Текст книги "Redeemed"

Автор книги: P. C. Cast

Соавторы: Kristin Cast,P. C. Cast
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

CHAPTER TEN

Aphrodite

“Holy crap! You will not effing believe what’s just gone viral on YouTube!” Nicole ran up the stairs from the auditorium to the stage, waving her iPad like a crazy person.

Aphrodite glared at her and brushed the iPad away. “Seriously? The assembly just ended. You were on YouTube when I was speaking?”

“Seriously.” Nicole rolled her eyes. “Get over it. Everyone was on YouTube. You have to check this out.” She shoved the iPad at Aphrodite.

“Being a teacher is a pain in the ass. Teenagers suck,” Aphrodite said, still ignoring the iPad.

“Ohmygoodness, is that Kalona? On YouTube?” Stevie Rae pushed around Aphrodite to peek at the screen.

“What? Kalona?” Lenobia hurried to join Stevie Rae, with Darius and Rephaim close behind.

“Fine. I’ll look. Now that I’m done telling the entire student body that we’re going to have to save the world. Again.” Aphrodite glanced at the screen and her eyes went huge and round. “Oh, for shit’s sake! What took you so long to tell us? Turn that damn thing up!” She grabbed the iPad, tapped the replay button, and turned the volume up all the way.

The video wasn’t professional, but the beginning of it was super clear. First, it focused on Thanatos. She was standing in front of a seriously messed-up-looking building that appeared to be covered with a slimy black curtain. They watched as the High Priestess finished her spellwork, raising her arms and cradling a bunch of beautiful glowing orbs. When they whooshed off into the sky, the video was still focused on Thanatos, but in the background they could hear Neferet yelling.

“Death’s crone, you have no dominion over my Temple!”

The video shifted so that they could see Neferet standing in front of what had to be the Mayo.

“She’s a bunch of fries short of a Happy Meal,” Stevie Rae said.

Aphrodite didn’t take her eyes off the screen. “That’s all you got, bumpkin?”

“I’d say crazier than a shit house rat,” Nicole said.

“No one asked—” Aphrodite began, but the explosion on the video cut off her words.

“Oh, Goddess, no!” Lenobia gasped as they watched Neferet blast a wave of Darkness after Thanatos and the rest of them.

“Father’s saving them!” Rephaim said.

“Look at him move.” Darius’s voice was hushed, respectful. “His speed and strength are incredible.”

Aphrodite didn’t get a chance to agree. The video ended with whoever was taking it jostling around to get inside the school’s Hummer, though he still managed to film Neferet and her bloody tentacles of Darkness slithering back inside the Mayo.

Then the interview began, and Aphrodite had to tell herself to close her unattractively gaping mouth because there sat Kalona, next to Thanatos—wings and all—on Fox 23.

“I am Kalona, immortal brother of Erebus. Once, when the earth was younger, I was Warrior and companion to the Goddess Nyx, but I chose poorly and because of that I Fell from the side of my Goddess in the Otherworld to this realm.”

“Erebus’s brother? You’ve got to fucking be kidding!” Aphrodite felt like her brain was going to explode.

“It is the truth,” Darius said quietly as the video concluded.

The screen went dark and Aphrodite stared at him. “You knew?”

“Yes, Kalona told us—Zoey, Stark, me,” Darius admitted.

“And none of you thought that was important enough to tell any of the rest of us?” Lenobia asked, looking almost as annoyed as Aphrodite felt.

Darius’s wide shoulders shrugged. “Honestly, I didn’t give the truth of it much thought. Kalona’s veracity has been more than questionable since the moment he appeared here.”

“But now you believe him,” Rephaim said.

Darius met his gaze. “I do.”

“Rephaim, did you know your daddy was Erebus’s brother?” Stevie Rae asked.

Bird Boy’s eyes looked sad. “Father never speaks of before.”

“Which means no, you did not?” Aphrodite asked.

“Correct,” Rephaim said, sounding eerily like his father.

“This changes things,” Lenobia said.

