Forgotten

by P. C. Cast; Kristin Cast

  “Or knife training,” Darius added.

  “Yep, or that. And that would’ve been cool. Heath would’ve excelled—probably a lot like you have done, Stark.”

  “I wrestled before I was Marked. Placed third in State my freshman year. I was expected to be the first sophomore in my school to win State my sophomore year. Then I was Marked and that ended.”

  “How’d it make you feel?” I asked.

  “At first I had too much to worry about what with becoming a vampyre and moving out of my home, having my family act like I was dead, and figuring out that I had this weird ability to literally always hit my mark with an arrow. But I missed wrestling. I’ve always been sorry that I didn’t win State and have my name on that banner draped down the gym wall at my high school.”

  “Exactly!” I said. “Which is why I think the House of Night Ravens need sports teams that compete on a high school level with all the other teams in the area.”

  “You mean we’ll actually have football, wrestling, track, and swimming?” Stark asked, unable to hide the teenage-boy excitement that spilled out of him.

  “Yep,” I grinned.

  “And cheerleaders. That means cheerleaders too,” Aphrodite said.

  “Is that you volunteering to coach cheerleading?” I asked.

  “Oh, hell no!”

  “How about a dance squad?” I lifted my brows at her.

  She opened and then closed her mouth. Sighed, and then mumbled, “Well, maybe. If I design the uniforms.”

  “Deal!” I said.

  “Wait, I—”

  The arrival of our food interrupted her and as we began to eat I asked, “So, I know Jack is hanging with the swim team and making sure they’re okay, but from the absence of Damien I’m surmising that the depot is still stressing him out big time?”

  Through a mouthful of tacos, Darius said, “I drove the red fledgling bus back to the tunnels after school and I saw him for just a moment. He was trying to decide between two shades of red for the linen tablecloths that I could detect absolutely no difference in. He asked me for my opinion. When I told him they looked the same to me it was like I’d said I couldn’t tell the difference between a throwing dagger and an athame.”

  I glanced at Aphrodite and she mouthed: big difference.

  “Huh. So yes, he’s stressed.”

  “Yes,” said Darius.

  “Should I send help?” I asked.

  Darius shrugged. “Honestly, I do not think so. It seems to be the kind of stress Damien thrives on, and he does have Toby Jenkins and that crew from the Equality Center working with him. It looks like chaos, but every time I go over there they have more and more done. I actually think he’s going to open the restaurant on time.”

  “Well, I’ll stay out of the way then,” I said. “And it’s a good thing everything is so peaceful right now. I mean except for our fledgling bleeding out in public today.”

  “Couldn’t have been anticipated—couldn’t have been prevented,” Aphrodite said, and she nibbled her Cobb salad and sipped her flute of blood and champagne.

  “Speaking of prevention,” Stark began. “Detective Marx stopped by earlier today—”

  “About the fledgling’s death?” I felt my hackles rise. Marx was a cool human detective I’d worked with several times before, but if he’d come by to question us about Kacie’s death we were going to have to have words.

  “No. It was before that. He wanted to let us know that those freaks who worship Neferet have been sneaking into Woodward Park again and leaving offerings and notes for her.”

  “Wait—notes?” I said, almost choking on my spaghetti.

  “Yeah. He brought one so I could pass it along to you.” Stark pulled a small piece of paper from his jeans pocket. It was parchment colored and rolled up like a miniature scroll. It was even tied with a pretty black velvet ribbon. “They’re all written in the same handwriting and they sound mostly like this. Marx said he’d email scanned copies of the rest of them to us.”

  I unrolled it. The note was written with what was obviously an old quill pen. I quickly read the elaborate handwriting. “Hear our anger, mother Neferet, for your betrayal by the vampyres. We are here. We pray for your escape. We wait.”

  “Who is we?” I asked

  Stark shrugged. “Has to be humans. There are never any offerings or notes left from sunset to sunrise when the Sons of Erebus guard the tomb.”

