Kalona

"What did you just say to me?" Kalona bell owed at the Raven Mocker, who cringed away from him.

"Rephaim issss a human boy," Nisroc repeated. His less-evolved brother, the one who had escaped the changeling creature's wrath, moved restlessly, backing up behind him.

Kalona paced around the clearing between the hunting blinds. It wasn't yet dawn, but the other Raven Mockers, the ones who had returned from searching out their brothers from the Oklahoma countryside, were already huddled inside the tree houses, hiding, escaping, cringing away from the possibility of prying eyes. He'd stood out there, watching each of them return, looking for something that he was loath to admit to himself. He'd been looking for humanity-for a son to talk with, to share with, to plan with. But all he'd been met by were sniveling, cringing beasts. Rephaim was the most human of all of them, Kalona had been thinking, for what seemed like the thousandth time, when Nisroc had landed in the clearing minus one son and with unbelievable news of another.

Kalona rounded on Nisroc. "Rephaim cannot have a human form. It is impossible! He is a Raven Mocker, as are you, as are your brothers."

"The Goddessss," Nisroc hissed. "Ssshe changed him."

An odd, bittersweet feeling came over Kalona. Nyx had changed his son from beast to human-gifted him with the form of a boy.

She'd forgiven Rephaim? How could that be?

Almost at a loss for words, the immortal blurted, "You spoke to Rephaim?"

Nisroc bobbed his enormous raven's head up and down. "Yessss."

"He actually said he is in Nyx's service?"

"Yessss." Nisroc bowed to him, but his eyes were bright and sly. "For you he refused to sssspy." Kalona gave him a sharp look and then glanced at the battered Raven Mocker who stood innocuously behind him, suddenly realizing there was only one brother when there should have been two.

"Where is-" Kalona had to pause to remember which of his sons was missing. "Maion? Why did he not return with you?"

"Dead." Nisroc pronounced the world flatly, with no emotion.

"Rephaim killed him?" Kalona's voice was as cold as his heart.

"No. The creature. Killed him it did."

"What creature? Speak clearly!"

"The Tsi Sgili's creature."

"A vampyre?"

"No. First human, then bull."

Kalona's body jerked in surprise. "Are you quite sure? The creature took on the form of a bull?"

"Yesss."

"Did Rephaim join with it to attack you?"

"No."

"He fought beside you against it?"

"No. Nothinng he did," Nisroc said.

Kalona's jaw clenched and unclenched. "Then what stopped the beast?

"The Red One."

"Then did she and Neferet battle?" Kalona snapped the questions, silently cursing himself for sending lesser beings to witness what he should have seen.

"No. No battle happened. We flew."

"Yet you say the bull was Neferet's creature."

"Yesss."

"Then it is true. Neferet has given herself over to the white bull." Kalona paced again. "She has no idea of the forces she is awakening. The white bull is Darkness in its purest, most powerful form." Somewhere deep within Kalona something stirred, something that had not surfaced since he'd fall en. For a brief moment, just the length of a heartbeat, the ancient Warrior of the Goddess of Night, the winged immortal who had defended his Goddess against the onslaught of Darkness for uncounted centuries, had an automatic desire to go to Nyx-to warn her-to protect her.

Kalona shook off the ridiculous impulse almost as quickly as he'd felt it. He began pacing again. Thinking aloud he mused, "So Neferet has an ally that ties her to the white bull, but she must be disguising him as something else to the House of Night, or you would have seen at least the beginnings of a major battle."

"Yessss, her creature."

Kalona ignored Nisroc's repetitive comments and kept reasoning aloud. "Rephaim has entered the service of Nyx. She has gifted him with a human form." His jaw clenched and unclenched. He felt doubly betrayed-by his son and by the Goddess. He'd asked, practically begged Nyx to forgive him. And what had her answer been? "If you are ever worthy of forgiving, you may ask it of me. Not until then." The memory of his sojourn in the Otherworld and his glimpse of the Goddess caused a terrible ache in his heart. Instead of feeling it-thinking of it-acting on it-Kalona opened the gates to the anger that always boiled just below the levees in his soul. As anger flooded through him it washed away any other gentler, more honest, feelings.

