Loved

by P. C. Cast

  Other Kevin held out his hand for the traditional greeting and Aphrodite’s eyes narrowed at him, but she took it, grasping his forearm. “Merry meet,” she said.

  “Wow,” Kevin said. “Your Mark is extraordinary, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Only an extraordinary priestess could’ve done what you did.”

  “Huh. You’re Z’s brother?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re taller than I imagined.”

  “So, you imagined things about me?” Other Kevin’s smile was just the right amount of cute and cocky.

  “Uh, did I mention Darius is Aphrodite’s Oathbound Warrior and her Consort?” I added.

  “You did now.” He offered his hand to Darius, too. “My man, you’re a lucky Warrior.”

  Darius grunted at him, but took his hand. Briefly. Before sitting beside Aphrodite.

  “Kevin, dear, I did find some cookies left in my basket, which might truly be a miracle. Zoey and her friends remind me often of locusts.” Grandma was holding a lavender-colored platter of her cookies, which she put in the center of the table before sliding in beside Kevin. “Oh, don’t let me interrupt.” She patted him on the cheek and flashed me a hello grin.

  No one said anything. I sighed.

  “Grandma, Kevin is telling me that in his world I’m dead. Are you sure you want to hear this?”

  Grandma lifted her chin. “Zoey Redbird, I have battled evil beside you. I have almost been killed by the denizens of Darkness. Do not underestimate me.”

  “Good point, Grandma,” Stark said.

  “Excellent point, actually. So, go on with your story, Kevin. Z died. I take it horribly. Tell us everything,” Aphrodite said with way too much glee for my taste.

  “Neferet killed me. Just like she did Professors Nolan and Blake.”

  “Zoey’s death started the human-vampyre war. Other Kevin was Marked on the same day she died. Now you’re caught up,” Stark explained.

  “That awful, awful, creature!” Grandma said. She grabbed a cookie and bit into it like she needed to devour something.

  “G-ma, if you start crying I’m going to stop talking,” Kevin said.

  “That, my dear, is a deal.”

  Kevin’s gaze turned to me. “Neferet really did all of that? Killed the professors here, just like in my world?”

  I met my brother’s gaze. “Yes. Definitely. That and a lot more. Finish telling us about you.”

  “I was Marked the day the school called us about your death. It was bad, and not just because you died. At least you were Marked blue. You were normal. My Mark was red.”

  “Which means what in your world, dear?” Grandma asked.

  “It usually means brainless soldiers, walking viruses, and killing machines. Some kids stay mostly themselves after they’re Marked red, but you can always tell when someone’s getting closer and closer to the Change. They turn.”

  “Explain turn,” Darius said.

  “The hunger gets them. They turn from being mostly human, to being mostly eating machines. Once a red fledgling is fully Changed, only a few—like maybe one in a hundred—can reason through their hunger. Those of us who can are made officers in Neferet’s Red Army. The others are soldiers.”

  “And you’re an officer?” Grandma asked.

  “Yep. Like you, Stark.” Stark stiffened, but Other Kevin just kept on talking. “Well, not exactly like you. I’m just a lieutenant. You’re a general.”

  “But aren’t you young to be Marked at all?” Aphrodite asked as she picked up one of Grandma’s cookies and nibbled on it.

  “He just turned sixteen in August,” Grandma said.

  “Yep. I was barely fifteen when I was Marked. I’m the youngest kid to ever be Marked at the Tulsa House of Night—red or blue. And I Changed faster than anyone on record—within one month.”

  “Why are you okay right now and no one who was with you is okay?” Stark asked.

  “Other Jack’s doing fine. Well, he is now,” Aphrodite said.

  “But the rest of the fledglings aren’t,” Darius said. “And of the vampyres with you, three committed suicide and the two who are downstairs are in bad shape. What’s different about you?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never known. It’s not that I didn’t have their hunger. I did. It was terrible. But I could reason through it. I was sure I’d lose myself like everyone else did when they Changed, but I didn’t.”

  “What did your mentor say about it?” I asked.

