Текст книги "Awakened"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

“Okay. Yeah. Got it.”

“And didn’t Stark tell me that there actually was a Raven Mocker spotted in Tulsa?” I paused, trying to remember what he had said.

“Yeah, there was one seen once, but not since then.”

Stevie Rae’s voice sounded weird, all tight like she was having trouble talking. Hell, who could blame her? I’d basically left her holding the ball there at my House of Night. Just thinking about what she’d gone through with Jack and Damien made me feel sick.

“Hey, be careful, ’kay? I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you,” I said.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be careful.”

“Good. So, sunset is in just a little over two hours. As soon as Stark’s up we’ll get our stuff together and be on the first plane home,” I heard myself say, even though it made my stomach feel sick.

“Oh, Z! I’m so glad! Besides needin’ you back here, I’ve missed you so much.”

I smiled into the phone. “I’ve missed you, too. And it’ll be good to be home,” I lied.

“So text me when you know what time y’all will get in. If I’m not in my coffin I’ll be there to meet ya.”

“Stevie Rae, you do not sleep in a coffin,” I said.

“I might as well ’cause I’m seriously dead to the world when the sun’s up.”

“Yeah, Stark, too.”

“Hey, how is your boy? Feelin’ better?”

“He’s good.” I paused and added, “Real good, actually.”

True to form, Stevie Rae’s BFF radar heard between the lines. “Oh, nuh uh. Y’all did not?”

“What if I said we did?” I could feel my cheeks getting warm.

“Then I’d say a big ol’ Oklahoma yee haw!”

“Well yee haw away then.”

“Details. I want some serious details,” she said, and then gave a giant yawn.

“You’ll get details,” I said. “Almost dawn there?”

“A little past, actually. I’m fadin’ fast, Z.”

“No problem. Get some sleep. I’ll see ya soon, Stevie Rae.”

“Later, ’gator,” she said around another yawn.

I ended the call and went over to stare at Stark where he slept like a dead guy in our canopied bed. That I was totally in love with Stark wasn’t in question, but just then I would really, really have liked it if I could shake his shoulder and have him wake up like a normal guy. But I knew it would be useless to even try to get him up early. Today the sun was unusually shiny on Skye—I mean, super bright with not one speck of clouds. No way Stark would be able to communicate decently with me for—I glanced at the clock—two and a half more hours. Well, at least that gave me time to pack and also to find the queen and break the news to her—that I was gonna leave this place that felt so right, so much like a home to me, this place that Sgiach had decided to bring back into the real world again, at least kinda sorta, because of what I’d brought back into her life. And now I was going to take off and leave it all behind because …

My brain caught up with the babbling chaos of my thoughts and everything clicked into place.

“Because this isn’t my home,” I whispered. “Home is Tulsa. It’s where I belong.” I smiled sadly at my sleeping Guardian. “It’s where we belong.” I felt the rightness of it even as I understood all that was waiting for me there—and all that I was losing leaving here.

“It’s time I went home,” I said firmly.

* * *

“Say something. Anything. Please.” I’d just blurted my guts out to Sgiach and Seoras. Naturally, telling the story of Jack’s horrible death had made me bawl and snot. Again. And then I’d babbled about having to go home and be a proper High Priestess even though I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what that really meant, while both of them watched me silently with expressions that looked wise and unreadable at the same time.

“The death of a friend is always difficult to bear. It is doubly difficult if it comes too soon—too young,” Sgiach said. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It doesn’t seem real yet.”

“Aye, well, it will, lass,” Seoras said gently. “You should be rememberin’, though, that a queen puts aside grieving fur duty. You cannae have a clear head if ’tis filled with grief.”

“I don’t think I’m old enough for all of this,” I said.

