by P. C. Cast
Sadly, Sister Mary Angela sent me to inventory hell. Apparently the nuns had just gotten in a shipment of various cat toys—a big shipment, like a massive box of more than two hundred feathery, mousey, catty toys—and Sister Mary Angela ordered me to log each separate (and annoyingly perky) cat whatnot into their computer system. Oh, and she also quickly taught me to use their "newfangled" (the nun's word for it) cash register computer system, and then she gave me a stern, "We'll stay open late tonight, and you are in charge of the store," and disappeared into the office that sat beside the boutique part of the store and across the hall from the cats waiting to be adopted.
Okay, it wasn't like she actually left me "in charge." I could see Sister Mary Angela through the big glass window that took up almost all the wall space on that side of the room, which meant that she could also see me. Yes, she was mega-busy, making calls and doing other important looking stuff, but I did feel her eyes on me pretty often.
Still, I have to admit that I thought it was cool that Sister Mary Angela—a woman who was supposed to be married to God—was so accepting of us. It made me wonder about if I really had been, to use some of the nun's words, incorrectly painting all religious folks (except for Nyx's religious folks) with the same brush. I don't particularly like to admit when I'm wrong, especially since I seem to have had to do a lot of that kind of admitting lately, but these wimpled women had definitely given me something to think about.
So I was pondering much deeper religious stuff than was my norm, and literally up to my elbows in cat stuff when the door chimed cheerily and in walked Stevie Rae.
We grinned at each other. I cannot tell you how amazing it is to see my best friend not dead. Not even undead. She looked like my Stevie Rae again with her short curly blond hair, her dimples, and her familiar Roper jeans with a button-up shirt (sadly) tucked into them. Yes, I love the girl. No, she doesn't have very good fashion sense. And no, I was not going to let what was Aphrodite being her usual bitchy self make me doubt my BFF.
"Z! Ohmygoodness, I've missed you! Hey, did you hear the news?" she said all in a rush in her adorable Okie twang.
"News?"
"Yeah, about the—"
But she was interrupted by a sharp rap on the window of Sister Mary Angela's office. The nun's silver brows lifted questioningly. I pointed to Stevie Rae and mouthed, my friend. The nun drew a little pretend crescent moon in the middle of her forehead with her finger and then pointed at Stevie Rae (who was staring at Sister Mary Angela with her mouth unattractively flopped open). I nodded vigorously. The prioress gave me a quick nod, smiled, and waved a welcome to Stevie Rae, and then went back to her phone-calling.
"Zoey!" Stevie Rae whispered. "That's a nun."
"Yes," I said in a normal voice. "I know. Sister Mary Angela runs this place. There are two more nuns back in the cat room with Aphrodite and the Son of Erebus she's keeping busy with some seriously disgusting flirting."
"Bleck! Aphrodite and her flirting is so nasty. But, more importantly, nuns?" Stevie Rae blinked in confusion. "And they know we're fledglings and stuff?"
I guessed she was referring to herself with the and stuff comment, so I nodded. (Well, I certainly wasn't going to try to explain to the nuns about red vamps.) "Yep. Apparently they're okay with us 'cause they think Nyx is just another form of the Virgin Mary. Plus it seems nuns are not into judging others."
"Well, I like the whole not-judging part, but Nyx and the Virgin Mary? Ohmygoodness, that is the weirdest thing I've heard in a long time."
"Which must make it majorly weird, 'cause I imagine being dead and then undead you heard some very weird stuff," I said.
Stevie Rae nodded solemnly and said, "So weird that, like my daddy would say, it'd knock a buzzard off a meat wagon."
I shook my head, grinned, and threw my arms around her. "Stevie Rae, you crazy kid, I've missed you!"
CHAPTER 16
Our big hug was broken up by an annoying waterfall of Aphrodite giggles tumbling down the hall from the cat room to us. Stevie Rae and I rolled our eyes together.
"What did you say she was doin' back there, and with who?"
