Hidden (House of Night #10)(93)

Neferet's rage was terrible. "The elements are with you! Where is that bitch, Zoey, and her circle?"

"Safe from you, witch!" Aurox yelled, then he turned and ripped open the cage of Darkness. Pulling Grandma Redbird into his arms, Aurox ran.

"Strike! Cut! Cause Aurox unbearable pain is my demand!"

The tendrils caught Aurox around his ankles, cutting deep and tripping him. He dropped Grandma Redbird. The old woman cried out, "Aurox!"

He tried to answer her, to tell Grandma to run to the balcony where freedom awaited, but Neferet was quicker, completing the spell in less than a breath.

"Fashioned from Darkness, beast come forth! Obey my command!"

Aurox was engulfed in the tendrils of Darkness. They did not simply cut him. They pressed their bodies against him. His skin rippled and began absorbing the terrible, snake-like creatures. Pain seared under his skin. With each beat of his frantic heart, Darkness pulsed through Aurox's body, battering the elements until they fled and waking the beast.

Grandma Redbird was sobbing and reaching toward him. The pain within him was unbearable and with a terrible shudder his body began to shift. "No! Go!" Aurox managed to shout. His voice had changed. It was impossibly powerful and completely inhuman.

The beast came forth, birthed in pain and rage and despair.

The old woman got to her feet and began to limp toward the broken door to the balcony.

"Kill her. Now!" Neferet commanded.

Within what remained of his mind, Aurox screamed as the beast roared and obeyed.

Zoey

I shook my head at Aphrodite as she ordered her third glass of champagne. "How can you drink?"

"By using my fake ID that says I'm twenty-five-year-old Anastasia Beaverhousen."

I rolled my eyes.

"Oh, all right. My fake name is really Kitina Maria Bartovick."

"And that's so much less obviously fake," I said, rolling my eyes again.

"Whatever. It works."

"You missed my point about the zillions of glasses of champagne," I said.

"No, I didn't, but you missed a sense a humor." She sipped the bubbly pink stuff. "By the by, all of a sudden you look like shit. What's up with that?"

I wiped my hand across my brow. It was shaking. My stomach was killing me.

Aphrodite leaned closer to me, pretending to be interested in the open geometry book, and whispered, "If you start coughing blood and die you will seriously screw up tonight's Plan."

"I am not dying. I'm just-" My words broke off as I was filled with a surge of energy. "Oh, no!"

"What is it?"

"Spirit. The element's back." I was already punching Thanatos's number on my phone. Through the huge front window I saw Shaunee's shoulders jerk, like something had just slammed into her, too, and I swear the air around her sparkled with fire. She whirled around. Our eyes met. She picked up her red candle.

Thanatos answered on the first ring. "Does Kalona have Grandma?" I asked.

"No. There has been no sign of her. Zoey, you can't-" I hung up on her and grabbed the little purple votive candle.

"She's not safe?"

"No." I was on my feet. "I'm going up there." Without waiting to see if she'd argue with me, I sprinted from the restaurant and across the lobby to the elevators. Shaunee and Darius met me there. She was holding her candle. Its flame was burning a lot brighter than my little purple votive, but both candles were still burning.

"Fire's back," Shaunee said.

I punched the up arrow button. "I know. Grandma's still up there."

Stark ran into the lobby, with Damien close behind. He, too, still carried his lit candle. "Air returned! Fire and spirit, too?"

I nodded. Then faced Stark. "Grandma's not out. I'm going up there."

"Not without me you're not," Stark said.

"Or me." Stevie Rae's face was flushed, but she was cradling her burning candle.

Shaylin looked scared and confused when she jogged into the lobby, cupping her hand around the flame of her blue candle. "Something happened. I have water back and Thanatos didn't close the circle. I figured I better get in here."

"You did good," I said. "Okay, look." The elevator doors opened and I stepped in. "Aurox has lost control. Probably because Neferet did something awful. Stark and I are going up there to be sure that awfulness isn't going to get Grandma killed. You guys stay here. Don't let your candles go out. Keep the circle open."

"Hell, no," Shaunee said, striding into the elevator. "If you go-fire goes."

"We're all going," Stevie Rae said.

"Fuck it. Me, too," Aphrodite said.

And that was it. My friends and I all squeezed into the elevator. I hit the penthouse button.

"You know there's going to be some majorly screwed-up shit going on when these doors open," Aphrodite said.

"Stay inside the circle close to Zoey," Darius told her. He had a knife in each hand.

Stark notched his bow. I put the hand that wasn't holding a candle on his arm. "Don't kill Aurox unless you have to."

"Zoey, it won't be Aurox. It'll be the beast. Remember that," he said.