by P. C. Cast
“Grandma! It’s me, Aurox, your tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na. I have returned!”
Nothing. She was not here. It felt wrong, so very wrong.
Aurox retraced his steps, moving to the middle of the porch. The scent was thickest there.
Darkness. Fear. Hatred. Pain. Aurox could read all those emotions and more from the blood that spattered the porch. As he stood there, breathing heavily, taking in the terrible knowledge of violence and destruction, the smoke came to him. It lifted from around his moccasin-clad feet in swirls, carrying wisps of information. Imprinted in the gray mist was an ancient song that lifted around him, feather-like. Within it Aurox could hear the echo of a courageous woman’s voice.
Aurox closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Please, he pleaded silently, let me know what has happened here.
Feelings assailed him—hatred and anger. Those feelings were easy to understand, familiar. “Neferet,” he whispered. “You have been here. I scent you. I feel you.” But after the familiar emotions came those which knocked him to his knees.
Aurox felt Sylvia Redbird’s courage. He knew her wisdom and determination, and finally her fear.
He fell to his knees. “Oh, Goddess, no!” Aurox cried to the heavens. “This is Neferet’s blood, drawn by Grandma Redbird. Did Neferet kill her as she did her daughter? Where is Grandma’s body?”
There was no answer except the sighing of the listening wind and the annoying clicks and croaks of a huge raven that perched at the edge of the porch.
“Rephaim! Is that you?” Aurox ran his hands through his dirty hair while the raven stared at him, turning his head from side to side. “I wish the Goddess would take the bull within me and make me a bird. If she did I would take to the skies and fly forever and ever.”
The raven croaked at him, then spread his wings and flew away, leaving Aurox completely alone.
In equal parts Aurox wanted to weep in despair and frustration, as well as to call the beast to him and attack someone, anyone, in anger and fear.
The boy who was also a beast chose to do neither. Instead Aurox did nothing—nothing at all, except think. He sat on Grandma’s porch for a very long time, and amidst the residue of blood and smoke, fear and courage, Aurox reasoned his way to truth.
Had Neferet killed Grandma Redbird, her body would be here. She has no reason to hide her deeds. Her crimes have already been discovered. Thanatos made sure of that. So, what is it Neferet wants more than death and destruction?
The answer was as simple as it was horrible.
Neferet wants to create chaos and one very easy way to do that is to cause Zoey Redbird pain. Aurox knew the truth of it as the thought came to him. Grandma was unique among mortals—she was a gifted leader—beloved of many. And powerful. Grandma was powerful.
Sylvia Redbird would make a more perfect sacrifice than her daughter had made.
“No!” Aurox’s mind skittered away from that terrible thought. It was also true that by capturing Zoey’s beloved grandmother, Neferet would ensure the fledgling would come after her with all of her very impressive might. In doing so she would also fragment the vampyre community and wreak havoc locally.
“Whether she is used as a sacrifice or as a hostage, as long as Neferet holds Grandma Redbird, and Zoey tries to save her, Neferet gets what she most desires—chaos and vengeance. Well, then, someone else must save Grandma.”
Aurox made his decision quickly, though he understood it could very well be the end of him. The drive back to Tulsa seemed to take an unusually long time. Aurox had time enough to think. He thought about Neferet and her callous disregard for life. He thought about Dragon Lankford and how he’d fought and vanquished the loneliness and despair that had tried to swallow his life. Aurox thought about the courage of those who stood against a foe so great that just the memory of the white bull made his insides shiver. And Aurox thought about Zoey Redbird.
It was well past sunset by the time Aurox returned to Tulsa. He did not drive to the obscure back lot of Utica Square. Instead, Aurox drove past the closed shopping center, heading east on Twenty-first Street. He turned left at the Utica Street light, and then left again a block later, entering through the front gate of the House of Night, parking not far from the empty small yellow bus.
Aurox drew a deep breath. Be calm. Control the beast. I can do this. I must do this. Then he got out of the car.
Aurox had thought a lot on the way from Grandma Redbird’s empty home, but he hadn’t actually considered the specifics of what he should do when he reached the House of Night. So, letting his instincts guide him, he simply began walking through campus.
