Tempted: A House of Night Novel

by P. C. Cast

  “When you’re done making out with your cat, we have stuff to discuss—important stuff,” Aphrodite said.

  “Oh, don’t be so odious,” Damien told her.

  “Ode this, Damien.” Aphrodite made a rude gesture at him.

  “Stop it!” Lenobia spoke before I could tell them to be quiet. “The body of my good friend is still smoldering out there and I don’t feel like listening to teenage bickering.”

  Aphrodite and Damien actually muttered apologies and looked uncomfortable, which I decided was an excellent cue for me to start talking. “Okay, so, every single one of those kids down there is hating my guts.”

  “Really? They were just being Stepfords when we came in,” Damien said.

  “Really,” Stark said. “I almost had to pull that Becca girl off Zoey.”

  I could see by the looks on Aphrodite and Damien’s faces that they were remembering Stark’s not-so-nice past. Neither of them said anything.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” Lenobia said.

  I looked at the Horse Mistress. “What is going on? Kalona’s gone. Way gone. Like I don’t even think he’s in the country anymore. How can he still be affecting fledglings?”

  “And vampyres,” Damien added. “No other professor except for you came out to be with Dragon. That means the rest of them are still under Kalona’s influence, too.”

  “Or they’re simply allowing fear to defeat them.” Lenobia said. “It’s hard to tell whether they’re afraid, or whether the demon began something within them that is still at work, even though he’s no longer present.”

  “He isn’t a demon,” I heard myself say.

  Lenobia gave me a sharp look. “Why would you say that, Zoey?”

  I shifted uncomfortably under her scrutiny and sat on my bed, curling Nala into my lap. “It’s just that I know things about him, and one of the things I know is that he isn’t a demon.”

  “What difference does it make what we call him?” Erin asked.

  “Well, true names are powerful,” Damien said. “Traditionally using someone’s true name in a spell or ritual can be more binding than sending out energy generally, or even just using their first name.”

  “You make a good point, Damien. So we won’t call Kalona a demon,” Lenobia said.

  “And we also won’t forget he’s evil, like those other kids have,” Erin said.

  “But not all of them have,” I said. “Those kids in the infirmary weren’t under Kalona’s spell, and neither are Lenobia and Dragon—neither was Anastasia. But why? What do you guys have that everyone else doesn’t?”

  “We already decided that Lenobia and Dragon and Anastasia all had heightened gifts from Nyx,” Damien said.

  “Okay, so what’s special about the kids that stood up to the Raven Mockers?” Aphrodite said.

  “Hanna Honeyyeager can make flowers bloom,” Damien said.

  I stared at him. “Flowers? Seriously?”

  “Yeah.” Damien shrugged. “She has a green thumb.”

  I sighed. “What else do we know about the kids in the infirmary?”

  “T.J. is a wicked good boxer,” Erin spoke up.

  “And Drew’s an awesome wrestler,” I said.

  “But are any of these abilities true gifts?” Lenobia said. “Vampyres are talented. That’s the norm and not unusual at all.”

  “Does anyone know anything about that Ian Bowser kid?” I asked. “I just know him a little from drama class. He used to have a big crush on Professor Nolan.”

  “I know him,” Erin said. “He’s really sweet.”

  “Okay, he’s sweet,” I said, feeling overwhelmed by the hopelessness of our task. The kids were nice and good at things, but being good at something didn’t equal being gifted by Nyx. “What about that new girl, Red?”

  “None of us know her at all.” Damien glanced at Lenobia. “Do you?”

  Lenobia shook her head. “No, only that she was being mentored by Anastasia, and she had become close enough to her in just a few days so that she was willing to risk her life to save her professor.”

  “Which doesn’t mean there’s anything special about her except that she made the right choice and—” My words broke off as I realized what I was saying. Suddenly I was laughing. “That’s it!”

  Everyone gawked at me.

  “She’s lost it,” Aphrodite said. “It was bound to happen sooner or later.”

  “No! I haven’t lost it. I found it. Found the answer. Goddess, it’s so obvious! Those kids aren’t über-gifted. They’re just kids who made the right choice.”

