Текст книги "Revealed"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 18 страниц)

She was Tsi Sgili. No, she was more than a simple Native American ghost story. She was a powerful High Priestess whose gifts were so much more than they had seemed. Neferet was Queen Tsi Sgili.

Little wonder she had been so drawn to Oklahoma. It was through the Cherokee people who had settled there that Neferet discovered a hidden aspect of her intuitive gift. Not only could she read people’s minds—she could also absorb their energy. But only at the moment of their deaths.

The old woman had taught her that. Neferet had done more than steal her thoughts as she’d died. She had absorbed the old woman’s power.

Death became a drug, and Neferet had not been able to get enough of it.

She’d followed the echoes in the crone’s mind and begun to ask questions about the Tsi Sgili.

What Neferet learned was her own story. A Tsi Sgili lived apart from her tribe. They were powerful and delighted in death. They fed on death. They could kill with their minds. That was the ane li sgi the old woman had thought of just before her death—death caused by the mind of a powerful being.

The old woman’s Cherokee husband had inadvertently taught Neferet how to use her gift more fully. He had been less brave than his wife. Thinking to save himself he had opened himself to Neferet. Through the memories he willingly shared with her, Neferet learned much more about the Tsi Sgili. She fed from the tribal stories he had in his memory and discovered it was possible to slide into a mind and stop the beating of a heart while she fed on her victim’s thoughts, energy, power until he was drained dry. Draining the body of energy was so much more satisfying than simply draining it of blood. And so much more effective.

As Neferet had grown in power, so too had her dreams of the winged immortal, Kalona. He made love to her as she slept. Not as her inadequate human or vampyre lovers had attempted. Kalona had taken possession of her body and used pain for pleasure, and pleasure for pain.

All the while his whispers painted pictures of a future where they ruled as gods on earth and ushered in a new age of vampyre enlightenment. Where she was his Goddess and he her adoring, powerful, seductive Consort.

“But first you must free me,” he had said as his cold fire had deliciously scorched her body. “Follow the song to Tulsa, and there you will complete the prophecy and find the means to free me!”

Neferet had listened to him. Oh, but she had found so much more than the means to free him. She had discovered the means to free herself!

She did not fully understand until she had taken possession of her own House of Night in Tulsa. There was power in that land that had resonated within her. It was there in 1927, and it had remained there after the turn of the twenty-first century.

The red earth had drawn her with its ancient power, but it was the death of her first fledgling that had truly set her fate.

Neferet had, of course, witnessed the death of many fledglings before she became High Priestess of Tulsa’s House of Night. She had often been summoned to soothe a dying fledgling’s passage with the gift of her touch. Neferet was revered for her ability to calm a fledgling who was rejecting the Change. Not one vampyre ever guessed that she took as much as she gave. The fledglings knew it, though. In their last moments, as Neferet held them in her arms, they knew she fed from their energy. Of course by that time they were beyond the ability to share that knowledge with anyone else.

So when the young fourth former who had named herself Crystal began to cough out her life’s blood in the middle of Lenobia’s first equestrian class at the new Tulsa House of Night, Neferet was immediately called for—not just because she was their High Priestess, but because she had been known far and wide to be able to soothe the pain of the dying.

“Move aside! Make room! Lenobia, take the fledglings to the field house and have Dragon Lankford bring Warriors and a gurney for the child,” Neferet had commanded as she’d rushed into the stables. Then she had turned her attention to Crystal. The fledgling had crumpled to the sand and dirt floor of the arena, convulsing and bleeding from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears.

Neferet paid no heed to the blood and mud. She’d pulled the fledgling into her arms, soothing with her magickal touch as she began to slide into Crystal’s mind and to absorb her waning life energy. Neferet had been prepared for the surge of power that came with the absorption of life force. She had not been prepared for the pure and delightful gift that came with the death of her first fledgling.

In her den Neferet’s body trembled in the pleasure of reliving that powerful moment.

Crystal had stared up at her through blood-soaked eyes. “No!” she’d coughed and gasped and managed to cry, “I’m not ready to die!”

“Of course you are, my dear. It is time. I am here.”

“Won’t leave me?” the child had sobbed.

“You won’t leave me,” Neferet had whispered as she took Crystal’s mind.

The fledgling’s life force cascaded into Neferet. So pure, so strong, so sweet, that it was as if the fledgling hadn’t been dying at all, but had instead been transformed into a being of light and power that would now live within Neferet.