  “Humans are fucking insane. Why do they have such short memories?” Aphrodite shook her head in frustration. “It was a year ago that Neferet took over the Mayo and declared herself Goddess of Tulsa. She killed almost everyone staying at that hotel.”

  “Not to mention the entire church full of people she and her disgusting snake children ate on the way there,” Stark added.

  “Seriously!” I said. “If Neferet escaped, the first thing she’d do would be to feed, and she sure as hell wouldn’t be looking for vampyres to munch on.”

  “Right? Humans would be her avocado-toast appetizer to a main course of killing every vampyre she could get her claws into,” Aphrodite said. “But still, she’d eat them like toast is the point they have somehow missed.”

  I was staring at the note and realized the quill had been dipped in ink that looked disturbingly like blood. Hesitantly I lifted it and sniffed it, wrinkling my nose. “What is that, squirrel blood?” I guessed.

  “Marx had it analyzed. It’s cat blood,” Stark said somberly.

  I gasped and almost dropped the note. “We need to notify the Sisters at Street Cats that someone is using cat blood as ink. It’d be tough to lure a House of Night feline away from here, but a stray could be captured.”

  “Or if they want to avoid the hassle they could just adopt from Street Cats,” said Aphrodite, looking as sick as I felt. “I’ll call them and leave a message, and then go by tomorrow. If they need extra help doing background checks is it okay that I volunteer a few fledglings to help out?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Stark, Darius, do either of you have any ideas about what we can do to stop this stupid romanticization of Neferet?”

  “It’s like those ridiculous women who still swoon about Ted Bundy,” Aphrodite said. “Hello! Serial killer who bit, brutalized, and strangled women then had sex with their dead bodies. Reeeeal romantic.” She shuddered. “Humans—just eew.”

  “Ted Bundy lived forever ago,” said Stark.

  “Bow Boy, watch a documentary or two. It’s good for your brain.”

  “Do you have a suggestion about how to stop what’s going on at Woodward Park?” I asked Aphrodite to shut her up.

  “Short of declaring war on idiot humans like Other Neferet did? Sorry, but nope.”

  “I have an idea,” said Stark. “We already have sunset to sunrise covered. What if, without telling even Marx and the TPD, we install some high-resolution cameras in the trees around the grotto? We’ll get more of the kind we have here at the school. The ones that record continuously and broadcast the recording to our closed system.”

  “I like that idea. Sons of Erebus Warriors could take turns monitoring the cameras during the day, and when we see someone leaving notes like this we can dispatch a Warrior to track down the person.”

  “Then we check them out and decide if it’s something the House of Night needs to handle,” said Stark.

  “Or something we turn over to Marx,” I finished for him. “I like it. Get the cameras ordered and installed—secretly—ASAP. Anything else crazy going on?”

  “That’s about it. Shaunee and Erik returned to the NOLA House of Night just after sunset. She told me to tell you that she can be back in a flash if you need her,” said Stark.

  “Erik’s back to filming something?”

  “Yeah—that Superman thing,” Stark said.

  “Erik’s still kinda douchey, but he does m
ake one hell of a Superman,” Aphrodite said.

  “I think Shaunee is burning the douche out of him,” I said.

  Darius and Stark snorted together, which had Aphrodite and me laughing—until Stevie Rae rushed up to our booth. She was breathing hard and her cheeks were bright pink.

  “Y’all need to come with me. Now.”

  “’Kay,” I said. “What’s up?” I wiped my mouth and gave my half-eaten plate of psaghetti one last longing look.

  “It’s Kacie. She’s awake.”

  “Already? Doesn’t it usually take a day or two for them to resuscitate?” Aphrodite said.

  “Yeah. I’ve never known of a fledgling to come back in—” Stevie Rae glanced at the big bronze clock on the wall. “Less than eight hours. And that’s not even the weirdest thing.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked as the four of us followed Stevie Rae to the infirmary.

  “She woke up a fully Changed red vampyre,” said Stevie Rae.

  “That’s crazy,” I said.

