My cat sneezed, mee-uf-owed grumpily at me, jumped from my bed, and padded to her food bowl. She looked back at me, purring like crazy.
Okay, yeah, I know. Im hungry, too. I fed my cat and thought about Stark while I got dressed for what I was sure would be a very weird school day. Today were getting out of here, I told my reflection firmly after Id used the flatiron to semi-tame my hair.
I hurried downstairs and arrived in the kitchen just in time to grab my favorite cereal, Count Chocula, and join the Twins, who had their heads together and were whispering and looking annoyed.
Hey, guys, I said, sitting next to them and pouring myself a huge bowl of chocolatey deliciousness. Whats up?
Keeping her voice pitched low for my ears only, Erin said, Youll see whats up once you sit here for just a few minutes.
Yeah, observe the pod people, Shaunee whispered.
Okayyyyy, I said slowly, adding milk to my cereal and watching the kids around us with what I hoped was utter nonchalance.
At first I really didnt notice much of anything. Girls were busy grabbing protein bars or cereal or some other favorite breakfast food. And then I realized that it wasnt what I was seeing that was weirdit was what I wasnt. There was none of the typical joking around going on where someone makes fun of someone elses hair, and then someone else tells her to tell her mom to be quiet. No one was talking about boys. At all. No one was complaining about not having their homework done. Actually, no one was saying much of anything. They were just chewing and breathing and smiling. A lot.
I gave the Twins a WTF look.
Pod people, Erin mouthed to me while Shaunee nodded her head.
Almost as annoying as that asshole Stark, Erin whispered.
I tried not to sound massively guilty when I said, Stark? What about him?
The buttball walked through here while you were still upstairs. All like he owned the place and didnt care who knew hed been raping and pillaging some poor helpless pod girl, Shaunee said, still keeping her voice down.
Yeah, you should have seen Becca. She panted after him like a terrier, Erin said.
And what did he do? I asked, holding my breath.
It was pathetic. He barely looked at her, Shaunee said.
Talk about being used and then wadded up and thrown away like a snot rag, Erin said.
I was trying to figure out what I could say that would give me more info about what Stark had or hadnt done without letting the Twins know I cared as much as I was caring, and I thought I should maybe try to say a little something that would kinda somehow stand up for Stark, when Erins eyes got all wide and buggy as she stared behind me.
Well, speak of the damn devil, Shaunee said in her best mean-girl voice.
Literally, Erin added.
Wrong table, Shaunee said. Your minions are all over there and there. She waved her hand around the room at the other girls who had stopped eating and were staring behind me, too. Not over here.
I swiveled around in my chair to look up at Stark. Our eyes met. Im sure mine were wide and startled. His were deep and warm, and I could almost hear the question he was asking with them.
Ignoring everyone else in the room, I said, Hi, Stark. I was careful not to make my voice too friendly or icy. I just said hi to him like I would any other kid.
You look better than the last time I saw you, he said.
I could feel my cheeks getting warm. The last time hed seen me wed been in bed together. While I was still staring into his eyes and trying to figure out what the hell I could say to him in front of everyone, Erin spoke up.
Big surprise that she looks better than when you were chomping on Becca last night.
Yeah, watching that would be enough to make anyone look a little peaked.
Stark broke his gaze from mine. I saw his eyes flash a dangerous scarlet as he rounded on the Twins. Im talking to Zoey, not either of you. So butt the fuck out.
There was something about his voice that was deeply frightening. He didnt yell. His expression hardly changed. Instead, he radiated a terrible sense of coiled snake, pissed and deadly and on the brink of striking. I looked more closely at him and saw a ripple in the air around him, like heat waves lifting from a tin roof in summer. I dont know if the Twins saw it, too, but they definitely sensed something. Both of them paled, but I hardly spared a glance for them. It was Stark I was keyed on because I knew I was glimpsing the monster hed talked about. Seeing the almost instantaneous change that came over him, I was reminded of Stevie Raebefore shed found her humanity again.
Was that why I cared about Stark so much? Because Id seen Stevie Rae struggle with the same dark impulses and win over them, and I wanted to believe he could win, too?