Neferet had bowed over the dying girl’s body reverently, accepting this new gift that came to her with the Tulsa House of Night.

The Warriors had believed that Neferet had been overcome by emotion at the death of the first fledgling at her own House of Night, and that is why she had been found bowing over Crystal’s body, sobbing hysterically.

They hadn’t understood Neferet’s tears had been of joy—that her sobs were because she’d finally recognized her destiny. Queen Tsi Sgili was a modest title. She should truly be called Goddess Tsi Sgili, for she had become immortal and would one day take her place among the gods and be worshipped as such!

Her gift had not been finished there, though. Even before Neferet had fulfilled the Cherokee prophecy and freed Kalona, the fledglings in her House of Night had begun a metamorphosis along with her.

Neferet’s body twitched. Her breathing quickened as she moved up through the layers of unconsciousness and the realms of time.

Fledglings who died at her House of Night were reborn anew, bound to her through Darkness and blood. Neferet believed she had birthed a new kind of army, along with a new breed of vampyre. These new creatures would protect and serve her when she and her Consort ruled the new age of vampyres.

Then Zoey Redbird had been Marked, and what followed was one misstep after another—one irritation atop another—one defeat after another. Neferet hated that fledgling and her mutinous friends with a passion that overshadowed all of her other passions.

Zoey Redbird was the reason Neferet hid in a den, clothed only in Darkness and blood.

A goddess should not be plagued with such an annoyance! A goddess should not be hindered in her divine destiny!

As if in response to her tumultuous emotions, the sky outside her den growled with thunder and lightning struck, cracking the earth with a force that rippled through Neferet’s skin.

Neferet, Queen Tsi Sgili, opened her eyes.

“I have been such a fool! I am an immortal. No one can dim my majesty unless I allow it. I shall no longer allow it! World, prepare to worship me!”

Thunder and lightning applauded Neferet and rain caressed her as she prepared to step from her den of hiding out into a future, newborn, ready to embrace her destiny.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Zoey

At first I didn’t know where I was going. I just needed to get the hell out. I slipped through the hidden door in the wall and cut around the south side of the school until I ran into Utica Street. I glanced to my right, considering. Utica Square was just down the street. It was Sunday morning, but Starbucks would probably be open. I could get one of those fudge cappa-frappa-whatevers that had a bazillion calories in it and sit outside and try to figure out what had happened to my life.

No. I didn’t want to see people. I didn’t want to talk to people. I didn’t want to have to deal with the looks my tattoos would get from people.

I didn’t want to deal with anything or anyone.

Thunder rumbled in the distance and I glanced up at the darkening sky.

“Go ahead. Rain on me. I don’t care. My day can’t get much crappier.” I was talking to myself as I crossed the street.

Yeah, I was pissed.

I could not believe what Aphrodite and Shaylin had pulled. They were supposed to be my friends! Well, at least Aphrodite was supposed to be my friend. I’d thought Shaylin and I were becoming friends. I mean, we’d had that talk in the kitchen at the tunnels. She’d opened up to me about using her True Sight. We’d even talked about how invasive her gift could be. We’d had a plan, for god’s sake! And no part of that plan involved her spying on me and tattling to Aphrodite like a damn middle schooler.

My face felt hot just thinking about her watching Aurox and me in the cafeteria. Hell, my whole body felt hot! No wonder I knocked her on her butt. Aphrodite had been so shocked by what I’d done, but Aphrodite had also been the one who’d set up the whole spying thing.

Was Aphrodite really my friend? She’d definitely been a hag from hell when I’d met her. Had she changed, or had I just made myself forget who she really was and become blind, not seeing what I didn’t want to see? Had I just been believing what I wanted to believe about her?

Hell! Was Aphrodite still all about power and popularity? Was spying on me just part of her plan to undermine me and take my place?

The sky rumbled, seeming to echo my emotions.

My chest burned as I crossed another street and paused, noticing I’d come to the edge of the neatly maintained houses. Holy crap, I’d walked all the way to Woodward Park. I almost turned away. It was Sunday, which was when people would usually be flocking there to take pictures with the flowers and trees and such, but as I looked around the park it seemed empty. Obviously the thunderstorm that was coming had canceled the picture takers. I noticed the daffodils had started to bloom. I’d always loved it when the daffodils pushed up through the grass and lifted their yellow heads. Grandma and I used to talk about how magickal it felt when the spring bulbs appeared so quickly and unexpectedly.

