Hunted (38 page)

“I hope I am. I try to be.”

“Then do this for me, please.” He closed the few feet between us before I could stop him again. At first he didn't touch me. He just kept staring into my eyes. “You haven't completed the Change yet, but even the Sons of Erebus call you Priestess.” Then he dropped to one knee, and looking up at me, he fisted his right hand over his heart.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm pledging myself to you. Warriors have done it for ages—pledged themselves, body, heart, and soul, to protect their High
Priestesses. I know I'm just a fledgling still, but I believe I qualify as Warrior already.”

“Well, I'm just a fledgling still, too, so we match.” My voice shook, and I had to blink fast to clear the tears that were pooling in my eyes.

“Do you accept my pledge, my lady?”

“Stark, do you understand what you're doing?” I knew about a warrior's pledge to a High Priestess, and it was an oath that often bound him to her service for his entire life, and was often harder to break than an Imprint.

“I do. I'm making a choice. The right choice. I'm choosing good over evil, light over darkness. I choose my humanity. Do you accept my pledge, my lady?” he repeated.

“Yes, Stark, I do. And in Nyx's name I bind you to the Goddess's service, as well as to mine, because to serve me is to serve her.”

The air around us shimmered and there was a brilliant flash of light. Stark cried out and seemed to crumple in on himself, falling at my feet with a moan.

I dropped to my knees beside him, pulling at his shoulders, trying to see what was wrong. “Stark! What happened? Are you—”

With a wonderfully joyous cry he looked up at me. Tears were running freely down his face, but his smile was radiant. Then I blinked and realized what I was seeing. His crescent had been filled in and expanded. Two arrows faced the crescent. They were decorated with intricate symbols that seemed to glow with their new scarlet color against the white of his skin.

“Oh, Stark!” I reached out and gently traced the tattoo that forever Marked him as an adult vampyre—the second adult red vampyre there had ever been. “It's beautiful!”

“I've Changed, haven't I?”

I nodded, and the tears overflowed my eyes and fell down my cheeks. And then I was in his arms, kissing him, and our tears mingled together as we laughed and cried and held each other.

The bell that signaled the end of fifth hour made us jump. He helped me to my feet and, smiling, wiped the tears from my cheeks
and his own. Then reality broke through my happiness, and I realized everything that had to go along with this new and amazing Change.

“Stark, when a fledgling Changes, there is some kind of ritual he has to go through.”

“Do you know the ritual?”

“No, only vamps do.” Then I had a thought. “You have to go to Dragon Lankford.”

“The fencing instructor?”

“Yeah. He's on our side. Tell him I sent you to him. Tell him you've pledged yourself as Warrior in my service. He'll know what to do for you.”

“Okay, will do.”

“But don't let anyone see that you've Changed.” I didn't know why it was important to me, but I knew he needed to keep hidden until after he reached Dragon. I looked around the storage room until I found a TU trucker's cap, which I stuck on Stark's head. With a little more searching I found a towel, which I rolled up and tucked around his neck. “Pull this up” —I tugged the towel into place—“and keep this brim down. You won't look too weird. I mean, there's an ice storm out there. Just get to Dragon without being seen.”

He nodded. “What'll you be doing?”

“I'll be planning our escape from here. Dragon and his wife are in on it, and I think the Horse Master, Lenobia, is, too. So get back here as soon as you can.”

“Zoey, don't wait for me. Get away from here. Get far, far away.”

“What about you?”

“I can come and go whenever I want. I'll find you, don't worry. My body won't be with you all the time, but you'll always have my heart. I'm your warrior, remember?”

I smiled and touched his cheek. “I'll never forget. I promise. I'm your High Priestess and you've pledged yourself to me. That means you have my heart, too.”

“Then both of us better stay safe. A heart's a hard thing to live without. I should know. I've tried it,” he said.

“But no more,” I said.

“No more,” he agreed.