"My son needs to learn a lesson about loyalty," Kalona said.

"Loyal I am!" Nisroc cried.

Kalona's lip curled up contemptuously. "I don't speak of you. I speak of Rephaim."

"Sssspy Rephaim will not," Nisroc repeated.

Kalona cuffed him and the Raven Mocker stumbled back against his brother. "Rephaim has done much more than spy for me in the past. He has been a second pair of fists, a second pair of eyes, almost an extension of me. It is habit that has me searching the sky for him. I am finding habit is a hard thing to break. Perhaps Rephaim is finding it difficult as well." The winged immortal turned his back on his sons and stared off to the east, over the wooded ridges, toward sleeping Tulsa. "I should visit Rephaim. We do, after all, have a common enemy."

"The Tsi Sgili?" Nisroc asked, subservient and docile.

"That's right. The Tsi Sgili. Rephaim would not call it spying if we were serving a common goal-to depose Neferet."

"Rule in her stead you would?"

Kalona turned amber eyes to his son. "Yes. I would always rule. We rest now. At sunset I depart for Tulsa."

"With ussss?" the Raven Mocker asked.

"No. You remain here. Continue to gather my sons. Stay hidden and wait."

"Wait?"

"For my call. When I rule those who remain loyal to me will be by my side. And those who have not will be destroyed, no matter who they are. Do you understand, Nisroc?"

"Yessss."

Rephaim

"Your skin is so soft." Rephaim ran his fingertips down the curved slope of Stevie Rae's naked back, marveling at the joy it gave him to be able to hold her in his arms and press his body-his fully human body-against hers.

"I like it that you think I'm so special," Stevie Rae said, smiling up at him a little shyly.

"You are special," he said. Then he sighed and began to gently untangle himself from her. "It's close to dawn. I have to go above ground." Stevie Rae sat up and hugged the thick comforter that covered the bed in her surprisingly pretty little tunnel room to cover her bare breasts. She blinked big blue eyes at him. Her hair was tousled and curly and framed her face making her look like a young, innocent maiden. Rephaim pulled on his jeans, thinking she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. And her next words pierced his heart.

"I don't want you to go, Rephaim."

"You know I don't want to, either, but I must."

"C-can't you just stay here? With me?" she asked hesitantly.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed they'd so recently shared. He took her hand in his and threaded their fingers together. "Would you cage me?"

He felt her body jerk as if in shock-or was it revulsion?

"No! I didn't mean it like that. I just thought, well, that you could maybe try bein' here for a day. I mean, what if we just kept holdin' hands, like this, until you were done changin'?"

He smiled sadly at her. "Stevie Rae, a raven doesn't have any hands. These," he pressed his palms against hers, "will very shortly be claws. I will, very shortly, be a beast. I will not know you."

"Okay, so, what if I kept my arms around you? Maybe you wouldn't be scared then. Maybe you'd just curl up beside me and stay here and sleep, too. I mean, ya have to sleep sometime, don't ya?"

Rephaim thought about it before he answered her, and then began to slowly try to explain the unexplainable. "I must sleep, but Stevie Rae, I do not remember anything from the time I'm a raven." Anything except the agony of the physical change and the almost unbearable joy of the wind against my wings- but he could not tell Stevie Rae either of those things. One would hurt her. One could frighten her. So instead of the raw truth, he told her a version of it that seemed more civilized, more understandable. "A raven is not a pet. It is a wild bird. What if I panicked and in trying to escape I somehow wounded you?"

"Or yourself," Stevie Rae said solemnly. "I get it. I really do. I just don't like it much."