I definitely needed a little spring magick today. Woodward Park it would be!

Feeling relieved at finding a destination, I headed into the park, making my way through the tufts of daffodils and meandering toward the area that was bordered by Twenty-first Street. On top of that ridge was where the azaleas were thickest. I liked the craggy, ridge-like area with stone paths winding between the bushes. I could find a bench tucked beneath the azaleas at the bottom of the ridge, and try to wrap my head around my problems. If it rained on me, so what? At least it would keep the gawkers away.

I walked the flagstone path, curving through azalea bushes as tall as me. I could see that their buds had started to form, but I couldn’t tell what color they’d be yet.

The stupid thunderstorm would probably beat them to death and they’d never bloom anyway.

I kicked at a rock.

Aphrodite had had me spied on! I just couldn’t let that betrayal go. I wondered what Stevie Rae would say when I told her. Then I realized if I told her I’d also have to tell her about Aurox and me in the cafeteria and I sure as hell didn’t want to tell Stevie Rae or anybody about that—

I stopped. “Ah, hell! I’m not going to have a choice about telling people. No way are Shaylin and Aphrodite going to keep their mouths shut.” I’d come to the stone stairs that led from the top part of the park down to the rocky, grotto-like areas and the shallow pool that wrapped around the western part of the park.

I considered hurling myself off the side of the ridge, but decided it wasn’t high enough so it probably wouldn’t kill me. And I really didn’t want to kill myself. Now, had Aphrodite been there, I might have considered shoving her off the ridge!

The thought was disturbingly satisfying.

I took the stairs down to street level. There was a stone bench not far from where the steps opened to the grass. Thunder sounded again. I sat and frowned at the sky. Yeah, it was definitely going to rain on me. Soon. I sighed and looked around. Maybe it was the impending rain, but this little section of Woodward Park suddenly reminded me of the Isle of Skye. An unexpected feeling of homesickness washed over me. I should go back there. I was happy there. No one spied on me. No one tried to kill me. And I could ask Sgiach what the hell was up with my stupid Seer Stone. Stark would go with me. I wouldn’t have to see Aurox every day and wish…

No! I derailed that train of thought. I didn’t wish anything. I’d made my decision. It was just this crap with Aphrodite and Shaylin that was messing with my head—messing with my heart.

And I couldn’t run away to Scotland. Or at least not right now I couldn’t. I had to stay here and face my friends—and ex-friends—and clean up the mess that the House of Night had turned into.

God, it was depressing. And annoying. And exhausting.

Thunder rumbled, this time closer. It wasn’t fixing anything to run away or to hide. I should go back to school. Maybe I’d get lucky and Stark had actually slept through my emotional explosion and I could crawl into bed and still get some sleep before I had to face the poo storm that would be waiting for me when the sun set.

I’d stood and turned to climb back up the stone stairs when I saw the two men. They’d just stepped out of the azalea bushes and were pausing at the top of the stairs. They were scruffy looking, dirty even. Their clothes didn’t fit right. One of them carried a plastic garbage bag slung over his shoulder, making him look like an anorexic Santa. That one saw me first. He nudged his friend with his elbow and jerked his chin in my direction, grinning with a rot-toothed smile. His friend nodded and they started down the stairs.

Ah, hell.

I should have hurried toward Twenty-first Street. That was the smart thing to do—the safe thing to do. I almost did, but then I remembered who I was and I got pissed. I wasn’t some weak little kid who people could scare and push around. I had an affinity for all five elements. I was a High Priestess in training. Hell, I was almost a vampyre! Why shouldn’t I be able to be in the park on a Sunday morning and not be hassled by anyone?

Instead of running away I sat back down on the bench. Maybe they’d just walk past, say “morning,” and that would be that. Maybe.

“Hey, girl, you, uh, got any extra money?” the first guy said as they got to the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, we could use some cash for food,” said the second guy.

I’d had my face turned away, hoping that they’d walk on by. Now I lifted my chin and looked straight at them. Their eyes widened as they saw my tattoos.

“Really? In what universe do you think it’s okay for two men to ask a girl, who’s all by herself in a deserted park, for money?” As I spoke I felt my anger heat up again.

