by P. C. Cast
“Neferet’s dead fish belly color?” Stevie Rae asked.
“No. Neferet’s color is the same color as dead fish eyes. That’s her only color.”
“That can’t be good,” Kramisha said.
“What can’t be good?” Darius asked as he joined our group, taking Aphrodite’s hand. She leaned into him and said, “Darius, stud Warrior, meet Shaylin, newly Marked red fledgling who didn’t die to be red and who has True Sight. She just ‘saw’”—Aphrodite air quoted—“Neferet and apparently her true color is like dead fish eyes.”
Darius didn’t miss a beat. He just gave the new kid a little bow and said, “Merry meet, Shaylin,” which either showed the Warrior had impressive control or was just more proof that our lives had become totally bat-poop crazy.
“We need to learn more about True Sight,” Damien said. “It’s sixth former and beyond level information. Do you know anything about it?” he asked Darius.
“Not a lot. I focused mostly on knives, not vampyre sociology,” Darius said.
“Well, I have the stupid advanced handbook,” Aphrodite said. When we gave her a group gawk she frowned. “What? I was a sixth former before this happened.” She pointed at her unMarked forehead. “Sadly, I had to rejoin my old schedule today.” When we all kept staring without speaking she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for shit’s sake, I have homework, that’s all. The book’s in my extremely attractive Anahata Joy Katkin bag in the retard bus.”
“Aphrodite, stop sayin’ retard!” Stevie Rae shouted at her. “I swear you need to check out www.r-word.com. Maybe you’d learn that some people get their feelin’s hurt by the r-word.”
Aphrodite blinked several times and then scrunched her forehead. “A Web site? Seriously.”
“Yes, Aphrodite. Like I have tried to tell you a bazillion times, using the r-word is demeaning and just plain mean.”
Aphrodite sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rant: “What about having a site for the c-word—as in cunt, which demeans half of the world? Or, wait, no. Let’s keep it the r-word site only make the r-word rape, which does more than just hurt upper middle class mommies’ feelings. Or—”
“Seriously.” I stepped between them. “We get it. Can we go back to Shaylin and the True Sight issue?”
“Yeah, whatever,” Aphrodite said, flipping back her hair.
“Aphrodite’s mean, Z, but she makes a good point,” Erin said.
I glared at Shaunee who only nodded enthusiastically, but didn’t chime in. My head felt like it was going to explode. “Ah, hell,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration. “I can’t remember what we were saying before the retard part.”
“Information about True Sight is on the bus,” Rephaim said, surprising all of us. He smiled shyly. “I didn’t really understand much of the rest of the conversation. I also got that Aphrodite is mean, but I already knew that.”
Beside me Stark turned a bark of laughter into a cough.
I sighed.
“Okay, let’s get on the bus and get back to the depot. Aphrodite and Damien, meet me in the kitchen with the advanced handbook.” I paused and glanced at Stevie Rae, who was still holding Rephaim’s hand. “You wanna join us after, um, you know, the sun rises and such?”
“Z, you don’t have to tippie-toe around it. Yes, Rephaim’s gonna change into a bird when the sun comes up, and I’d like to be with him ’til then.” She glanced up at Rephaim who was smiling down at her like it was his birthday and she was some super amazing present he’d just opened.
“Seriously?” I heard Shaylin ask Erik.
“Yeah. It’s a long story,” Erik said.
“No wonder his color’s so weird,” she said.
I was curious about Rephaim’s color, but I knew now was not the time to ask her a bunch of questions, so instead I just said, “Kramisha, would you please figure out where Shaylin will be staying?”
“I ain’t sharin’ my room,” Kramisha said. Then she gave Shaylin an apologetic look. “Sorry. I don’t mean no offense.”
“That’s fine. I’ve had to have people around me ever since I went blind. I’d rather have my own room, too.”
Kramisha smiled. “That’s right. I like me an independent woman, and I’ll help you find a room of your own.”
“Deal,” Shaylin said.
“Er.” Erik cleared his throat to get our attention. I thought he looked nervous and unusually unsure of himself. “How about I follow the bus in my car, and Shaylin comes with me? I can fill her in on some of the stuff like Rephaim and the whole red fledgling thing in general on the way.”