It was obviously lunchtime. The scents that drifted from the cafeteria part of the main building made his mouth water, and he realized he hadn’t eaten in an entire day. Automatically, his feet moved toward the center of campus, following the food.
Just as he stepped on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the dining hall, the big wooden doors opened and a group of fledglings poured out, talking and laughing in familiar, easy voices.
Zoey saw him before anyone else did. He knew it because her eyes widened with surprise. She’d begun shaking her head and was opening her mouth as if to shout at him when Stark’s voice shot across the space between them like an arrow.
“Zoey, get back inside! Darius, Rephaim, to me. Let’s get him!”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Zoey
“I need to talk to Zoey!” Aurox shouted, and then Stark punched him squarely in his mouth and he was too busy spitting blood and falling to his knees to shout anything else.
“Stark! Holy crap! Stop it!” I tried to grab my Warrior’s arm.
“I said, get back inside!” Stark was yelling at me as he shook me off like I was an ant. He and Darius had thrown Aurox off the sidewalk and tossed him out into the school grounds and the waiting thicket of oaks where the shadows were deepest.
They’re going to beat the crap out of him!
“He’s not fighting you, Stark. He’s not hurting anyone.” I jogged after Stark and Darius, hating the muffled sounds of pain Aurox was making as they pulled him across the grass. I tried to reason with him, but Stark was seriously not listening to me. Darius didn’t even glance at me.
Then I felt Stevie Rae’s hand on my wrist. “Z, let the guys handle this.”
“No, but he’s—”
“He’s not going anywhere.” Stark kicked him and Aurox rolled into the shadows at the base of a big oak. “Even if he changes into that creature.” Stark sounded as dangerous as he looked. He’d pulled his bow from the sling across his back and had notched an arrow, pointing it directly at Aurox.
“I don’t want to change. I’m trying not to.” Aurox struggled to his knees. His head was bowed and blood spilled from his mouth onto his shirt. “If you won’t let me speak to Zoey, get Thanatos.”
“Do it,” Darius told Rephaim. “Get Kalona as well.” Rephaim took off as Darius walked up to Aurox. Aurox lifted his head. His eyes were glowing and I could see that his face was flushed. He started to stand, but Darius backhanded him, knocking him down again. Then the Warrior pulled a thin, dangerous looking knife from inside his coat and stood over him.
Aurox’s face was pressed against the pavement and I heard a terrible groan escape from him.
“You change and I will kill you,” Stark spoke slowly and clearly.
“I am trying not to!” The words sounded strange, as if they had been forced from Aurox’s throat. He turned his head then, and I could see that his face was totally contorted and his eyes were glowing. His skin was twitching and rippling like dozens of bugs were skittering around underneath the surface.
It looked disgusting and made my stomach roll. This thing cannot be my Heath. The Seer Stone was wrong. I put my hand over the stone and pressed it against my chest. Nothing. It wasn’t even warm. I’d made a mistake. It had all been just another mess up by me. I could barely think through the rush of sadness I felt.
“Try harder!” I was blin
king at Aphrodite in surprise and wondering what the hell was going on, when she marched past me straight up to Aurox.
“Aphrodite, get back! He may—” Darius began, but Aphrodite interrupted him.
“He’s not gonna do shit. Bow Boy will shoot his ass. Then you’ll slit him open from crotch to throat. I couldn’t be safer if I was teaching kindergarten. Well, I’d be totally nauseated by the brats surrounding me, but you get my meaning.”
“Aphrodite, what are you doing?” I found my voice again.
She pointed a manicured nail at Aurox. “As long as you don’t attack anyone, there’s nothing here for you to fight. So control that shit that’s going on inside you. Now.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Get closer. We don’t need the whole damn school gawking at us like a train wreck.” Her gaze took in my circle, my friends who had closed ranks and were hurrying up behind me: Damien, Shaunee, Shaylin. Their presence along with Stevie Rae’s began to calm me, and helped me to think as she continued, “Okay, Shaylin says he’s the color of moonlight, which made me think of Nyx, which then had me realizing that anyone, even someone as disgusting as this boy-bull-thing, who makes me think of Nyx should probably be allowed to speak. That’s all. The end.”
