by P. C. Cast
“Safe from you, witch!” Aurox yelled, then he turned and ripped open the cage of Darkness. Pulling Grandma Redbird into his arms, Aurox ran.
“Strike! Cut! Cause Aurox unbearable pain is my demand!”
The tendrils caught Aurox around his ankles, cutting deep and tripping him. He dropped Grandma Redbird. The old woman cried out, “Aurox!”
He tried to answer her, to tell Grandma to run to the balcony where freedom awaited, but Neferet was quicker, completing the spell in less than a breath.
“Fashioned from Darkness, beast come forth! Obey my command!”
Aurox was engulfed in the tendrils of Darkness. They did not simply cut him. They pressed their bodies against him. His skin rippled and began absorbing the terrible, snake-like creatures. Pain seared under his skin. With each beat of his frantic heart, Darkness pulsed through Aurox’s body, battering the elements until they fled and waking the beast.
Grandma Redbird was sobbing and reaching toward him. The pain within him was unbearable and with a terrible shudder his body began to shift. “No! Go!” Aurox managed to shout. His voice had changed. It was impossibly powerful and completely inhuman.
The beast came forth, birthed in pain and rage and despair.
The old woman got to her feet and began to limp toward the broken door to the balcony.
“Kill her. Now!” Neferet commanded.
Within what remained of his mind, Aurox screamed as the beast roared and obeyed.
Zoey
I shook my head at Aphrodite as she ordered her third glass of champagne. “How can you drink?”
“By using my fake ID that says I’m twenty-five-year-old Anastasia Beaverhousen.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Oh, all right. My fake name is really Kitina Maria Bartovick.”
“And that’s so much less obviously fake,” I said, rolling my eyes again.
“Whatever. It works.”
“You missed my point about the zillions of glasses of champagne,” I said.
“No, I didn’t, but you missed a sense a humor.” She sipped the bubbly pink stuff. “By the by, all of a sudden you look like shit. What’s up with that?”
I wiped my hand across my brow. It was shaking. My stomach was killing me.
Aphrodite leaned closer to me, pretending to be interested in the open geometry book, and whispered, “If you start coughing blood and die you will seriously screw up tonight’s Plan.”
“I am not dying. I’m just—” My words broke off as I was filled with a surge of energy. “Oh, no!”
“What is it?”
“Spirit. The element’s back.” I was already punching Thanatos’s number on my phone. Through the huge front window I saw Shaunee’s shoulders jerk, like something had just slammed into her, too, and I swear the air around her sparkled with fire. She whirled around. Our eyes met. She picked up her red candle.
Thanatos answered on the first ring. “Does Kalona have Grandma?” I asked.
“No. There has been no sign of her. Zoey, you can’t—” I hung up on her and grabbed the little purple votive candle.
“She’s not safe?”
“No.” I was on my feet. “I’m going up there.” Without waiting to see if she’d argue with me, I sprinted from the restaurant and across the lobby to the elevators. Shaunee and Darius met me there. She was holding her candle. Its flame was burning a lot brighter than my little purple votive, but both candles were still burning.
“Fire’s back,” Shaunee said.
I punched the up arrow button. “I know. Grandma’s still up there.”
Stark ran into the lobby, with Damien close behind. He, too, still carried his lit candle. “Air returned! Fire and spirit, too?”
I nodded. Then faced Stark. “Grandma’s not out. I’m going up there.”
“Not without me you’re not,” Stark said.
“Or me.” Stevie Rae’s face was flushed, but she was cradling her burning candle.
Shaylin looked scared and confused when she jogged into the lobby, cupping her hand around the flame of her blue candle. “Something happened. I have water back and Thanatos didn’t close the circle. I figured I better get in here.”
“You did good,” I said. “Okay, look.” The elevator doors opened and I stepped in. “Aurox has lost control. Probably because Neferet did something awful. Stark and I are going up there to be sure that awfulness isn’t going to get Grandma killed. You guys stay here. Don’t let your candles go out. Keep the circle open.”
