Текст книги "Burned"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

Chapter 12

Stevie Rae

“Wow! It looks like one of those super tornados cut its way through Tulsa,” Dallas said. He was gawking as Stevie Rae maneuvered the Bug carefully around yet another pile of fallen tree limbs. The entry road to the park was blocked by a Bradford pear tree that had been split almost perfectly in half, so Stevie Rae ended up stopping beside it.

“At least some of the power is comin’ back on.” She gestured at the streetlights that ringed the park, illuminating what was a total mess of ice-damaged trees and flattened azalea bushes.

“Not for those folks, though.” Dallas jerked his chin at the neat little houses near the park. Here and there a light shone bravely through a window, proving that some people had had the foresight to buy propane generators before the storm hit, but mostly the surrounding area remained dark and cold and silent.

“It sucks for them, but makes my life easier tonight,” Stevie Rae said, getting out of the car. Carrying a tall green ritual candle, a braided length of dried sweetgrass, and a box of long matches, Dallas joined her. “Everyone’s all hunkered down and won’t be paying any attention to what I’m doin’.”

“You’re definitely right about that, girl.” Dallas draped his arm familiarly over Stevie Rae’s shoulders.

“Aw, you know I like it when you tell me I’m right.” She threaded her arm around his waist, sticking her hand in the back pocket of his jeans like she used to do. He squeezed her shoulder and kissed the top of her head.

“Then I’ll tell ya you’re right more often,” he said.

Stevie Rae grinned up at him. “You tryin’ to soften me up for somethin’?”

“I dunno. Is it workin’?”

“Maybe.”

“Good.”

They both laughed. She bumped him with her hip. “Let’s go over there to the big oak. That looks like a good place.”

“Whatever you say, girl.”

They made their way slowly to the center of the park, walking around shattered tree limbs and sloughing through the cold, wet muck that was left from the storm, trying not to slip on the patches of ice that had begun to refreeze in the chill of the night. She’d been right to let Dallas come with her. Maybe part of her confusion about Rephaim had happened because she’d gotten kinda isolated from her friends and was focusing too hard on the weirdness of their Imprint. Heck, the Imprint with Aphrodite had seemed totally bizarre at first, too. Maybe she just needed some time—and space—to deal with the newness of it.

“Hey, check it out.” Dallas pulled her attention back to him. He was pointing at the ground around the old oak. “It’s like the tree made a circle for you.”

“That’s cool!” she said. And it was! The solid tree had weathered the storm well. The only branches it had lost were a smattering of limb tips. They’d fallen onto the grass, forming a perfect circle completely around the tree.

Dallas hesitated at the edge of the circumference. “I’m gonna stay out here, okay? So it really can be like this is a circle cast especially for you, and I haven’t broken it,” he said.

Stevie Rae looked up at him. Dallas was a good guy. He was always saying sweet things like that and letting her know he understood her better than most folks did. “Thank you. That’s really nice, Dallas.” She went up on her tiptoes and kissed him softly.

His arms tightened around her, and he held her closer to him. “Anything for my High Priestess.”

His breath was warm and sweet against her mouth and, on impulse, Stevie Rae kissed him again, liking that he was making her feel all tingly inside. And liking that his touch was blocking thoughts of Rephaim from her mind. She was more than a little breathless when he reluctantly let her go.

He cleared his throat and gave a little laugh. “Be careful, girl. It’s been a long time since you and me been alone.”

Feeling kinda giggly and light-headed, she dimpled at him. “Too long.”

His smile was sexy and cute. “We’ll have to fix that soon, but first you better get to work.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Work, work, work . . .”

Smiling, she took the sweetgrass braid, the green candle, and the matches he’d brought her.

“Hey,” Dallas said, handing her the stuff, “I just remembered something about sweetgrass. Aren’t you supposed to use somethin’ else before you burn it? I was kinda good in Spells and Rituals Class, and I swear there was more to it than just lighting the braid and waving it around.”

Stevie Rae screwed up her forehead, thinking. “I dunno. Zoey talked about it ’cause it’s a Native American thing. I swear she said it draws positive energy.”

“Okay, well, I guess Z would know,” Dallas said.

Shrugging, Stevie Rae said, “Yeah, plus it is just grass that smells good. I mean, how bad could it be?”

“Yeah, seriously. Besides, you’re Earth Girl. You should be able to control some burnin’ grass.”

