Naturally all hell broke loose then. Sons of Erebus shouted and started forward toward our circle. Vampyres were crying out in shock, and I swear some girl started screaming.
"Ah, oh," I heard Stevie Rae whisper. "Better fix this, Z."
I whirled around to face Stevie Rae. With no time for niceties I said, "Earth, come to me!" For a second I wanted to freak because I didn't have a lighter and neither did Stevie Rae, but Aphrodite, cool as ever, leaned over, flicked the lighter she still held, and lit the candle. The scents and sounds of a summer meadow instantly surrounded us. "Here, have a drink." I lifted the goblet, and Stevie Rae took a big gulp. I frowned a little at her.
"What?" she whispered. "Erik's yummy."
I rolled my eyes at her and jogged back to the center of the circle, where Erik was gawking at Stevie Rae. I raised one arm over my head. "Spirit! Come to me," I said without any preamble. As my soul quickened within me, I took the ceremonial lighter from Nyx's table and lit the purple spirit candle that waited there. Then I, too, took a big gulp of the blood-spiked wine.
And what an amazing rush that was! Stevie Rae had a point, Erik was yummy, but then I already knew that. Filled with the exhilaration of wine and blood and spirit, I strode out. I couldn't have been prouder of my friends. They'd held steady to their places in the circle, lifting their candles and keeping control of their elements so that our circle stayed strong and unbreachable. Pacing around the circumference of the glistening thread of circle I'd just cast, I raised my voice and began to shout over the pandemonium that surrounded us.
"House of Night, listen to me!" Everyone fell silent when they heard the power of the Goddess magnifying my voice. I almost fell silent, too, as shocked as I was by it. Instead I cleared my throat and began again, this time not having to Goddess-shout over a screaming horde. "Stevie Rae did not die. She went through another kind of a Change. It was hard for her, and it almost cost Stevie Rae her humanity, but she made it through, and now she is a new kind of vampyre." I made my way slowly around the inside of the circle, trying to meet as many of the eyes as I could as I explained. "Nyx never abandoned her, though. As you can see, she still has her affinity for earth, a gift given to her, and then given to her again by Nyx."
"I do not understand. This child was a fledgling who died and then was resurrected?" Shekinah had stepped forward and was standing near Stevie Rae, staring hard at her.
Before I could answer, Stevie Rae spoke. "Yes, ma'am. I did die. But then I came back, and when I did, I wasn't the same anymore. I'd lost myself, or at least most of myself, but Zoey, Damien, Shaunee, Erin, and especially Aphrodite, helped me to find myself again, and when I did, I also found I'd Changed into a different kind of vampyre." She pointed to her beautiful red tattoo.
Aphrodite stepped forward, actually moving into the glowing silver thread that held our circle as one. I expected to see her get zapped or bounced back or something terrible, but instead the thread gave, allowing her to walk through to me. When she joined me, I could see her body was outlined in the same glowing silver thread that still held our circle.
"When Stevie Rae Changed, I did, too." Aphrodite lifted her hand and with a quick swipe, she wiped off the blue crescent that had been outlined there. I heard several gasps as she continued. "Nyx Changed me into a human, but I'm a new kind of human, just like Stevie Rae is a new kind of vampyre. I'm a human who has been blessed by Nyx. I still hold the gift of visions Nyx gave me when I was a fledgling. The Goddess has not turned her face from me." Aphrodite lifted her head proudly and faced the House of Night, as if daring anyone to say anymore crap about her.
"So we have a new kind of vampyre and a new kind of human," I said. I glanced at Stevie Rae and she grinned and nodded. "And we also have a new kind of fledgling." As soon as I finished speaking, the oak seemed to rain fledglings. I made a mental note to ask Stevie Rae later how the hell she'd hidden all of those kids up there, because I easily counted half a dozen or so of them. I recognized Venus, who I knew had been Aphrodite's old roommate, and wondered briefly if the two of them had had words yet. I also saw that obnoxious Elliot kid, who I swear I still wasn't going to like. They were all standing there, inside the circle, spreading out on either side of Stevie Rae as they looked more than a little nervous, with their bright red crescent outlines plainly visible on their foreheads.
