Burned (House of Night 7)

Stevie Rae

"Dallas told me Neferet dumped Kalona's spiritless body on the High Council."

"Who is Dallas?" Rephaim asked.

"Just a guy I know. So it looks like Neferet turned in Kalona even though they're supposed to be together and all."

"Neferet seduces my father and pretends to be his mate, but the only thing she really cares for is herself.

Where he is filled with anger, she is filled with hatred. Hatred is a more dangerous ally."

"So you're sure Neferet would betray Kalona to save herself?" Stevie Rae asked.

"I am certain Neferet would betray anyone to save herself."

"What does she gain by turning in Kalona, especially if he's all soulless and stuff?"

"By giving him over to the High Council, she takes suspicion from herself," he said.

"Yeah, that makes sense. I know she wants Zoey dead. And she doesn't care about Heath at all.

Actually, Neferet would be cool with the fact that seeing Kalona about to kill Heath made Zoey throw the power of spirit at him and that not being able to stop Kalona caused her soul to shatter. Apparently, that's just a half step away from death."

Rephaim's eyes were suddenly sharp on hers. "Zoey attacked my father with the element spirit?"

"Yeah, that's what Lenobia and Dragon told me."

"Then he has been gravely wounded." Rephaim looked away and didn't say anything else.

"Hey, you need to tell me what you know," Stevie Rae said earnestly. When he didn't speak, she sighed, and continued, "Okay, here's my truth. I came here tonight ready to force you to talk to me about your daddy and the Otherworld and all that; but now that I'm here and actually talkin' to you, I don't want to force you." Hesitantly, she touched his arm. His body jerked when her fingers met his skin, but he didn't pull away. "Can't we work together on this? Do you really want Zoey dead?"

His eyes found hers again. "I have no reason to wish your friend's death, but you do wish my father harm."

Stevie Rae blew out a breath of frustration. "How about this - how about I compromise in what I want.

What if I told you I just want Kalona to leave all of us alone?"

"I don't know if that could ever be possible," Rephaim said.

"But it is possible for me to wish it. Right now, Zoey and Kalona are soulless. Now, I know your daddy's an immortal, but it can't be a good thing that his body's just a shell."

"No, it is not a good thing."

"So let's work together to see if we can get both of them back, and deal with what happens next when next actually happens."

"I can agree to that," he said.

"Good!" She squeezed his arm before taking her hand from him. "You said Kalona's wounded. What did you mean?"

"His body can't be killed, but if his spirit is damaged, he is physically weakened. That is how A-ya was used to entrap him. His spirit was clouded with emotions for her. It confused and weakened him, and his body became vulnerable."

"And that's how Neferet was able to dump him in front of the High Council," Stevie Rae said. "Zoey hurt his spirit, so his body is vulnerable."

"There has to be more to it than that. Unless he's held captive, as A-ya had him within the earth, Father would begin to recover almost instantly. As long as he's free, he can heal his spirit."

"Well, obviously Neferet grabbed him before he was healed. She's so dang evil, she probably zapped the crap outta him with that scary darkness she carries around with her and then - "

"That's it!" He stood in excitement, then grimaced from the pain in his wing. Rubbing his wounded arm, he sat back down, holding it close to him. "She continued the attack on his spirit. Neferet is Tsi Sgili. It is through using the dark forces in the spirit realm that she gains power."

"She killed Shekinah without even touching her," Stevie Rae remembered.

"Neferet touched the High Priestess but not with her hands. She manipulated the threads from deaths she is responsible for, sacrifices she's made, and dark promises she means to keep. That power is what killed Shekinah, and that is the power she wielded against my father's already weakened spirit."

"But what's she doing with him?"

"Holding his body captive and using his spirit for her own means."

"Which makes her look like one of the good guys to the High Council. I'll just bet she's bein' all 'Oh, poor Zoey' and 'I don't know what Kalona was thinking' to their faces."

"The Tsi Sgili is very powerful. Why would she put on that pretense to your Council?"

"Neferet doesn't want to let them know how evil she is 'cause she wants to rule the dang world. She might not be ready to take on the Vampyre High Council and the human world. Yet. So she can't let the

Council know she's cool with Zoey being almost dead, even though she's glad."

"Father doesn't want Zoey dead. He simply wants to possess her."

Stevie Rae gave him a hard look. "Some of us think being possessed against our will is worse than death."

He snorted. "You mean like being Imprinted by accident?"

Stevie Rae frowned at him. "No, that's not what I mean at all."

He snorted again and kept rubbing his arm.

Still frowning, she continued, "But what you're sayin' is that Kalona didn't mean for what he did to Heath to cause Zoey's soul to shatter?"

