Hunted (27 page)

“You are probably right,” he said. “Can you manage it?”

“Well, it's really not very far to the dorm. Plus, the weather's already nasty. I'll just call in some mist and increase the rain. That should do a pretty good job of hiding us. Remember to think that you're made of nothing but spirit. Try to imagine blending in with the storm. That usually makes it easier for me.”

“Will do. I'm ready whenever you are.”

I drew a deep breath, grateful that my chest was almost completely pain-free, and centered myself. “Water, fire, and spirit, I need you,” I said. I flung wide one of my arms, as if receiving a hug from a friend, and hooked the other through Darius's arm. Immediately I felt the three elements surge around and through me and, hopefully, Darius, too. “Spirit, I ask you to cloak us  . . .  hide us  . . .  let us blend with the night. Water, fill the air around us, bathe us and conceal us. Fire, I need you just a little—just enough to heat the ice so that it changes to mist. But not only around us,” I added quickly. “Go all over the school grounds. Make everything soupy and misty and magical.” I smiled as I felt the elements quivering in anticipation of the tasks I'd given them. “Okay, let's do this.” I nodded at Darius. He opened the door and, buoyed by wind and spirit and fire, we moved out into the ice storm.

I'd been right about one thing: the weather was nasty. I'd definitely liked it more looking out from inside the warm, dry building. It had been bad before, but as the elements responded to my command the storm increased in intensity. I glanced around us, trying to discover if the Raven Mockers had noticed us, but the elements were working together well, and Darius and I walked in what felt like the middle of a blinding snow globe turned to ice. The ice and wind were so bad that I would have fallen right on my butt if Darius hadn't had the reflexes of a cat and somehow managed to keep both of us on our feet.

Which reminded me, as he and I walked quickly but carefully down the frozen sidewalk, shrouded in a sudden mist that had blown
up all around us, heads bent against the icy onslaught, I did not see one single cat. Okay, yeah, the weather was awful, especially after I'd messed with it, and cats don't like anything wet, but I didn't remember once in the months I'd lived at the House of Night walking anywhere on campus and not seeing at least a couple cats chasing after each other.

“There aren't any cats around,” I said.

Darius nodded. “I already noticed.”

“What does it mean?”

“Trouble,” he said.

But I didn't have time to think about what the absence of cats might mean (and to worry about where my Nala might be). I was already feeling the drain of energy. I had to focus all of my strength and concentration to keep a running whispered litany going to wind, fire, and water. “We are the night, let the spirit of night cover us  . . .  shroud us with mist  . . . blow, wind, and keep evil eyes from seeing us  . . . ”

We were almost to the dorm when I heard the girl's voice. I couldn't make out what she was saying, but the high, nervous tone definitely meant that something was wrong. The tension in Darius's arm, and the way he was peering around, trying to see through the elemental soup surrounding us, told me that he'd heard it, too.

As we got closer to the dorm, the voice got clearer and louder, and the words began to make sense.

“No, really! I—I just wanta get back to my room,” the frightened girl's voice said.

“You can get back. After I'm done with you.”

I froze, pulling Darius to a stop with me as I recognized the guy's voice even before the girl answered him.

“How about later, Stark? Then maybe we can—” Her words were abruptly cut off. I heard a little scream that ended in a gasp, and then there was an awful wet sound, and the moans began.

 

 

 

 

Darius started forward, pulling me with him. We got to the little stoop that was the entrance to the girls' dorm. There were wide stairs, framed with staggered, waist-high stone walls, excellent for sitting on and flirting with your boyfriend after he'd walked you to the door and before he kissed you good night.

What Stark was doing was a twisted mockery of the good-night kissing that usually went on there. He was holding a girl in what could have been an embrace, had it not been obvious that, just seconds before his teeth had locked on her neck, she'd been trying to get away from him. I watched, horrified, as Stark, oblivious to our presence, continued his attack on her. It didn't matter that the girl was now moaning with sexual pleasure. I mean, we all know that's what happens when a vamp bites someone: The sex receptors in both the “victim” (and in this case she was definitely his victim!) and the vamp were stimulated. She was physically feeling pleasure, but her wide, terrified eyes, and the rigidity of her body made it obvious she would fight him if she could. Stark was drinking in huge gulps from her throat. His moans were feral and the hand that wasn't holding her tight against his body was fumbling at the girl's skirt, lifting it so that he could situate himself between her legs and—

“Free her!” Darius commanded, pulling his arm from my grasp and stepping out of the pocket of concealing mist and night that had been hiding us.