  “Zo, in my world red fledglings don’t have mentors. They have handlers. And none of them are one-on-one. Basically, you’re herded with other fledglings from one weapons class to another until you Change. Then they wait and see if you can reason through your hunger. If you can’t—you’re a soldier. If you can—you go into officer training. But you don’t have a mentor. You have OICs.”

  “Huh?”

  “Officers in Charge,” he clarified. “And you don’t talk to them about anything except fighting and killing.”

  “No one knew you were different?” Grandma asked before I could.

  My stomach hurt for Other Kevin.

  He shook his head. “I got good at hiding it. They wanted us to do things. Terrible, awful things.” Other Kevin was holding his fork halfway to his mouth, just staring down at his plate.

  “Kev?” I spoke softly.

  “It’s okay, dear.” Grandma rested her hand on his arm. “We have battled Darkness. We will not judge you.”

  He jerked and put his fork down. He took a big gulp from his glass, and then placed his hand over Grandma’s and met my gaze. “Being able to think clearly most of the time is an advantage—especially when no one knows you can. I made sure I kept myself out of the worst situations. But sometimes I couldn’t bear the thirst—the hunger. When that happened I made it fast for my victim. Painless.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose in a gesture I remembered so well. “There were times when I was sure I was going mad—when I thought, ‘Well, this is it—this is when I turn into one of them.’ But then I’d have one of those Nyx dreams and I’d wake up myself again.”

  I sat up straighter. Grandma and Aphrodite leaned forward. “Nyx dreams?” Grandma asked.

  “Yeah, what kind of Nyx dreams?” I said.

  He shrugged. “I’ve had tons of them. After the first one, I don’t remember them clearly. Just the goddess’ smile and the way her hand felt resting on my head. Sometimes I’d wake up thinking that I’d been sleeping with my head on her shoulder.” He glanced sheepishly at me. “Real dumb, huh?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said.

  “Tell us about the first dream—the one you remember,” Aphrodite said.

  Kev grinned at her. “Anything you say, Goddess of Love.”

  I kicked him under the table.

  “Hey!”

  “Focus,” I said. “On the dream.”

  “It’s going to sound weird, but I remember every bit of it. It started at your farm, Grandma. I was trying to find you, but I was sick and dizzy and I tripped. In my dream I hit my head and when I woke up—which sounds weird because I was technically still sleeping, but in my dream, my dream-self woke up.”

  “Yeah, yeah, we get it,” Aphrodite said. “Keep going.”

  “Hey, y’all aren’t havin’ a party without us!” Stevie Rae, holding Rephaim’s hand, smacked Stark on the shoulder and he slid over to make room for them.

  “We’re not partying, bumpkin. Kev is telling us about the Nyx dream he had after he was Marked,” Aphrodite said. “Here, have a cookie and be quiet.”

  I made quick introductions. “Kevin, this is Stevie Rae and her mate, Rephaim. Guys, this is my brother, Other Kevin.”

  “Yeah! More cookies!” Rephaim snagged one and chomped happily, nodding a hello at Kevin.

  “Hi, there.” Stevie Rae dimpled at him. />
  “Hi. You’re a red vampyre.” Other Kevin was staring at her like she was a science experiment gone wrong.

  “She’s a High Priestess,” I said. “She also has an affinity for earth.”

  “Wow.”

  “Staring isn’t polite,” Darius grumbled at him.

  Other Kevin blinked. “Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never seen a female red vampyre before.”

  “What?” I gaped at him. “No girls are Marked in your world?”

  “Not as red fledglings. Never.”

  “That’s weirder than boobs on a boar,” Stevie Rae said.

  “Goddess, give me strength.” Aphrodite rolled her eyes to the heavens.

  “Let’s go back to the dream,” I said. “You were looking for Grandma and you tripped and fell. Then you woke up.”

  “Yeah, I was in a cave-thing when I woke up, only it was only my soul and not my body. My body was all crumpled back where I’d tripped, and I remember my head was bleeding, too. This woman’s voice was calling for me and I floated around, following it. At first I thought it was you, G-ma, because it was singing in Cherokee, but it wasn’t. Zo, real weird stuff happened. Like, I could see the color of words and sounds.”

