Текст книги "Redeemed"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 12 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

“Kalona, hear me! When I free myself I will come after you, too. Never forget that I held you bound, doing my bidding, once before. I shall do so again!”

The winged immortal didn’t even bother to turn to look at her. He called back over his shoulder, “Yes, I remember. I also remember that you could not keep me bound to you.”

“The next time I will not be so magnanimous. The next time we meet, I give you my oath I will destroy you as Nyx should have done when you betrayed her!”

That halted the winged immortal. He turned to meet her gaze, and in a voice that seemed to share the power of the fiery wall, Kalona blasted back at her, “Do you know why Nyx didn’t destroy me when I chose to Fall? Because Nyx is a true Goddess—loving, benevolent, loyal, and kind. You? You are a petulant child, a pretender, and a usurper. No matter how much vengeance you spew or how much chaos you cause, you will never be a Goddess!”

As he and Lynette disappeared into the night, Neferet shrieked her fury to the sky.

Zoey

When I woke up I smelled the delicious, familiar scent of roasting sweet corn and warm salted butter. Still not quite awake, I smiled. I was at Grandma’s house. Grandma grilled the best sweet corn in the universe.

Then I made the mistake of opening my eyes. I was lying on one of Grandma’s quilts, but I was definitely not at Grandma’s house. I was looking up at the night sky through the drooping boughs of a giant oak tree. Then my memory caught up with the rest of my senses and I sat straight up.

“Slowly, Zoey. You shouldn’t try to stand yet,” said Sister Mary Angela. As she hurried over to me, the nun called, “Zoey’s awake,” over her shoulder.

“Here, drink this.” She handed me a plastic cup. I could smell that it was filled with blood-laced wine, and my mouth started to water. I hesitated to take it from her, though. It just felt too awkward, maybe even disrespectful, to take blood and wine from a nun.

She patted my shoulder. “It will ground you. Take, drink, and be nourished.”

“Thank you. I haven’t told you this recently, but I really appreciate how great you are. You—you mean a lot to me.” I sniffled, feeling tears in the back of my throat.

Sister Mary Angela smiled. “Well, thank you, Zoey. I know you mean what you just said, but I promise you won’t feel so emotional after you drink that.”

“Okay.” I sniffled again and upended the cup. I don’t really like wine, especially not red wine, but as disturbing as it sounds, I love blood. The blood in the wine made it taste like liquid chocolate, dark and smooth. My taste buds registered immediate deliciousness, and then an instant later power zipped through my body, clearing the impending tears from my eyes and the cobwebs from my brain. I looked around and right away saw Stevie Rae, Damien, and Shaylin. They were awake, standing by the park’s outdoor charcoal grill, munching away on grilled sweet corn. Well, at least I hadn’t imagined that. Smiling, Grandma was coming toward me with an ear of corn on a paper plate and another plastic cup in her hand. I started to smile at her and then realized who I hadn’t seen.

“Where are Thanatos and Shaunee?”

Grandma handed me the plate, saying, “Eat and finish grounding yourself, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. Thanatos is within, being well cared for.” She nodded her head toward a place behind me, and I swiveled around so that I was looking at the base of the ginormous tree.

White canvas had been draped over and through the lower boughs, forming a small tent above the wrought-iron ritual table. Suzanne Grimms and Rabbi Bernstein were seated on either side of the open front flap of the tent. The ladies had their eyes closed and their hands folded in silent, meditative prayer. Through the opening in the tent I could see that all five pillar candles had been placed on the table and lit. They sent a warm, flickering glow over the mound of blankets at the base of the table and the still figure that lay on the makeshift pallet. I could also see that Shaunee was sitting on the ground near the pallet. She was sipping from her own cup. There were two nibbled ears of corn on a paper plate beside her. She caught my gaze and gave me a grim smile.

I started to get up, but Grandma pressed my shoulder down, sitting beside me. “Eat and drink first. Besides Thanatos, you are the last to awaken.”

