Loved (House of Night Other World #1)(54)

“I’ll get my men right on it,” Marx said, but I put a hand on his arm, stopping him.

“It needs to be Warriors. They can’t be turned into, well, for lack of a better word—zombies,” I said.

Marx sighed. “Okay. Yeah. I get it. Your Warriors will take the lead on this one.”

“But the Warriors will need to look like TPD,” Stark said. “If they think they’re only dealing with humans, they’ll get sloppy. They have no idea that vampyres and humans work together in this world.”

“Good point,” Marx said. “I’ll get dispatch on the horn and put the word out to have someone get the hell over here with a bunch of uniform trench coats and hats.”

“Also, be sure all your cops know not to get bitten by any of those creatures,” Stark said.

“Put out another word,” I said. “Tell Tulsa to stay inside. All of Tulsa. Don’t even let the snowplows go out there. We have to keep humans safe from this infection.”

“I’ll call the mayor’s office and brief him. He’ll put out an emergency bulletin telling everyone to stay inside because of the blizzard. But you know Okies.”

“We stand outside and watch the tornados come. I know. Let’s hope we show better sense in the winter,” I said.

“One can dream,” Aphrodite said as Marx started to head back to his truck to radio the really terrible news back to the station.

He paused at the door and looked at me. “Do you know how they got into this world?”

I made the decision quickly. He deserved the truth. Tulsa deserved the truth. “Kalona warned me through a dream that danger was coming.” Marx’s eyes widened at the mention of his dead friend, but he stayed silent, letting me finish. “He thought it might have something to do with Neferet, so we were casting a protective spell over the grotto just in case she was trying to stir up trouble.”

“I thought you said Neferet wasn’t behind this.” I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Marx blanched even paler.

“We haven’t seen any sign of Neferet, but she is alive and well in the zombie world,” I said.

“Figures,” he muttered. “If it wasn’t something Neferet did, what happened?”

“My mother showed up and screwed up our spell,” Aphrodite said.

“Actually, I think I messed up our spell,” I said. “It was because Mrs. LaFont was screaming at us, and I shouldn’t have let her get to me, but I did.” I drew a big breath and then told on myself. “My hand slipped. I cut myself. And at the same time I remember thinking that if a zombie apocalypse happened in Tulsa it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if they ate Mrs. LaFont.” Miserable, I stared at Aphrodite. “I’m so sorry. I really didn’t mean it. And this is all my fault.”

Aphrodite stared back at me, and then she started laughing. It began as a soft giggle, and grew until she had to lean against Darius, who looked utterly confused and more than a little worried.

“Uh, I’m going to get the ball rolling on warning people,” Marx said, throwing Aphrodite a concerned sidewise glance as he left.

I went to her. She was wiping her eyes. Her laughter had dissipated to soft giggles interspersed with snorts. “Hey. I’m so, so sorry. Truly.”

“Oh, Z. It wasn’t all your fault. I was basically thinking the same thing you were,” she said.

Shaylin cleared her throat and our attention shifted to her. “Um. Me, too.”

“Me, too, what?” Stevie Rae asked as she hurried into the office, holding Rephaim’s hand.

“When Mrs. LaFont showed up at the park I wished she’d drop dead,” Shaylin said.

“Oh, yeah,” Stevie Rae nodded, making her blond curls bounce. “I was wishin’ she’d go away and stop pesterin’ Aphrodite—for good.”

“And I’ll bet if we ask Shaunee, she’ll say she was thinking something about the same,” Aphrodite said. “Don’t stress, Z. My mother has that effect on people. Lots of them have wished she’d die. They just didn’t have the power to make the wish come true. Our circle does.”

Ah, hell … I thought as I pulled Aphrodite into my arms, hugging her fiercely.





17


Damien


On autopilot, Damien made his way from the basement under the Field House to the room that had been assigned to him in the guest wing of the professors’ quarters. He walked slowly, gazing out at the snowy predawn morning, noting that all the students, fledgling or human, seemed to finally have retired to the dorms.

He envied them.

Sometimes he wished he could go back to being one of them. Actually, lately he’d wished it a lot more often than not.

The truth was Damien felt empty and alone. Adam had tried diligently to get him to shake off this terrible melancholy, but all of his attempts—be they romantic and sexy, or, toward the end, angry and confused—had only served to make Damien feel more alone.

It was like there was something wrong with him.

His parents used to say that he thought too much and didn’t go outside and play enough. Well, one good thing about being an adult vampyre—he didn’t have to suffer through his parent’s pathetic attempts to pretend like they wanted him around.