“Hell, no,” Shaunee said, striding into the elevator. “If you go—fire goes.”
“We’re all going,” Stevie Rae said.
“Fuck it. Me, too,” Aphrodite said.
And that was it. My friends and I all squeezed into the elevator. I hit the penthouse button.
“You know there’s going to be some majorly screwed-up shit going on when these doors open,” Aphrodite said.
“Stay inside the circle close to Zoey,” Darius told her. He had a knife in each hand.
Stark notched his bow. I put the hand that wasn’t holding a candle on his arm. “Don’t kill Aurox unless you have to.”
“Zoey, it won’t be Aurox. It’ll be the beast. Remember that,” he said.
I nodded. “I’ll remember. You remember that I love you.”
“Always,” he said.
The doors opened to a deserted hallway. As one we stepped out of the elevator, holding our lit candles and keeping our circle open.
The smell of blood hit me. Laced in the terrible seduction of its scent was lavender and something I couldn’t identify. Something that reminded me of the bluffs that edged Grandma’s farm.
“Turquoise,” Stevie Rae said. “I can smell it.”
Then I heard Grandma sob Aurox’s name, followed by a shout, a terrible roar, and then Neferet’s unmistakable command, “Kill her. Now!”
I ran into the penthouse. “Air, fire, water, earth, spirit! Stop the beast!”
There was a blinding flash as Aurox, fully changed into the horrible creature that slept beneath his skin, charged Grandma. The power of the elements encased him, sizzling with energy. The beast roared his rage, spittle and blood spraying from his terrible mouth, while he circled Grandma.
“U-we-tsi-a-ge-ya!”
“Get to the balcony!” I yelled. There was a shattered glass door just yards behind Grandma, and through it I could see the starlit rooftop balcony onto which Kalona, wings spread, was landing.
“No! Not this time.” Neferet was suddenly there, standing before my group. “Seal the door!” Neferet commanded and a web of black formed across the broken door, blocking Grandma’s exit. Then she turned to us. “This time you are in my home, and I do not invite any red fledgling or vampyre within!”
“Oh, no!” Stevie Rae screamed as she, Shaylin, and Stark were lifted from their feet and hurled against the closed doors of the elevator so hard that Shaylin cried out. She and Stevie Rae dropped their candles. The circle was broken.
“Zoey!” Stark shouted, sounding like he was in agony as his body kept being battered against the closed metal doors.
“Make it stop!” Shaylin cried.
I understood what had happened. Different rules applied to red vampyres. The sun burned them. They could control humans’ minds. And they could not enter a home without being invited.
Aphrodite knew those rules all too well. She ran to the elevator and pressed the button. When the doors opened, the three of them rushed inside. Stark got to his feet first.
“Get me my bow!” he yelled to Rephaim.
“No. I’d rather you didn’t have your bow,” Neferet said. She waved her hand and something dark and sticky knocked Rephaim off his feet. “But I would prefer the three of you watch.” She flicked her fingers and spiderweb-like tendrils formed around the elevator doors, holding them open. Then she turned to me. “So nice of you to join your grandmother. Let’s have some fun, shall we? Vessel, kill the old woman!”
Neferet
’s command worked on the beast like a whip. He roared and battered against the elemental prison.
And the elements began to give.
I dropped my candle and held my hands out. Damien took my right hand. Shaunee grasped my left hand.
“Spirit, hold him!” I yelled.
“Air, batter him!” Damien shouted.
“Fire, scorch him!” Shaunee added.
The bubble of energy around the beast pulsed, and for a moment I thought it would hold, then Neferet spoke again.
“My children within, made of Darkness divine,
Come forth—absorb, and make vengeance mine!”
The beast’s skin shivered and twitched, and while he roared, hideous black creatures spewed from his mouth. They slammed against the bubble of elemental power. I felt the drain as if I’d been punched in the gut. Shaunee cried out. I heard Damien gasp in pain. They both still clutched my hands.
“Spirit, hold!”
“Air, hold!”
“Fire, hold!”
We tried, the three of us, but I knew we were lost. The creatures of Darkness were too many. They were too powerful. A broken circle could not hold them.