“No one is, child,” Sgiach said. “I would have you consider something before you take your leave of us. When you asked if you could remain here on Skye I said that you should stay here until your conscience bade you leave. Is it your conscience talking to you now, telling you the time is right for you to leave, or is it the machination of others that is—”

“Okay, stop,” I said. “Neferet probably believes she’s manipulating me into coming back, but the truth is that I have to go back to Tulsa because it’s my home.” I met Sgiach’s eyes as I continued speaking, hoping that she would understand. “I love it here. On lots of levels it feels right to be here—so right that it’d be easy for me to stay. But, like you’ve said, the path of the Goddess isn’t easy—doing right isn’t easy. If I stayed here and ignored my home I wouldn’t just be ignoring my conscience, I’d be turning my back on it.”

Sgiach nodded, looking pleased. “So your return comes from a place of power, not one of manipulation, though Neferet will not know that. She will believe that it only took one simple death to make you do her bidding.”

“Jack’s death isn’t a simple thing,” I said angrily.

“No, ’tisnae simple for you, but a creature of Darkness kills quickly, easily, and with nae thought beside her own gain,” Seoras said.

“And because of that Neferet will not understand that you return to Tulsa because it was your choice to follow the path of Light and Nyx. She will underestimate you because of that,” Sgiach said.

“Thank you. I’ll remember that.” I met Sgiach’s clear, strong gaze. “You and Seoras and any of the rest of the Guardians who want to could come with me, you know. With you guys beside me there’s no way Neferet could win.”

Sgiach’s response was instantaneous. “If I left my isle the consequences of that would ripple through the High Council. We have coexisted with them peacefully for centuries because I chose to absent myself from the politics and restrictions of vampyre society. Were I to join the modern world they would not be able to continue to pretend I do not exist.”

“What if that’s a good thing? I mean, it seems to me it’s time the High Council was shaken up, and vamp society with it. They believe Neferet and let her get away with killing people—innocent people.” My voice was strong and sharp and for a moment I thought I sounded almost like a real queen.

“ ’Tis not our battle, lassie,” Seoras said.

“Why not? Why isn’t fighting against evil your battle, too?” I rounded on Sgiach’s Guardian.

“What makes you think we’re not fighting evil here?” It was Sgiach who answered me. “You’ve been touched by the old magick since you’ve been here. Tell me honestly, before then had you ever felt anything like it out there in your world?”

“No, I hadn’t.” I shook my head slowly.

“It’s fighting to keep the old ways alive we’ve been doing,” Seoras said. “And that cannae been done in Tulsa.”

“How can you be so sure?” I asked.

“Because there is no old magick left there!” Sgiach said, almost shouting in frustration. She turned her back and paced over to the huge picture window that looked out on the sun setting into the gray-blue water that surrounded Skye. Her back was stiff with tension, her voice thick with sadness. “Out there in that world of yours, the mystical, wonderful magick of old, where the black bull was revered along with the Goddess, where the balance of male and female was respected, and where even the rocks and trees had souls, had names, has been destroyed by civilization and intolerance and forgetfulness. People today, vampyres and humans alike, believe the earth is just a dead thing that they live on—that it is somehow wrong or evil or barbaric to listen to the voices of the souls of the world, and so the heart and the nobility of an entire way of life dried up and withered away…”

“And found sanctuary here,” Seoras continued when Sgiach’s voice faded. He’d moved to her side. Her back was turned to me, but he faced me. Lightly, Seoras touched her shoulder and then let his fingers trail down her arm to take his queen’s hand. I could see her body react to his touch. It was like through him she’d found her center. Before she turned to me, I saw her squeeze and then release his hand, and when our eyes met again she was, once more, noble and strong and calm.

“We are the last bastion of the old ways. It has been my charge for centuries to protect the ancient magicks. The land here is still sacred. By revering the black bull, and respecting his counterpart, the white bull, the old balance is maintained and there is one small place left in this world that remembers.”

“Remembers?”

“Aye, remembers a time when honor meant more than self, and loyalty wasnae an option or an afterthought,” Seoras said solemnly.

“But I see some of that in Tulsa. There’s honor and loyalty there, too, and many of my grandma’s people, the Cherokee, still respect the land.”