  No one said anything for several seconds, and then Damien picked up the thread of my thought. “Just like in life. Nyx gives us all choices.”

  I grinned at him. “And some of us choose wisely.”

  “Some of us mess up,” Stark said.

  “Goddess! It really is obvious,” Lenobia said. “There’s no mystery to Kalona’s spell.”

  “It’s all about choice,” Aphrodite said.

  “And truth,” I added.

  “It does make sense.” Damien broke in. “I couldn’t understand why only three of our professors were able to see through Kalona. I’ve always thought that all of the vampyres here were special and had Goddess-given gifts.”

  “And most are,” Lenobia said.

  “But gift or no gift, finding the truth and following the right path is always a choice.” Stark spoke softly as his gaze trapped mine. “That’s something none of us should forget.”

  “Which could be why Nyx has brought us here. To remind us that all of her children have free choice,” Lenobia said.

  That’s my whole point with A-ya. I have the choice not to follow her path. But wouldn’t that mean Kalona also has free choice, and can choose good over evil? The thoughts whirled through my mind. I pushed them away and said, “Okay, so, any ideas on where we go from here?”

  “Absolutely. You follow Kalona. We come with you,” Aphrodite said. When we all stared at her, she continued, “Look, Kalona has proven he’s evil, so let’s make the choice to destroy him.” Before I could say anything, Aphrodite added, “It’s not impossible. One of my visions showed Zoey taking him out.”

  “Visions?” Lenobia said.

  Aphrodite briefly recapped the two visions she’d had, leaving out the specific mention that in the “not so good” one I’d joined with Kalona. So when she was done, I cleared my throat, put on my big-girl panties (figuratively), and said, “In the bad vision I was with Kalona. As in with him. We were lovers.”

  “But in the other vision you did something to vanquish him,” Lenobia said.

  “That was clear, even if everything else was a jumbled mess,” Aphrodite said. “So, like I was saying before, she has to go to him.”

  “I don’t like it,” Stark said.

  “Neither do I,” Lenobia said. “I wish we knew more—had more details about what caused each vision to happen.”

  “Goddess! I’m a moron,” I said, fishing in my pocket for the piece of paper I’d put there. “I forgot all about Kramisha’s poem.”

  “Ugh, so did I,” Aphrodite said. “I hate poetry.”

  “A fact that baffles me, my beauty,” Darius said as he came into the room with Stevie Rae and Shaunee close behind. “Someone with your intelligence should enjoy it.”

  Aphrodite gave him a sweet smile. “I’d like it if you read some to me, but then again, I’d like anything you read to me.”

  “Disgusting,” Shaunee said, going over to sit by Erin.

  “Totally,” Erin agreed, grinning at her twin.

  “Good, we didn’t miss the poem part,” Stevie Rae said, plopping down next to me and petting Nala. “I was wonderin’ what Kramisha had come up with.”

  “Okay, well, I’ll just read it out loud,” I said, and began,

  A double-edged sword

  One side destroys

  One releases

  I am your Gordian knot

  Will you release or destroy me?
/>   Follow truth and you shall:

  Find me on water

  Purify me through fire

  Trapped by earth nevermore

  Air will whisper to you

  What spirit already knows:

  That even shattered

  anything is possible

  If you believe

  Then we shall both be free.

  “I hate to say it, but even I can tell that’s from Kalona to you,” Aphrodite spoke into the thick silence that followed my reading.

  “Yep, sounds like it to me, too,” said Stevie Rae.

  “Ah, hell,” I muttered.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Zoey

  “I don’t like it,” Stark said.

  “You already said that,” Aphrodite said. “And none of us like it, but that doesn’t make the stupid poem go away.”

  “Prophecy,” Damien corrected her. “Kramisha’s poems are prophetic in nature.”

  “Which is not necessarily a bad thing,” Darius said. “If we have a prophecy that also means we have forewarning.”

  “So these poems plus Aphrodite’s visions combine to create a powerful tool for us,” Lenobia said.

  “If we can figure them out,” I said.

