Revealed hon-11

by P. C. Cast

  I grinned at him. “No one but me knows what a dork you truly are.”

  “I need to laugh, and Sheldon makes me laugh.”

  “Okay, but only if you don’t make fun of me when I don’t get all his jokes,” I said.

  “That’s part of what makes me laugh,” he said.

  “Fine. Laugh at me. I’ll sacrifice for you,” I said kiddingly.

  His expression went serious. “I’ll always sacrifice for you.” He drew a deep breath, then blurted, “I don’t want you to start hooking up with Aurox.”

  I pulled back from him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I know I said I’d share you with Heath but I really only said that after the kid was already dead and now he’s back and I don’t think I can share you and I want you to stay away from him,” he said all in one big rush.

  “Sorry it took forever! Someone put the ritual matches in the smudge stick drawer. I thought we’d never find them. I hate it when things get out of place,” Damien gushed, all out of breath and frazzled-looking as he, Shaylin, Shaunee, and Aurox hurried up to us, their hands filled with candles and matches.

  “Shaylin told me what Thanatos wants, and I’m ready,” Shaunee said.

  “Is something wrong?” Shaylin asked, looking from Stark to me with unsettling concentration.

  “No, everything’s fine,” I said. “Stark was just on his way to take a shower and change. Right, Stark?”

  Stark put his arms around me and pulled me to him. Then he kissed me. Right on the lips. Hard and possessive. One of his hands trailed down my back and rested on my butt as he said, “Right, Z. I’ll see you tonight. During our date. Alone.” He squeezed my butt and then hurried away.

  Shaylin handed me the purple spirit candle, and I resisted the urge to throw the thick pillar at him. What the hell was I going to do about Stark? And did he really think acting possessive and telling me what to do was the way to get me to not want to be with another guy? Hell, no!

  I pushed aside my irritation and forced a cheerful smile on my face.

  “So, let’s get this circle cast,” I said. “Everyone ready?”

  As we took our positions I ignored the fact that Shaylin kept watching me, and then I realized that I was going to have to take my position in the center of the circle, which meant I was going to have to stand by Dallas’s decapitated body in the middle of blood-soaked ash and burned earth, and I decided I didn’t care how close Shaylin was watching me or what an ass Stark was acting like. I just kinda froze at the edge of the blood, hating that the smell of it made my mouth water, but the sight made my stomach clench.

  “Don’t look at him.” Aurox’s voice had me lifting my gaze from the horrible headless body. He smiled at me from the northernmost part of the circle. “Go to Damien and call air. By the time you have to move to the center you will be strengthened by the elements. You can do it, Zo.”

  That last little part of what he said sounded so much like Heath it made my eyes fill with tears. I blinked hard, nodded, and went to Damien.

  And Aurox was absolutely right. By the time I moved to the center, lit my purple candle, and called spirit I felt steady and grounded. It wasn’t difficult for me to lead Shaunee in forcing a blast of flame at Dallas’s body. After it was burned to ashes, it felt natural for me to ask Shaylin to have water wash the pyre site, and Damien to have wind blow away the burning stench. Finally, I used Aurox as the conduit for earth. Together we coaxed the ground to sprout fresh green grass where before there had been only ash and blood.

  “That’s way better,” I said, standing in the middle of soft green grass and breathing deeply of springtime after I’d closed the circle.

  Damien pulled his cell phone from his man purse and checked the time. “Oh, good! We’ve only missed half of third hour. I love lit and Professor Penthesilea.”

  “Third hour! That’s fencing for me,” Shaunee said. “I’m outta here. See you guys at lunch.”

  We waved bye to her and I sighed. “I wish it was sixth hour.”

  “I thought you liked lit class,” Damien said.

  “I do, but I don’t like Spanish class, which is fifth hour. So if it was sixth hour I would’ve missed Spanish.” I rubbed my forehead, feeling achy and dizzy again.

  “Are you okay?” Shaylin asked.