“To some extent that might be true, but think of the grove—how you felt within it. Think of how this land speaks to you,” Sgiach said. “I know you hear it. I see it in you. Have you felt anything truly like that outside my isle?”

“Yes,” I said before actually thinking. “The grove in the Otherworld feels a lot like the grove across the street from the castle.” Then I realized what I was saying, and Sgiach all of a sudden made sense. “That’s it, isn’t it? You literally have a piece of Nyx’s magick here.”

“In a way. What I really have is even older than the Goddess. You see, Zoey, Nyx hasn’t been lost to the world. Yet. Her masculine balance has, and I’m afraid because of that the balance between good and evil, Light and Darkness, has been lost, too.”

“Aye, we know it has been,” Seoras corrected her gently.

“Kalona. He’s part of this out-of-balance thing,” I said. “It’s true that he used to be Nyx’s Warrior. Somehow that got out of whack, along with a bunch of other stuff when he turned up in our world, ’cause that’s not where he belongs.” Knowing it didn’t make me feel sorry for him, or bad for him, but it did make me begin to understand the air of desperation I’d sensed so many times around him. And it was knowledge. With knowledge came power.

“So you see why it’s important that I not leave my isle,” Sgiach said.

“I do,” I said reluctantly. “But I still think you could be wrong about there being no old magick left in the outside world. The black bull did materialize in Tulsa, remember?”

“Aye, but not until after the white bull appeared first,” Seoras said.

“Zoey, I would very much like to believe that the outside world hasn’t entirely destroyed the magick of old, and because of that there’s something I want you to have.”

Sgiach reached up and untwined a long length of silver from the mass of twinkling necklaces that dangled from around her neck. She lifted the delicate chain over her head and held it up at my eye level. Hanging from the silver was a perfectly round milk-colored stone that was smooth and soft and reminded me of a coconut-flavor Life Saver. The torches that the Warriors had begun to light flickered against the stone’s surface, making it glisten, and I recognized the rock.

“It’s a piece of Skye marble,” I said.

“It is—a special piece of Skye marble called a seer stone. It was found more than five centuries ago by a Warrior on his Shamanic quest as he ran the Cuillin Ridge on this very island,” Sgiach said.

“A Warrior on a Shamanic quest? That doesn’t happen very often,” I said.

Sgiach smiled and her gaze went from the piece of dangling marble to Seoras. “About once every five hundred years it does.”

“Aye, that’s about right,” Seoras said, returning her smile with an intimacy that made me feel like I should look away.

“In my opinion, once every five hundred years is more than enough for some poor Warrior dude to do the Shaman thing.”

My stomach give a silly little flip-flop of pleasure at the sound of his voice and I looked from the queen and her Guardian to see Stark standing in the shadows behind the arched doorway, rumpled and squinting at what was left of the fading light in the picture window. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and he looked so much like his old self that a pang of homesickness—the first real one I’d felt since I’d returned to myself—speared through me. I’m going home. The thought had me smiling as I hurried toward Stark. Sgiach made a gesture with her hand. The heavy drapes were drawn over the last of the sunlight, allowing Stark to step from the shadows and take me into his arms.

“Hey, I didn’t think you’d be up for an hour or so,” I said, hugging him tightly.

“You were upset, and that woke me up,” he whispered into my ear. “Plus, I was having some majorly weird dreams.”

I pulled back so I could look into his eyes. “Jack’s dead.”

Stark started to shake his head in denial, and then stopped, touched my cheek, and blew out a long breath. “That’s what I felt. Your sadness. Z, I’m so sorry. What the hell happened?”

“Officially an accident. Really it was Neferet, but no one can prove it,” I said.

“When do we leave for Tulsa?”

I smiled my thanks at him as Sgiach said, “Tonight. We can arrange for you to leave as soon as you have your bags packed and ready.”

“So, what’s with this stone?” Stark asked, taking my hand.

