Страница 19 из 74
“I have it,” Aphrodite spoke up before I could.
“And I don’t want it back,” I added.
“If it’s as powerful as you all are saying it is, Zoey may have no choice but to take it back,” Detective Marx said. “Because it’s going to take a whole lot of power—magickal power—to fight Neferet.”
“Detective, it’s your turn. Explain exactly what Neferet has done,” Thanatos said.
I sat down and listened with a clenching stomach and a terrible premonition that Marx was right.
Zoey
There had been a long, sickening silence after Detective Marx described, in awful detail, Neferet’s slaughter at the church, and then what had happened at the Mayo.
“I felt the deaths,” Thanatos said, shaking her head sadly. “I knew it was some type of mass human tragedy that had to have occurred very close to Tulsa. I’ve been watching the news, expecting to hear that a commuter plane had gone down, or maybe there had been one of those tragic school shootings again. I hadn’t expected this. I truly hadn’t expected that Neferet was responsible for all of this.”
“We have been unable to predict her behavior, but we may be able to learn something of what to expect from her in the future by retracing Neferet’s crimes,” Grandma said. “She killed the mayor, and that death fueled her as far as Woodward Park.” Grandma paused and smiled sadly at Aphrodite. “I am sorry to speak about your father’s death in such a clinical ma
“I understand. I want you to,” Aphrodite said earnestly. “If Dad’s death helps us figure out how to take down Neferet, then at least it’ll mean he died for something.”
Grandma nodded and continued. “She must have hidden at the park until Zoey had her altercation with the two men.”
“I was sitting on that bench by the grotto when they started messing with me,” I said, trying to help put the pieces together. “Neferet could have been hiding in the grotto.”
“I’ll have some uniforms check it out,” Detective Marx said, taking notes on his little black spiral pad.
“The deaths of the two men in the park must have given Neferet the power to get to the Boston Avenue Church,” Grandma said.
“And there she found another, greater source of power,” Lenobia added. “We must remember that power is always what is most important to Neferet.”
“She uses power to control those snake-like creatures—the things that killed the people on the roof of the Mayo and created that … I don’t even know what you’d call it.” Marx hesitated, thinking. “It’s a protective skin, or a barrier. But whatever it is, it’s filled with power.”
“Those snake-creatures are made of Darkness. Think of them like hateful, horrible, evil thoughts that have taken physical form,” I explained to Detective Marx. “They do what she wants them to do because she makes sacrifices to them. I promise you Neferet didn’t eat all of those people at the church. She sacrificed them to those creatures so that they’d keep doing what she wants them to do.”
“A Tsi Sgili requires much more than blood for power,” Grandma said.
“Tsi Sgili—Queen Tsi Sgili,” Marx said, “that’s what Neferet called herself when she named herself a Goddess.”
“Tsi Sgili is an ancient name my people have for witches who have chosen Darkness over Light. They live apart, shu
“Death,” Thanatos said. “I should have understood it before now. Neferet feeds from the energy that is released from a person’s spirit at the instant of death.”
“Oh Goddess!” Lenobia looked horrified and pressed a hand against her chest. “I have known Neferet for more than a century. She was always nearby when a fledgling rejected the Change. We thought—the Priestesses thought—that Neferet’s healing gift comforted the young ones’ passings.”
“She didn’t comfort them. She used them,” I said.
“Neferet had something to do with us dying and undying,” Stevie Rae said. “I can’t remember—maybe ’cause I can’t make myself. I du
“Pain. Darkness. Terror. Anger.” His words were clipped, though his voice remained low and we strained to hear him. “And when I came out of it, I wasn’t me anymore. Not until Zoey said she believed in me and trusted me.”
“And I didn’t really come out of it, either, until Aphrodite believed in me and trusted me,” Stevie Rae said.
Aphrodite snorted. “That’s not exactly how I remember it. What I remember is that you tried to eat me and then you took my fledgling-ness from me.”
“Because you let me. Because you sacrificed your humanity for me,” Stevie Rae said.
“The eating part was not cool,” Aphrodite muttered.
“Love is stronger than hate. That is the only absolute in the universe. Love can conquer Darkness,” Grandma said. “We simply need to discover how love can conquer Neferet.”
I heard a bunch of sighs echoing mine.
“Okay, I’m all for love wi
“Neferet’s feeding them,” I said, feeling the truth of my words as I spoke them. “She gives them what they want—fresh blood sacrifices—and they obey her. If we can get to Neferet, make her weaker—or at least contain her and keep her from killing more people—she won’t be able to feed them, and they will leave her.”
“I agree, but I think there is more to it than that, Zoey. The tendrils of Darkness are changing—evolving—along with Neferet,” Thanatos said. “I have never, in the more than five centuries I have been a vampyre, heard of anyone creating the kind of barrier Detective Marx described.” She turned to Marx. “And you said it seems sentient, that it actually directed those bullets back to specific officers?”
“No doubt about it. I was there. I saw it up close and way too personal. The first shots fired at her all hit the officer who had offended Neferet—but only in places on his body that his Kevlar vest didn’t protect. The next shots wounded several other uniforms, but killed the chief of police—the man responsible for giving the order to storm the building,” Marx said.
“Lenobia, have you ever heard of such a thing?” Thanatos asked.
“Never.”
“Then call in the cavalry,” Marx said. “Get the Vamp High Council involved. Maybe they can help us figure out how to stop Neferet.”
“The High Council has refused to aid us,” Thanatos said. “We are the cavalry.” She stood. “So, Detective Marx, let’s go to the Mayo and see exactly what we’re up against.”
The rear door to the Council Chamber opened and Kalona, bare-chested, with amber eyes flashing in anger, strode to Thanatos. “It is time you call in the full cavalry. I am Death’s Warrior—so where you go, I go. Humans and consequences be damned.” His black wings unfurled and seemed to encase the entire room.
Detective Marx’s jaw dropped open. Literally.
“Holy shit,” Aphrodite whispered.
“Ditto,” I said, wondering what the hell would happen next.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Detective Marx
The guy was huge. And he had wings. Gi-fucking-gantic wings. Marx was glad he was already sitting because just looking at the … whateverthehellhewas … made his knees feel like rubber.
First the crazy-assed vampyre/goddess and the bloody black curtain at the Mayo. Now a winged giant who said he was Death’s Warrior.
Was he fucking dreaming?
Well, if he was, the dream kept on going and going, because Thanatos was talking to the winged giant and Marx damn sure wasn’t waking up.
“Go with me? To downtown Tulsa in full view of the—”
“What will you do if Neferet’s threads of Darkness attack you? I understand this manifestation of Darkness. I battled it over and over again in the Otherworld.” The giant’s powerful voice shot out: “Which would the humans fear more, the incarnation of evil, or the presence of a god battling it in the streets of Tulsa?”