Burned

by P. C. Cast

  Rephaim let her pull him back. Turning to her, he said, “I think you underestimate the boy.”

  “She damn sure does,” Dallas said grimly.

  Rephaim didn’t know where the pain came from. He only knew the bright white heat of it. His body convulsed. His back bowed in agony. Dimly, through a graying veil, he could see Dallas, eyes glowing with a scarlet hue that was impossibly bright, holding one of the wires that protruded from the wall.

  “Rephaim!” Stevie Rae cried.

  She started to reach for him, but then Rephaim saw her pull back. Instead, she ran to Dallas.

  “Stop it! Let him go,” she told the boy, pulling on his arm.

  His blood red eyes skewered her. “I’m gonna fry him. And then whatever weird control he has over you is gonna be gone. You and me can be together, and I won’t tell anyone shit about what happened here, long as you’re my girl.”

  With a detached sense of understanding, Rephaim noted that Darkness was no longer present on the boy’s body. It had soaked into him—it had claimed him. It augmented whatever strength the fledgling wielded.

  Rephaim felt sure Dallas was going to kill him.

  “Earth, come to me. I need you.”

  He heard Stevie Rae’s words through the flickering of his consciousness, like she was candlelight trying to reach him through a gale wind. With a mighty effort, Rephaim focused his vision on her. Their eyes met, and her words came to him, suddenly clear and strong and sure.

  “Protect him from Dallas because Rephaim belongs to me.”

  She made a motion toward Rephaim, like she was hurling something at him—and she was. A green glow slammed into his body, throwing him backward and breaking whatever it was that Dallas had been channeling into him. Breathing hard, he lay on the ground, crumpled in a heap, as he absorbed what was becoming the familiar, gentle touch of healing earth.

  Dallas turned to Stevie Rae.

  “You just said that thing belongs to you.”

  The fledgling’s voice was like death. Rephaim pressed himself against the ground, opening his shocked body to the earth, willing it to enter him—to heal him enough so that he could reach Stevie Rae.

  “Yeah. He does. It’s hard to explain, and I get that you’re pissed. But Rephaim belongs to me.” Her eyes skirted Dallas and met his again. “And I guess I belong to him, weird as that sounds.”

  “It doesn’t sound weird. It sounds fucking sick.”

  Before Rephaim could get to his feet, Dallas pointed a finger at her. There was a deafening crack, and Stevie Rae was suddenly standing in the middle of a glowing green circle. Her brow was furrowed, and she shook her head slowly back and forth. “You tried to shock me? You really wanted to hurt me, Dallas?”

  “You chose that thing over me!” he screamed at her.

  “I did what I thought was right!”

  “You know what, if that’s what’s right, I don’t want nothin’ to do with it! I want the opposite!”

  As soon as Dallas spoke those words, he cried out and, dropping the wire he’d been clutching in his fist, the fledgling fell to his knees and crumpled, facedown.

  “Dallas? Are you okay?” Stevie Rae made a hesitant move toward him.

  “Stay away from him,” Rephaim rasped as he laboriously gained his feet.

  Stevie Rae paused, and then instead of continuing to Dallas, she hurried over to Rephaim, pulling his arm around her shoulders. “Are you okay? You look kinda fried.”

  “Fried?” Despite everything, she made him want to laugh. “What does that even mean?”

  “This.” Stevie Rae touched one of the feathers on his chest. He was surprised to see that it looked singed. “You’re a little crispy around the edges.”

  “You touch it. You probably fuck it, too! Damn, I’m glad it stopped me before we finished doin’ it. I ain’t gonna ever be sloppy seconds to a freak!”

  “Dallas, that’s just such a load a’—” Stevie Rae began, but when she looked at Dallas, her words stopped short.

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m no stupid fledgling anymore,” he said.

  Brand-new red tattoos in the shape of striking whips framed Dallas’s face. Rephaim thought they looked disturbingly like the tendrils of Darkness that had entrapped Stevie Rae and him within the circle. His eyes glowed an even brighter red, and his body seemed to grow larger, swelling with newly gained power.

  “Ohmygood ness,” Stevie Rae said. “You’ve Changed!”

