Loved (House of Night Other World #1)(87)

“Whoa, the cheese and sleaze is perfect, but not your crazy brown pop, Zo. That stuff’ll kill you. Could I get a big glass of blood? I like O neg best.”

“Of course,” said the unshakable priestess before she headed back to the kitchen. I made a mental note to give her some extra time off and speak to whoever is her mentor to let them know how calm she is under weirdness pressure.

“So. You’re alive and High Priestess.” Other Kevin abruptly brought my attention back to him. “And Neferet is, what, dead in your world?”

“That’s more complicated than it seems.” I glanced at Stark. “I think he needs to know.”

“I can’t see that it’d hurt. He’s here, and his Neferet is in another world,” Stark said.

“Hang on there—she’s not my Neferet.”

“Okay, here’s the short version.” I tried to order my thoughts, and finally decided—what the hell—and just threw it out there at him. “Neferet tried to start a war against humans here, too. My friends and I stopped her.” His brows went up to his hairline, but he didn’t interrupt. “It wasn’t easy. Mostly because at first I was the only one who believed she was evil. Then because she was so powerful. And evil. And manipulative. A lot of people died. Human, fledgling, vampyre, and, um, other.” That thought had me asking, “Hey, does Neferet have a mate or a consort in your world?”

Kevin snorted. “Yeah. A bunch of them.”

“Sounds about right,” Stark said.

Kevin folded his hands and sent Stark an appraising look. “You’re one of them.”

“What. The. Hell?” I said.

Kevin’s lips quirked up. “Yeah. Everyone knows General Stark and Neferet have an on-and-off thing.”

“Goddess, I may puke,” Stark said.

“Ditto,” I said. “And now I’m going to forget I ever heard that. Where was I? Oh, um, also Neferet was hard to defeat because she managed to become immortal.”

“Seriously?”

“Heart attack–like,” I said. “We did finally beat her, but she’s not dead. She can’t die. Right now she’s entombed in that grotto in Woodward Park. You know, where you came through the disgusting blood fountain into this world.”

“Did Neferet bring us here?”

I shook my head. “As far as we can tell, she can’t influence anything outside the grotto. But her BFF, for lack of a better way to describe him, is the White Bull. Do you know about him?”

“No clue,” Other Kevin said.

“That could be good,” Stark spoke up. “Maybe good and evil are in balance in his world.”

The priestess had brought Other Kevin his blood drink and he almost snorted it out of his nose. He swallowed, coughed, and finally said, “Um, no. Definitely no. Evil is out of control in my world.”

I sighed. “Well, the White Bull is the physical incarnation of evil. His twin is a Black Bull—the physical incarnation of good. The White Bull and Neferet worked together in this world and almost tipped the balance to evil. We think it’s the White Bull who started the whole crazy chain of events that led to you being here.”

“And when you entombed Neferet, you took her place?”

“Yeah, basically. My circle, my prophetesses, my Warriors, and me. It was Aphrodite, one of my prophetesses, who’s responsible for you and your people getting your humanity back.”

“So, that’s what happened. Red fledglings and red vampyres lose their humanity. Makes sense. I’d like to thank her, if that’s possible.”

“It’s possible. I’ll introduce the two of you,” I said. “Okay, your turn. Tell me how you were Marked and how you ended up here.”

“Wait, first, am I here? At this House of Night in this world? I’d like to know before I run into myself. Man, that’d be freaky, huh?”

“You’re here, but you’re not Marked. You’re a human kid going to BA.”

“Really?”

“Yep.”

“Are we close?”

I hesitated. Tell him the truth. “No. Not anymore. Not since Mom married the step-loser and our family basically fell apart.”

“The step-loser sucks. I wish Mom would wake the hell up and get rid of that asshat.”

I felt the blood drain from my face. “Mom’s alive in your world.”

“Of course she’s alive. Not that she has anything to do with me. She was all, ‘As if your sister didn’t cause me enough grief, now you had to go and get Marked, too.’ You know how she is now—blah, blah, God. Blah, blah, John. Blah, blah, church.” Then Kevin shook his head and said, “Wait. Mom’s not alive here?”

“No.”

His expression sobered. “What happened?”

Stark told him when I couldn’t make my mouth work. “Neferet killed her.”

Other Kevin stared down at the table, obviously trying to compose himself. “Did—did she suffer?”

In my mind I replayed the scene. Neferet coming to Grandma’s door, looking for the perfect sacrifice to make her Vessel of evil. Mom answering the door. Neferet slitting her throat. It had been quick, but there were some things Kevin didn’t need to know. There were some things, many things, I wish I didn’t know.