Betrayed

"What’sss happening …" the gross Elliott creature hissed. The rest of the horrid things that surrounded us moved restlessly, and Venus glided one step closer to Heath. I forced myself not to shiver or scream or whatever. Instead, a weird calm came over me. I looked at Stevie Rae, and suddenly knew what I needed to say. I put my hands on my hips and faced her.

"Tell him," I said. "Tell all of them."

"Tell them what?" She narrowed her garnet eyes dangerously.

"Tell them what's happening here. You know. I know you do."

Stevie Rae's face contorted, and the words sounded like they were being wrenched from her throat. "Humanity! They're show­ing their humanity." The creatures snarled like she'd just thrown holy water on them (and please, that's such an untrue cliché about vampyres).

"Weakness! It's why we're stronger than they are." Venus curled her lip. "Because it's a weakness we don't have anymore."

I ignored Venus. I ignored Elliott. Hell, I ignored them all and stared at Stevie Rae, forcing her to meet my eyes, and forcing my­self not to look away or flinch as hers glowed hot and red.

"Bullshit," I said.

"She's right," Stevie Rae said. Her voice was cold and mean. "When we died, so did our humanity."

"That might be true with them, but I don't believe it's true with you," I said.

"You don't know anything about this, Zoey," Stevie Rae said.

"I don't have to. I know you, and I know our Goddess, and that's all I need to know."

"She's not my Goddess anymore."

"Really, just like your mamma's not your mamma anymore?" I knew I'd hit a nerve when I saw her jerk as if she were in physical pain.

"I don't have a mamma. I'm not a human anymore."

"Big f-ing deal. Technically, I'm not a human anymore, either. I'm somewhere in the middle of the Change, which makes me a little of this and a lot of that. Hell, the only one here who's still human is Heath."

"Not that I hold your un-human-ness against you guys," Heath said.

I sighed. "Heath, un-human-ness isn't a word. It's inhumanity."

"Zo, I'm not stupid. I know that. I was just coining a word."

"Coining?" Had he really said that?

He nodded. "I learned about it in Dickson's English class. It has to do with …" He paused, and I swear the creatures were even listening expectantly. "Poetry."

Despite our awful situation I laughed. "Heath, you really have been studying!"

"Told you so." He gri

"Enough!" Stevie Rae's voice echoed off the round walls of the tu

This time Heath didn't mess with trying to pull me behind him. Instead he whirled around and, completely catching me off guard, tackled me so that I landed on my butt on the disgusting mattress with an oofh. Then he turned to the closing circle of snarling undead creatures with his legs planted a hip's width apart and his hands balled into fists and he gave his Broken Ar­row Tiger football growl.

"Bring it, freaks!"

Okay, it wasn't that I didn't appreciate Heath's machoness. But the boy was in over his cute blond head. I stood up and centered myself.

"Fire, I need you again!" This time I yelled the words with the command of a High Priestess. Flames burst into life from the palms of my hands all up and down my arms. I would have liked to have taken time to study the fire I'd called into being—it was cool that it could burn on me, and not actually burn me, but there was no time for that. "Move, Heath."

He looked over his shoulder at me, and his eyes got huge and round. "Zo?"

"I'm fine. Just move!"

He jumped out of my way as, burning, I walked forward. The creatures cringed back from me, even as their hands tried to reach around me to get to Heath.

"Stop it!" I yelled. "Back off and leave him alone. Heath and I are going to walk out of here. Now. If you try to stop us, I'm going to kill you, and I have a feeling that this time you're going to die for good." Okay, I really, really didn't want to kill anyone. What I wanted to do was to get Heath out of there, and then find Stevie Rae and have her explain to me how fledglings who were sup­posed to have died could be walking around with bad attitudes, glowing eyes, and smelling like mold and dust.

From the edge of my vision I saw a movement. I turned in time to see one of the creatures launch herself at Heath. I lifted my arms and flung the fire at her as if I were throwing a ball. As she screamed and went up in flames I recognized her and had to fight hard not to be sick. It was Elizabeth No Last Name—the nice girl who had died last month. Now her burning body writhed on the floor, reeking of spoiled meat and decay, which was all that was left of her lifeless shell.

"Wind and rain! I call you," I cried, and as the air around me began to swirl and fill with the scent of spring rain, I got a flash of Damien and Erin sitting cross-legged beside Shaunee. Their eyes were closed in concentration and they were holding votives the color of their elements. I pointed my fiery finger at Elizabeth's smoldering body and it was washed in a sudden flush of rain, then a cool breeze took the green-tinged smoke, lifting it above our heads, and carried its stench down the tu

I faced the creatures again. "That's what I'll do to any of you who try to stop us." I motioned for Heath to walk in front of me, and I followed him, backing away from the creatures.

They followed us. I couldn't always see them as we rewound our way through the dark tu

"We should hurry, Zo. I know you have this power thing going on, but there are a lot of them—more than what were back there. I don't know how many you can handle." He touched my face. "Not to be mean or anything, but you look like shit."

I felt like poo, too, but I didn't want to mention it. "I have an idea." We'd just come around a curve where the tu

I turned my back to Heath and concentrated. Lifting my arms, I thought of newly plowed fields and pretty Oklahoma meadows filled with uncut winter hay. I thought about the earth and how I was standing within it ... surrounded by it ...

"Earth! I call to you!" As I lifted my arms a vision of Stevie Rae flashed across my closed eyelids. She wasn't as she used to be—sweet-faced and concentrating hard over a glowing green candle. She was curled up in the corner of a dark tu