“Yeah, in an awesome way.” Nicole nodded like a bobblehead. “It means we have Nyx’s Warrior on our team.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Aphrodite said dryly. “It means we have Nyx’s ex-Warrior who screwed up so badly he got kicked out of the Otherworld on our team. And that isn’t so awesome.”

“He said he’s trying to atone,” Rephaim said.

“And he saved Thanatos and the rest of them,” Darius said.

“Sorry, but I’m not ready to jump blindly on Team Kalona,” Aphrodite said.

“I think it is blind to ignore what is in front of our eyes,” Rephaim said, gesturing at the dark iPad screen.

“And I think there’s a whole bunch of stuff about Kalona we don’t know.” She paused and gave Darius a hard look. “Or at least most of us don’t know. Now, if there isn’t something you’d rather do, I’d appreciate it if you’d round up all of the fledglings you think might have some Warrior talent. I’m pretty sure Thanatos is going to want a battle-ready head count. After watching Crazy on YouTube, I have a feeling Neferet’s not going to give a shit about Team Kalona.” Aphrodite slapped her forehead and then added sarcastically, “Wait! Effing Neferet probably already knows about the Kalona slash Erebus connection like practically everyone else except me.” She flipped back her hair and twitched away.

It wasn’t until Aphrodite got outside the auditorium that she slowed down and let her thoughts catch up with her emotions. Her heart was thundering and her stomach felt sick. She was pissed. Super pissed.

No, that’s not true. I’m not pissed. I’m freaked out and upset.

With a giant sigh, Aphrodite moved from the sidewalk to one of the benches under a budding oak. The hand that brushed the thick blond hair from her face was shaky.

Darius had kept something from her, something important. Until that moment she’d thought he was different from all the other guys on this earth. He was supposed to be honest. He was supposed to be loyal. And, most of all, he was supposed to love her enough never to lie to her or keep anything from her.

A lie count was the real gauge of how much someone loved you. Aphrodite knew that because she’d grown up watching an ongoing lie count grow and grow. Her parents had pretended to be the perfect couple, but the truth was they had hated each other almost as much as they hated her. Except for when they were in public, they’d lived totally separate lives—they hadn’t even shared a bedroom for more than a decade, let alone shared secrets.

They’d lied to each other on a daily basis.

When she’d been only eight years old, Aphrodite had sworn to herself that she’d never, ever get herself into anything like her parents’ marriage. Hell, until she’d met Darius, she hadn’t let any guy get close enough to her for it to matter whether he lied to her or not. She’d been sure she’d lied to them first. Cheated on them first. Broken up with them first.

“I can feel your sadness, my beauty. Please talk to me.”

Aphrodite looked up at the sound of Darius’s voice, but she didn’t meet his eyes. She stared over his shoulder. “What do you want to talk about?”

He sat beside her and used the back of his hand to gently wipe a tear from her cheek. She jerked away from him, hastily brushing at her other cheek. She hadn’t even known she’d been crying!

“I want to talk about us,” he said.

“Really? Wouldn’t it just be easier to keep on going like we have been? Pretending to be all ‘in love forever and ever’?” she air-quoted sarcastically.

“That has never been a pretense for me. You know that, Aphrodite.” He spoke calmly, earnestly.

She wanted to slap him—hurt him—make him feel even a little of the fear she was feeling. But she didn’t do anything violent. That would mean she’d lost control. That would mean she’d become her mother. Instead, Aphrodite struck him with words.

“And how the hell would I know that? I can’t be inside your head. I can’t even share your feelings like a real Priestess would. But, whatever. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s fine, and we both have a bunch of shit to do because, as per usual, Darkness is about to try to take over our world.”

“Darkness will have to wait, because you are my world, and if I lose you, I lose myself.”

Aphrodite meant to stand up and walk away and not look back. She was going to make her heart hard, like it used to be when it had actually protected her. Before the shit storm that was Zoey and her Nerd Herd and Darius had happened to her.

She was going to, but somehow Darius had said exactly the right thing so that her legs suddenly decided to listen to her heart instead of her head.

Aphrodite met his gaze. “You lied to me.”

“No, my beauty. I simply didn’t tell you something.”