Well, dealing with Stevie Rae had taught me one thing for sure, and that was that a fledgling in this position could be a very dangerous creature.
Keeping my voice completely calm, I said, What was it you wanted to say to me, Stark?
I saw the struggle on his face as the kid I knew fought with the monster who clearly wanted to leap across the table and eat the Twins. Finally he shifted his gaze back to me. His eyes still glowed slightly red when he said, I didnt really have anything to say. I just found this. Its yours, isnt it? He lifted his hand and, clenched in it, was my purse.
I looked from it to him, and then back at the purse again. I remembered what hed said about being scared of purses like Im scared of spiders. When I looked into his eyes again, I was smiling.
Thanks, it is mine. I took it from him, and as our hands brushed I said, A guy once told me that girls purses reminded him of spiders.
The red left his eyes like hed thrown a switch. The terrible aura that had surrounded him was gone. One of his fingers wrapped around mine and held for just an instant. Then he let loose the purse and my hand.
Spiders? Are you sure you heard him right?
Im sure. Thanks again for finding this.
He shrugged, turned, and slouched out of the room.
As soon as he was gone, all the fledglings except the Twins and me started whispering excitedly about how hot Stark is. I ate my cereal in silence.
Okay, hes beyond creepy, Shaunee said.
Was that what Stevie Rae was like before she Changed? Erin asked.
I nodded. Yeah, basically. I lowered my voice and added, Did you guys notice anything in the air around him? Like a weird rippling or an extra-dark shadow?
No, I was too busy thinking he was going to eat me to look around him, Erin said.
Ditto, said Shaunee. So is that why he doesnt freak you out, because hes like Stevie Rae before she Changed?
I lifted one of my shoulders and used the excuse of a mouth full of Count Chocula to not say much.
Hey, seriously, I know what Kramishas poem said and all, Erin said. But you gotta watch yourself around him. Hes totally bad news.
Plus, the poem might not have been about him, Shaunee said.
Guys, do we really have to talk about this right now? I said after swallowing.
Nope, he has zero importance to us, Shaunee said quickly.
Ditto, Erin said; then she added, You gonna check to be sure he didnt steal your stuff?
Yeah, whatever. I unsnapped my purse and looked into it, pawing around a little and taking an out-loud inventory. Cell phonelip glosscool sunglassesmoney holder thing with, yep, all my money and my drivers license in itand I broke off abruptly when I found the little note that had an arrow broken in half drawn on it. Below the arrow were the words: Thanks for last night.
What? Did you find something he ripped off? Erin asked, trying to peer across the table and into my purse.
I snapped it shut. No, just nasty used Kleenex. I wish he had ripped that off.
Well, I still say hes an asshole, Erin grumbled.
I nodded and made little agreeing sounds as I finished my cereal and tried not to think about Starks warm hand stroking my hair.
My classes, as my Spanish teacher, Professor Garmy, would had said, had she not turned into a good little pod professor, were no bueno para me. And the worst part was, if you took away the disgusting Raven Mockers, who seemed to be everywhere, I could have almost convinced myself that everything was normal. But almost can be a really big word.
It didnt help that my schedule had been changed around at semester, so that I was in classes with all different kids, none of them being Damien and the Twins. Aphrodite was nowhere to be seen, making me worry on and off about whether she and Darius were being eaten by Raven Mockers. Of course, knowing Aphrodite, they were still in her room playing doctor.
It was with that gross mental picture that I slid into a desk for my first class, which was now Literature 205. Oh, when Shekinah had moved all my classes around so that I could be in an advanced level of Vampyre Sociology, shed failed to mention that the rearrangement had caused me to be bumped up to the next level of my lit and Spanish classes. So my stomach churned as I waited for Professor Penthasilea, better known as Prof P, to assign a piece of literature with a correspondingly awful essay that was so far over my head that it could roost.
