by P. C. Cast
“Sounds good. I never thought you’d hear me say that I was looking forward to getting back to those tunnels, but right now that feels like the best place to be,” I said.
Darius grunted what I assumed was guy language for agreeing with me, and I followed him into the hall, which really was deserted. It was just a short way to the stairwell. Okay, going up a flight of steps just about did me in, and I ended up leaning heavily on Darius’s arm. I could tell by the worried glint in his eyes that he was seriously considering picking me up and would have (despite my protests) if we hadn’t gotten to the next floor about then.
“So,” I said between gasps, “is it always this quiet up here?”
“No,” Darius said grimly. “It’s not.” We passed a common area that had a fridge, a big, flat-screen TV, some comfy couches, and a bunch of guy stuff like free weights, a dartboard, and a pool table. It, too, was deserted. His face set into unreadable lines, Darius led me to one of the many doors that opened off the hall.
His room was just about as I’d imagined a Son of Erebus’s room would be—clean and simple, with hardly any knickknacks. He did have some trophies that were for winning knife-throwing competitions, and a whole collection of Christopher Moore’s hardback books, but no framed pictures of friends or family, and the only art on the walls was of Oklahoma landscapes, which probably came with the room. Oh, he also had a mini-fridge like Aphrodite’s, which kinda annoyed me. Did everyone have a fridge except me? Jeesh. There was a big, heavily draped picture window that I wandered over to, pulling back a corner of the curtains and looking out so Darius could change his clothes without causing a jealous Aphrodite to disembowel either of us.
It should have been a busy time. Classes were out and kids should have been going from the academic part of the school to the dorms, rec room, cafeteria, and just in general hanging out and being teenagers. Instead, I only saw a couple of people doing their best slip and slide down the sidewalk as they hurried from one building to another.
Even though my intuition was telling me there was way more to it than that, I wanted to blame the dead quiet of the school on the weather. The dark sky was still spitting icy rain, and despite the isolating effects of the storm, I was enthralled with how magical the shining coating of frozen water made everything look. Trees bowed under the crystalline weight that entombed their branches. The soft yellow of the gaslights flickered over slick walls and sidewalks. The coolest thing was the ice-encapsulated grass. It stuck up in brittle spikes all over, glistening when light hit it just right, making the ground look like it had grown a field of diamonds.
“Wow,” I said, more to myself than Darius, “I know the ice storm is a pain in the butt, but it really is pretty. It makes everything look like a whole different world.”
Darius was pulling a sweatshirt on over a clean T-shirt as he joined me at the window. His frown said that he saw the pain-in-the-butt part of the storm more than the ice magic of it.
“I don’t see one sentry,” he said, and I realized that his frown hadn’t been directed just at the ice but at the boundaries of the walls, which we could see from his window, too. “We should be able to see at least two or three of my brother warriors from here, but there is no one.” Then I felt him stiffen.
“What is it?”
“I spoke too soon, and you were correct. This is a whole different world. There are sentries posted. They are just not my brothers.” He pointed at a spot on the wall to our right where it curved behind Nyx’s Temple, which was situated right across from the building we were in. There, between the shadow of an ancient oak and the rear of the temple, the darkness shifted to reveal the bent shape of a Raven Mocker crouched on the wall. “And there,” Darius motioned down the wall a little way to another spot. I’d overlooked it as nothing more than a natural fold of darkness on this stormy night, but as I stared, it, too, moved slightly, revealing another terrible man-bird creature.
“They’re all over,” I said. “How are we going to get out of here?”
“Can you disguise us with the elements, as you did before?”
“I don’t know. I’m so tired, and I feel weird. My cut is better, but it’s like I keep getting drained and never really refilled.” Then my stomach sank further as I realized something else. “After I used fire and wind to knock Kalona off you, I didn’t have to release the elements. They just weren’t there anymore. That’s never happened before. They’ve always hung around until I bid them depart.”
