by P. C. Cast
He could smell them. The scent of the rogue fledglings was everywhere. Moving stealthily, Rephaim positioned himself so he could peer down at the front grounds of the school. He saw a few trees, large and small, a long expanse of lawn, and nothing else.
Rephaim waited. It wasn’t long. He knew it wouldn’t be. Dawn was too close. So he’d expected to see the fledglings—he just hadn’t expected to see them walk boldly up to the front door of the school, reeking of fresh blood and led by the newly Changed Dallas.
Nicole was wrapped around him. That big, dumb Kurtis obviously thought he was some kind of bodyguard because while Dallas pressed his hand against one of the rust-colored steel doors, the oversized fledgling stood at the edge of the concrete steps, looking out and holding a gun as if he thought he knew what to do with it.
Rephaim shook his head in disgust. Kurtis didn’t look up. None of the fledglings, or even Dallas, looked up. He was no longer the broken creature they’d captured and used; they had no idea how pathetically vulnerable they were to his attack.
But Rephaim didn’t attack. He waited and watched.
There was a sizzling sound and Nicole ground briefly against Dallas. “Oh, yeah, baby! Work your magic.” Her voice lifted in the night as Dallas laughed and pulled the no longer locked or alarmed door open.
“Let’s go,” Dallas told Nicole, sounding older and harder than Rephaim remembered. “Dawn’s close and there’s somethin’ you got to take care of before the sun rises.”
Nicole rubbed her hand down the front of his pants while the rest of the red fledglings laughed. “Then let’s get us down to those basement tunnels so I can get going on it.”
She led the fledglings inside the school. Dallas waited outside until they were all in, then followed them, closing the door. In another moment Rephaim heard a sizzling sound like before and then all was quiet. And when, in the next moment, the security guard drove lazily by, all was still quiet. He, too, didn’t look up to see the enormous Raven Mocker crouched on the top of the school’s tower.
When the guard drove away Rephaim leaped into the night, his mind whirring in time with the beating of his wings.
Dallas was leading the rogue red fledglings.
He was controlling the modern magick of this world and it somehow allowed him access to buildings.
Will Rogers High School was where they were making their nest.
Stevie Rae would want to know that. She would need to know that. She still felt responsible for them, even though they had tried to kill her. And Dallas, what did she still feel for him?
Just thinking about seeing her in Dallas’s arms made him angry. But she’d chosen him over Dallas. Clearly and completely.
Not that that made any difference now.
It was then that Rephaim realized the direction he’d been flying was too far south to take him back to the downtown Mayo. Instead he was gliding over midtown Tulsa, passing the dimly lit abbey of the Benedictine nuns, cutting over Utica Square, and silently approaching the stone wall–protected campus. His flight faltered.
Vampyres would look up.
Rephaim beat against the night air, lifting up and up. Then, too high to be easily seen, he skirted the campus, diving soundlessly outside the east wall into a pool of shadow between streetlights. From there he moved from shadow to shadow, using the darkness of his feathers to blend with the night.
He heard the eerie howling before he reached the wall. It was a sound so filled with despair and heartbreak that it cut even him to the bone. What is making that terrible howl?
He knew the answer almost as quickly as he’d formulated the thought. The dog. Stark’s dog. During one of her sessions of nonstop talking, Stevie Rae had told him how one of her friends, the boy named Jack, had more or less taken ownership of Stark’s dog when he’d turned into a red fledgling, and how close the boy and the dog had become and what a good thing she thought that was for both of them because the dog was so smart and Jack was so sweet. As he remembered Stevie Rae’s words, everything slid into place. By the time he reached the school’s boundary and heard the crying that accompanied the terrible howling, Rephaim knew what he’d see when he carefully and quietly scaled the wall and peered down at the scene of devastation before him.
He looked. He couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to see Stevie Rae—just see her. After all, he couldn’t do anything except look—Rephaim definitely couldn’t allow any of the vampyres to see him.
He’d been correct; the innocent whose blood had fulfilled Neferet’s debt to Darkness had been Stevie Rae’s friend Jack.