I shouldnt have worried. Prof P was there. She looked like her gorgeous, artsy self. But she acted like an utterly different vampyre. Prof P, by far the coolest lit teacher Id ever hoped to encounter, began the hour by passing out grammar worksheets. Yep. I stared down at the half dozen pages, Xeroxed front and back, she wanted us to complete. The worksheets ran the range from comma splices and run-ons to diagramming complex sentences (seriously).
Okay, some kidswell, I guess the majority of kids if they had an on-level public school educationwould not have been shocked at all by the assignment. But this was Prof P at the House of Night! One thing I could say for Hell High (as human kids called it) was that the classes were not boring. And even among the totally not boring professors, Penthasilea stood out. Shed captivated me in the first sixty seconds of the first day Id sat in her class by saying that we were going to read Walter Lords A Night to Remember, a book about the sinking of the Titanic. That was cool enough, but add to that the fact that Prof P had actually been living in Chicago when the ship sank, and she remembered tons of amazing details about not just the people on the ship but what life had been like in the early 1900s, and you have an excellent class.
I looked up from my totally boring worksheets to where she was sitting at her desk, bloblike, staring stone-faced at her computer screen. Her c ke an n the shipharisma in class today would definitely fall on the South Intermediate High School crap teacher scale at about the level of Mrs. Fosster, who consistently got the prize for the Worst English Teacher Ever, and had been called Queen of Worksheets or Umpa Lumpa, depending on whether she was wearing her M&M blue muumuu or not.
Professor Penthasilea had definitely been changed into a pod person.
Spanish class was next. Not only was Spanish II insanely too hard for me (hell, Spanish I had been too hard for me!), but Prof Garmy had turned into a nonteacher. Where before the class had been immersion, which means basically all the talking was in Spanish and not English, now she flitted around the room nervously, helping kids write the description of the picture shed put up on the Smart Board of a bunch of cats, er, gatos getting all tangled in string, um, hiloor whatever. (I seriously dont have many Spanish skills.) Her vamp tattoos looked like feathers, and shed reminded me of a little Spanish bird before. Now she looked and acted like a neurotic sparrow, flitting from kid to kid and getting ready to have a nervous breakdown.
Pod professor number two.
But I would have chosen to stay in Prof Garmys confusing Spanish class all day if it could have kept me from going to my third-hour class, Advanced Vampyre Sociology, taught byyou guessed itNeferet.
Since day one at the House of Night, Id resisted being put in an advanced level of Vampyre Sociology. At first it was because Id wanted to fit in. I hadnt wanted to be known as the weird third former (or freshman) kid whod been stuck in a sixth former (or senior) class because she was so special. I mean, barf.
Well, it hadnt taken me very long to figure out that there was just no way for me to stay incognito. Since then Id been learning to deal with my specialness and the responsibilities (and embarrassments) that go with it. But it didnt matter how hard Id talked to myself about the Vamp Soc being just another class, I was still majorly nervous going into it.
Of course, knowing Neferet would be the teacher didnt help at all.
I came in, found a desk near the back of the class, and proceeded to hunker down in my seat, trying to impersonate one of those sloth-like kids who slept their lives away, waking up only to move from class to class, leaving a slug trail of yawns and bright pink spots on their foreheads.
My sloth impersonation might have worked had Neferet turned into a pod professor. Sadly, she hadnt. Neferet was glowing with power and what would appear to those less well informed as happiness. I recognized it as gloating. Neferet was a bloated spider, radiating her victory over everyones head she had bitten off, delighted to be contemplating more carnage.
As a side note: Darius would be really pleased at my retention of the vocab words hed been using around me.
Besides the fact that she seemed spiderlike to me, I noticed Neferet, again, wasnt wearing the insignia of Nyx, a goddess embroidered in silver with her hands raised and cupping a crescent moon. Instead, she was wearing a gold chain from which hung wings carved from a pure black stone. I wondered, not for the first time, why no one seemed to notice she was totally twisted. I also wondered why no one noticed the way she radiated a dark energy that filled the space around her like the air right before a lightning strike.
