P.C. Cast - Hunted

I swear my retinas started to burn with the heat of the scene.

“Book porn. I like it,” Erik said from over my shoulder.

“Um, they some of my research.” Kramisha quickly plucked the book from my fingers, shooting Erik a smooth look. “And from what I seen out there, you don’t need no help.”

I felt my face get hot again and sighed.

“Hey, cool poetry,” I heard Jack say. Glad for the distraction, I looked up to see Jack pointing at several posters neatly hot-glued to Kramisha’s green walls. They were filled with poetry, all written in the same curling script in different colors of fluorescent Magic Markers.

“You like it?” Kramisha said.

“Yeah, it’s great. I really like poetry,” Jack said.

“They mine. I wrote ’em,” Kramisha said.

“Are you kidding? Man, I thought they were from a book or something. You’re really good,” Jack said.

“Thanks, I told you I’m gonna be an author. A famous, rich one with major gold card power.”

I vaguely heard Erik join the discussion. All of my attention had become focused on one short poem that was written in black on a blood-red poster. “You wrote that one, too?” I asked, not caring that I was interrupting their discussion of whether they liked Robert Frost better than Emily Dickinson.

“I wrote all a’ them,” she said. “I always did like writin’, but since I was Marked I been doing it more and more. They just come to me. I been hopin’ I can write more than poems. I like ’em and all, but poets, they don’t make no money. See, I researched careers at Central Library, too, ’cause, you know, it stay open late. Anyhow, them poets don’t make—”

“Kramisha”—I cut her off—“when did you write that one?” My stomach felt funny and my mouth had gone dry.

“I wrote all them in the past few days. You know, since Stevie Rae got us our sense back. Before that I didn’t think much ’bout anything ’cept eatin’ humans.” She smiled apologetically and lifted one shoulder.

“So you wrote that one—the one in black—in the past couple of days?” I pointed at the poem.

Shadows in shadows

He watches through

dreams

Wings black as Africa

Body strong as stone

Done waiting

The ravens call.

Jack gasped as he read it for the first time.

“Oh, Goddess!” I heard Erik say under his breath as he, too, read the poem.

“That’s easy. It’s the last one I wrote—just yesterday. I was…” Her words ran out as she understood our reactions. “Shit! It’s ’bout him!”

“What made you write it?” I asked, still staring at the black words.

Kramisha had sat down heavily on her bed, all of a sudden looking almost as exhausted as Stevie Rae. She was shaking her head back and forth, back and forth, making her orange and black hair dance against her smooth cheeks. “It just come to me, like all the stuff I write do. Things just come into my head, and then I write it down.”

“What did you think it meant?” Jack asked, patting her arm gently, a lot like he patted Duchess (she was curled up by his feet).

“I didn’t really think ’bout it. It come to me. I write it. That’s all.” She paused, glanced up at the poster board, and then looked quickly away, as if what she saw scared her.

“Are these all poems you’ve written in the days since Stevie Rae Changed?” I shifted my attention to the other poems. There were several haiku.

Eyes watching always

Shadows in shadows they wait

A black feather falls

First accepted, loved

Then betrayed—spit in the face

Vengeance sweet like dots

“Sweet, blessed Nyx.” Erik’s shocked voice came from behind me, kept low for my ears alone to hear. “They’re all about him.”

“What does ‘sweet like dots’ mean?” Jack was asking Kramisha.

“You know—dippin’ dots. I love me some dippin’ dots,” she said.

Erik and I moved around Kramisha’s room. The more I read, the tighter the knot my stomach curled into.

They done

Wrong

Like ink from a busted pen

Thrown away ’cause of someone else

Used up

But he come back

Dressed in night

Fine as a king

With his queen

The wrong

Made right

So right

“Kramisha, what were you thinking about when you wrote this one?” I asked her, pointing at the last one I’d read.

She shrugged that one shoulder again. “I guess I thought ’bout how we out of the House of Night, but we shouldn’t be. I mean, I know it’s best for us underground, but it just don’t feel right that only Neferet know about us. She a wrong kind of High Priestess.”

“Kramisha, would you do me a favor and copy down all of these poems?”

“You think I messed up, don’t you?”

“No. I do not think you messed up,” I assured her, hoping I was being guided correctly by my instincts and wasn’t just chasing bats in the darkness again. “I think you’ve been given a gift from Nyx. I just want to be sure we use your gift in the right way.”

“I think she’s Vamp Poet Laureate material, and a major improvement over our last one,” Erik said.

I looked up at him sharply, and he shrugged and grinned. “It was just a thought, that’s all.”

Okay, even though it made me uncomfortable to think about Loren, especially when Erik had been the one to bring him up, I felt the rightness of what he was saying down deep in my gut, which said more about Kramisha’s true nature than my exhausted guessing and my apparently overactive imagination were telling me. Nyx obviously had her hand on this kid. What the hell. I’m the only High Priestess we have. I can make a proclamation. “Kramisha, I’m going to make you our first Poet Laureate.”

“Whaaaaat?! Are you kiddin’? You kiddin’, ain’t ya?”

“I’m not kidding. We’re a new kind of vamp group. We’re a civilized new kind of vamp group, and that means we need a Poet Laureate. You’re it.”

“Um, I agree and everything with you, Z, but doesn’t the council have to vote on a new Poet Laureate?” Jack said.

“Yep, and I have my Council down here with me.” I realized Jack had been talking about the Council of Nyx, the one Shekinah had been head of that ruled all vampyres. But I had a Council also, a Prefect Council, acknowledged by the school, made up of me, Erik, the Twins, Damien, Aphrodite, and Stevie Rae.

“Kramisha has my vote,” Erik said.

“See, it’s practically official,” I said.

“Yea!” Jack cheered.

“It’s a crazy idea, but I like it.” Kramisha beamed.

“So, write those poems down for me before you go to sleep, ’kay?”

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Come on, Jack. Our Poet Laureate needs to get her sleep,” Erik said. “Hey, congratulations, Kramisha.”

“Yeah, big congrats!” Jack said, giving Kramisha a hug.

“Y’all go on now. I got work to do. Then I gotta get my rest. A Poet Laureate do have to look her best,” Kramisha said primly, finishing up with a couplet.

Erik and I followed Jack and Duchess out of Kramisha’s room and down the tunnel.

“Was that poem really about Kalona?” Jack said.

“I think they all were,” I said. “Do you?” I asked Erik.

He nodded grimly.

“Ohmigod! What’s that mean?” Jack said.

“I don’t have a clue. Nyx is at work, though. I can feel it. The prophecy came to us in poem form. Now this? It can’t be a coincidence.”