Feeling more than a little nervous I rolled down my window.
It had been unusually warm all week. Today the high had been almost sixty, which was weird for December, but it was Oklahoma, and weird was just another word for Oklahoma weather. Still, it was close to midnight and the night had definitely cooled off. Not that that bothered me. Adult vamps don't feel the cold with the same intensity as humans. No, it isn't because they are cold, dead, pieces of walking reanimated flesh (eesh, that might be what Stevie Rae is, though). It's because their metabolism is way different than humans. As a fledgling, especially one who is more advanced than most kids who have only been Marked for a couple of months, my resistance to the cold was already way better than a human kid's. So the cool air rushing into my Bug didn't bother me, which was why it was strange that I suddenly started to sneeze and felt kinda creepy.
Ugh, what was that smell? It was like a musty basement and egg salad that hadn't been refrigerated soon enough and dirt all mixed together to make a disgusting whiff of something that was nastily familiar.
"Ah, hell!" I realized what I was smelling and jerked my Bug across all three one-way lanes to park a little bit north of the downtown bus station. I barely took time to roll up my window and lock the door (I'd just die if my first edition of Dracula was ripped off) before I got out of the car and hurried to the sidewalk where I stood very still and sniffed the air. I caught the scent right away. Ugh. It was too horrible to ignore. Still sniffing like a retarded dog, I began following my nose down the sidewalk away from the comforting lights of the bus station.
I found her in an alley. At first I thought she was leaning over a big trash bag full of garbage and my heart squeezed. I had to get her out of this kind of lifeI had to figure out a way to keep her safe until this awful thing that had happened to her could be fixed. Or she needs to die once and for all. No! I closed my mind to that kind of thinking. I'd watched Stevie Rae die once. I wasn't going to do it again.
But before I could get to her and wrap her in my arms (while I held my breath) and tell her I'd make all of this okay, the bag of garbage moaned and moved and I realized that Stevie Rae wasn't digging through the trash, she was biting a street person on the neck!
"Oh, gross! Jeesh, would you just stop!"
With inhuman quickness, Stevie Rae whirled around. The street person fell to the ground, but Stevie Rae kept hold of one of her dirty wrists. Teeth bared and eyes glowing a very creepy red she hissed at me. I was too disgusted to be scared or even freaked out. Plus, I'd just had a really terrible birthday and people, even undead best friend people, were on my last nerve.
"Stevie Rae, it's me. You can turn off the hissing crap. Plus, it's a ridiculous vampyre cliché."
She didn't say anything for a second, and I had the horrible thought that she might have somehow deteriorated in the month since I'd last seen her, to a point where she was actually like the rest of thembestial and unreachable. My stomach gave a painful flip, but I met her red eyes and rolled my own. "And, please, you smell really bad. Are there no showers in Creepy Undead Land?"
Stevie Rae frowned, which was actually an improvement, because then her lips covered her teeth. "Go away, Zoey," she said. Her voice was cold and flat, making what used to be a sweet Okie accent sound like rough trailer trash, but she'd said my name, which was all the encouragement I needed.
"I'm not going anywhere until we talk. So let go of that street personeesh, Stevie Rae, she probably has lice and who knows what elseand let's talk."
"If you want to talk you'll have to wait till I'm done eating." Stevie Rae cocked her head to the side in a movement that looked insectile. "Don't I remember that you Imprinted your little human boy toy? Looks like you have a taste for blood your own self. Want to join me in a bite?" She smiled and licked her fangs.
"Okay, nasty, just nasty! And for your information Heath is not my boy toy. He's my boyfriend, or one of them anyway. I sucked his blood kinda sorta by accident. I was going to tell you about it, but you died. So, no. I do not want to bite that person. I don't even know where she's been." I gave the poor, wide-eyed, matted-hair woman a weak smile. "Uh, no offense, ma'am."
"Good. More for me." Stevie Rae began to bend back over the woman's throat.
"Stop it!"
She looked over her shoulder at me. "Like I said, go away, Zoey. You don't belong here."
"Neither do you," I said.
"That's just one of the many things you're wrong about."
