Awakened (19 page)

“So you see why it’s important that I not leave my isle,” Sgiach said.

“I do,” I said reluctantly. “But I still think you could be wrong about there being no old magick left in the outside world. The black bull did materialize in Tulsa, remember?”

“Aye, but not until after the white bull appeared first,” Seoras said.

“Zoey, I would very much like to believe that the outside world hasn’t entirely destroyed the magick of old, and because of that there’s something I want you to have.”

Sgiach reached up and untwined a long length of silver from the mass of twinkling necklaces that dangled from around her neck. She lifted the delicate chain over her head and held it up at my eye level. Hanging from the silver was a perfectly round milk-colored stone that was smooth and soft and reminded me of a coconut-flavor Life Saver. The torches that the Warriors had begun to light flickered against the stone’s surface, making it glisten, and I recognized the rock.

“It’s a piece of Skye marble,” I said.

“It is—a special piece of Skye marble called a seer stone. It was found more than five centuries ago by a Warrior on his Shamanic quest as he ran the Cuillin Ridge on this very island,” Sgiach said.

“A Warrior on a Shamanic quest? That doesn’t happen very often,” I said.

Sgiach smiled and her gaze went from the piece of dangling marble to Seoras. “About once every five hundred years it does.”

“Aye, that’s about right,” Seoras said, returning her smile with an intimacy that made me feel like I should look away.

“In my opinion, once every five hundred years is more than enough for some poor Warrior dude to do the Shaman thing.”

My stomach give a silly little flip-flop of pleasure at the sound of his voice and I looked from the queen and her Guardian to see Stark standing in the shadows behind the arched doorway, rumpled and squinting at what was left of the fading light in the picture window. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and he looked so much like his old self that a pang of homesickness—the first real one I’d felt since I’d returned to myself—speared through me.
I’m going home.
The thought had me smiling as I hurried toward Stark. Sgiach made a gesture with her hand. The heavy drapes were drawn over the last of the sunlight, allowing Stark to step from the shadows and take me into his arms.

“Hey, I didn’t think you’d be up for an hour or so,” I said, hugging him tightly.

“You were upset, and that woke me up,” he whispered into my ear. “Plus, I was having some majorly weird dreams.”

I pulled back so I could look into his eyes. “Jack’s dead.”

Stark started to shake his head in denial, and then stopped, touched my cheek, and blew out a long breath. “That’s what I felt. Your sadness. Z, I’m so sorry. What the hell happened?”

“Officially an accident. Really it was Neferet, but no one can prove it,” I said.

“When do we leave for Tulsa?”

I smiled my thanks at him as Sgiach said, “Tonight. We can arrange for you to leave as soon as you have your bags packed and ready.”

“So, what’s with this stone?” Stark asked, taking my hand.

Sgiach lifted it again. I was thinking how pretty it looked when it twisted gently on the chain and my gaze was pulled to the perfect circle in the center. The world narrowed and faded away around me as my entire being became focused on the hole in the stone because for an instant I caught a glimpse of the room through the hole.

The room was gone!

Fighting a wave of nauseating vertigo, I stared through the seer stone at what had looked like an undersea world. Figures floated and flitted around, all in hues of turquoise and topaz, crystal and sapphire. I thought I saw wings and fins and long, swirling cascades of drifting hair.
Mermaids? Or are they sea monkeys? I have utterly lost my mind,
was my last thought before I lost my battle with dizziness and ended up flat on my back on the floor.

“Zoey! Look at me! Say something!”

Stark, looking completely freaked, was bent over me. He’d grabbed me by the shoulders and was currently shaking the bejeezus outta me.

“Hey, stop,” I said weakly, trying unsuccessfully to shove him away.

“Just let her breathe. She’ll be fine in a moment,” came Sgiach’s uber-calm voice.

“She fainted. That’s not normal,” Stark said. He was still gripping my shoulders, but he had stopped rattling my brains around.

“I’m conscious and I’m right here,” I said. “Help me sit up.”

Stark’s frown said he’d rather not, but he did as I asked.

“Drink this,” Sgiach held a goblet of wine under my nose that I could smell was laced heavily with blood. I grabbed it and drank deeply while she said, “And it is normal for a High Priestess to faint the first time she uses the power of a seer stone, especially if she is unprepared for it.”