“Trackers are just supposed to track and Mark,” Aphrodite said.
“Yeah, and fledglings are supposed to be Marked with a blue crescent, and then Change or die,” he countered.
“I think it’s okay that Erik follows us,” Stevie Rae said, which surprised me because I knew she wasn’t exactly an Erik fan. “What do you think, Z?”
I shrugged. “Okay with me.”
Erik gave a little nod and then he and Shaylin headed for his car in the parking lot.
“Are we ready to go?” Darius asked.
“I guess, or at least we will be as soon as our ever-so-friendly driver gets here,” I said.
Darius smiled. “That would be me. “I told Christophe I’d handle the drive back and forth to the depot from here on.”
I couldn’t resist a look at Aphrodite. Her face was frozen and her eyes looked huge.
“Hey, Aphrodiky is going out with a bus driver!” Shaunee said.
It looked like Erin had some smart-ass comment she was going to add, but Aphrodite closed the space between her and the Twins. “Darius isn’t a bus driver. He’s a Son of Erebus Warrior. He can kill you, but he’s honorable and good so he won’t. I, on the other hand, am not honorable or a Warrior. I will kill you, or at the very least mess you up so bad you won’t make the next Miss Jackson’s trunk sale.”
The Twins sucked air and I quickly said, “All righty then, let’s all go back to the depot. Looks like we have some studying to do.” I grabbed Aphrodite’s wrist and practically dragged her to the bus. She jerked away from me, but was still following when I started to climb the stairs. Then an orange ball of fur hurled herself into my arms. “Nala!” I yelped, almost dropping her in surprise. “Oh, baby girl! I’ve missed you so much.” I petted her and kissed her and laughed when she sneezed on me and then started to grumble in her old lady voice, “mee-uf-owing” even while she was purring like crazy.
While I was cuddling Nala there was a terrible screeching sound from the bowels of the bus, and suddenly Aphrodite was pushing past me yelling, “Maleficent! Mommy’s here!” It seemed to rain white fur. The kids on the bus jerked legs and arms out of the way as the ugliest, most smoosh-faced, huge, hateful cat in the universe padded down the aisle hissing and yowling. Aphrodite stooped, picked her up, and began telling her how beautiful and wonderful and smart she was.
“That cat ain’t right,” Kramisha said, peeking over my shoulder. “But Aphrodite ain’t right, either, so I guess it works out just fine.” Her gaze went from Maleficent to Nala, who was still grumbling at me. “Actually, a whole bunch of these cats ain’t normal.”
“Whole bunch?” I looked up over Nala’s furry orange head and, as I suspected, the yellow mini-limo was full of red fledglings and cats. “When did this happen?”
“They was here when we got here,” Kramisha said. “Like I said—they ain’t normal.”
“Huh, well. I suppose this means the depot really is our new home,” I said, feeling for the first time that it could be true.
“Z, home is where you are,” Stark said, reaching over me and scratching Nala on her head.
I smiled at him and felt warm inside—almost warm enough to make me forget about moonstone-colored eyes and the fact that people around me kept dying …
CHAPTER TEN
Kalona
“What did you just say to me?” Kalona bellowed at the Raven Mocker, who cri
nged away from him.
“Rephaim issss a human boy,” Nisroc repeated. His less-evolved brother, the one who had escaped the changeling creature’s wrath, moved restlessly, backing up behind him.
Kalona paced around the clearing between the hunting blinds. It wasn’t yet dawn, but the other Raven Mockers, the ones who had returned from searching out their brothers from the Oklahoma countryside, were already huddled inside the tree houses, hiding, escaping, cringing away from the possibility of prying eyes. He’d stood out there, watching each of them return, looking for something that he was loath to admit to himself. He’d been looking for humanity—for a son to talk with, to share with, to plan with. But all he’d been met by were sniveling, cringing beasts. Rephaim was the most human of all of them, Kalona had been thinking, for what seemed like the thousandth time, when Nisroc had landed in the clearing minus one son and with unbelievable news of another.