“So, she’s okay? She’s just sleeping?” I asked around a mouthful of corn.

“She seems well, though she doesn’t wake. Tell me, Zoeybird, do you remember your dreams?”

I shook my head. “I only remember seeing everyone passing out, and then I fainted. Then I smelled your corn and thought I was at your house.”

She smiled again. “I brought supplies with me. Corn is always eaten after a Busk Ceremony. I thought it would be appropriate after this ceremony as well.”

“It’s perfect, Grandma. And yummy, too. As usual.” I chewed quickly and swallowed, then asked, “Did it really work? Is Tulsa protected from the Mayo?”

“Well, I don’t know about the Mayo, but Tulsa is protected from the rest of the world.”

I looked up to see Detective Marx approaching me. He had his phone in his hand and a super-shocked look on his face.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means this ancient spell Thanatos cast is working exactly like the spell Cleopatra cast around Alexandria. The 911 lines are flooded. Apparently, there is a selective wall of fire stranding some people inside the city limits and stopping others from entering Tulsa—and that includes the FBI team that was supposed to be providing our backup.”

“Thanatos’s spell asked that no one with ill intent enter or leave Tulsa,” I said. “Wow, it did work!”

“The FBI can be a pain in the ass, but they don’t wish us ill,” Marx said.

“They intend violence. Do you think violence is a positive or negative thing, Detective?” Aurox asked, joining us.

Marx frowned. “If I had to make a blanket categorization, I’d have to say violence is negative, but there’s way more to it than that. Violence can be used in a positive way, to protect and serve. I’d know a little something about that.”

Grandma nodded in acknowledgment. “We are all quite sure you do, Detective. It has been your life’s work.”

“And mine,” Aurox said. “That is why I understand it so intimately. Be it good or ill willed, there should be choices made that do not include violence. Thanatos has seen enough death to understand that, too. She cast a spell as raw and basic as Old Magick, and as Zoey can tell you, Old Magick works on intent more than anything else.”

“Thanatos’s intent wasn’t just to stop Neferet. It also was to stop the violence and chaos that are going on in our unbalanced world,” I said.

“You do understand,” Aurox said.

I started to tell him I understood and agreed, when the phone I’d stuck in my pocket started vibrating like crazy. “Sorry, I thought I turned this off,” I said, pulling it out of my pocket to see Aphrodite’s picture lighting up the screen.

“Speak to your Prophetess,” Grandma said.

I tapped the phone. “Hey,” I said.

“Get back here. Now,” Aphrodite said.

“What’s going on?”

“Kalona’s back. The spell worked. One of Neferet’s hostages got out. And to say Neferet’s pissed is like saying Louis Vuitton makes cute purses. Hello, understatement of the decade.”

“Okay, we’re on our way.” I clicked off and faced my audience, which now included Stevie Rae, Damien, and Shaylin. “It worked. Totally. And Kalona got one of Neferet’s hostages out. They’re waiting for us at the House of Night.”

“Neferet will be furious,” Grandma said.

“And hard to contain,” Damien said.

I glanced at the tent that held Thanatos in time to see Shaunee coming out to join us. She looked tired, but she seemed to be okay. “The spell worked,” I told her.

Shaunee nodded. “I know. I can feel it whenever the protective wall flames on.”

“You should eat more,” Damien said. “You don’t look grounded yet.”

“I’ll unwrap the sandwiches I brought and get more corn,” Grandma said, reaching into her bottomless picnic basket.

“You do look really tired. Are you okay?” I asked Shaunee.

She didn’t answer for long enough that I started to worry. Finally she said, “I’m not bad, but I’m not okay, either. And I can say the same for Thanatos.”

“Did she wake up?” I peered around Shaunee, but all I saw was the High Priestess’s motionless form.

“She’s not asleep,” Shaunee said. “She’s meditating. It’s only the power of her intent, mixed with the power of my element, that is holding the spell in place.”

“How long can you two keep this up?” Detective Marx asked.

