23
Damien
Sobbing and two sharp barks woke Damien. At first he didn’t remember where he was, and then he saw Duchess. She was on Jack’s bed. Jack’s bed? Jack’s bed! And reality chased away all vestiges of sleep.
Damien sat up straight—fully awake.
He’d fallen asleep in the chair beside Other Jack’s bed. Last Seen Leaving was open on his lap. He hardly remembered it, but he knew he hadn’t lasted long after sunrise when Jack had suddenly closed his eyes and gone completely still. As in dead still.
Duchess barked again and Damien was up and moving toward the bed before his thoughts had time to catch up with his feet.
Other Jack was crying.
No, that was wrong.
Jack was sobbing. He had his arms around Duchess’ neck and his face was buried into the soft fur of her shoulder, and he was sobbing so hard that his whole body shook.
Damien felt a rush of concern and confusion.
Could I have slept the entire day in that chair? I must have.
“Jack?” He approached the bed cautiously as Duchess whined and gave him a doggy look that clearly conveyed worry. “What’s wrong?”
Other Jack raised his head. Tears streamed down his face. “L—look at the time.”
Completely confused, Damien glanced at his watch. He blinked. And blinked again.
“That can’t be right.”
“Wh—what does it say?” Jack hiccupped between sobs.
“It says that it’s 8:25 a.m. On the morning of the twenty-fourth of December. But that can’t be right. That means sunrise was less than an hour ago, and you definitely shouldn’t be awake.”
“Not shouldn’t,” Jack sniffled. “Couldn’t.”
Damien went to the desk and grabbed the box of Kleenex, offering it to Jack. Jack blew his nose and wiped his eyes. Then he stared at the Kleenex.
“Jack? I don’t understand what’s going on.”
Jack raised his face to look at Damien, and his eyes were shining, but not with red hunger and mindless anger. Jack’s eyes were shining with joy.
“My tears. They’re not bloody. Not at all.” He held up the tissue, but Damien didn’t need to see it for proof. Clear tears tracked their way down Jack’s cheeks.
“Your tears.” Damien’s knees gave way and he sat heavily on the edge of Jack’s bed. “They’re clear. How do you feel?” he asked urgently.
Jack’s smile was innocent and sweet and full of happiness. “I feel like myself.”
“Like yourself?”
Jack nodded. “Yep! Exactly like myself. Before I rejected the Change. Before terrible, awful hunger woke me and I was a red fledgling, drafted to enter the Red Army. Damien, I feel like myself.”
“Come here,” Damien said.
Eagerly, Jack lunged across the bed and into Damien’s open arms. Their lips met and there was nothing tentative or hesitant about their kiss. It was deep and long and hot.
Damien forced himself to pull back a little. He was holding Jack against his chest and Grandma Redbird’s rope of turquoise nestled between them—pressed as firmly against Jack as was Damien.
“The turquoise isn’t burning you.” Damien felt breathless and dizzy.
“And I don’t want to bite you!” Jack touched Damien’s cheek. His hand followed a light, caressing path down the side of his neck, where it lingered for a moment, before it slid down to Damien’s chest where it rested, palm pressed against the turquoise beads. “Well,” Jack smiled with shy flirtation. “I may want to bite you, but I don’t mean to hurt you.”
“How could this be?”
“I don’t know. But I am so—”
The door slammed open and Aphrodite rushed into the room. She came to a stop beside the bed. Her Taser was in her hand, raised, and ready to shoot, but her eyes studied Damien and Jack. She lowered it.
“It really did work. Hey, Other Jack. You feeling fine?”
“I feel like myself!”
“Well, good. Excellent, actually.”
“Oh my holy shitfuck what happened to your face?” Damien shouted, almost dropping Jack off the edge of the bed.
One corner of Aphrodite’s mouth lifted. She raised her chin and shook back her uncharacteristically messy hair. “I made the Change. Times two. Oh, and Other Jack’s totally fixed. You are welcome.” And she twitched away.