Stark kissed me with such gentleness that he took my breath away. Then he took a step back, fisted his hand over his heart, and bowed formally to me. “I'll see you soon, my lady.”

“Be careful,” I said.

“And if I can't be careful, I'll be quick.” He threw me his cocky grin and ducked out of the door.

When he was gone I closed my eyes, fisted my hand over my heart, and bowed my head. “Nyx,” I whispered, “I was telling him the truth. He has my heart. I don't know how that's going to turn out, but I ask that you keep my warrior safe and thank you for giving him the courage to make the choice for good.”

Nyx didn't suddenly appear before me, and I hadn't expected her to. But I did feel a brief, listening silence in the air around me, and that was enough. I knew the Goddess's hand was on Stark.
Protect him . . . strengthen him . . . oh, and could you please help me figure out what I'm going to do about him . . 
. I prayed silently until the sixth-hour bell rang.

“Okay, Zoey,” I told myself. “Let's break out of this place.”

 

 

 

 

When I rushed into the stables late, Lenobia gave me a chilly look and said, “Zoey, you have a stall to muck.” She tossed me a pitchfork and pointed me toward Persephone's stall.

I muttered my apologies and my “yes, ma'am—right away, ma'am” and hurried into the stall of the mare I considered my own for as long as I was in school at the House of Night. Persephone whickered a soft greeting to me and I went straight to her head, stroking her face and kissing her velvet muzzle, and basically telling her that she was the prettiest, smartest, best horse in the known universe. She lipped my cheek, blew in my face, and seemed to agree with my opinion.

“She loves you, you know. The mare has told me so.”

I turned to see Lenobia standing just inside the door of the stall, leaning against the wall. I sometimes forget how exceptionally beautiful she is, so at times like this, when I really look at her, I'm surprised again at her uniqueness. She is strength packaged delicately. Her silver-white hair and slate-gray eyes are the most striking things about her, well, except for the incredible tattoos of rearing horses that Marked her as a vampyre. She was wearing her usual outfit of a crisp white shirt and tan riding slacks tucked into English riding boots. Except for the tattoos and the silver goddess embroidered over her heart, she looked like something that should be in a chic Calvin Klein ad.

“You can really talk to them?” I'd suspected as much, but Lenobia had never been so blunt about her abilities before now.

“Not in words. Horses communicate in feelings. They are passionate, loyal beings with hearts big enough to hold the world.”

“I've always thought so, too,” I said softly, kissing Persephone's forehead.

“Zoey, Kalona must be killed.”

The abruptness of her statement shocked me to my core, and I quickly looked around, worried that Raven Mockers were lurking close by, as they had been in all of my other classes.

Lenobia shook her head and waved away my fears. “Horses despise Raven Mockers as much as cats do, only earning a horse's hatred is more dangerous than a cat's. None of the abominable bird creatures will dare to enter my stables.”

“What about the other fledglings?” I asked softly.

“They are entirely too busy exercising horses who have been cooped up for days because of this storm to eavesdrop on us. So I repeat, Kalona must be killed.”

“He can't be killed. He's immortal.” My frustration at this unfortunate fact showed clearly in my voice.

Lenobia shook back her long, thick hair and began to pace from one side of the stall to another. “But we must defeat him. He lures our people away from Nyx.”

“I know. I haven't even been back one whole day and already I can see how bad things are. Neferet is in on all of this, too.” I held my breath, waiting to see if Lenobia would remain blindly loyal to her High Priestess or if she would see the truth.

“Neferet is worse than any of them,” she said bitterly. “She who should be most faithful to Nyx has betrayed her utterly.”

“She's not what she used to be,” I said. “She's become something that's focused on evil.”

Lenobia nodded her head. “Yes, a few of us have been afraid of that. I'm ashamed to say we looked the other way instead of confronting Neferet when she first began to behave strangely. I no longer consider her in Nyx's service. I plan on pledging my allegiance to a new High Priestess,” she finished, giving me a knowing look.