  “Oh, BFF, that’s the least of the crazy. Just wait and see …”

  Kacie was sitting up in her hospital bed watching the Netflix original Northern Rescue on her laptop when we knocked and then entered her room, leaving Stark and Darius to wait in the hallway. She glanced up at us and smiled as she recognized Aphrodite and me.

  She still looked a little pale—but then I decided maybe it wasn’t that she was unusually pale and instead the fact that her tattoo was so new that it looked almost neon against her light-brown skin. Stevie Rae hadn’t been kidding (not that I’d expected that), but what I’d found hard to expect was what we were all staring at—a fully formed tattoo that was exquisitely beautiful. In the middle of Kacie’s forehead was a crescent moon, the scarlet of fresh blood. From either side of the moon, her big dark eyes were framed by red bursts of waves that morphed into flames and back into waves again as they reached her cheekbones. It was fierce and gorgeous—a mask of magick as unique as the girl wearing it.

  “Hi.” Kacie sounded a lot more subdued than the girl who earlier that day had told me how much school sucked with endearing confidence.

  I was trying to think of something profound to say when Aphrodite spoke.

  “Hi, Ice Cream Shoes. Good to see you alive again.”

  “I have you to thank for that. So, thanks,” Kacie said to Aphrodite.

  At my side I felt Stevie Rae give a little startle of surprise, which made me glad of Aphrodite’s next question.

  “How did you know that?”

  “You mean how did I know you gave me a second chance?”

  “Yes,” said Aphrodite, Stevie Rae, and me at the same time.

  Kacie’s eyes darted from Aphrodite to Stevie Rae and me, but she answered readily. “I’m not really sure. Trying to remember anything after Stevie Rae grabbed me in the pool is like trying to remember a dream. I get flashes, like the fact that I know you gave me a second chance and that’s why I didn’t stay dead.”

  “Accidentally,” Aphrodite said.

  I didn’t chime in. I didn’t tell Aphrodite to be nice. I trusted our Prophetess. There was an almost tangible sense of power in her voice—and I stayed silent to allow her to speak the truth.

  Kacie’s gaze slipped to the thick comforter stretched over her legs. “I’m sorry?”

  “Don’t be. Instead, live like your life is a gift from your Goddess, because it is.”

  Kacie’s eyes filled with tears. “I will. I’ll do my best to be sure my life makes a difference, and my best is damn good.”

  “I believe you, Ice Cream Shoes. And I expect you to prove me right.”

  “Show them what else,” said Stevie Rae.

  “Okay. I’m not super sure how,” said Kacie.

  “Just do what you did before,” encouraged Stevie Rae.

  “Okay. Here goes.” Kacie sat up straighter, cleared her throat, and smoothed back her wild mass of curls. Then, in a steady, clear voice she said. “Man, I’m thirsty. I wish I had some water.”

  As soon as Kacie said the word water the room around us changed and for a moment it was hard to believe we weren’t standing on the edge of the ocean, sandy beach beneath our feet and salty waves tickling them.

  “Did she seriously just invoke water?” Aphrodite asked.

  “She seriously did,” I said.

  Stark opened the door enough to poke his head inside the infirmary room. “What’s up in there? We can smell the ocean.”

  “Our newly Changed red vampyre has a powerful affinity for water. Kacie, do you mind if Stark and Darius come in?” I asked the newly Changed fledgling.

  “No, it’s fine.”

  I motioned for Stark to come in, which he did with Darius following close behind. They remained nearer to the door than where Stevie Rae, Aphrodite, and I stood close to the hospital bed. We were all staring at Kacie. She’d picked up a full glass of water and sipped it—and I was 100 percent sure that glass had been empty before she said she was thirsty.

  “So, I assume this is something new?” I asked Kacie.

  “Totally,” she said quickly.

  “Show her the other one too,” Stevie Rae said.

  Other one?

  “Okay, I’ll just, er …” She fumbled with the bedspread nervously.

  “Don’t stress,” soothed Stevie Rae. “Say what you did before. It’ll be fine. Promise.”