Shaunee’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know. It’s hard—really hard—and draining. It’s like I’m running a marathon without moving. I don’t understand how Cleopatra kept her spell up for all those years.”

“She wielded Old Magick.” I felt guilty as hell. “I wish I could help you!”

“’Course ya do, Z. We all know that. And we all believe you’ll figure it out,” Stevie Rae said.

“Go back to the school, Z. Meditate, pray, do whatever you have to do to find a way to use your Seer Stone,” Shaunee said. “Thanatos and I can’t hold on for the years Cleopatra did.”

“Wait, you’re not coming back to the school with us?” I asked.

“I’m staying here as long as Thanatos needs me. I promised her.”

Instantly I wondered: What am I supposed to do if I have to cast a spell and my fire is missing? But I didn’t get a chance to ask my question aloud because a car roared up and screeched to a stop, parking street side of the park. We all gawked.

“It’s a 1968 fastback Mustang, might even be a Bullitt. Silver with a black stripe, just like Eleanor in Gone in 60 Seconds. That old girl is a monster,” said Detective Marx with that weird guy appreciation they seem to all have for muscle cars.

Erik got out of the driver’s side.

“I thought Erik had a new red Mustang,” Shaylin said.

“He did. He sold it and bought this one,” Damien said.

“Of course he did,” Stevie Rae and I said at the same time.

“Girls, be kind. Erik is a nice young man,” Grandma said.

“His colors are getting better,” Shaylin said. “But he’s not really my type.”

I was super glad Aphrodite wasn’t with us, but the comments I could imagine her saying had me biting my cheek to keep from giggling.

“Hi, guys. Nice job on the spellwork,” Erik said. His gaze went to the tent. “Is Thanatos okay?”

“For right now,” Shaunee said.

“Meaning she or the spell isn’t going to be okay for much longer?” he asked.

Shaunee blew out a frustrated breath. “Look, Erik, we’re doing our best!”

“No, no, that came out all wrong. I didn’t mean to sound negative. What you’ve all done here is incredible. It’s just that Kalona sent me here to relieve Marx and Aurox because he’s calling all of you back to the House of Night, and I just wondered how long I’m going to be here.”

I frowned at him. “Like you mind being here?”

He ran his hand through his hair in frustration. “No! That came out wrong, too. I’m going to start over.” He turned around and the Erik that faced us again was totally the actor—charming, smiling, concerned. “Hey, guys! Great job on the spell! Kalona has called you back to the House of Night. I’m going to stay here, though, and take care of Thanatos and Shaunee, for as long as you need me to.”

I still frowned at him, saying, “No one knows how long the spell can last. Thanatos is meditating too hard to talk. Shaunee is helping her with the fire part, but that’s about all anyone can do.”

“And four Wise Women are watching over them both as they struggle to maintain the spell,” Grandma said.

“The rest of us are ready to go back to the school,” I said, standing up and brushing off my jeans. “Right, guys?”

Everyone nodded except Aurox, who was studying Erik thoughtfully. He said, “Did Kalona request by name that I return?”

“Yeah, Kalona said you and Marx were needed back at school, and I’m going to take your place protecting Thanatos.”

Aurox looked from Erik to me, clearly not happy. “What’s up?” I asked.

“Well, Zo, Erik isn’t exactly a Warrior,” Aurox said, having one of his I-sound-freakishly-like-Heath moments.

“Hey, kiss my ass!” Erik said, puffing up like a blowfish. “I don’t have to be a Warrior to keep nosy humans from messing with Thanatos and the rest of the women.”

“I meant no disrespect to the vampyre,” Aurox said, ignoring Erik completely (which only made the situation worse) and addressing me. “I simply wish to be sure our people are protected.”

“Our people?” Erik said sarcastically. “You don’t have any people, Bull Boy.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” I said as Marx stepped between them because idiot Erik looked like he actually might throw a punch at Aurox. “You’re not going to fight on this sacred ground.”

“It would be a sacrilege,” Grandma said, shaking her head sadly at Erik. “Erik Night, I would have thought you would know better by now.”

