Burned (House of Night #7)(40)

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 with 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."