I sighed. "We were only allowed to leave campus with an escort from the Sons of Erebus, so this warrior named Darius—"
"He must be hot if Aphrodite is makin' such a fuss over him."
"Yeah, he's definitely hot. Anyway, Darius said he'd escort me and Aphrodite. She said she'd keep him busy so that we could talk."
"Bet that's a real hardship for her," Stevie Rae said sarcastically.
"Please—we all know she's kinda skanky," I said.
"Kinda?"
"I'm trying to be nice," I said.
"Oh, right. Okay. Me, too. So she's keeping this hot warrior busy so me and you can talk."
"Yeah, and—"
Two more raps on the window had Stevie Rae and me looking up at Sister Mary Angela, who said, "Less talk—more work!" loud enough for us to hear her through the glass.
Stevie Rae and I nodded briskly like we were scared of her. (Uh, who isn't scared of nuns?)
"You go through the box and pull out all of those little grayand-pink polka-dotted mice—the ones stuffed with catnip—and hand them to me. I'll keep clicking them into the inventory thing," I said, holding up the weird gun-looking apparatus the nun had taught me how to work. "We'll talk while I count cat toys."
"Okey-dokey." Stevie Rae began pawing through the big brown UPS box.
"So what were you saying about some news?" I asked, clicking off the mice she handed me like I was a shooter at one of those back-in-the-day arcade games.
"Oh, yeah! You will not believe it! Kenny Chesney is comin' in concert to the new BOK Arena!"
I looked at her. And looked at her some more. And then some more. Without saying anything.
"What? Ya know I love me some Kenny Chesney."
"Stevie Rae," I finally managed. "With all of the crap going on, I do not know how you can take time to obsess about one country music dork."
"You take that back, Z. He is so not a dork."
"Fine. I take it back. You're the dork."
"Fine," she said. "But when I figure out how to get Internet access down in the tunnels so I can get tickets online, do not ask me to get one for you."
I shook me head at her. "Computers? Down in the tunnels?"
"Nuns? At Street Cats?" she countered with.
I took a deep breath. "Okay, point made. Stuff is very weird right now. Let's start over. How have you been? I've missed you."
Stevie Rae's frown was instantly replaced by her dimpled grin. "I've been just fine. How 'bout you? Oh, and I've missed the heck outta you, too."
"I've been confused and stressed," I said. "Hand me some of those purple feather toys. I think we're all done with the gray-and-pink mice."
"Well, there're lots of purple feathers, so we're set for a while." She started handing me the long freaky-looking toys. (I definitely wasn't going to get one of those for Nala—she'd probably blow up like a big puffer fish at it.) "So, what kind of confusion and stress? The normal stuff or new-and-improved stress stuff?"
"New and improved, of course." I met Stevie Rae's eyes and, keeping my voice really low, said, "Last night a fledgling named Stark died in my arms." I paused while Stevie Rae flinched, as if what I'd just said had hurt her physically. But I had to continue. "Do you have any idea if he'll come back?"
Stevie Rae didn't say anything for a while, and I let her get her thoughts together while she handed me cat toys. Finally she looked up and met my eyes again. "I wish I could tell you that he was going to come back—that he was going to be okay. But I just don't know."
"How long does it take to know?"
She shook her head, looking really frustrated now. "I don't know! I can't remember. Back then, days didn't mean anything to me."
"What do you remember?" I asked gently.
"I remember waking up and I was hungry—so hungry, Zoey. It was terrible. I had to have blood. She was ther
e, and she gave it to me." Stevie Rae grimaced with the memory. "From her. I fed from her first thing when I woke up."
"Neferet?" I whispered the name.
Stevie Rae nodded.
"Where were you?"
"In that terrible morgue room. You know, it's off from the side of the school by the south wall and the pine trees there. It has the cremation thing in it."
I shuddered. I did know about the cremation thing. All the kids knew about it. That's supposedly where Stevie Rae's body had gone.
"Then what happened? I mean, after you fed?"