Under the shattered tree through which Kalona had escaped his earthen prison, a boy knelt, sobbing “Jack!” over and over beside a howling dog in the middle of bloodstained grass. The body wasn’t still there, but the bloodstain was. Rephaim wondered if anyone else would be able to detect the fact that there was a lot less blood than there should have been. Darkness had fed deeply from Neferet’s gift.
Beside the weeping boy the school’s Sword Master, Dragon Lankford, stood silently, his hand on his shoulder. The three of them were alone. Stevie Rae wasn’t there. Rephaim was trying to convince himself that was for the best. It really was a good thing that she hadn’t been there—maybe hadn’t seen him—when a wave of feelings slammed into him: sadness, worry, and hurt foremost among them. Then, arms filled with a big wheat-colored cat, Stevie Rae rushed up to the mourning trio. It was so good to see her that Rephaim almost forgot to breathe.
“Duchess, you gotta stop this now.” Her distinctly accented voice washed over him like a spring rain in the desert. He watched her crouch beside the big dog, depositing the cat between her legs. The feline instantly started rubbing against the dog, as if he were trying to wipe away her pain. Rephaim blinked in surprise when the dog actually quieted and began licking the cat. “There’s a good girl. Let Cameron help you.” Stevie Rae looked up at the Sword Master. Rephaim saw him nod almost imperceptibly. She turned her attention to the sobbing boy. Digging into the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out a wad of tissues, and handed it to him. “Damien, sweetie, you gotta stop this now, too. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
Damien took the tissue and wiped quickly across his face. In a shaking voice he said, “I d-don’t care.”
Stevie Rae touched his cheek. “I know you don’t, but your cat needs you, and so does Duchess. Plus, honey, Jack would be real upset if he saw you like this.”
“Jack won’t ever see me again.” Damien had stopped crying, but his voice sounded terrible. It seemed to Rephaim that he could hear the boy’s heart breaking within it.
“I do not believe that for one hot second,” Stevie Rae said firmly. “And if you really think about it, neither do you.”
Damien looked at her with haunted eyes. “I can’t think right now, Stevie Rae. All I can do is feel.”
“Some of the sadness will pass,” Dragon said in a voice that sounded as heartbroken as Damien’s. “Enough so that you will be able to think again.”
“That’s right. Listen to Dragon. When you can think again, you can find a thread of the Goddess inside you. Follow that thread. Remember there is an Otherworld we can all share. Jack’s there now. Someday you’ll see him again there.”
Damien looked from Stevie Rae to the Sword Master. “Have you been able to do that? Does it make losing Anastasia any easier?”
“Nothing makes her loss easier. Right now I am still searching for the thread to our Goddess.”
Rephaim felt a horribly sick jolt within him as he realized he had caused the pain the Sword Master was feeling. He had killed the spells and rituals professor, Anastasia Lankford. She had been Dragon’s mate. He had done it so coldly, with an absolute lack of any feeling except, perhaps, annoyance at being detained for the short time it had taken him to overpower and destroy her.
I killed her with no thought for anything or anyone except my need to follow Father, to do his bidding. I am a monster.
Rephaim couldn’t stop looking at
the Sword Master. He carried his pain like a cloak around him. He could almost literally see the empty hole his mate’s absence had left in his life. And Rephaim, for the first time in his centuries-long life, felt remorse for his actions.
He didn’t think he’d made any sound, any movement, but he knew when Stevie Rae’s gaze found him. Slowly, he looked from Dragon to the vampyre with whom he was Imprinted. Their eyes met; their gazes locked. Her emotions engulfed him as if she’d purposely directed them to him. First, he felt her shock at seeing him. It left him flushed and almost embarrassed. Then he felt sadness—deep, jagged, painful. He tried to telegraph his own sorrow to her, hoping that somehow she would be able to understand how much he missed her and how sorry he was for having any part in the grief she was experiencing. Anger hit him then with such a force Rephaim almost lost his grip on the stone wall. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth, not sure whether it was in denial of her anger, or the reason for it.
