by P. C. Cast
“Last time I saw you, I said that it hurt too much to love you. But I was wrong about that. The truth is it hurts too much not to love you,” Heath said.
“Heath, no. We can’t.” My voice was rough as I tried to talk through the desire I was feeling for him.
“Of course we can, babe. We’re good at being together. We’ve had lots of practice at it.” Heath stepped closer to me. He took the pointing finger of my hand from his chest and ran his thumb lightly over my nicely manicured nail. “Is it true that your fingernails are hard enough that they can cut through skin?”
I nodded. I knew I should walk away and back down to the tunnels and the life that waited for me there, but I couldn’t. Heath was also a life that waited for me and right or wrong it was almost impossible for me to walk away from him.
Heath took my finger and lifted it so that my nail was pressed lightly against the soft place where his neck curved into his shoulder.
“Cut me, Zo. Drink my blood again.” His voice was deep and harsh with desire. “We’re already connected. We’ll always be connected. So put the Imprint back between us where it belongs.”
He pressed my fingernail harder against his neck. We were both breathing heavily now. When my nail broke through his skin, making a small scratch on his neck, I watched, mesmerized, as an exquisitely thin ribbon of scarlet sprang up against the paleness of his skin.
The smell hit me then, the utterly familiar scent of Heath’s blood. The blood I’d once Imprinted as my own. Nothing can compare to the scent of fresh human blood, not another fledgling’s and not even an adult vampyre’s blood is as compelling, as hypnotically desirable. I felt myself leaning toward him.
“Yes, babe, yes. Drink from me, Zo. Remember how good it feels?” Heath whispered while his hand on my waist pulled me into him.
Couldn’t I just take one little taste? So what if I Imprinted with Heath, again? Hell, of course, we’d Imprint. And that’s not so bad. I loved being Imprinted with him. He’d liked it, too, until—
Until I’d broken the Imprint along with his heart and quite possibly irreparably damaged his soul.
I shoved him away and lurched out of the cab of the truck, stepping quickly around Heath. The icy rain actually felt good as it fell on my face, cooling the heat of my bloodlust.
“I have to go back, Heath,” I said, trying hard to get my breathing and my racing heart under control. “You have to go back, too, where you belong. And that’s not here.”
“Zoey, what’s wrong?” He took a step toward me, and I moved one more step away from him. “What did I do?”
“Nothing. It’s—It’s not you, Heath.” I pushed my wet hair back from my face. “You’re great. You’ve always been great, and I do love you. That’s why this can’t happen between us again. Imprinting with me isn’t good for you, especially not right now.”
“Why don’t you let me worry about what’s good for me and what’s not?”
“Because you don’t think straight when it comes to me and you!” I shouted. “Remember how painful it was when our Imprint broke? Remember how you said it made you feel like you wanted to die?”
“Then don’t break it again.”
“It’s not that simple. My life isn’t that simple anymore.”
“Maybe you’re just making it too complicated. There’s you. There’s me. We love each other, and we have since we were kids, so we should be together. The end,” he said.
“Life isn’t a book, Heath! There’s no guarantee of a happy ending,” I said.
“I don’t need a guarantee if I have you.”
“That’s just it. You don’t have me, Heath. You can’t. Not anymore.” I shook my head and held up my hand to stop him when he started to say something else. “No! I can’t do this right now. I just want you to get in your truck and go back to B.A. I’m going to go back down there. To my people and my vampyre boyfriend.”
“Oh, please! You and that vamp asshole? No way are you going to put up with his crap, Zo.”
“This isn’t just about Erik and me. The truth is you and I can’t happen, Heath. You need to forget about me and go on with your life. Your human life.” I turned my back on him and made myself walk away. When I heard him following me, I didn’t look back. I just yelled, “No! I want you to leave, Heath, and I don’t want you to come back. Ever.”
I held my breath and heard his footsteps stop. I still didn’t look at him. I was afraid if I did that, I would turn around, run back to him, and hurl myself into his arms.