Feeling much better after the bloody wine (eesh, but yum), I raised my brows at her and stood up. “Couldn’t you have prepared me for it?”

“Aye, but then a seer stone only works for some High Priestesses, and if it hadnae worked for yu, yu’d have had yer feelins hurt, now wouldn’t ya?” Seoras said.

I rubbed my backside. “I think I’d rather have risked the hurt feelings instead of the hurt butt. Okay, what the heck did I see?”

“What did it look like?” Sgiach asked.

“A weird undersea fishbowl through that little hole.” I pointed in the direction of the stone, but was careful not to look at it.

Sgiach smiled. “Yes, and where have you seen beings like that before?”

I blinked in understanding, “The grove! They’re water sprites.”

“Indeed,” Sgiach nodded.

“So it’s like a magick finder?” Stark asked, giving the stone a sideways glance.

“It is, when used by a High Priestess with the right kind of power.” Sgiach lifted the chain and placed it around my neck. The seer stone settled between my breasts, feeling warm like it was alive.

“This really finds magick?” I put my hand reverently over the stone.

“Only one kind,” Sgiach said.

“Water magick?” I asked, confused.

“It isnea the element that matters. ’Tis the magick itself,” Seoras said.

Before I could say the
huh
that was obviously all over my face, Sgiach explained, “A seer stone is in tune with only the most ancient of magicks: the kind I protect on my isle. I am gifting you with it so that you might, indeed, recognize the Old Ones if any still exist in the outside world.”

“If she finds any of that kind of magick, what should she do?” Stark asked, still giving the stone leery looks.

“Rejoice or run, depending on what you discover,” Sgiach said with a wry smile.

“Mind, lass, it was the old magick that sent yur Warrior to the Otherworld, and the old magick that made him yur Guardian,” Seoras said. “It hasnea been watered down by civilization.”

I closed my hand around the seer stone, the memory of Seoras standing over Stark, trance-like, cutting him over and over again so that his blood ran down the ancient knotwork in the stone they called the Seol ne Gigh, the Seat of the Spirit. Suddenly I realized I was trembling.

Then Stark’s warm, strong hand covered mine and I looked up into his steady gaze.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be with you, and whether it’s time to run or rejoice, we’ll be together. I’ll always have your back, Z.”

Then, for at least that moment, I felt safe.

“She’s really coming home?”

Damien’s voice was so soft and shaky that Stevie Rae had to lean down over the bed to hear him. His eyes were glassy and more than a little vacant, and she couldn’t tell if that was because the drug/blood cocktail the vamps in the infirmary had come up with was actually working, or whether he was still in shock.

“Are you kiddin’? Z got on the first plane outta there. She’ll be home in, like, three hours. If you want, you can come to the airport with me to pick her and Stark up.” Stevie Rae was sitting on the edge of Damien’s bed, so it was easy for her to give Duchess’s head a rub—since the dog was curled around Damien. When he didn’t make any response except to stare blankly at the wall in front of him, she gave Duchess another pat. In return the Lab thumped her tail weakly once, twice. “You’re a dang good dog and that’s all there is to it,” Stevie Rae told the blond Lab. Duchess opened her eyes and gave Stevie Rae a soulful look, but her tail didn’t thump again and she didn’t make her usual happy huffing dog noise. Stevie Rae frowned. Did she look thin? “Damien, honey, has Duch had anything to eat recently?”

He blinked at her, looked confused, looked at the dog curled around him, and then his eyes actually began to clear, but before he could say anything Neferet’s voice came from behind Stevie Rae, though she had no way heard the vamp enter the room.

“Stevie Rae, Damien is in a very fragile emotional state right now. He should not have to be concerned about such trivialities as feeding a dog or acting like a common butler and going to the airport to collect a fledgling.”

Neferet swept past her. Full of motherly concern, she bent over Damien. Stevie Rae automatically stood up and backed several feel away. She could have sworn that something in the shadows that lapped around the hem of Neferet’s long, silky dress had begun to slither toward her.

In a similar reaction, Duchess moved off Damien’s lap and curled up morosely at the end of his bed, joining his still sleeping cat, all the while keeping her unblinking gaze trained on Damien.

“Since when is picking a friend up from the airport the butler’s job? And believe me—I know what’s what with a butler’s job.”

Stevie Rae glanced over at the doorway where Aphrodite seemed to have just materialized.