Stark dropped the girl with no more thought than he would have given an empty QT Big Gulp. She whimpered and on hands and knees scrambled away from him toward Darius. Darius tossed an old-time handkerchief he'd pulled from his pocket at me, and said, “Help her.” Then he situated himself like a muscular mountain between the hysterical girl and me and Stark.

I crouched down, realizing with a start of surprise that the girl was Becca Adams, a pretty blond fourth former who had had a crush on Erik. As I watched Darius confront Stark, I handed Becca the handkerchief and murmured soothing words to her.

“You seem to keep getting in my way,” Stark said. His eyes still glowed red, and there was blood on his mouth that he wiped absently away with the back of his hand. Again, I could see a darkness that pulsed around him. It wasn't completely visible, but more of a shadow within a shadow that shifted in and out of my vision, something that was actually easier seen when I wasn't looking for it.

And then it hit me. I knew where I'd noticed such strange liquid darkness before. It had been in the shadows of the tunnels, and then again in the glimpse of the spectral form of Neferet that had turned into the Raven Mocker who had almost killed me! With more sudden insight I recognized this darkness further. I was sure it had been present, pulsing like a living shadow around Stevie Rae before she'd Changed, only then my eyes and mind had just registered my best friend's need and anguish and struggle, and I'd processed the darkness she'd been moving in only as internal. Goddess, I'd been a fool! Overwhelmed, I tried to make sense of this new knowledge as Darius confronted Stark.

“Perhaps no one has explained to you that vampyre males do not abuse females, be they human, vampyre, or fledgling.” Darius spoke calmly, as if he were having an ordinary conversation with a friend.

“I'm not a vampyre.” Stark pointed to the outline of the red crescent moon on his forehead.

“That is an inconsequential detail. We” —Darius motioned from
himself to Stark—“do not abuse females. Ever. The Goddess has taught us better.”

Stark smiled, but the gesture lacked any real humor. “I think you're gonna find that the rules have changed around here.”

“Well, boy, I think
you'll
find that some of us have rules written here” —Darius pointed to his heart—“and rules written there aren't subject to the changing whims of those around us.”

Stark's face hardened. He reached back and pulled free a bow that had been fitted in a strap on his back. Then he took an arrow from the quiver I'd assumed was a man purse hanging over his shoulder (I should have know it wasn't; Stark isn't exactly a man-purse kind of guy). He fitted the arrow in the bow and said, “I think I'll make sure you're never in my way again.”

“No!” I stood up and moved to Darius's side, my heart pounding like crazy. “What the hell's happened to you, Stark?”

“I died!” he yelled, his face twisting in anger as the ghostly darkness rolled around him. Now that it was visible to me, I wondered how I could ever have missed it. Ignoring the shadowy evil, I continued to confront him.

“I know that!” I yelled. “I was there, remember?” That made him pause. The bow dipped down a little. I took that as a good sign, and went on. “You said you'd come back to Duchess and to me.”

When I said his dog's name, pain flashed across his face, and all of a sudden he looked young and vulnerable. But the expression only lasted an instant. I blinked and he was back to being dangerous and sarcastic, though his eyes had stopped glowing red.

“Yeah, I'm back. But things are different now. And bigger changes are coming.” He gave Darius a look of utter disgust. “All that old shit you believe in doesn't mean anything anymore. It makes you weak, and when you're weak you die.”

Darius shook his head. “Honoring the way of the Goddess is never weakness.”

“Yeah, well, I haven't seen much of any goddess hanging around here, have you?”

“Yes, actually I have,” I spoke up. “I've seen Nyx. She appeared right in there” —I pointed at the girls' dorm—“just a couple days ago.”