“Not me!” I practically squeaked. “I haven't even Changed yet.”

“You've been Marked and Chosen by our Goddess. That is enough for me. It is also enough for Dragon and Anastasia.”

“How about the other professors? Are any of them with us, too?”

A terrible sadness crossed her face. “No. All of the others are blinded by Kalona.”

“Why aren't you?”

She took her time answering me. “I am not sure why he didn't blind me, as he has most of the others. Dragon and Anastasia and I have spoken of it, if only briefly. We do feel his allure, but a part of us was able to stay untouched by him enough that we were able to see him—really
see
him—and recognize him as the destructive creature he is. There is no doubt in our minds that you must find a way to defeat him, Zoey.”

I felt terrible and helpless and breathless and too darn young. I wanted to flail my arms around and scream,
I'm seventeen! I can't save the world—I can't even parallel park!

And then a sweet, meadow-filled breeze caressed my face. It was warmed by the summer sun and moist as dew at dawn, and my spirit lifted in response.

“You aren't simply a fledgling. Listen within, child, and know that where that still, small voice leads you, we will follow,” Lenobia said in a voice that reminded me of my Goddess.

Her words mixed with the elements soothed me, and suddenly my eyes widened. How could I have forgotten?

“The poem!” I blurted, hurrying over to where I'd hung my purse by the door of Persephone's stall. “One of the red fledglings has been writing prophetic poetry. She gave me one that had to do with Kalona right before I came here.”

Lenobia watched me curiously as I searched through my purse.

“Here it is!” It was wadded up with the poem that must have been about Stark. I grabbed the other poem and focused on it.

“Okay . . . okay . . . This is it. This tells me how to make Kalona flee. It's just . . . just written in poetic code or something.”

“Let me read it, too. Perhaps I can help shed light on it.”

I held the poem out so she could see it, and she read it aloud as I followed the words.

 

What once bound him

Will make him flee

 

Place of power—joining of five

Night

Spirit

Blood

Humanity

Earth

 

Joined not to conquer

Instead to overcome

Night leads to Spirit

Blood binds Humanity

And Earth completes
.

 

“When Kalona rose from the earth, he wasn't being reborn, as Neferet tried to get us to believe, was he?” Lenobia said, still studying the poem.

“No. He'd been trapped there for more than a thousand years,” I said.

“By whom?”

“My grandmother's Cherokee ancestors.”

“This seems to imply that whatever it was that your grandmother's people did to bind him won't work the same way again. This time it'll make him run away. And that's good enough for me. We must rid ourselves of him before he completely erodes the ties that bind us to Nyx.” She looked from the poem to me. “How did the Cherokee people bind him in the earth?”

I blew out a long gust of air, wishing with all my heart that Grandma
was here and could lead me through this. “I just—I don't know as much as I should about it!” I cried.

“Ssh,” Lenobia soothed, touching my arm as she would a nervous filly. “Wait, I have an idea.”

She hurried from the stall and returned shortly with a thick, soft, curry brush, which she handed to me. Then she left the stall again and came back carrying a bale of straw. Putting it in against the inside wall, she sat on it. Leaning comfortably back, she pulled out a long piece of golden straw and stuck it in her mouth.

“Now, brush your mare and think aloud. We will find the answer between the three of us.”

“Well,” I began as I stroked the brush down Persephone's sorrel neck. “Grandma told me that Ghigua women, uh, those are Wise Women, from several tribes got together and created a maiden out of the earth, made especially to lure Kalona into a cave where they trapped him.”

“Wait, you said women came together to create a maiden?”

“Yeah, I know it sounds kinda crazy, but I promise that's what happened.”

“No, I do not doubt the truth of what your grandmother reported. I'm only wondering how many women came together.”

“I don't know. All Grandma told me was that A-ya was basically their tool, and each of them gave her a special gift.”

“A-ya? That was the maiden's name?”

I nodded and then looked over the mare's shoulder at her. “Kalona calls me A-ya.”