The ground beneath my feet, soaked through with Stevie Rae's blood, began to shudder, rippling like it was no longer solid earth but had suddenly turned to water. Through panicked cries, I heard Aphrodite's voice again, as calm as if she was only yelling at Damien and the Twins about their fashion choices.
"Move in to us, but don't break the circle!"
"Zoey." Stevie Rae gasped my name. She looked up at me with pain-filled eyes. "Listen to Aphrodite. Don't break the circle. No matter what!"
"But you're--"
"No! I'm not dying. I promise. He's just taken my blood, not my life. Don't break the circle." I nodded, then stood up. Erik and Venus were closest to me. "Get on either side of Stevie Rae. Hold her up. Help her keep the candle, and no matter what, don't let it go out and don't let the circle be broken."
Venus looked shaky, but she nodded and moved to Stevie Rae. Erik, white-faced with shock, just stared at me.
"Make your choice now," I said. "You're either with us or with Neferet and the rest of them."
Erik didn't hesitate. "I made my choice when I volunteered to be your consort tonight. I'm with you." Then he hurried to help Venus lift Stevie Rae.
Stumbling over the shifting ground, I staggered to Nyx's table and caught my purple spirit candle just before it fell over and went out. Clutching it close to me, I turned my attention to Damien and the Twins. They were following Aphrodite's calm instructions and, in the midst of the screaming chaos that was outside our circle, they were walking slowly together, tightening the circumference of the silver thread toward Stevie Rae, until we were all of us, Damien, the Twins, Aphrodite, Erik, the red fledglings, and me clustered together around Stevie Rae.
"Start moving her away from the tree," Aphrodite said. "All of us, without breaking the circle. We need to head to the trapdoor in the wall. Now."
I stared at Aphrodite, and she nodded solemnly. "I know what's going to happen next, and it's not going to be good."
"Then let's get out of here," I said.
We started to move as a group, taking small steps over the bucking earth, having to be ultra-careful with Stevie Rae and the candles and the circle that seemed so important to maintain. You'd think fledglings and vampyres would be in our way. You'd think at least Shekinah would have said something to us, but it seemed we existed in a weird little bubble of serenity amidst a world suddenly awash in blood and panic and chaos. We kept moving away from the tree, following the wall, slowly and carefully making progress. I'd noticed that the grass underneath our feet was smoother and completely dry of Stevie Rae's blood when Neferet's terrible laughter floated across the grounds to me.
The oak, with a horrible ripping sound, tore apart. I had been walking backwards, helping to prop Stevie Rae up from the front, so I had a clear view of the tree when it split. From underneath the middle of the destroyed oak a creature rose. At first all I saw were huge black wings that completely enfolded something. Then he stepped from the destroyed oak, straightening his mighty body and unfurling his night-colored wings.
"Oh, Goddess!" The cry was ripped from me at my first sight of Kalona. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. His skin was smooth and completely unmarred, and was gilded with what looked like the kiss of the sun's loving rays. His hair was as black as his wings, and fell loose and thick around his shoulders, making him look like an ancient warrior. His face--how can I ever fully describe his beautiful face? It was like a sculpture come to life, and it made even the most handsome mortal, be he human or vampyre, look like a sickly, unsuccessful attempt at imitation of his glory. His eyes were the color of amber, so perfect, they were almost golden. I found myself wanting to get lost in them. Those eyes called to me . . . he called to me . . .
I had stumbled to a stop, and I swear I would have broken the circle right then so that I could run back and fall at his feet, had he not raised his gorgeous arms and called in a voice that was deep and rich and full of power, "Arise with me, children!"
Raven Mockers burst from the hole in the ground and filled the sky, and it was the fear that filled me at the sight of their terribly familiar misshapen bodies that broke the spell Kalona's beauty had cast on me. They shrieked and circled their father, who laughed and held his arms up higher so that their wings could caress him.
"We have to get out of here!" Aphrodite hissed.
