by P. C. Cast
CHAPTER 27
Not surprisingly, everydangbody was crammed into my dorm room.
"Grandma Redbird!" Damien cried, and hurled himself into her arms. Then there was a big flurry of him introducing Jack to her, the Twins saying their hellos, and finally, Aphrodite, looking uncomfortable but pleased, getting a very tight, very heartfelt hug from Grandma. During the commotion, Damien and the Twins cornered me.
"Z, are you okay?" Damien asked in a low voice.
"Yeah, we were worried," Shaunee said.
"Some scary crap is going on," Erin said.
"I'm fine." I threw a furtive look to where Jack was babbling something at Grandma about how much he liked lavender. "Because of your help, I'm fine."
"We're here for you, Z. You're not in this alone," Damien said.
"Ditto," said the Twins together.
"Zoey? Is that a dog?" Grandma had just noticed that the lump of blond fur stretched out on the end of my bed actually moved and caused every cat in the room to hiss at the same instant.
"Yep, Grandma. It's a dog. And it's a long story."
"Who does she belong to?" Grandma asked, giving Duchess a tentative head rub.
"Well, kinda me. At least temporarily," Jack said.
"Maybe this would be a good time to explain to your grandma about Stevie Rae and everyone," Aphrodite said.
"Stevie Rae? Oh, honey. Are you still grieving her loss?"
"Not exactly, Grandma," I said slowly. "There's really a lot to explain."
"Then you should get started. Something tells me we're getting ready to run out of the luxury of time," Grandma said.
"First, you should know that I haven't told you all of this, because Neferet is involved in it—in a bad way. And she's majorly psychic. So whatever I tell you, she may be able to pick out of your brain, and that's not good," I said.
Grandma thought about that while she pulled the chair away from my desk and made herself comfortable. "Jack, sweetheart," she said. "I would really like a glass of cold water. Do you think you could scare up one for me?"
"I have Fiji in the fridge in my room," Aphrodite said.
"That would be lovely," Grandma said.
"Go ahead and get it for her. But don't touch anything else," Aphrodite said.
"Not even your—"
"Not even."
Jack pouted, but he hurried out to get the water for Grandma.
"So, I'm guessing all the rest of you are up to date about the things Zoey is getting ready to tell me?" Grandma asked the group in general when Jack returned.
They all nodded, looking round-eyed and baby bird–like.
"And how are you all keeping Neferet from picking your brains?"
"Well, it's just theory right now, but we figure if we focus on thinking about shallow, silly, teenage things," Damien said.
"Like shoe sales and whatnot," Erin explained.
"Yeah, the whatnot being cute guys or homework stress," Shaunee added.
"Then she won't think to look any deeper," I finished. "But Neferet underestimates us. I don't think she'd make the same mistake with you, Grandma. She already knows you follow the Cherokee ways—that you're in touch with the spirit of the land. She might look deeper into you no matter what is buzzing around in the front of your mind."
"Then I will have to clear my mind and practice the meditation skills I have been using since I was a girl." Grandma's smile was confident. "She cannot force herself into my mind, not if I block her first."
"What if she's Queen of the Tsi Sgili?"
Grandma's smile faltered. "You truly believe that might be so, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya?"
"We think she might be," I said.
"Then we are all in the gravest of dangers. You must tell me everything."
And so I did—with the help of Aphrodite, Damien, the Twins, and Jack, we caught Grandma up on everything, even though I will admit to glossing over the part about Stevie Rae not being totally herself. Aphrodite shot me a look during that part, but she didn't say anything.
As she heard all of it, Grandma's weather-lined face got grimmer and grimmer. I also gave everyone details about the latest Raven Mocker attack. Finally I concluded with explaining to her how Stark's death might not be permanent, and how Stevie Rae and Aphrodite and I had decided that, as morbid and disturbing as it sounded, we needed to keep an eye on his, well, corpse.
"And so Jack was supposed to have installed the nanny cam in the morgue," I said. "Did you, Jack? I saw some of your diversionary tactics." I gave Duchess a grin and ruffled her ears. She woofed softly and licked my face. Maleficent and Beleezebub, who were curled up together near the door (seems hateful cats attract each other—who knew?) lifted their heads and hissed in unison. Nala, who was sleeping on my pillow, barely opened her eyes.
