Burned Page 13

  “She chose Light, though.” He spoke softly this time. “And Light always underestimates the viciousness of Darkness.”

  The fact that I live is an example of that.

  Stevie Rae needed him tonight, badly. That was also a fact.

  “Stevie Rae, where are you?” Rephaim muttered.

  Only the restless stirrings of the sprites answered him.

  Could he coax a sprite into leading him to Darkness? No—he discarded the idea quickly. Sprites would go to Darkness if it called them. Other than that, they much preferred to feed off vestiges of power from afar. And he couldn’t afford to wait around hoping Darkness would call them. He needed to figure out—

  “REPHAIM!”

  Stevie Rae’s scream echoed eerily around him. Her voice was filled with pain and despair. The sound of it sliced through his heart. He knew his eyes blazed red. He wanted to rip and tear and destroy. The haze of scarlet rage that began to overwhelm him was a seductive escape. If he gave into anger completely, he would, indeed, become more beast than man, and this unusual, uncomfortable fear he had begun to feel for her would be drowned out by instinct and mindless violence, which he could appease by attacking the helpless humans in any of the dark houses surrounding the lifeless museum. For a while he would be sated. For a while he would not feel.

  And why not give in to the rage that had so often consumed his life? It would be easier—it was familiar—it was safe.

  If I give in to rage, it will be the end of this connection I have with her. The thought sent ripples of shock through his body. The ripples turned to bright specks of light that seared the red haze that shrouded his sight.

  “No!” he cried, letting the humanity of his voice beat back the beast within him. “If I abandon her to Darkness, she dies.” Rephaim drew long, slow breaths. He had to calm down. He had to think. The red haze continued to dissipate, and his mind began to reason again. I have to use our connection and our blood!

  Rephaim forced himself to be still and breathe in the night. He knew what he must do. He drank in one more deep breath, and then began: “I call upon the power of the spirit of ancient immortals, which is mine by birthright to command.” Rephaim steeled himself for the drain that the invocation would cause on his unhealed body, but as he drew power from the shadows of the night, he was surprised to feel a surge of energy. The night around him seemed swollen, throbbing with raw and ancient power. It gave him a sick sense of foreboding, but he used it all the same, channeling the power through him, preparing to charge it with the immortality carried in his blood, the blood that Stevie Rae now shared. But as it filled him, his body was consumed in an energy so fierce, so raw, that it knocked Rephaim to his knees.

  His first hint that something miraculous was happening was when he realized that he’d automatically thrown both of his hands forward to catch himself—and both arms responded, even the one that had been broken and bound to his chest with a sling.

  Rephaim stayed there on his knees, trembling and holding both arms out before him. His breath was coming fast as he flexed his hands.

  “More!” he hissed the word. “Come to me!”

  Dark energy surged into him again, a live current of cold violence he struggled to contain. Rephaim knew this indwelling was different than any he’d felt before when calling on the powers his father’s blood allowed him to access, but he was no callow youth. He had long trafficked with shadows and the base things that filled the night. Reaching deep within him, the Raven Mocker inhaled the energy, like the air of a midwinter’s night, and then he threw his arms wide at the same instant he unfurled his wings.

  Both wings responded to him.

  “Yes!” His joyous shout caused the shadows to writhe and quiver in ecstasy.

  He was whole again! The wing was completely healed!

  Rephaim leaped to his feet. Dark pinions completely extended, he looked like a magnificent sculpture of a godling, suddenly come to life. His body vibrating with power, the Raven Mocker continued the invocation. The air blazed scarlet as if a phosphorous mist of blood surrounded him. Swollen with borrowed Darkness, Rephaim’s voice rang in the night. “Through the immortal might of my father, Kalona, who seeded my blood and spirit with his legacy, I command this power that I wield in his name to lead me to the Red One—she who has tasted my blood, and with whom I have Imprinted and exchanged life debts. Take me to Stevie Rae! I command it so!”

  The mist hovered for a moment, then shifted, and like a ribbon of scarlet silk, a thin, glistening path unfurled into the air before him. Swift and sure, Rephaim took to the sky and streaked after the beckoning Darkness.