"She took me to the tunnels and the rest of the kids. She used to visit us a lot. Sometimes she'd even bring street people for us to eat." Stevie Rae looked away, but not before I saw the pain and guilt that filled her eyes. She was such a sweet soul—such a good girl—remembering how it was when she had been losing her humanity must be awful for her. "It's hard for me to think about it, Zoey. And it's even harder for me to talk about it."
"I know, I'm sorry, but this is important. I have to know what will happen if Stark comes back."
Stevie Rae looked me square in the eyes, and suddenly her voice was that of a stranger. "I don't know what will happen. Sometimes I don't even know what will happen to me."
"But you're different now. You're Changed."
Her expression shifted, and I saw anger in Stevie Rae's eyes. "Yeah, I've Changed, but it's not as simple as what happens to regular vamps. I still have to choose my humanity, and sometimes that choice isn't as black-and-white as you'd think it would be." Her gaze sharpened. "You said the dead kid's name was Stark? I don't remember anyone with that name."
"He was new. He'd just transferred from the House of Night in Chicago."
"What was he like before he died?"
"Stark was a good guy," I said automatically, and then I paused, realizing that I hadn't really known what kind of a guy he was, and for the first time I wondered if maybe the attraction I'd felt for him had tainted how I saw him. He had admitted to killing his mentor—how could I have overlooked that so easily?
"Zoey? What is it?"
"I was starting to like him. Really like him, but I didn't know him very well," I finally said, suddenly reluctant to tell Stevie Rae everything about Stark.
Her expression softened, and she looked like my BFF again. "If you care about him, you're going to have to get to the morgue and get him out of there. Keep him somewhere for a few days, and see if he comes back. And if he does, he's going to be hungry and probably a little crazy when he wakes up. You'll have to feed him, Zoey."
I passed a shaky hand over my forehead, wiping my hair from my face. "Okay . . . okay . . . I'll figure it out. I'll just have to figure it out."
"If he does wake up, bring him to me. He can stay with us," Stevie Rae said.
"Okay," I repeated, feeling utterly overwhelmed. "There's just so much stuff going on at the House of Night right now. It's different than it was before."
"Different like how? Tell me, and maybe I can help you figure this out."
"Well, for one thing, Shekinah showed up at the House of Night."
"That name sounds familiar. Like she's a big deal or somethin'."
"She's a major big deal, as in the leader of all vamp High Priestesses. And she pretty much told Neferet right in front of the Council."
"Dang, wish I could have seen that."
"Yeah, it was great, but kinda scary, too. I mean, if Shekinah has enough power to put Neferet in her place—well, that's just plain scary."
Stevie Rae nodded. "So what did Shekinah say?"
"You know Neferet had closed the school, even though she called off winter break and made everyone come back."
"Yeah." Stevie Rae nodded again.
"Shekinah reopened the school." I leaned closer to Stevie Rae and lowered my already mostly whispery voice before I continued. "And she called off the war."
"Ooooh! I know that pissed off Neferet," Stevie Rae whispered back.
"Absolutely. Shekinah seems okay, or at least as far as I can tell. But see what I mean about her being scarily powerful?"
"Yeah, but it also looks like you might have someone on your side who is actually a bigger deal than Neferet. She did stop the war, which is a good thing."
"It is a good thing, but Shekinah also wants to have a major cleansing ritual performed for the school. I'm performing the ritual. Me with my group of uber-gifted fledglings. You know: the Twins, water and fire—Damien, who is Mr. Air—and, to top it all off, Aphrodite embodying earth, of course."
"Uh-oh," Stevie Rae said. "Uhm, Z, does Aphrodite have any affinity with earth anymore?"
"Absolutely none," I said.
"Can she fake it?"
"Absolutely not."
"She tried?"
"Yep. The green candle zaps her and flies out of her hand. She's not just minus earth, she's minus earth squared."
"That is a problem," Stevie Rae agreed.
"Yep. A problem I'm sure Neferet will somehow twist into having happened because there's something wrong with me. Or worse, something wrong with Aphrodite, Damien, and the Twins."