When she turned back to the woman, who was now crying and repeating "please, oh please" over and over, I took a couple of steps forward and raised my hands over my head. "I said let her go"
Stevie Rae's answer was to hiss and open her mouth to chomp the woman's neck. I closed my eyes and quickly centered myself. "Air, come to me!" I commanded. Instantly my hair began to lift in the breeze that surrounded me. I circled one hand in front of me, imagining a mini-tornado. I opened my eyes as I flicked my wrist and tossed the power of air toward the crying homeless woman. Exactly as I'd imagined it, the whirling air surrounded her, and hardly rustling one hair on Stevie Rae's very nappy head, it picked up her victim and carried her down the alley, letting go of her only when she reached the safety of a streetlight. "Thank you, air," I murmured, and felt the breeze brush my face caressingly before it dissipated.
"You're getting good at that."
I turned back to Stevie Rae. She was watching me with an obviously leery expression, as if she thought I was going to conjure another tornado and suck her up into oblivion.
I shrugged. "I've been practicing. It's really just concentration and control. You'd know that if you'd been practicing, too."
A flash of pain crossed Stevie Rae's gaunt face so quickly that I wondered if I'd really seen or just imagined it. "The elements have nothing to do with me now."
"That's crap, Stevie Rae. You have an affinity for earth. You had it before you died, or whatever," I faltered over how awkward it was to be talking to undead dead Stevie Rae about being dead. "That kind of thing just doesn't go away. Plus, remember the tunnels? You still had the affinity then."
Stevie Rae shook her head and her short blond curls, the ones that weren't all nappy and dirty, bounced, reminding me of how she used to look. "It's gone. Whatever I once had died with the part of me that was human. You need to accept it and move on. I have."
"I'll never accept it. You're my best friend. I'm not going to move on."
Suddenly Stevie Rae hissed a nasty, feral sound, and her eyes blazed blood red. "Do I look like your best friend?"
I ignored the way my heart was beating around inside my chest. She was right. What she had become was absolutely not like the Stevie Rae I'd known. But I wouldn't believe that she was all the way gone. I'd seen glimpses of my best friend in the tunnels and that meant I couldn't give up on her. I felt like crying, but instead I pulled myself together and forced my voice to sound normal.
"Well, hell no, you don't look like Stevie Rae. How long has it been since you've washed your hair? And what are you wearing?" I pointed at the sweat pants and oversized shirt that were covered by a long, nastily stained black trench coat like the ones those freaky goth kids like to wear even when it's a hundred degrees outside. "I wouldn't look like me if I was dressed like that either." I sighed and took a couple steps closer to her. "Why don't you just come with me? I'll sneak you back into the dorm. It'll be easy practically no one's there. Neferet's not there," I added, and then hurried on (I doubted if either of us wanted to talk about Neferet just thenhell, if ever). "Most the teachers are on winter break and the kids are taking short trips to see their families. Absolutely nothing is going on. We won't even be bothered by Damien and the Twins and Erik 'cause they're pissed at me. So you can take a long, soapy shower, and I'll get you some real clothes, then we can talk." I was looking into her eyes, so I saw the longing that filled them. It lasted only an instant, but I knew it had been there. Then she looked quickly away.
"I can't come with you. I have to feed."
"That's no problem. I'll get you something to eat from the dorm kitchen. Hey, I'll bet I can find a bowl of Lucky Charms," I smiled. "Remember, they're magically deliciousand have absolutely no nutritional value at all."
"Like Count Chocula does?"
My smiled widened into a relieved grin as Stevie Rae took up the thread of our old argument about which of our personal favorite breakfast cereals was the best. "Count Chocula has coco-flavored goodness. Coco is a plant. It's healthy."
Stevie Rae's eyes met mine. Hers weren't glowing red anymore, and she also wasn't trying to hide the tears that were filling them and flowing down her cheeks. I automatically moved to hug her, but she stepped back.
"No! I don't want you to touch me, Zoey. I'm not who I was. I'm dirty and disgusting."
"Then come back to the school with me and wash up!" I pleaded. "We'll figure this outI promise."
Stevie Rae shook her head sadly and wiped at her eyes. "There's no figuring this out. When I said that I'm dirty and disgusting I didn't mean on the outside. What you see on the outside of me isn't half as nasty as what I'm really like on the inside. Zoey, I have to feed. That's not eating cereal or sandwiches and drinking brown pop. I have to have blood. Human blood. If I don't" She paused and I saw a terrible shudder move through her body. "If I don't, the pain is a gnawing, burning hunger that I can't stand. And you need to understand that I want to feed. I want to tear open human throats and drink that warm blood so filled with terror and anger and pain that it makes me dizzy." She paused again, this time breathing heavily.