“I want you and Duchess to come with me, Damien. Y’all need to get away from this place. Bad things have happened here. Bad things are still lurkin’ ’round here. I can feel it. Let’s go. Now.” She spoke to the kneeling boy, but her gaze never left Rephaim’s.
The Sword Master’s response was swift. His eyes swept the area and Rephaim froze, willing the shadows and the night to cloak him.
“What is it? What’s here?” Dragon asked.
“Darkness.” Stevie Rae was still staring at him when she spoke that single word as if throwing a dagger into his heart. “Tainted, unredeemable Darkness.” Then she turned her back on him dismissively. “My gut says it’s not anything worth raisin’ your sword against, but let’s get outta here just the same.”
“Agreed,” Dragon said, though Rephaim heard reluctance in his voice.
He will be a force to be reckoned with in the future, Rephaim acknowledged to himself. And what about Stevie Rae? His Stevie Rae. What will she be? Could she really hate me? Could she utterly reject me? He sifted through her feelings as he watched her take Damien’s hand and help him to his feet, and then lead him, the dog, cat, and Dragon away toward the dormitories. He certainly felt her anger and her sorrow, and he understood those feelings. But hatred? Did she really hate him? He didn’t know for sure, but Rephaim believed, deep in his heart, that he deserved her hatred. No, he hadn’t killed Jack, but he was allied with the forces that had.
I am my father’s son. It’s all I know how to be. It is my only choice.
After Stevie Rae was gone Rephaim pulled himself up to the top of the wall. He took a running start and leaped into the sky. Beating against the night with his massive wings, he circled around the watchful campus and headed back to the roof of the Mayo building.
I deserve her hatred … I deserve her hatred … I deserve her hatred …
The litany pounded through his mind in time with his wing strokes. His own despair and grief joined with the echo of Stevie Rae’s sadness and anger. The dampness of the cool night sky mixed with his tears as Rephaim’s face was bathed in moonlight and loss.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Stevie Rae
“Oh, for shit’s sake! Are you telling me no one has called Zoey?” Aphrodite said.
Stevie Rae took Aphrodite by the elbow and, with a grip that was maybe firmer than technically necessary, guided her to the door in Damien’s dorm room. At the doorway she paused and both girls looked back at the bed, where Damien was curled up with Duchess and his cat, Cameron. Boy, dog, and cat had finally, just minutes before, fallen into a sleep induced by grief and exhaustion.
Silently, Stevie Rae pointed her finger from Aphrodite to the hallway. Aphrodite sneered. Stevie Rae crossed her arms and planted herself. “Outside,” she mouthed, “now.” Then she followed her out of the room and closed the door softly behind them. “And keep your dang voice down out here, too,” Stevie Rae whispered fiercely.
“Fine. I’ll keep it down. Jack is dead and no one has called Z?” she repeated her question, much less loudly.
“No. I haven’t exactly had time. Damien has been hysterical. Duchess has been hysterical. The school’s in a dang uproar. I’m the only effing High Priestess who isn’t, supposedly, locked away in her room praying or whatever, so I’ve been busy handling the shit storm out here and the fact that a really nice boy just died.”
“Yeah, I understand that and I’m sad, too, and all, but Zoey needs to get here and get here now. If you were too busy to do it, then you should have let one of the professors call her. The sooner she knows the sooner she’ll be on her way here.”
Darius hurried up to them and took Aphrodite’s hand.
“It was Neferet, right? That bitch killed Jack,” Aphrodite asked him.
“Not possible,” Darius and Stevie Rae said together. Stevie Rae flashed Aphrodite an annoyed I told you so look as Darius went on to explain. “Neferet was, indeed, in the school Council Meeting when Jack fell from the ladder. Not only did Damien see Jack fall, but another witness corroborates the time. Drew Partain was crossing the grounds when he heard the music Jack was singing to. He said he only heard part of the song because the bell clock on Nyx’s Temple began chiming midnight, or at least that was why he thought he didn’t hear any more of Jack’s voice.”
“But really that’s when Jack died,” Stevie Rae said, her voice gone hard and flat because that was the only way she could keep from sounding as shaky as she felt.