"Oh, yeah, in all the excitement I almost forgot!" Jack jumped up and went over to where he'd laid his man purse—or "satchel," as he liked to call it—on the floor by the door. He carried it back to me and then pulled out a weird, mini TV-screen thing. He played with some knobs and then, with a grin of victory, handed it to me. "Voilà! Thus you can view the—hopefully—sleeping guy."
Everyone crowded around, peeking over my shoulder. Bracing myself, I pressed the ON button. Sure enough, the little screen showed a black-and-white picture of a small room with a big oven-looking thing at one end, a bunch of metal shelves lining all the visible walls, and a single metal table (body-sized), on which lay a human form covered in a sheet.
"Icky," the Twins said.
"Not pleasant," Aphrodite said.
"Maybe we should turn it off while the d-o-g is in here," Jack said.
I was all for that and turned the knob to OFF, not liking the feeling of spying on the dead.
"That's the boy's body?" Grandma asked, looking kinda pale.
Jack nodded. "Yep. I had to look under the sheet to be sure." His eyes turned sad, and he began petting Duchess a little frantically. The big Lab lay her head on his lap and sighed, which seemed to settle him down because Jack sighed, too, and hugged the dog before saying, "I just, you know, pretended he was sleeping."
"Did he look dead?" I had to ask.
Jack nodded again. He pressed his lips together and didn't say anything.
"You're doing the right thing," Grandma proclaimed firmly. "Neferet's power has a lot to do with secrecy. She is perceived as being a powerful priestess of Nyx—a mighty force for good. She's hidden behind that façade for quite a while, and it has allowed her the freedom to commit acts that, if you're right about the extent of them, are atrocious."
"So you agree that bringing Stevie Rae and the red fledglings out in the open tomorrow is what we should do?" I asked.
"I do. If secrecy is evil's ally, then let's break their allegiance."
"Okay!" I said.
"Okay!" everyone else chimed in.
And then Jack yawned. "Oopsie! Sorry. I'm not bored or anything," he said.
"Of course you're not, but it's almost dawn. You've had an exhausting day," Grandma said. "Perhaps we should all get some sleep? Besides, isn't it past curfew for boys to be in the girls' dormitory?"
"Uh-oh! We totally forgot about that. Like we need detention crap to worry about right now on top of everything else!" Jack said. Then, looking chagrined, he added, "Sorry, Grandma. I didn't mean to say crap."
Grandma smiled at him and patted his cheek. "No harm done, honey. Now, off to bed with you."
Not surprisingly, we all responded instantly to Grandma's mothering. Jack and Damien shuffled off with Duchess in tow.
"Hey," I called before they were out the door. "Duchess didn't get in any real trouble for being the central part of that diversion, did she?"
Damien shook his head. "Nope. We blamed it on Maleficent, and as insane as that cat was acting, no one batted an eye at Duchess."
"My cat is not insane," Aphrodite said. "She's just a really good actress."
The Twins headed out next, hugging Grandma and then picking up a sleepy B
eelzebub. "See you at breakfast," they called.
That left Grandma and me alone with Aphrodite, Maleficent, and a totally asleep Nala.
"Well, I guess I should go, too," Aphrodite said. "Tomorrow's going to be major."
"Maybe you should sleep in here tonight," I said.
Aphrodite raised a perfect blond eyebrow and gave my twin beds a disdainful look.
I rolled my eyes. "You're so spoiled. You can sleep in my bed. I'll use a sleeping bag."
"Has Aphrodite ever stayed in your room before tonight?" Grandma asked.
Aphrodite snorted. "Not hardly. Grandma, if you saw my room, you'd know why I prefer to stay there."
"Plus, Aphrodite has a reputation for being a hateful hag. She doesn't do sleepovers." I failed to mention that she might do guy sleepovers—that would definitely be TMI for Grandma.
"Thank you," Aphrodite said.