"You can't really want to kill people, Stevie Rae."
"You're wrong. I do."
"You say that, but I know there are still parts of my best friend inside you, and Stevie Rae wouldn't be comfortable spanking a puppy, let alone killing someone." I hurried on when she opened her mouth to disagree with me. "What if I can get you human blood so that you don't have to kill anyone?"
In that horrid emotionless tone she said, "I like the kill."
"Do you also like to be filthy and smelly and disgusting-looking?" I snapped.
"I don't care about how I look anymore."
"Really? What if I said I could get you a pair of Roper jeans, cowboy boots, and a nice long-sleeved, tuck-in shirt that is very crisply ironed?" I saw the flicker in her eyes and knew I'd managed to touch the old Stevie Rae. My mind rushed around, trying to come up with the right thing to say while I still had some piece of her listening. "So here's the deal. Meet me tomorrow at midnightno, wait. Tomorrow's Saturday. No way things will be settled down enough by midnight for me to sneak out. So make it three a.m. at the gazebo on the Philbrook grounds." I paused for a second to grin at her. "You remember the place, right?" Of course I knew she definitely remembered where I meant. She'd been there with me before, only that night she'd been trying to save me, and not the other way around.
"Yes. I remember." She clipped the word in that same cold, flat voice.
"Okay, so meet me there. I'll have your outfit with me and I'll also have blood. You can eat, or drink, or whatever, and change your clothes. Then we can start to figure this out." I added to myself that I'd also have soap and shampoo and do some conjuring of water so the girl could wash up. Eesh, she smelled as terrible as she looked. "Okay?"
"There's really no point."
"Can you please let me decide that for myself? Plus, I haven't told you the horrors of my birthday yet. Grandma and I had a nightmare scene with my mom and step-loser. Grandma called the step-loser a turd monkey."
A laugh burst out of Stevie Rae that sounded so much like her old self that my vision got all blurry with the tears I had to frantically blink away.
"Please come," I said, my voice rough with emotions. "I've missed you so much."
"I'll come," Stevie Rae said. "But you'll be sorry."
CHAPTER 5
On that not-so-positive note, Stevie Rae whirled around and then dashed down the alley, disappearing into its dark stinkyness. Much more slowly, I got in my Bug. I was sad and restless and had way too much thinking to do to head straight back to the school, so instead I drove to the twenty-four-hour IHOP that was in south Tulsa on Seventy-first Street, ordered a big chocolate milk shake and a stack of chocolate-chip pancakes, and did my thinking while I did some serious stress eating.
I guess it had gone okay with Stevie Rae. I mean, she had agreed to meet me tomorrow. And she hadn't tried to bite me, which was a plus. Of course, the whole trying-to-eat-the-street-person was highly disturbing, as was the totally gross way she looked and smelled. But underneath all of that hateful crazy undead girl exterior I swear I could still sense my Stevie Rae, my best friend. I was going to hold tight to that and see if I could coax her back into the light. Figuratively speaking anyway. I think the actual light bothers her even more than it bothers me or adult vamps. Which figured. The gross undead dead kids were definitely vamp stereotypes. I wondered if she'd burst into flame if sunlight touched her. Crap. That would definitely be bad, especially since we're meeting at 3:00 a.m., which was only a couple hours before dawn. Crap again.
As if worrying about sunlight and whatnot wasn't enough, I had to start thinking about what I was going to do when all the profs (Neferet in particular) came back to school in the too-near future, and the fact that I had to keep the knowledge that Stevie Rae was undead versus dead dead from everyone. No. I'd worry about that after I got Stevie Rae cleaned up and someplace safe. I'd just take it one little tiny baby step at a time and hope that Nyx, who had clearly led me to Stevie Rae, was going to give me some help figuring things out.