He stepped back, unable to meet Grandma’s eyes. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”

“It is Aurox who deserves your apology, not me,” Grandma told him.

“I was wrong. I’m sorry,” Erik said, offering his hand to Aurox.

“Apology accepted.” Aurox shook his hand in a forearm grip. “I truly meant you no disrespect.”

“Well, I truly meant some to you,” Erik said. “You touched a nerve with that whole Warrior thing.”

“Understood,” Aurox said. “I will choose my words more carefully in the future.”

“There, that energy is what this sacred ground represents—the joining of peoples and the clearing of enmity,” Grandma said with satisfaction. Then she turned to me. “Return to the school with the rest of your circle, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. We will look after Shaunee and the High Priestess. Let your mind be free of worry for them.” Grandma hugged me tightly. “Take my love with you and let it give you strength and wisdom.”

I clung to her, wishing with all my might that at least a little of the Wise Woman my grandma is would rub off on me and my friends.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Aphrodite

“I don’t trust her. At all,” were the first words Aphrodite said to Zoey as she led her group through the main entrance of the House of Night. She’d stopped her pacing and stood in front of Zoey, hands on hips, frowning at all of them and feeling a ball of stress stabbing between her shoulder blades. “And the next time you try to leave me behind to deal with a group of humans, I am going to quit. I’d rather face Neferet alone with no damn powers at all than explain to one more paranoid mommy that No, fledglings and vampyres are not all salivating at the thought of so many humans sleeping under their roof, no one is going to eat you or your snot-nosed offspring! Talk about annoying! Why would anyone want to eat any of them? Most of them are fat anyway. Eesh!”

“Aphrodite, you’re gonna have to slow down. I have no clue who the ‘her’ is, or why mommies would be asking you crazy questions,” Zoey said.

“The her is Lynette Witherspoon, supposed ex-minion of Neferet. And mommies are asking me questions because I am the only non-threatening, non-fledgling slash vampyre in sight.”

“They don’t know her very dang well if they think Aphrodite is non-threatening,” Stevie Rae said.

Aphrodite skewered her with her eyes. “Zip it, bumpkin.”

“Did you say Lynette Witherspoon? As in the owner of Everlasting Expressions?” Damien asked.

“Yes and yes,” Aphrodite said. “And how the hell do you know that?”

Damien grinned. “I simply adore Brides of Oklahoma magazine, and Everlasting Expressions is the event planner for the most spectacular of the magnificent weddings.”

“You are so gay,” Aphrodite told him.

“Good, you have finally returned,” Kalona said, striding into the foyer.

“That’s what I was saying. Are you going to fill them in or am I?” Aphrodite said.

“I am going to relieve Darius and Stark at the perimeter. You brief Zoey and the rest of them.” Kalona hesitated. “I will bring our Warriors up to date. Detective Marx and Aurox, would you join me?”

The guys nodded and moved off with Kalona.

Aphrodite sighed, wishing she were going to meet Darius, even if that would mean she’d have to put up with Aurox and Kalona and Marx. It seemed like forever since she and her gorgeous Warrior had had one stress-free day.

“Earth to Aphrodite—hello? Anybody home?” Damien said.

“Yeah, you’re supposed to be briefin’ us, remember?” Stevie Rae said.

“Stand down, Herd of Nerds. I’m getting to it. Follow me to the infirmary. Lenobia is tucking Witherspoon away in one of the rooms there. I think she should be in the dungeon, but Lenobia and, shockingly, Kalona, outvoted me. Apparently, dealing with Neferet has the woman on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Whatever. Like we haven’t all been there before?” Aphrodite started marching away while we scrambled to keep up with her.

“Do we have a dungeon?” Shaylin asked.

“No, we don’t,” Damien assured her. “Don’t let Aphrodite get to you.” Then he reached out and plucked at Aphrodite’s sleeve. “Slow down, we’re all exhausted from the Protection Ritual.”