"I don't, either, but I think that's the point Nyx was making. I'm paying the consequences for my past actions." He cupped her sweet, soft cheek in his palm and pressed his lips to hers murmuring, "It is a price I willingly pay because the other side of it, the good side of it, gives me the hours we steal together when I am human."

"We don't steal them!" Stevie Rae said earnestly. "Nyx gifted you with them for the good choices you've made. Consequences go both ways, Rephaim. They can be good and bad."

Somehow that made his heart feel lighter and he smiled, kissing her again. "I'll remember that."

"I want you to remember somethin' else, too. You did a good thing today when you didn't turn your back on your brothers." Her fingers plucked at a blond curl, and he knew whatever she was saying was hard for her, so even though he needed to get free of the tunnels, to get above to the waiting sky, he remained sitting there beside her with her hand in his while she continued. "I'm sorry your brother got killed."

"Thank you," he said quietly, hardly trusting his voice.

"They came to the House of Night to get you to leave with them, didn't they?" she asked.

"Not really. Father did send them to find me, but not to take me away." Rephaim paused, not sure how to explain the rest to Stevie Rae. The two of them hadn't talked about his brothers when they'd finally been alone-they'd been too eager to touch, to be close, to love.

Stevie Rae squeezed his hand. "You can tell me. I trust you, Rephaim. Please trust me, too."

"I do!" he exclaimed, hating the hurt he saw in her eyes. "But you have to understand that even though Father has disowned me, that changes nothing here." He touched his chest over his heart. "I will forever be his son. I'll walk the path of the Goddess. I'll fight for Light and what is right. I'll love you. Always. But you must understand that somewhere inside me I'll always love him, too. Becoming human has taught me that."

"Rephaim, I have to tell you somethin' that might sound mean, but I think you need to hear it." He nodded. "Go ahead. Tell me."

"Before I was Marked I went to school with this girl name Sall ie. Her momma took off and left her and her daddy when she was about ten 'cause she was basically just a downright nasty ho slut and she didn't want the responsibility of raisin' a kid. It hurt Sall ie real bad when her momma left, even though her daddy tried to do his best for her. But the worst part of the whole thing was that her momma wouldn't stay gone. She'd come back and, as my momma used to say, stir the shit pot."

He gave her a questioning look, and Stevie Rae said, "Sorry, that means her momma came back around just to mess with her-to keep Sall ie's life all filled with stupid drama and such because she was selfish and mean and uber screwed up."

"What happened to this Sall ie girl?" Rephaim asked.

"When I got Marked and left school she was on her way to bein' as uber screwed up as her momma 'cause she didn't have the strength to tell her momma to stay away. Sall ie still wanted her momma to be a good person, to love her and care about her, even though that just wasn't possible." Stevie Rae drew a deep breath and let it out in a long sigh. "What I'm tryin' to say, and probably not doin' it very well, is that you're gonna have to decide whether you want to be as messed up as your daddy, or if you want to really start a new life."

"I've already chosen a new life," he said.

Stevie Rae met his eyes and shook her head sadly. "Not all of you has."

"I can't betray him, Stevie Rae."

"I'm not askin' you to. All I'm askin' you to do is to not let him stir your shit pot."

"He wanted me to spy for him. That's what he sent my brothers to tell me. I told Nisroc no." Rephaim said the words quickly, as if by doing so he could get rid of their bitter taste.

Stevie Rae nodded. "Yeah, see, shit pot stirring."

"I do see it, even though it isn't an easy thing to look at. Can we not talk about him for a while? All this is new for me. I need to figure out how to find my place in this world." Rephaim stared into Stevie Rae's kind eyes, willing her to understand. "I've been with Father for hundreds of years. It's going to take some time for me to get used to not being by his side."

"That makes sense. How 'bout this: I'll tell Zoey and the rest of the gang that your brothers were there to let you know Kalona would take you back if you said you'd made a mistake. You said no, so they were just leavin' when Dragon and that Aurox guy saw you. That's the truth, right?"

"Yes. What about the rest of it, the part about Father asking me to spy for him?"