“Hey, what’s it to you?” the guy with the garbage bag said. “You’re a vampyre. It’s not like we scare you.”

I knew they thought I was a full vampyre. I knew that made them afraid of me.

I was glad.

“So, you’re used to scaring human girls into giving you some cash?” What total jerks!

The second guy shrugged. “If a girl don’t want to be scared, she shouldn’t be out here alone.”

“Oh, it’s the girl’s fault?” I’d meant the question hypothetically, but the garbage bag guy didn’t get that.

“Yeah, it’s the girl’s fault!”

“But we won’t scare nobody if they just give us some cash.”

“We don’t take no credit cards, though.” Garbage bag guy laughed and smacked his friend on the arm.

“You’re jerks. You’re both jerks. How about you get jobs instead of messing with little girls?”

“Messing with little girls pays better,” said the garbage bag guy.

“I was sitting here, minding my own business. You two need to remember that. You brought this on yourselves.” I stood. My whole body felt hot. I was really pissed. “Guess what? You should’ve picked another little girl to mess with today.”

“Hey, we wasn’t messing with you. We was just passin’ by,” said the second guy. He grabbed his friend’s arm and started pulling him away.

“Relax, girlie. No harm, no foul,” said the garbage bag guy, sending me a sarcastic grin and flashing his black, broken teeth.

So they thought they were going to slither off and find a real girl, a normal girl, to scare?

I felt like my heart was going to blaze out of my chest.

“No! Not today you’re not!” I threw my anger at them. It was a glowing blue ball of light. It slammed into the two guys, lifting them off their feet and hurling them against the stone wall of the ridge.

I was breathing hard and feeling good about what I’d done. They’d think twice before they messed with any other girl! Assholes!

Thunder cracked above me and a fork of lightning stabbed into the center of the park, making the hair on my forearms lift. It was then I realized I had my fist wrapped around the Seer Stone.

I blinked and shook my head. Wait, what had just happened?

I stared at the men. They were still there, lying in the shadow of the stony ridge. They weren’t yelling back at me or brushing themselves off and getting up, or even taking off because I’d scared the crap out of them.

I couldn’t see that they were moving at all.

Holy crap! I’d used Old Magick to attack the two men. It had been just like when I’d knocked Shaylin off her feet. I’d done it automatically after the burn of my anger had become unbearable. But the burn hadn’t been my anger, it had been the Seer Stone heating up, penetrating my body, feeding from my emotions and then striking out.

I let loose the stone and looked at my palm. A perfect circle had been burned into it.

Dazed, I looked up, seeing smoke coming from the heart of the park above me. The air smelled of electricity and fire and I realized lightning must have struck a tree, or maybe even one of the park buildings. Woodward Park was on fire.

Firemen would be coming soon. So would the police.

My knees were wobbly and my head hurt as I stumbled forward, getting closer to the men, staring at the two shapes that were crumpled at the base of the ridge. One of them moaned. The other’s arm twitched.

The sky opened and ropes of rain began falling, so that I couldn’t tell if the wetness was water or blood or my tears.

I didn’t think. I just ran.

I didn’t need to call mist and shadow to me. The thunderstorm cloaked me. No one noticed a lone girl, running through the rain, away from the burning park, especially since emergency vehicles and the police were swarming in the opposite direction.

I ran around the school wall, entering back through the hidden door. And I kept running until I was inside the stables, gasping and shivering. I went to the tack room and got a clean towel. Wrapping it around myself, I walked down the long line of stalls until I found Persephone. I slid the door open and entered the warm, dark stall. Persephone was sleeping the way horses do, standing with one leg cocked and her head low, eyes half-lidded. She barely moved when I went to her and wrapped my arms around her neck and sobbed into her thick, soft mane.

What was happening to me?

The guys in the park had been jerks, but they couldn’t have hurt me. Sure, they preyed on girls, scaring them into throwing cash their way, but they couldn’t have hurt me. I could’ve walked away and made an anonymous call to the police, given a description of them, and told the cops that they were loitering in the park, threatening girls. The cops would’ve run them off.

Instead I exploded on them.

I hadn’t even thought it through. I hadn’t done it on purpose. It had just happened. My anger had literally exploded through the Seer Stone at them.

What was it Aphrodite had been trying to tell me? Something about her vision and Old Magick and me losing control of my anger. I hadn’t listened to her. I’d cut her off and believed she’d betrayed me. I’d let anger control me.