Sgiach lifted it again. I was thinking how pretty it looked when it twisted gently on the chain and my gaze was pulled to the perfect circle in the center. The world narrowed and faded away around me as my entire being became focused on the hole in the stone because for an instant I caught a glimpse of the room through the hole.

The room was gone!

Fighting a wave of nauseating vertigo, I stared through the seer stone at what had looked like an undersea world. Figures floated and flitted around, all in hues of turquoise and topaz, crystal and sapphire. I thought I saw wings and fins and long, swirling cascades of drifting hair. Mermaids? Or are they sea monkeys? I have utterly lost my mind, was my last thought before I lost my battle with dizziness and ended up flat on my back on the floor.

“Zoey! Look at me! Say something!”

Stark, looking completely freaked, was bent over me. He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and was currently shaking the bejeezus outta me.

“Hey, stop,” I said weakly, trying unsuccessfully to shove him away.

“Just let her breathe. She’ll be fine in a moment,” came Sgiach’s uber-calm voice.

“She fainted. That’s not normal,” Stark said. He was still gripping my shoulders, but he had stopped rattling my brains around.

“I’m conscious and I’m right here,” I said. “Help me sit up.”

Stark’s frown said he’d rather not, but he did as I asked.

“Drink this,” Sgiach held a goblet of wine under my nose that I could smell was laced heavily with blood. I grabbed it and drank deeply while she said, “And it is normal for a High Priestess to faint the first time she uses the power of a seer stone, especially if she is unprepared for it.”

Feeling much better after the bloody wine (eesh, but yum), I raised my brows at her and stood up. “Couldn’t you have prepared me for it?”

“Aye, but then a seer stone only works for some High Priestesses, and if it hadnae worked for yu, yu’d have had yer feelins hurt, now wouldn’t ya?” Seoras said.

I rubbed my backside. “I think I’d rather have risked the hurt feelings instead of the hurt butt. Okay, what the heck did I see?”

“What did it look like?” Sgiach asked.

“A weird undersea fishbowl through that little hole.” I pointed in the direction of the stone, but was careful not to look at it.

Sgiach smiled. “Yes, and where have you seen beings like that before?”

I blinked in understanding, “The grove! They’re water sprites.”

“Indeed,” Sgiach nodded.

“So it’s like a magick finder?” Stark asked, giving the stone a sideways glance.

“It is, when used by a High Priestess with the right kind of power.” Sgiach lifted the chain and placed it around my neck. The seer stone settled between my breasts, feeling warm like it was alive.

“This really finds magick?” I put my hand reverently over the stone.

“Only one kind,” Sgiach said.

“Water magick?” I asked, confused.

“It isnea the element that matters. ’Tis the magick itself,” Seoras said.

Before I could say the huh that was obviously all over my face, Sgiach explained, “A seer stone is in tune with only the most ancient of magicks: the kind I protect on my isle. I am gifting you with it so that you might, indeed, recognize the Old Ones if any still exist in the outside world.”

“If she finds any of that kind of magick, what should she do?” Stark asked, still giving the stone leery looks.

“Rejoice or run, depending on what you discover,” Sgiach said with a wry smile.

“Mind, lass, it was the old magick that sent yur Warrior to the Otherworld, and the old magick that made him yur Guardian,” Seoras said. “It hasnea been watered down by civilization.”

I closed my hand around the seer stone, the memory of Seoras standing over Stark, trance-like, cutting him over and over again so that his blood ran down the ancient knotwork in the stone they called the Seol ne Gigh, the Seat of the Spirit. Suddenly I realized I was trembling.

Then Stark’s warm, strong hand covered mine and I looked up into his steady gaze.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be with you, and whether it’s time to run or rejoice, we’ll be together. I’ll always have your back, Z.”

Then, for at least that moment, I felt safe.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Stevie Rae

“She’s really coming home?”

Damien’s voice was so soft and shaky that Stevie Rae had to lean down over the bed to hear him. His eyes were glassy and more than a little vacant, and she couldn’t tell if that was because the drug/blood cocktail the vamps in the infirmary had come up with was actually working, or whether he was still in shock.

