Hidden (House of Night Novels) (30 page)

Neferet could have killed her.

“Stop thinking that!” Stark had told me sternly when he and I curled up in bed together. “You don’t know that’s happened, and you’re driving yourself crazy thinking it.”

“I know. I know. But I can’t help it. Stark, I can’t lose her. Not Grandma!” I’d buried my face in his chest and hung on to him.

He’d tried to reassure me, to comfort me, and for a while I had found comfort in his touch. I’d focused on his love and his strength. He was my Guardian, my Warrior, and my lover. He grounded me.

Then the sun rose and he fell asleep, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Not even Nala’s purr machine could turn my mind off. Seriously, all I wanted to do was to curl up in the corner and cry into my cat’s soft orange fur.

But that wouldn’t get Grandma back.

I knew my restlessness would wake up Stark, and while the sun was up that wasn’t a good thing, so I kissed Nala on her nose and tiptoed quietly from the room. My feet automatically took me to the kitchen where I foraged for a can of cold brown pop and a bag of nacho cheese Doritos. I sat at the table for a while, wishing someone would wake up and talk to me. No one showed up. I didn’t blame them. We’d been up early the day before, and everyone was stressed out. They needed to sleep. Hell, I needed to sleep.

Instead I stared at my phone, drank brown pop, and ate a bag of chips.

I also cried.

If Neferet had Grandma it was my fault. I was the one who’d gotten Marked and caused a bomb to explode in my human family.

“I shouldn’t have kept in contact with any of them.” I hiccupped a little sob. “If I’d broken from them, Neferet would have never known anything about my mom or my grandma. They’d be safe … alive…” I wiped the Dorito cheese on my jeans and used a paper towel to blow my nose. “I brought all of this vampyre crap on my family.” I put my face in the paper towel and bawled like a two-year-old. “That’s what I feel like—a damn toddler. Helpless! Stupid! Useless!” I sobbed. “Nyx! Where are you? Please help me. I need you so much!”

Then grow up, daughter. Be a woman, a High Priestess, and not a child.

Her voice filled my mind. I lifted my head, blinking quickly and wiping snot from my face. The earthen walls of the tunnel were glowing. Directly across from me an image began to surface. As if I was looking into a pool of dark water, something started to form and lift from the concave depths. It was the figure of a woman! Under normal circumstances I would have described her as fat. She was naked and she had enormous boobs, wide soft hips, and thick thighs. Her hair floated around her, as full and dark as her body.

She was absolutely and completely beautiful—every single pound and curve of her, which totally made me rethink my idea of “fat.”

She opened her eyes, and I saw that they were amethyst crystals, kind and warm and the color of violets.

“Nyx!”

Yes,
u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya,
that is one of my names. Though your ancestors would know me as Earth Mother.

“You’re my grandma’s Goddess, too!”

She smiled and it was hard for me to keep looking directly at her because she was so incredibly lovely.
I do know Sylvia Redbird.

“Can you help her? I think she’s in big trouble right now!” I clenched my hands together.

Your grandmother knows me well. She may cloak herself in the power of my earth, as may any of my children if they choose to walk my path.

“Thank you! Thank you! Will you tell me where she is and then help me save her?”

You have the means for both, Zoey Redbird.

“I don’t understand! Please, for Grandma’s sake, help me,” I begged the Goddess.

She smiled again, and it was even more blinding.
But I answered you when first you beseeched me. If you are to save your grandmother and, ultimately, your people, you will have to grow up. Be a woman, a High Priestess, and not a child.

“But I want to be, I just don’t know how. Could you please teach me?” I bit my lip to keep from crying again.

How to be the woman you were meant to be is something no one can teach you. You must find the way yourself. But know this: a child sits, weeps, and dissolves into self-pity and depression. A High Priestess takes action. Which way will you choose, Zoey Redbird?

“The right way! I want to choose the right way. But I need your help!”

As always, you have it. What I have gifted I never take back. I wish you, my precious
u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya,
to blessed be …

And the Goddess sank into the wall of the tunnel, disappearing in a glimmer of dust that glistened like the amethyst crystals that had been her eyes.