I was almost to the old metal grate when I heard the first croaking caw. The sound stopped me like I’d run into a brick wall. I whirled around. Heath was standing in the freezing rain under the tree just a few feet from his truck. I spared hardly a glance for him. My eyes darted up into the dark branches of the ice-bowed tree.
Within the shadows of the naked boughs a darkness stirred. It reminded me of something, and I blinked, staring at it and trying to remember where I’d seen something like it before. Then the image shifted…changed…I gasped as it became more visible. Neferet! She was clinging to a thick, ice-slick branch that leaned against the roof of the depot. Her eyes blazed crimson and her hair whipped around her crazily, like she had been caught in a sudden wind.
Neferet smiled at me. Her expression was so purely evil that I felt frozen in place.
Then, as I stared up in horror, her image shifted again, wavered, and where the image of the tainted High Priestess had been, there was now a huge Raven Mocker. The thing perched on the side of the depot roof wasn’t human and it wasn’t animal. It was a terrible mutated mixture of both. It was staring at me with eyes the color of blood and the shape of a man’s. Its human arms and legs were naked, looking vile and perverted emerging from the body of a gigantic raven. I could see its forked tongue and the glistening saliva that dripped hungrily from that horrible maw.
“Zoey, what’s going on?” Heath said. And before I could tell him not to, he followed my gaze, looking up at the icy limbs that rested against the roof of the depot. “What the fuck?” But as I saw the realization of what the creature must be cross his face, the bird thing turned its glowing red eyes from Heath to me.
“Zzzzzoey?” It breathed my name, its voice sounding wrong and flat and utterly inhuman. “We havvvve been loooooking for you.”
My body felt frozen. My mind was screaming inside my head they’ve been looking for me! But nothing came out of my mouth—no warning to Heath. Not even the shrill girl scream that filled my throat.
“My father will be very pleassssssed when I presssssent you to him,” the Mocker hissed, spreading his wings as if he was preparing to fly down and snatch me up.
“I’ll have to say ‘hell no’ to that little messed-up plan of yours,” Heath yelled.
CHAPTER 12
I tore my horrified gaze from the Raven Mocker to see Heath standing just a couple of feet in front of me. He had his gun out and was holding it before him, pointing it directly at the creature in the tree.
“Puny human!” the thing screeched. “You think to ssssstop an Old One?”
Everything went into fast-forward then. The creature exploded from the tree at the same time my body thawed and I sprinted forward. I saw Heath squeeze the trigger and heard the deafening blast of the gun, but the Raven Mocker was moving with inhuman speed. It dodged, and the place Heath had been aiming at was empty the instant before the bullet sliced through the air, embedding itself in the ice-coated tree. As the thing flew toward Heath, I saw its jagged talons curling into claws and I remembered how, even in spirit form, a creature like this had almost sliced through my neck. Now the Raven Mockers had their bodies returned to them and I knew unless I did something fast, this one was going to kill Heath.
With a scream I gave voice to my fear and rage as I launched myself at Heath, knocking him aside a moment before the Raven Mocker reached him so that the creature struck me instead. I didn’t feel any pain then, just an odd pressure against my skin, starting at the t
op of my left shoulder and slicing across the upper part of my chest, above my breasts, all the way to my right shoulder. The force of the blow spun me around in a half circle so that I was still facing the Raven Mocker as it flew past us and then dropped to the ground on its terrible human legs.
Its blood-colored eyes widened as it looked at me. “No!” it cried in a voice that could belong to no sane being. “He wantssss you alive!”
“Zoey! Oh, God, Zoey! Get behind me!” Heath was yelling at me as he tried to scramble to his feet, but he slipped on the icy pavement that had somehow turned a wet red. He fell hard.
I glanced at him and thought how weird it was that even though he was right next to me it sounded like he was yelling from way down a long tunnel.
I didn’t understand why, but...Blood? Is that what’s all over the pavement? That’s odd. With a mental shrug I disregarded the pooling blood and shouted, “Wind, come to me!”
At least I thought I shouted. What really came out of my mouth was barely a whisper. Thankfully, wind is a good listener because the air instantly began to swirl around me.