“Zoey! Go!” Grandma was huddled on the floor before the web of Darkness that had cut off her escape to the balcony. I could see Kalona on the other side, battling furiously against Darkness. He ripped and tore and slashed. He was making headway, but I knew not quickly enough.
“Grandma, come to me!”
“I cannot, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. I am too weak.”
“Try! You gotta try!” Stevie Rae called from the elevator.
Grandma began crawling toward us.
Neferet laughed. “This is such fun! I never believed I would end so many of you at once. This will even get rid of Kalona. The High Council will be ever so distraught when they hear that he went rogue, attacked me, and when you came to my rescue he killed all of you.” She was sitting on the back of the giant round couch with her legs crossed and her hand primly placed on her knee. Her long black dress covered her feet, but there was something wrong about it. Neferet wasn’t moving, but the cloth of the dress didn’t stay still. I shivered. It was like she was covered with bugs.
“No one will believe that. Thanatos was here. She is our witness,” I said.
“So sad that Kalona turned on his High Priestess first,” she said.
“You won’t get away with it!” I yelled at her.
She laughed again and made a “come here” motion with her finger. The creatures that had come from the beast’s body pressed against the bubble with renewed strength.
Shaunee stumbled and her hand slipped from mine. The element power that held the beast dimmed.
“I’m sorry, Zoey. I can’t keep it up.” Damien let go of my hand and he fell to his knees, retching.
The bubble shivered.
I felt a terrible tug within me and knew I would soon lose spirit, too, and the beast would be free.
“Grow up, Zoey. This time you’re not going to save the day,” Neferet said.
Stark was shouting from behind me. Darius and Rephaim stood side by side in front of the open elevator, battling the threads of Darkness that kept trying to leak within.
But all of that seemed very far away to me because Neferet’s last words kept echoing around, over and over, inside my mind. I save the day … I save the day … I save the day …
Then I remembered. It’s not a poem! It’s a spell!
I felt spirit wrench from me and I stepped forward. I pulled the piece of folded purple paper from the pocket of my jeans, and as I did my Seer Stone flamed with heat.
I didn’t have time to question myself. I only had time to act. I jerked on the chain that held the stone around my neck and lifted it before me like a shield. Then, in a voice magnified by panic and power, I recited:
“Ancient mirror
Magick mirror
Shades of gray
Hidden
Forbidden
Within, away
Part the mist
Magick kissed
Call the fey
Reveal the past
The spell is cast
I save the day!”
I looked through the Seer Stone and the world changed utterly. I was no longer holding a small, Lifesaver-shaped stone. Before me it had expanded so that it was a slick, round surface. I didn’t realize what it was until I saw the reflection of the room glistening darkly on its surface.
“You think to battle me with a mirror?”
I didn’t hesitate. I knew the answer. “Yes,” I said firmly. “That’s exactly what I think I’m going to do.” Holding the mirror in both hands I turned so that it caught Neferet in its surface.
She’d gotten up from the couch. The mirror trapped her reflection as she glided toward me. She was laughing cruelly and glancing dismissively into the mirror when her entire body language changed. Neferet’s head began to shake from side to side. Her mouth opened and she whimpered, cringing back as if from an invisible blow. Amazed at the difference in her, I craned my neck around and looked at her reflection.
It was a Neferet that I didn’t know. She was young—she looked barely my age. She was also pretty, extremely pretty, even though her long, green dress was torn, exposing the fact that someone had beaten her. Badly. Her face was perfect. It had not been touched. But her chest looked as though there were bite marks on her breasts. Her wrists were swollen and black with bruises. Most horrible of all was the blood that covered the insides of her thighs and dripped down her legs.
“No!” Neferet sobbed. “Not again! Not ever again!” She covered her face with her hands, keening with despair. As the Tsi Sgili wept brokenly, the tendrils of Darkness began to dissolve.