"No, because that would most likely lead to her death."

"Most likely?" Stevie Rae pounced on the words. "Does that mean it's not one hundred percent certain Z's gonna die. 'Cause that's what the vamps are sayin'."

"Vampyres aren't thinking with the mind of an immortal. No death is ever as certain as mortals believe.

Zoey will die if her spirit doesn't return to her body, but it is not impossible for her spirit to become whole again. It would be difficult, yes, and she would need a guide and a protector in the Otherworld, but - " His words broke off, and Stevie Rae saw shock in his eyes.

"What?"

"Neferet is using my father to ensure Zoey's spirit doesn't return. She trapped his body while he was wounded and commanded his soul to do her bidding in the Otherworld."

"But you said Kalona was kicked out of there by Nyx. How could he go back?"

Rephaim's eyes widened. "His body was banished."

"And his body's still in this realm! It's his spirit that's returned," Stevie Rae finished for him.

"Yes! Neferet has forced him to return. I know my father well. He would never skulk back to Nyx's Otherworld. He has too much pride. He would only return if the Goddess herself asked it of him."

"How do you know that for sure? Maybe he's going after Zoey because he finally gets it that she'll never be with him, and, like a scary, psycho stalker, he'd rather see her dead than with someone else. That could've pissed him off bad enough that his pride could handle a little skulkin'."

Rephaim shook his head. "Father will never believe Zoey won't eventually choose him. A-ya did, and part of the maiden still lives within Zoey's soul." He paused, and before Stevie Rae could ask her next question, added, "But I know how you can be certain. If Neferet is using him, she will have Father's body bound by Darkness."

"Darkness? You mean like the opposite of light?"

"In a way that is what it is. It's hard to define because that type of pure evil is ever-changing, ever-evolving. The Darkness of which I speak is sentient. Find someone who can perceive beings from the spirit realm, and that person should be able to see the chains the Tsi Sgili formed to bind Father, if they are there at all."

"Can you sense the spirit world?"

"I can," he said, meeting her gaze without faltering. "Would you have me give myself up to your Vampyre High Council?"

Stevie Rae chewed her bottom lip. Would she? It would be giving Rephaim's life for Zoey's, and maybe even her own because she'd have to go with him, and there was no way the mega-powerful vamps on the High Council wouldn't be able to tell they were Imprinted. She would die for Zoey - of course she would. But it'd be nice if she didn't have to. Plus, it's not like Zoey would want her to die. Well, it also wasn't like Zoey would want her to have saved and then Imprinted with a Raven Mocker. Heck, no one would want that. Goddess knows she didn't even want it. Well, not most of the time anyway.

"Stevie Rae?"

She jolted out of her inner argument to see Rephaim studying her. "Would you have me give myself to your Vampyre High Council?" he repeated solemnly.

"Only as our last option, and if you go, that means I go, too. And, heck, the High Council probably wouldn't even believe anything you tell them. But you said all we need is someone who is good with the spirit realm, like good enough that they can sense the Darkness and spirit stuff, right?"

"Yes."

"Well, there's a whole gaggle of powerful vamps on the High Council. One of them has to be able to do that."

He cocked his head to the side. "It would be unusual for a vampyre to have the ability to sense the dark forces the Tsi Sgili is wielding. That is one reason Neferet has been able to keep up her charade for so long. Truly being able to identify hidden Darkness is a singular skill. Sensing such evil is difficult unless you are familiar with it."

"Yeah, well, the High Council vamps are supposed to be all that. One of them has to be able to do it."

She spoke with much more confidence than she felt. Everyone knew the High Council vamps were chosen because of their honor and integrity and basically their all-around goodness, which didn't so much go with being familiar with Darkness. She cleared her throat. "Okay, well, I gotta go back to the House of Night and make a call to Venice," she said firmly. Then her gaze went to his arm and the wing held limp in stained bandages behind it. "You're hurting pretty bad, huh?"

He gave a short nod.

"Okay, well, are ya done eatin'?"

He nodded again.

She swallowed hard, remembering the shared pain of bandaging that broken wing before. "I need to go find the medical supplies. Sadly, they'll probably be in that security office I sent the dorky guard to,

which means I'm gonna have to zap his little pea brain again."

"You could sense his brain was small?"

"Did ya see how high-waisted his pants were? No one under the age of eighty with a big brain wears grandpa pants pulled all the way to their underarms. Pea brain, I'm just sayin'."

Then, surprising both of them, Rephaim laughed.

I like the sound of his laughter. And before her own brain could clue her mouth in to being quiet, she smiled, and said, "You should laugh more. It's nice."