"Well, I can tell you that I'll bet everyone pretty much figures Kalona would try to use you against us if you let him. You're not letting him, so I don't think spelling it out for them is a big deal."

"Thank you, Stevie Rae."

She smiled. "No problem. Like I said, I trust you."

He kissed her again, but about then he began to feel an already all-too-familiar prickling over his skin, as if his feathers were forming, growing, pressing to be free. "I must go." And this time he began to move quickly from the room. He could hear her start to get off the bed behind him and when he looked back she was pulling on her T-shirt and looking around for her jeans. "No," he said more firmly than he'd intended, but the pain had already begun through his body and he knew he hadn't much time. "Don't come with me. You have to meet with Zoey."

"But I can after-"

"I don't want you to see me become a beast!"

"I don't care about that," she said, looking like she was on the verge of tears.

"But I do. Please. Do not follow me." Without another word he ducked under the blanket that served as a door covering to Stevie Rae's room. By the time he'd reached the metal ladder-like stairs that led up from the tunnels and into the basement, Rephaim was running. Sweat poured from his body and he had to grit his teeth not to cry out with the burning agony of the change that was gripping him. He sprinted through the basement and flung open the grate just as the sun slipped free of the horizon and with a scream that turned into the cry of a raven his body shifted form and the dark raven who had no memory of the boy launched himself into the seductive, waiting arms of the morning sky.

Stevie Rae

Stevie Rae didn't go after him, but she did finish getting dressed. She wiped her eyes, too, before she left her room and turned in the opposite direction Rephaim had taken and headed for the hub of the depot tunnels-the little cul-de-sac-like area they'd turned into a kitchen and computer hub. Mountain Dew, she thought as she stifled a yawn. I need me some caffeine and sugar.

She rounded the corner and smiled sleepily at Damien, Zoey, Aphrodite, and Darius. The four of them were sitting around a table loaded with books in the center of the kitchen.

"There's lots of pop in that fridge," Zoey said, waving at one of the two big side-by-side refrigerators.

"More than just brown?"

"There's brown and green and clear. Oh, and some Orange Crush because Kramisha said she thinks it's healthy," Z said.

"Which is bullshit," Aphrodite said before upending a bottle of Fuji water. "Choose water. Anything else will make you fat. Well, except for blood." She paused and her beautiful face squeezed into an ick look. "I don't know about the calorie count in it, and since I un-fledgling-ed I don't even want to think about it."

Stevie Rae pulled open the fridge and gawked at the loaded insides. "Where did all this stuff come from?" Zoey gave a little sigh. "Kramisha. She said instead of going to third hour she 'field-tripped'"-Z air quoted-"to Utica Square and just happened to run into some night shift guys stocking the shelves at Petty's grocery store." Stevie Rae peeked around the arm of the fridge at Z. "Uh-oh. She red vamp zapped them?"

"She definitely zapped them," Damien said. "Which is how all this food got delivered down here. She even talked them into bringing this table from one of their food sample setups."

"She didn't eat them, did she?" Stevie Rae asked, crossing her fingers behind her back.

"No, but she didn't pay them, either," Aphrodite said. "She just made them do her bidding and then leave and forget all of it. I think I'm taking her with me to New York City next time Yoana Baraschi has a trunk show."

"No," Zoey said. "Just no." Then she looked at Stevie Rae. "Are you really awake? Stark and all the red fledglings, including Miss Kramisha Make-Them-Do-My-Bidding are sound asleep."

Stevie Rae grabbed a Mountain Dew and joined them at the table, sitting heavily and yawning. "Yeah, barely. It's easier to stay awake during the day down here, but I gotta tell ya, I'm pretty dang tired. Stark's asleep already?"

"Yeah." Stevie Rae thought Z looked worried. "He's been having problems sleeping since, well, you know-he came back from the Otherworld.

So when he passes out I just let him alone."

"It'll take a while, but he'll be back to normal soon," Stevie Rae said.