“Are you kiddin’? Z got on the first plane outta there. She’ll be home in, like, three hours. If you want, you can come to the airport with me to pick her and Stark up.” Stevie Rae was sitting on the edge of Damien’s bed, so it was easy for her to give Duchess’s head a rub—since the dog was curled around Damien. When he didn’t make any response except to stare blankly at the wall in front of him, she gave Duchess another pat. In return the Lab thumped her tail weakly once, twice. “You’re a dang good dog and that’s all there is to it,” Stevie Rae told the blond Lab. Duchess opened her eyes and gave Stevie Rae a soulful look, but her tail didn’t thump again and she didn’t make her usual happy huffing dog noise. Stevie Rae frowned. Did she look thin? “Damien, honey, has Duch had anything to eat recently?”

He blinked at her, looked confused, looked at the dog curled around him, and then his eyes actually began to clear, but before he could say anything Neferet’s voice came from behind Stevie Rae, though she had no way heard the vamp enter the room.

“Stevie Rae, Damien is in a very fragile emotional state right now. He should not have to be concerned about such trivialities as feeding a dog or acting like a common butler and going to the airport to collect a fledgling.”

Neferet swept past her. Full of motherly concern, she bent over Damien. Stevie Rae automatically stood up and backed several feel away. She could have sworn that something in the shadows that lapped around the hem of Neferet’s long, silky dress had begun to slither toward her.

In a similar reaction, Duchess moved off Damien’s lap and curled up morosely at the end of his bed, joining his still sleeping cat, all the while keeping her unblinking gaze trained on Damien.

“Since when is picking a friend up from the airport the butler’s job? And believe me—I know what’s what with a butler’s job.”

Stevie Rae glanced over at the doorway where Aphrodite seemed to have just materialized.

Well, slap me and call me a baby—am I so out of it I can’t hear nothing anymore? Stevie Rae thought.

“Aphrodite, I have something to say to you that applies to everyone in this room,” Neferet said, sounding regal and super-in-charge.

Aphrodite put a hand on her slim hip, and said, “Yeah? What?”

“I have decided that Jack’s funeral should be in the manner of a fully Changed vampyre. His funeral pyre will be lit tonight, as soon as Zoey arrives at the House of Night.”

“You’re waitin’ for Zoey? Why?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Because she was Jack’s good friend, of course. But more important, because of the confusion that reigned here when I was under Kalona’s influence, Zoey served as Jack’s High Priestess. That unfortunate time is, thankfully, behind us, but it is only right that Zoey light Jack’s pyre.”

Stevie Rae thought how terrible it was that Neferet’s beautiful emerald eyes could look so perfectly guileless, even when she was weaving a web of deceit and lies. She wanted so badly to scream at the Tsi Sgili that she knew her secret; Kalona was here and she was controlling him, and not the other way around. She’d never been under his influence. Neferet had known from the start exactly who and what Kalona was, and what she was doing now was lying her butt off.

But Stevie Rae’s own terrible secret stopped the words in her throat. She heard Aphrodite draw in a breath, like she was getting ready to launch into a major ass-chewing, but at that moment Damien drew everyone’s attention to him when he put his head in his hands and began to sob, saying brokenly, “I-I just c-can’t understand how he can be gone.”

Stevie Rae pushed around Neferet and pulled Damien into her arms. She was happy to see Aphrodite stride over to the other side of the bed and rest her hand on Damien’s heaving shoulder. Both girls gave Neferet narrow-eyed looks of distrust and dislike.

Neferet’s face remained sad but impassive, like she knew Damien’s grief but she let it wash around her and not into her. “Damien, I’ll leave you to the comfort of your friends. Zoey’s plane lands at Tulsa International at 9:58 tonight. I’ve set the funeral pyre for midnight exactly, as that is an auspicious time. I shall see all of you then.” Neferet left the room, closing the door behind her with an almost inaudible click.