“Why? Why did you keep that from me? Kalona being Erebus’s brother is a pretty big fucking deal!”

“I don’t care about Kalona or what he did or didn’t say. I care about you and what you say.”

“Me?” Aphrodite frowned at him. “What the hell are you talking about? Not once have I mentioned anything remotely like the possibility of Kalona and Erebus being brothers.”

Darius’s smile was slow and sweet. “Exactly. And if you, my beautiful, wise, gifted Prophetess, don’t have any insight into Kalona’s true past, then why would I care to mention an offhand comment the winged immortal made? Aphrodite, if it was important for us to know Kalona was Erebus’s brother, then I believe you would have told me.”

Aphrodite shook her head, feeling a little dizzy as she realized what Darius was actually saying to her.

He took her hand. “Have I told you how much I love you today?”

“N-no,” she whispered, thinking, Please don’t say it if you don’t mean it—please, please don’t.

“With all my being,” he said.

Tears leaked down her cheeks, but she didn’t look away from him.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

“I am. It still scares me,” she admitted.

“It scares me, too, but being with you—really with you and not just pretending so that my heart stays safe—is worth facing and conquering that fear.”

“But you’re a Warrior. I’m nothing, not really. I’m just…” Her voice faded. She couldn’t say it, but the words filled her mind: I’m just the daughter of an awful woman who taught me how to hate, and to never, ever trust love.

“You are the bravest person I know,” Darius said solemnly. “And you are not, nor will you ever be, your mother.”

“And you won’t ever lie to me.”

She didn’t speak it as a question, but he dropped from the bench to his knee and pressed her hand against his heart, saying, “Aphrodite, Prophetess of Nyx, I give you my oath that I will never lie to you. Should I not always speak to you the truth, may the earth swallow me whole so that my spirit never finds its way to the Otherworld.”

A terrible shiver passed through Aphrodite and she grabbed Darius and pulled him into her arms. “No, stop it! Anyone can accidentally tell a lie, anyone! I don’t accept that oath!”

Darius leaned back, holding her gently by her trembling shoulders and smiled. “But I am not anyone. I am yours. Your Warrior. Your lover. Your mate. I swear never to lie to you because that would wound you beyond bearing, and I would rather the earth swallow me forever than do that to you.”

As she stared at Darius and saw the truth in his eyes, something broke free inside Aphrodite—something small and sharp that had been lodged deep within her for a very, very long time. She gasped, drew a breath, then let it out slowly.

“It’s gone,” she whispered.

“What is gone, my beauty?”

“My fear. It’s gone, Darius. You chased it away.” Aphrodite knew she sounded young and silly. She didn’t care. For the first time in her life, she wasn’t afraid of losing love. “I can’t lose you!” she blurted.

“No,” he said, smiling again. “You cannot ever lose me. And I did not chase away your fear. You released it.”

“Oh,” she said softly, finally understanding. “Sorry that I took so long.”

“You took exactly as long as was necessary, and I don’t regret one moment of the wait.”

Darius kissed her then, and Aphrodite knew complete happiness.

Until Aurox’s voice interrupted. “Darius! There you are. Come quickly. They are at the gate!”

Aphrodite leaned on Darius’s shoulder and frowned up at Aurox. “Oh, for shit’s sake, if you messed up this moment because Zoey and the Nerd Herd are back, I am going to smack the crap right outta—”

“Not Zoey!” Aurox said. “Humans! There are humans at the gate asking to be let inside because they want us to protect them from Neferet!”

“Well, in that case, I suppose we should let them in,” Darius said, standing and offering Aphrodite his hand. “Don’t you think so, my beauty?”

She sighed and muttered, “Fine. Whatever. As long as there are no politicians with them.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Zoey

“Ah, hell! A mob? That’s all we need right now.” I sighed in frustration as we went through the Twenty-first Street light at Utica and got within sight of the school. It was a super-weird scene. By now it was after midnight, and the street was dark. It should have been empty, too, but the big iron school gates were open, and a whole bunch of people were crowded at least ten deep in front of them. The two gaslights encased inside weathered copper sconces threw flickering shadows in a semi-circle over the group. People also stretched down both sides of the street. Outside the reach of the school’s flames, I could see the dark shapes of the cars that were parked up on the sidewalk, looking abandoned and totally out of place.