  “In a bunch of different ways!”

  “Dallas, you gotta listen to me. Remember Darkness? I saw it grab-bin’ for you. Please try to think. Please don’t let it get you.”

  “It get me? You can say that when you’re standing beside that thing? Ah, hell no! I’m never gonna listen to your lies again. And I’m gonna make sure no one else does, either!” He sneered the words at her, his voice filled with anger and hate.

  As he stood up and began reaching for the wires he’d used before to channel power, Stevie Rae moved. Pulling Rephaim with her, Stevie Rae backed from the kitchen. Stepping outside the entrance, she lifted her hand, took a deep breath, and said, “Earth, close this for me, please.”

  “No!” Dallas yelled.

  Rephaim got a brief glimpse of him grabbing the wire and pointing at them, and then with a sound like the soughing of wind through autumn boughs, the earth rained down in front of them, closing the tunnel entrance to the kitchen and shielding them from the wrath of Darkness.

  “Can you walk okay?” Stevie Rae asked.

  “Yes. I’m not hurt badly. Or at least I’m not anymore. Your earth made sure of that,” he said, looking down at her where she stood small, but proud and powerful in the circle of his arm.

  “Okay, then. We gotta get outta here.” Stevie Rae stepped from his side and began hurrying down the tunnel. “There’s another way outta the kitchen. He’ll be out in no time, and we need to be gone from here then.”

  “Why don’t you just seal the other exit, too?” he asked as he followed her.

  The glance she gave him was visibly annoyed. “What, and kill him? Uh, no. He’s not really that bad, Rephaim. He just went nuts ’cause Darkness was messin’ with him, and he found out about me and you.”

  Me and you . . .

  Rephaim wanted to hold on to the words that linked them together, but he couldn’t. There was no time for such things. Rephaim shook his head. “No, Stevie Rae. Darkness wasn’t just messing with him. Dallas chose to embrace it.”

  He thought she’d argue with him. Instead, he saw her shoulders slump. She didn’t look back at him, but only said, “Yeah, I heard him.”

  They climbed the ladder silently and were making their way through the basement, when a sound drifted to Rephaim through the wrenched-open gate. He was just thinking that it seemed familiar when Stevie Rae gasped, “He’s takin’ the Bug!” and she sprinted outside with Rephaim at her heels.

  They emerged in time to see the little blue car pulling out of the parking lot.

  “Well, that sucks like roadkill,” Stevie Rae said.

  Rephaim’s sharp eyes went to the eastern horizon, which was beginning to go from black to a predawn gray.

  “You need to get back into the tunnels,” he said.

  “Can’t. Lenobia and those guys’ll be here crazy fast if I’m not back by dawn.”

  “I will leave,” he said. “Return to the Gilcrease. Then you can rest underground, and your friends will find you. You’ll be safe.”

  “What if Dallas is hotfootin’ it back to the House of Night? He’ll tell them about us.”

  Rephaim hesitated only for a moment. “Then do what you must. You know where I will be.” He turned to leave.

  “Take me with you.”

  Her words made his body freeze. He didn’t look at her. “It’s close to dawn.”

  “You’re healed, aren’t you?”

  “I am.”

  “You’re strong enough to fly and carry me?”

  “Yes, I am.”

 
; “Then take me back to the Gilcrease with you. I’ll bet that old place has a basement.”

  “What about your friends—the other red fledglings?” he said.

  “I’ll call Kramisha and tell her Dallas has lost his mind, and I’m safe, but not in the tunnels, and that I’ll explain stuff tomorrow.”

  “When they find out about me, it will appear you’re choosing me over them.”

  “What I’m choosing is to take some time to think before I have to deal with the shitstorm Dallas is brewin’ up,” she said. Then, in a much softer voice, she added, “Unless you don’t want me to come with you. You could take off—get outta here—then you won’t have to deal with the mess that’s comin’.”

  “Am I or am I not your consort?” Rephaim asked the question before he could stop himself.

  “Yes. You are my consort.”