I could hear some of the kids outside the circle crying and calling the names of red fledglings they were recognizing as dead roommates and friends, and I felt for them. I knew what it was like to think your friend was dead, and then see her walking and talking and breathing again.
"They're not dead," I said firmly. "They're a new kind of fledgling--a new kind of people. But they're our people, and it's time we found a place for them with us and learned why Nyx has brought them to us."
"Lies!" The word was a shriek, so loud that I could almost feel it battering my ears. There was a murmuring in the crowd, and then the people outside the southernmost part of the circle parted to let Neferet through.
She looked like an avenging goddess, and even I was struck speechless at her raw beauty. Her smooth white shoulders were bared by an exquisite black silk dress that molded to her graceful body. Her thick auburn hair was free, tumbling in waves down around her slim waist. Her green eyes flashed--her lips were the deep red of fresh blood.
"You ask us to accept a perversion of nature as something the Goddess made?" she spoke in her deep, beautifully modulated voice. "Those creatures were dead. They should be dead again."
The anger that spiked within me shattered her magnetism. "You should know about these creatures, as you call them." I squared my shoulders and faced her. I might not have her well-trained voice, or her incredible beauty, but I had truth and I had my Goddess. "You tried to use them. You tried to twist them. It was you who kept them as prisoners until through us Nyx healed and then freed them."
Her eyes widened in a perfect look of surprise. "You blame me for these monstrosities?"
"Hey, me and my friends aren't monstrosities!" came Stevie Rae's voice from behind me.
"Silence, beast!" Neferet commanded. "Enough is enough!" Neferet turned so that her gaze swept the stunned crowd. "Tonight I discovered another of the creatures Zoey and her people were raising from the dead." She bent and picked up something that lay at her feet, tossing it into the circle. I recognized Jack's satchel as it landed, opening to spill out the nanny cam monitor and the camera itself (which should have been safely hidden in the morgue). Neferet's eyes scoured the crowd until they found him; then she snapped, "Jack! Do you deny that Zoey made you plant this in the morgue, where you locked the body of the recently dead James Stark, so that she could watch to see when her wicked spells would resurrect him?"
"No. Yes. It wasn't like that," Jack squeaked. Duchess, who was pressed against his legs whined pitifully.
"Leave him alone!" Damien shouted from his place in the circle.
Neferet rounded on him. "So you continue to be blinded by her? You continue to follow her rather than Nyx?"
Before he could answer, Aphrodite spoke from beside me. "Hey, Neferet. Where's your Goddess insignia?"
Neferet looked from Damien to Aphrodite, and her eyes narrowed in anger. But everyone was now looking at Neferet and noticing what Aphrodite had said--that Neferet's exquisite black dress had no badge of Nyx over her breast. And then I noticed something else. She was wearing a pendant I'd never seen before. I blinked, not sure if I was seeing it correctly, and then, yep, I decided, I sure was. Dangling from a golden chain around her neck were wings--big, black, raven wings carved from onyx.
"What's that around your neck?" I asked.
Neferet's hand moved automatically to stroke the black wings hanging between her breasts. "The wings of Erebus, Nyx's consort."
"Um, excuse me, but, no, they're not," Damien said. "Erebus's wings are made of gold. They're never black. You taught me that yourself in Vamp Soc class."
"I have had enough of this meaningless babble," Neferet snapped. "It is time this little charade came to an end."
"You know, I think that's a darn good idea," I said.
I was just starting to scan the crowd to find Shekinah when Neferet stepped aside, crooking her finger at a shadowy shape that seemed to materialize behind her. "Come to me and show what it is they created tonight."
Duchess's howl of agony and her pitiful whines that followed will be forever be imprinted in my mind with my first sight of the new Stark. He moved forward like a ghost. His skin was eerily pale, and his eyes the red of old blood. The crescent on his forehead was red, too, like the fledglings who filled my circle, but he was different than they were. The thing Stark had become stood there beside Neferet, glaring, madness shining in his eyes. Looking at him, I felt like I was going to be sick. "Stark!" I meant to call his name loud and strong, but it came out of my mouth as little more than a broken whisper.