“Do you see anything burning except our lanterns? Like a ginormous cross?” Shaunee’s head poked between Stark’s and mine as she tried to get a better view from the backseat.

“Stop and let me out of here. I shall deal with this!” Kalona said.

“No!” Thanatos and Marx and Grandma shouted together.

“They don’t appear angry,” Thanatos said.

Detective Marx braked and rolled down his window. We all strained to listen, then he said, “It’s hard to see, but I don’t hear any yelling.”

“My night vision is better than yours and I can see no shoving or panicked milling. Everything looks remarkably calm,” Thanatos said.

“Yeah, well, I’d rather be safe than sorry, so let’s be sure they know which side of the law the House of Night is on.”

The detective grabbed the portable cop light he’d brought from ONEOK and slapped it on his side of the roof of the Hummer. He flipped a switch and it started to rotate the blue and red strobe that was all too familiar to any of us who might have not fully stopped at the four-way down the street from South Intermediate High School on 101st and Lynn Lane. Not that I had any personal experience with that. I’m just sayin’ it was weird to be inside the cop car when the thing lit up.

Marx tapped at it again and an even more obnoxious siren shrieked twice. The light and the sound worked together perfectly. The crowd rippled and turned toward us and, recognizing the presence of the TPD, parted so that the Hummer was able to turn into the school’s entrance.

Standing where sturdy iron should have been safely closed, Aphrodite, Darius, Stevie Rae, Rephaim, Lenobia, and Aurox were lined across the driveway, making a human gate.

“What are they doing?” Stark asked the question we all had to be thinking.

“I hope they are making wise decisions,” Thanatos said.

Silently I agreed as my eyes went to Aphrodite first. If she looked pissed and/or had a drink in her hand, I’d know whatever was going on was bad—burning cross and shouting townsfolk or not. All she looked was confused. I mean, obviously confused. She had one hand on her hip and was shrugging her shoulders. At the same time Lenobia was nodding and speaking to someone in the crowd I couldn’t quite see.

“Aphrodite looks confused, but not freaked,” I spoke my surprised observation aloud. “And Lenobia looks like she’s okay with whatever is going on. It must not be that horrible, whatever it is.”

“There’s Sister Mary Angela and Sister Emily. Oh, now I can see! There’s a group of the nuns in the forefront.” Grandma pointed and waved. “All is well if they’re part of the crowd.”

“That’s a good theory, but I’m pulling inside the school grounds before any of you get out. And I want you to stay on the House of Night side of the gate—no matter who might be calling you outside,” Marx said.

I could see that Grandma had her scolding face on, but Thanatos’s hasty, “Agreed, Detective,” silenced her.

I was glad. Okay, maybe it was because I hadn’t been out of jail for twenty-four hours, but a crowd of humans milling around at the school’s gate—even familiar humans who appeared to be milling peacefully—made my stomach clench with stress. Not to mention that it was past midnight not long after Neferet had been tossing exploded people parts from the balcony of the Mayo. I had no desire to scold or disobey Marx and Thanatos. Actually, I hoped I’d done enough disobeying for the rest of what would, hopefully, become my long and boring life.

And then Kalona got out of the Hummer.

“Hey, is that the winged guy?” someone from the crowd shouted.

“Wow! Son of Erebus!” someone else called out the misinformation and mispronounced Erebus so that it sounded like airbus, which had Stark covering a laugh with a cough.

I elbowed Stark and he shot me his cute, cocky grin, mouthing airbus! I rolled my eyes.

“Okay, okay,” Detective Marx was saying while he raised his hands in a calming gesture. “There’s nothing to see here. You folks need to move along and not block this entryway.”

“Oh, do not worry, Detective. We don’t wish to block the school’s entrance. We only wish to enter the school.” The tall, wimpled nun strode forward purposefully, smiling with motherly warmth. “It is so nice to see you again, Kevin.”

