Hunted

The dream began with the sound of wings. I was in a moonlit meadow, wearing a white buckskin dress, when he appeared from the shadows of the trees. It was Kalona. I'd known it from the first words he spoke, though I'd tried to deny it. His body was a naked, shifting mist, and behind him, his children, the Raven Mockers, clung to the branches with the hands of men and stared from the mutated faces of birds. “Do you still claim not to know me?” he asked, his voice a liquid caress that was both awful and wonderful. His massive dark wings stirred and enfolded me in a spectral embrace, cold as frost. The chill burned my skin, sending electric currents through me, heating me with a desire I was powerless to resist. “Surrender to me,” he whispered. “Be my love, truly, in body as well as soul and I will give you the world!” But when I spoke my Goddess's name, the nightmare shattered, and I woke shaking in the hidden tunnels beneath Tulsa, knowing he could reach me even here.

Sleep became a thing to be feared. Instead, I focused on the waking nightmare we'd escaped into. My best friend, Stevie Rae, lay beside me, an arrow wound still weeping through her bandages. We were a small band of refugees, huddled in the earth: my friends Damien, Jack, and the Twins, Erin and Shaunee; the warrior Darius, sworn to protect us; and Aphrodite, the ex-fledgling prophetess who was, impossibly, becoming a friend. The arrow had to come out. While Darius worked, his voice all business, Aphrodite held Stevie Rae's arms. “Try not to flail too much,” she told her. A swift, awful-sounding jerk, and Stevie Rae screamed. So did I. She was fading, her skin turning transparent before our eyes. She needed blood, human blood. Aphrodite, sighing that being a good guy “really, really sucks,” offered her wrist. As Stevie Rae drank, a feral stranger looked out from her eyes, and a bond was forged between them, an Imprint that left them both shaken and inexplicably linked.

We were not alone in the tunnels. Stevie Rae had her own flock: the red fledglings, kids who had died and un-died, now restored to a semblance of humanity. They were led by a sleek, cold blonde named Venus, who looked at my boyfriend - my ex-boyfriend - Erik Night with too much interest. There was an uneasy truce between our groups, a tension that was only broken by the emergence of a strange and powerful gift. A girl named Kramisha, with orange-streaked hair and a sharp tongue, had been writing poetry. But it wasn't just poetry. It was prophecy, whispered in verse. *Shadows in shadows / He watches through dreams / Wings black as Africa… The ravens call.* She was channeling Kalona, giving us glimpses into the darkness that was gathering above. Nyx had not abandoned us; she was speaking through the most unlikely of voices.

The world outside our earthen sanctuary was fracturing. A vicious ice storm paralyzed Tulsa, and news reports spoke of a new gang, the “Mockers,” leaving a trail of blood through midtown. We knew the truth. The Raven Mockers were tasting their new bodies. Then a text message arrived from Neferet, a school-wide broadcast ordering all fledglings to return to the House of Night. It was a trap, but it was one we couldn't ignore forever. My own world felt just as fractured. Erik and I found our way back to each other, but his touch had changed. He was a full vampyre now, and his kiss was no longer just sweet, but demanding, possessive. “I couldn't be fooled by Neferet or hypnotized by Kalona because I'm already a fool for you,” he'd said, but his passion felt like a cage closing around me. Then, like a ghost from my human past, Heath appeared at the depot entrance, his jaw set, ready to fight for me.

His arrival was a catalyst. We were arguing outside the depot, the freezing rain slicking the pavement, when I felt it - a presence in the skeletal branches of an old oak tree. At first, it was the spectral image of Neferet, her eyes blazing crimson, spiders pouring from her smiling mouth. Then the vision dissolved, and a Raven Mocker took her place, its human eyes glowing with malevolence. “Zzzzzoey?” it hissed. “My father will be very pleassssssed when I presssssent you to him.” Before I could react, Heath had his father's gun out. “I'll have to say ‘hell no' to that little messed-up plan of yours,” he yelled. The creature moved with impossible speed, dodging the bullet. It was aiming for Heath, but I threw myself in front of him, taking the blow. A strange pressure sliced across my chest, and the world began to sound very far away as the icy ground turned red around me.