"If she stays in your room, especially since I would guess that by now Shekinah has told Neferet I'm here, wouldn't it seem very unusual behavior for her?"
"Yes," I admitted reluctantly.
"It would be more than unusual—it would be utterly bizarre," Aphrodite said.
"Then you must return to your room so that we give Neferet no reason to look more closely at us than she already has," Grandma said. "But, you will not sleep unprotected." Grandma got up a little stiffly and went over to her pile of bags. She started digging through the pretty blue carry-on she liked to call her "overnight bag."
First she pulled out a beautiful dream catcher. It was a leatherwrapped circle with lavender-colored string webbed inside, and caught within the center of the web was a smooth turquoise stone, the breathtaking blue of a summer sky. The feathers that hung in three tiers from the sides and the bottom were the pearl gray of a dove. Grandma handed the dream catcher to Aphrodite.
"It's gorgeous!" she said. "Really. I absolutely adore it."
"I'm glad you like it, child. I know many people believe dream catchers do nothing more than filter good dreams—or maybe not even that. I've made several of them lately, and as I wove the protective turquoise within the center of each one, I thought about the need to filter more than bad dreams from our lives. Take this and hang it in your window. May its spirit protect your sleeping soul from harm."
"Thank you, Grandma," Aphrodite said sincerely.
"And one more thing." Grandma turned back to her bag, searched a little while, and then brought out a pillar candle that was a creamy white color. "Light this on your bedside table while you sleep. I spoke protective words over it last full moon and let it soak up the rays of moonlight all that night."
"Been a little obsessed with protection lately, Grandma?" I asked with a grin. After seventeen years, I was used to Grandma's weird way of knowing things she shouldn't know—like when guests were coming, or a tornado was brewing (long before Doppler 8 was invented)—or, in this case, when we would need protecting.
"It is always wise to be cautious, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya." She took Aphrodite's face between her hands and kissed her lightly on her forehead. "Sleep well, little daughter, and may your dreams be happy ones."
I watched Aphrodite blink her eyes hard and knew she was struggling not to cry. "Night," she managed. Waving at me, she hurried from the room.
Grandma didn't say anything for a little while; she just gazed thoughtfully at the closed door. Finally she said, "I don't believe that girl has ever known the warmth of a mother's love."
"You're right again, Grandma," I said. "She used to be so awful, no one could stand her, especially not me, but I think most of it was an act. Not that she's perfect. She's majorly spoiled and shallow, and sometimes she can be seriously hateful, but she's . . ." I paused, trying to put Aphrodite into words.
"She's your friend," Grandma finished for me.
"You know, you're freakishly close to perfect," I told her.
Grandma grinned impishly. "I know. It runs in our family. Now, help me hang our dream catcher and light our moon candle—then you need to get some sleep."
"Aren't you going to sleep? I got you up in the middle of the night, and you said you'd already been up for hours."
"Oh, I'll sleep for a while, but I have plans. I don't get to town often enough, and while my vampyre family sleeps, I'm going to do a little shopping and take myself out to a lovely lunch at the Chalkboard."
"Yum! I haven't been there since last time you and I went."
"Well, sleepyhead, I'll let you know if it's as good as we remember, and then maybe the next really rainy day, you and I will revisit it together."
"So really you eating lunch there is just reconnoitering to be sure it hasn't gone downhill?" I pulled the chair over to the window and searched for someplace to hook the dream catcher Grandma handed me.
"That's exactly it. Honey, what do you want to do with the nanny cam?" Grandma held up one of the little viewscreens. Even though it was turned off, she handled it carefully, as if it might be an explosive device.
I sighed. "Aphrodite told me that there's an audio feed with it. Can you see a sound button?"
"Yes, I believe this is it." Grandma pressed a button, and a green light came on.
"Okay, well, why don't we just leave on the audio, without the video? I'll put it by my bedside. If anything stirs, I should be able to hear it."
"Much better than watching the dead all night," Grandma said grimly as she carried the little screen to my bedside table. Then she looked up at me. "Honey, why don't you open the curtains for a second and hang the dream catcher closer to the window? We're protecting from outside in—not inside out."