Aphrodite narrowed her eyes at Damien, but Z stepped in. “Damien’s right. Plus, none of us need to hear whatever Crazy Town you’re going to tell us about while we’re chasing after you. And there’s no point in updating us in front of the woman you’re talking about, especially if you don’t trust her. Let’s go to the cafeteria, get some more to eat so that we can start to feel normal again, and you can tell us about this Lynette Witherspoon person there.”

Aphrodite clued Z in, saying, “The cafeteria is full of humans. Loud, nervous, stress-eating, annoying humans.”

“All righty, then, let’s make it the professors’ dining hall instead,” Z said.

“Oooooh! I’ve never been up there! Are you sure it’s okay?” Stevie Rae chirped.

“I’m sure it is,” Zoey said before Aphrodite could answer her.

Aphrodite raised one brow, stepped aside, and motioned for Z to take over. “Well, then, lead on with your big girl panties.”

And Zoey did.

Zoey

A long, shocked silence followed Aphrodite’s retelling of everything the Witherspoon woman had reported.

Shaylin brushed a trembling hand over her face and said, “Dead Fish Eyes—that isn’t just the color of Neferet’s aura; it’s what she really is—dead inside.”

“All those people,” Damien said in a hushed voice. “She’s going to kill them all eventually.”

Aphrodite nodded. “When Lynette described everything that had happened, the puzzle pieces fell into place from my last vision. Goddess, I hate figurative language.” She looked at me and raised her brow. “You were too busy being a raving bitch, so I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but a pain-in-the-ass poem was my bonus prize.” She closed her eyes and recited:

With great power comes great responsibilities

Weigh the pleasure of leadership and luxury with the sword Damocles

When she believes the ancient is the key to all her needs

Then is when all will tumble down; then is when Light bleeds and bleeds.

Aphrodite opened her eyes and met my gaze. “I thought it was talking about you.” She held up her fingers, ticking off her points. “First, you have way more power than makes sense. Second, you sometimes do actually act like a leader, and we do actually follow you, which means you have access to all of this—” Aphrodite paused and gestured at the beautiful dining hall. “Then there’s the end part about ‘she’ believing the ancient is the key and Light bleeding because of it. Well, that sounds like you using your Seer Stone and messing up the balance of Light and Darkness.”

“That analysis does sound reasonable,” Damien said.

“Thank you, Queen Damien. Reasonable, yes. Correct, apparently not. I skipped the whole sword Damocles part because I didn’t want to look it up and because I seriously hate trying to figure out symbolism. But then we found out you didn’t kill those men, and Neferet slaughtered a shit ton of people and proclaimed the Mayo her Temple and herself Goddess. So I read the stupid story of Damocles.”

“That’s about, like, waiting for something awful to happen, right?” Stevie Rae said.

“Most people think so,” Damien said in his teacher voice. “Actually, the story is an ancient parable. Damocles was a courtier whose job was, basically, to do nothing but lie around and amuse and flatter his king. One day Damocles made some comment about how fabulous it would be to be king. Basically, his king said, ‘Hey, if you think it’s so great to be king, then go ahead, try out my throne.’ Naturally, Damocles took him up on the offer. He was having a gay old time—” Here Damien stopped to giggle and say, “Gay! Heehees!”

“Oh, for shit’s sake, tell the rest of the story or I will,” Aphrodite said.

Damien got himself under control and continued. “Anyway, Damocles was having such a good time that it took him awhile to notice it, but hanging above him, on a thread as thin as a horse hair, was a sword. All of a sudden being king didn’t seem so awesome to Damocles and he begged the king to let him go back to his own life.”

“Oh, so the moral isn’t that doom and gloom is lurking,” I said as my mental lightbulb lit up. “It’s that you should be happy with what you’ve been given.”

“Yeah, and—as the guy in the NPR story explained so that I could effing understand the metaphor—not covet what you haven’t been given because that other oh-so-awesome life has it’s own bad shit, usually in proportion to how much responsibility and luxury you have. In conclusion, I think the prophecy was more about Neferet than you,” Aphrodite finished.

