Hunted

Terrible beauty, monstrous sight

Ruled again they shall be

Women shall kneel to his dark might

Kalona’s song sounds sweet

As we slaughter with cold heat.”

“Wow! Well done, you!” Jack said, clapping his hands.

Aphrodite inclined her head regally and said, “Thank you…Thank you…It was nothing. Really.” And then went back to her wine.

I made a mental note to keep an eye on her drinking. Okay, yeah, she’d been through a bunch of stress lately, and being bitten—twice—by Stevie Rae and, bizarrely enough, Imprinting with her couldn’t be particularly good for her nerves, but the last thing we needed was Vision Girl to turn into Drunk Vision Girl.

Darius nodded thoughtfully. “Kalona is the ancient one, but that doesn’t explain what type of being he is.”

“Grandma said that the easiest way to describe him is to think of him as a fallen angel, an immortal being that walked the earth in ancient times. Seems there were a bunch of them that showed up in the mythology of many cultures, like ancient Greece and the Old Testament.”

“Yeah, on vacation from heaven or whatever, they decided women were hot, and so they mated with them,” Aphrodite said, slurring her words a little. “Mated—that’s an uptight way to say that they fu—”

“Thanks, Aphrodite. I’ll take it from there,” I said. I was glad she had stopped her silent pouting, but wasn’t so sure that her drunken sarcasm was much better. Wordlessly Damien handed me a sandwich and nodded at Aphrodite. I passed the sandwich to Aphrodite telling her, “Eat something.” Then I took up the thread of the story. “So Kalona started getting with Cherokee women and became bizarrely addicted to sex. The women rejected him and he started raping them and enslaving the men of the tribe. A group of Wise Women called Ghigua made a maiden out of the earth to trap him.”

“Huh?” Stevie Rae said. “You mean like a dirt doll?”

“Yeah, only an attractive one. Each of the women gave the doll a particular gift, then they breathed life into her and named her A-ya. Kalona wanted A-ya, and she ran from him, leading him to a cave deep in the ground. He followed her into the cave, even though he usually avoided anything that was underground, and that’s where they managed to trap him.”

“That is why you brought us here, into these tu

I nodded.

“So we are to think of Kalona as a dangerous immortal and the Raven Mockers as his servants. Who is the other creature mentioned in the prophecy and also by Damien, a Queen Tsi Sgili?” Darius said.

“According to Grandma, the Tsi Sgili are really awful Cherokee witches. Don’t think cool Wiccans or Priestesses. They’re not good at all, but more like demons, really, except that they are mortal and known for their psychic abilities, especially the ability to kill with their minds,” I said. “Neferet is the queen the prophecy was talking about.”

“But Neferet a

“She’s lying. Really, she’s turned from Nyx,” I said. “I’ve known it for a while, but acting openly against her has been pretty close to impossible. I mean, look what happened tonight. Everyone saw Stevie Rae and the red fledglings and they didn’t turn on her. Except for Shekinah, they barely even blinked even after she ordered Stark to shoot.”

“Which is why she got Stark transferred from the Chicago House of Night to Tulsa,” Damien said. When just about everyone gave him confused looks, he explained. “Stark is James Stark, the fledgling who won the gold medal at the Summer Games for archery. Neferet wanted him here so she could use him to shoot Stevie Rae.”

“Makes sense,” Aphrodite said. “We already know Neferet has something to do with fledglings un-dying. Obviously she wanted to use him, and her plan worked because he’s definitely undead and under her control.” She looked pleased at her powers of deduction and upended the bottle of wine for another long drink.

“Guess I’m just lucky his aim wasn’t so good now that he died and then came back,” Stevie Rae said.

“That’s not it.” My mouth spoke before I could shut myself up. “He missed your heart on purpose.”

“What do ya mean?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Before Stark died, he told me about his gift from Nyx. He never misses. He can’t. He always hits the mark he aims at.”

“Then if he missed killing Stevie Rae on purpose, that must mean he’s not totally under Neferet’s influence,” Damien said.

“He did say your name,” Erik said. His piercing blue eyes seemed to see deep inside me. “I remember that distinctly. Before he shot Stevie Rae he definitely recognized you. He even said he’d come back to you.”

“I was with him when he died,” I said, returning Erik’s questioning gaze and trying not to look as guilty as I felt for being attracted to yet another guy besides him. “Right before he died I told Stark that fledglings at our House of Night were coming back from the dead. That’s what he was talking about.”

“Well, there was obviously a co

“But Stark definitely wasn’t himself,” I said, looking away from Erik. It had just been a few days ago that I’d kissed Stark and he’d died in my arms, but it seemed like forever had passed. “He was obviously under Neferet’s influence, even if he was trying to resist her.”

“Yeah, it’s like she put a spell on him or something,” Jack said.

“Hang on, that reminds me,” Damien said. “I definitely noticed how almost everyone acted awestruck and even a little disoriented when Kalona appeared.”

Venus snorted, sounding very much like Aphrodite at her most sarcastic (and least attractive). “Everyone except us.” She made a gesture that took in all of the red fledglings. “We knew he was evil and totally full of bullshit from the second we saw him.”

“How?” I asked abruptly. “How did you guys know? All the other fledglings, well, except us, actually fell to their knees at the sight of him. Even the Sons of Erebus warriors didn’t move against him.” I’d felt drawn to him, too, but I didn’t want to admit that in front of Venus.

Venus shrugged. “It was just obvious. YeaVus ws wh, he was hot and all, but come on! He exploded from the ground after Stevie Rae bled all over it.”

I watched her closely, thinking that maybe the reason she recognized Kalona’s evil was that she was too darn familiar with evil.

“Look, he had wings. That ain’t right,” Kramisha added, fragmenting my attention. “My mama told me don’t trust no white boy, even a pretty one. I’m thinkin’ a pretty white boy with wings explodin’ up from the ground in a mess of blood and ugly-ass bird things is double trouble.”

“She has a point,” said Jack, obviously forgetting he was a pretty white boy.

“I have to share something,” Damien said. We managed to pull our attention from Kramisha to him. “If I hadn’t been in the middle of a fully cast circle, surrounded by you guys with Aphrodite yelling at us to stay together and get out of there, I might have fallen to my knees, too.”

I felt a prickle of unease. “What about you guys?” I asked the Twins.

“He was hot,” Shaunee said.

“Majorly,” Erin said. She looked at Shaunee. Her Twin nodded, so she continued, “He would’ve gotten to us, too. If Aphrodite hadn’t been shrieking unattractively at us to keep the circle together, we’d still be back there in the middle of that mess.”

“Which would not be good,” Shaunee said.

“That’s all I’m sayin’,” Kramisha added.

“Again I save members of the nerd herd,” Aphrodite slurred.

“Just eat your sandwich,” I told her. Then I turned to Erik. “How about you? Did he make you want to…?” I trailed off, not sure how to put it.