  My skin felt all tingly. “Laughter is birthday-cake-frosting blue.”

  Other Kevin looked shocked. “How did you know?”

  “Keep talking.”

  “Okay, um, I followed the voice and there she was—the goddess. She was sitting by a little stream.” Other Kevin’s gaze went far away and the corner of his lips lifted sweetly, making him look like a little boy again. “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She’s still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. She called me ‘u-we-tsi.’”

  “Son,” Grandma said with a smile.

  Other Kevin nodded. “I’m not as good as Zo with the Cherokee, but I do know that one. Nyx called me ‘u-we-tsi’ and told me I’m special. That my power is in the uniqueness of my combined blood of ancient Shamans and of the modern world. She said that I would be her eyes and ears in a world that is struggling to find the balance between good and evil. Then she said something I’ll never forget. I even had it tattooed around my arm.” He rolled up the sleeve of his T-shirt so that we could see the cursive script tattooed around his bicep. I knew what they would say before Grandma read them aloud.

  “Darkness does not always equate to evil, just as light does not always bring good.”

  “Then Nyx kissed me. Right here.” He pointed to the filled-in red crescent Mark on his forehead. “When I woke up I’d made the Change.”

  No one said a word.

  Kevin’s gaze went around the table. He sighed and leaned back, running his fingers through his dark, tousled hair, food forgotten. “I knew you’d think I was crazy.”

  “Ohmygoodness, Other Kevin is his world’s Zoey!” Stevie Rae blurted.

  Kevin stared at me and together we said, “Ah, hell.”

  28

  Other Kevin

  “The same dream. You’re telling me you and I had the same dream.” Kevin couldn’t stop staring at his sister.

  “What I’m telling you is that it wasn’t a dream at all. It happened to me. Almost exactly like you described, only I actually went to Grandma’s farm the day I was Marked because Mom and the step-loser refused to take me to the House of Night. Instead they thought they’d pray over me.” Kevin and Z rolled their eyes together. “Wait, what happened when I was Marked in your world?”

  “You picked me up from school. We freaked about your Mark, and then I went to the House of Night with you.”

  “I didn’t go home?”

  “Nope. We didn’t figure there was any reason to, and we were right because when I was Marked I had already come home first. I was, um, pretty upset. You’d died, Zo.”

  G-ma squeezed his hand. “That must have been very difficult for you.”

  “It was awful. For you, too, G-ma.”

  “Did Mom take you to the House of Night?” Zo asked.

  “Are you kidding? She and the step-loser wanted to start the prayer chain. I snuck out and called the red line.”

  “What’s the red line?” Stevie Rae asked.

  “It’s the emergency line for the House of Night if you get Marked red. You just hit 7-3-3 from any phone and someone will come pick you up. That’s what I did, and they took me to the depot with the rest of the red fledglings. And that’s about it.” He sat back and waited for whatever would happen next.

  “You won’t hear me say this very often, but Stevie Rae’s right—you are your world’s Zoey,” Aphrodite said.

  “I agree,” said G-ma Redbird.

  “Yes,” said the tall Native kid called Rephaim who was with Stevie Rae.

  “Yep,” Stark said.

  Then everyone just stared at Kevin.

  “Hey, what’d we miss?”

  Two guys hurried up to the table. The taller of the two had a cool blue tattoo that looked like the wings of an Egyptian god. The other was a red fledgling Kevin didn’t recognize. They were holding hands. The blue vampyre was saying, “Those red fledglings are finally relaxing a little, so we were able to get away. Lenobia, Travis, and Professor P are sitting with them in the cafeteria. I really feel bad for them. They’re super messed up.”

  On their heels was a gorgeous black girl whose blue tattoo was two phoenixes rising from flames. “Yeah, but that’s nothing compared to this kid’s red vamp friends. Erik’s with them. They won’t even leave their room. Um, could I have a cookie?” she said as everyone slid around to make room for the three of them and Zo made more introductions.