  He hadn’t known he was holding his breath until it left him in a long, relieved sigh. Rephaim opened his arms to her. “Then you should come with me. I will see you rest undisturbed today.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and then Rephaim’s High Priestess stepped into his arms. He held her tightly while his powerful wings lifted them into the sky.

  Rephaim

  Stevie Rae had been right. There was a basement in the old mansion. It had stone walls and a hard-packed dirt floor, but it was surprisingly dry and comfortable. With a relieved sigh, Stevie Rae settled herself, sitting cross-legged, leaning against the cement wall, and pulled out her cell phone. Rephaim stood there, not sure what he should do, while she called the fledgling named Kramisha and began a dialogue of hasty and sketchy explanations as to why she wouldn’t be returning to the school: Dallas has lost his damn mind . . . electricity must have jacked with his good sense . . . kicked me outta Z’s car on the way back to the House of Night . . . no, I’m fine . . . probably be back tomorrow night . . .

  Feeling like an interloper, Rephaim left her to talk with her fledgling in privacy. He returned to the attic and paced before the open door of the closet he’d transformed into a nest.

  He was tired. Even though he was fully healed, racing the sunrise carrying Stevie Rae had sapped his reserves of strength. He should retreat to the closet and rest during the daylight hours. Stevie Rae wouldn’t leave the basement until sunset.

  Stevie Rae couldn’t leave the basement.

  She could be hurt during daylight hours. It was true that the red fledglings were all vulnerable between dawn and dusk, so Dallas wasn’t a threat to her until dark. But what if a human stumbled upon her?

  Slowly, Rephaim gathered the blankets and food staples he’d accumulated and began carrying them to the basement. It was fully daylight when he made his last trip down the stairs. She’d ended the phone call and was curled up in the corner. Stevie Rae barely stirred when he covered her with a blanket. Then he made himself comfortable beside her. Not so close they were touching, but not so far away that she wouldn’t see him immediately when she awoke. And he made sure he was positioned between her and the door. If someone tried to enter, they would have to get through him to reach her.

  Rephaim’s last thought before he fell asleep was that he finally understood the ever-present sense of rage and restlessness that surrounded his father. Had Stevie Rae truly rejected him today and cast him from her, his world would have forever been colored by the loss of her. And that understanding held more terror for him than the possibility of having to face Darkness again.

  I do not want to live in a world without her. Utterly exhausted by feelings he could barely comprehend, the Raven Mocker slept.

  Chapter 24

  Stark

  “I know it could kill me to enter the Otherworld, but I don’t want to live in this world without her.” Stark kept himself from shouting, but he couldn’t keep his frustration from boiling over into his voice. “So just show me what I need to do to get to where Zoey is, and I’ll take it from there.”

  “Why do you want Zoey back?” Sgiach asked him.

  Stark ran his hand through his hair. The exhaustion that came with daylight pulled at him, fraying his nerves and jumbling his thoughts, and he blurted the only answer his tired mind could form, “Because I love her.”

  The queen seemed not to react at all to his declaration; instead, she was studying him with a considering expression. “I sense that Darkness has touched you.”

  “Yeah,” Stark nodded, though her statement confused him. “But when I chose to be with Zoey, I chose Light.”

  “Aye, but would yie still choose it if it meant losin’ what yie love most?” said Seoras.

  “Wait, the whole point of Stark going to the Otherworld is so that he can protect Zoey. Then she’ll be able to pull her shattered soul together and come back to her body. Right?” Aphrodite said.

  “Aye, she can choose to return if her soul’s whole again.”

  “Then I don’t understand your question. If Z comes back, he doesn’t lose her,” she said.

  “My Guardian is explaining that Zoey will be changed if she returns from the Otherworld,” Sgiach said. “What if the change takes her on a path that leads away from Stark?”

  “I’m her Warrior. That won’t change, and it means I stay with her,” Stark said.

  “Aye, laddie, as her Warrior fer sure, but perhaps not as her love,” Seoras said.

  Stark felt a dagger turn in his stomach. Still, without hesitation, he said, “I’d die to get her back. No matter what.”

