Zoey
I got a major flash of déjà vu when I stepped into the dining hall and saw Damien sitting at our table with Other Jack. The two of them were holding hands; their heads tilted toward one another. Jack whispered something into Damien’s ear and his laughter was like glitter, floating around the room and leaving little pieces of it on all of us.
“He looks so much better,” Shaunee said.
“Which one?” Aphrodite said.
“Both,” Darius said as we walked to our table.
“Hi guys. Other Jack, it’s really good to see you. I’d ask how you’re feeling, but it’s obvious that you are feeling great.”
“Merry meet, High Priestess!” Other Jack stood, bowing to me formally.
“Hey, call me Zoey. You and I are going to be good friends. Again.”
We slid into our large table and the waitress took our orders. I was surprised when Aphrodite ordered a salad to go with her usual glass (or five) of wine, and even more surprised when it came and she ignored the wine and dug into the food.
“There you are, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya!” Grandma, whirlwind-like, rushed up to our table. “Might I have a plate of that spaghetti?”
“Absolutely!” Stark caught the priestess-on-duty’s attention and ordered a plate for Grandma.
“I didn’t find him, Grandma. But I will. We will. I promise.”
“The Sons of Erebus will do everything we can to bring him home, on that you have my word, as well, Grandma Redbird,” Darius said solemnly.
“Oh, you won’t need to,” she said.
“Huh?”
Grandma gave me a sly smile and Darius a wink. “I believe Kevin will find you.”
“Z! Good! You’re back. Rephaim has stuff to tell you.” Stevie Rae and Rephaim rushed to our table. “Hi Grandma! Oooh! Psaghetti! Yum. I’ll take some.”
“Kalona wasn’t in your dream!” Rephaim said without any preamble.
“Uh, yeah, he was. I was there. I saw him.”
“It may have looked like him and sounded like him, but I promise you it was not my father. He swore on his love for Nyx that he did not enter your dream. Furthermore, he told me to relay to you that he gives you his oath that he will never come to you in a dream in a place from your past. It is just as I explained before, Father wants to distance himself from what he once was.”
“If it wasn’t him, then who the hell was it?” Stark looked as confused and upset as I felt.
“Father said that you should try to remember anything that might have been off about the dream. He also said it was very odd that the message had to do with Neferet’s journal, as he believes he is the only person who knows about it.”
I thought back. “It seemed like him. Well, an awkward version of him, but I didn’t think anything of that. I mean, he was showing up in my dream in a place he once stalked me—hence the awkwardness.” I chewed my lip, thinking. “Wait, there were two things a little weird. I mentioned that I liked his white wings better than the black ones, and he seemed shocked.”
“Shocked that you like ’em?” Stevie Rae asked between bites of spaghetti.
“No, shocked that they were white. Also, he made a comment that I didn’t think much of then, but now it could be a big deal. I’m paraphrasing, but he said that he was warning me because, unlike Nyx, he’d spent time with all of us and he knew we could handle the worry.”
I saw Rephaim startle. “Father would not say that. He would not even infer anything negative about Nyx.”
“Ah, shit. I just had a thought. Could it have been Neferet, pretending to be Kalona?” Aphrodite said.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” I said.
“Well, it might be if she has attained the ability to influence the world around her,” Darius said.
“But it doesn’t make sense that she would warn us about herself,” I said. “And she would never show us her journal.”
“Seriously, it’s way too personal,” Shaunee said.
“Yeah, no way. And whoever was pretendin’ to be Kalona was right—we did learn a bunch of stuff about her when we read it,” Stevie Rae said.
“Then who else has the power to manipulate dreams and has personal knowledge about Neferet?” Grandma asked.
I thought back, mentally sifting through the horrific memories recorded in Emily Wheiler’s tragic journal—and a sudden coldness began to build and expand in the core of my body.
“There’s only one entity who has that kind of power and that kind of knowledge—the White Bull,” I said.
Into the awful silence, Other Jack raised his hand.
“Honey, you don’t have to raise your hand to say something,” Damien told him.
“Not even to ask a question?”
“Not even to ask a question,” I said.
“Oh, thanks. That’s nice of you. So, um, who’s the White Bull?”
“Evil,” Damien said. “The White Bull is pure evil.”
“That’s bad. Really bad,” said Other Jack.
“You have no idea.” I pushed my psaghetti away as I felt the puzzle pieces fall into place. “Of course the White Bull’s behind this mess. All that crap about Neferet and bad things coming our way—none of that was true. That dream created all of this—all by simply making us think Neferet was up to something and then letting it avalanche from there.”
“But why? What does he want?” Other Jack asked.
“Chaos and death—that’s all the White Bull wants,” Damien said.
“And that’s exactly what he caused. Again,” I said.
“Actually, u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya, this time that is not all he caused,” Grandma added. “This time he caused Damien and Jack to be reunited, Aphrodite to be healed of her past and Marked as a special kind of vampyre Prophetess, and Kevin, our Other Kevin, to have his humanity returned to him. This time he believed he was causing chaos and working evil, but in truth love and Light shinned through his Darkness.”
“Which means he’s going to be really pissed that his nefarious plan didn’t work,” said Aphrodite.
Ah. Hell.
26
Zoey
I’d gone back to my room to wash my face and change my clothes before Stark and I and a bunch of Warriors headed out to keep looking for Kevin when I heard the Warriors who were pulling duty on the wall sound a warning. I rushed from my room and down the hall, meeting Aphrodite and Darius as we surged into the stairway.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked Darius.
“No.” He looked grim, and I noticed as we jogged down the stair he was fitting throwing knives into his custom-made vest.
I mentally crossed my fingers and sent up a silent plea, Nyx, let it be Other Kevin, and don’t let him be too crazy.
We rushed to the front of the building and were met by a Son of Erebus Warrior and Stark.
“What’s going on?” I asked Stark.
“Three vampyres just climbed the Utica-side gate and entered campus,” Stark said.
“Red?” Darius asked.