Tempted

And I did almost run. Then I surprised myself by getting mad. I’d just faced a fallen immortal—a creature I was co

I wasn’t going to run now.

“Zoey? What is it?” Damien’s voice sounded far away as I whirled around to face the darkness.

Suddenly a flickering light, like the glowing eye of an underground monster, materialized. The light wasn’t big, but it was bright, temporarily causing spots in my field of vision and partially blinding me so that when I looked up the monster appeared to have three heads, with a wild, waving mane, and shoulders that looked mismatched and grotesque.

Then I did what any sensible kid would do. I sucked air and let loose with my very best girl scream, which was instantly and creepily echoed by the three mouths of the single-eyed monster. I could hear Damien shrieking behind me, and I swear Sister Mary Angela even squeaked a startled gasp. I was starting to do exactly what I’d just promised myself I wouldn’t do—run like hell, when one of the heads stopped screaming and stepped forward into the beam of the flashlight.

“Shit, Zoey! What is wrong with you? It’s just the Twins and me. You scared us crapless,” said Aphrodite.

“Aphrodite?” My hand clutched my chest over my heart, trying to keep it from pounding out of my body.

“Of course it’s me,” she said, marching past me in disgust. “Goddess! Get a grip.”

The Twins were still standing in the tu

“Uh, hi,” I said. “I didn’t know you guys were down here.”

Shaunee thawed first. “Ya think?” She wiped a shaking hand delicately across her forehead and turned to Erin. “Twin, did she scare me white?”

Erin blinked at her BFF. “I don’t think that’s possible.” She squinted at Shaunee. “But no, she didn’t. You’re still a gorgeous cappuccino.” Erin’s hand that wasn’t holding the candle flew up to her thick, golden hair and patted through it frantically. “Did she make my hair fall out or turn unattractively and prematurely gray?”

I frowned at the Twins. “Erin, your hair is not falling out or turning gray, and Shaunee, you ca

“Look, next time you need to chase off Neferet and Kalona, just scream like that,” Erin said.

“Yeah, it makes you sound like you lost every bit of your damn mind,” Shaunee said as they swept past me.

I followed them out into the root cellar where Damien was fa

“So, really, what were you guys doing down here?” I said.

“That Dallas kid told us this is how they got here from the depot,” Shaunee said.

“He said it was cool down here and that Stevie Rae had made it,” Erin said.

“So we thought we’d come down here and see for ourselves,” Shaunee said.

“And why are you down here with the Twins?” I asked Aphrodite.

“The Dynamic Duo needed protecting. Naturally they turned to me.”

“How did you guys suddenly appear like that, anyway?” Damien asked before Twin bickering could start.

“Easy-peasy.” Erin walked quickly back down the tu

“It really is amazing that Stevie Rae somehow did this,” Damien said. I noticed he didn’t move any closer to the tu

Sister Mary Angela approached the entrance. She touched the side of the newly hollowed out hole with reverence and said, “Stevie Rae did this, but she did it with divine intervention.”

“By ‘divine intervention,’ are you talkin’ ’bout more of your the-Virgin-Mary-is-just-another-form-of-Nyx stuff?” Stevie Rae’s twang coming from the other side of the root cellar made us all jump.

“Yes, child. That is exactly what I mean.”

“I don’t wa

“Uh, yeah.” I couldn’t help gri

“Well, that makes sense. Aphrodite is kinda booger monstery,” Stevie Rae said.

I laughed, and then, grabbing the opportunity to change the subject, I said, “Uh, speaking of monsters, did you find any Raven Mockers left up there?”

Stevie Rae’s eyes shifted from mine.

“It’s all safe. Nothin’ for you to worry about,” she said quickly.

“I’m so glad,” Sister Mary Angela was saying. “Those creatures were such an abomination—mixing man and beast.” She shivered. “I’m relieved we are rid of them.”

“But it wasn’t their fault,” Stevie Rae said abruptly.

“Pardon me?” The nun looked more than a little confused at Stevie Rae’s defensive tone.

“They didn’t ask to be born like they were—all mixed up because of rape and evil. They really were victims.”

“I don’t feel sorry for them,” I said, wondering why Stevie Rae sounded like she was standing up for the nasty Raven Mockers.

Damien shivered. “Do we have to talk about them?”

“Nope, we sure don’t,” Stevie Rae said quickly.

“Good, and anyway, the reason I brought Zoey down here was to show her the tu

“Thanks, Damien! It was seriously cool when I figured out I could actually do it.” Stevie Rae took a few steps past me and into the mouth of the tu

“Isn’t that right, Zoey?”

“Huh?” I blinked, disturbed by the sad, destructive scene I’d been reliving in my mind.

“I said, Mary didn’t move the earth for me when I made the tu

“Sorry, what were you saying about Nyx?”

“Just that I really don’t think Nyx and the dang Virgin Mary have anything to do with each other; Jesus’ mama definitely didn’t help me move the earth to make this tu

“You’re entitled to your own opinion, Stevie Rae,” said the nun, looking as calm as usual. “But you should know that saying you don’t believe in something doesn’t make it any less possible that it exists.”

“Well, I’ve been giving this some thought, and personally I don’t find it such an odd hypothesis,” Damien said. “You should remember that in your Fledgling Handbook 101, Mary is illustrated as one of the many faces of Nyx.”