"Yes, now! Hurry," I said, totally myself again. The ground was no longer shaking, so we were able to increase our pace. I was still moving backwards, so I watched in fascinated horror as Neferet approached the newly freed angel. She stopped before him and swept a low, graceful curtsey.
He inclined his head regally, his eyes already glinting with lust as he looked at her. "My Queen," he said.
"My Consort," she said. Then she turned to face the crowd that had stopped milling around in panic and was instead staring in fascination at Kalona.
"This is Erebus, come to earth finally!" Neferet proclaimed. "Bow to Nyx's consort, and our new Lord on earth."
Many of the watching crowd, especially the fledglings, instantly dropped to their knees. I looked for Stark, but didn't see him. I did see Shekinah begin to stride forward, picking her way around worshipful fledglings, her wise face guarded, her expression fixed in a deep frown. As she walked, many of the Sons of Erebus joined her, looking alert, but I couldn't tell if they were questioning Kalona, as Shekinah obviously was, or if they thought to protect him from the High Priestess. Before Shekinah could break through the crowd and confront the risen angel, Neferet lifted her hand and made a slight flicking motion with her wrist. It was a gesture so small and insignificant that had I not been watching for it, I would not have seen it.
Shekinah's eyes went wide, she gasped, grabbed her neck, and then crumpled to the ground. The Sons of Erebus rushed to her body. It was at that moment that I took the cell phone out of my pocket and keyed up Sister Mary Angela's number.
"Zoey?" she answered on the first ring.
"Get out. Get out now," I said.
"I understand." She sounded utterly calm.
"Take Grandma! You have to take Grandma with you!"
"Of course I will. Look after yourself and your people. I shall look after her."
"I'll call you when I can." I flipped the phone shut.
When I looked up from the phone I saw that Neferet had turned her attention to us.
"We're there!" Aphrodite said. "Get that damn door open now!"
"It is already open," said a familiar voice. I glanced behind me at the wall to see Darius standing beside a cracked trapdoor that seemed to appear magically in the bricks and rock. And, with a huge rush of relief, I saw that Jack was standing beside the warrior, bawling his eyes out, but in one piece with Duchess close to his side.
"If you're with us, you have to be against them," I told Darius, jerking my chin back toward the House of Night and the Sons of Erebus who filled the school grounds and who were not making one move against Kalona.
"I've made my choice," said the warrior.
"Can we please get out of here? She's looking at us!" Jack said.
"Zoey! You've got to buy us some time," Aphrodite said. "Use the elements--all of them. Shield us."
I nodded and closed my eyes, centering myself. Vaguely in the back of my mind I knew Aphrodite was ordering around the red fledglings and telling them to stay close, stay inside our circle, even if it was mushed and not really circle-shaped anymore as we crammed ourselves through the trapdoor. But I was only partly there. The rest of me was commanding wind, fire, water, earth, and spirit to cover us, protect us, to blot us from Neferet's view. As they hurried to obey me, I felt a drain on my strength like I'd never known before. Of course I'd never tried to command all five of the elements at once to do such powerful work for me--it felt as if my mind, my will, was trying to sprint a marathon.
I gritted my teeth and held on. The elements swarmed above and around us. I could hear the wind and smell the salt of ocean as a strong breeze swirled a thick mist around us. Then thunder rolled in the suddenly cloudy sky and with a crack! a shard of lightning sizzled down, hitting a tree a few yards in front of us. The tree seemed to expand as earth magnified it, so that I opened my eyes as one of the red fledglings was guiding me backwards and through the trapdoor to see our little group completely shielded by the fury of the elements. In the midst of that chaos, I heard the wonderful sound of "mee-uf-ow!" and I looked through the trapdoor to see Nala sitting on the ground outside the school at the head of a bevy of cats, including the horrible and very disheveled-looking Maleficent, who was staying close to the Twins' hateful Beelzebub.