By the time I got back to school it was almost dawn. The parking lot of the school was mostly deserted, and I didn't meet anyone as I walked slowly around the side of the castle-like cluster of buildings that made up the House of Night. The girls' dorm was at the opposite end of the campus, but I still wasn't in any hurry. Plus, I had something I needed to do before I went to the dorm and more than likely ran into at least a couple of my disgruntled friends. (Ugh, I really really hate my birthday.)
The building that sat across from the main House of Night structure was made of the same odd mixture of old bricks and jutting rocks as the rest of the school, but this one was smaller and rounder, and in front of it was a marble statue of our goddess, Nyx, with her arms upraised as if her hands were cupping a full moon. I stood gazing at the goddess. The old-fashioned gaslights that illuminated the campus weren't just easy on our changing eyesight. They created a soft, warm light that flickered like a caress, breathing life into Nyx's statue.
Feeling more than a little in awe of the goddess, I put down my lavender plant and Dracula (gently), and then I searched around in the winter grass at the base of Nyx's statue until I found the tall green prayer candle that had fallen over on its side. I set it upright and then closed my eyes and focused myself, concentrating on the warmth and beauty of the gaslight flame and on how one candle could cast enough light to change the whole atmosphere of a dark room.
"I call flamelight for me, please," I whispered.
I heard the wick sputter and felt the flash of heat against my face. When I opened my eyes, I saw that the green candle, which represents the element earth, was burning cheerily. I smiled in satisfaction. I hadn't been exaggerating to Stevie Rae. I had been practicing calling the elements during the past month, and I was getting really good at it. (Not that my awesome, goddess-given power would help me soothe my friends' hurt feelings, but still.)
I placed the lighted candle carefully at Nyx's feet. Instead of bowing my head, I tilted it back, so that my face was open and looking up at the majesty of the night sky. And then I prayed to my goddess, but I'll admit that the way I pray sounds a lot like just talking. This isn't because I mean any disrespect to Nyx. It's just the way I am. From the first day I was Marked and the goddess appeared to me, I've felt close to herlike she really cares about what happens in my life, versus being a nameless God on High who looks down on me with a frown and a notebook he's all too ready to fill out passes to hell on.
"Nyx, thanks for helping me tonight. I'm confused and completely weirded out by the Stevie Rae situation, but I know if you'll help mehelp uswe can get through this. Take care of her, please, and help me to know what to do. I know you've Marked me and given me special powers for a reason, and I'm beginning to think that the reason might have something to do with Stevie Rae. I won't lie to you; it scares me. But you knew what a sissy I was when you picked me," I smiled up at the sky. During my first conversation with Nyx I had told her that I couldn't be Marked as special by her because I couldn't even parallel park. It hadn't seemed to matter to her then, and I was hoping it still didn't matter to her. "Anyway, I just wanted to light this for Stevie Rae to symbolize the fact that I won't forget her, and I won't walk away from what you need me to do, no matter how clueless I am about the details."
I planned to sit there for a while and hoped that maybe I'd get another whisper in my mind that would give me some idea about how I should handle meeting Stevie Rae tomorrow. So I was still sitting in front of Nyx's statue and staring up at the sky when Erik's voice scared the bejeezus right out of me.
"Stevie Rae's death has really shaken you up, hasn't it?"
I jumped and let out an unattractive squeak. "Jeesh, Erik! You scared me so bad I almost peed myself. Do not sneak up on me like that."
"Fine. Sorry. I shouldn't have bothered you. Later." He started to walk away.
"Wait, I don't want you to go. You just surprised me. Next time rustle a leaf or cough or something. Okay?"
He stopped walking and turned back to me. His face was guarded, but he gave me a tight nod and said, "Okay."
I stood up and smiled what I hoped was an encouraging smile. Undead friend and Imprinted human boyfriend aside, I really did like Erik and definitely didn't want to break up with him. "Actually I'm glad you're here. I need to apologize for what happened before."
Erik made a brusque gesture with his hand. "Don't worry about it, and you don't have to wear that snowman necklace, or you can take it back and exchange it. Or whatever. I kept the receipt."
