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“Zoey saved me, not you! And I’ve been handling Zoey for about a zillion years longer than you’ve even known her.”
“Yeah? How often has your stupid human ass put her in danger since she’s been Marked?”
That unpuffed Heath. “Look, I’m not putting her in danger by coming here. I just wanted to be sure she was okay. I tried to call a couple of times, but cell service is messed up.”
“Heath, it’s not me being in danger by you being here that I’m worried about. It’s you being in danger,” I said, giving Erik a hard you-should-shut-up-now look.
“Yeah, I already know about those nasty fledgling kids who tried to chomp on me last time we were here. I don’t remember real well everything that happened, but I remembered enough to bring this.” He reached into the pocket of his camo Carhartt and came out with a dangerous-looking black, snubbed-nose gun. “It’s my dad’s,” he said proudly. “I even have extra clips of ammo with me. I figured if they tried to eat me again, I could shoot whatever you couldn’t zap.”
“Heath, do not tell me you’re carrying a loaded gun in your pocket,” I said.
“Zo, I have the safety on and the first bullet in the clip is empty. I’m not a total moron.”
Erik snorted sarcastically. Heath narrowed his eyes at him.
I spoke quickly into the testosterone-filled air before they started banging on their chests. “The fledglings don’t eat people anymore, Heath, so you’re not going to have to shoot anyone. When I said I was worried about you being safe, I meant because of the Raven Mockers.”
“And she answered your question. Now what’s this about gang stuff going on?”
Heath shrugged. “It’s all over the news. ’Course, the electricity keeps going out and the stupid cable has been knocked out all day, along with the cell service being sucky. But they say that some gang went nuts last night about midnight, some kind of New Year’s initiation thing. Chera Kimiko on Fox News called it a bloodbath. Cops were late in responding ’cause of the storm. Some people were killed in midtown, which is freaking everyone ’cause midtown isn’t exactly gang central, so a bunch of rich white folks have lost their minds. Last time I watched the news they were yelling about calling in the National Guard, even though the cops are saying everything is under control.” He paused and I could practically see the wheels in his head turning. “Hey, midtown! That’s where the House of Night is.” Heath looked from me to Erik and then back to me. “So it wasn’t gang bullshit. It was those raven thingies.”
“Brilliant,” Erik muttered.
“Yes, it was really the Raven Mockers. They started the attack when we were escaping from the House of Night,” I said before he and Erik could snipe at each other again. “The news didn’t say anything at all about weird creatures attacking people?”
“Nope. They said a gang attacked people. Killed some of them by slitting their throats. Is that what those Raven Mockers do?”
I remembered how one had attacked me at the House of Night, almost making one of Aphrodite’s two death visions for me come true by trying to cut my throat—and that was before they got their physical bodies all the way back. I shivered. “Yeah, that seems to be what they do, but I really don’t know much about them. Grandma knows more, but they made her get in a car accident.”
“Ah, Zo, Grandma was in an accident? Damn! I’m so sorry. Is she go
“She’s going to be okay. She has to be,” I said firmly. “The Benedictine nuns are taking care of her in the basement under their abbey over there at Lewis and Twenty-first.”
“Basement? Nuns? Huh? Shouldn’t she be in the hospital?”
“She was before Kalona rose and the Raven Mockers got their nasty part-human, part-bird bodies back.”
His face squidged up. “Part human, part bird? That sounds creepy.”
“It’s worse than you can imagine, and they’re big, too. And mean. Okay, Heath, you have to listen to me. Kalona is an immortal, a fallen angel.”
“By ‘fallen’ you mean that he’s not a good guy anymore and doesn’t float around with wings playing a harp?”
“He has wings. Big black ones,” Erik said. “But he’s not a good guy, and everything we know about him says he’s always been evil.”
“No, he hasn’t.” Okay, my mouth said that, but I really hadn’t meant it to.
Both guys gawked at me. I smiled nervously.
“Well, uh, according to my grandma, Kalona used to be an angel, so I guess I just figured that he used to be a good guy. I mean, a long time ago.”
“I think we should just assume he’s evil. Totally evil,” Erik said.
“A bunch of people were hurt last night. I don’t know how many killed, but it was bad. If this Kalona guy is behind it, I’d say he’s evil,” Heath said.
“Okay, yeah, well, you guys are probably right,” I said. What the hell was the matter with me? I knew better than just about anyone how evil Kalona was! I’d felt his dark power. I knew Neferet was all mixed up with him, so mixed up with him that she’d decided to turn her back on Nyx. Okay, all of that definitely spelled E-V-I-L.
“Hang on. I almost forgot about this.” Erik hurried back to his chair and Heath and I followed him. From the shadow beside it, he pulled out the ginormic boom box radio-cassette-CD monstrosity. “Let me see if I can get anything in.” He messed with the enormous silver knobs, and pretty soon a very staticky Cha
“To repeat our special report on the gang violence in midtown Tulsa last night, Tulsa P.D. reiterates that the city is safe and the problem under control. To quote the chief of police, ‘It was an initiation ritual by a new gang that calls itself Mockers. Leaders of the gang have been arrested and the streets of midtown Tulsa are, once again, safe for our citizens.’” The newsman continued,
“We have one more community a
“There was no gang in midtown last night,” I said. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard!”
“She fixed it. She manipulated the press and probably the public, too,” Erik said, looking grim.
“Is the ‘she’ that High Priestess who messed with my mind?” Heath asked me.
“No,” Erik said.
“Yes,” I said at the same time. I frowned at Erik. “He needs to know the truth to protect himself.”
“The less he knows, the better it is for him,” Erik insisted.
“No, see, that’s what I thought before, and that’s why everyone was so mad at me. That’s also why I made some major mistakes.” I looked from Erik to Heath. “If I hadn’t kept so many secrets and had trusted my friends to handle themselves, I might have talked more and messed up less.”
Erik sighed. “Okay, I see your point.” He looked at Heath. “Her name is Neferet. She’s the High Priestess at the House of Night. She’s powerful. Very powerful. And she’s psychic.”
“Yeah, I already know she can do stuff with her mind. That’s how she messed with me. She made me forget chunks of things that happened. I’ve just started to remember them.”
“Does it make your head hurt?” I asked him, remembering the pain I’d had to work through when I’d broken the memory blocks Neferet had put in my mind.
“Yeah. It hurts, but it’s getting a lot better.” He smiled his familiar, forgiving smile and my heart squeezed.
“Neferet is also some kind of queen for Kalona,” Erik continued.
“So she’s bad news all the way around,” Heath said.
“Bad news and dangerous. Don’t forget that,” I said. “Also, Kalona can’t stand to be underground. He couldn’t before he was imprisoned in the earth by Cherokee women, and now that he’s escaped, my guess is he’s going to be even leerier of the earth. So remember, you’re safe underground.”