Stark looked at me silently for a long time. I searched his face, trying to find some hint of that guy I'd felt such a connection with—whom I'd kissed right before he'd died in my arms. But all I could see was an unpredictable stranger, and foremost in my mind was the knowledge that if he shot that bow he would not miss whatever he aimed at.

And suddenly that reminded me. He hadn't killed Stevie Rae. The fact that she was alive proved that he hadn't
meant
to kill her. So maybe there was some piece of the old Stark left within him.

“Stevie Rae's fine, by the way,” I said.

“That's nothing to me,” he said.

I shrugged. “Just thought you'd want to know, since it was your arrow that made her a shish kebab.”

“I was doing what I was told to do. The boss said make her bleed; I made her bleed.”

“Neferet? Is she who's controlling you?” I asked.

His eyes blazed. “No one's controlling me!”

“Your bloodlust is controlling you,” Darius said. “If you weren't under its control, you wouldn't have had to force yourself on that fledgling.”

“Yeah? Ya think so? Well, you're wrong. I happen to like my bloodlust! I liked doing whatever I want with that girl. It's time vampyres stopped slinking around. We're smarter, stronger,
better
than humans. We should be in charge, not them!”

“That fledgling isn't a human.” Darius's voice was like a naked blade, reminding me that he wasn't just a big brother–type guy; he was a Son of Erebus and one of the most powerful warriors alive.

“I was thirsty and there wasn't a human handy,” Stark said.

“Zoey, get the girl into the dorm.” Darius didn't take his eyes off Stark. “She is done serving his convenience.”

I hurried over to Becca and helped her to her feet. She was a little wobbly but able to walk. As we reached Darius, he moved forward with us, always keeping himself between us and Stark. Just as we were
passing by him, Stark spoke with an angry intensity that sent a chill down the back of my neck.

“You know, all I have to do is think about killing you and shoot this arrow. Wherever you are, you're dead.”

“If that is so, then I will be dead,” Darius said matter-of-factly. “And you will be a monster.”

“I don't mind being a monster!”

“And I don't mind dying if it is in the service of my High Priestess and, ultimately, my Goddess,” Darius said.

“If you hurt him, I'll come against you with everything I have,” I told Stark.

Stark looked at me and his lips tilted up in a ghost of that cute, cocky smile he used to have. “You're a little bit of a monster yourself, aren't ya, Zoey?”

I didn't think that nasty comment was worth a response, and obviously neither did Darius. He kept shepherding us by Stark, opening the front door of the dorm and helping Becca inside. But instead of me following her in, I paused. Intuition was telling me that there was something I had to do, and much as I'd like to ignore my intuition, I knew I shouldn't. “I'll be right in,” I told Darius. I could see that he was going to argue with me, but I shook my head and said, “Trust me. I just need a second.”

“I'll be inside the door,” Darius said, threw Stark a hard look, and then stepped into the dorm.

I faced Stark. I knew I was taking a chance with what I was going to say to him, but I kept remembering Kramisha's poem and the line that said,
“Humanity saves her / Will she save me?”
I at least had to try.

“Jack's taking care of Duchess,” I said without any preamble.

I saw that flash of pain in his eyes again, but his voice wasn't touched by it. “So?”

“So I'm just telling you that your dog's fine. She's had a pretty hard time, but she's okay.”

“I'm not who I used to be, so she's not my dog anymore.” This time
I heard a quaver in his voice, which gave me enough hope that I took a step toward him.

“Hey, the great thing about dogs is that they give unconditional love. Duch doesn't care who you are right now. She'll still love you.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” he said.

“Yeah, I do. I've spent some time with your dog. She's got a really big heart.”

“I wasn't talking about her. I was talking about me.”

“Well, I've spent some time with red fledglings, too. Not to mention that the first ever Changed red vamp is my best friend. Stevie Rae's different than she used to be, but I still love her,” I said. “Maybe if you spent some time with Stevie Rae and the rest of the red fledglings you could, I don't know,
find
yourself again. They have.” I said this with way more confidence than I felt. After all, I had glimpsed fragments of the darkness surrounding Stark down in those tunnels, around those red fledglings, but I couldn't help believing it would be best to get him away from here, where evil seemed to come and go so easily.