Rephaim didn't say anything, but Stevie Rae couldn't decipher the odd look he gave her. Feeling kinda uncomfortable, she hopped down from her kitchen stool, and said, "Well, I'm gonna go get the first-aid stuff, fix up your wing as best I can, get food and things together for you, and then go back and start making some super long-distance calls. Hang here. I'll be right back."

"I'd prefer to come with you," he said, standing carefully while he held his arm against his side.

"It'd probably be easier on you if you just stayed here," she said.

"Yes, but I'd prefer to be with you," he said quietly.

Stevie Rae felt a weird little jolt deep inside her at his words, but she shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly, and said, " 'Kay, suit yourself. But don't whine if it hurts you to walk around."

"I do not whine!" The look he gave her was so filled with guy pride that it was her turn to laugh as they left the kitchen, side by side.

Stevie Rae

Driving home, Stevie Rae should have been thinking about Zoey and devising her next plan of attack.

But that was easy. She'd call Aphrodite. No matter what tragedies were going on in the world, Aphrodite would have her pointy little nose in the middle of everything, especially since it had to do with Zoey.

So Stevie Rae's next step in her Save Z Plan was already figured out, leaving her mind wide open to think about Rephaim.

Resetting that dang wing had been awful. She still felt the phantom ache of it all through her right shoulder and her back. Even after she'd found the jar of numbing lidocaine and spread that all down his wing and his messed-up arm, she could still feel the deep, sick pain of its brokenness. Rephaim hadn't said one word during the entire ordeal. He'd turned his head away from her, and right before she touched his wing, he'd said, "Would you do that talking thing you do while you bandage it?"

"Just exactly what talkin' thing do you mean?" she'd asked.

He'd glanced over his shoulder, and she could have sworn there was a smile in his eyes. "You talk. A lot. So go ahead and do it. It'll give me something more annoying to think about than the pain."

She'd harrumphed at him, but he'd made her smile. And she did talk to him the entire time she'd cleaned, bandaged, and reset his badly broken wing. Actually, she'd babbled in big bursts of verbal diarrhea, saying nothing and everything as she rode the tide of pain with him. When she was finally done, he'd followed her, slowly, silently, back to the abandoned mansion, and she'd tried to make the closet more comfortable by stuffing in blankets she'd grabbed from the museum's staff lounge.

"You need to go. Don't worry about this." He'd taken the last blanket from her and then practically collapsed into the closet.

"Look, I put the sack of food right here. It's stuff that won't go bad. And remember to drink lots of the water and juice. Hydrating's good," she'd said, feeling suddenly worried about leaving him looking so weak and tired.

"I will. Go."

"Fine. Yeah. I'm going. I'll try to get back here tomorrow, though."

He'd nodded wearily.

"All right. 'Kay. I'm outta here."

She'd turned to go when he said, "You should talk to your mother."

She'd stopped like she'd run into a John Deere. "Why in the world would you say somethin' 'bout my mama?"

He'd blinked at her a couple times like she'd confused him, paused, and finally answered with: "You talked about her while you bandaged my wing. You don't remember?"

"No. Yes. I guess I wasn't really paying attention to the stuff I was sayin'." She'd automatically rubbed her own right arm. "I mostly just moved my mouth while I hurried to get the job done."

"I listened to you instead of the pain."

"Oh." Stevie Rae hadn't known what to say.

"You said she believes you are dead. I just . . ." He trailed off, seeming as confused as if he were trying to decipher an unfamiliar language. "I just thought you should tell her you live. She would want to know, wouldn't she?"

"Yes."

They'd stared at each other until she'd finally made her mouth say, "Bye, and don't forget to eat."

Then she'd practically run out of the museum.

"Why in the heck did it freak me out so bad that he mentioned my mama?" Stevie Rae asked herself aloud.

She knew the answer, and - no - she didn't want to say it aloud. He cared about what she'd said to him; he cared that she missed her mama. As she parked at the House of Night and got out of Zoey's car,

she admitted to herself that it wasn't really his caring that had freaked her out. It was how his concern made her feel. She'd been glad he cared, and Stevie Rae knew it was dangerous to be glad that a monster cared about her.

"There you are! It's about time you got back." Dallas practically popped out of the bushes at her.

"Dallas! I swear to the Goddess herself that I'm gonna knock the living crap right outta you if you don't stop scaring me."

"Hit me later. Right now you need to get up to the Council Chamber 'cause Lenobia is not happy that you took off."

Stevie Rae sighed and followed Dallas upstairs to the room across from the library that the school used as their Council Chamber. She hurried in, and then hesitated at the doorway. The tension in the air was so thick it was almost visible. The table was big and round, so it should have brought people together.