Todays lesson is going to focus on an aspect of abilities that only a vampyre, or sometimes an advanced fledgling, can use. So you wont need your Fledgling Handbooks at the moment, unless youd like to make additional notes in the physiology section. Please open your texts to page 426, which is the chapter on concealment. Neferet held the small classs attention easily. She strode back and forth across the front of her room, looking regal and typically gorgeous in a long black dress trimmed in golden thread that looked like liquid metal. Her auburn hair was pulled back, and lovely curling tendrils of it escaped to frame her beautiful face. Her voice was refined and easy to listen to.
She absolutely scared the bejeezus out of me.
So, Ill want you to read this chapter on your own. Your assignment will be to document in a journal all of your dreams for the next five days. Often secret desires as well as abilities surface in our dreams. Before you go to sleep, I want you to focus on your reading and think about what concealment means to you. What dark secrets do you keep hidden from the world? Where would you go if no one could find you? What would you do if no one could see you? She paused, looking at each student as she spoke. Some smiled at her shyly. Others looked away almost guiltily. All in all, the class showed more animation than any of the others Id been in.
Brittney, darling, would you read aloud the section on page 432 on cloaking?
Brittney, a petite brunette, nodded, turned the pages, and began reading:
CLOAKING
Most fledglings are familiar with the inherent ability they have to cloak their presence to outsiders, i.e., humans. It is practiced by the fledgling tradition of sneaking off campus to perform rituals under the very eyes of the human community. But this is only a small taste of the ability a mature vampyre can command. Even those without affinities can call night to them and conceal their movements from the inadequate senses of the typical human.
Here Neferet interrupted. Part of what you will learn from this chapter is that any vampyre can move stealthily among humans, a skill which comes in handy because humans tend to be overly judgmental of our activities.
I was frowning down at the text, thinking that I couldnt be the only fledgling to notice Neferets prejudice against humans, when her voice whiplashed at me from next to my desk.
Zoey. So nice of you to join a class that is more fitting for your abilities.
I looked slowly up into her frigid green eyes and tried to sound like any other fledgling. Thank you. Ive always liked Vamp Soc class.
She smiled, and suddenly reminded me of the creature in Alien, that totally freaky old movie with Sigourney Weaver and the really scary alien that ate people. Excellent. Why dont you read aloud the last paragraph on that page?
Glad that I had an excuse to duck my face, I looked down at my book, found the paragraph, and read:
Fledglings should note that cloaking can be very taxing to their strength. It takes great powers of concentration to call and hold night for any protracted period of time. It is also important to understand that cloaking has its limitations. Some are as follows:
It is a draining practice and can cause excessive weariness.
Cloaking can only work with organic things, which is why it is easier to remain cloaked if one is skyclad (or naked).
To attempt cloaking items like cars or motorcycles or even bicycles is an exercise in futility.
As with all of our abilities, cloaking exacts a price. For some that price will be mild fatigue and a headache. For others it can be much worse.
I came to the end of the page and glanced up at her.
That will be quite enough, Zoey. So, tell me, what did you just learn? Her eyes bored into mine.
Well, actually, Id just learned that my friends and I wouldnt be escaping from the House of Night using the Hummer unless we somehow got permission to leave campus. I didnt say that, though. Instead, I tried to look studious and said, That cars and houses and such cant be cloaked from humans.
Or vampyres, she added in a firm voice that the uninformed (or the body-snatched) might think was concerned and teacherly. Dont ever forget other vampyres will see through the cloaking of inorganic materials, too.
Ill remember, I said solemnly. And I would.
CHAPTER 26
I had fencing class before lunch and couldnt have been happier. Okay, well, thats an overstatement. I could have been happier if my friends and I were about a bazillion miles away from the House of Night, Neferet, and Kalona. Since that didnt seem very possible, especially after Vamp Soc and Neferets freaky anti-cloaking lecture, I settled for being happy that Dragon agreed I looked too tired to do more than sit and watch class.
Actually I wasnt feeling bad at all, and when I fished my mirror out of my purse to put on the lip gloss I was relieved I hadnt lost, I didnt think I looked that bad, either. So Dragons allowing me to sit out of class, coupled with the fact that his cat had been one of those that had shown up in my room like a furry clue, had me keeping a close eye on our fencing professor.