  He found her not far from the museum in a park shrouded by smoke and death. As he dropped silently from the sky, Rephaim wondered how the humans in the houses framing the area could be so oblivious to what had been loosed just outside the deceptive safety of their front doors.

  The pool of black smoke was most concentrated in the heart of the park. Rephaim could just make out the top branches of a sturdy old oak under which chaos reigned. He slowed as he drew near it, though his wings were still spread around him, tasting the air and allowing him to move soundlessly and swiftly, even on the ground.

  The fledgling didn’t notice him. But Rephaim realized that the boy probably wouldn’t have noticed the arrival of an army. All of his attention was focused on attempting to stab a long, lethal-looking knife through what appeared to be a circle of darkness that had coalesced into a solid wall—or at least that was how it manifested to the fledgling.

  Rephaim was not a fledgling; he understood Darkness much better.

  He skirted around the boy and, unseen, faced the circle at its northernmost point. He wasn’t sure if instinct or Stevie Rae’s influence drew him there, and acknowledged—though briefly—that the two might be becoming one.

  He paused, and with a single, reluctant motion, closed his wings, folding them neatly against his back. Then he held up his hand and spoke softly to the scarlet mist that was still his to command. “Cloak me. Allow me to cross the barrier.” Rephaim curled his fist around the pulsing energy that gathered there, and then, with a flick of his fingers, scattered the mist over his body.

  He expected the pain of it. Though there were aspects of immortal power that obeyed him, the obedience never came without a price. Very often that price was paid in pain. This time the pain burned through his newly healed body like lava, but he welcomed it because it meant his bidding had been done.

  There was no way to make ready for what he might find within the circle. Rephaim simply gathered himself and, covered by the inherited strength of his father’s blood, he stepped forward. The wall of darkness opened to him.

  Inside the circle Rephaim was engulfed in the scent of Stevie Rae’s blood and the overwhelming odor of death and decay.

  “Please stop! I can’t stand any more! Kill me if that’s what you want, just don’t touch me again!”

  He couldn’t see her, but Stevie Rae sounded utterly defeated. Acting quickly, Rephaim scooped some of the clinging scarlet mist from his body. “Go to her—strengthen her,” he whispered the command.

  He heard Stevie Rae gasp and was almost sure she cried his name. Then the darkness parted to reveal a sight Rephaim would never forget, even should he live to be as ancient as his father.

  Stevie Rae stood in the middle of the circle. Tendrils of sticky black threads wrapped around her legs. Wherever they touched her, they sliced her skin. Her jeans were ripped and hung on her body only in shreds. Blood seeped from her torn flesh. As he watched, another tendril snaked out of the soupy darkness surrounding them and lashed, whiplike, around her waist, instantly drawing a weeping line of blood. She moaned in pain, and her head lolled. Rephaim saw that her eyes had gone blank.

  It was then that the beast made itself known. The instant he saw it, Rephaim knew beyond all doubt that he was staring at Darkness given form. It snorted, a terrible, deafening sound. Spewing blood and mucus and smoke, the bull tore the earth wi
th his hooves. The creature stalked to Stevie Rae from out of the densest of the black smoke. Like moonlight in a crypt, the white bull’s coat looked like death as he towered over the girl. The creature was so massive that he had to dip his huge head to allow his tongue to lick at her bleeding waist.

  Stevie Rae’s scream was echoed by Rephaim’s cry: “No!”

  The great bull paused. His head turned to the Raven Mocker; his bottomless gaze held Rephaim’s.

  “This night gets more and more interesting.” The voice rumbled through his mind. Rephaim forced down his fear as the bull took two steps toward him, shaking the ground as he scented the air.

  “I smell Darkness on you.”

  “Yes,” Rephaim spoke over the sound of the terrified beating of his heart. “I have long lived with Darkness.”

  “Odd, then, that I do not know you.” The bull scented the air around him again. “Though I have known your father.”

  “It is through the power of my father’s blood that I parted the dark curtain and stand before you.” He kept his eyes on the bull, but he was utterly aware that Stevie Rae was just feet away from him, bleeding and helpless.

