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"Heath!" I hurried toward him, practically shouting my relief that it was him and not a terrifying Raven Mocker or worse, an ancient immortal with eyes like the night sky and a voice like a forbidden secret.
"Heath?" Erik didn't sound nearly as pleased. He grabbed my arm so I couldn't run past him. He frowned, still managing to stay protectively in front of me. "You mean your human boyfriend?"
"Ex-boyfriend," Heath and I said at the same time.
"Hey, aren't you that Erik guy? Zo's fledgling ex-boyfriend?" Heath said. He ignored the three stairs that emptied into the basement and jumped lightly down, looking every inch (and I do mean at least six feet tall with kinda curly, sandy, blond-brown hair and the cutest eyes and guy dimples you have every seen) the star quarterback he was. Yes, I'll admit it freely, my high school boyfriend was a clich?, but at least he was an adorable one.
"Boyfriend." Erik's voice was flint. "Not ex. Just like vampyre, not fledgling."
"Oh. I'd say congrats on the makeup with Zo and on not drowning in your own blood, but that would pretty much be bullshit 'cause I wouldn't mean it. Know what I mean, dude?" He talked as he walked around Erik to snag my wrist, but before he could pull me into a big hug he glanced down and saw the new tattoos covering my palms. "Whoa! Now that is majorly cool! So, your goddess is still takin' care of you?"
"Yeah, she is," I said.
"I'm glad," he said and pulled me into the hug I'd been expecting. "Damn, I've been worried about you!" Then he held me at arm's length and checked me out. "You all in once piece?"
"I'm fine," I said, a little breathlessly. I mean, last time I'd seen Heath he'd been breaking up with me. Plus, I could smell him when he hugged me and he smelled amazing. Like home mixed with my childhood mixed with something that was delicious and exciting and was calling to me from everywhere his skin touched mine. I knew what was calling me--his blood. And that messed with more than my head.
"Excellent." Heath let go of my wrist and I took a quick little half step away from him and toward Erik. I saw a flash of pain go through Heath's eyes, but it was only there for a second before he grinned nonchalantly and shrugged like the hug hadn't been a big deal because he and I were just friends now. "Yeah, well, I figured you were okay. I mean, I thought even though that blood thing between us broke, I'd still know if something bad happened to you." He'd said the words "blood thing" with a sexy emphasis that had Erik stirring beside me. "But I needed to see for myself. Plus, I wanted to ask what-the-fuck about the weird call last night?"
"Call?" Erik said. His eyes were guarded when he looked at me.
"Yes, call." I lifted my chin. Erik might be my boyfriend again, but no way was I going to put up with his being all possessive and insanely jealous. The thought flitted through my mind that maybe Erik wouldn't ever be able to really trust me after what had happened between us, and I'd have to put up with some obsessive jealousy. I'd kinda earned it. But I said in a cool voice, "I called Heath to warn him about the Raven Mockers and tell him to get his family to safety. He and I aren't together, but that doesn't mean I want anything bad to happen to him."
"Raven Mockers?" Heath asked.
"What's going on out there?" Erik asked, his voice all business.
"Goin' on? What do ya mean? Like the major storm that's been goin' on since about midnight, and has turned into a mess of ice, or the gang bullshit that happened? And what're Raven Mockers?"
"Gang bullshit? What do you mean by that?" Erik snapped. "No. I'm not sayin' shit till you answer my question."
"Raven Mockers are demonlike creatures from Cherokee legend," I answered. "Up until about midnight last night, they were only evil spirits, but all that changed when their daddy, an immortal named Kalona, broke free from his prison inside the earth, and is now making his new address the Tulsa House of Night."
"You really think it's a good idea to tell him all that?" Erik said.
"Hey, why don't you let Zoey decide what she wants to tell me and what she doesn't want to tell me?" Heath puffed up like he was dying to take a swing at Erik.
Erik puffed right back at him. "You're a human," he said the word like it was an STD. "You can't handle the same things we can handle. Try remembering that I had to help save your stupid human ass from a bunch of vamp ghosts just a couple months ago."
"Zoey saved me, not you! And I've been handling Zoey for about a zillwt chang Wlion 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 ser vice 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 what ever 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 ser vice 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 the LLroat--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 gonna be okay?" Heath was genuinely upset. He was a big favorite of Grandma's and had gone out to her lavender farm with me more times than I could count.
"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 Channel 8 came on. The announcer was being all serious and talking quickly.