  I looked at her. She was staring at me. Again. Irritation bubbled, along with the rumble of my stomach. The Seer Stone started to heat the center of my chest, which only intensified my irritation. “Shaylin, stop creeping on me!” I hadn’t meant to sound as pissed as my words came out sounding, and I totally hadn’t meant to make Shaylin jump like I’d just smacked her, but that was exactly what happened.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean anything,” she said, almost cringing away from me.

  I sighed and my hand found the stone, which had cooled to ordinary rock. “Look, I didn’t mean to yell at you. I have a headache and I’m hungry, that’s all.”

  “Well, Z, you just circled. You should ground yourself. Go to the cafeteria and get something to eat,” Damien said, patting my arm. “I’ll tell Professor P where you are. It’ll be fine.”

  “You’re right, Damien. Food would definitely help my head.”

  “Food or brown pop?” Damien asked, smiling.

  “Brown pop is food,” I said.

  “Zoey, do you mind if I go to the cafeteria with you?” Aurox asked me.

  “Don’t you have to get to class?” I said.

  “No. I only go to first hour. Then I patrol the school grounds.”

  “Oh, I, uh, didn’t know that,” I said inanely, not sure whether to be envious of him or feel sorry for him.

  “Actually, it’s probably a good idea if Aurox ate something, too,” Damien said. “It was his first circle.” He paused and smiled at Aurox. “And you were excellent. Well done you.”

  “Hey, thanks Damien.” A grin broke over Aurox’s face, making his eyes sparkle a little too familiarly.

  How the hell could moonstone-colored eyes remind me of Heath’s?

  “Zo, you don’t mind if I go with you, do you?”

  I realized I’d been staring at Aurox—while Shaylin and Damien and Aurox had been staring at me—and I blinked. “No, that’s fine. You’ll have to hurry, though. I should try to make at least the last few minutes of lit class. Just because it’s not math doesn’t mean I’m great at it.” With Aurox following, I practically jogged away, saying a quick bye to Damien and Shaylin.

  The cafeteria was deserted, but I could hear pots and pans clattering in the distance from the kitchen, and something smelled delicious. My mouth was watering like crazy when Aurox said, “If you get our drinks I’ll go back to the kitchen and see what’s ready to eat.”

  I said okay without thinking about it, and went straight for the brown pop, sucking down a glass before I even left the drink dispenser. My head was a little clearer when I carried two big glasses to the table my group usually sat at. Sipping the cold brown goodness, I thought about how strange it was that some rooms totally changed when they were empty. Like, the cafeteria was usually loud and filled with kids and food, but right now, half an hour before lunch, it seemed unusually big and almost alien, as if it echoed with the ghosts of kids not here, but still, somehow, watching me.

  It gave me a seriously creepy feeling.

  “I got you grilled cheese sammiches and tomato poop.” Aurox smiled happily as he slid in beside me, plopping a tray filled with soup and sandwiches in front of us.

  All I could do was stare at him.

  His smile faded. He looked at the grilled cheese and soup, and then at me. “I thought you would like this. I can take it back. They have turkey and cheese, too, and the cook said they’re almost done making cobb salads.”

  “It’s not that. I love grilled cheese. And the soup.”

  “Then why do you look like that?”

  “Grilled cheese sammiches and tomato poop. Why did you call them that?”

  His brow scrunched. “It j
ust came out of my mouth. That’s not what you call them?”

  “Aurox, it’s what I’ve called them since grade school. It’s also what Heath called them. It was our favorite lunch because our school made seriously crappy spaghetti.”

  “Psaghetti,” he said softly.

  My mind told me to tell him to shut up and eat, but my mouth said, “We only call it that when it’s good. Psaghetti madness can’t happen with crappy spaghetti.” I knew I was babbling, but I couldn’t stop myself. “There’s a song and a dance that go with psaghetti madness, too.”

  “I know.”

  “What else do you know?” I felt hot and cold at the same time.

  “That I want to touch you so badly that sometimes I think I might die if you don’t let me,” he said.

  My stomach butterflied. “I’m with Stark.”