  “Is it? I think you lie, birdman.”

  Though the voice in his mind didn’t change, Rephaim could feel the bull’s anger.

  Staying calm, Rephaim scooped a finger down his chest, drawing a line of red mist from his body. He held his hand up, like an offering to the bull. “This allowed me to part the dark curtain of the circle, and this power is mine to command by right of my father’s immortal blood.”

  “That immortal blood flows through your veins is truth. But the power that swells your body and commanded my barrier to part is borrowed from me.”

  Fear skittered down Rephaim’s spine. Very carefully, he bowed his head in respect and acknowledgment. “Then I thank you, though I did not call upon your power. I invoked only my father’s, as it is only his that is rightfully mine to command.”

  “I hear the truth in your words, son of Kalona, but why command the power of immortals to draw you here and to allow you within my circle? What business do you or your father have with Darkness tonight?”

  Rephaim’s body went very still, but his mind raced. Until that moment in his life, he had always drawn strength from the legacy of immortality within his blood and the cunning of the raven that had been joined with it to create him. But this night, facing Darkness, swollen with a strength that was not his own, he suddenly knew that even though it was through this creature’s power that he had been granted access to Stevie Rae, he would not save her by using Darkness, whether it came from the bull or from his father; nor could the instincts of a raven battle the beast he faced. Forces allied with it could not defeat this bull—this embodiment of Darkness.

  So Rephaim drew on the only thing left to him—the remnants of humanity passed to him through his dead mother’s body. He answered the bull like a human, with an honesty so raw that he thought it might cleave his heart.

  “I’m here because she’s here, and she belongs to me.” Rephaim’s eyes never left the bull, but he jerked his head in Stevie Rae’s direction.

  “I scent her on you.” The bull took another step toward Rephaim, causing the ground under them to shake. “She may belong to you, but she had the impudence to invoke me. This vampyre requested my aid, which I granted her. As you know, she must pay the price. Leave now, birdman, and I will allow you to live.”

  “Go on, Rephaim.” Stevie Rae’s voice was weak, but when Rephaim finally looked at her, he saw that her gaze was unwavering and lucid. “It isn’t like the rooftop. You can’t save me from this. Just go.”

  Rephaim should go. He knew he should. Only a few days before he couldn’t even have imagined a world where he would be facing down Darkness to attempt to save a vampyre—to attempt to save anyone except himself or his father. Yet as he stared into Stevie Rae’s soft blue eyes, what he saw was a whole new world—a world in which this strange little red vampyre meant heart and soul and truth.

  “Please. Don’t let him hurt you, too,” she told him.

  It was those words—those selfless, heartfelt, truthful words that made Rephaim’s decision for him.

  “I said she belongs to me. You scent her on me; you know it’s true. So I can pay her debt for her,” Rephaim said.

  “No!” Stevie Rae cried.

  “Think carefully before you make such an offer, son of Kalona. I will not kill her. It is a blood debt, not a life debt, she owes me. I will return your vampyre to you, eventually, when I am done tasting of her.”

  The bull’s words sickened Rephaim. Like a bloated leech, Darkness was going to feed from Stevie Rae. He was going to lick her slashed skin and taste the copper saltiness of her lifeblood—of their lifeblood, joined forever because of their Imprint.

  “Take my blood instead. I’ll pay her debt,” Rephaim said.

  “You are your father’s son. Like him, you have chosen to champion a being who can never give you what it is you seek most. So be it. I accept payment of the vampyre’s debt from you. Release her!” the bull commanded.

  The razorlike threads of darkness withdrew from Stevie Rae’s body and, as if they had been the only things keeping her on her feet, she crumbled to the blood-soaked grass.

  Before he could move to help her, a dark tendril, cobralike, lifted from the smoke and shadows surrounding the bull. With a swiftness that was otherworldly, it lashed out, wrapping around Rephaim’s ankle.

  The Raven Mocker didn’t scream, though he wanted to. Instead, focusing through the blinding pain, he shouted at Stevie Rae, “Get back to the House of Night!”