Kalona rounded on Nisroc. “Rephaim cannot have a human form. It is impossible! He is a Raven Mocker, as are you, as are your brothers.”
“The Goddessss,” Nisroc hissed. “Ssshe changed him.”
An odd, bittersweet feeling came over Kalona. Nyx had changed his son from beast to human—gifted him with the form of a boy.
She’d forgiven Rephaim? How could that be?
Almost at a loss for words, the immortal blurted, “You spoke to Rephaim?”
Nisroc bobbed his enormous raven’s head up and down. “Yessss.”
“He actually said he is in Nyx’s service?”
“Yessss.” Nisroc bowed to him, but his eyes were bright and sly. “For you he refused to sssspy.”
Kalona gave him a sharp look and then glanced at the battered Raven Mocker who stood innocuously behind him, suddenly realizing there was only one brother when there should have been two.
“Where is—” Kalona had to pause to remember which of his sons was missing. “Maion? Why did he not return with you?”
“Dead.” Nisroc pronounced the world flatly, with no emotion.
“Rephaim killed him?” Kalona’s voice was as cold as his heart.
“No. The creature. Killed him it did.”
“What creature? Speak clearly!”
“The Tsi Sgili’s creature.”
“A vampyre?”
“No. First human, then bull.”
Kalona’s body jerked in surprise. “Are you quite sure? The creature took on the form of a bull?”
“Yesss.”
“Did Rephaim join with it to attack you?”
“No.”
“He fought beside you against it?”
“No. Nothinng he did,” Nisroc said.
Kalona’s jaw clenched and unclenched. “Then what stopped the beast?
“The Red One.”
“Then did she and Neferet battle?” Kalona snapped the questions, silently cursing himself for sending lesser beings to witness what he should have seen.
“No. No battle happened. We flew.”
“Yet you say the bull was Neferet’s creature.”
“Yesss.”
“Then it is true. Neferet has given herself over to the white bull.” Kalona paced again. “She has no idea of the forces she is awakening. The white bull is Darkness in its purest, most powerful form.” Somewhere deep within Kalona something stirred, something that had not surfaced since he’d fallen. For a brief moment, just the length of a heartbeat, the ancient Warrior of the Goddess of Night, the winged immortal who had defended his Goddess against the onslaught of Darkness for uncounted centuries, had an automatic desire to go to Nyx—to warn her—to protect her.
Kalona shook off the ridiculous impulse almost as quickly as he’d felt it. He began pacing again. Thinking aloud he mused, “So Neferet has an ally that ties her to the white bull, but she must be disguising him as something else to the House of Night, or you would have seen at least the beginnings of a major battle.”
“Yessss, her creature.”
Kalona ignored Nisroc’s repetitive comments and kept reasoning aloud. “Rephaim has entered the service of Nyx. She has gifted him with a human form.” His jaw clenched and unclenched. He felt doubly betrayed—by his son and by the Goddess. He’d asked, practically begged Nyx to forgive him. And what had her answer been? “If you are ever worthy of forgiving, you may ask it of me. Not until then.”
The memory of his sojourn in the Otherworld and his glimpse of the Goddess caused a terrible ache in his heart. Instead of feeling it—thinking of it—acting on it—Kalona opened the gates to the anger that always boiled just below the levees in his soul. As anger flooded through him it washed away any other gentler, more honest, feelings.
“My son needs to learn a lesson about loyalty,” Kalona said.
“Loyal I am!” Nisroc cried.
Kalona’s lip curled up contemptuously. “I don’t speak of you. I speak of Rephaim.”
“Sssspy Rephaim will not,” Nisroc repeated.
Kalona cuffed him and the Raven Mocker stumbled back against his brother. “Rephaim has done much more than spy for me in the past. He has been a second pair of fists, a second pair of eyes, almost an extension of me. It is habit that has me searching the sky for him. I am finding habit is a hard thing to break. Perhaps Rephaim is finding it difficult as well.” The winged immortal turned his back on his sons and stared off to the east, over the wooded ridges, toward sleeping Tulsa. “I should visit Rephaim. We do, after all, have a common enemy.”
“The Tsi Sgili?” Nisroc asked, subservient and docile.