I sat there and stared at the wall, thinking about what the Goddess had said. I realized what I felt was mostly embarrassment. Basically, the Great Earth Mother had just told me to quit whining. I wiped my face again. I sucked down the last of my brown pop.

Then I made my decision. Out loud.

“Time to grow up. Time to stop bawling. Time to
do something.
And that means if I’m not sleeping, my herd of nerds isn’t sleeping, either—sun or no sun.”

I retraced my path down the tunnel, punching phone numbers as I went.

“What’s happenin’, Z?” Stevie Rae answered on the third ring and sounded groggy.

“Get dressed, get a green candle, and meet me in the basement,” I said, and hung up. Aphrodite was next.

“Someone better be dead,” she said as her hello.

“I’m gonna make sure that someone isn’t Grandma. Wake Darius up. Meet me in the basement.”

“Please tell me I can call Shaunee and Queen Damien and wake them up, too,” she said.

“Absolutely. Tell them to bring their circle candles. Oh, and have Shaunee grab Erin’s blue candle. You may be standing in for water.”

“I have a better idea, but that’s nothing new. Anyway, see you soon.”

By that time I’d gotten to my room. I didn’t hesitate. High Priestesses aren’t hesitant babies. They act. So, I acted.

“Stark, wake up.” I shook his shoulder.

He blinked, peering up through his cute, messy hair at me. “What’s wrong? You okay?”

“What’s wrong is we’re not sleeping until we have a plan to save Grandma.”

He sat up, dislodging Nala from his hip and making her mutter grumpy old lady cat noises at him. “But Kalona went to rescue Grandma.”

“Would you trust Kalona to babysit Nala?”

Stark rubbed his eyes. “No, probably not. Why do you want Kalona to babysit Nala?”

“I don’t. I’m just proving my point. Here’s the deal: I don’t want him to be who I trust to rescue my grandma.”

“Okay, so what now?”

“Now, we circle.” I went to the little table beside our bed and grabbed a lighter and the thick purple pillar candle that sat there, smelling like lavender and my childhood. I breathed deeply. Then I told Stark, “Get dressed and meet me in the basement.”

I walked quickly. I didn’t want to wait for anyone, not even Stark. I needed some time by myself to focus on spirit—to draw strength from the element that was closest to me. I needed to be brave and strong and smart, and the truth was I wasn’t all of those things—or at least I wasn’t all of those things at the same time. I remembered that I’d asked Grandma once how she got to be so smart. She’d laughed and told me she surrounded herself with smart people, and she never stopped being willing to listen and learn.

“Okay,” I said as I climbed up the metal ladder that led from the tunnels below the depot up to the basement entrance. “I have smart friends. I can listen. And, in theory, I can learn. That’s what I’ll do.”

I walked to what looked like the center of the basement, and then sat, cross-legged, and put the candle on the cold, cement floor. Holding the lighter in my hand, I closed my eyes and took three deep centering breaths, in and out, in and out, in and out. Eyes still closed I said, “Spirit, you are my heart. You fill me and give me strength. I ask you, please come to me spirit!” Then I opened my eyes and lit the purple candle.

The flame turned silver. I felt the inrush of the element and suddenly all of the turmoil and confusion that had filled my mind and soul since Aurox had said Grandma was missing dissolved. I was strengthened by spirit as it rushed around and through me as the silver flame of the purple candle danced in what seemed like joyous response. I nodded. “Okay, now I get busy. First step. Find out what the hell is going on.” I pulled the phone from my pocket and punched
Thanatos.
It might be smart to wait belowground for the sun to set so that I had my red vamp backups with me, but that did
not
mean I went to bed quietly like a child scampering home before curfew.

Her phone was ringing as Kalona pulled the rusted grate aside and Thanatos strode into the basement, followed by the winged Warrior and Aurox.

I hit
END
CALL
, and stood. I’d opened my mouth to ask Thanatos what the hell she was doing and why the hell she’d brought Aurox here when my mind caught up with my vision. Kalona was covered with pink slashes and spatters of blood. It looked like someone had been beating him with a whip made out of razor blade.

“Grandma? Where is she?”

Kalona halted in front of me. His amber eyes held mine. As he stood there, several of the pink slashes opened and began to cry blood.
His body is vulnerable down here, down in the earth,
I remembered.
It’s difficult for him to heal.
But I didn’t acknowledge that he’d willingly entered the earth even though it was obvious he was wounded. He was a Warrior. It was his oath sworn job to protect.