  “I know, and I think you should take a chill pill about that.”

  Chill pill! When he said that he sounded so much like Heath I couldn’t breathe.

  Neither of us said anything, and then he reached slowly up toward me. One of my hands was resting on the table between us. Gently, he turned it over. With one finger he softly traced the filigree pattern of the tattoo that covered my palm.

  “These were gifts from Nyx,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You have more special tattoos.” He moved his finger from my palm to my face, where he stroked the repeated pattern there.

  His finger was warm and it brought alive my nerves so that everywhere he touched I tingled. He followed the line of my neck down to the deep vee of my BDG T-shirt, and began to trace the tattoo that stretched over the puckered scar, which ran from one of my shoulders to the other.

  “This almost killed you,” he whispered.

  “Almost.” The word came out breathy, like I was trying to talk and jog at the same time.

  His fingertips still on my body, his eyes met mine. “You Imprinted with Heath and he saved you. That is why this didn’t kill you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You drank his blood.”

  It was too hard to speak, so I just nodded.

  “Zo, I want you to drink my blood.”

  “Heath, uh, Aurox,” I stuttered, “I can’t. It would hurt Stark and—”

  My words broke off when he lifted the knife and pricked the tip of the finger that had been touching my chest. A single drop of scarlet welled. The scent of his blood washed over and through me. It wasn’t human. It wasn’t fledgling or vampyre. It was magick.

  I licked the tip of his finger and he moaned my name, “Zo!”

  The taste hit my body like a nuclear bomb. My hands covered his, clutching, imprisoning, needing. I closed my eyes and took his finger in my mouth. He leaned forward, his head pressing against mine.

  The bell that signaled the end of third hour and the beginning of lunch rang. My eyes opened wide and I realized what I was doing.

  “No, this isn’t right! No. Aurox.” Shaking my head, I let loose his hand.

  He was breathing as heavily as I was. “I won’t tell anyone. I won’t ever betray you like that.”

  I wanted to cry. “If you really care about me you’ll just go. Please.”

  He nodded, wrapped a napkin around his bleeding finger, and bolted from the cafeteria.

  I drank an entire glass of pop in a single gulp. I wiped my mouth. I smoothed my T-shirt. I picked up a triangle of grilled cheese and forced myself to eat it. And when my friends all crowded into the booth I smiled and talked and let Stark put his arm around me possessively.

  No one knew I was screaming inside. No one.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Neferet

  Neferet’s eyes moved under her closed lids as she relived the twentieth century. For a time that ultimately brought her such power, and the beginnings of her immortality, it really had been a terrible bore.

  Two things had been the exception: her dreams and the old woman. The first had proven to be lies and the second to be spectacularly more than the truth. It was ironic that her dreams were the more enjoyable to revisit.

  Neferet had returned to Tower Grove House of Night and to a school all too willing to shower her with concern and compassion. Too close together had been the untimely deaths of her first familiar, little Chloe, and her Warrior. Everyone understood when Neferet withdrew from social events and spent an unusual amount of time in meditation and prayer.

  They had no idea that Neferet actually spent her prayer time in a deep, drugged sleep, yearning for the god that came to her only when she was unconscious.

  Kalona had been clever. Though he was spectacularly handsome, he came to her dreams as the Faceless God, who asked only that she reveal her fantasies to him and allow him to worship her.

  It hadn’t been like dreaming at all. Afterward—after it was far too late—Neferet realized that she had not been dreaming—that Kalona had been entering her subconscious mind and manipulating her. Then, all she had known was the desire his immortal touch ignited within her. She continued to open herself to him, and as her subconscious listened to his whispers, Neferet grew stronger. She began to question the modern ways of the vampyres surrounding her. And, ultimately, to believe that it was her destiny to loose a god from his unjust imprisonment so that she and he could rule side-by-side, Nyx and Erebus on earth. Together they would herald a new age where vampyres would no longer exist in an uneasy, pathetic peace with humans. Quietly, Neferet set about events that would irrevocably change the shape of vampyre-human relations. As the immortal had told her in her dreams: Why do the gods who walk the earth bow to those who should be worshipping them?

