by P. C. Cast
Neferet lifted one hand, and the room went silent. “As for the rest of my generals, I want you to join me in my Council Room and we will further discuss what Stark and I suspect, and how I intend we defeat this new wave of enemies. We will not sit idly by and wait for them to burn us as we sleep. We will meet them and defeat them—all of them. Not today. Not tomorrow. But I promise you when we battle this new wave of enemies it will be with more power than any vampyre army has wielded in all of history. We will be victorious!”
The room cheered and whooped, and Kevin thought he might be sick. It was a lie! Everything he’d said about New Mexico and their militia had been a lie! He’d only wanted to turn the army’s attention away from the Resistance headquarters, but they were still heading to Sapulpa and the fields just below their ridge.
And the power Neferet was talking about—Kevin knew what it had to be. She was going to arm her vampyres with human weapons.
Neferet had to be stopped.
Neferet lifted one graceful hand again, and the room silenced. “I have another announcement that I know my officers will be very excited about. Next weekend OSU and OU are scheduled for the Bedlam showdown. Well, I hate waiting, don’t you?” The crowd made noises of agreement. Neferet smiled. “Yes, I knew you’d understand! That is why I insisted the game must take place this weekend in Tulsa, just down the street at the University of Tulsa’s Skelly Field on New Year’s Day. Won’t that be a lovely celebration? OSU and OU certainly thought so.” She paused, and her smile was filled with malice. “Or at least they did after I made them an offer they couldn’t refuse, and TU, of course, was ever so pleased to accommodate my little holiday request.”
Once again, the auditorium erupted into cheers, though this time some of them were shouting, “Boomer Sooner,” and others were making the crazy pistol-firing hand gestures OSU fans made.
I’d totally forgotten that it’s almost New Year’s, Kevin thought. And he could easily imagine the “offer they couldn’t refuse.” College athletes, and the cheerleaders, band, and fans that went along with them were protected from the hunger of her Red Army as long as they amused vampyres in general, and Neferet in particular. She hadn’t made them an offer. She’d made a deadly threat and the universities had responded the only way they could to protect their students.
“Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again, my loyal priestesses, Warriors, and soldiers, and may Nyx’s blessings be with you all!” Neferet closed the briefing to an uproar of cheers.
Kevin saw Aphrodite hurry to the stairs that led to the stage and follow Neferet, though the Prophetess should have known better. Once Neferet gave a command, she always followed through—no matter the consequences. Every officer in both armies knew that the only thing greater than Neferet’s ego was her pride.
“Lieutenant, you might as well come with me since you don’t have a unit anymore.”
Kevin turned to see General Stark studying him with an unreadable expression on his face.
He snapped to attention. “Yes, sir! I’d be honored, sir!”
“Don’t just stand there gawking at Aphrodite. Follow me.”
Kevin trailed Stark as he wove his way out of the crowded auditorium. When they reached the hall, Lieutenant Dallas was there, waiting.
“Yo, General. That was some weird shit you just did in there.”
“Dallas, try not to speak for a while. I need to think. And while I’m thinking, gather a flight of red vamps and their officers. I’m going to requisition enough trucks for a convoy to Sapulpa. Tell the officers we leave at 2200 hours—sharp.” Stark glanced at Kevin. “Oh, and he’s coming with us too.”
“You mean he’s going to join the flight of red vamps that’ll be fighting tonight?”
“No, I mean he’s coming with us. With me. In my vehicle.”
“Nyx’s tits, General! He can put some words together, but he’s still just an eating machine. Are you sure you want him to ride with us? He’s gonna stink up the Hummer.”
For once Kevin didn’t want to hit Dallas. Not because he liked the guy. He didn’t. But because Stark had just given him more hope than he’d had since G-ma Redbird had dropped him off the day before.
“Lieutenant, are you questioning my order?”
Dallas backed down fast. “Hell, no, sir. Just double checking that I heard it right.”