“Sister Mary Angela, ma’am.” Detective Marx tipped an invisible hat to her in an old-time gesture of respect. “It’s awful late for you and the other ladies to be paying a social call.”

“Oh, Kevin, we aren’t here to socialize,” she said cryptically.

Before Marx could start to question her, Grandma spoke up, walking past him to meet the nun at the boundary of the school. “Mary Angela, I was just thinking of you earlier.” They embraced quickly.

The nun laughed and said loudly enough for a good part of the watching crowd to overhear, “And when did you think of me? Before or after you were being attacked by Darkness? You do lead such an interesting life, Sylvia.”

Aphrodite, who had come over to stand by me, snorted, saying, “Old people should have less interesting lives.”

“We should have less interesting lives,” I said under my breath.

Grandma smiled as if she could hear us. “It was afterward, when Thanatos called for the prayers of Tulsa to aid us.”

“Ah, that is a lovely coincidence, because prayer is what brought us here.”

“Please explain, good Sister,” Thanatos said. I noticed she didn’t join Grandma. I glanced at Kalona, who was sticking to her side like he expected more tendrils of Darkness to appear at any moment.

“Oh, for shit’s sake, enough with this procrastinating,” Aphrodite muttered, and then strode forward. “They want protection.”

I followed her, though Stark’s hand on my elbow slowed me down.

“I believe the correct word for what they want is ‘sanctuary,’” said Lenobia.

“You mean the politically correct word,” Aphrodite said.

“If any of us were politically correct, we would not be here.” From the middle of the flickering lamplight, a petite woman, followed by a slender man, walked to stand beside Sister Mary Angela. She nodded politely to Thanatos. “Shalom, High Priestess.”

“I greet you with peace, Rabbi Margaret,” Thanatos said. Now that they were closer to the light, the couple looked kinda familiar to me. “I greet you with peace as well, Rabbi Steven. It is always a pleasure to see our neighbors from Temple Israel.”

I realized that’s why the woman and the man looked familiar. They were the married rabbis, Margaret and Steven Bernstein, who had recently become the rabbinic leadership at Temple Israel, which literally backed to the Utica Square side of the House of Night. I remembered that they’d raved about Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies at our open house before that night had, of course, ended in disaster and death.

“So it is indeed sanctuary you seek here tonight?” Thanatos asked the couple, but her voice carried throughout the crowd.

“We do,” said Rabbi Margaret, as she and her husband, as well as a bunch of people standing behind them, nodded their heads.

“The Benedictine Sisterhood seeks sanctuary as well,” said Sister Mary Angela.

“As does the congregation of All Souls,” said an older woman, moving forward out of the shadows. She had long, faded blond hair but eyes so brilliantly blue that even in the dim light they sparkled like little aquamarines. She walked straight up to Thanatos, ignoring Detective Marx’s glower, and stuck out her hand. “It’s about time we met. I’m Suzanne Grimms, leader of The Point ministry at All Souls. Like I said, we’re asking you for sanctuary, too.”

Thanatos hesitated. She glanced at Lenobia, who smiled. She glanced at Kalona, who frowned. And then she surprised me by glancing over her shoulder at me. I met her eyes and did what my gut told me to do—I smiled and nodded.

Thanatos turned to Suzanne, grasped her forearm in the traditional vampyre greeting, and raised her voice so that it was filled with the power of Nyx: “As High Priestess of Tulsa’s House of Night, I welcome you and grant sanctuary to all who seek it!”

Beside me, I heard Stark sigh and whisper, “Ah, hell…”

Zoey

“No, Bobby! How many times does Mommy have to tell you? You cannot touch the tall man’s wings!” A frazzled-looking woman plucked a toddler from where he was teetering on the field house’s sandy floor, arms stretched out, reaching for the tip of Kalona’s wing.