“Keep that thing on the ground,” I said. Wind instantly obeyed, and a lovely mini-tornado engulfed the grotesque birdman, causing its wings to be useless. With a terrible screeching sound the thing tucked its useless wings against its back and began to trudge toward me, ducking its mutated head against the battering of wind.
“Zoey! Shit, Zoey!” Heath was suddenly beside me. His strong arm was around me, which felt really good because I was thinking that I might want to fall over.
I smiled at him, wondering why he was crying. “Just a sec. Gotta finish off that thing.” Wearily, I turned my attention back to the birdman. “Fire, I need you.” Heat was there, warming the swirling air around me. Then I used the finger of the bloody hand I was still holding upright and I pointed it at the thing that was getting closer and closer to Heath and me. “Burn it up,” I commanded.
The warmth that had been surrounding me changed tempo, going from gentle heat to a column of consuming flame. It followed the direction of my pointing finger and of my will, and it plowed into the Raven Mocker, engulfing it in an angry yellow flame. The air was filled with the awful scent of roasting meat and burnt feathers. I thought I might puke.
“Oh, ugh. Fire, thank you. Wind, before you leave, could you please blow that nasty smell away?” It was so strange that I thought I was saying all this stuff really loud, but my voice was actually coming out as a weak little whisper. The elements obeyed me anyway, which was good, because a wave of sickening dizziness washed over me and I was suddenly slumping against Heath, unable to hold myself upright anymore.
I tried to understand what was wrong with me, but my thoughts were all muddied, and for some reason knowing exactly what was going on didn’t seem very important.
Way off in the distance I heard running feet, and then I was looking up at Heath’s tear-streaked face as he yelled, “Help! We’re over here! Zoey needs help!”
Next thing I knew, Erik’s face had joined Heath’s. All I could think was oh, great, they’re going to start growling at each other again. But they didn’t. Actually, Erik’s reaction when he looked down at me started to make me feel kinda concerned, in a detached, only vaguely interested way.
“Shit!” he said, and his face turned really pale. Without saying another word Erik ripped off his shirt (which was the cool black long-sleeved Polo he’d been wearing at our last ritual), making buttons pop all over. I blinked in surprise, thinking that he looked really good in just his little wifebeater T-shirt. I mean, seriously, he has a hot body. He dropped down on the other side of me.
“Sorry, this is probably going to hurt.” Erik balled up his shirt and pressed it against my chest.
Pain did slice through me then, and I gasped.
“Oh, Goddess! Sorry, Z, sorry!” Erik kept saying over and over.
I looked down to see what was making me hurt like that and was utterly shocked to see that my whole body was drenched in blood.
“Wh-what—” I tried to frame a question, but the pain mixed with the increasingly strong feeling of numbness made it difficult for me to speak.
“We have to get her to Darius. He’ll know what to do,” Erik said.
“I’ll carry her. Just lead me to this Darius guy,” Heath said.
Erik nodded. “Let’s go!”
Heath looked down at me. “I have to move you, Z. Just hang in there, okay?”
I tried to nod, but the movement ended in another gasp when Heath picked me up and, clutching me to his chest like I was an overgrown infant, he ran, slipping and sliding, after Erik.
The trip back down into the tunnels was a nightmare I’ll never forget. Heath rushed after Erik through the basement. When they got to the metal ladder that led down to the tunnel system, they paused only for a second.
“I’ll hand her down to you,” Heath said.
Erik nodded and disappeared down the hole. Heath walked to the edge of it. “Sorry, babe,” he said. “I know this must be awful for you.” Then he kissed me lightly on my forehead before he squatted and somehow passed me to Erik, who was standing below us.
I say “somehow” because I was busy screaming in pain and I wasn’t really paying close attention to the logistics of what was actually going on.
Next thing I knew Heath had dropped lightly to the tunnel floor and Erik handed me back to him.
“I’m going to run ahead and find Darius. You keep following the main tunnel. Don’t take any of the turnoffs. Stay where it’s best lit and I’ll come back to you with Darius.”