“Which means we’re super screwed because it’s not Zoey,” Shaylin said.

“Huh?” I said.

“Zoey, if it was about you, you’d listen to the warning,” she continued. “You really already have. You know Old Magick is important, but you realize the key to that power is you and your intent, and not just hooking into the power. Right?”

“Absolutely,” I agreed, and my mental lightbulb got brighter. “Oh, I get it! It is a warning about what Neferet is up to. She’s messed up the balance of Light and Darkness by waking up Old Magick.”

“And she’s not going to stop,” Damien said.

“True,” I said. “So the answer is simple. We’re going to have to stop her. For good.”

“I’m hoping you have a plan for that,” Aphrodite said.

“Thanks to you guys, I have the beginning of one. We need to find Neferet’s Damocles sword,” I said.

Kalona

“At least the protective wall contains her.” Darius was the first to speak after Kalona had explained to him, Stark, Aurox, and the detective the full extent of the macabre charade Neferet was playing out in her “Temple.”

“Only temporarily,” Aurox said.

Marx nodded. “Yeah, Thanatos and Shaunee are giving it all they’ve got, but it’s taking a terrible toll on them. Even they don’t have any idea how long they can keep the spell going—especially since it’s not confined just to the Mayo. It’s got all of Tulsa in a protective bubble.”

“You realize that’s good, right?” Stark said. When the detective looked at him questioningly, the boy continued. “The last thing we need right now is national involvement. Look at it like this—the fewer people who actually witness Neferet’s insanity, the easier our cleanup is going to be once we stop her.”

“Do you still believe she can be stopped?” Marx asked.

“I do,” Kalona said, and he did believe it. “I fought Darkness in one form or another for eons in the Otherworld. The war against it was never won because there must be Darkness as long as there is also Light. But Light does win individual battles. Neferet is simply another individual battle in which Light must vanquish this one particularly tenacious and evil form of Darkness.”

“But the whole balance and battle versus war thing means that you lost sometimes, too,” Marx said.

“I did,” Kalona said grimly. “But the biggest losses I experienced were internal. I allowed Darkness to corrupt something that was pure and honest and true, and when that happened, Darkness won a battle.”

“What makes you think Darkness won’t get to you again and you’ll lose another battle? This time at our expense,” Stark said.

“You’ve lost a battle to Darkness yourself, boy,” Kalona shot at the arrogant youth. “What makes you think Darkness won’t get to you again and you’ll lose another battle?”

Stark bristled, but he answered with no hesitation, “Because I love Zoey and I’ve pledged myself to the path of Nyx.”

“And that is how I can assure you, and myself, that I will not lose this battle—because of love and because of the oath I have given. I know what it’s like to be forsworn. I will not do that again. Ever,” Kalona said. He ran his hand across his brow. It was still damp with sweat, the only outward evidence he couldn’t control that showed the wounds he’d received the night before had not yet fully healed and continued to pain him. I need to climb high—perhaps to the roof of Nyx’s Temple. There the immortal magick in my blood can call healing to it—I must make time … I must make time.

“Hey, big guy, are you sure you don’t need some rest?” Marx was asking him.

Kalona waved away his inquiry, avoiding the question with one of his own. “Detective, I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

“Sure, anything, especially if it’ll help get rid of Neferet.”

“I’d like you to interrogate Lynette. She appears to be no more than an utterly terrified human, who has just been through the most traumatic experience in her life. She has answered all of our questions readily—explained how Neferet’s creatures are possessing humans, given us precise counts of how many humans are trapped in the Mayo, what Neferet is doing with them, and how many of them are under her control.”

“Sounds like she’s cooperating well,” Marx said.

“Yes, it does appear that way. But two things about her bother me. First, she keeps asking questions about Neferet.”

“Questions, like what?” Marx asked.

“Like what happened to Neferet to make her insane, how did she attain her power, is she really a goddess, and if she is, how are we going to stop her.”

