P.C. Cast - Burned

“No, turning their back on life killed them,” Darius corrected.

Stark turned to him. “Wouldn’t you? If Aphrodite died because you couldn’t protect her, wouldn’t you choose death rather than live life without her?”

Aphrodite didn’t give Darius a chance to answer. “I would be super pissed if he died! That’s what I was trying to tell you upstairs. You can’t keep looking behind you—not at Zoey, not at the past, not even back to your Oath. You have to go forward and find a new way of living, a new way of protecting her.”

“Then tell me something, anything that you found in all these damn books that can help me instead of just showing me how other Warriors failed.”

“I’ll tell you something I didn’t read in a book. Stevie Rae accidentally evoked the white bull last night.”

“Darkness! A fledgling called Darkness into this world?” Thanatos looked like Aphrodite had just exploded a bomb in the middle of the room.

“She’s not a fledgling. She’s like Stark, a red vampyre, but yes. She did. In Tulsa. It was an accident.” Ignoring Thanatos’s shocked stare, Aphrodite pulled a slip of paper from her pocket, and read: “The bull said: ‘The Warrior must look to his blood to discover the bridge to enter the Isle of Women, and then he must defeat himself to enter the arena. Only by acknowledging one before the other will he join his Priestess. After he joins her, it is her choice and not his whether she returns.’ ” Aphrodite looked up. “Anyone have a clue what that might mean?” She waved the paper around, and Damien took it, already rereading as Jack peeked over his shoulder.

“What price did Darkness exact for such knowledge?” Thanatos asked. Her face had gone absolutely white. “And how did she survive the payment of it without losing her mind or her soul?”

“That’s what I wondered myself, especially after Stevie Rae told me how bad the white bull was. She said she didn’t think anything could defeat it except for the black bull, which was how she got away from it.”

“She evoked the black bull, too?” Thanatos said. “That is almost unbelievable.”

“Stevie Rae has some mad earth skillz,” Jack said.

“Yeah, that’s how she said she got the good bull to Tulsa. She drew power from the earth to call it,” Aphrodite said.

“And you trust this Stevie Rae vampyre?”

Aphrodite hesitated. “Most of the time.”

Stark expected at least one of the kids to jump in and correct Aphrodite, but they all stayed quiet until Damien said, “Why do you ask about trusting Stevie Rae?”

“Because of the few things I know about the ancient beliefs of Light and Darkness symbolized in the bulls, one is that they always exact a price for their favors. Always. Answering Stevie Rae’s question was a favor from Darkness.”

“But she called up the good bull and it kicked the bad bull’s butt. That kept Stevie Rae from paying a price to him,” Jack said.

“So she then owed payment to the black bull,” Thanatos said.

Aphrodite’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what she was talking about when she said she wouldn’t ever evoke either of the bulls again because the price was too high.”

“I think you should look to your friend and discover what payment she rendered the black bull,” Thanatos said.

“And why she wouldn’t tell me about it,” Aphrodite added.

Thanatos’s eyes looked old and sad as she said, “Just remember, there are consequences for everything, whether good or bad.”

“Can we stop looking back at what has happened with Stevie Rae?” Stark said. “I need to move forward. To Skye and a bridge of blood. So let’s get going.”

“Whoa, big boy,” Aphrodite told him. “Settle for a second. You can’t just show up on the Isle of Women and bumble around looking for a bloody bridge. Sgiach’s protective spell will kick your butt—as in kill you dead.”

“I don’t think Stark’s supposed to be looking for something literal,” said Damien, studying Aphrodite’s note again. “It says to look to your blood to discover the bridge, not look for a blood bridge.”

“Ugh, metaphor. Just one more reason I seriously hate poetry,” Aphrodite said.

“I’m good at metaphors,” Jack said. “Let me see.” Damien handed him the paper. Jack chewed his lip while he read the line again. “Hmm, if you were Imprinted with someone, I’d say it meant that we should talk to whoever that is, and maybe they’d know something.”

“I’m not Imprinted with anyone,” Stark said, starting to pace again.

“So that might mean that we need to look at who you are—that there’s something about you that’s a key to getting onto Sgiach’s island,” Damien said.

“I don’t know anything! That’s the problem!”

“Okay—okay, how about we look at the notes we made about Sgiach to see if there’s something there that rings a bell with you,” Jack said, making consolatory motions at Stark.

“Yeah, chill out,” Shaunee said.

“Take a seat and have a sandwich.” Erin gestured to the end of their bench with the sandwich she’d begun munching on.

“Eat,” Thanatos said, taking a sandwich and sitting beside Jack. “Focus on life.”

Stark suppressed a frustrated growl, grabbed a sandwich, and sat.

“Oh, pull out that chart we made,” Jack said, peeking over Damien’s shoulder as he flipped through the notes he’d made. “Some of this stuff gets confusing, and visual aids always help.”

“Good idea—here it is.” Damien ripped out a piece of paper from the yellow legal pad he’d almost filled with notes. At the top of it he’d drawn a big, open umbrella. On one side of the umbrella he’d written LIGHT and on the opposite side, DARKNESS.

“The umbrella of Light and Darkness is a good image,” Thanatos said. “It shows that the two forces are all-encompassing.”

“That was my idea,” Jack said, turning a little pink.

Damien smiled at him. “Well done, you.” Then he pointed at the column beneath Light. “So under the force of Light I’ve listed: good, the black bull, Nyx, Zoey, and us.” He paused, and everyone nodded. “And under Darkness I have: evil, the white bull, Neferet/Tsi Sgili, Kalona, and Raven Mockers.”

“I see you have Sgiach placed in the middle,” Thanatos said.

“Yeah, along with onion rings, Hostess Ding Dongs, and my name ,” Aphrodite said. “Just what the hell does that mean?”

“Well, I don’t think we’ve decided if Sgiach is a force for Light or Darkness,” Damien said.

“I added the onion rings and Ding Dongs,” Jack said. When everyone just stared at him, he shrugged and explained, “Onion rings are deep-fried and fattening, but an onion is a vegetable. So aren’t they good for you? Maybe? And, well, Ding Dongs are chocolate, but they have cream in the middle. Isn’t that dairy and healthy?”

“I think you’re brain-damaged,” Aphrodite said.

“We added your name,” Erin said.

“Yeah, ’cause we think you’re like Rachel on Glee ,” Shaunee said. “Super annoying, but she has to be in the show ’cause sometimes she comes up with good stuff and kinda sorta saves the day.”

“But we think she’s still a hag from hell. Like you,” Erin finished, giving Aphrodite a sugary smile.”

“ Anyway ”—Damien quickly erased onion rings, Ding Dongs, and Aphrodite’s name, put the chart in the middle of the table, and then went back to the yellow pad—“here’s some info we found about Sgiach,” Damien said, scanning through the notes he’d made. “She is considered a queen of Warriors. Lots of Warriors used to train on her island, so a bunch of Sons of Erebus came and went, but the Warriors who stayed with her, the ones sworn to her service—”