Damien looked at Jack. Jack looked at Damien.
“Aphrodite is weird in any world,” Other Jack said.
“I have zero trouble believing that.” He pulled Jack into his arms. “Welcome home.”
Their lips met, and they clung to each other as if they were human lifelines. Because that was exactly what they were.
Zoey
“No, Stark, we’re getting you home. The sky is clearing. You know you can’t stay out here in the sunlight.” I turned around and stared out of the front window of the Escalade. “Ignore him and drive, Shaunee.”
“Whatever you say, High Priestess.” Shaunee gave me her version of a salute and pulled out into the snow-covered street while Stark huddled in the back seat, covered with a blanket against the sunlight that had suddenly decided to break through the low-hanging clouds and turn Tulsa into a glistening snow-globe scene. Yeah, it was beautiful. It was also deadly for red vampyres and red fledglings.
“Shaunee, go east down Fifth until you get to Detroit, then take a left. Let’s go up over the overpass and make a loop around the Brady District. They might have found places to hide around Guthrie Green.” Stark’s voice was muffled but insistent.
“Well?” Shaunee cocked a brow at me.
“I’m fine back here, and you need to look for your brother.”
“Without you frying,” I said. “Which is why we’re going back to the House of Night—right after we make that loop around the Brady District and Guthrie Green. But I’m doing the looking. Shaunee is doing the driving. And you keep your head covered.”
“Deal,” Stark said. “Hey, can you think of anywhere your brother would go? Any place that’s special to him downtown?”
“No! I don’t know him that well!” Then I drew a deep breath and started again. “Sorry. I don’t mean to seem so crazy, but I’m—um—I’m pretty freaked out right now.”
“When’s the last time you talked to your brother?” Shaunee asked.
“The day I was Marked. I have a sister, too. Her name’s Barbara, but I like to call her Barbie. She’s a freshman at OSU—majoring in beer, cheerleading, and hot guys. Kevin is a sophomore this year at Broken Arrow. He’s doing okay, but his teachers say his grades aren’t great.”
No one said anything. I sighed again. “What? Just because we don’t talk doesn’t mean I don’t check up on them. Since Mom died I wanted to be sure they were okay. They are. The step-loser adopted Kevin. He didn’t adopt Barbie, but she’s over eighteen, so whatever.”
“You didn’t call them or anything?” Shaunee asked—not unkindly.
“I didn’t know what to say. And the step-loser is a problem. He hated me. Well, hates me. I’m sure it’s a present-tense thing. I didn’t want any of that to rub off on them, plus Barbie has never wanted much to do with me. She was always perfect. She looked way more like Mom than Kev and me.” I paused, thinking about what I really meant. We all had the same bio-dad, but Barbie looked super white—she was even blond without too much help from her colorist at Ihloff Salon. Kevin and I looked like Grandma. We were brown—brown hair, brown eyes, brownish skin. I shrugged. “I thought I was helping them by staying away. And most fledglings and vamps break from their human families. If not when they’re Marked, when they Change.” I squinted out at the uber-bright snowy morning, trying to catch a glimpse of something—anything—that might be Other Kevin.
“Hey, I’m not judging,” Shaunee said. “My family totally has nothing to do with me. When I got Marked they basically dumped me.”
“Mine, too,” Stark said. “Z, we didn’t mean to come down on you. We’re just trying to help.”
“I know, I know. I was just so shocked. Am just so shocked. I mean—Kevin. My annoying little brother who is totally into video games and smells like a teenage boy.”
“Eww,” Shaunee said.
“Yeah, he was that little brother. But now he’s a killer red vampyre who can spread a zombie plague throughout Tulsa. I just … I just … I just have no words.”
“We’ll help, Z. Your Nerd Herd is all in one place again. We’ll handle this. You’ll handle this,” Stark said.
I had no clue why his vote of confidence made my stomach hurt.
“This is a lot of snow. I’m glad you put chains on these tires,” Shaunee said as she expertly steered us out of a nasty slide.