"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, "Of course Tulsa a \r back on >
"We have one more community announcement: All House of Night staff and students have been recalled to the school due to the impending weather. Again, all House of Night staff and students have been asked to return to school. Stay tuned for updates. We return you to our scheduled programming."
"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."
"What about the Raven Mockers?"
I shook my head. "We just don't know. None have come down here, but that doesn't mean much." I thought about the darkness in the tunnels below and the bad feeling it was giving me, but I didn't know what the hell i M{?3t actually was: Red fledglings? Raven Mockers? Some other faceless thing that Kalona was sending against us? Or was it as simple as my imagination? The only thing I knew for sure was that I'd sound like an idiot crying wolf if I babbled a bunch of maybes, which meant, for the time being, I kept my mouth shut.
"Well, it's Saturday, but we don't have school because it's still winter break until Wednesday, and if this ice storm hits as hard as they say it's going to, we might be out for the whole week," Heath was saying. "It should be easy to keep safe, even if the Raven Mockers attack again and their attack moves from midtown Tulsa to Broken Arrow."
My stomach felt hollow. "And they might. Neferet knows I'm from Broken Arrow, and she knows there are still people I care about there."
"So she might send the Raven Mockers to Broken Arrow just to mess you up?" Heath said. I nodded. "Especially when my group and I ignore the call to return to school."
"But wait, Zo. You have to be at school around a bunch of vamps or you and all the rest of the fledglings will get sick, right?"
"I'm here," Erik spoke up. "And so is another full vampyre. Not to mention Stevie Rae."
"Isn't she all gross and undead?" Heath said.
"Not anymore," I said. "She's Changed into a different kind of vamp, one with red tattoos. And all of the gross fledglings that tried to eat you--well, they're red fledglings now, and aren't so gross."
"Huh," Heath said. "Well, I'm glad your BFF's okay."
"Me, too." I smiled.
"So are three adult vamps enough to keep you guys from getting sick?" Heath asked.
"We'll have to be. Heath, you need to go," Erik said abruptly.
Heath and I looked at him. I realized I'd been grinning a lot at Heath and really liking that he and I were talking again.
"The ice storm," Erik continued. "It's not smart for him to get stuck here, and that's what's going to happen if he's still here when the sun sets." Erik paused and then said, "Which is going to happen in about half an hour. How long did it take you to get from Broken Arrow to here?"
Heath frowned. "Almost two hours. The roads are bad."
It should have only taken him about thirty minutes to get from his place to the depot. Erik was right. Heath had to go home. Not only were we clueless about how much danger we might be in from Kalona, but I wasn't one hundred percent sure Heath would be safe around the red fledglings. Besides my questions about them, the truth was no matter what they were or weren't now, Heath was one hundred percent human, with lots of yummy, fresh, warm, sexy, pumping blood (I ignored the fact that my mouth was watering just thinking about it), and I had no idea about their willpower limits.
"Erik's right, Heath. You can't get stuck outside to night, especially this ?nnclose to midtown. Besides the ice, we don't know what's up with the Raven Mockers."
Heath looked at me like he and I were completely alone. "You're worried about me."
My throat felt dry. This was so not a conversation I wanted to have in front of Erik. "Of course I worry about you. We've been friends a long time." I could feel Erik's eyes on me. I forced myself not to fidget guiltily and added, "Friends worry about friends."
Heath's smile was slow and intimate. "Friends. Right."
"Time for you to go." Erik sounded pissed.
Without looking at Erik, Heath said, "I'll go when Zo tells me to."
"It's time for you to go, Heath," I said quickly.
Heath's eyes stayed locked with mine for several heartbeats. "Fine. What ever," he said. Then he turned to Erik. "So you're a real vamp now, huh?"
"Yes."
Heath looked him up and down. The two guys were close to the same height. Erik was taller, but Heath was the more muscular of the two. Still, both guys looked like they could handle themselves in a fight. I felt myself tense. Was Heath going to throw a punch at Erik?
"People say male vamps are big into protecting their priestesses. Is that right?"
"That's right," Erik said.
"Good. Then I expect you to be sure Zoey stays safe."
"Nothing's going to happen to her as long as I'm alive," Erik said.
"Make sure it doesn't." Heath's voice had lost the charming, easygoing tone with which he usually spoke. It had gone hard and dangerous. "Because if you let anything happen to her, I'm going to find you, and vampyre or no vampyre, I am going to kick your ass."