Well, slap me and call me a baby—am I so out of it I can’t hear nothing anymore?
Stevie Rae thought.

“Aphrodite, I have something to say to you that applies to everyone in this room,” Neferet said, sounding regal and super-in-charge.

Aphrodite put a hand on her slim hip, and said, “Yeah? What?”

“I have decided that Jack’s funeral should be in the manner of a fully Changed vampyre. His funeral pyre will be lit tonight, as soon as Zoey arrives at the House of Night.”

“You’re waitin’ for Zoey? Why?” Stevie Rae asked.

“Because she was Jack’s good friend, of course. But more important, because of the confusion that reigned here when I was under Kalona’s influence, Zoey served as Jack’s High Priestess. That unfortunate time is, thankfully, behind us, but it is only right that Zoey light Jack’s pyre.”

Stevie Rae thought how terrible it was that Neferet’s beautiful emerald eyes could look so perfectly guileless, even when she was weaving a web of deceit and lies. She wanted so badly to scream at the Tsi Sgili that she knew her secret; Kalona was here and she was controlling him, and not the other way around. She’d never been under his influence. Neferet had known from the start exactly who and what Kalona was, and what she was doing now was lying her butt off.

But Stevie Rae’s own terrible secret stopped the words in her throat. She heard Aphrodite draw in a breath, like she was getting ready to launch into a major ass-chewing, but at that moment Damien drew everyone’s attention to him when he put his head in his hands and began to sob, saying brokenly, “
I-I
just c-can’t understand how he can be gone.”

Stevie Rae pushed around Neferet and pulled Damien into her arms. She was happy to see Aphrodite stride over to the other side of the bed and rest her hand on Damien’s heaving shoulder. Both girls gave Neferet narrow-eyed looks of distrust and dislike.

Neferet’s face remained sad but impassive, like she knew Damien’s grief but she let it wash around her and not into her. “Damien, I’ll leave you to the comfort of your friends. Zoey’s plane lands at Tulsa International at 9:58 tonight. I’ve set the funeral pyre for midnight exactly, as that is an auspicious time. I shall see all of you then.” Neferet left the room, closing the door behind her with an almost inaudible click.

“Fucking lying bitch,” Aphrodite said under her breath. “Why is she playing nice?”

“She’s seriously up to somethin’,” Stevie Rae said while Damien cried into her shoulder.

“I can’t do this.” Damien suddenly pulled back and away from both of them. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. The heaving sobs had stopped, but tears continued to leak down his cheeks. Duchess crawled up to him and lay across his lap, with her nose pointed up near his cheek. Cammy curled up tightly against his side. Damien wrapped one arm around the big blond dog, and another around his cat. “I can’t say goodbye to Jack and deal with Neferet’s drama.” He looked from Stevie Rae to Aphrodite. “I understand why Zoey’s soul shattered.”

“No no no no.” Aphrodite bent over and put her finger in Damien’s face. “I am
not
dealing with that stress again. Jack being dead is bad. Really bad. But you gotta keep yourself together.”

“For us,” Stevie Rae added in a much softer tone, giving Aphrodite a
be nice!
look. “You gotta keep yourself together for your friends. We almost lost Zoey. We lost Jack and Heath. We can’t lose you, too.”

“I can’t fight her anymore,” Damien said. “I don’t have any heart left.”

“It’s still there,” Stevie Rae said softly. “It’s just broken.”

“It’ll fix,” Aphrodite added, not unkindly.

Damien’s eyes were bright with tears when he looked at her. “How do you know? Your heart’s never been broken.” He turned his gaze to Stevie Rae. “Neither has yours.” As Damien continued to speak, the tears fell faster and faster down his cheeks. “Don’t let your hearts be broken. It hurts too much.”

Stevie Rae swallowed hard. She couldn’t tell him—she couldn’t tell any of them, but the more she cared about Rephaim, the more her heart broke every single day.

“Zoey’s going to make it, and she lost her Heath,” Aphrodite said. “If she can do it, you can do it, too, Damien.”

“And she’s really coming home?” Damien repeated the question he’d started with.

“Yes,” Aphrodite and Stevie Rae said together.

“Okay. Good. Yeah. It’ll be better when Zoey’s here,” Damien said, still hugging Duchess, with Cameron pressed close to his side.