Not that day. That day the table seemed more like a middle-school cafeteria with its separate and very hateful cliques.

On one curved side sat Lenobia, Dragon, Erik, and Kramisha. On the other side were Professors Penthasilea, Garmy, and Vento. They were in the middle of what looked like a serious glare war when Dallas cleared his throat, and Lenobia looked up at them.

"Stevie Rae! Finally. I realize these are unusual times, and that we are all under incredible stress, but I would appreciate it if you would restrain your next urge to take off to a park or wherever you went if a school Council meeting has been called. You are acting in the position of a High Priestess; you should remember to behave as such."

Lenobia's voice was so harsh that Stevie Rae automatically bristled. She opened her mouth to snap back at her and tell the Horse Mistress that she wasn't the boss of her, and then leave the dang room and make her call to Venice. But she wasn't just some fledgling kid anymore, and stomping away from a group of vamps who cared about Zoey - well, at least a few of them did - wasn't going to help their situation.

Begin as you would end, she could almost hear her mama's voice in her mind.

So instead of throwing a fit and taking off, Stevie Rae stepped into the room and sat in one of the chairs that was smack between the two groups. When she spoke, she didn't let herself sound pissed. Actually, she tried her best to mimic the way her mama sounded when she used to get real disappointed with her.

"Lenobia, my affinity is for earth. That means sometimes I'm gonna need to get away from everyone and just be by myself with the earth. It's how I think, and right now we all need to think. So, I will be takin'

off sometimes, with or without anyone's permission, and whether or not y'all have called a meeting. And I'm not acting in the position of a High Priestess. I am the first and only red vampyre High Priestess in the entire world. That's a new thing, so I'm thinkin' there's gonna be some new job descriptions that go along with it and, ya know, I may just have to make it up as I figure this Red High Priestess stuff out."

She turned to the other side of the room, and added a quick, "Hi, Professor P, and Garmy and Vento. I haven't seen y'all in a long time."

The three professors mumbled hellos, and she ignored the fact that they were staring at her red tattoos like she was a science project gone wrong at the 4-H fair.

"So, Dallas said Neferet dumped Kalona's body on the High Council, and it looks like his soul is shattered, too," Stevie Rae said.

"Yes, though some don't want to believe it," Prof P said, sending a dark look to Lenobia.

"Kalona is not Erebus!" Lenobia practically exploded. "Just as we all know Neferet is not the earthly incarnation of Nyx! This whole subject is ridiculous."

"The Council reports that the Prophetess Aphrodite announced the winged immortal's spirit had shattered, just as has Zoey's," said Proffy Garmy.

"Hang on." Stevie Rae held up her hand to stop the tirade that was obviously getting ready to come at Kramisha. "Did you say Aphrodite and Prophetess together?"

"That is what the High Council has named her," Erik said dryly. "Even though most of us wouldn't call her that."

Stevie Rae lifted her brows at him. "Really? I would. Zoey would. And you have . Maybe not out loud, but you've followed her visions, more than once. I've been Imprinted with her, not that I liked it or anything, but I can tell you that she's definitely touched by Nyx and knows stuff. Lots of stuff actually."

She looked at Proffy Garmy. "Aphrodite can sense things about Kalona's spirit?"

"So the High Council believes."

Stevie Rae breathed a long sigh of relief. "That's the best news I've heard in days." She glanced at the clock, and started counting ahead seven hours for Venice time. It was about 10:30P.M. in Tulsa, which meant it was probably still before dawn over there. "I need a phone. I gotta call Aphrodite. Dang it! I left my cell in my room." She started to get up.

"Stevie Rae, what are you doing?" Dragon asked, as they all stared at her.

She hesitated long enough to look back at the room and the tense, glaring vamps. "How about I tell you what I'm not doin'? I'm not gonna sit around and argue about who Kalona is or who Neferet is when Zoey needs help. I'm not gonna give up on Z, and I'm not gonna let y'all drag me into some weird teacher bicker war." She met Kramisha's startled gaze. "Do you believe I'm your High Priestess?"

"Yep," she said without hesitation.

"Good. Then come with me. You're wastin' your time here. Dallas?"

"Like always, I'm with you, girl," he said.

Stevie Rae looked from vampyre to vampyre. "Y'all need to get your shit together. Here's a newsflash from the only High Priestess you have left at this dang school: Zoey isn't dead. And believe me, I know dead. I've been there, done that, and got the frickin' T-shirt." Stevie Rae turned her back on the room and, with her fledglings, got the heck outta there.