Hunted (House of Night #5)(15)

"Yeah, it's like she put a spell on him or something," Jack said.

"Hang on, that reminds me," Damien said. "I definitely noticed how almost everyone acted awestruck and even a little disoriented when Kalona appeared."

Venus snorted, sounding very much like Aphrodite at her most sarcastic (and least attractive). "Everyone except us." She made a gesture that took in all of the red fledglings. "We knew he was evil and totally full of bullshit from the second we saw him."

"How?" I asked abruptly. "How did you guys know? All the other fledglings, well, except us, actually fell to their knees at the sight of him. Even the Sons of Erebus warriors didn't move against him." I'd felt drawn to him, too, but I didn't want to admit that in front of Venus.

Venus shrugged. "It was just obvious. YeaVus ws wh, he was hot and all, but come on! He exploded from the ground after Stevie Rae bled all over it."

I watched her closely, thinking that maybe the reason she recognized Kalona's evil was that she was too darn familiar with evil.

"Look, he had wings. That ain't right," Kramisha added, fragmenting my attention. "My mama told me don't trust no white boy, even a pretty one. I'm thinkin' a pretty white boy with wings explodin' up from the ground in a mess of blood and ugly-ass bird things is double trouble."

"She has a point," said Jack, obviously forgetting he was a pretty white boy.

"I have to share something," Damien said. We managed to pull our attention from Kramisha to him. "If I hadn't been in the middle of a fully cast circle, surrounded by you guys with Aphrodite yelling at us to stay together and get out of there, I might have fallen to my knees, too."

I felt a prickle of unease. "What about you guys?" I asked the Twins.

"He was hot," Shaunee said.

"Majorly," Erin said. She looked at Shaunee. Her Twin nodded, so she continued, "He would've gotten to us, too. If Aphrodite hadn't been shrieking unattractively at us to keep the circle together, we'd still be back there in the middle of that mess." "Which would not be good," Shaunee said.

"That's all I'm sayin'," Kramisha added.

"Again I save members of the nerd herd," Aphrodite slurred.

"Just eat your sandwich," I told her. Then I turned to Erik. "How about you? Did he make you want to...?" I trailed off, not sure how to put it.

"Stay and worship him?" Erik inserted, and I nodded. "Well, I did feel his power. But, remember, I already knew something was up with Neferet. If she was into him, I figured I didn't want anything to do with him. So I just kept myself focused on other things."

Our eyes met and held. Of course Erik had known it wasn't all good with Neferet, because he'd witnessed me confronting her. Plus, by then he'd realized I'd only cheated on him and been with the Vamp Poet Laureate, Loren Blake, because Neferet had set him up to seduce me and isolate me from my friends.

"So the red fledglings aren't affected by Kalona like regular fledglings are," Darius was saying. "Although it seems regular fledglings can control the effect he has on them if they have to. And what Erik is describing, coupled with my reaction to him, tells me that perhaps vampyres are less susceptible to him than fledglings." He paused and looked at Jack. "Did you want to stay and worship Kalona?"

Jack shook his head. "Nope. But I didn't really look at him that much. I mean, I was real worried about Stevie Rae, and then I was just thinking about staying with Damien. Plus, Duchess was upset about S-T-A-R-K." He spelled the name while he petted Duchess. "And I had to take care of her."

"Why weren't you affected by him?" I asked Darius.

I saw his eyes flit to Aphrodite, who was tipsily nibbling on a sandwich.

"I had other things on my mind." He paused. "Although I did feel his draw. And remember I'm in a slightly different position than my brother warriors. None of them have been as intimate with your group. When a Son of Erebus takes on an assignment of protection, as I did when I began escorting you and Aphrodite, it becomes a strong bond." He gave me a warm smile. "Often a High Priestess is protected by the same group of warriors for her entire life. It is no accident that we are named after our Goddess's faithful consort, Erebus."

I smiled back at him and hoped that Aphrodite wouldn't be a butt and break his honorable heart.

"What do you think is happening up there right now?" Jack asked suddenly.

Everyone looked at the curved ceiling of the little tunnel room, and I knew I wasn't the only one glad of the thickness of the earth between us and "up there."

"I don't know," I said, using the truthful answer instead of something meaningless like I'm sure everything's going to be okay. I thought hard, choosing my words carefully. "We know that an ancient immortal has broken free of the earth's imprisonment. We know that he brings with him creatures that are like demons, and that the last time he walked the earth he raped women and made men his slaves. We know that our High Priestess and maybe even what's left of the House of Night have, well, for lack of a better description, gone over to the Dark Side."

Into the silent pause that followed my words Erik said, "A Star Wars analogy always works."

I grinned at him, then sobered as I continued. "What we don't know is how much damage Kalona and the Raven Mockers have done in the community. Erik said there was some kind of electrical storm going on along with the rain and ice, but that might not have been caused by supernatural means. This is Oklahoma, and the weather can be totally bizarre." "Ooooooo-klahoma! Home of dustnadoes and ice storms that kick ass," Aphrodite said.