Destined (18 page)

The bulb’s light dimmed. “I choose to obey you,” Dallas said.

“Wise choice. I want you cleaned up and back at the House of Night in time for classes tonight.”

“But how—”

“Use the school’s showers to wash the stench off yourselves. Steal clothing. Clean clothing. Or buy it. At seven thirty, just before classes begin, a House of Night bus will be waiting down the street at the east entrance to the University of Tulsa. You’ll board it. You’ll resume classes. You’ll sleep at the House of Night.” Neferet paused, waving a hand dismissively. “I’ll have windows covered or open a basement or something. But you will live at the House of Night.”

“How will we satisfy our hunger?”

“Carefully. And what you cannot satisfy carefully you will control, at least until the world has turned and changed to embrace your needs.”

“I don’t get it! Why do you even want us there?”

“Rephaim, the Raven Mocker you failed to kill more than once, has been gifted with a human form during the night and has mated with Stevie Rae. He is allowed to attend the House of Night, along with Aphrodite, and the other red fledglings—Stevie Rae’s red fledglings.”

“I’m supposed to go to school with him? And her? Together?”

The bulb glowed brightly again.

“You hate them, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That is the reason I want you there—want you all there.”

“Because we hate them?”

“No, because of what your hatred, controlled by me, will cause,” she said.

“And what’s that?” he asked.

Neferet smiled. “Chaos.”

*   *   *

They left shortly after Neferet finished instructing the vampyre called Dallas in the ways he could and could not cause chaos. Apparently, his purpose was much like Aurox’s purpose—Neferet commanded and controlled his violence and held his allegiance. He was not to kill—yet. And always, always, there was the underlying thread of seeding dissent and discontent and hatred.

Aurox understood. Aurox obeyed.

When Neferet commanded that he control the beast within him, he obeyed and followed her from the rotting nest up through the cool, clean corridors of the school.

At the front door the old guard lay where Aurox had left him.

“Is he alive?” Neferet asked.

Aurox touched him. “Yes.”

Neferet sighed. “I suppose that is for the best, even though it’s slightly inconvenient. You’ll need to go back downstairs and tell Dallas I want the old man’s memory wiped clean. Tell him to implant the suggestion that he was wounded when the school was robbed.” She tapped her chin, considering, and looked down the hallway at the glass cases that held memorabilia and the library beyond with its neat rows of books and gleaming, ornate light fixtures. “No, I have a more amusing idea. Tell Dallas to make the human believe he was wounded when the school was vandalized. Then on the way out, I want you to smash the cases and destroy the library. Do it quickly. I’ll be waiting outside. And I do
not
like to be kept waiting.”

“Yes, Priestess,” he said.

“As I said, this architecture is wasted on human teenagers…” She laughed as she left the building

Hastily he retraced his path back to the underground lair. As soon as Dallas caught sight of him, the vampyre stood and faced him, putting himself between Aurox and the fledgling pack. The red vampyre’s grimy arm lifted to rest on a metal box that was bolted to the cement wall. Aurox felt the power that thrummed there, coiling, waiting to do his bidding.

“What do you want?” Dallas asked.

“Neferet sent me with a new command for you.”

Dallas took his hand from the metal box. “What does she want me to do?”

“There is a guard who is unconscious near the entry to the school. Priestess does not want him to remember our presence. Instead he is to believe vandals attacked him.”

“Yeah, fine. Whatever,” Dallas said, then before Aurox could turn away he asked, “Hey, what the hell are you?”

The question surprised Aurox. His answer came automatically. “I am Neferet’s to command.”

“Yeah, but
what
are you?” asked a dark-haired fledgling girl who was peering at him from behind Dallas. “I saw you. You were changing into something with horns and hooves. Are you some kind of demon?”

“No. Not a demon. I am Neferet’s to command.” Aurox turned away then, leaving them behind, but he could not leave their words behind. They followed him down the hallway.
He’s a freak,
they whispered.
Something not right.