“You heard it right. Oh, and apparently Aphrodite will be joining us too. So, be sure you get that Hummer that has the heating problem for our lead vehicle.” Stark winked at Dallas.
“Oooh, I get it now!” Dallas chuckled. “You want to piss off Aphrodite. I think I know who she’s gonna be sitting by too, right?”
“Lieutenant Dallas, did I ask you to think?” Stark said.
“No, sir, you did not.”
“Then follow my orders. Now.”
“No problemo. Whatever you say, General.” Dallas gave Kevin a contemptuous look. “You might as well come with me. Just stay downwind.”
“Um, excuse me, General Stark, sir,” Kevin began.
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Sir, I apologize, but I need to feed before we leave,” he blurted.
“Of course he does. Such a pain in the ass,” Dallas muttered.
Stark sent Dallas a hard look, but told Kevin, “You have time. Do what you need to do, and then join the head of the convoy at 2200 hours.”
“Yes, sir!”
Kevin hurried away—heading in the general direction of the small, dingy room the House of Night called the Red Cafeteria. It was really just a crappy old storage room that had been converted into a place where drugged humans waited to be used as meals. But as soon as he was out of eyesight of Stark and Dallas, he changed direction, pulled the hoodie up over his head, and slipped quickly out the nearest door.
He didn’t pause. He walked fast—like he knew exactly where he was going. And he did. He knew what he had to do. Under the hoodie he kept glancing up at the sky.
“Come on! Come on! Bird, where are you? Give me a break, will ya, and don’t make me do this.”
Kevin kept moving, heading east out on the school grounds. He avoided the better-lit parts of the big, grassy area and tried to stay visible from above as he moved from tree to tree, keeping his gaze upward.
When he reached the east wall and the hidden trapdoor, he huddled in the shadows beside it while his gaze swept the schoolyard. There were vampyres and fledglings visible, but they were all off in the distance, and all hurrying around—no doubt getting ready to gleefully slaughter some innocent people. He looked up at the sky again. Nothing. No damn bird.
“Shit!”
Feeling heavy with foreboding, Kevin pressed the hidden latch in the wall and then slipped outside.
16
Other Kevin
As soon as he was outside the wall Kevin tried to calm himself. “Okay, think. First, check the sky again.” Kevin searched the night’s sky, but if the raven was up there somewhere he was impossible to see against the blackness. Kevin remembered that Anastasia had said her Tatsuwa had amazing eyesight, so he stepped a little away from the wall and waved his arms around over his head.
Still no damn bird.
“All right. Plan B. What the hell do I have left that they’d want?” He searched through the almost empty satchel. All the blood was gone, but there were two cookies left. There was also the jar of disgusting blood goo. “Well, let’s hope they want one of these two things.” He moved over closer to the wall so that he could hide in the shadows again, and then made the call. “Old Magick sprites of air, I am Kevin Redbird, and with the power in my blood, and the power Nyx has gifted me with, I call you to me! Again!”
With little popping sounds, the air sprites materialized hovering in the air around him.
“Redbird Boy! What payment do you bring us for which task you would ask of us?”
&
nbsp; Kevin thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he was speaking to the same sprite who had come when he’d called the night before. He smiled and tried to act more enthusiastic than nervous. “Hi there! Thank you for coming again. I really appreciate it.”
“What is the task and what is our payment?”
“Okay, well, I don’t have much time for small talk anyway. What I need is for you to find a raven named Tatsuwa. He belongs to the vampyre priestess from the ridge where you first came to me. Can you do that?”
“There is much we can do
If we get payment from you.”
Kevin relaxed a little when the sprite’s voice slipped into the singsong rhythm that marked the beginning of making a deal.
“Okay, well, I can give you some of my blood. Or I do have a couple more of those cookies you liked so much yesterday.”
“If you want us to do this thing
Your payment must not bore us
It must make our hearts sing!”
“All righty.” He reached into the satchel and pulled out the jar of stinking blood goop. “How about this? It’s red vampyre blood.”