At first glance Dragon appears to be another of my grandmas conundrums. First of all, hes short. Second, hes cute. Really cute. As in the guy youd pick to be a stay-at-home dad who baked cookies and could even hem his daughters skirt in an emergency. In a world where male vampyres were warriors and protectors, a short, cute guy wouldnt normally get much attention. But his whole persona changed when he picked up his sword, or, as hed correct me, his foil. Then he turned lethal. His features hardened. He didnt grow taller, that would just be silly (as well as impossible), but he didn't need to be taller. He was literally so fast that his foil seemed to glide and glow with a power all its own.
I watched Dragon drill the class in fencing exercises. The fledglings didnt seem so podlike in fencing class. But that was probably because it dealt with physical activity, not mental stuff. I paid closer attention and noticed that, even though the class was completing the physical motions, there was no easy banter or harmless teasing going on. Everyone was on task, which was weird as hell. I mean, lets face it. Keeping a gym filled with teenagers who had sharp things in their hands totally on task is nearly impossible.
I was frowning at a group of guys who would normally have been getting at least a couple of reprimands from Dragon, along with reminders to pay attention and not act like idiots (at the House of Night professors can call kids idiots when they act like idiots because the idiot children cant run home to their mommies and cry about it; hence there is a lot less idiot behavior at the House of Night than at most public schools), when Dragon stepped between me and my line of vision. I blinked and refocused on him.
Slowly and distinctly he winked at me before turning back to the class.
About then his huge Maine Coon padded up to sit beside me and lick one of his monstrous paws.
Hey there, Shadowfax. I scratched his head and felt more hopeful than I had since the Raven Mocker had almost killed me.
Even though school had turned into a nightmare and danger was all around us, lunch felt like an oasis of familiarity. I loaded up on my personal favorite, spaghetti and brown pop, and joined Damien and the Twins at our booth.
Well, what did you guys find out? I whispered between big bites of pasta with marinara and cheese.
You look way better, Damien said, his voice definitely not a whisper.
I feel better, I said, giving him a WTF look.
Im thinking we really need to go over the new vocab for the lit test next week, Damien said loudly, opening his ever-ready notebook and taking out a number two pencil.
The Twins groaned. I frowned at him. Had he gone pod on us?
Yeah, just because stuff is changing around here, it doesnt mean you can let your grades slide, he said.
Damien, you are a pain in the ass, Shaunee said.
Worse. You are a damn pain in the ass with your stupid vocab shit, and I
Damien slid the notebook around so that we could read what hed written below the list of vocab words.
R.M. @ all the windows. Their hearing is excellent.
The Twins and I shared a quick glance, then I sighed and said, Fine, Damien. Whatever. Well study the stupid vocab with you. But I agree with the Twins that youre a pain.
All right. Lets start with loquacious. He pointed his pencil at the word.
Shaunee shrugged. Isnt that something out of Star Trek?
Sounds right to me, Erin said.
Damien gave them a look of disgust I knew he didnt have to act to put on. No, simpletons, this is what it means. He wrote: Dragon is on our side. So, Erin, why dont you try the next word, voluptuous?
Oooh, I know what that one means, Shaunee said, grabbing Damiens pencil before he could pass it to Erin. Beside voluptuous she quickly wrote: me! Then, farther down on the page, she scrawled: Anastasia is 2.
You know I consider using texting shorthand gauche, Damien said.
Dont care, Shaunee said.
Even if we knew what gauche meant, Erin said.
Ill take the next word, I said. Ignoring the next vocab word, I wrote: We gotta get out of here tonight, but cant use the Hummer. Cant cloak it. I paused, chewing my lip, and then added, Got to be careful. N knows were going to try to leave. I guess I dont know what that next one means after all. Can you help me out, Damien?
No problem. Damien wrote: We need to get out of here fast. Before they can stop us.
Okay, hang on. Ill try the next word. Just let me think about it for a sec. We all ate silently while I thought, but not about the vocab word ubiquitous (seriously, I could have thought about that forever and not figured out what it meant).