  Neferet used the loss of her Warrior as an excuse to travel, to not be tied to the tedious job of being a professor. Seeking, always seeking that which filled her dreams but eluded her in life, Neferet had smiled when they began to call her an ambassador of Nyx, whose visits blessed each House of Night in a special way.

  Neferet thought of herself as an ambassador of power.

  She used her psychic gift to know which High Priestesses wanted, needed, to be flattered or challenged, threatened or praised, adored or ignored, and then she gave them what they wanted: information, a healing touch, insight, excitement … the list of High Priestess needs and wants had been endless. While Neferet “served,” she gained standing in the vampyre community. She thought of herself as a powerful, alluring chameleon. She learned how to make her people see in her what each of them most trusted, respected, and ultimately, worshipped.

  And always, always, Neferet was drawn to the heart of the nation—to Oklahoma, the land the color of old blood, and the young city, Tulsa, where she had buried the record of her human past, and where Kalona’s dreams, whispers, and touch kept pulling her.

  Seek my release … seek my release … His whispers had filled her dreams and haunted her life.

  It was the twenty-second of April in the year 1927 when the wealthy human couple, Waite and Genevieve Phillips, issued an invitation for vampyre High Priestesses to attend the grand gala they were holding to celebrate the completion of the mansion that was being called Philbrook.

  Neferet made quite sure she was among those who accepted the invitation. Philbrook did not interest her, nor did the philanthropic, liberal human couple and their wealthy socialite friends.

  The city did interest Neferet. It smelled of oil and alcohol, money and blood and power—always power.

  It was the scent of power, like the essence of her dreams, that had her leaving the Phillips party that night and wandering through the city. Newly completed oil mansions dotted the landscape. Neferet drifted past them, unseen. She hardly glanced in their windows—barely noticed the leaded glass and the ice-like sparkling of the new electrical chandeliers. Instead she was pulled away from the glittering mansions, following a melodic little brook that seemed to be whispering a song to her.

  The mansion appeared suddenly, as if it had materialized especially for Neferet. It was enormous, set in the middle of immacu
lately tended grounds dotted by oak trees. Neferet remembered thinking how odd it was that there was only an iron gate at the entrance from the street and not a wall surrounding it.

  Then she saw the sign and realized that, though it appeared to have been fashioned after a European villa, or perhaps even a castle, the massive stone building was a private school.

  Neferet was drawn to it even before she saw the old woman. She entered the campus, her interest completely aroused. There were two main buildings, both built from a uniquely textured stone. The campus appeared new, so new that it looked dark and uninhabited. It was as she wandered through the slumbering campus that the whispering song she had been hearing all night became reality and Neferet’s dream coalesced.

  She heard the sonorous beat of the drum first. Neferet had followed it to a far easterly spot at the very edge of the campus grounds. There the scent of sage and sweetgrass led her to an enormous oak, big enough even to shield the light of a campfire. She noticed that birds filled the limbs of the oak. Ravens, she remembered identifying them with an afterthought. Odd, ravens aren’t usually seen at night.

  Neferet circled around the tree and saw the campfire.

  Then the drumbeat filled the clearing and all of Neferet’s attention had focused on the crone. She knelt near the fire with a large drum before her, which she beat with a simple stick wrapped in hide she held in her right hand. In her left hand she held a hatchet. Every few drumbeats she chopped a fist-sized section from a long, thick rope of dried herbs that lay beside her. The fire hissed as it ate the herbs, belching sweetly scented smoke.

  The woman’s dress, though yellowed with age, had an unexpected beauty to it. Delicate beadwork reflected the firelight, and long fringe swayed gracefully with each drumbeat. Her face was ancient, her thick braid of hair completely silver, but her voice was as clear as a girl’s. She began to sing and Neferet had been entranced by her words.

  Ancient one sleeping, waiting to arise…

  Neferet moved silently toward the old woman as the song pounded through her body in time with her heartbeat.