  “We figured out the last one,” Lenobia reminded me. “We’ll decipher this one, too.”

  “No matter what, I think all of us agree that Zoey has to follow Kalona,” Darius said.

  “It’s what I was created for,” I said, which definitely got everyone’s attention. “I hate it. I don’t know what to do about it. Most of the time I feel like I’m a giant snowball rolling down a mountain in the middle of winter, but I can’t ignore the truth.” I remembered Nyx’s whispers and added, “There’s power in the truth, just like there’s power in making the right choice. The truth is that I’m connected to Kalona. I remember the connection, and remembering it makes Kalona hard for me to deal with, but something inside me defeated him once. I think I have to find that something and make the choice to defeat him all over again.”

  “This time maybe for good?” Stevie Rae said.

  “I seriously hope so,” I said.

  “Well, this time you won’t be alone,” Stark said.

  “That’s right,” said Damien.

  “Absolutely,” Shaunee said.

  “Yep,” Erin added.

  “All for one and one for Zoey!” Stevie Rae said.

  I looked at Aphrodite. She sighed dramatically. “Fine. Where the nerd of herd goes, I’ll go, too.”

  Darius put his arm around her. “You won’t be alone, either, my beauty.”

  It was only later that I realized Stevie Rae hadn’t said anything about joining us.

  “All of this solidarity is good, but we can’t act because we don’t know where Kalona is,” said Lenobia.

  “Well, in my dream I found him on an island. Actually, on top of a castle on an island,” I specified.

  “Did anything look familiar about it?” Damien asked.

  “No. It was really pretty, though. The water was incredibly blue, and there were orange trees everywhere.”

  “That doesn’t exactly narrow it down,” Aphrodite said. “Oranges are all over—Florida, California, the Mediterranean. All those places have islands.”

  “He’s not in America.” My response was automatic. “I don’t know how I know that, but I do.”

  “Then we’ll take it as truth,” Lenobia said.

  Her confidence in me made me feel good, but nervous, and kinda sick all at the same time.

  “Okay, well,” Stevie Rae said. “Maybe you know more stuff about where he is, but you just need to not think about it for a while so you can think about it.”

  “Bumpkin, you make no damn sense,” Aphrodite said. “Here, I’ll translate from countrified Okie to English.” Aphrodite turned to me. “Without thinking about it you knew he wasn’t in America. Maybe you’re trying too hard to figure this out. Maybe you just need to relax and it’ll come to you.”

  “That’s exactly what I said,” Stevie Rae muttered.

  “They’re Twin-like,” Shaunee said.

  “Hilarious,” Erin agreed.

  “Shut up!” Aphrodite and Stevie Rae said together, which made the Twins convulse into laughter.

  “Hey, what’s so funny?” asked Jack as he came into the room. I noticed that he still had tear tracks on his cheeks and his eyes looked haunted.

  He went to Damien and sat close beside him. “Nothing’s funny. The Twins are just being the Twins,” he told Jack.

  “All right, enough of this. It’s nonproductive and absolutely not helping us figure out where Kalona might be,” Lenobia said.

  “I know where Kalona is,” Jack said, matter-of-factly.

  “What do you mean, you know where Kalona is?” Damien said while we all gawked at Jack.

  “Well, him and Neferet, that is. Easy.” He held up his iPhone. “Internet’s back up, and my Vamp Twitter has been going crazy. It’s all over the Net about Shekinah dying all sudden and mysterious, and Neferet showing up in Venice at the High Council saying that she’s Nyx Incarnate and Kalona’s Erebus come to earth, so she should be the next Vampyre High Priestess.” We stared at him. I know my mouth was definitely flopped open. Jack frowned at us. “I’m not making it up. Promise. You can see it all right here.” He offered up his iPhone again, which Darius took. While he poked at the screen, Damien put his arms around Jack and kissed him smack on the mouth. “You are brilliant!” he told his boyfriend.

  Jack smiled and everyone started talking at once.

  Everyone except Stark and me.

  In the middle of the chaos Heath came into the room. He hesitated for only a second, and then he walked around the bed and flopped down next to me on the side Stevie Rae wasn’t taking up. “So, what’s happening, Zo?”