“Hey, you are good at snow driving,” I said.
“Yep. I learned in Connecticut. Twenty inches of snow in a winter is considered mild.”
“Slow down!” I said. “I think I saw something over there by the Brady Theater.”
Shaunee braked and made a left turn the wrong way down a one-way street which was, thankfully, deserted. The Escalade barely crawled as we circled around the Brady Theater block.
“No, it was just that banner from Mexicali Grill flapping all weird in the wind,” I said. “Maybe we should go inside the Brady, though, just in case.”
“No,” Stark said firmly. “Zoey, I’m your Warrior. You need to listen to me. It is not safe for the three of us to go into the Brady. Call Marx. Tell him you think you saw something. He’ll be here with backup to check it out.”
“You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just so bizarre. It’s Kevin.”
“Yes. And Damien thought Other Jack was just Jack. If we hadn’t been looking out for him, what would have happened?” Stark said.
“Other Jack would have eaten him,” I said miserably. “Okay, I’m calling Marx. Keep driving, Shaunee. Circle around by the west edge of the railroad tracks. There are some overpasses there. They could be hiding under them.”
“Okie dokie,” Shaunee said.
I reached for the portable radio Marx had given us because the damn cell towers were still down—and my cell phone scared the crap out of me by exploding in vibrations and my “Eye of the Tiger” ringtone. I snatched it out of the side pocket of my coat.
“Hello.”
“Zoey—Marx. The fledglings are awake.”
“What? You mean fledglings at the House of Night?” Marx had agreed to escort the bus filled with the unconscious red fledglings to school, which is—sadly—where they had to be taken since the depot was still a crime zone, meaning the tunnels were off-limits.
“No. The ones in the bus. We’re not at the school yet. What the hell’s going on?” Marx said.
I looked at the face of my phone. It was 8:25 a.m. “I have no idea, but we’ll meet you at the House of Night. Be sure you keep those fledglings covered and pull into the entrance by the Field House—the one that’s covered. Cell service is obviously back, so I’ll call the school and be sure they know you’re coming in with red fledglings. Oh, and I might have seen something by the Brady Theater. Could you send some cops to check it out?”
“Will do.” He hung up without another word.
“Shaunee, we need to—”
“Already heading back,” she said. “Hang on.”
“What was that about?” Stark asked.
“The red fledglings are awake,” I said as I scrolled through my recent calls to find Lenobia’s number, but before I could punch it, my phone rang again. The caller ID said aphrodite. I stifled a sigh and answered. “Aphrodite, I don’t have time for this right now.”
“I’m sorry I was an awful bitch,” she said.
“Oh. That’s okay. Apology accepted.”
“No, it’s not okay, but I’m working on it. And you need to get back here.”
“You sound sober.”
“That’s because I am sober. And there’s something you need to see. Well, you need to know about it, too, but seeing it’s important. Or at least I think it is. It really is beautiful, though I don’t know why I’d expect anything less—what with Nyx doing it and all.”
“You’re babbling. Are you sure you’re sober?”
“Positive.”
“Okay, I’m on my way back. But Marx and a big TPD mobile prison van thing they call a bus is going to beat me there. It’s supposed to be filled with passed-out red fledglings from the other world, but—”
“But they’re awake,” she said.
“How did you know that?”
“Come home and see for yourself. I’ll tuck the fledglings in. Bye.”
“Bye,” I said, staring at the phone.
“Now what?” Stark asked.
“Aphrodite is sober. And she apologized to me for being a bitch.”
“Are you sure you weren’t talking to Other Aphrodite?” Shaunee said.
“I didn’t see any other Aphrodite come through the fountain thing,” I said.
“Well, neither did I, but apologizing for being a bitch doesn’t sound like our Aphrodite.”
“And yet she just did. She also knew the fledglings were awake. She said I need to see something. Or know about something. Or both, I guess. She’s confusing me. Hell, this entire day is confusing me.”
“Let’s get home,” Stark said, and Shaunee floored it.