  “All right.” Kacie paused, gave a little shiver, rubbed her arms and said, “Is it cold in here or am I still dead? Can we turn on some heat?”

  Just like with water, the element’s response was instantaneous. The room warmed by several degrees and was filled with the scent of a wood-burning fireplace.

  “That’s two,” said Aphrodite. “What about the other three?”

  Stevie Rae shook her head. “Nope. I invoked earth right away, and it didn’t respond to Kacie at all.”

  “And I called to air and spirit, and nothing happened,” added Kacie.

  “So, fire and water. That’s impressive,” said Stark. “Congratulations.”

  “Thanks!” Kacie said, her cheeks starting to regain some pinkness.

  “Did you have any premonition that you’d acquired an affinity for two elements when you woke up?” Aphrodite asked.

  “You mean like the weird way I knew you’d given me a second chance?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “Nope. I was as surprised as Stevie Rae,” said Kacie. “But …” she began, then her face paled again and she closed her mouth so fast that her lips made a tight line across the bottom of her face.

  “What is it?” I moved closer to her bed. “You can trust us, but if you’d rather just talk with Stevie Rae we’ll—”

  “No, we shouldn’t leave,” said Aphrodite. Then she shot me an apologetic look and spoke formally. “I’m sorry, High Priestess, but I shouldn’t go. None of us should. Trust me.”

  “Always,” I said. “Okay, Kacie, you heard our Prophetess. Tell us—she says we all need to hear it.”

  Kacie’s fingers worried the comforter, but her voice was steady. “I felt different the second I woke up. At first, I thought it was normal, you know, for dying and then coming back, but the difference I feel isn’t what Stevie Rae talked to me about—like it’s normal to feel extra tired for a few days, and also I might be really hungry for, um, blood. Way worse than when I was a blue fledgling.”

  “What’s the difference then? How do you feel?” I asked.

  “Like she has a purpose.”

  Aphrodite’s words caused Kacie’s body to jerk in surprise.

  “Yeah, that’s it. How did you know?” Kacie said.

  Aphrodite shrugged. “I am a Prophetess.”

  “Who usually gets visions. Did you have a vision about this?” I asked—already knowing the answer
.

  “If I had I would’ve told you right away—and I would’ve been blinded by blood and pain,” said Aphrodite. “This is different. Something is happening here. Her fully formed tattoo—her powerful affinity for fire and water—all of it is a sign.”

  “Of what?” I asked.

  Aphrodite shook her head. “I can’t tell yet. I do have a superstrong premonition that something—”

  “Is coming,” Kacie interrupted. “Something … or someone.”

  “With the strength of a tidal wave,” Aphrodite said.

  “And the force of an explosion,” Kacie finished for her.

  “Yes. That’s it exactly,” said Aphrodite.

  “Ah, hell,” I said.

  16

  Other Neferet

  “Fire and water—my two favorite elements,” said Neferet as she lifted the oil lantern and allowed its flame to play across the smooth loch. “What is stronger than a tidal wave and fiercer than an explosion?”

  “You, my lady!” Lynette blurted.

  Neferet’s smile was a gift of beauty and warmth. “Dear Lynette, you have made these five nights so much more pleasant than I could’ve imagined. I will not forget your loyalty.”

  “But, my lady, that sounds like you’re leaving. I—I don’t understand. I thought you were making the sprites come to you.”

  “Shh!” Neferet turned so that her back was to the loch, and lowered her voice, putting her head close to Lynette’s. “Oh, they will come to me. Of that I am quite certain. But, my dear, the point of all of this is that I gain entrance to that island behind us.”

  “But I assumed I would be going with you.”

  “That would not be wise, and I do not believe you would want to see what it is I must do there.”

  “You mean become immortal?” Lynette whispered. “Is it going to be bloody, or unattractive or frightening?”

  “As I am not a goddess—yet—I cannot answer you, but it was not my immortality to which I was referring. The island is currently occupied by a queen who isn’t courageous enough to become immortal, so I believe it is time to remove her from her throne and replace her with someone braver.”