“Oh, Goddess, that was wrong—so wrong of me,” I cried.

Then, through my sobs and the thunderstorm that roiled in the sky, I heard a siren. It wasn’t a fire truck. It wasn’t an ambulance. It was a police car. And it wasn’t speeding past the school toward Woodward Park. Its siren was getting closer and closer. It had to have entered our gate and pulled up to the school.

As if I were walking through a dream, I unwrapped myself from Persephone’s consoling neck. I dropped the towel. I left the stable and made my way outside to the sidewalk that led to the entrance foyer of the school.

Rain pelted me, but I didn’t pay any attention to it.

“Z! There you are! Shit, you’re soaking wet.” Stark ran up behind me, holding a big coat over himself.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” I told him woodenly. “The sun’s up. You’ll burn.”

He gave me a weird look. “I’m tired and it’s not real comfortable, but the clouds are covering enough of the sun that I can be out here. Well, at least for a little while. Z, get under my coat with me and let’s go back to our room. I know something’s wrong with you, but I don’t know what it is.”

I shook my head. “No. I have to go to them.” I kept walking toward the front of the school. There were two police cars, lights still on, parked there.

“Them who?” Stark asked, trying to hold his coat over my head and his.

“Stark, go back to bed. You can’t help me out of this.”

“Zoey, what are you talking about? What’s going on?”

I put my hand on the front door. “Go back,” I repeated. “You can’t save me anymore.”

He looked scared. Really scared.

I didn’t let myself feel anything. I turned my back on him and opened the door.

Thanatos was there. Darius was, too. As well as Aphrodite. For an instant I was surprised to see them, then I realized that Aphrodite must have gone to Thanatos after I’d taken off. It was the right thing for her to do. I would have done it if I’d been in her place. If I’d been thinking like myself, like Normal Zoey.

Detective Marx was there with two officers in uniforms.

“Z, did you get done walking the perimeter with Aurox?” Aphrodite spoke quickly, walking up to me. “I was telling Thanatos that I was worried about you out there in the thunderstorm. There’re even tornado warnings for Tulsa County.”

“Don’t,” I told her. “I don’t ever want you to lie for me.” I looked from her to Darius. “I don’t ever want any of you to lie for me.” Then I met Detective Marx’s gaze. “Why are you here?”

“Two men were just murdered in Woodward Park. Someone with supernatural power killed them—power no human has. That’s why the officers and I came directly here.” His face was grim. His voice lacked any emotion.

“And I was reminding the detective that our school is under lockdown. No fledgling or vampyre has left the campus since the night the mayor was killed,” Thanatos said.

“I left campus. I went to Woodward Park. I slammed those two guys against the stone wall at the bottom of the ridge. I killed them.” My voice sounded as dead as the men, as dead as I felt.

“Zoey! Why the hell would you say something like that?” Stark grabbed me and gave my shoulders a shake. “Snap out of it!”

I stared at him, hardening my heart, freezing my feelings. “You need to stay here. I don’t want to see you again. I don’t want to see anyone. I did this. I deserve this.” I moved out of his grasp. As I walked toward Detective Marx I reached up, grasped the Seer Stone, and pulled, breaking the silver chain that held it. I handed it to Aphrodite. “Don’t let anyone except you or Sgiach touch this thing. You were right. It’s awake, and it’s bad.”

Then I faced Detective Marx. “I’m ready to go with you.”

He glanced from me to Thanatos. “I’ll wait for you to contact the High Council and abrogate their legal claim to responsibility for this fledging so that I can take her into custody.”

“No,” I said. “Before this happened I had broken from the High Council. I don’t recognize their jurisdiction over me. I don’t recognize Thanatos’s jurisdiction over me. Treat me the same way you would anyone else who has confessed to being a murderer.”

He sighed deeply and then pulled the handcuffs from his back pocket. “Zoey Redbird, you are under arrest for the murders of Richard Williams and David Brown.” He closed the cold cuffs around my wrists. “You have the right to remain silent. Should you give up that right, anything you say can and will be used against you. You have the right to have an attorney present at your questioning. Should you not be able to afford one, an attorney will be appointed for you. Do you understand your rights?”

“Yes. I don’t need an attorney. I confess that I killed those two men. I deserve to go to jail,” I said as I deserve this … I deserve this … echoed through my mind.