“I can’t blame her for asking any of those questions,” Stark said. “If Neferet had just held me hostage, I’d want some info about her, too.”

“Agreed,” Kalona said. “And it wouldn’t worry me as much except for the second thing: she hesitated when I asked her to escape and come with me.”

“She absolutely refused to come with me,” Marx said, and then added, “Which was understandable. There was no protective shield up and Neferet would never have allowed her to walk out of there.”

“Very true, but my intuition says there is more to Lynette than she’s presenting. She claims that tonight she was being forced to go on an errand for Neferet, and that she was being accompanied by the threads of Darkness and a possessed servant to ensure her compliance and return. Yet she was outside the Temple, cloaked in Neferet’s concealment, well before anyone else joined her.”

“What’s her explanation for that?” Marx asked.

“That Neferet was showing all the other hostages she was her favorite by allowing her to leave the building unaccompanied,” Kalona said.

“Actually, that’s not good. Could be Lynette is harboring some Stockholm syndrome symptoms.”

“What is that?” Stark asked.

“It’s a survival mechanism for hostages fighting for their lives,” Darius said.

“I’m impressed,” Marx told him.

Darius’s lips twitched up. “Detective, Warrior training includes much more than swords and knives and guns. It also includes psychology—both human and vampyre.”

“I didn’t have any Warrior training,” Aurox said.

“Neither did I. I was born a Warrior.” Kalona paused and glanced at Stark, adding, “And the boy hasn’t had enough training to know much of anything. Please explain the syndrome to us.”

“Basically, certain conditions must be met. Let’s see, it’s been awhile since the academy. First, there has to be a perceived threat to the hostage’s survival and the belief that the captor is willing to act on that threat,” Marx said.

“The Witherspoon woman meets that condition,” Kalona said.

“The next step is that the hostage’s perceptions of small kindnesses from the captor must come within an atmosphere of terror,” Darius added.

“I would definitely call watching tendrils of Darkness burst through sixty human bodies while Neferet gave her a nice glass of wine and then discussed event planning afterward meeting that criterion,” Stark said.

“Yeah, you can check that box off,” Marx said. “And the last step is that she has to have been isolated from everyone’s perspectives other than those of her captor, and have the perceived inability to escape.”

“Check and check,” Stark said.

“That could explain her curiosity about Neferet. She isn’t asking because she’s worried. She’s asking because she’s obsessed,” Darius said.

“I’ll talk to her,” Marx said grimly. “Keep her on lockdown, only be sure you do so in an unthreatening manner. And your gut is right, Kalona. Don’t trust her.”

Kalona

By the Goddess he was tired! Now that he was finally alone, Kalona could allow the extent of his weariness to show. His wings drooped, brushing the ground. His shoulders ached. Actually, his entire body ached!

The winged immortal looked up at the rooftop of Nyx’s Temple and blew out a long, exhausted breath. Just do it. Do not think it. Stark has to be relieved before dawn, so I must find a way to shake off the lingering pain of my wounds. He put his head down, took several long strides and, with a groan, leaped, forcing his wings to beat against the air and lift him far enough off the ground that he was able to grab the lip of the Temple’s pitched roof. He pulled himself up and lay on his stomach, trying to catch his breath.

When the blast of sunlight hit him, Kalona couldn’t control his weakened body’s automatic response to turn away and cringe. Gruffly, he said, “Dim your light, Erebus! You’ll draw the entire campus.”

The garish sunlight faded to the soft glow of the gloaming of twilight. “Brother, you do not look well.”

Kalona used the peak of the Temple’s roof to pull himself to a sitting position, leaning against the stone chimney with what he hoped was nonchalance. “And you look exactly as you look every time you appear near me—unwelcome.”

Instead of responding in anger, Erebus studied his brother and then said, “Something has happened to you.”

“Yes. I have changed sides. Though I have not changed the level of my patience. This is the second time today I have had to explain myself, which is two times too many. Why are you here, Erebus?”