“Where is she?” I repeated.

“Neferet’s penthouse. The Tsi Sgili has her imprisoned by tendrils of Darkness,” he said.

“Why didn’t you get her out of there?” I wanted to raise my fists and beat against his chest and open more of the cuts and make him hurt as badly as I was hurting—as badly as Grandma was hurting. But I didn’t. I only wounded him with my eyes and my words. “You said if Neferet had her, you would rescue her. Darkness has been your BFF for centuries! Why couldn’t you rescue her?”

“The minions of Darkness no longer obey Kalona. He has truly chosen to return to the path of Nyx, thus he is allied with evil no more,” Thanatos said.

“Oh, just fucking great. Talk about shit timing skills, Kalona,” Aphrodite said. She and Darius and Stark had climbed up the ladder, followed by Shaunee, Damien, and, I was surprised to see, Shaylin.

“So why did you run? Why the hell didn’t you fight the tendrils, beat them, and grab Grandma Redbird?” Stark said. “Supposedly protecting Nyx against Darkness used to be your full-time job before you messed that up. Did you forget how to do it?”

Kalona rounded on Stark. “Do I look as if I ran from a battle?”

Stark didn’t hesitate. “Yeah, you’re here. Grandma’s not. You fucking ran!”

Kalona snarled and took a step toward Stark. Darius pulled a knife from his sleeve and Stark lifted his ever-present bow. Pissed as hell, I stepped between them.

“This is
not
helping, Kalona! Tell me why Grandma’s still being held by Neferet,” I said.

“I could have battled those puppets of Darkness for days. I would have eventually been victorious over them. It would have cost me little except blood and pain. But their command was not to war with me. They had been commanded to feed from my blood to strengthen themselves so that they could break through the earth power with which Sylvia Redbird has girded herself.”

“Go on. Tell me everything.” I sounded strong, but I had to press my hand against my mouth to keep from sobbing.
I will not cry!

“Turquoise and silver—earth power. That protects her, but with my blood filling the tendrils, they were able to begin breaking through that protection. Had I stayed and continued to battle them, I would have been victorious, but Sylvia Redbird would have been dead.”

“We must have a creature made of Darkness to break through the cage of Darkness that imprisons your grandmother,” Thanatos said.

“That creature is me.” Aurox stepped forward.

“Oh, for shit’s sake! We are absolutely fucked!” Aphrodite said.

Sadly, I had to agree with her.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Zoey

“I can do it. I was created by Darkness, from Darkness,” Aurox said. “The tendrils will not feed from me—it would be like eating themselves. I may even be able to command them. If they will not obey my command, then I will vanquish them and rescue Sylvia Redbird. Zoey, I care very much for Grandma. I can save her. I know it.”

“You can’t control that shit inside you!” Stark shouted. “Sure, Neferet will let you into her penthouse. Are you kidding, why shouldn’t she? She has plenty of blood from Grandma. She’ll just use some of it to feed Darkness and control you. Again!”

“The tendrils cannot feed from Sylvia Redbird’s blood,” Kalona said. “Neferet admitted it, and I witnessed it myself. I can only guess that her blood is protected by the same earth magick that shields her body.”

“But you can still be controlled, right?” Damien had walked up to Aurox. His voice was clinical and I knew he was accessing all the biology files he had in his very big brain. “You are a Vessel created by Darkness. So the beast within you, which is basically a creature formed from the evil of the white bull, morphs without a sacrifice. We saw it happening earlier when Stark and Darius hit you.”

“The beast feeds on violence and hatred, lust and pain. That is true,” Aurox said.

“But you have some control over it. You did not actually change earlier,” Thanatos said.

“I try not to change. I try to control it.”

“Well, do you have a clue how you’ve kinda controlled it so far?” Stevie Rae asked, joining the rest of us.

“No.” Aurox sounded miserable.

“And that is why we are here. We must teach Aurox to control this change, at least long enough for him to break through the cage of Darkness that binds Sylvia Redbird so that he can throw her from the balcony of Neferet’s lair,” Thanatos said.