My hand went up to touch the pearl snowman. Now that I could lose it (and Erik) I suddenly realized it was kinda cute. (Erik was more than kinda cute.) "No! I don't want to take it back." I paused and collected myself so I didn't sound so psycho and desperate. "Okay, here's the thing. There's a distinct possibility that I might be a little overly sensitive about the whole birthday-Christmas issue. I really should have told you guys how I felt about it, but I've had sucky birthdays for so long that I guess I just didn't even think about it. Or at least not until today. And then it really was too late. I wasn't going to say anything and you guys wouldn't even have known if you hadn't seen that note from Heath." I remembered I still had Heath's gorgeous bracelet on my wrist so I dropped my hand down and pressed it against my side, wishing the adorably cute little hearts would stop jingling so merrily. Then I added lamely, "Plus, you're right. Stevie Rae has really shaken me up." Then I clamped my mouth shut because I realized I had (again) talked about the supposedly dead Stevie Rae as if she was alive, or in her case I guess I should say not dead. And, of course, I was babbling like the desperate psycho I was trying not to appear to be.
Erik's blue eyes seemed to look inside me. "Would things be easier for you if I just backed off and left you alone for a while?"
"No!" He was really making my stomach hurt. "It definitely wouldn't be easier if you backed off."
"You've just been so not here since Stevie Rae died. I can understand if you need some space."
"Erik, the truth is it's not just Stevie Rae. There's other stuff going on with me that's really hard to talk about."
He moved closer and took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. "Can't you tell me? I'm pretty good at fixing problems. Maybe I could help."
I looked up into his eyes and wanted so damn bad to tell him everything about Stevie Rae and Neferet and even Heath that I could feel myself sway toward him. Erik closed the little space left between us and I slid into his arms with a sigh. He always smelled so good and felt incredibly strong and solid.
I rested my cheek against his chest. "Are you kidding, of course you're good at fixing problems. You're good at everything. Actually, you're freakishly close to perfect."
I felt his chest rumble as he laughed. "You say that like it's a bad thing."
"It's not a bad thingit's an intimidating thing," I mumbled.
"Intimidating!" He pulled back so that he could look at me. "You've got to be kidding!" He laughed again.
I frowned up at him. "Why are you laughing at me?"
He hugged me and said, "Z, do you have any clue what it's like to date a girl who is the most powerful fledgling in the history of vampyres?"
"No, I don't date girls." Not that there's anything wrong with lesbians.
He took my chin in his hand and tilted my face up. "You can be scary, Z. You control the elements, all of them. Talk about having a girlfriend it'd be best not to piss off."
"Oh, please! Don't be silly. I've never zapped you." I didn't mention that I have actually zapped people. Most specifically undead people. Well, and his ex-girlfriend, Aphrodite (who is about as hateful and annoying as the undead dead). But it was probably a good idea not to bring all that up.
"I'm just saying that you don't need to be intimidated by anyone. You're amazing, Zoey. Don't you know that?"
"I guess not. Things have been kinda foggy lately."
Erik pulled back again and looked at me. "Then let me help clear things up for you."
I felt myself swimming in his blue eyes. Maybe I could tell him. Erik was a fifth former, and in the middle of his third year at the House of Night. He was almost nineteen and an amazingly talented actor. (He can sing, too.) If any fledgling could keep a secret it would be him. But as I opened my mouth to blurt the truth about undead Stevie Rae a terrible feeling clenched my stomach and made the words freeze in my throat. It was that feeling again. The gut-deep feeling I get that tells me to keep my mouth shut or run like hell or sometimes just take a breath and think. Right now it was telling me in an impossible to ignore way that I needed to keep my mouth shut, which Erik's next words just reinforced.
"Hey, I know you'd rather talk to Neferet, but she won't be back for maybe another week or so. I could stand in for her until then."
Neferet was the one person or vampyre I absolutely could not talk to. Hell, Neferet and her psychic-ness was the reason I couldn't talk to my friends or Erik about Stevie Rae.
"Thanks, Erik." Automatically, I started to pull out of his arms. "But I have to work through this myself."
He let go of me so suddenly I almost fell backward. "It's him, isn't it?"
"Him?"
"That human guy. Heath. Your old boyfriend. He's coming back in two days and that's why you're acting weird."
"I'm not acting weird. At least not that weird."
"Then why won't you let me touch you?"
"What are you talking about? I let you touch me. I just hugged you."
"For about two seconds. Then you pulled away, like you've been doing for a while now. Look, if I've done something wrong you need to let me know and"
"You haven't done anything wrong!"