I got one last glimpse of Neferet as she looked wildly around, clearly not wanting to believe that we had somehow escaped her. And then the trapdoor closed, sealing us out of the House of Night. "Okay, reform up the circle. Tighten it up. Twins! You're too close together. You're making it lopsided. Cats! Stop hissing at Duchess. We don't have time for it." Aphrodite was calling orders like a drill sergeant.
"The tunnels." Stevie Rae's weak voice seemed to slice through the night.
I looked at her. She couldn't stand up. Erik had lifted her in his arms, and he was holding her like a baby, careful not to touch the arrow that was sticking out of her back. Her face was completely chalk white except for her red tattoos.
"We have to get to the tunnels. We'll be safe there," she said.
"Stevie Rae's right. He won't follow us there, and neither will Neferet, not anymore," Aphrodite said.
"What tunnels?" Darius asked.
"They're under the city, old Prohibition hiding places. The entrance is through the depot downtown," I said.
"The depot. That's a good three miles or so away, through the heart of the city," he said. "How are we going to--?" His words broke off as we heard terrible screams coming from all around us outside the House of Night. Bright balls of fire were blossoming in the sky like terrible, deadly flowers.
"What's happening?" Jack asked, moving closer to Damien.
"It's the Raven Mockers. They have their bodies back, and they're hungry. They're feeding on humans," Aphrodite said.
"They can use fire?" Shaunee asked, looking supremely pissed.
"They can," Aphrodite said.
"Like hell they can!" Shaunee started to lift her arm, and I felt heat begin to swirl in the air around us.
"No!" Aphrodite yelled. "You can't call attention to us. Not tonight. If you do, we're finished."
"You've seen this?" I asked.
She nodded. "All this and more. Those who don't get underground will be their prey."
"Then we get to Stevie Rae's tunnels," I said.
"How?" one of the red fledglings I didn't recognize said. She sounded young and very afraid.
I braced myself, already exhausted by manipulating all five of the elements to such an extent. I didn't want them to know how draining I was finding all of this. They had to believe I was strong and sure and in control. I drew a deep breath. "Don't worry. I know how we move without being seen. I've done it before." I smiled wearily at Stevie Rae. "We've done it before." My gaze took in Aphrodite. "Haven't we?"
Stevie Rae managed to nod weakly.
"Yep, we sure have," Aphrodite said.
"So what's the plan?" Damien asked.
"Yeah, let's get with it," Erin said.
"Ditto. I'm getting a cramp from smooshing so close to everyone," Shaunee muttered, obviously still pissed she couldn't fight fire with fire.
"Here's the plan. We become mist and shadows, night and darkness. We don't exist. No one sees us. We are the night and the night is us." As I explained it, I felt that familiar shiver of my body and saw the red fledglings gasp, and knew when they looked at me, they were seeing nothing but mist covered with darkness, steeped in shadow. I thought how weird it was that blending with the night felt easier now that I was exhausted . . . it was like I could just fade away and finally sleep . . .
"Zoey!" Erik's voice shook me out of my dangerous trance.
"Fine! I'm fine," I said quickly. "Now you guys do it. Concentrate. It's no different than when you used to sneak out of the House of Night to meet boyfriends or go to off campus rituals, only you're going to focus even more. You can do it. You are mist and shadow. No one can see you. No one can hear you. Only night is here, and you are part of night."
I watched my little group shimmer and begin to dissolve. It wasn't perfect, and Duchess was still solidly a big blond Lab--unlike our cats she couldn't blend with the night--but the kid she stuck close to was little more than a shadow.
"Now let's go. Stay together. Hold hands. Do not let anything mess with your concentration. Darius, lead the way," I said.
We moved out into what had become a city of living nightmare. I wondered later how we ever made it, and realized the answer even as I wondered. We made it because the guiding hand of Nyx was on us. We moved in her shadow. Covered with her power we became the night, even though the rest of the night had become madness.