“Fucking lying bitch,” Aphrodite said under her breath. “Why is she playing nice?”

“She’s seriously up to somethin’,” Stevie Rae said while Damien cried into her shoulder.

“I can’t do this.” Damien suddenly pulled back and away from both of them. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. The heaving sobs had stopped, but tears continued to leak down his cheeks. Duchess crawled up to him and lay across his lap, with her nose pointed up near his cheek. Cammy curled up tightly against his side. Damien wrapped one arm around the big blond dog, and another around his cat. “I can’t say goodbye to Jack and deal with Neferet’s drama.” He looked from Stevie Rae to Aphrodite. “I understand why Zoey’s soul shattered.”

“No no no no.” Aphrodite bent over and put her finger in Damien’s face. “I am not dealing with that stress again. Jack being dead is bad. Really bad. But you gotta keep yourself together.”

“For us,” Stevie Rae added in a much softer tone, giving Aphrodite a be nice! look. “You gotta keep yourself together for your friends. We almost lost Zoey. We lost Jack and Heath. We can’t lose you, too.”

“I can’t fight her anymore,” Damien said. “I don’t have any heart left.”

“It’s still there,” Stevie Rae said softly. “It’s just broken.”

“It’ll fix,” Aphrodite added, not unkindly.

Damien’s eyes were bright with tears when he looked at her. “How do you know? Your heart’s never been broken.” He turned his gaze to Stevie Rae. “Neither has yours.” As Damien continued to speak, the tears fell faster and faster down his cheeks. “Don’t let your hearts be broken. It hurts too much.”

Stevie Rae swallowed hard. She couldn’t tell him—she couldn’t tell any of them, but the more she cared about Rephaim, the more her heart broke every single day.

“Zoey’s going to make it, and she lost her Heath,” Aphrodite said. “If she can do it, you can do it, too, Damien.”

“And she’s really coming home?” Damien repeated the question he’d started with.

“Yes,” Aphrodite and Stevie Rae said together.

“Okay. Good. Yeah. It’ll be better when Zoey’s here,” Damien said, still hugging Duchess, with Cameron pressed close to his side.

“Hey, Duchess and Cammy look like they could use some dinner,” Aphrodite said. Stevie Rae was surprised to see her reach out and, tentatively, pat the big dog’s head. “I don’t see any dog food in here, and all Cammy has is that wretched dry stuff. Quite frankly Maleficent won’t even look at anything that doesn’t appear to be fresh catch. How about I have Darius help me bring some food up for them? Unless you’d rather be alone. If so, I can take Cammy and Duchess with me and feed them for you.”

Damien’s eyes got all big and round. “No! Don’t take them. I want them to stay here with me.”

“Okay, okay, no problem. Darius can get Duchess’s dog food,” Stevie Rae spoke up, wondering what the heck Aphrodite was thinking. No way did Damien need to be without those two animals.

“Duch’s food and stuff is in Jack’s room,” Damien said, ending on a little sob.

“Would you like us to bring all her stuff in here for you?” Stevie Rae asked, taking Damien’s hand.

“Yes,” he whispered. Then his body jerked and his face blanched even whiter than it had been. “And don’t let them throw away Jack’s stuff! I have to see it! I have to go through it!”

“I’m already ahead of you on that. No way was I letting those vamps get their claws into Jack’s cool collections. I delegated the responsibility of boxing up his stuff and sneaking it out to the Twins,” Aprodite said, looking smug.

Damien, clearly forgetting for just an instant that his world was filled with tragedy, almost smiled. “You got the Twins to do something?”

“Damn right,” Aphrodite said.

“What’d it cost you?” Stevie Rae asked.

Aphrodite scowled. “Two shirts from Hale Bob’s new collection.”

“But I didn’t think his spring stuff was out yet,” Damien said.

“A: Hello—gay that you know that, and b: collections are always out early if you’re filthy rich and your mom ‘knows’ someone,” she said, air-quoting the word.