“You’re exhausting yourself. The ability to conjure and control the elements is your gift, but it doesn’t come without a price. You’re young and healthy, so under normal circumstances you probably hardly notice the drain it causes in you.”
“I have a couple of times before, but it’s never been like this.”
“You’ve never been close to death before. Add to that the fact that you haven’t had time to rest and recuperate, and that’s a dangerous combination.”
“In other words, we may not be able to count on me to sneak us out of here,” I said.
“How about we call you Plan C, and we try to come up with Plans A and B.”
“I’d rather be Plan Z,” I grumbled.
“Well, this will help, even if it’s just a temporary fix.” He went to the mini-fridge and pulled out what looked like two water bottles, only the bottles were filled with a thick red liquid I recognized very well. He handed me one. “Drink up.”
I took it and frowned at him. “You have blood in water bottles in your fridge?”
He raised his brows at me, then cringed a little as the cut that stretched down the entire side of his face pulled. Finally he said, “I am a vampyre, Zoey. You will be one soon. To us having bottled human blood is the same as having bottled water. Only there is a lot more kick to blood.” He lifted his bottle to me and then drained it.
I shut off my mind and did the same. As always, the blood hit my system like an explosion, giving me a kick of energy and making me feel suddenly very much alive and invincible. My woozy head cleared, and the ache that had been radiating from my wound diminished, letting me draw a big, deep, pain-free breath.
“Better?” Darius said.
“Totally,” I said. “Let’s go get me some real clothes and find the others while this buzz lasts.”
“That reminds me.” He turned back to the fridge, grabbed another bottle of blood, and tossed it to me. “Stick that in your pocket. Drinking blood won’t replace sleep and the time your body needs to heal, but it will keep you on your feet. Or at least I hope it will.”
I shoved the bottle in one of the huge pockets of my baggy scrub pants. Darius strapped on his knife holster, grabbed a clean leather jacket, and he and I left his room, hurried down the stairs, and walked to the door of the building—all without seeing anyone else. It felt wrong, but I didn’t want to pause to talk about it. I didn’t want to do or say anything that might keep us there for even one more second than we had to be.
As Darius reached the front door of the building, I hesitated. “I don’t think it’s smart for the Raven Mockers to see that I’m up and walking around.” I kept my voice low, even though there was no one visible around us.
“You are probably right,” he said. “Can you manage it?”
“Well, it’s really not very far to the dorm. Plus, the weather’s already nasty. I’ll just call in some mist and increase the rain. That should do a pretty good job of hiding us. Remember to think that you’re made of nothing but spirit. Try to imagine blending in with the storm. That usually makes it easier for me.”
“Will do. I’m ready whenever you are.”
I drew a deep breath, grateful that my chest was almost completely pain-free, and centered myself. “Water, fire, and spirit, I need you,” I said. I flung wide one of my arms, as if receiving a hug from a friend, and hooked the other through Darius’s arm. Immediately I felt the three elements surge around and through me and, hopefully, Darius, too. “Spirit, I ask you to cloak us…hide us…let us
blend with the night. Water, fill the air around us, bathe us and conceal us. Fire, I need you just a little—just enough to heat the ice so the mist forms.”
“Go."
“Okay," added all and anticipation around as at buoyed "But" by changes" "Darius." door="door elements everything felt fire,give grounds. He "I" i’d="I’d" ice="ice" in="in" into="into" it="it" let’s="let’s" magical.”="magical.”" make="Make" mist="mist." misty="misty" moved="moved" nodded="nodded" not="not" of="of" only="only" opened="opened" out="out" over="over" quickly="quickly." quivering="quivering" school="school" smiled="smiled" soupy="soupy" spirit="spirit" storm=""pat***** [needs correction]******
I’d been right about one thing: the weather was nasty. I’d definitely liked it more looking out from inside the warm, dry building. It had been bad before, but as the elements responded to my command the storm increased in intensity. I glanced around us, trying to discover if the Raven Mockers had noticed us, but the elements were working together well, and Darius and I walked in what felt like the middle of a blinding snow globe turned to ice. The ice and wind were so bad that I would have fallen right on my butt if Darius hadn’t had the reflexes of a cat and somehow managed to keep both of us on our feet.