“Yep,” she said. “Okay, well, here goes.” Whispering a simple, “Thank you, earth,” to her element, she turned her back to Dallas, stepped over the boundary and entered the earth-made circle. Stevie Rae strode confidently to the northernmost point inside the circumference, which was directly in front of the old tree. She stopped there and closed her eyes. Stevie Rae had learned early that the best way to connect with her element was through her senses. So she breathed in deeply, clearing her mind of all the cluttered thoughts she usually carried around with her and allowing only one thing to leak through: the sense of hearing.

She listened to the earth. Stevie Rae could hear the wind murmuring through the winter leaves, the night birds singing to each other, the sounds and sighings of the park settling down for a long, cold night.

When her sense of sound was full of earth, Stevie Rae drew in another breath and focused on smell. She breathed in the earth, scenting the damp heaviness of ice-encapsulated grass, the crisp cinnamon of the browned leaves, the uniquely mossy fragrance of the ancient oak.

Her sense of smell filled by earth, Stevie Rae drew another deep breath and imagined the rich, full taste of a garlic bulb and the ripeness of summer tomatoes. She thought about the simple earth magick of pulling at green, tufty tops and discovering below them thick, crisp carrots that had been nurtured within the earth.

Taste overflowing with earth’s bounty, she thought about the touch of the softness of summer grass against her feet—of dandelions tickling her chin as she held one there to see if it’d leave the telltale yellow blush of secret love—of the way the earth lifted to fill all of her senses after a spring rain.

And then, drawing an even deeper breath, Stevie Rae let her spirit embrace the wonderful, amazing, magickal way the gift of her element made her feel. Earth was mother, counselor, sister, and friend. Earth grounded her, and even when everything else in her world was totally screwed up, she could count on her element to calm and protect her.

Smiling, Stevie Rae opened her eyes. She turned to her right. “Air, I ask you to please come to my circle.” Even though she didn’t have a yellow candle, or anyone to represent air, Stevie Rae knew it was important to acknowledge and pay respect to each of the other four elements. And, if she was really lucky, they might actually show up and strengthen her circle. Facing south, she continued, “Fire, I ask that you please come to my circle.” Turning deosil, or clockwise, she called, “Water, I’d like you to please come to my circle. Then, deviating from a traditional casting, Stevie Rae stepped back a few feet to the middle of the grassy area, and said, “Spirit, this is out of order, but I’d really like it if you joined my circle, too.”

Walking forward to the north, Stevie Rae was almost one hundred percent sure she caught sight of a thin silver thread of light spiraling around her. She grinned over her shoulder at Dallas. “Hey, I think it’s workin’.”

“Of course it’s workin’, girl. You got some serious High Priestess mojo.”

It sounded really good that Dallas kept calling her High Priestess, and Stevie Rae was still smiling when she turned back to the north. Feeling proud and strong, she finally lit the green candle, saying, “Earth, I know I’m doin’ things outta order here, but I had to save the best for last. So now I’m askin’ you to come to me like you always do, because you and me, we got a connection that’s somethin’ even more special than fireflies filling Haikey Creek Park during a summer night. Come to me, earth. Please come to me.”

Earth burst around her like an exuberant puppy. Moments before the night had been cold and wet and dominated by the crippling ice storm, but now Stevie Rae felt the welcomed warmth and humidity of an Oklahoma summer night as the presence of her element dominated the fully cast circle.

“Thank you!” she said joyfully. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me that I can always count on you.” Heat radiated up from under her feet, and the ice that encased the grass within the circle cracked and shattered as the blades sprang free, temporarily released from their winter prison. “Okay.” She kept her mind filled with her element and spoke to earth as if it was personified in front of her. “I gotta ask you somethin’ important. But first I’m gonna light this, ’cause I think you’ll like it a lot.” Stevie Rae held the dried sweetgrass in the flame and then set the candle at her feet when the braid took light. She blew softly on it, so that the grass began to smoke. Stevie Rae turned and, grinning at Dallas, walked around the inside of the circumference of her circle, wafting the grass until the entire area was hazy with gray smoke and heady with the scent of summertime on the prairie.

When she returned to the top of the circle, Stevie Rae faced north again, the direction most closely allied with her element, and began to speak. “My friend, Zoey Redbird, said that sweetgrass draws positive energy, and I definitely need some energy tonight, ’specially since it’s for Zoey that I’m asking your help. I know you remember her—she has an affinity for you, just like she does for all the elements. She’s special, and not just ’cause she’s my BFF. Z’s special ’cause,” Stevie Rae paused, and then the words came to her, “she’s special ’cause Zoey has a little bit of everything inside her. I guess it’s kinda like she represents all of us. So we need her back. Plus, she’s hurtin’ where she is, and I think she needs help to find her way out. So her Warrior, a guy named Stark, is gonna go after her. He definitely needs your help. I’m asking that you show me the way for Stark to help Zoey. Please.”