I was dying. I could feel my life seeping away, a warmth draining into the cold earth. Heath's blood, offered in desperation, was an explosion of life inside me. As I drank from him, our Imprint flared back into existence, a bond of blood and soul I thought had been broken forever. It saved me, but it wasn't enough. “You will begin rejecting the Change,” Darius warned, his face grim. “You need to be around adult vampyres.” There was only one choice. We had to go back to the House of Night. The school was a frozen, enchanted castle, lit by flickering flames against the ice. Kalona and Neferet met us in the infirmary hall. He was younger now, beautiful as a dark dawn, and the pull I felt toward him was a physical ache. He took me from Darius's arms, his touch a wonderful, painful chill against my skin. “Remember, my little A-ya,” he whispered against my lips, “not even the power of your elements can keep me from claiming what will eventually be mine again.”

Trapped in the enemy's camp, we found allies in the shadows. The cats of the House of Night, who despised the Raven Mockers, led us to them. Dragon Lankford, our fencing master; Anastasia, his wife and our spells professor; and Lenobia, the Horse Mistress - their cats had gathered in my room, a silent signal. They, too, saw through Kalona's glamour. With their help, we pieced together Kramisha's prophecy. To make Kalona flee, we needed a joining of five at a place of power: Night, Spirit, Blood, Humanity, and Earth. I was Night. Stevie Rae, Blood. Aphrodite, Humanity. My grandma, still recovering under the care of the Benedictine nuns, was Earth. And Spirit was the head nun herself, Sister Mary Angela. The place of power wasn't at the House of Night, but at the abbey, in a grotto dedicated to Mary.

While we planned our escape, I felt a pull toward another lost soul. Stark, the undead archer, was trapped in a battle for his own humanity. “Promise me if I become a real monster like them, you'll burn me up,” he pleaded. Instead, I saw the good still fighting within him. He knelt before me and pledged himself my Warrior. In that moment of choice, the Change took him, and the scarlet tattoos of a red vampyre bloomed across his face. He was no longer a monster in the making, but a warrior reborn, bound to me and to the Goddess. He was my secret hope, a blade sharpened in the darkness, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Under the cover of the raging ice storm, we made our escape. Lenobia devised a brilliant diversion - a fire in the stables, a stampede of terrified horses. We rode three mares, their hooves heated by Shaunee's fire, hissing across the ice-slicked streets of Tulsa. Raven Mockers fell from the sky, but we galloped on, a desperate, mythical flight through a frozen world. We reached the abbey just as Kalona and Neferet arrived, Stark driving their Hummer. But this time, we were ready. In the candlelit grotto, the five of us joined hands: a fledgling priestess, a red vampyre, a human prophetess, a Cherokee wise woman, and a Catholic nun. We didn't meet his darkness with more darkness. As Kalona and Neferet advanced, my grandma's voice rang out, strong and clear, offering not a curse, but an ancient Cherokee blessing. “May the warm winds of Heaven blow softly on your home…” Our voices joined hers, a chorus of love and light that Kalona could not bear. With an agonized cry, he gathered Neferet in his arms and fled into the night.

In the sudden, quiet peace, I looked up. The clouds had vanished, and a brilliant crescent moon burned in the sky. Stark lay on the ground, a raw, bloody brand of a broken arrow over his heart, but he was alive. As I knelt beside him, I felt a familiar burning spread across my own chest. I knew a new Mark from my Goddess was tracing its way over the terrible scar that now stretched from shoulder to shoulder, a permanent reminder of the battle. Sister Mary Angela stood beside me, her gaze on the sky. “It isn't finished with him or with her yet, you know,” she said softly. I knew she was right. But for now, we were safe. And whatever came next, my Goddess and my friends would be with me.