He used a desk made of wood and steel to smash and destroy the treasures in the clean, wide hallway. He shattered the ornate fixtures that hung from the room filled with books. While he did that Aurox fed from the fear and anger that lingered in his body. When those emotions were used up he channeled the fear the red vampyre and his fledglings were evoking from the old man as the fledgling he’d wounded drank his blood and the others looked on laughing. When they finished with the guard and wiped his mind clean, Aurox used the vestiges of the disgust the fledglings felt for him to fuel the power he needed until that emotion, too, was gone. Then he unearthed the only emotions he had left. The emotions he’d not fed from, but instead had somehow kept, and claimed as his own. So it was washed in Zoey’s loneliness and sadness and guilt that he finished vandalizing the school and then, changing back to the shell of a boy, Aurox walked heavily from the destruction he had caused and made sure Neferet waited no longer.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Stark

Stark’s dream started okay. He’d been on an awesome beach with white sand around him and clear blue water before him. The sun hadn’t burned him at all. Actually, it was just like before he’d been Marked and the sun had felt great on his face and shoulders. He was shooting arrows at a big round bull’s-eye target that magickally absorbed them and then made them reappear in the sand beside him so that he could continue to shoot and shoot and shoot.

He was just thinking how really great the dream would be if Zoey showed up on the beach in a bikini.

Or maybe it would be a European beach and Zoey would show up in a
topless
bikini. Now that would be even better.

And then, like what happens a lot in dreams, the scene shifted and all of a sudden Zoey was there, only they weren’t on the beach. She was there, curled up in his arms, warm and soft and smelling really good.

“Hey,” she said, smiling up at him. “You’re awake and the sun hasn’t set yet.”

“Yeah.” He grinned at her. “Let me show ya how awake I am.” He kissed her and she tasted sweet. Her body fit with his perfectly. She made that little sighing moan she made when she was really feeling good.

But just as he was really getting into the dream Zoey pulled back from him. He looked questioningly at her, thinking maybe it was going to be an awesome-beyond-awesome dream and she’d do a sexy little strip for him. Then he saw the look on her face. It was wide-eyed terror.

“Stop them!” she yelled. “Stark! Guardian! Help me!”

She was reaching for him as dark, snake-like tendrils dragged her away.

Stark leaped up and the Guardian Sword appeared in his hand. He ran to her, vaulted over her fallen body, and landed smack in the middle of the tendrils of Darkness. Swinging the Guardian Sword he slashed through them over and over again, but where he cut one, two grew to take its place, and both reattached like Velcro to Zoey’s body.

“Stark! Oh, Goddess! Help me!”

“I’m trying! Zoey, I’m doing my best!” But he was making no difference against Darkness. By now, Z was wrapped completely, cocooned like something a giant spider would snack on, and she was conscious and screaming for him to save her.

Stark fought and fought, but there was nothing he could do, and as Darkness pulled her from him, he saw Neferet, the puppet master commanding the black, sticky strings. She stood just out of his sword reach and laughed as she tightened the threads around Zoey until his love, his queen, was strangled, killed, and then absorbed by her enemy.

In the dream Stark stood there, sobbing and lost without his Zoey. In his mind he heard a voice strong and clear:
This will happen unless Zoey Redbird publicly breaks from Neferet. She must stand up to the Tsi Sgili and stop these pretenses of a truce between them.

Stark, still shocked and broken from the dream loss of his queen, only heard the words and not the voice. He didn’t think of where the message came from—only the warning itself.

He took a deep breath and woke with Zoey safe, warm, and willing in his arms, and she smiled up at him saying, “Hey, you’re awake and the sun hasn’t set yet.” A terrible, portentous chill shivered through his body. It had been more than a dream—he knew it. Which meant the warning was more than just words—it was prophecy. Stark filled his arms with Zoey, pressing her hard against his body.

“Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you feel fine.”

“I will if you stop smothering me,” she choked out.

He loosened his grip with one of his arms, with the other he ran up and down her back as he looked over her shoulder, being sure there were no tendrils there—no sticky memories from his dream.

“Stark, hey stop.” She grabbed his hand and stared into his eyes. “What the heck is wrong?”

“Massively bad dream. Like of apocalyptic proportions. And then I woke up and you were saying the exact same words you said to me in the dream right before Darkness got you.”

“First, eew, Darkness getting me is disgusting. How’d it happen?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said.

“Yes, I most certainly do. It could be a prophetic dream, and if it is I need to know what to avoid.”