Stevie Rae wafted the still-smoking braid around her one more time, and then she waited.

The smoke was sweet and thick. The night was unusually warm because of the presence of her element.

But nothing else was going on.

Sure, she could feel earth there, surrounding her, willing to do her bidding.

But nothing was happening.

At all.

Not sure what else to do, Stevie Rae wafted the sweetgrass braid around her some more and tried again.

“Well, maybe I wasn’t specific enough.” She thought for a second, trying to remember everything Aphrodite had told her, and added, “With the power of earth, and through the energy of this sacred grass, I call the white bull from the old days to my circle because I need to know how Stark can get to Zoey so that he can protect her while she finds a way back together and back to this world.”

The sweetgrass that had been gently smoking until then turned red-hot. With a cry, Stevie Rae dropped it. Thick, black smoke billowed from the sizzling braid, like it was a snake belching darkness. Pressing her burned hand against her body, Stevie Rae stumbled back.

“Stevie Rae? What’s happening?”

She could hear Dallas, but when she looked behind her she couldn’t see him anymore. The smoke was just too thick. Stevie Rae turned around, trying to peer through the darkness at him, but she couldn’t see one dang thing. She looked where her burning earth candle should be, and it, too, had been covered by the smoke. Disoriented, she yelled, “I don’t know what’s goin’ on. The sweetgrass got weird all of a sudden and—”

The earth beneath her feet, that tangible part of her element that Stevie Rae felt so connected to—so comfortable with—began to shake.

“Stevie Rae, you need to come outta there now. I don’t like all this smoke.”

“Can you feel that?” she called to Dallas. “Is the ground shakin’ out there, too?”

“No, but I can’t see you, and I got a bad feeling ’bout this.”

Before Stevie Rae saw it, she felt its presence. The feeling it gave her was terrifyingly familiar and in the heartbeat of an instant, Stevie Rae understood why. It reminded her of the moment she’d realized she was dying. The moment she’d begun to cough, grabbed Zoey’s hand, and said, I’m scared, Z. The echo of that terror paralyzed Stevie Rae, so that when the tip of the first horn took form and glinted at her, white and sharp and dangerous, all she could do was stare and shake her head back and forth, back and forth.

“Stevie Rae! Can you hear me?”

Dallas’s voice seemed to be miles away.

The second horn materialized, and, along with it, the bull’s head began to form, white and massive, with eyes so black they glistened like a bottomless lake at midnight.

Help me! Stevie Rae tried to say, but fear trapped the words in her throat.

“That’s it. I’m comin’ in there and getting’ you, even if you don’t want me to break the circle and—”

Stevie Rae felt the ripple when Dallas reached the boundary of her circle. So did the bull. The creature turned its great head and snorted a gust of fetid air into the inky smoke. The night shivered in response.

“Shit! Stevie Rae, I can’t get inside the circle. Close it and get out of there!”

“I-I c-c-can’t,” she stammered, her voice a broken whisper.

Fully formed, the bull was a nightmare come alive. Its breath gagged Stevie Rae. Its eyes trapped her. His white coat was luminous in the all-encompassing darkness, but it wasn’t beautiful. Its brilliance was slimy, its glistening surface cold and dead. One of the beast’s enormous cloven hoofs lifted and then fell, tearing the earth with such malice that Stevie Rae felt an echo of the pain of the wound within her soul. She ripped her gaze from the bull’s eyes to stare down at his hooves. She gasped in horror. The grass around the beast was broken and blackened. Where he had pawed the earth—Stevie Rae’s earth—the ground was torn and bleeding.

“No!” The dam of terror broke enough for her words to finally escape. “Stop! You’re hurting us!”

The bull’s black eyes bored into hers. The voice that filled her head was deep and powerful and unimaginably malicious. “You had the power to evoke me, vampyre, and that has amused me enough that I choose to answer your question. The Warrior must look to his blood to discover the bridge to enter the Isle of Women, and then he must defeat himself to enter the arena. Only by acknowledging one before the other will he join his Priestess. After he joins her, it is her choice and not his whether she returns.”