We needed to get off campus, under my cloaking, as soon as possible. But Neferet was expecting us to try to bolt; shed made that clear. This meant shed be listening in to our lunchroom conversations, not just via the Raven Mockers but inside Damiens and the Twins minds the second she was physically close enough to them to make her psychic eavesdropping work. Again, I thought how relieved I was that no one but Stevie Rae and I knew Id really be running to the Benedictine Abbey instead of the depot tunnels. Thanks to my note-passing skills and
Thats it!
The Twins and Damien stared at me. I grinned at them. I remembered what ubiquitous means! I lied. And I have an idea about studying. Im going to write definitions for some of the words on pieces of paper. Ill give one to each of you, which youre going to be expected to study and learn. When you learn the word, pass it back to me, and Ill give you another one. Itll be kinda like flashcards.
Have you lost your damn mind? Shaunee said.
No, Damien said perkily. Its a good idea. Itll be fun.
I was ripping strips of notebook paper and writing furiously on them: Get to the stables. After folding each one carefully, I said, Just think about the definitions weve gone over. Dont read the word I gave you until the bell rings for the end of sixth hour. I mean it. I handed each of them their word.
Okay, okay, we get it, Erin said, stuffing her note into the pocket of her designer jeans.
Yeah, whatever. You two are turning into teachers. And thats not a compliment, Shaunee said, taking her piece of paper.
Just remember, dont peek until the bell, I said.
We wont, Damien said. And when we do, maybe we should call our individual elements to us, just to help us focus?
Yes! I said, smiling gratefully at Damien.
Speaking of. Shaunee grabbed the sheet of paper wed been writing on. Im going to take this to the ladies room and do my own studying with my element. She looked long and hard at me, and I nodded, understanding that she was going to call fire to her and destroy the evidence of our subterfuge, which was a big word I actually knew the definition of.
Ill go with you, Twin. You might need my, er, help. Erin hurried after her.
At least we dont have to worry about Shaunee lighting the school on fire from the bathroom, Damien whispered.
Holy shit, Im starved! Aphrodite breezed in and plopped down next to me. Her plate was loaded with spaghetti. She looked gorgeous, as usual, but a little frazzled. Her hair, which she normally wore long and flowing all around her shoulders, was pulled back in what might have once been a chic, puffed-top ponytail, but now looked actually messy.
Are you okay? I whispered, throwing a look at the window and giving Aphrodite what I hoped was a be-quiet-they-can-hear-us look.
Aphrodite followed my line of vision, nodded slightly, and then whispered back, Im fine. Darius is fast!
From that I understood that the warrior had probably been taking her on one of his superfast runs. I briefly regretted that he couldnt carry us all out of here, one at a time, but filed an amended version of the thought; maybe he could carry one or even two fledglings in an emergency.
Theyre all over out there, Aphrodite said so softly I almost didnt hear her.
Around the perimeter? Damien whispered.
Aphrodite nodded, shoveling spaghetti into her face. They lurk around campus, too, she said between bites, careful to keep her voice low, but their focus is obviously on keeping anyone from coming or going without their permission.
Well, were definitely going without their permission, I said. I looked at Damien. You have to go so I can talk to Aphrodite. Do you understand?
He started to look hurt for a second, and then I saw understanding in his eyes as he remembered I could talk freely to Aphrodite without worrying that Neferet could break into her mind and dig out what Id said.
I understand, he said. So I guess Ill see you His voice trailed off into a question.
Just go over the vocab note I gave you, okay?
He smiled. Okay.
Vocab note? Aphrodite said after he was gone.
Its just a way Im getting them to meet me in the stables right after school without them knowing beforehand. Maybe if its a surprise to them, itll take a while for Neferet to know what were up to.
And by that time well be out of here?
I hope so, I whispered. I leaned closer to Aphrodite, not caring if the Raven Mockers were suspicious about the two of us putting our heads together. At least they couldnt get into our heads. Get to the stables with Darius as soon as schools out. Dragon and Anastasia are with us. So Im hoping that means the cat clues were right, and Lenobia is on our side, too.
Which means she may help us get out of here from the weak part in the wall by the stables?