“Spirit!” I called to my element, the one that still held the beast in a fading circle of power. “Let him go.” Then I walked forward, keeping the mirror trained on Neferet. “Aurox!” My shout had the beast’s head turning from where Grandma had collapsed on the floor to me. “Darkness doesn’t control you. Come back to us! You can do it!” He shook his misshapen head. I kept walking to him. He began to circle me. I kept looking into his moon-colored eyes. “Spirit! Don’t trap him—help him!”
I felt the element enter the beast. He stumbled and went down on one knee. He roared.
“Fight it! You are more than a creature made of Darkness!” I hurled the words at him.
He lifted his head and I felt a rush of hope. His flesh was shivering and twitching. He was changing!
“Zoey, watch out!” Stark shouted.
I looked from Aurox in time to see Neferet closing on me. She was still staring at the mirror I held. Tears of blood streamed from her eyes. She had torn her own flesh with her claw-like hands. She raised them, blood-soaked and deadly. “You bitch! I won’t let you bring it all back to me! Nyx be damned—I’ll kill you myself!” Neferet rushed me.
Aurox hit her hard. He still was beast enough to have horns, and one long, white tip speared Neferet in the middle of her chest. Momentum carried them forward and together they crashed through the remnants of the web Kalona had been battling. The winged immortal jumped aside as the part beast, part boy carried a writhing, screaming Neferet across the balcony. It took less than a breath for them to reach the stone balustrade. The inhuman power of the beast’s body shattered it and the two of them fell off the rooftop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Zoey
I dropped the mirror and ran forward. “Kalona! Save him!” The immortal was in motion before I’d finished the command. Wings spread, he leaped over the broken balustrade and disappeared. I rushed after him, coming to a halt at the edge of the roof. Peering down, I saw Kalona grab Aurox’s ankle just moments before the boy, who was now completely human again, hit the pavement.
Neferet wasn’t as lucky. I could see her. She’d hit the sharp edge of the building and had tumbled and fallen, landing in the middle of Fifth Street. From this height, she looked like a broken doll. Her neck was
twisted. Her arms and legs bent all in the wrong direction. Her head was a dark pool of blood.
Thanatos joined me, putting a strong arm around me as if she was afraid I might fall after Neferet. Then everyone was there, beside me. Stark took me from Thanatos and held me while I trembled and continued to stare down at Neferet’s body. Kalona landed on the rooftop with Aurox. Aphrodite helped Grandma. She slipped her hand inside mine.
“My u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, come away from this terrible sight,” she said.
Still I did not look away. So when Neferet’s body began to convulse I saw it. I watched everything. Her arms and legs flailed. Her hair lifted. Her back arched. And then the Tsi Sgili seemed to dissolve. From within the folds of her blood-soaked clothes, thousands of black spiders exploded, skittering into the gutter and disappearing into the darkness.
Then I looked away. I faced Thanatos. “She’s not dead.”
The High Priestess of Death answered me, though I hadn’t framed the words as a question.
“I do not know.” Thanatos looked pale and shaken. “I have never seen, never even imagined, what we all just witnessed.”
I felt very quiet inside. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t pissed. I was just very, very calm. “I think we better get ready. My gut says Neferet is going to come at us again,” I said.
“Yes, Priestess. I agree,” Thanatos said.
I put my arm around Grandma’s waist, and let her lean on me. “You need to go to the hospital,” I told her gently.
“No, my u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. I need only to go home.”
I looked into her gentle eyes. “I understand completely, Grandma. Stark and I will get you home.”
“You have to do something first,” Stark said.
“She can kiss you and tell you she loves you later. Let’s get out of here. The spider thing was the cherry on this shit sundae of a night. I need a bath and a Xanax,” Aphrodite said.
I didn’t say anything. I was getting a weird vibe from Stark. “Wait here. Everyone needs to see this.” He squeezed my hand and then he went into the penthouse. He came back a second later, holding my Seer Stone from its broken chain.
It was Lifesaver-shaped again, and looked totally harmless. I knew better, so when he handed it to me I handled it gingerly, like the unexploded bomb it was, and I was stuffing it into my jeans’ pocket when Stark stopped me.