The Raven Mockers were everywhere. It was just after midnight New Year's Eve, and the creatures had their pickings of tipsy, celebrating humans who poured out of clubs and restaurants and beautiful old oil mansions because they'd heard the crackle and pop of the creatures' inhuman fire and, thinking the city had set off fireworks, rushed out to watch the show. I wondered with oddly detached horror how many of them looked up at the sky only to have their last sight be terrible red eyes of men looking out at them from monstrous faces.
Before we'd reached the halfway point near Cincinnati and Thirteenth I started hearing police and fire sirens, along with gunshots, which made me smile grimly. This was Oklahoma, and us Okies did love our guns. Yep, we exercise our Second Amendment right with pride and vigor. I wished I had a clue if modern weapons would make any difference to creatures born of magic and myth, and knew I wouldn't have to wonder long. Soon we'd all find out.
Within a block of the abandoned Tulsa depot, it began to rain a cold, miserable misty wetness that chilled us to the bone, but it did help to hide our little group even more from probing eyes--whether they were human or beast.
We hurried into the basement of the abandoned Tulsa depot, gaining entrance easily by swinging open a metal grate that looked deceptively well barred. As soon as the darkness of the basement swallowed us, we gave a group sigh of relief.
"Okay, now we can close the circle."
"Thank you spirit, you may depart," I began. I turned to Stevie Rae, still in Erik's arms. "I am grateful to you, earth, you may depart." Erin was on my left, and I smiled through the darkness to her. "Water, you did well tonight. You may depart." Still turning to my left, I found Shaunee. "Fire, thank you, please depart." Then I closed the circle with the element that opened it. "Wind, you have my gratitude as always. You may depart." And with a little pop and sizzle, the silver thread that had bound us and saved us, disappeared. I gritted my teeth against the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm me, and I think I would have fallen had Darius not grabbed my arm to steady my wobbly knees.
"Let's get down there. We're still not completely safe," Aphrodite said.
We all moved toward the rear of the basement to the drainage entrance I knew hid a wide system of tunnels. Reentering these tunnels was as surreal an experience as the night had become. The last time I'd been here had been in the middle of a snowstorm. I was struggling to save Heath from Stevie Rae and a bunch of the fledglings I was now struggling to save.
Heath!
"Zoey, come on," Erik said when I hesitated. He had passed Stevie Rae to Darius, so he and I were the last of the group left aboveground.
"Gotta make two phone calls first. There's no reception down there."
"Then make it quick," he said. "I'll tell them you're coming."
"Thanks." I smiled wearily at him. "I'll hurry."
He gave me a tight nod and then disappeared down the steel ladder into the tunnels.
I was surprised when Heath picked up on the first ring. "What do you want, Zoey?"
"Listen to me, Heath, I have to be quick. Something terrible has been released at the House of Night. It's going to be bad, really bad. I don't know for how long because I don't know how to stop it. But the only way you'll be safe is if you get underground. It doesn't like to be under the earth. Do you understand?"
"Yes," he said.
"Do you believe me?"
He didn't even hesitate. "Yes."
I sighed in relief. "Get your family and anyone else you care about and get underground. Doesn't your grandpa's house have a big ol' basement?"
"Yeah, we can go there."
"Good, I'll call you again when I can."
"Zoey, are you going to be safe, too?"
My heart squeezed. "I am."
"Where?"
"In the old tunnels under the depot," I said.
"But they're dangerous!"
"No, no--it's not like that anymore. Don't worry. You just stay safe, too. 'Kay?"
" 'Kay," he said.
I hung up before I said something both of us would regret. Then I dialed the second number I had to call. My mom didn't answer. The phone went to voice mail after five rings. Her overly perky voice said, "This is the Heffer residence, we love and fear the Lord and wish you a blessed day. Leave us a message. Amen!" I rolled my eyes and when the beep came I said, "Mom, you're gonna think that Satan has been let loose on earth, and for once you're close to right. This thing is bad, and the only way you can be safe from it is if you get underground, like in a basement or a cave. So get to the church basement and stay there. Okay? I do love you, Mom, and I've made sure that Grandma is safe, too, she's with the--" Her answering service cut me off. I sighed and hoped that she would, for the first time in a long time, listen to me. Then I followed everyone else into the tunnels.