"Dang, that sucks. I really wish I could help." Then she brightened. "Hey! Maybe I can! What if I sneak into the ritual and hide behind Aphrodite? I'll bet if you focus on me when you call earth, and I focus on earth at the same time, the candle will light and everything will look practically normal."
I opened my mouth to say thanks but no thanks—it'd be too easy for her to get caught and then for everyone to find out about her. But then I closed my mouth. Just exactly what would be so wrong about Stevie Rae being found out? Not caught hiding and sneakily being part of a ritual, of course, but just found out. The warm, familiar feeling inside me told me I just might be flailing down the right path (for a change).
"Something like that might just work."
"Really? You want to hide me? Okey-dokey, just tell me when and where."
"What if we didn't hide you? What if we outed you instead?"
"Zoey, I love Damien and all, but I'm really not gay. I mean, I haven't had an official boyfriend in a really long time, but I still get kinda warm and tingly when I think about how cute Drew Partain is. Do you remember how he was likin' me before I got all dead and crazy?"
"Okay, first—yes. I remember that Drew liked you. Second, you're not dead and crazy anymore, so he would probably still like you—that is if he knew you were alive. Which brings me to my third point: When I said we should out you, I didn't mean as in you being gay. I meant as in you being you." I made a little figure flutter toward the colored-in scarlet tattoos on her face that she'd carefully concealed before going out in public.
Stevie Rae gaped at me for a little while, looking seriously shocked. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded choked. "But they can't know about me."
"Why not?" I asked calmly.
"Because if they find out about me, they'll find out about the others."
"So?"
"That would be bad," she said.
"Why?"
"Zoey. Like I said before, they're not normal fledglings."
"Stevie Rae, what difference does that make?"
She blinked at me. "You don't understand. They're not normal, and I'm not normal."
I looked at her for a long time, considering what I knew—that Stevie Rae had been given back her humanity, and what I half suspected but didn't want to admit—that even though she had her humanity back, she still had dark places within herself that I couldn't understand.
I knew I had to make a decision. I either trusted her, or I didn't. And when it came right down to it, that was really an easy decision to make.
"I know you're not exactly like you used to be, but I trust you. I believe in your humanity, and I always will."
Stevie Rae looked like she might cry. "Are you sure?"
"Totally."
She drew a deep breath. "Okay, then what's your plan?"
"Well, I haven't really thought this through, but it se
ems to me that the vamps and fledglings should know about you and the rest of the others, especially now that another fledgling has died. We don't know everything we wish we did about you, but we are pretty sure that Neferet somehow created you guys, or at least opened some kind of weird door so you could be created, right?"
"I think so. The truth is, I still worry that the fledglings might be able to be controlled, or at least influenced by her, even though they are different now and she's been leaving us alone."
"So doesn't it make sense that it's bad that Neferet is the only adult vamp who knows about you guys? Especially if she can still have some kind of control over you? Especially now that there might be a new red fledgling getting ready to wake up?" And then another thought hit me. "Stark had a special gift. He never missed what he aimed at with his bow and arrows. I mean never."
"She would for sure want to use him," Stevie Rae said. "Before my Change, she was for sure using the others, or at least trying to." She shrugged apologetically. "I'm really sorry that I can't really remember the stuff that happened before I Changed, and the rest of the kids say their memories aren't so good around then, either. I can only guess at most of this stuff."
"Well, from what little I saw, it was obvious Neferet was up to no good."
"Not a big surprise, Z," she said.
"I know. But that brings us back to other vamps knowing about you guys. If you're out in the open, it stands to reason that Neferet would have a harder time using you for her own bizarre little take-over-the-world evil plot."
"Does she have a plot like that?"
"I dunno. Sounds like something she'd have, though."
"True," Stevie Rae said.
"So? What do you think?"
She didn't answer for a while, and I kept my mouth shut and let her think. This was a big deal. As far as either of us knew, Stevie Rae and the red fledglings were something that had never before existed. If Stark didn't die, if he woke up as a red fledgling, Stevie Rae would be the first of a new kind of vampyre, and being the first of something was a serious responsibility. I definitely knew about that.