Still he turned his face in my direction. I saw the blood color in his eyes fade, and for just a moment I thought I glimpsed the boy I knew.
"Zzzzoey . . ." He said my name in something like a hiss, but it gave me an instant of hope.
I took a stumbling step toward him. "Yes, Stark, it's me," I said, trying hard not to cry.
"Ssssaid I'd come back to you," he murmured.
I smiled through the tears that were filling my eyes as I moved closer and closer to where he stood just outside the circle. I had opened my mouth to tell him it'd be okay, that somehow we'd figure out a way for it to be okay, but suddenly Aphrodite was there beside me. She grabbed my wrist, pulling me back from the edge of the circle.
"Don't go to him," she whispered. "Neferet is setting you up."
I wanted to shake her off, especially when Shekinah's voice came from the other side of the circle. "What has been done to this child is quite horrible. Zoey, I must insist that you close this ritual for this evening. We shall take the fledglings inside, and contact the Council of Nyx to come and judge these events."
I could feel the red fledglings stir restlessly at my back, drawing my attention from Stark. I turned and met Stevie Rae's eyes. "It's okay. That's Shekinah. She'll know the difference between lies and truth."
"I know the difference between lies and truth, and I carry a judgment with me greater than some distant Council." I heard Neferet speak and turned to face her again.
"You've been found out!" I yelled at her. "I didn't do this to Stark, or to the other red fledglings. You did, and now you're going to have to face what you've done."
Neferet's smile was more of a sneer. "And yet the creature calls your name."
"Zzzzzoey," Stark called me again.
I stared at him, trying to see the guy I'd know within his haunted face. "Stark, I'm so sorry this has happened to you."
"Zoey Redbird!" Shekinah's voice was a whip. "Close the circle now. These events must be reviewed by those whose judgment can be trusted. And I will take this poor fledgling into my care."
For some reason, Shekinah's command made Neferet begin to laugh.
"I have a bad feeling about this," Aphrodite said, pulling me back toward the center of the circle.
"Me, too," Stevie Rae said from her northernmost position in the circle.
"Don't close the circle," Aphrodite said.
Then in the middle of everything, Neferet's voice whispered across the circle to me, Don't close the circle and you'll look guilty. Close it and you'll be vulnerable. Which do you choose?
I met Neferet's eyes across my circle. "I choose the power of my circle and the truth," I said.
Her smile was victorious. She turned to Stark. "Aim for the true mark--the one that will make the earth bleed. Now!" Neferet commanded him. I saw him pause, as if he was fighting against himself. "Do as I command, and I will give you your heart's desire." Neferet whispered the words for Stark's ears alone, but I read them on her ruby lips. The effect they had on him was instantaneous. Stark's eyes blazed red and with the swiftness of a striking snake, he lifted the bow I hadn't noticed he was holding at his side, sighted an arrow, and shot. Slicing the air in a deadly line, it struck Stevie Rae in the center of her chest with such force that it buried itself to the dark feathers on the end of its shaft.
Stevie Rae gasped and fell to the ground, crumbling in on herself. I screamed and ran toward her. I could hear Aphrodite yelling at Damien and the Twins not the break the circle, and I silently blessed her for her cool head. I reached Stevie Rae and dropped to the ground beside her. Her breath was coming in painful little gasps, and her head was bowed.
"Stevie Rae! Oh, Goddess no! Stevie Rae!"
Slowly she raised her head and looked at me. Blood was pouring from her chest-- more blood than I thought any one person could hold. It was soaking the ground around her, which was lumpy from the roots of the big oak. The blood mesmerized me. Not because of its sweet, intoxicating smell, but because I realized what it looked like. It looked like the earth at the base of the great oak was bleeding.
I stared over my shoulder at Neferet, who stood smiling triumphantly just outside my circle. Stark had fallen to his knees beside her, and he was staring at me with eyes that were no longer red, but were now filled with horror. "Neferet, you are the monstrosity, not Stevie Rae!" I shouted.
My name is no longer Neferet. From this night on call me Queen Tsi Sgili. The words were spoken in my mind just as plainly as if Neferet had been standing beside me whispering them in my ear.
"No!" I cried, and then the night exploded.