Stevie Rae swallowed her fear and blurted, “That doesn’t make sense.”

“Your inability to comprehend has no bearing on me. You summoned. I answered. Now I shall claim my blood price. It has, indeed, been eons since I tasted the sweetness of vampyre blood—especially one filled with so much innocent Light.”

Before Stevie Rae could begin to form any kind of response, the beast started to circle her. Tendrils of darkness slithered from the smoke surrounding him and began to snake their way toward her. When they touched her, they were like frozen razor blades slicing, tearing, ripping her flesh.

Without conscious thought, she screamed one word: “Rephaim!”

Chapter 13

Rephaim

Rephaim knew the instant Darkness materialized. He’d been sitting on the rooftop balcony, eating an apple, staring up at the clear night sky and trying to ignore the annoying presence of the human ghost that had developed an unfortunate fascination with him.

“Come on, tell me! Is it really fun to fly?” the young spirit asked for what Rephaim thought was probably the hundredth time. “It looks like it’d be fun. I never got to, but I’ll bet flying with your own wings is way more fun than flying in an airplane any day.”

Rephaim had sighed. The child talked more than Stevie Rae, which was pretty impressive. Irritating, but impressive. He was trying to decide if he should continue to ignore her and hope she’d finally go away, or come up with an alternative plan, as ignoring the girl didn’t appear to be working. He’d thought perhaps he should ask Stevie Rae what to do about the ghost, which had turned his mind to the Red One. Though, truth be told, his thoughts were never far from her.

“Is it dangerous to fly? I mean with your wings? I guess it must be because you got hurt, and I’ll bet that was from flying around . . .”

The child had been babbling when the texture of the world changed. In that first, shocking moment, he felt the familiarity and believed, for the space of a heartbeat, that his father had returned.

“Silence!” he roared at the ghost. He stood and whirled around, glowing red eyes glaring into the dark land surrounding him, hoping beyond words that he could glimpse the raven blackness of his father’s wings.

The ghost child made a shocked squeak, cringed away from him, and disappeared.

Rephaim gave her absolutely no thought. He was too busy being barraged with knowledge and emotions.

First came knowledge. He knew almost immediately that it wasn’t his father he’d sensed. Yes, Kalona was powerful, and he had long allied himself with Darkness, but the disturbance this immortal was making in the world was different; it was far more powerful. Rephaim could sense it in the excited response of the dark hidden things of the earth, sprites that this modern world of man-made light and electronic magick had forgotten. But Rephaim had not forgotten them, and from the deepest of the night’s shadows, he saw ripples and quivers, and was baffled by their reaction.

What could be powerful enough to arouse the hidden sprites?

Then Stevie Rae’s fear hit him. It was the rawness of her complete terror coupled with the excitement of the sprites, and that instant of initial familiarity, that provided Rephaim with his answer.

“By all the gods, Darkness itself has entered this realm!” Rephaim was moving before he’d made a conscious decision to do so. He burst out of the front doors of the dilapidated mansion, knocking them aside with his uninjured arm as if they were made of cardboard, only to come to a halt on the wide front porch.

He had no idea of where he should go.

Another wave of terror engulfed him. Experiencing it with her, Rephaim knew Stevie Rae was paralyzed by her fear. A horrible thought filled his mind: Had Stevie Rae conjured Darkness? How could she? Why would she?

The answer to the most important of the three questions came as quickly as he thought it. Stevie Rae would do almost anything if she believed it would bring Zoey back.

Rephaim’s heart thundered, and his blood pumped hard and fast through his body. Where was she? The House of Night?

No, surely not. Were she to set about conjuring Darkness, it wouldn’t be at a school devoted to Light.

“Why didn’t you come to me?” he shouted his frustration into the night. “I know Darkness; you do not!”

But even as he spoke, he admitted to himself that he was wrong. Stevie Rae had been touched by Darkness when she had died. He hadn’t known her then, but he’d known Stark and had witnessed for himself the Darkness that surrounded the death and resurrection of a fledgling.

“She chose Light, though.” He spoke softly this time. “And Light always underestimates the viciousness of Darkness.”

The fact that I live is an example of that.

Stevie Rae needed him tonight, badly. That was also a fact.

“Stevie Rae, where are you?” Rephaim muttered.

Only the restless stirrings of the sprites answered him.

Could he coax a sprite into leading him to Darkness? No—he discarded the idea quickly. Sprites would go to Darkness if it called them. Other than that, they much preferred to feed off vestiges of power from afar. And he couldn’t afford to wait around hoping Darkness would call them. He needed to figure out—

“REPHAIM!”