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, too. Actually, I was trying
not
to think that, but you’re right.” He leaned back and ran his hand through his hair, trying to shake off sleep and foreboding. “It might be prophetic and you could need to know; Darkness got you like Shelob got Frodo, only worse,” he said.

Stark watched Zoey’s face drain of color. “As a girl who is deathly afraid of spiders, I don’t know how that dream could be much worse.”

“Make the spider Neferet and its web Darkness.”

“Okay, well, you’re right. That is worse.” She gave him what he knew was a brave smile. “But you saved me, right?”

He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t.

“Hello, big strong Guardian! You. Saved. Me. Right?”

“No,” he admitted. “I tried, but the Darkness Neferet controlled was too much for me.”

“Well, hell,” Zoey said. “I hate when that happens.” Then she shook her head and added firmly, “Hey, it didn’t
really
happen. For now at least it’s just a dream.”

“Too damn many things that seem like they could only happen in dreams have turned out to be real,” he said grimly. “And there was something else. Someone was telling me that what I dreamed would really happen unless you start standing up to Neferet.”

Zoey frowned. “Hey, I do stand up to Neferet! All the darn time. And what do you mean ‘someone’ was telling you that? Was it Nyx? Did the Goddess speak to you?”

Stark thought back, trying to recall the dream voice, but even though the horror of it was fresh, the specifics were already fading back into his subconscious. “I can’t really remember, but I don’t think it was Nyx’s voice, or at least not a voice of hers I recognized.”

“I think you’d know for sure if it’d been the Goddess. Plus, like I said, I do stand up to Neferet, so I don’t know what your dream voice was talking about.”

“Actually, right now you are kinda in a truce with her,” Stark said slowly.

“I supposed that depends on your definition of truce. If it means I-can’t-kick-Neferet-out-of-the-House-of-Night-’cause-the-High-Council-forgave-her, then yeah, we’re in a truce.”

“Hey.” He touched her cheek. “I didn’t mean to piss you off. That dream scared me, that’s all.”

She snuggled into his arms and he felt the tension in her body begin to relax. “You didn’t really piss me off. You just surprised me. I mean, I thought you and I were on the same page about Neferet.”

“We are.” He held her tight. “We know Neferet’s evil and crazy, and we know all of us on Nyx’s side have to watch out for what-thehell-ever she’s gonna do next.”

Zoey shuddered and buried her face in his shoulder. “Makes me want to run back to Skye.”

“Makes me want to take you back to Skye.” He hesitated and almost didn’t say anything else, but something in the back of his mind wouldn’t allow him to let it go. “The dream, Z. Darkness got you and I couldn’t save you. I think it was a warning; I really do. And the most sense I can make of it is that you’ve got to keep standing up to Neferet.”

“I will,” she said, tilting her head back to look at him. “You look tired and you’re up early.”

He gave her his cocky smile. “I’m up early so that you and I can spend some quality time alone before we have to catch the short bus, and I may look tired, but I’m not
that
tired.” He slid his hand up under the big, baggy T-shirt she was wearing and tickled her ribs with a light caress. Zoey giggled. He caught the sweet, happy laugh with his lips and turned it into a long, hot kiss. And then his hand quit tickling and almost all of the worry his dream had caused disappeared as he loved her … almost …

Zoey

“Ah, hell,” I muttered as Darius pulled the bus into the long driveway that wound through the rear of the House of Night and led to the parking lot. We’d just turned onto campus and I saw Neferet, Dragon, and five Sons of Erebus Warriors standing there as if they were a weird vampyre welcome wagon. “Slow down,” I told Darius. “We need to get ready for this.”

“Yeah, it don’t look good,” Kramisha said.

“Wow, you would not believe all the colors.” Shaylin was gawking open-mouthed out the window at the group of professors. “Eek, and there’s the Dead Fish Eye Lady, so gross!”

“Dead Fish Eye Lady—I like that,” Aphrodite said. “It suits her.”

“Dead Fish Eye Lady is super intuitive,” I was reminding everyone, even though I was speaking specifically to Shaylin.

“And we all decided it’s best if she doesn’t know much about Shaylin’s gift,” Stevie Rae said, walking up from her seat with Rephaim in the back of the bus. “Z, you want to call spirit and ask it to help shield Shaylin’s thoughts, at least until we get past Neferet right now?”