“Yeah, sorry.” Shaylin moved closer to me and said softly, “I know it’s not what anyone wants to hear, but I totally see silver moonlight when I look at him.”
“It’s what I want to hear.” Aurox’s voice was more normal. His skin had stopped doing the nasty bug twitchy thing. His mouth was still bleeding, and the side of his face had a bright red skid mark from where he’d hit the sidewalk when Stark had punched him, but he looked like a regular kid again and not like something out of Resident Evil.
“Don’t you fucking move,” Stark ground between his teeth. “Aphrodite, for once listen to Darius and back off. Do you not remember what he changed into?”
“He killed Dragon. He could kill you,” Darius said.
“I did not want to! I tried not to.” Aurox’s gaze found mine. “Zoey, tell them. Tell them that I tried to stop what was happening. I don’t know what happened. You believe me. I know you do. Grandma Redbird said you protected me.”
Stark took a step toward Aurox. “Do not talk about Zoey’s grandma!”
“That’s why I’m here! Zoey, your grandma’s in danger.”
I felt like Aurox had punched me in the gut. Stark was stepping on the back of Aurox’s neck, forcing his face into the ground and yelling something about Grandma. Darius was shouting, too. Damien had started screaming. Aurox’s face had begun to ripple again and suddenly Kalona was there. He picked up Stark in one hand and Darius in another and tossed them away. Wings fully spread, he stood over Aurox, fists closed, face looking like an immortal Hulk. He was totally going to smash Aurox into nothingness.
“Don’t kill him!” I shrieked. “He knows something about Grandma!”
“Warrior, stand down!” Thanatos didn’t raise her voice, but the power of her command rippled across Kalona’s skin. He twitched like a horse trying to dislodge a fly, but he lowered his fists. The High Priestess of Death skewered me with her dark eyes. “Call spirit. Strengthen the good within Aurox. Help him not to change.”
I drew a shaky breath and closed my eyes so that I couldn’t look at the thing that was Aurox—the thing that I’d thought was Heath—the thing that might have hurt Grandma. “Spirit, come to me,” I whispered. “If there is good within Aurox, strengthen it. Help him to stay a boy.” I felt the element I considered my closest affinity whisk around me and heard Aurox’s gasping intake of breath as it moved to him. And then, for just an instant, I felt my Seer Stone heat up.
I opened my eyes and the Seer Stone went cold. Aurox was sitting on the ground, leaning heavily against a big oak, bleeding and bruised, but completely a boy again. Darius and Stark had picked themselves up and, scowling, were moving back to our group. Kalona looked pissed, but he’d stepped aside.
“Stevie Rae, summon earth. Deepen the shadows beneath this tree. Damien, call on air. Make the breeze blow hard enough to muffle our words. Our fledglings do not need to witness more violence and chaos. What happens here remains private,” Thanatos commanded.
Stevie Rae and Damien obeyed the High Priestess, and in moments it felt like the group of us was standing in a little oak-scented bubble as wind whipped around us, carrying away our words.
Thanatos gave the two of them a nod of approval. Then she turned to Aurox. “Now, what do you know about Sylvia Redbird?” Thanatos shot the question at him.
“Neferet has taken her.”
“Oh, Goddess!” I staggered and Stark caught me before I could fall. “Is she dead?”
“I-I do not know. I hope she is not,” Aurox said earnestly.
“You don’t know? You hope she’s not dead?” Stevie Rae sounded super pissed. “Was this somethin’ you did again, but tried not to do?”
“No! I had nothing to do with it.”
“Then how do you know about it?” I managed to ask, even though my voice was shaky and I felt like I was going to puke.
“I went back to her home and she was gone. There was blood on her porch. It was Neferet’s. I know it. I know her scent.”
“Was Grandma’s blood there, too?” I asked.
“No.” He shook his head. “But traces of her power lingered in smoke and in the land, as if she had been prepared for battle.”
“You said you went back to Sylvia’s home. Why?” Thanatos asked.
Aurox brushed some of the blood from his mouth. His hand was trembling. Actually, he looked like he was going to burst into tears.