Stevie Rae’s scream echoed eerily around him. Her voice was filled with pain and despair. The sound of it sliced through his heart. He knew his eyes blazed red. He wanted to rip and tear and destroy. The haze of scarlet rage that began to overwhelm him was a seductive escape. If he gave into anger completely, he would, indeed, become more beast than man, and this unusual, uncomfortable fear he had begun to feel for her would be drowned out by instinct and mindless violence, which he could appease by attacking the helpless humans in any of the dark houses surrounding the lifeless museum. For a while he would be sated. For a while he would not feel.

And why not give in to the rage that had so often consumed his life? It would be easier—it was familiar—it was safe.

If I give in to rage, it will be the end of this connection I have with her. The thought sent ripples of shock through his body. The ripples turned to bright specks of light that seared the red haze that shrouded his sight.

“No!” he cried, letting the humanity of his voice beat back the beast within him. “If I abandon her to Darkness, she dies.” Rephaim drew long, slow breaths. He had to calm down. He had to think. The red haze continued to dissipate, and his mind began to reason again. I have to use our connection and our blood!

Rephaim forced himself to be still and breathe in the night. He knew what he must do. He drank in one more deep breath, and then began: “I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command.” Rephaim steeled himself for the drain that the invocation would cause on his unhealed body, but as he drew power from the shadows of the night, he was surprised to feel a surge of energy. The night around him seemed swollen, throbbing with raw and ancient power. It gave him a sick sense of foreboding, but he used it all the same, channeling the power through him, preparing to charge it with the immortality carried in his blood, the blood that Stevie Rae now shared. But as it filled him, his body was consumed in an energy so fierce, so raw, that it knocked Rephaim to his knees.

His first hint that something miraculous was happening was when he realized that he’d automatically thrown both of his hands forward to catch himself—and both arms responded, even the one that had been broken and bound to his chest with a sling.

Rephaim stayed there on his knees, trembling and holding both arms out before him. His breath was coming fast as he flexed his hands.

“More!” he hissed the word. “Come to me!”

Dark energy surged into him again, a live current of cold violence he struggled to contain. Rephaim knew this indwelling was different than any he’d felt before when calling on the powers his father’s blood allowed him to access, but he was no callow youth. He had long trafficked with shadows and the base things that filled the night. Reaching deep within him, the Raven Mocker inhaled the energy, like the air of a midwinter’s night, and then he threw his arms wide at the same instant he unfurled his wings.

Both wings responded to him.

“Yes!” His joyous shout caused the shadows to writhe and quiver in ecstasy.

He was whole again! The wing was completely healed!

Rephaim leaped to his feet. Dark pinions completely extended, he looked like a magnificent sculpture of a godling, suddenly come to life. His body vibrating with power, the Raven Mocker continued the invocation. The air blazed scarlet as if a phosphorous mist of blood surrounded him. Swollen with borrowed Darkness, Rephaim’s voice rang in the night. “Through the immortal might of my father, Kalona, who seeded my blood and spirit with his legacy, I command this power that I wield in his name to lead me to the Red One—she who has tasted my blood, and with whom I have Imprinted and exchanged life debts. Take me to Stevie Rae! I command it so!”

The mist hovered for a moment, then shifted, and like a ribbon of scarlet silk, a thin, glistening path unfurled into the air before him. Swift and sure, Rephaim took to the sky and streaked after the beckoning Darkness.

He found her not far from the museum in a park shrouded by smoke and death. As he dropped silently from the sky, Rephaim wondered how the humans in the houses framing the area could be so oblivious to what had been loosed just outside the deceptive safety of their front doors.

The pool of black smoke was most concentrated in the heart of the park. Rephaim could just make out the top branches of a sturdy old oak under which chaos reigned. He slowed as he drew near it, though his wings were still spread around him, tasting the air and allowing him to move soundlessly and swiftly, even on the ground.

The fledgling didn’t notice him. But Rephaim realized that the boy probably wouldn’t have noticed the arrival of an army. All of his attention was focused on attempting to stab a long, lethal-looking knife through what appeared to be a circle of darkness that had coalesced into a solid wall—or at least that was how it manifested to the fledgling.

Rephaim was not a fledgling; he understood Darkness much better.