My group was waiting for me near the entrance. I saw lights begin to flicker on down the tunnel that stretched, dark and intimidating, in front of us.
"I sent the red fledglings ahead to get the lights on and stuff," Aphrodite said, then she glanced at Stevie Rae. "The 'and stuff' being hustling to get some blankets and dry clothes."
"Good. That's good." I forced myself to think through my exhaustion. The kids had already lit a few oil lanterns, the old-fashioned kind that could be carried around by swinging handles, and put them on hooks at about eye level, so it was easy to see the expression on my friends' faces when they looked up at me. The same thing was on all their faces, even Aphrodite's. They were afraid.
Please Nyx, I sent up one fervent, silent prayer, give me strength and help me to say this right because how we begin here is going to set the tone for how we live here. Please don't let me mess up.
I didn't get a wordy answer, but I did get a rush of warmth and love and confidence that made my heart take a little stutter beat and filled me with a burst of strength.
"Yeah, it's bad," I began. "There's no denying that. We're young. We're alone. We're hurt. Neferet and Kalona are powerful and, as far as we know, they might have all the rest of the fledglings and vampyres on their side. But we have something they'll never have. We have love and truth and each other. We also have Nyx. She's Marked each of us, and in some special way, Chosen each of us, too. There has never been a group like us-- we're completely new." I paused, trying to meet everyone's eyes and smile confidence to them. Into my pause, Darius spoke.
"Priestess, this evil is like nothing I've felt before," he said. "Nothing I've even heard of before. It is an untamed thing seething with hatred. When it burst forth from the earth, I felt as if evil had been reborn."
"But you recognized it, Darius. And lots of the other warriors didn't. I watched their reactions to it. They didn't grab their weapons or get the hell out of there, like you did."
"Perhaps a braver warrior would have stayed," he said.
"Bullshit!" Aphrodite said. "A stupider warrior would have stayed. You're here with us, and now you have a chance to fight it. For all we know those other warriors were either mowed down by those damn bird things, or are under some weird spell like the rest of the fledglings."
"Yeah," said Jack. "We're here because there's something different about us."
"Something special," Damien said.
"Damn special," Shaunee said.
"I'm with you on that one, Twin," Erin said.
"We're so special, when you look in the dictionary under short bus, there's a group picture of us," Stevie Rae said, sounding weak but definitely alive.
"All right. So what do we do next?" Erik said.
They all looked at me. I looked at them.
"Well, uh, we make up a Plan," I said.
"A Plan?" Erik said. "That's it?" "Nope. We make up a Plan, and then we figure out how to take our school back. Together." I stuck my hand out in the middle of them, like I was a softball-playing dork. "Are you guys with me?"
Aphrodite rolled her eyes, but hers was the first hand to cover mine. "Yeah, I'm in," she said.
"And me," said Damien.
"Me, too," said Jack.
"Ditto," said both of the Twins together.
"I'm in, too," said Stevie Rae.
"I wouldn't miss it for the world," said Erik, putting his hand on the top of the pile and smiling into my eyes.
"All right, then," I said. "Let's go get 'em!" And as they all yelled dorkishly after me, I felt an awesome tingle spread from my fingertips to cover the palms of my hands, and I knew when I pulled them out of the hand pile I'd find brand-new intricate tattoos decorating each of my palms, like I was an exotic ancient priestess who had been henna- Marked as special by her Goddess. So, even in the midst of craziness and exhaustion and life-changing chaos, I was filled with peace and the sweet knowledge that I was walking the path my Goddess wanted me on.
Not that that path was smooth and pothole free. But still, it was my path, and like me, it was bound to be unique.
THE END