"I hope so," Zoey said and chewed at her lip.

"Speaking of boyfriends, is yours a bird?" Aphrodite asked her.

"Yes." Stevie Rae gave her a narrowed-eye look. "And I don't wanna talk about it."

"But we do need to know exactly why the Raven Mockers were at the school today," Darius said, not unkindly, "And since Rephaim is unable to answer our questions we're hoping you can."

"I thought this meeting was about the True Sight stuff," Stevie Rae said, feeling immediately defensive of Rephaim.

"It is, but it's also a catch-up meeting," Damien said. "I think we need one, don't you?" There was just no way to argue with Damien, especially when he had that sweet, concerned look on his face. Stevie Rae met his eyes. "Yeah, I think we do. So, to start with, how are you holdin' up?"

Damien blinked several times, like he was surprised by the question, which made Stevie Rae feel like crap. Had everydangbody forgotten Damien had lost his boyfriend just days ago?

"It was better being at school today. It felt like a step toward normal." Damien spoke slowly and carefully, as if he had to think about each word.

"But I missed Jack a lot. Actually, and I know this might sound crazy, but I kept expecting to see him around every corner in the hallway."

"That's not crazy," Zoey said. "I keep expecting to see Heath, too. It's hard and just plain wrong when someone dies too soon." Everyone watched the different expressions play across Z's face, and then she added, "My mom, too. I know I've been at the House of Night since last year, and even before that she and I hadn't been close for a while, but it's hard to really get that she's dead. So I understand what you mean about Jack."

"That makes it better, too," Damien said. "The fact that you guys understand what it's like to lose someone close to you." He smiled at Stevie Rae. "So, my answer to your question is that I'm holding up as well as can be expected."

"Good. Next question, or actually back to the original question," Aphrodite said. "What were the birdboys doing at the House of Night?"

"Kalona sent 'em. They were supposed to tell Rephaim that his daddy will take him back as soon as he admits he made a mistake choosing me and the Goddess." Stevie Rae shook her head. "Sometimes I think Kalona's just plain dumb."

"What do you mean?" Z asked.

"Heck, Rephaim hasn't even been my official boyfriend for a month. You'd think his daddy'd at least give us a chance to have our first fight before he was all 'oooh, you've made a mistake.'"

"What exactly was Rephaim's response?" Darius asked.

"Well, what do you think it was? Jeeze Louise, he's still here." Stevie Rae felt her anger build. "He told them to tell Kalona that he hadn't made a mistake and he wasn't comin' back. Period. The end."

"Yeah, but is it?" Aphrodite said.

"Is it what?" she asked.

"Is it the end? Isn't Kalona going to keep hanging around, trying to get Rephaim to see the light or whatever?"

"So what if he does? Rephaim isn't on his team anymore. He hasn't been for a long time."

"So you say."

"So he says!" Stevie Rae felt like she was going to explode. "So his dad says. So his brothers say. So even Nyx says! The dang Goddess herself showed up and forgave him. What the hell does Rephaim have to do to prove to you guys he's changed?"

"Hey, no one's saying Rephaim has to prove anything," Zoey said, sending Aphrodite a you're not helping look. "But we do need to know if something is up with Kalona and the Raven Mockers."

"Z, nothin's up with them. Well, except that it really hurt Rephaim that that dang bull kid killed one of 'em. Seriously, guys, his brothers weren't doin' anything except talkin' to him. Dragon showed up, pissed of course, but we all get that because of Anastasia. Still, the Raven Mockers were just defendin' themselves. Aurox is the one we should be askin' questions about."

"Yeah, except that we don't have Aurox answers here-and we should have Rephaim answers," Aphrodite said.

"I gave you his answers." Even as weak and tired as she felt because it was past sunrise, Stevie Rae automatically began pulling power from the earth. Not that she'd really hurt Aphrodite, but the girl definitely needed a good smack.

"Hey, you're glowing green," Z said.