“She found me yesterday morning, after that awful night. She forgave me. She said she believed in me, and then she offered me sanctuary. She talked to me, like I was normal. Like I wasn’t a monster. She named me tsu-ka-nv-s-di-na.” Aurox met my gaze.
“Bull,” I said, recalling words recited from my childhood lessons. “That’s the Cherokee word for bull.”
“Yes, that’s what Grandma said. She offered me sanctuary, as long as I didn’t hurt anyone else, but I left.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have! I should have stayed there and protected her, but I did not know she was in danger.”
“I am not blaming you. Not at this time,” Thanatos said. “You say you left yesterday, and then returned today?”
Aurox nodded. “I left because I needed to figure out who I am—what I am. I came here. I hid under the shattered tree.” He looked beseechingly at Thanatos. “I heard what you said at Dragon’s funeral pyre about what I am. I couldn’t bear it. All I could think was that I had to get back to Grandma Redbird—that she would help me figure out a way to undo whatever was done to make me.”
“The killing of her daughter made you, Vessel,” Kalona said, his voice cold. “You expect us to believe you were granted sanctuary by the woman whose daughter’s death created you?”
“It is unbelievable. I know that.” Aurox’s strangely colored eyes found mine again. “I do not understand how Grandma could be so kind, so forgiving, but she is. She even fed me chocolate chip and lavender cookies with milk.” He pointed down to his shoes, which I recognized as hand-stitched moccasins, the kind Grandma liked to make for Yule gifts.
“No human is that forgiving. Even a goddess would find it difficult to forgive one such as you,” said Kalona’s cold, dead voice.
“A goddess forgave me,” Rephaim said softly. “And I have done worse things than Aurox.”
“Grandma named him bull. She makes chocolate chip and lavender cookies,” I said. “And those are her handmade moccasins, too.”
“Which means you have been at her house, and that she talked to you,” Stark said. “But it doesn’t mean you didn’t do something terrible to her and then steal her stuff.”
“If that’s true, then why would he come here?” I heard myself asking.
“An excellent point,” Thanatos said. She turned to Shaylin. “Child, read his colors.”
“I alread
y have. That’s why Aphrodite stopped Darius and Stark from beating him up,” Shaylin said.
“His aura is made of moonlight,” Aphrodite took up the explanation. “Which is why I stepped in and used a PAUSE button on the testosterone.”
“Explain, Prophetess,” Thanatos commanded.
“If he’s the color of moonlight then I have to believe he is, somehow, connected to Nyx because the moon is her main symbol,” Aphrodite said.
“Well reasoned,” Thanatos said. She studied Aurox. “Even before Zoey strengthened your spirit you were controlling the metamorphosis that was trying to change you.”
“I wasn’t controlling it very well,” he admitted.
“But I could see you were trying.” Her gaze went from Aurox to me. “Would your grandmother forgive him, even after witnessing what he can become?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. Grandma is the kindest person I’ve ever known. She is our Wise Woman, our Ghigua.” I walked up to Aurox. “Where is she? Where has Neferet taken her?”
“I do not know. I only know that Neferet battled with her. Grandma Redbird drew her blood, and now they are both gone. I am sorry, Zo.”
“Don’t you ever, ever call me that again,” I said.
Beside me, I could see Stark had narrowed his eyes and was studying Aurox like a fly he wanted to pull the wings off of.
“You are not Heath Luck,” Stark said. He kept his voice pitched low, but it was obvious that he was ready to explode.
Aurox shook his head, looking utterly confused. “I am Aurox. I do not know this Heath Luck.”
“Damn right you don’t,” Stark said. “So, like Zoey said, don’t ever call her Zo again. You couldn’t even wipe the shoes of the guy who used to call her that.”
“Does Heath Luck have something to do with Grandma Redbird?” Aurox asked.
“No!” I cut off whatever pissed-off thing Stark was getting ready to say. “And we really need to focus on finding Grandma.”
“I may know where Neferet has taken Sylvia Redbird,” Kalona said. We all stared at him expectantly. “She has a penthouse suite at the Mayo Hotel. The entire balcony is hers. The walls are solid marble and leak no sounds. She has all the privacy that her wealth can purchase. She could have taken Sylvia Redbird there.”