Page 49 of Lost

Once inside he pushed the brick again and the door closed. Then Kevin paused. He crouched against the wall, wishing the predawn darkness had been less clear and instead foggy or rainy or even icy, but as his gaze swept the school grounds he began to relax. This wasn’t his sister’s House of Night. There were no human kids mixing with fledglings, blue and red, playing on the grounds. All Kevin saw was a meticulously manicured lawn, a few slinking cats, and Sons of Erebus Warriors standing guard at each of the doors to the main building.

Kevin was definitely going to avoid the main building.

Staying close enough to the wall that he blended with the flickering gaslight shadows, Kevin kicked into a swift jog. He followed the wall all the way around until he passed Nyx’s Temple. As he did he sent it a longing look. He’d never forget the sense of love and acceptance he’d felt with Zoey and her friends inside the Goddess’ Temple. It looked almost exactly like this temple, though there didn’t seem to be nearly as many candles glowing through the paned windows, and he didn’t catch even the smallest scent of vanilla or lavender.

It’s Neferet. She’s not honoring the Goddess like Zo does.

That thought made Kevin angry and heartsick.

Just beyond Nyx’s Temple, the wall began to curve to the right, where it would run parallel to Utica Street, and not long after that Kevin caught sight of the solitary building he sought, built of the same stone as the wall and the rest of the House of Night. But this building was different.

Not that it looked that much different. It was small—really a miniature version of Nyx’s Temple. It had a Japanese-style meditation garden situated adjacent to it that was framed on three sides by a mausoleum, which held the ashen remains of blue fledglings who had rejected the Change.

“And just blue fledglings,” Kevin muttered softly to himself. “Red fledglings get dropped off at the morgue, burned, and then their ashes are thrown away. Literally. Like garbage, they’re collected with the rest of the school’s trash every week. I hope today wasn’t trash day.”

Kevin approached the mausoleum. He’d have to make his way through the meditation garden to enter the morgue itself, but he didn’t anticipate any problem with that. The morgue wasn’t exactly a hot spot of House of Night activity. Actually, hardly anyone ever went there, as Neferet encouraged fledglings not to “mourn those who were found unworthy.”

The sand of the meditation garden gave silently under Kevin’s feet, and even though the area appeared deserted, he was glad for the decorated wooden screens that partitioned off sections of the garden, creating private alcoves of shadow.

He could see the arched wooden door that was the entrance to the morgue not far from him, and Kevin had almost allowed some of the tension to leave his shoulders when movement caught the corner of his eye.

In the middle of the meditation garden there was a beautiful statue of Nyx. This particular statue portrayed Nyx as the compassionate goddess Kwan Yin. She was fashioned of dreamy white onyx, sitting cross-legged on a lotus flower, and was lit from within by the only light in the serene garden.

In front of the statue was a simple wooden bench, much like the benches within each of the meditation alcoves, except larger. On the bench there sat a solitary figure, face upturned, staring at the Goddess.

Shit! A priestess!

Kevin quickly and silently ducked into the nearest meditation alcove. He studied the woman sitting on the bench, trying to get a clear view of her face, and thinking that she seemed familiar, when someone else rushed into the garden from the opposite direction, as if she were coming from the main school building. She strode up to the bench, making a big show of looking down at the priestess who was sitting there by herself. Kevin pressed himself into the corner of his alcove and prayed that neither woman would discover him there.

“There you are! One of the Warriors said he saw you heading this way, but I was sure he was mistaken. I even said so. I said, ‘Why would the lovely Aphrodite want to spend time in the morgue garden?’But as I couldn’t find you elsewhere, and as you refused to answer your phone, I decided to come here looking for you.”

Kevin felt a jolt of electric shock.That’s Aphrodite!And then his mind caught up with his shock as he recognized the voice of the second priestess.

Aphrodite’s sigh carried across the sand to Kevin. “Hello, Neferet. To answer your question, I come here often because hardly anyone else does. I like to have time to think. Alone. Which is why my phone is off.”

“My dear, that would be acceptable if you were any other priestess, but you are not. You are my Prophetess.”

“It’s not like I’m having a vision.”

Kevin’s lips turned up at Aphrodite’s sarcastic, sexy voice. He’d rarely seen Neferet up close. He’d never spoken to her. But he had witnessed how other vampyres treated her—with respect and a very healthy dose of fear. Not Aphrodite. Aphrodite spoke to her as if they were peers, and she was annoyed at being interrupted.

“Not at this moment you’re not, but you had one earlier this afternoon.”

Aphrodite stood and faced the taller High Priestess. “You have spies watching me?”

“Spies? No. Only the faithful fulfilling their duty to inform me about anything I would consider important, and my Prophetess having a vision and then hiding from me is definitely important.”

Aphrodite tossed back her mane of hair, which caught the slight light from the image of the Goddess and shined like newly spun gold. “Oh, for shit’s sake! I’m not hiding. I seriously thought coming to the morgue would help. I’ve been seeing nothing but death in my visions. Today’s was no different. You want to know what I saw? Blue fledglings and vampyres being slaughtered in a field by a disgusting horde of red vampyres. Actually, the one thing I can tell you specifically, besides who was slaughtering whom, is that it was a field of winter wheat that had just been cut. It smelled really good. Until the stink of red vampyres took over. Nothing else was very clear. Just death, blood, slaughter, and panic in a field overrun by red soldiers.”

“What field? Where?” Neferet snapped.

“I don’t know! Neferet, I keep trying to get you to understand that Ialwaysexperience my visions from the point of view of someone who is dying—usually horribly. That’s why it’s so hard to understand them. So, because my Goddess-be-damned visions are so full of death, it made sense that I might find an answer near the morgue. Like Iwantto hang out here? Get real. This place is not my style.”

“Oh, so you want toget real?” Neferet said in a low voice. Kevin felt his soul shiver as Neferet glided closer to Aphrodite, causing the younger vampyre to step back into the sands of the garden. “What’srealis that there is a Resistance movement ofmy own peoplefighting against me. What’srealis that every day blue fledglings, blue vampyres, and even loathsome, weakhumansdesert me. Theyleave! As if I don’t know what’s best for them? As if I’m not their High Priestess!”

“Well, you’re really not High Priestess of any humans,” Aphrodite said.

Quick as an adder, Neferet struck Aphrodite. The slap echoed from across the serene space, and Kevin cringed in sympathy.