,” Thanatos said. “And New Zealand as well.”
“That’s Japan, isn’t it?” Shaylin pointed to another tiny splotch of glitter.
“Yes, it is,” Thanatos said.
“America doesn’t have as many diamonds as it should,” Aphrodite said.
Thanatos didn’t respond. She met my gaze. I looked away, studying the globe again. Slowly, I walked all the way around her, wishing I’d paid better attention in geography class—any of them. When I completed my circle I met the High Priestess’s gaze again.
“There aren’t enough of us,” I said.
“That is the absolute, unfortunate truth,” Thanatos said. “We are brilliant, powerful, and spectacular, but we are few.”
“So, even if we could get the humans to listen to us we’d be opening a door to our world that’s better left closed.” Aphrodite spoke calmly, sounding mature and uncharacteristically non-bitchy. “They start thinking their rules apply to us, that we need them to keep us in line, and that means they start putting out our lights.”
“Simply, but well put.” Thanatos clapped her palms together and the globe disappeared in a puff of sparkly smoke.
“Then what do we do? We can’t just let Neferet get away with her crap. It’s not like she’s gonna stop with a press conference, a committee, and a newspaper column. She wants death and destruction. Hell’s Bells, Darkness is her Consort!” Stevie Rae said.
“We gotta fight her fire with our fire,” Shaylin said.
“Oh, for shit’s sake. I can’t deal with one more kid who uses bad metaphors instead of just saying what’s what,” Aphrodite said.
“What I mean is if Neferet is involving humans, then we should, too. But on our own terms,” Shaylin said. I saw her mouth the word hateful afterward, but Aphrodite had decided to ignore the fledgling. Again. And, thankfully, Aphrodite wasn’t looking at her.
“Shaylin, you interest me, child. Why is it you have accompanied these two Priestesses and the Prophetess?” Thanatos asked abruptly.
We Priestesses and Prophetess went silent. Personally, I wanted to see how Shaylin was going to handle Thanatos. I liked to think Stevie Rae had shut up for the same reason. I already knew Aphrodite’s reasoning, which Shaylin had summed up with the succinct word she’d mouthed: hateful.
