Page 48 of Lost

12

Other Kevin

“U-we-tsi,are you quite sure about this?” Grandma Redbird asked as she leaned over her seat, searching through a big basket that took up most of the back seat of her car. She’d parked in one of the rear spaces in the darkest part of Utica Square’s rear parking lot.

“No, but I’m sure you can’t drive me onto the school grounds. You’re under Neferet’s protection, but no rational human would ever get in a car with a red vampyre unless they were about to be lunch.”

“Ah, here it is! I knew I had one of these back there. Put this on. It has a hood and it should be big enough to tug down to cover your face.” G-ma handed him an old, dark hoodie that smelled vaguely of lavender, which he slipped over his head. Then she opened the basket again and pulled out a leather satchel that had a thick shoulder strap. “Here, take this as well. I packed a few things for you I thought you might need. And, no, I didn’t mean that I should drive you there. I understand that’s impossible and you can easily walk to the House of Night from here. I am worried about your blood perfume.” Grandma Redbird’s nose wrinkled as she said the last two words.

Kevin laughed, slung the satchel over his shoulder, and hugged her. “You don’t need to worry about that. I have it all figured out.”

“I know it’s something you must do, but it makes me very uncomfortable to think about you killing a red fledgling or vampyre.”

“G-ma, I’m not going to kill anyone.”

“So, you’re just going to cut a red vampyre to get the blood you need?”

“G-ma, I have a better idea than that. I’m going to visit the school’s morgue.”

Grandma Redbird hugged him tightly. “Oh, u-we-tsi, I am so happy to hear that!” Then they both giggled like schoolgirls at the ridiculousness of being happy about visiting a morgue.

Finally, Kevin gave her a kiss on her soft cheek. “Promise me you won’t do anything that could get you hurt.”

She took his face in her hands and smiled lovingly into his eyes. “I cannot promise that, but I can promise that I will be wise and think before I act.”

“I guess that’ll have to be promise enough.”

“I guess it will.” Grandma kissed him. “Go under the protection of the Great Goddess, u-we-tsi, and always remember how proud I am of you.”

Kevin hated leaving his g-ma. He had to force himself not to immediately begin imagining hordes of insatiable red vampyres descending on her farm to devour her for working with the Resistance.

G-ma is under Neferet’s protection.

No one in the Red or Blue Army knows she’s part of the Resistance.

I really need to chill the hell out.

Thoughts about his g-ma and the Resistance swirled around and around in Kevin’s head as he cut across Twenty-Second Street and headed down Yorktown Avenue and the east side of the House of Night.

It was late—only a couple of hours from sunrise—but he wasn’t worried. His visit with Zo had given him insight into the House of Night, and he knew where he could hide safely from the sun, and from curious vampyres.Ifthe two worlds were really more similar than they were different. If this House of Nighthadn’tbeen built like Zo’s…

Kevin shook his head.No reason to get all negative unless I have to.If all else failed, he could always play stupid and be just another red vampyre who’d missed the predawn bus to the depot tunnels. Hopefully the blue vamps would let him stay in one of the darkened dorm rooms and not toss him out on the street to fry.

The stone wall that surrounded the House of Night loomed suddenly on his right, looking austere and intimidating and basically nothing like the well-lit, welcoming House of Night over which his sister presided.

For an instant, a deep yearning gripped him, and Kevin wished more than anything that he could run back to Woodward Park and figure out a way to reopen the doorway between worlds and slip back through—never to return.

“But what if I did that? What would happen to G-ma over here? She’d never stop worrying about me, and she’d never stop mourning the loss of Zoandme,” he said to himself. And then there was Dragon and Anastasia and the rest of the Resistance. They’d believe he’d been caught and killed, or that he’d lied to them. They’d probably abandon the cave on the ridge, which would be really awful. No, Kevin couldn’t leave. No matter how much he wished he could.

Streetlights meant to look like they were from the early 1900s, complete with flickering gas, cast moving shadows along the huge wall. Kevin cut across Yorktown to join them as his preternaturally sharp vision began searching the stones, looking for the old, rectangular one that was stamped with a1926—the year the wall surrounding the school had been completed. He cracked his knuckles nervously as he searched, not even sure if it was there. Zo had told him about it—that there was one particular brick on the east wall of the school that was actually a spring-loaded trapdoor system. The brick on the school side didn’t look much different than the others, but she said the one on the outside of the wall was marked, and it was through that trapdoor that fledglings had been sneaking on and off campus for almost a century.

At least it was inherworld.

This was the first test—the first time he’d know just how similar the worlds were in their structure.

When his eyes caught the1926stamp he felt a thrill of relief. The brick was at his eye level. He drew a deep breath and pressed it.

There was a faint click as some mechanism unlatched and then the wall seemed to sigh as a gap, just big enough for him to squeeze through, appeared in the otherwise perfect-looking brickwork.