I bit my cheek to keep from giggling as the winged immortal grunted in annoyance and sidestepped to avoid sticky reaching fingers. The toddler tried to lurch out of his mom’s tired arms. Kalona dodged around her the other way. As usual, whenever Kalona appeared, all the humans focused their attention on him, which seemed to be wearing on him. He looked tired. Weirdly, his wounds hadn’t totally healed yet but were painful-looking pink lines and puckered gouges. I was thinking that he must not have spent enough time on the roof of the ONEOK building when Aphrodite’s “Psst!” took my attention.

“Z, bumpkin—over here with me, now!” Aphrodite called to us. Stevie Rae and I let go of the case of water we’d been carrying into the field house and followed Aphrodite to the shadowy far wall and a little alcove that held a statue of Nyx.

“Man, I’m beat,” Stevie Rae said.

“Seriously,” I agreed.

“We’re overdue for a break,” Aphrodite said, tossing cans of brown pop to Stevie Rae and me. Then she totally surprised me by cracking open her own can.

“Pop? You? I thought you hated it.”

“I do, and this isn’t pop. It’s Sophia champagne,” she said, sipping happily through a little pink straw that she’d unwrapped from the side of the slender pink can.

“Champagne in a can—who knew?” Stevie Rae said.

“Anyone civilized.”

“I didn’t know,” I said.

“My point exactly,” Aphrodite said. Then she cut her eyes to Kalona, who was standing in the middle of the field house, obviously looking for someone and just as obviously trying to ignore the people who were staring at him.

“Kalona and humans, especially little humans, equals apocalyptic train wreck,” Aphrodite said.

“In total agreement with you,” I said. “Does he look tired to you guys?”

Aphrodite snorted. “We all look tired.”

“I think he looks like he always does, except beat up, which makes it kinda mean that I was rootin’ for that baby to grab a feather,” Stevie Rae said.

“Kalona’s an immortal. He’s fine, and a baby yanking on his feathers would be beyond awesome,” Aphrodite said. “I wonder what I could bribe a toddler with to do that—or, better yet, his mom to allow him do that. Do you think she likes mimosas?”

“That mom sure looks like she needs a mimosa, without the orange juice. She’d probably like one of your pink cans,” Stevie Rae said.

“I don’t say this often because it isn’t often true, but I think you’re right, Stevie Rae,” Aphrodite said. “I’ll need more than one of these little cans, though. Looks like a job for the Widow Clicquot.”

“Widow Clicquot? Is she from Temple Israel?”

“Oh, you poor, ignorant peasant,” Aphrodite said, shaking her head sadly at Stevie Rae.

Kalona had made it past the toddler, and he was moving again. Ugh, it seemed he was heading in our direction. “Tell me he isn’t coming our way.”

“Wish I could,” Aphrodite said.

“He’s like a ginormic homing pigeon,” Stevie Rae said.

“Should we meet him halfway?” I asked, yawning. I glanced at the school clock. It read 5:30 A.M. There was a little over an hour left before sunrise, and for once I totally understood red fledgling exhaustion.

“Save Kalona from the humans? Not no, but hell no,” Aphrodite said.

“Ditto on that,” Stevie Rae said.

I shrugged and yawned again. “Okay by me. I’m too tired to move anyway.”

Thanatos had decided that the best place to put all the humans—and there really was a bunch of them—was in the biggest building on campus, our field house. I thought it was a good idea. The place was huge, and with them all together in here they’d be easy to keep track of. Of course the majority of the field house floor was sand because it was used for Warrior training, and the sand sucked. Sand, sleeping bags, and tired, scared, grumpy, gawking humans don’t mix well together, so we’d all (meaning almost everyone on campus except for Thanatos, Grandma, Detective Marx, and the religious leaders) spent the past several hours struggling to spread tarps and transform the Warrior training grounds into a what was finally starting to look like a temporary tornado shelter. Not that that was much better, but at least it was less sandy and was more or less neatly sectioned off in family sleeping areas.

“Check it out.” Aphrodite bumped me with her shoulder. “The guy Rabbi Steven Bernstein has Kalona cornered. I’ll bet he’s asking him all sorts of crazy Torah questions.”

“It’s Kalona’s own fault,” I said. “It wouldn’t kill him to wear a shirt.”

