Chosen (House of Night #3)(73)

"You have to finish the circle!" Damien yelled above the wind. "Call all of the elements to help you. That's the only way you can save her."

I ran to the center of the circle. Raising my arms over my head I completed the casting. "As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the fifth and final element, spirit!"

Power surged through me. I gritted my teeth and tried to control the trembling within my body. Aphrodite's screams were getting weaker and weaker, but I couldn't think about that. I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate. Then I spoke the goddess-given words that drifted through my mind, like the sweet, sure answer to a child's prayer. My voice was magnified magically. I felt the words materialize, sparkling, in the air around me.

"Wind blow away that which is tainted

Fire burn through the blackness of hatred

Water wash clean evil intentions unsated

Earth nourish her soul with darkness abated

Spirited fill her so that from death she is emancipated!"

Like I was throwing a ball, I hurled at Stevie Rae the sizzling elemental power that I felt between my hands. At that moment I felt a searingly familiar pain ripple from the base of my spine all the way around my waist. My scream echoed Stevie Rae's.

I opened my eyes to a bizarre sight. Aphrodite had fallen to the ground during Stevie Rae's attack. Stevie Rae's back was to me, so I could only see Aphrodite's face. At first I didn't understand what was happening. They were surrounded by a swirling, glowing ball of power made up of all five of the elements. The two girls kept fading in and out of focus as the power rolled and thickened around them. But I could see that Stevie Rae was no longer holding on to Aphrodite. Now it was Aphrodite who was clutching Stevie Rae and forcing her to keep drinking from the wound on her neck. Stevie Rae was still drinking her blood, but she was struggling to stop-trying to pull away.

I rushed forward to try to separate them again, but when I hit the bubble of power it was like walking into a glass door. I couldn't get through it, and I had no idea how to open it.

"Aphrodite! Let her go! She's trying to stop before she kills you!" I cried. Aphrodite's eyes met mine. Her lips didn't move, but I heard her voice clearly inside my head. No. This is how I make up for everything I caused. This time it's me who was Chosen. Remember, I made this sacrifice freely. Then Aphrodite's eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp as the breath slipped from between her smiling lips in a long sigh. With a terrible cry, Stevie Rae finally pulled away, collapsing on the ground beside Aphrodite's body. The bubble of power broke and then faded into nothingness. I knew the circle had been broken, too. I could feel the absence of the elements. I didn't know what to do. I didn't seem to be able to move.

Then Stevie Rae looked up at me. She was crying pink-tinged tears and her eyes were still a strange, reddish color. But her face was her own again. Even before she spoke I knew that whatever Neferet had broken in her when she'd caused her to become the walking, talking dead, had been healed.

"I killed her! I-I tried to stop! She wouldn't let me go, and I couldn't pull away! Oh, Zoey, I'm so sorry!" she sobbed.

I stumbled to her, Loren's words ringing in my head, You should keep in mind that you're invoking powerful magic, and there's always a cost associated with that. "It wasn't your fault, Stevie Rae." I told her. "You didn't-"

"Her face!" Damien's voice came from just behind me. "Look at her Mark." I blinked, not really understanding, and then I gasped. I'd been so busy looking into her eyes, so busy seeing the old Stevie Rae, that I hadn't noticed the obvious. The crescent moon that rested in the middle of her forehead had been filled in. A beautiful pattern of tattoos made of swirling flowers with long, graceful stems all twined together framed her eyes and stretched down her cheekbones. But the tattoos weren't vampyre sapphire. They were the brilliant scarlet of new blood.

"What are y'all lookin' at?" Stevie Rae said.

"H-here," Erin fumbled with her ever-present purse and pulled out a makeup mirror, handing it to Stevie Rae.

"Ohmygoodness!" Stevie Rae drawled. "What does it mean?"

"It means you're healed. You've Changed. But what you've Changed into is a new kind of vampyre," Aphrodite said, struggling to sit up.

Chapter Twent-yseven

"Holy shit!" Shaunee squeaked and stumbled back, clutching onto Erin's arm to keep from falling over.

"You were dead!" Erin said.

"I don't think I was," Aphrodite said, rubbing her forehead with one hand and gingerly touching the bite mark on her neck with the other. "Ouch! Dammit, I hurt all over."

"I'm really really sorry, Aphrodite," Stevie Rae said. "I mean, I don't like you, but I sure wouldn't bite you. Or at least not now I wouldn't."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," Aphrodite said. "Don't worry about it. It was all part of Nyx's plan, as painful and inconvenient as that might be." She winced again at the pain in her neck. "God, does anyone have a Band-Aid?"

"I have some tissue in here somewhere. Hang on and I'll see if I can find it," Erin said, digging through her purse again.

"Try to find a clean one for her, Twin. Aphrodite has enough stress to deal with without a nasty infection."