  “Kevin, this is Damien—his affinity is for air. And Other Jack. He’s from your world. In this world he and Damien were together, and then our Jack was killed.”

  “But now I have him back.” The Damien vampyre looked at Jack with so much love that it seemed an intrusion to watch.

  “And I have him back,” Jack said, putting his head on Damien’s shoulder.

  “Yeah, and this is Shaunee. Her affinity is for—”

  “Fire, I bet,” Kevin said.

  “Smart and handsome. I already like him,” said Shaunee.

  “Guys, this is my brother, Other Kevin.”

  “Hi,” Kev said. “So, it’s still bad with Marc and Dave?”

  “Real bad,” said the fire vampyre. “Got any words of wisdom that might help us help them?”

  Kevin looked down. He was so damn torn. On one hand he was amazingly, incredibly happy that his sister was alive. On the other was the past, and the men downstairs who might never be able to get over it.

  “I wish I did,” he said slowly. “Time. And support. Talk to them, like Zo’s been talking to me.” He glanced up, smiling sadly at his sister. “Like I’m normal. Like I’m not a monster.”

  “You’re not!” Zo exclaimed, sounding so big-sister protective that it made Kevin find his smile again.

  “I’m not now, but my past isn’t pretty. And their past is even uglier.”

  “We’ll help ’em get through it,” said the cute blond. “A few of us have some real ugly skeletons in our closets, too.”

  “Your world isn’t the only one with monsters,” said the guy named Rephaim.

  There was a long silence that had Kevin popping his knuckles nervously. Zo saved him by saying, “Um, guys, we just realized that in his world, he’s their me.”

  And everyone stared at him again.

  Kevin sighed.

  Finally, the blue vampyre named Damien spoke. “Okay, I’ll say it because it looks like no one else will. If Other Kevin is his world’s Zoey, what is he doing here?”

  “I came through the thing. You know, the bloody thing in the park. Like the rest of them did. Like Jack did,” Kevin said.

  “It is nice to meet you.” Jack offered K
evin his hand, which he took. “How are you doing?”

  “Fine. Good,” Kevin tried not to fidget as everyone gaped at him. He looked more closely at his world’s Jack. “I don’t think I know you.”

  Jack moved his shoulders nervously. “Um, I kinda know who you are because you’re an officer, but you wouldn’t have known me. I, uh, avoided your kind as much as I could.”

  “Wait, you kept your humanity, too?” Kevin leaned forward eagerly.

  “Not really. I wasn’t Marked long ago. I could feel my humanity leaving me, but I’ve never been good at sports or fighting or boy stuff in general, so no one paid me any attention. I just kept to myself as much as possible, which was actually pretty much.”

  “You were alone? All the time?” Damien looked heartbroken.

  Jack turned to Damien. “Yeah. It was safer alone. I hoped when I made the Change and couldn’t think anymore that I would just forget everything and everyone from my real life. That’s the only way I could stand it.”

  “It’s okay now. Everything is okay now. You’re home. You’ll never be lonely again.” Damien smoothed back his hair and kissed him gently, which gave Kevin a little start of surprise. That was the first time he’d witnessed a guy kiss a guy. He decided it was a little weird, but kinda nice, too. They seemed to love each other a lot.

  Then Kevin processed what Damien had actually said. “Wait, go back to what you were saying. You asked what I was doing here, but you already knew the answer, didn’t you? So, I must be misunderstanding the question.”

  Damien didn’t answer. He looked at Zo instead. “I think you should tell him.”

  He watched his sister draw a long breath. He could see that she was picking at her fingers, which meant something was bothering her. So, he braced himself for bad news.

  He should’ve braced himself for really bad news.

  “This is going to sound stuck up,” Zo began, but Damien interrupted.

  “Actually, narcissistic is a better way to put it than stuck up.” He paused and looked at his friends, who were all—even G-ma—frowning at him. “I didn’t mean Zoey is actually narcissistic, just that what she’s going to say will appear to be that.” Damien sighed. “Never mind. Carry on, Z.”