“Yes, the timing is right,” Darius said.
“And you’re sure Neferet was in the meeting then?” Aphrodite said.
“I heard the clock gonging while she was talking,” Stevie Rae said.
“I still don’t believe for an instant she’s not behind his death,” Aphrodite said.
“I’m not disagreein’ with you, Aphrodite. Neferet is slicker than hen crap on a tin roof, but facts are facts. She was in front of all of us when Jack fell off that ladder.”
“Okay, seriously, eew with your bumpkin analogies. And how about the whole sword thing? How the hell could it have ‘accidentally’ ”—she air quoted—“almost sliced his head off?”
“Swords should be positioned hilt down, point up. Dragon explained that to Jack. As the boy fell on the blade, the hilt was driven into the ground, impaling him. Technically, it could have been an accident.”
Aphrodite wiped a shaking hand across her face. “That’s horrible. Really horrible. But it was no damn accident.”
“I don’t think any of us believe Neferet is innocent of the boy’s death, but what we believe and what we can prove are two different things. The High Council has already ruled once in Neferet’s favor and, basically, against us. If we go to them with more supposition and no proof of her wrongdoings, we will only discredit ourselves more,” Darius said.
“I get that, but it pisses me off,” Aphrodite said.
“It pisses us all off,” Stevie Rae said. “Bad. Real bad.”
Picking up on the unusually hard edge in Stevie Rae’s voice, Aphrodite lifted an eyebrow at her. “Yeah, and let’s use some of that pissed off to kick that cow the hell outta here once and for all.”
“What’s your idea?” Stevie Rae said.
“First, get Zoey’s vacationing butt back here. Neferet hates Z. She’ll come against her—she always does. Only this time we’ll all be watching and waiting and we’ll get proof not even the Neferet-loving High Council will be able to ignore.” Without waiting for a response from either of them, Aphrodite pulled her iPhone from her metallic Coach clutch, punched in her code, and said, “Call Zoey.”
“I was gonna do that,” Stevie Rae said.
Aphrodite rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re too. Damn. Late. Plus, you’re too damn nice. What Z needs is a big dose of get-your-shit-together-and-do-the-right-thing. I’m the girl to feed it to her.” She paused, listened, and rolled her eyes again. “It’s her revolting Disney Channel–sounding Hey guys! Leave me a message and have an awesome day voice mail,” Aphrodite quoted in an uber-bubbly voice.
She drew a breath, waiting for the beep.
And Stevie Rae grabbed the phone from her hand, speaking quickly into it. “Z, it’s me, not Aphrodite. I need you to call me the second you get this. It’s important.” She hit the end button to hang up and squared off against Aphrodite. “Okay, let’s get somethin’ real straight. Just because I try to be a decent human being, it does not mean I’m too nice. It’s bad enough what happened to Jack. Learnin’ ’bout it in a message is super, super bad. Plus, I don’t think it’s a good idea to freak Zoey out like that, ’specially so soon after her soul being shattered.”
Aphrodite snatched the iPhone from Stevie Rae. “Look. We do not have time to tiptoe around Zoey’s feelings. She needs to put on her big-girl High Priestess panties and deal.”
“No, you look.” Stevie Rae stepped forward and into Aphrodite’s personal space, making Darius automatically move closer to her. “Z doesn’t need to put on High Priestess panties. She is one. But she’s been through losin’ someone she loves. That’s somethin’ you obviously just don’t get. Watchin’ out for her feelings right now isn’t about babyin’ her. It’s about bein’ her friend. Sometimes all of us just need a little protection from our friends.” She glanced at Darius, shaking her head. “No, that doesn’t mean you need to protect Aphrodite from me. Jeeze, Darius, what’s wrong with you?”
Darius caught and held her gaze. “For a moment your eyes flashed red.”
Stevie Rae made sure her expression didn’t change. “Yeah, well, I’m not surprised. Watchin’ Neferet walk away without paying any consequences for what happened to Jack has been pretty hard for me to take. You’d feel the same way if you’d been here and saw it go down.”
“I imagine I would, but my eyes would not glow red,” Darius said.