Erik didn't say anything for several breaths, and when he did speak he sounded way older than almost nineteen and more than a little sad. "I can't compete with an Imprint. I know that. And I'm not trying to. I just thought you and I had something special. We'll last a lot longer than some biological thing you have with a human. You and I are alike, and you and Heath aren't. At least not anymore."
"Erik, you're not competing with Heath."
"I researched Imprinting. It's about sex."
I could feel my face getting hot. Of course he was right. Imprinting was sexual because the act of drinking a human's blood turned on the same receptor in the vamp's brain and the human's brain that was turned on during orgasm. Not that I wanted to discuss that with Erik. So instead I decided to stick with the surface facts and not get into the deeper stuff. "It's about blood, not sex."
He gave me a look that said he had (unfortunately) been telling the truth. He'd done his research.
Naturally, I got defensive. "I'm still a virgin, Erik, and I'm not ready to change that."
"I didn't say you"
"Sounds like you're getting me mixed up with your last girlfriend," I interrupted. "The one I saw on her knees in front of you trying to give you another blow job." Okay, it was really not fair of me to bring up the nasty incident I'd accidentally witnessed between Aphrodite and him. I hadn't even known Erik then, but at the moment picking a fight with him seemed a lot easier than talking about the bloodlust I definitely felt for Heath.
"I am not getting you mixed up with Aphrodite," he said between clenched teeth.
"Well, maybe this isn't about me acting weird. Maybe this is about you wanting more than I can give you right now."
"That's not true, Zoey. You know damn well I'm not pressuring you about sex. I don't want someone like Aphrodite. I want you. But I want to be able to touch you without you pulling away from me like I'm some kind of leper."
Had I been doing that? Crap. I probably had. I drew a deep breath. Fighting like this with Erik was stupid, and I was going to end up losing him if I didn't figure out some way to let him get close to me without letting him know things he couldn't accidentally let Neferet know. I looked down at the ground, trying to sort through what I could and couldn't say to him. "I don't think you're a leper. I think you're the hottest guy at this school."
I heard Erik's deep sigh. "Well, you've already said you don't date girls, so that should mean you would like it when I touch you."
I looked up at him. "It does. I do." Then I decided I was going to tell him the truth. Or at least as much of the truth as I could. "It's just hard to let you get close to me when I'm dealing with, well, stuff." Oh, great. I called it stuff. I'm a moron. Why does this kid still like me?
"Z, does this stuff have to do with figuring out how to deal with your powers?"
"Yeah." Okay, that was pretty much a lie but not totally. All the stuff (i.e., Stevie Rae, Neferet, Heath) had happened to me because of my powers and I was having to deal with it, though clearly I wasn't doing a very good job of that. I felt like I should cross my fingers behind my back, but was afraid Erik would notice.
He took a step toward me. "So the stuff is not that you hate it when I touch you?"
"Hating it when you touch me is not the stuff. Definitely nope. Definitely." I took a step toward him.
He smiled and suddenly his arms were back around me, only this time he bent to kiss me. He tasted as good as he smells, so the kiss was nice and somewhere in the middle of it I realized how long it had been since Erik and I had had a good hot make-out session. I mean, I'm no ho like Aphrodite, but I'm not a nun either. And I wasn't lying when I told Erik I liked him to touch me. I slid my arms up around his broad shoulders, leaning into him even more. We fit together nice. He's really tall, but I like that. He makes me feel little and girly and protected, and I like that, too. I let my fingers play with the back of his neck where his dark hair brushes down thick and a little curly. My fingernails teased the soft skin there, and I felt him shiver and heard the little moan in the back of his throat.
"You feel so good," he whispered against my lips.
"So do you," I whispered back. Pressing myself against him I deepened the kiss. And then on impulse (ho-ish impulse at that) I took his hand from the small of my back and moved it up so that it was cupping the side of my breast. He moaned again and his kiss got harder and hotter. He slid his hand down and under my sweater, and then back up so that he had my breast in his hand, bare except for my lacy black bra.
Okay, I'll just admit it. I liked him touching my boob. It felt good. It especially felt good that I was proving to Erik that I hadn't rejected him. I moved so that he could get a better feel and somehow that little, innocent (well, semi-innocent) movement caused our mouths to slip and my front tooth nicked his bottom lip.