Which reminded me, as he and I walked quickly but carefully down the frozen sidewalk, shrouded in a sudden mist that had blown up all around us, heads bent against the icy onslaught, I did not see one single cat. Okay, yeah, the weather was awful, especially after I’d messed with it, and cats don’t like anything wet, but I didn’t remember once in the months I’d lived at the House of Night walking anywhere on campus and not seeing at least a couple cats chasing after each other.
“There aren’t any cats around,” I said.
Darius nodded. “I already noticed.”
“What does it mean?”
“Trouble,” he said.
But I didn’t have time to think about what the absence of cats might mean (and to worry about where my Nala might be). I was already feeling the drain of energy. I had to focus all of my strength and concentration to keep a running whispered litany going to wind, fire, and water. “We are the night, let the spirit of night cover us…shroud us with mist…blow, wind, and keep evil eyes from seeing us…”
We were almost to the dorm when I heard the girl’s voice. I couldn’t make out what she was saying, but the high, nervous tone definitely meant that something was wrong. The tension in Darius’s arm, and the way he was peering around, trying to see through the elemental soup surrounding us, told me that he’d heard it, too.
As we got closer to the dorm, the voice got clearer and louder, and the words began to make sense.
“No, really! I—I just wanta get back to my room,” the frightened girl’s voice said.
“You can get back. After I’m done with you.”
I froze, pulling Darius to a stop with me as I recognized the guy’s voice even before the girl answered him.
“How about later, Stark? Then maybe we can—” Her words were abruptly cut off. I heard a little scream that ended in a gasp, and then there was an awful wet sound, and the moans began.
CHAPTER 20
Darius started forward, pulling me with him. We got to the little stoop that was the entrance to the girls’ dorm. There were wide stairs, framed with staggered, waist-high stone walls, excellent for sitting on and flirting with your boyfriend after he’d walked you to the door and before he kissed you good night.
What Stark was doing was a twisted mockery of the good-night kissing that usually went on there. He was holding a girl in what could have been an embrace, had it not been obvious that, just seconds before his teeth had locked on her neck, she’d been trying to get away from him. I watched, horrified, as Stark, oblivious to our presence, continued his attack on her. It didn’t matter that the girl was now moaning with sexual pleasure. I mean, we all know that’s what happens when a vamp bites someone: The sex receptors in both the “victim” (and in this case she was definitely his victim!) and the vamp were stimulated. She was physically feeling pleasure, but her wide, terrified eyes, and the rigidity of her body made it obvious she would fight him if she could. Stark was drinking in huge gulps from her throat. His moans were feral and the hand that wasn’t holding her tight against his body was fumbling at the girl’s skirt, lifting it so that he could situate himself between her legs and—
“Free her!” Darius commanded, pulling his arm from my grasp and stepping out of the pocket of concealing mist and night that had been hiding us.
Stark dropped the girl with no more thought than he would have given an empty QT Big Gulp. She whimpered and on hands and knees scrambled away from him toward Darius. Darius tossed an old-time handkerchief he’d pulled from his pocket at me, and said, “Help her.” Then he situated himself like a muscular mountain between the hysterical girl and me and Stark.
I crouched down, realizing with a start of surprise that the girl was Becca Adams, a pretty blond fourth former who had had a crush on Erik. As I watched Darius confront Stark, I handed Becca the handkerchief and murmured soothing words to her.
“You seem to keep getting in my way,” Stark said. His eyes still glowed red, and there was blood on his mouth that he wiped absently away with the back of his hand. Again, I could see a darkness that pulsed around him. It wasn’t completely visible, but more of a shadow within a shadow that shifted in and out of my vision, something that was actually easier seen when I wasn’t looking for it.