"Well, I'm pissed!" Stevie Rae saw Darius move closer to Aphrodite, which really annoyed her. "You know what, Darius, you need to check yourself. We're all on the same side here, but that doesn't mean we can't get pissed at each other once in a while."

"I think we can all understand that. Isn't that right, Darius?" Damien said in his calmest, most soothing voice.

"Yes, of course," Darius said.

Aphrodite snorted.

"So, basically, Rephaim said no to Kalona and the Raven Mockers were just the messengers," Z said. "Right?"

"Totally right," Stevie Rae said.

"Okay, let's move on to True Sight." Zoey looked at Damien. "Want to summarize what you've found out?"

"Yeah, but it's not much. There's only a short reference to it in the advanced handbook. Basically, it's rare and it hasn't happened for a long time.

Like as in more than a couple hundred years. It's frustrating because there isn't a lot of documentation about it, but from what I could find it seems that a fledgling or vampyre gifted with True Sight-and they're usually vampyres, by the way-has the ability to see the truth about people."

"That's a handy little gift," Aphrodite said.

"You'd think so, but the problem is that the 'seeing' is only as accurate as the person with the gift," Damien said.

"Huh?" Zoey said.

"Okay, it's like this: Shaylin has to be good at using her gift. She has to understand what she's seeing and interpret it accurately," Damien said.

"And if she doesn't, it's just a bunch of colors?" Zoey said.

"Worse," Damien said. "Because with True Sight it's never just a bunch of colors. We all know she's seeing inside someone's soul." He shook his head. "In the handbook there were excerpts of stories about how True Sight has been misunderstood and misused. It can be bad, really bad."

"How about guidelines or rules or whatnot?" Z asked.

"None. It's different for everyone who has the Sight," Damien said.

"So we're just shootin' in the dark," Stevie Rae said, feeling totally overwhelmed. "Again."

"I think that depends entirely on what kind of person Shaylin is," Damien said.

"She's buddied up to Erik, which isn't a great sign," Aphrodite said.

"Hey, some of us who used to be buddied up with Erik have turned out okay," Zoey said. "And plus, a girl who can see his true colors could be really good for him."

Aphrodite snorted. "If she can actually translate them correctly-or whatever you want to call it."

"I want to believe that she can," Damien said.

"Yeah, me too," Stevie Rae said, but who she was really thinking about was Rephaim and Kalona. Please, Nyx, let Rephaim be able to see the truth. As she sent up the fervent but silent prayer, her eyes lifted and she met her BFF's gaze.

"I want to believe, too," Zoey said softly as if she could read Stevie Rae's mind.

"Well, I want to believe that when I step out of this room and down the hall I'm going to be instantly transported to a suite at the Ritz-Carlton on Grand Cayman Island. I understand the rest of you are sun challenged, but I could use a little shake and bake." Aphrodite paused and gave Darius a sexy grin. "I'll take care of the baking part if you can handle the shaking."

Stevie Rae stood up and yawned. "Okay, before y'all get totally gross I'm gonna go pass out. I'll see everybody at dusk."

"Ugh, school and no Ritz. Double ugh, reality," Aphrodite said. "Goddess, I'm glad tomorrow is Friday." She raised a blond brow at Zoey. "I can promise you I'm doing some serious shop and redecorate this weekend. Battling evil, Darkness, or whatever is just gonna have to wait."

"Hey, speaking of rooms, does anyone know where Erik put Shaylin?" Stevie Rae asked around another huge yawn.

"Elizabeth No Last Name's room," Damien said.

"Kinda creepy," Stevie Rae said.

"It's not like she's using it," Aphrodite said.

"I'm going to bed," Z said. "'Night guys."

Everyone called "night" to her, but Stevie Rae watched her walk slowly away down toward Dall as's old room that she and Stark were making their own. Her steps were slow and her shoulders were slumped, as if she was trying way too hard to carry way too much weight on them.

Stevie Rae sighed. She knew exactly how Z felt.