“That’s right. The Tsi Sgili. Rephaim would not call it spying if we were serving a common goal—to depose Neferet.”
“Rule in her stead you would?”
Kalona turned amber eyes to his son. “Yes. I would always rule. We rest now. At sunset I depart for Tulsa.”
“With ussss?” the Raven Mocker asked.
“No. You remain here. Continue to gather my sons. Stay hidden and wait.”
“Wait?”
“For my call. When I rule those who remain loyal to me will be by my side. And those who have not will be destroyed, no matter who they are. Do you understand, Nisroc?”
“Yessss.”
Rephaim
“Your skin is so soft.” Rephaim ran his fingertips down the curved slope of Stevie Rae’s naked back, marveling at the joy it gave him to be able to hold her in his arms and press his body—his fully human body—against hers.
“I like it that you think I’m so special,” Stevie Rae said, smiling up at him a little shyly.
“You are special,” he said. Then he sighed and began to gently untangle himself from her. “It’s close to dawn. I have to go above ground.”
Stevie Rae sat up and hugged the thick comforter that covered the bed in her surprisingly pretty little tunnel room to cover her bare breasts. She blinked big blue eyes at him. Her hair was tousled and curly and framed her face making her look like a young, innocent maiden. Rephaim pulled on his jeans, thinking she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And her next words pierced his heart.
“I don’t want you to go, Rephaim.”
“You know I don’t want to, either, but I must.”
“C-can’t you just stay here? With me?” she asked hesitantly.
He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed they’d so recently shared. He took her hand in his and threaded their fingers together. “Would you cage me?”
He felt her body jerk as if in shock—or was it revulsion?
“No! I didn’t mean it like that. I just thought, well, that you could maybe try bein’ here for a day. I mean, what if we just kept holdin’ hands, like this, until you were done changin’?”
He smiled sadly at her. “Stevie Rae, a raven doesn’t have any hands. These,” he pressed his palms against hers, “will very shortly be claws. I will, very shortly, be a beast. I will not know you.”
“Okay, so, what if I kept my arms around you? Maybe you wouldn’t be scared then. Maybe you’d just curl up beside me
and stay here and sleep, too. I mean, ya have to sleep sometime, don’t ya?”
Rephaim thought about it before he answered her, and then began to slowly try to explain the unexplainable. “I must sleep, but Stevie Rae, I do not remember anything from the time I’m a raven.” Anything except the agony of the physical change and the almost unbearable joy of the wind against my wings—but he could not tell Stevie Rae either of those things. One would hurt her. One could frighten her. So instead of the raw truth, he told her a version of it that seemed more civilized, more understandable. “A raven is not a pet. It is a wild bird. What if I panicked and in trying to escape I somehow wounded you?”
“Or yourself,” Stevie Rae said solemnly. “I get it. I really do. I just don’t like it much.”
“I don’t, either, but I think that’s the point Nyx was making. I’m paying the consequences for my past actions.” He cupped her sweet, soft cheek in his palm and pressed his lips to hers murmuring, “It is a price I willingly pay because the other side of it, the good side of it, gives me the hours we steal together when I am human.”
“We don’t steal them!” Stevie Rae said earnestly. “Nyx gifted you with them for the good choices you’ve made. Consequences go both ways, Rephaim. They can be good and bad.”
Somehow that made his heart feel lighter and he smiled, kissing her again. “I’ll remember that.”
“I want you to remember somethin’ else, too. You did a good thing today when you didn’t turn your back on your brothers.” Her fingers plucked at a blond curl, and he knew whatever she was saying was hard for her, so even though he needed to get free of the tunnels, to get above to the waiting sky, he remained sitting there beside her with her hand in his while she continued. “I’m sorry your brother got killed.”
“Thank you,” he said quietly, hardly trusting his voice.
“They came to the House of Night to get you to leave with them, didn’t they?” she asked.
“Not really. Father did send them to find me, but not to take me away.” Rephaim paused, not sure how to explain the rest to Stevie Rae. The two of them hadn’t talked about his brothers when they’d finally been alone—they’d been too eager to touch, to be close, to love.