"Oh, okay."
I reached up with both hands to pull apart the thick drapes. They opened, and I felt a stab of raw fear as I looked directly into the hideous face of a gigantic black bird with terrible glowing red eyes shaped like a man's. The creature was clinging to the outside of my window with arms and legs that were human. Its dangerously hooked black beak opened, showing a forked red tongue. The thing let out a soft "crooo-ak" that sounded mocking and threatening at the same time.
I couldn't move. I was frozen by its mutated red eyes—human in the face of a terrible bird—a creature that existed only because of ancient rape and evil. I could feel cold spots on my shoulders where one of these creatures had clung to me earlier. I remembered the touch of its disgusting tongue and stinging pain its beak had caused as it had tried to cut my throat.
As Nala began hissing and yowling, Grandma rushed to be beside me. I could see her reflection in the dark glass of the window. "Call wind to me, Zoey!" she commanded.
"Wind! Come to me—my grandma needs you," I cried, still trapped in the Raven Mocker's monstrous gaze.
I felt wind fluttering restlessly below and beside me, where Grandma stood.
"U-no-le!" Grandma cried. "Carry this with my warning to the beast." I watched Grandma lift her hands and blow what was cupped in her palms straight at the creature that crouched on the other side of the window. "Ahiya'a A-s-gi-na!" she cried.
The wind, conjured by me but commanded by my grandma, the Ghigua Woman, snatched up the sparkling blue dust that she had blown from her palms and whizzed it through the tiny cracks between the panes of beveled glass. The wind whirled the dust around the Raven Mocker so that it was caught in the vortex of the sparkling dust. The beast's too-human eyes widened as the specks surrounded him and then, as the wind whipped fiercely, pressing the dust into the creature's body, a terrible scream was wrenched from the open beak, and in a flurry of flapping wings, it disappeared.
"Send away the wind, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya," Grandma said as she grabbed my hand to steady me.
"Th-thank you wind. I release you," I said shakily.
"Thank you, u-no-le," Grandma murmured. Then she said, "The dream catcher—be sure you hang it."
With shaking hands, I hooked it around the inside of the curtain rod and hurriedly closed the curtains. Then Grandma helped me off the chair. Scooping Nala up, the three of us wrapped together while we shook
and shook and shook.
"It's gone . . . it's over now . . . ," Grandma kept murmuring.
I didn't realize that we'd both been crying until Grandma gave me one last squeeze and then went to find Kleenexes. I sank down on the bed, cuddling Nala.
"Thanks," I said, wiping my face and blowing my nose. "Should I call the others?" I asked.
"If you do, how scared will they be?"
"Terrified," I said.
"Then I think it would do more good if you called the wind again. Can you send it in a big burst around the dorms so that if anything is lurking around outside, it'll be blown away?"
"Yeah, but I think I should stop shaking first."
Grandma smiled and stroked the hair back from my face. "You did well, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya."
"I freaked and froze, just like I did last time!"
"No, you met the gaze of a demon without flinching and managed to conjure wind and commanded it to obey me," she said.
"Only because you told me to."
"But next time it won't be because I told you to. Next time you will be stronger and you will do what you must on your own."
"What was that blue dust you blew at it?"
"Crushed turquoise. I'll give you a pouch of it. It's a very powerful protective stone."
"Do you have enough to give the others, too?"
"No, but I'll put it on my shopping list. I can pick up some turquoise stones and a mortar and pestle to grind them with. The grinding will give me something constructive to do while you sleep."
"What was it you said?" I asked.
"Ahiya'a A-s-gi-na means 'leave, demon.'"
"And u-no-le is wind?"
"Yes, sweetheart."
"Grandma, did it have physical form, or was it just a spirit?"
"I think it's some of both. But it is very close to its physical form."
"Which means Kalona must be getting stronger," I said.
"I believe so."
"It's scary, Grandma."
Grandma pulled me into her arms and stroked my head like she used to when I was a little girl. "Do not fear, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya. The demon's father will find that today's women are not so easy to subdue."
"You kicked butt, Grandma."