P.C. Cast - Hidden

Neferet was almost amused by the old woman’s insolence. “I made no oath to you.”

“You did. You promised to mentor and protect Zoey. Then you broke that oath. You owe me the price of that broken oath.”

“Old woman, I am an immortal. I am not bound by the same rules as you are,” Neferet scoffed.

“Immortal you may have become. That does not change the Earth Mother’s laws.”

“Perhaps not, but it does change how they are enforced,” Neferet said.

“An oath-breaking is only one of the debts you owe me, witch,” Sylvia said.

“I am a goddess, not a witch!” Neferet felt her anger rise and she began moving slowly closer to the porch. The tendrils of Darkness slithered with her, though Neferet sensed their hesitation as wisps of white smoke drifted down, seeming to melt around them.

Sylvia continued dancing and waving the wand around her. “The second debt you owe me is greater than an oath-breaking. You owe me a life debt. You killed my daughter.”

“I sacrificed your daughter for a greater good. I owe you nothing!”

The old woman paid no attention to her. Instead she paused in her dance long enough to bend and place the smoking herbs at her feet. Then she lifted her face and opened her arms, as if embracing the sky. “Great Earth Mother, hear me. I am Sylvia Redbird, Wise Woman of the Cherokee, and Ghigua of my tribe, that of the House of Night. I beg mercy from you. The Tsi Sgili, Neferet, who was once a High Priestess of Nyx, is forsworn. She owes me an oath-breaking debt. She is also the murderess of my daughter. She owes me a life debt. I invoke your aid, Earth Mother, and call both debts due. The payment I demand is protection.”

Ignoring the tendrils of Darkness that were cowering around her, Neferet approached Sylvia, climbing the steps up to her porch as she spoke. “You are vastly mistaken, old woman. I am the only goddess listening. I am the immortal to whom you should be begging protection.”

Neferet stepped onto the smoke-filled porch when Sylvia spoke again. The old woman’s voice had changed. Before it had been powerful as she evoked the one she called Earth Mother. Now her voice had gentled, become softer. Her arms were no longer spread. Her face no longer raised in supplication. Instead her dark eyes met Neferet’s gaze steadily. “You are no goddess. You are a mean-spirited, broken little girl. I pity you. What happened to you? Who broke you, child?”

Neferet’s anger was so intense that she felt as if she would explode. Threads of Darkness forgotten, she struck out at Sylvia, wanting to connect flesh with flesh—to gouge and cut and bite this insolent hag.

With a movement so quick it belied her age, Sylvia lifted her arms defensively before her face, meeting Neferet’s blows.

Pain burned through the Tsi Sgili’s body, radiating from her hands. Neferet shrieked and jerked back, staring at the bloody marks left on her fists, burned in the exact shape of the blue stones in the bracelets that circled her withered arms.

“You dare to strike out at me! A goddess!”

“I strike at no one. I only defend myself through the stones of protection the Great Mother has gifted me with.” Never breaking her gaze, and keeping her turquoise and silver swathed arms raised, the old woman began singing again.

Neferet wanted to tear her to shreds with her hands. But as she circled closer to the Cherokee she could feel the wave of heat that radiated from the blue stones in which she was covered. It was as if they pulsed with a fire equal to her own fury.

She needed the white bull! His frigid Darkness would extinguish the old woman’s flames. Perhaps the odd energy she wielded would surprise him, and he would, again, lend Neferet his alluring might.

Controlling her anger, Neferet stepped back, outside the ring of smoke and heat that engulfed Sylvia. She studied the old woman, watched her dance, listened to her song. Old. Ancient. Everything about Sylvia Redbird said she, and the earth power she was wielding, had been here for a very long time.

The white bull was ancient as well.

This Indian would not surprise him.

“I will deal with you myself.” Still meeting Sylvia Redbird’s gaze, Neferet lifted her hands and, without so much as flinching, used her sharpened fingernails to gouge the wounds already formed by the old woman’s protective turquoise. Her blood flowed freely, spattering the porch. Neferet shook her hands, raining scarlet through the smoke cloud, dispersing it, and painting the old woman with bright dots of red, which were a garish, stark contrast to the earthy greens and blues she wore. Then Neferet turned her hands, cupping her palms and letting her blood pool there. “Come, my Dark children, drink!” The tendrils were hesitant at first, but after the first taste of Neferet’s blood, they were emboldened.

Neferet watched Sylvia’s eyes widen and saw fear shadow them. The old woman’s gaze did not waver, but her song faltered. Her voice began sounding old … weak … tremulous …

“Now, children! You have tasted my blood and Sylvia Redbird has been anointed by it. Entrap her—bring me the old woman!” Neferet’s voice changed, and became rhythmic. Darkly she mirrored Sylvia’s earthy war song.

“You need not kill.

You need only sate my rage.

You drank your fill.

Now create for me a cage.

I’ll make old new.

You’ll feast on youth, vibrant, strong.

To me be true.

And kill this old woman’s song!”

The tendrils obeyed Neferet. They avoided the old woman’s turquoise stones. They wrapped around her naked, unadorned feet, halting her rhythmic dance. Like the floor of a jail cell, Darkness formed from her feet, spreading, and then growing up and up and up, caging Sylvia, and finally, finally her song was silenced, replaced by an agonized scream as they lifted her and, moving through shadow and mist, carrying the terrible cage and its prisoner, Darkness followed their mistress.

Aurox

Aurox waited until the sun was high in the winter sky before he climbed from the pit again. The morning had dawned cloudy and gray, but as the endless hours passed the winter sun had broken through the mist and shadows. At noon, when the sun was highest in the sky, Aurox emerged.

He did not allow the sense of urgency that skittered under his skin to make him careless. Aurox used the sinuous muscles of his arms to hold firm to the roots and hang, partially belowground, partially aboveground. He used all of his paranormal senses to seek. I must get away without being seen, was foremost in his mind.

The school was not as silent as it had been the day before. Human workmen were busily repairing the damaged section of the stables. Aurox saw no vampyres, but the human cowboy, Travis, seemed to be everywhere. Yes, his hands and forearms were still swathed in white gauze bandages, but his voice was so strong that it drifted across the school grounds to Aurox. Lenobia did not show herself in the noonday sun, but she did not need to. Travis was there for her, and not simply with the workmen. The cowboy interacted freely with the horses. Aurox watched him move the huge Percheron and Lenobia’s black mare from one makeshift round pen to another.

He does not merely work for Lenobia. She trusts him. The realization surprised Aurox. If a High Priestess can trust a human so much in times of stress and tumult, perhaps there is a chance that Zoey can—

No. Aurox would not allow himself to indulge in such a fantasy. He’d heard what he was. Zoey had heard what he was. They all had! He had been formed by Darkness through the lifeblood of Zoey’s mother. He was beyond her trust or her forgiveness.