“Right? What’s with his constantly naked chest?” Aphrodite agreed.

“Hey, guys, check it out.” Stevie Rae pointed. “I think Nicole and Shaylin are gettin’ to be real good friends. I’m glad. Nicole’s done a lot of changin’, and, well, Shaylin needs a BFF, especially after you went all psycho on her, Z,” Stevie Rae said, then quickly added, “Sorry, Z. Not to be mean or anything.”

I sighed. “No problem. I did go psycho on her, and I’m glad she has a nice BFF, too.”

Aphrodite and I swiveled our gazes to watch the two dark-haired girls. They were making up sleeping bags together. They did look super buddy-buddy. Actually, as I kept watching them, I saw their shoulders touch and their heads tilt toward each other. My brows went up. Nicole reached out and brushed Shaylin’s hair back from her face, caressing her cheek as she did so, weirdly reminding me of something Stark would do to flirt with me. I cleared my throat. “Hmm, they do seem close.”

“Everybody should have a BFF!” Stevie Rae beamed at me.

“Uh, Stevie Rae,” I began, still watching the touches and looks that Nicole and Shaylin passed back and forth. “I think they might—”

“Oh, for shit’s sake, Z. You scared Shaylin gay!” Aphrodite said.

I frowned at Aphrodite. “Be nice.”

“Ohmygoodness!” Stevie Rae’s eyes looked twice their size as we saw Nicole sneak a quick kiss on Shaylin’s neck. “I didn’t know you could scare somebody gay.”

“Seriously, bumpkin, I ask again—are you retarded?”

“You know how I feel ’bout the r-word,” Stevie Rae said.

“And you know how little I care.”

“And you both know how bad you make my head hurt when you bicker. Aphrodite, don’t be mean about Shaylin and Nicole. They can love whoever they want to love. Stevie Rae—no, you can’t scare someone gay. Jeesh.”

“Hey, I don’t care who she loves or who she sleeps with, but I am going to enjoy watching the shit storm that’s brewing.” Aphrodite pointed a little way from the bed Shaylin and Nicole were making. “Here comes Clark Kent, right on cue. And I think he just saw the kiss.”

“Yepper,” Stevie Rae said. “He musta. Look at him.”

“Befuddled. That’s what Grandma would say about how he looks. Totally befuddled,” I said. “I know I shouldn’t, but I’m going to enjoy watching this.”

“Are you kidding? I want to record it and watch over and over,” Aphrodite said.

Erik had already started talking to Shaylin. Even from how far away we were, I could see he was using his hundred-watt movie star smile on her.

“I know he can be a douche sometimes, but you have to admit he is a cutie patootie,” Stevie Rae said. “Not like Rephaim, but still.”

Aphrodite made a gagging sound.

Nicole didn’t hesitate, and she didn’t back off. She stuck to Shaylin’s side, reached out, and wrapped her arm intimately around the girl’s slender waist, staring straight at Erik with obvious possessiveness.

“I knew Nicole would be the guy,” Aphrodite said.

“Erik looks like his head is gonna explode through that cleft in his chin,” I said.

“Zoey, Thanatos has summoned you, Stevie Rae, and Aphrodite. She asks that the three of you join her in the Council Chamber. That is, if you are finished watching the humans,” Kalona said sarcastically, jerking his head toward the non-humans we had actually been watching.

The three of us jumped guiltily at the sound of his voice. As usual, Aphrodite recovered first.

“Well, thank Nyx and the little baby Jesus for getting us out of here before sunrise,” Aphrodite said. “It’ll take me days to get the sand out of my sparkly Jimmy Choo flats. I’m way better at Prophetess-ing than I am at schlepping.” She flipped her hair and twitched toward the door. I could hear her sucking up the last of the champagne through her straw.

“Okay, uh, thanks,” I said lamely. “Should we get Stark and Darius and Rephaim, too?”

“The males are busy.” Kalona cut his eyes to where our three males were struggling with the end of a ginormous tarp.

“Well, okie dokie, then. We’re outta here,” Stevie Rae said, waving at Rephaim. I blew Stark a quick kiss before following her out.