And then it hit me. I knew where I’d noticed such strange liquid darkness before. It had been in the shadows of the tunnels, and then again in the glimpse of the spectral form of Neferet that had turned into the Raven Mocker who had almost killed me! With more sudden insight I recognized this darkness further. I was sure it had been present, pulsing like a living shadow around Stevie Rae before she’d Changed, only then my eyes and mind had just registered my best friend’s need and anguish and struggle, and I’d processed the darkness she’d been moving in only as internal. Goddess, I’d been a fool! Overwhelmed, I tried to make sense of this new knowledge as Darius confronted Stark.
“Perhaps no one has explained to you that vampyre males do not abuse females, be they human, vampyre, or fledgling.” Darius spoke calmly, as if he were having an ordinary conversation with a friend.
“I’m not a vampyre.” Stark pointed to the outline of the red crescent moon on his forehead.
“That is an inconsequential detail.”—Darius motioned from himself to Stark—“do not abuse females. Ever. The Goddess has taught us better.”
Stark smiled, but the gesture lacked any real humor. “I think you’re gonna find that the rules have changed around here.”
“Well, boy, I think you’ll find that some of us have rules written here”—Darius pointed to his heart—“and rules written there aren’t subject to the changing whims of those around us.”
Stark’s face hardened. He reached back and pulled free a bow that had been fitted in a strap on his back. Then he took an arrow from the quiver I’d assumed was a man purse hanging over his shoulder (I should have know it wasn’t; Stark isn’t exactly a man-purse kind of guy). He fitted the arrow in the bow and said, “I think I’ll make sure you’re never in my way again.”
“No!” I stood up and moved to Darius’s side, my heart pounding like crazy. “What the hell’s happened to you, Stark?”
“I died!” he yelled, his face twisting in anger as the ghostly darkness rolled around him. Now that it was visible to me, I wondered how I could ever have missed it. Ignoring the shadowy evil, I continued to confront him.
“I know that!” I yelled. “I was there, remember?” That made him pause. The bow dipped down a little. I took that as a good sign, and went on. “You said you’d come back to Duchess and to me.”
When I said his dog’s name, pain flashed across his face, and all of a sudden he looked young and vulnerable. But the expression only lasted an instant. I blinked and he was back to being dangerous
and sarcastic, though his eyes had stopped glowing red.
“Yeah, I’m back. But things are different now. And bigger changes are coming.” He gave Darius a look of utter disgust. “All that old shit you believe in doesn’t mean anything anymore. It makes you weak, and when you’re weak you die.”
Darius shook his head. “Honoring the way of the Goddess is never weakness.”
“Yeah, well, I haven’t seen much of any goddess hanging around here, have you?”
“Yes, actually I have,” I spoke up. “I’ve seen Nyx. She appeared right in there”—I pointed at the girls’ dorm—“just a couple days ago.”
Stark looked at me silently for a long time. I searched his face, trying to find some hint of that guy I’d felt such a connection with—whom I’d kissed right before he’d died in my arms. But all I could see was an unpredictable stranger, and foremost in my mind was the knowledge that if he shot that bow he would not miss whatever he aimed at.
And suddenly that reminded me. He hadn’t killed Stevie Rae. The fact that she was alive proved that he hadn’t meant to kill her. So maybe there was some piece of the old Stark left within him.
“Stevie Rae’s fine, by the way,” I said.
“That’s nothing to me,” he said.
I shrugged. “Just thought you’d want to know, since it was your arrow that made her a shish kebab.”
“I was doing what I was told to do. The boss said make her bleed; I made her bleed.”
“Neferet? Is she who’s controlling you?” I asked.
His eyes blazed. “No one’s controlling me!”
“Your bloodlust is controlling you,” Darius said. “If you weren’t under its control, you wouldn’t have had to force yourself on that fledgling.”