  “Jack found Kalona and Neferet,” Stevie Rae told him.

  “That’s good,” Heath said. His gaze met mine and he added, “Hang on, maybe it’s not good.”

  “Why wouldn’t it be good?” Stevie Rae asked.

  “Ask Zoey,” Heath said.

  “What’s wrong, Zoey?” Damien asked, shutting everyone up.

  “It wasn’t Venice,” I said. “I’m sure about that. In my dream Kalona wasn’t in Venice. I mean, I’ve never been there, but I’ve seen pictures and, correct me if I’m wrong, but there are definitely no mountains in Venice, right?”

  “None at all,” Lenobia said. “I’ve been there several times.”

  “Maybe it’s not bad that you didn’t actually go where he is in your dream. Maybe that means that the dreams aren’t as real as you think they are,” Aphrodite said.

  “Maybe.”

  “It doesn’t feel right,” Stark said.

  I suppressed a sigh of irritation because it was obvious he’d been psychically eavesdropping on me.

  Aphrodite ignored Stark and kept talking. “Remember in my visions how I saw Neferet and Kalona in front of a group of seven powerful vampyres?”

  I nodded.

  “The Vampyre High Council!” Lenobia interjected. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it right away.” She shook her head, clearly annoyed at herself. “And I agree with Aphrodite. Zoey, perhaps you’ve given these dreams too much importance. Kalona is manipulating you,” she said gently, as if she expected me to freak out.

  “No, I’m telling you, Kalona wasn’t in Venice, he was—” I broke off as a memory surfaced and felt like smacking myself in the forehead. “Holy crap! Kalona wasn’t in Venice in my last dream, but I think I did dream he was in Venice in one of my dreams. He said he liked it there, that he felt the place’s power and . . .” I rubbed my forehead as if trying to massage my brain into working better. “I remember—he said he felt some kind of ancient power there and he understood why they chose it.”

  “He must have been referring to us—to vampyres,” Lenobia said.

  I thought about the dream and frowned in confusion. “But I don’t think where
we were in the dream was actually in Venice. I mean, I saw that famous place with the gondolas and the big clock thing in the distance, but it was in the distance. We weren’t actually there.”

  “Z, not to be mean or anything, but don’t you ever do any homework?” Stevie Rae said.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “San Clemente Island,” Lenobia said.

  “Huh?” I repeated brilliantly.

  Damien sighed. “Do you have your Fledgling Handbook 101 around here anywhere?”

  I jerked my chin at my desk. “It’s over there. I think.”

  He got up, dug around in the mess that was my desk, and then pulled out my Fledgling Handbook. He paged through it for, like, two seconds (Did he have the entire thing memorized?), and then handed me the open book. I blinked in shock as I recognized the beautiful, salmon-colored palace that had been a backdrop for one of my Kalona dreams.

  “This is definitely where Kalona was in one of my other dreams. Actually, we were on this bench, right there.” I pointed to the picture.

  Aphrodite suddenly detached herself from Darius and came to peer over my shoulder. “Damn it! I should have recognized this place. I swear making me human has moroned me.”

  “Aphrodite, what is it?” Stark asked, stepping close to me.

  “It’s the palace she saw in the second vision she had of my death,” I answered for her. I sighed. “I know this is going to sound stupid, but until now I forgot. I mean, I remember realizing in my dream that it could be the place you’d described where I’d drowned, but when I woke up . . . well . . .” I paused and met Stark’s eyes. “I woke up and I got distracted.” I saw the realization pass through his eyes as he understood he’d been the one to wake me up from the dream—the first time he’d slept with me—when he was just beginning to choose good over evil. “Plus,” I added hastily, “you saw me drowning because I was all alone. That was when everyone was mad at me. I’m not alone anymore, so that vision won’t come true.” I looked from Stark to Aphrodite when she didn’t say anything, and saw that she was staring at Stark.

  “You weren’t completely alone in the second death vision I had of you,” Aphrodite said slowly. “I got a glimpse of Stark’s face right before you were killed. He was there.”