Betrayed

I tried to remember and pain shot through my head, but along with the pain came anger. Something had happened to my mind. Someone had messed with my mind. And that really pissed me off. I rubbed my temples and gritted my teeth against the pain.

"Maybe we should stop for a while."

"No! Just let me think," I gasped. I could remember the stables and Aphrodite. I could remember that Heath needed me, and the wild, snowy ride on Persephone to the depot basement. But when I tried to remember past the basement the agony that speared through my head became too much for me.

"Zoey!" Detective Marx's concern penetrated through my pain.

"Something has messed with my mind." I wiped tears I hadn't realized I'd shed from my face.

"Pieces of your memory are gone."

It didn't sound like a question, but I nodded anyway.

He was silent for a while. It seemed he was concentrating on the deserted, snow-covered road, but I thought I knew better, and his next words told me I was right.

"My sister"—he smiled and glanced at me—"her name is A

"I don't know. I ..." My voice trailed off as I thought about what he'd said. I didn't try to remember what had happened that night. Instead, I let my memory drift lazily backward ... to Aphrodite and the fact that Nyx was still blessing her with vi­sions, even though Neferet had spread the word that her visions were false ... to the small, almost imperceptible sense of wrong­ness that had grown like a fungus around Neferet, until it culmi­nated Sunday night in her undermining the decisions I'd made for the Dark Daughters … to the nasty scene I'd witnessed be­tween Neferet and … and ... I braced myself against the heat that was starting to throb through my head and, along with a flash of piercing pain, remembered the creature Elliott had be­come feeding from the High Priestess's blood.

"Stop the truck!" I yelled.

"We're almost at the school, Zoey."

"Now! I'm going to be sick."

We slid to the side of the empty road. I opened the door and dropped to the snowy street, staggered to the ditch, and puked up my guts into a snowbank. Detective Marx was beside me, pulling back my hair and sounding very dadlike as he told me to breathe and everything would be okay. I gulped air and finally stopped heaving. He handed me a handkerchief, one of those old-fashioned linen ones that was folded neatly into a clean square.

"Thanks." I tried to hand it back to him after wiping my face and blowing my nose, but he smiled and said, "Keep it."

I stood there, just gulping air and letting the throbbing in my head go away as I stared across a field of untouched snow to some distant oaks that grew along a massive stone and brick wall. And with a start of surprise, I realized where we were.

"It's the east wall of the school," I said.

"Yeah, I thought I'd take you the back way—give you more time to collect yourself, and maybe restore some of that mem­ory."

Restore ...What was it about that word? Tentatively, I thought hard, trying to remember while I braced myself against the pain I was sure would come. But it didn't, and into my memory came the vision of a beautiful meadow, and the wise words of my God­dess … the elements can restore as well as destroy.

And then I understood what I had to do.

"Detective Marx, I need a minute here, okay?"

"Alone?" he asked.

I nodded.

"I'll be in the truck, watching you. If you need me, call."

I smiled my thanks, but before he'd turned to go back to the truck I was walking toward the oaks. I didn't need to be under them—to actually be in the school grounds, but being near them helped me center myself. When I was close enough to see how their branches entwined like old friends, I stopped and closed my eyes.

"Wind, I call you to me and this time I ask that you blow clean any dark taint that has touched my mind." I felt a gust of cold, like I was being battered by my own personal hurricane, but it wasn't pressing against my body. It was filling my mind. I kept my eyes tightly closed and blocked out the throbbing ache that had re­turned to my temples. "Fire, I call you to me and ask that you burn from my mind any darkness that has touched it." Heat filled my head, only it wasn't like the hot spear that I'd felt earlier. Instead it was a nice warmth, like a heating pad on a pulled muscle. "Water, I call you to me and ask that you wash from my mind the dark­ness that has touched it." Coolness flooded through the warmth, soothing what had been overheated and bringing incredible relief. "Earth, I call you to me and ask that your nurturing strength take from my mind the darkness that has touched it." From the bot­toms of my feet, where I was co

"Zoey! Zoey! My God, are you okay?"

Once again Detective Marx's strong hands were shaking my shoulders and he was helping me to my feet. This time my eyes opened easily and I smiled into his kind face.

"I'm more than okay. I remember everything."

CHAPTER 32

"You're sure this is how it has to be?" Detective Marx asked for what seemed like the zillionth time.

"Yep." I nodded wearily. "It has to be like this." I was so damn tired I thought I could fall asleep right there in the cop's ginormic monster truck. But I knew I couldn't. The night wasn't over yet. My job wasn't over yet.

The detective sighed, and I smiled at him.

"You're just go

"I don't like it," he said.

"I know, and I'm sorry. But I've told you everything I can."

"That some homeless kook is responsible for Heath and the other two boys?" He shook his head. "Feels wrong to me."

"Are you sure you're not a little bit psychic?" I smiled tiredly at him.

"If I was, I'd be able to figure out what feels wrong." He shook his head again. "Explain this—what happened to your memory?"

I'd already thought about my answer for this one. "It was the trauma of tonight. It made me block what happened. And then my affinity for the five elements helped me to overcome the block and remember."

"That's why you had all that pain?"

I shrugged my shoulders. "I guess so. It's gone now anyway."

"Look, Zoey, I'm pretty sure that there's more going on here than what you're telling me. I want you to know that you really can trust me," he said.

"I know that." I believed him, but I also knew that there were some secrets I couldn't share. Not with this really nice detective. Not with anyone.

"You don't have to deal with whatever it is on your own. I can help you. You're just a kid—just a teenager." He sounded totally exasperated.

I met his eyes steadily. "No, I'm a fledgling who is leader of the Dark Daughters and a High Priestess in training. Believe me, that's a lot more than just a teenager. I've given you my oath, and you know from your sister that my oath binds me. I promise I've told you everything I can, and if any more kids disappear, I be­lieve I can find them for you." What I didn't say was that I wasn't one hundred percent sure how I was going to do that, but the promise felt right, and so I knew Nyx would help me keep it. Not that that would be easy. But I couldn't betray Stevie Rae's pres­ence, which meant no one could know about the creatures, or at least not until Stevie Rae was safe.