He skirted around the boy and, unseen, faced the circle at its northernmost point. He wasn’t sure if instinct or Stevie Rae’s influence drew him there, and acknowledged—though briefly—that the two might be becoming one.

He paused, and with a single, reluctant motion, closed his wings, folding them neatly against his back. Then he held up his hand and spoke softly to the scarlet mist that was still his to command. “Cloak me. Allow me to cross the barrier.” Rephaim curled his fist around the pulsing energy that gathered there, and then, with a flick of his fingers, scattered the mist over his body.

He expected the pain of it. Though there were aspects of immortal power that obeyed him, the obedience never came without a price. Very often that price was paid in pain. This time the pain burned through his newly healed body like lava, but he welcomed it because it meant his bidding had been done.

There was no way to make ready for what he might find within the circle. Rephaim simply gathered himself and, covered by the inherited strength of his father’s blood, he stepped forward. The wall of darkness opened to him.

Inside the circle Rephaim was engulfed in the scent of Stevie Rae’s blood and the overwhelming odor of death and decay.

“Please stop! I can’t stand any more! Kill me if that’s what you want, just don’t touch me again!”

He couldn’t see her, but Stevie Rae sounded utterly defeated. Acting quickly, Rephaim scooped some of the clinging scarlet mist from his body. “Go to her—strengthen her,” he whispered the command.

He heard Stevie Rae gasp and was almost sure she cried his name. Then the darkness parted to reveal a sight Rephaim would never forget, even should he live to be as ancient as his father.

Stevie Rae stood in the middle of the circle. Tendrils of sticky black threads wrapped around her legs. Wherever they touched her, they sliced her skin. Her jeans were ripped and hung on her body only in shreds. Blood seeped from her torn flesh. As he watched, another tendril snaked out of the soupy darkness surrounding them and lashed, whiplike, around her waist, instantly drawing a weeping line of blood. She moaned in pain, and her head lolled. Rephaim saw that her eyes had gone blank.

It was then that the beast made itself known. The instant he saw it, Rephaim knew beyond all doubt that he was staring at Darkness given form. It snorted, a terrible, deafening sound. Spewing blood and mucus and smoke, the bull tore the earth with his hooves. The creature stalked to Stevie Rae from out of the densest of the black smoke. Like moonlight in a crypt, the white bull’s coat looked like death as he towered over the girl. The creature was so massive that he had to dip his huge head to allow his tongue to lick at her bleeding waist.

Stevie Rae’s scream was echoed by Rephaim’s cry: “No!”

The great bull paused. His head turned to the Raven Mocker; his bottomless gaze held Rephaim’s.

“This night gets more and more interesting.” The voice rumbled through his mind. Rephaim forced down his fear as the bull took two steps toward him, shaking the ground as he scented the air.

“I smell Darkness on you.”

“Yes,” Rephaim spoke over the sound of the terrified beating of his heart. “I have long lived with Darkness.”

“Odd, then, that I do not know you.” The bull scented the air around him again. “Though I have known your father.”

“It is through the power of my father’s blood that I parted the dark curtain and stand before you.” He kept his eyes on the bull, but he was utterly aware that Stevie Rae was just feet away from him, bleeding and helpless.

“Is it? I think you lie, birdman.”

Though the voice in his mind didn’t change, Rephaim could feel the bull’s anger.

Staying calm, Rephaim scooped a finger down his chest, drawing a line of red mist from his body. He held his hand up, like an offering to the bull. “This allowed me to part the dark curtain of the circle, and this power is mine to command by right of my father’s immortal blood.”

“That immortal blood flows through your veins is truth. But the power that swells your body and commanded my barrier to part is borrowed from me.”

Fear skittered down Rephaim’s spine. Very carefully, he bowed his head in respect and acknowledgment. “Then I thank you, though I did not call upon your power. I invoked only my father’s, as it is only his that is rightfully mine to command.”

“I hear the truth in your words, son of Kalona, but why command the power of immortals to draw you here and to allow you within my circle? What business do you or your father have with Darkness tonight?”

Rephaim’s body went very still, but his mind raced. Until that moment in his life, he had always drawn strength from the legacy of immortality within his blood and the cunning of the raven that had been joined with it to create him. But this night, facing Darkness, swollen with a strength that was not his own, he suddenly knew that even though it was through this creature’s power that he had been granted access to Stevie Rae, he would not save her by using Darkness, whether it came from the bull or from his father; nor could the instincts of a raven battle the beast he faced. Forces allied with it could not defeat this bull—this embodiment of Darkness.