The sprite’s reaction was instantaneous. She grew in size. Her eyes bulged and she bared her teeth, showing disturbingly pointed fangs.
“That is abomination, not payment!”
Kevin hastily put the jar back in his satchel. “Hey, okay, okay, I get it. I think it’s disgusting too. I’m sorry. I really don’t know much about air sprites. Um, why don’t you tell me what you’d like for payment?”
That calmed the sprite, and she went back to being about hummingbird-sized and looking like a cross between a big bug and a very small, winged woman. The other sprites circled around her, whispering in that strange, almost birdlike language of theirs. When they were done speaking, the entire group approached him, hovering and pointing.
Kevin looked down at himself, trying to figure out what they were pointing at.
“We will take those threads of gold
Then no more payment from you will be owed.”
Baffled, Kevin looked down at himself again. “Gold thread? I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”
The lead sprite flew to him, reached out one delicate hand with impossibly long fingers, and gently touched a long strand of hair that had caught on his shirt.
“Aphrodite’s hair! Damn, I was pulling her hair, even though I didn’t mean to. No wonder she yelled at me.” Once he knew what he was looking for, he quickly found three other long strands. He pulled them from his shirt and held them up. Even in the darkness, they glistened. “You’re right. They do look like gold, but you should know that they’re not really. They’re just strands of blond hair.”
“From a Prophetess filled with power.”
She licked her lips and Kevin got another glimpse of needlelike teeth.
“Delicious to devour.
With this payment do you agree?
Or shall we fly free?”
“Um, no! I mean yes. Yes, you can have the hair. It’s not like Aphrodite’s still using it.” He held the four strands between his thumb and forefinger, offering them to the sprite.
“With this payment we do agree
Offered by thee and accepted by me
Our deal is sealed—so mote it be!”
The sprite took the strands of hair from Kevin. She tossed them into the air, where they suspended, floating without moving, but stretched out like four thin ribbons of silk waiting to be threaded through the eye of a needle. Then the sprites descended upon them, one sprite for each end of each strand, which they sucked into their strange mouths, finally coming together in the center like a totally bizarre version of the spaghetti scene from Lady and the Tramp before they took off, disappearing into the sky.
“That was crazy. Seriously. I wish Zo was here so that she’d seen it too. I’ll bet it’d crack her up that the sprites ate Aphrodite’s hair.” He was chuckling to himself when a loud croak had him squinting up into darkness that moved, shifted, and finally turned into a raven, circling to land on the brown winter grass beside him.
“Tatsuwa! Man, I’m glad to see you!”
“Redbird Boy!” the raven said.
“Yeah, that’s me. Okay, you gotta get a message to Dragon. Like, now.” Kevin squatted beside the big bird. He was relieved to see that Tatsuwa had a leather thong around his neck, and from it dangled a small plastic container, the kind you might store salt in. He slid it from around the bird’s neck and opened it. Inside was a piece of folded paper and a small pencil.
Using his satchel as a desk, he sat on the ground and wrote quickly.
Neferet has a stash of modern weapons in the basement of the HoN. Ten crates of grenade launchers. Ten crates of M16s. Ammo for everything. She’s planning to attack soon to the south. Don’t know when yet.
He paused then, chewing the end of the pencil. He had to tell them about Aphrodite’s vision and the danger the Resistance was in, but he didn’t want to make her a target. Deciding quickly, he continued to write.
Neferet has intel about Resistance hiding people in round bales. Red Army heading to Lone Star Rd. and the hayfields there tonight. If you are sneaking people out that way, you only have an hour or so to get them away. I’ll be with the army.
He paused again, and then added, Had to use Old Magick to call the bird. We need to find a better way … K
He reread the note and then, satisfied, he folded the paper and put it back in the jar with the pencil. The raven croaked at him, and then hopped to his side, lifting his head so that it was easy for Kevin to slip the leather tie around his neck.