“Who’s Hale Bob?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Oh, for shit’s sake,” Aphrodite said. “Just come with me. You can help me carry the dog accoutrements.”

“And by that you mean I’m carryin’ them, right?”

“Right.” Aphrodite bent and, like she did it every day, kissed Damien on the top of his head. “I’ll be right back with the dog and cat crap. Oh, want me to bring Maleficent? She—”

“No!” Damien and Stevie Rae said together with twin tones of horror.

Aphrodite lifted her chin indignantly. “It’s so typical that no one understands that magnificent creature except me.”

“See you soon,” Stevie Rae told Damien, and kissed him on the cheek.

Out in the hall Stevie Rae frowned at Aphrodite. “Seriously, even you couldn’t have thought taking those animals away from him would be a good idea.”

Aphrodite rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back. “Of course not, moron. I knew it would horrify him and start to snap him out of his non-thinking-super-depressed state, which it did. Darius and I will bring animal food back for the dog and cat zoo up there and, just coincidentally, we’ll stop by the dining hall and get some to-go stuff for our dinner, bring enough for him, and Damien is too much of a lady to kick us out or make us eat by ourselves. Et voilà! Damien has something in his stomach before he has to go through the whole funeral pyre horribleness.”

“Neferet is up to something really, really bad,” Stevie Rae said.

“Count on it,” Aphrodite said.

“Well, at least it’s gonna happen in front of everybody, so she can’t, like, kill her.”

Aphrodite raised her brow disdainfully at Stevie Rae. “In front of everybody Neferet broke loose Kalona, killed Shekinah, and tried to order Stark, who cannot miss what the hell he shoots at, to fire an arrow at you once and at Z another time. Seriously, bumpkin, get a clue.”

“Well, there were extenuatin’ circumstances with me, and Neferet didn’t order Stark to shoot Z in front of the whole school, just in front of us and a bunch of nuns. Of course now she’s saying Kalona made her do it for both things. Plus, it’s still our word against hers. No one listens to teenagers, or nuns, for that matter.”

“Do you doubt for one single instant that Neferet can make whatever she does tonight look like she’s as innocent as an infant?” Aphrodite paused to grimace. “Goddess, I can’t stand babies—ugh, all that puking and eating and pooping and stuff. Plus, they stretch out your—”

“Really?” Stevie Rae interrupted her tirade. “I’m not talkin’ ’bout girl parts and babies with you.”

“I was just using an analogy, stupid. Basically, we’re in for some shit in just a few hours. So get Z ready while I try to prop up Damien so he won’t dissolve into a puddle of tears and snot and angst tonight.”

“You know, you can’t pretend to be all ‘I don’t care about Damien’ with me after I saw you kiss him on the top of his head.”

“Which I will deny for the rest of my very long and attractive life,” Aphrodite said.

“Aphrodite, is you ever gonna get un-obsessed with your own self?”

Stevie Rae and Aphrodite came to a sudden stop when Kramisha stood up from the shadows at the edge of the porch of the girl’s dorm.

“I’m gonna have to get my eyes checked. I can’t see crap until it’s right in front of me,” Stevie Rae said.

“It’s not you,” Aphrodite said in a deadpan voice. “It’s Kramisha. She’s black. Shadows are black—hence the reason we didn’t see her.”

Kramisha stood up and looked down her nose at Aphrodite. “No, you did not just—”

“Oh, please, save it.” Aphrodite breezed past her to the door of the dorm. “Prejudice, oppression, the Man, blah, blah, yawn, blah. I’m the biggest minority here, so don’t even try to pull that on me.”

Kramisha blinked twice and looked as stunned as Stevie Rae felt.

“Uh, Aphrodite,” Stevie Rae said. “You look like Barbie. How in the heck can you be a minority?”

Aphrodite pointed to her forehead, which was completely blank and unMarked. “Human in a school full of fledglings and vamps equals mi-nor-i-ty.” She opened the door and twitched into the building.