“Who is Darius?” Heath said, but he was speaking to empty air. Erik had already sprinted away.
“He’s lots faster than I thought he was,” I tried to say, but a weak jumble of words was all that whispered from my mouth. And I noticed the lantern that I was sure had gone out right before I’d climbed up into the basement was lit again. “That’s weird” was what I meant to say. Instead, I barely heard myself mumble something that sounded like “Thhhhat’s weeeer” over the pounding of my heart in my ears.
“Shhh,” Heath soothed as he started out as quickly as he could without jiggling me so badly that he made me scream again. “You stay with me, Zo. Don’t close your eyes. Keep watching me. Keep with me.” Heath kept talking and talking, which was really annoying because my chest hurt really bad and all I wanted to do was close my eyes and go to sleep.
“Gotta rest,” I murmured.
And hers, “No! There’s no resting! Hey, let’s pretend like we’re in that Titanic movie you used to watch over and over again. You know, the one with Leonardo DiStupio.”
“DiCaprio,” I whispered, irritated at the fact that after all these years Heath was still jealous that when I was a kid I’d had a crush on Leonardo. Or as I liked to think of him, “my boyfriend Leo.”
“Whatever,” he said. “Remember how you said if you’d been Rose you would really never have let him go? Okay, well, let’s do a little reenactment. I’m the gay-looking DiCaprio and you’re Rose. You have to keep your eyes open and on my face, or you’ll have let me go and I’ll turn into a huge gay Popsicle.”
“Dork,” I managed.
Heath grinned. “Just never let me go, Rose. Okay?”
Okay, it was a stupid reenactment, but I’ll admit that he hooked me. It had driven me crazy since the first time I’d seen the movie (and bawled my eyes out—and I do mean one of those shoulder-heaving, ugly snot cries). Stupid Rose says she’ll never let him go, but then she does. And why couldn’t she have scooted over and let Leo/Jack get on that floating board thing with her? There was plenty of room. So while my foggy mind circled round and round that heart-wrenching scene from one of my favorite movies, Heath held me tight in his arms and ran.
He’d just followed a gentle curve in the tunnel when Erik found us. Darius was at his shoulder. Heath came to a stop and it was then that I realized how hard he was breathing. Huh. I wondered abstractly if I should be embarras
sed that I was heavy.
Darius took one look at me and started barking commands at Erik.
“I’m taking her to Stevie Rae’s room. I’ll get there well ahead of you, but I’ll need this human to join me there, so show him where to go. Then you get the Twins and Damien. Wake up Aphrodite. We may need her, too.” Darius turned to Heath. “I will take Zoey.”
Heath hesitated. I could tell he didn’t want to let me go. Darius’s stony look softened. “Do not fear. I am a Son of Erebus and I give you my oath that I will always protect her.”
Reluctantly Heath transferred me to Darius’s strong arms. The warrior looked grimly down at me. “I’m going to move fast. Remember to trust me.”
I nodded weakly, and even though I knew what was coming next, I was still amazed as Darius took off, moving with a speed that blurred the walls of the tunnel and made my head spin. Once before I’d experienced Darius’s amazing ability to practically teleport from one place to another, and it wasn’t any less breathtaking the second time.
It seemed only seconds had passed when Darius came to an abrupt halt in front of the blanketed entrance to Stevie Rae’s room. He shoved inside. Stevie Rae was sitting up, rubbing her eyes and peering blurrily at us. Then her mouth opened in utter shock and she bounded off the bed.
“Zoey! What happened?”
“Raven Mocker,” Darius said. “Clear those things off that table.”
Stevie Rae knocked the stuff off the table that sat by the end of her bed. I wanted to protest that she really shouldn’t make such a mess. I mean, I was sure she’d broken a glass or two and sent a whole bunch of DVDs flying across the room, but not only was my voice not working right, but I was really busy trying not to pass out from the terrible pain that was slicing through the top part of my body as Darius placed me on the table.
“What can we do? What can we do?” Stevie Rae repeated the question. I thought she looked like a little lost girl and I noticed that she was crying, too.