  He saw Stevie Rae try to stand, but she slipped on her own blood and lay on the ground, crying softly. Their eyes met, and Rephaim lurched toward her, spreading his wings, determined to break from the clinging thread and at least carry her clear of the circle.

  Another tendril snaked out and whipped around the thick bicep of Rephaim’s newly healed arm, slicing more than an inch into the muscle. Yet another came from the shadows behind him, and Rephaim couldn’t help screaming in agony as the thing curled around his wings where they met his back, ripping and tearing and pinning him against the ground.

  “Rephaim!” Stevie Rae sobbed.

  He couldn’t see the bull, but he felt the earth tremble as the creature approached him. He turned his head, and, through a blur of pain, he saw Stevie Rae trying to crawl toward him. He wanted to tell her to stop—to say something to her that would make her run away. Then, as the searing pain of the bull’s tongue touched the wound at his ankle, Rephaim realized Stevie Rae wasn’t really trying to crawl to him. She was on her hands and knees, crablike, pressing down against the earth. Her arms were trembling, and her body was still bleeding, but her face was getting its color back. She’s pulling power from the earth, Rephaim realized with an incredible sense of relief. That would make her strong enough to get out of the circle and find her way to safety.

  “I’d forgotten the sweetness of immortal blood.” The bull’s decayed breath washed over Rephaim. “The vampyre’s blood held only a hint of this. I believe I will drink and drink from you, son of Kalona. You did, indeed, borrow power from Darkness tonight, so you have a greater debt to pay than just hers.”

  Rephaim refused to look at the creature. Held captive by the cutting threads, his body was lifted and turned so that his cheek pressed against the earth. He kept his gaze focused on Stevie Rae as the bull stood over him and began to drink from the wound at the base of his bleeding wings.

  Agony like he’d never before felt assaulted his body. He didn’t want to scream. He didn’t want to writhe in pain. But he couldn’t help it. Stevie Rae’s eyes were all that kept him tethered to consciousness as Darkness fed from him, violating him over and over again.

  When Stevie Rae stood, lifting her arms, Rephaim thought he was hallucinating because she looked so strong and powerful and so very, very angry. She clutched something in her hand—a long braid that was smoking.<
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  “I did it before. I’ll do it again.”

  Stevie Rae’s voice came to him as if from a long way off, but it sounded strong, too. Rephaim wondered why the bull didn’t hear her and stop her, but the creature’s moans of pleasure and the piercing pain that radiated from his back gave Rephaim the answer. The bull didn’t consider Stevie Rae a threat, and he was fixated on consuming the intoxicating blood of immortality. Let him keep taking from me; let her escape, Rephaim prayed silently to whichever of the gods might deign to hear him.

  “My circle’s unbroken,” Stevie Rae was speaking quickly and clearly. “Rephaim and this disgusting bull came at my command. So I command again, through the power of the earth, I call the other bull. The one who fights this one, and I’ll pay whatever I have to, just get this thing off my Raven Mocker!”

  Rephaim felt the creature above him pause in his feeding as a bolt of light speared through the smoky blackness in front of Stevie Rae. He saw Stevie Rae’s eyes go wide and, miraculously, she smiled and then laughed.

  “Yes!” she spoke joyously. “I’ll pay your price. And, dang! You’re so black and beautiful!”

  Still standing over him, the white bull growled. Tendrils began snaking from the darkness around Rephaim and slithering toward Stevie Rae. Rephaim opened his mouth to shout a warning, but Stevie Rae stepped directly into the shaft of light. There was a sound like a thunderclap, and then another blinding flash. From the middle of the bright explosion stepped an enormous bull, as black as the first was white. But this creature’s darkness wasn’t like that of the inky shadows that cringed away from it. This bull’s coat was the black of a midnight sky filled with the radiance of diamond stars—deep and mysterious and beautiful to behold.

  For an instant, the black bull’s gaze met Rephaim’s, and the Raven Mocker gasped. He’d never seen such kindness in his life; he’d never even known such kindness could exist.