“Hey, I don’t know if you can understand me or not, but if you can you’ve got to keep a better eye on me. I don’t feel right using Old Magick as much as I’ve had to. Plus, I’m running out of things to pay the sprites with. Uh, hang on. Mind if I borrow a feather of yours?”
The big bird cocked his head to the side, studying Kevin.
“Bird Boy!” he said, and then turned, obviously offering him a tail feather.
“Dude, you’re pretty cool for a bir—I mean raven.” With a quick pull, he yanked out one of Tatsuwa’s long, black tail feathers.
The raven’s squawk of protest echoed off the stone wall as the bird took flight. He circled Kevin once, neatly dropping a warm, wet blob of bird shit on his head.
“Hey, thanks a lot!” Kevin shouted at him, trying to wipe the mess from his hair. “Well, at least it doesn’t smell as bad as the blood perfume.”
* * *
Zoey
“Okay, so, let’s review. Who can tell me why Thanatos died when Neferet broke the protective spell she’d cast over the Mayo Hotel?” I asked and then paused, glad to see several hands go up.
You never know about teaching. Some days everything goes smoothly and the students do their homework and act right. And sometimes it’s like every brain cell in their heads has been turned off—unless you mention boobs or accidentally cuss. I’d been surprised that I actually liked teaching because, well, teenagers are as unpredictable as cats and often have less sense.
(Yes, I’m eighteen, so I’m still technically a teenager. But I’m also their High Priestess and sometimes their professor—so I’m pretty sure my teenagehood doesn’t count. Unless I mess up. Then everyone remembers how young I am. It sucks.)
I shook myself mentally and nodded at one very enthusiastically raised hand. “Samantha, what’s your answer?”
The girl was a fourth former, or, as we would’ve called her in human public school, a sophomore. Easy to tell by the wings of Eros embroidered on the breast pocket of her school sweater.
“Ma’am, Thanatos died because she’d put too much of herself in the spell, so when Neferet broke it, she also broke Thanatos.”
Internally cringing at the kid’s use of the word ma’am, I managed
to smile. “Yes, that’s right. So, do you think Thanatos should have protected herself more by putting less into the spell?”
“No,” Samantha answered right away, without raising her hand. “If she’d done that, Neferet would’ve gotten free of the Mayo before Kalona’s sacrifice and before you and your circle figured out how to stop her, and we all would’ve died or become her slaves. Thanatos is a hero. I admire her.”
“There was a lot to admire about Thanatos. Who can tell me what affinity Nyx gifted her with?”
I was getting ready to call on another kid when I gasped instead, as heat bloomed across my upper body like someone was pointing a hair dryer set to high heat directly at my naked chest—though just to be clear, I was not teaching naked. We’re different here at the House of Night, but not that different.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” asked Samantha.
“Yeah. Yes. I’m fine. I, uh, need to step out for a second. Samantha, you’re in charge until I get back. Continue the discussion about Thanatos, please.” And then I sprinted for the classroom door, hand pressed to the burning in the middle of my chest.
I barely made it outside before I barfed my brains out in a recycling bin in the hall.
And then the heat was gone, leaving me limp and panting.
“Zoey!” Stark raced around the corner of the hallway, sliding up to me. “My Goddess, that was fucking awful this time!” He was feeling all over my chest—not in a sexy way, but in a holy-shit-what’s-broken way.
“I’m fine now. It’s over.” I tried to sound normal, but my voice was as trembly as my hands. “I’m sorry I took you out of class.”
“Never be sorry. You’re my life, Z. If anything happened to you …”
“Hey.” I took his hands in mine. “Nothing is happening to me. It’s happening to Kevin. That’s the problem.”
“No, the problem is that Kevin isn’t here, so I can’t knock the crap outta him for using Old Magick.”
“He can’t know how dangerous it is, Stark.”
Stark sighed. “I know, I know. Sorry. I wouldn’t really knock the crap outta him. I like him.”