  “Our deepest emotions are sometimes separated only by the type of human beings we are at our cores,” the queen said. “Lust and compassion, generosity and obsession, love and hate. They are often all very close to one another. You say you love your queen enough to die for that emotion; but if she no longer loved you in return, what color would your world be then?”

  Dark. The word came instantly to Stark’s mind, but he knew he shouldn’t say it.

  Thankfully, Aphrodite’s big mouth saved him.

  “If Z didn’t want to be with him, as in a guy with a girl, it would suck for Stark. That’s a no-brainer. That doesn’t mean he’d go over to the Dark Side, and I know you know what that means ’cause your guy gets Star Trek, and one dork goes hand in hand with another. Anyway, isn’t it the truth that what Stark would or wouldn’t do in some not-happened, made-up, Zoey-dumps-him scenario is really between Stark and Zoey and Nyx? Seriously. Goddess knows I don’t mean to sound like a bitch, but you’re a queen, not a Goddess. There’s some shit you just can’t control.”

  Stark held his breath, waiting for Sgiach to use Star Trek or Star Wars or what the hell ever and blast Aphrodite into a zillion little pieces. Instead, the queen laughed, which made her look unexpectedly girlish.

  “I’m glad I am not a Goddess, young Prophetess. The small piece of the world I control is far more than enough for me.”

  “Why do you care so much about what Stark might or might not do?” Aphrodite asked the queen even though Darius was giving her what Stark thought of as “Stop talking now” looks.

  Sgiach and her Guardian shared a long look, and Stark saw the Warrior nod slightly, as if the two of them had just come to an agreement.

  Queen Sgiach said, “The balance of Light and Darkness in the world can shift because of a single act. Though Stark is only one Warrior, his actions have the potential to affect many.”

  “And this world doesnae need another powerful Warrior who fights on the side of Darkness.”

  “I know that, and I’ll never fight for Darkness again,” Stark said grimly. “I watched Zoey’s soul shatter because of a single act, so I understand about that, too.”

  “Then weigh your actions carefully,” the queen told him. “In the Otherworld and in this world. And consider this—the young and naïve believe love to be the strongest force in the universe. Those of us who are more, let us say, realistic know that a single person’s will, strengthened by integrity and purpose, can be more powerful than a score of lovestruck romantics.

  “I’ll remember. I
promise.” Stark barely heard his own words. He would have sworn to cut off his arm if that had been what Sgiach needed to hear to get the damn ball rolling and get him to the Other-world.

  As if she could read his mind, the queen shook her head sadly, and said, “Very well, then. Let your quest begin.” Then she lifted her hand and commanded, “Raise the Seol ne Gigh.”

  There was a whooshing and a series of clicking sounds. The floor in front of the queen’s dais, just beyond where Zoey rested, opened, and a slab of rust-colored stone rose from beneath the floor. It was as tall as his waist, wide and long enough for a grown vampyre to lie on its flat surface. He saw the rock was covered with intricate knotwork, and on either side of the floor surrounding it were two grooves that were curved almost like a bow. They were thicker at one end than the other, and the narrow part formed sharp points. Studying it, Stark suddenly realized two things.

  The grooves looked like massive horns.

  The rock wasn’t really rust-colored. It was white marble. The rust color was stain. Bloodstain.

  “This is the Seol ne Gigh, the Seat of the Spirit,” Sgiach said. “It is an ancient place of sacrifice and worship. For longer than we have memories, it has been the conduit to Darkness and Light—to the white and black bulls that form the basis of the power of the Guardians.”

  “Sacrifice and worship,” Aphrodite said, moving closer to the stone. “What kind of sacrifice do you mean?”

  “Aye, well, that depends on yer quest, does it not?” Seoras said.

  “That’s not an answer,” Aphrodite said.

  “Sure and it is, lass,” the Guardian said, smiling grimly at her. “And yie know it, whether yie will be of a mind tae admit it or no.”

  “Sacrifice is okay with me,” Stark said, brushing a hand across his brow wearily. “Tell me what, or who”—he shot a sideways glance at Aphrodite, not caring that it made Darius bristle—“I need to grab and use for the sacrifice, and I’ll do it.”

  “It’ll be you that’ll be the sacrifice, laddie,” Seoras said.