Hunted (House of Night #5)(32)

"Call?" Erik said. His eyes were guarded when he looked at me.

"Yes, call." I lifted my chin. Erik might be my boyfriend again, but no way was I going to put up with his being all possessive and insanely jealous. The thought flitted through my mind that maybe Erik wouldn't ever be able to really trust me after what had happened between us, and I'd have to put up with some obsessive jealousy. I'd kinda earned it. But I said in a cool voice, "I called Heath to warn him about the Raven Mockers and tell him to get his family to safety. He and I aren't together, but that doesn't mean I want anything bad to happen to him."

"Raven Mockers?" Heath asked.

"What's going on out there?" Erik asked, his voice all business.

"Goin' on? What do ya mean? Like the major storm that's been goin' on since about midnight, and has turned into a mess of ice, or the gang bullshit that happened? And what're Raven Mockers?"

"Gang bullshit? What do you mean by that?" Erik snapped. "No. I'm not sayin' shit till you answer my question."

"Raven Mockers are demonlike creatures from Cherokee legend," I answered. "Up until about midnight last night, they were only evil spirits, but all that changed when their daddy, an immortal named Kalona, broke free from his prison inside the earth, and is now making his new address the Tulsa House of Night."

"You really think it's a good idea to tell him all that?" Erik said.

"Hey, why don't you let Zoey decide what she wants to tell me and what she doesn't want to tell me?" Heath puffed up like he was dying to take a swing at Erik.

Erik puffed right back at him. "You're a human," he said the word like it was an STD. "You can't handle the same things we can handle. Try remembering that I had to help save your stupid human ass from a bunch of vamp ghosts just a couple months ago."

"Zoey saved me, not you! And I've been handling Zoey for about a zillwt chang Wlion years longer than you've even known her."

"Yeah? How often has your stupid human ass put her in danger since she's been Marked?"

That unpuffed Heath. "Look, I'm not putting her in danger by coming here. I just wanted to be sure she was okay. I tried to call a couple of times, but cell ser vice is messed up."

"Heath, it's not me being in danger by you being here that I'm worried about. It's you being in danger," I said, giving Erik a hard you-should-shut-up-now look.

"Yeah, I already know about those nasty fledgling kids who tried to chomp on me last time we were here. I don't remember real well everything that happened, but I remembered enough to bring this." He reached into the pocket of his camo Carhartt and came out with a dangerous- looking black, snubbed-nose gun. "It's my dad's," he said proudly. "I even have extra clips of ammo with me. I figured if they tried to eat me again, I could shoot what ever you couldn't zap."

"Heath, do not tell me you're carrying a loaded gun in your pocket," I said.

"Zo, I have the safety on and the first bullet in the clip is empty. I'm not a total moron."

Erik snorted sarcastically. Heath narrowed his eyes at him.

I spoke quickly into the testosterone-filled air before they started banging on their chests. "The fledglings don't eat people anymore, Heath, so you're not going to have to shoot anyone. When I said I was worried about you being safe, I meant because of the Raven Mockers."

"And she answered your question. Now what's this about gang stuff going on?"

Heath shrugged. "It's all over the news. 'Course, the electricity keeps going out and the stupid cable has been knocked out all day, along with the cell ser vice being sucky. But they say that some gang went nuts last night about midnight, some kind of New Year's initiation thing. Chera Kimiko on Fox News called it a bloodbath. Cops were late in responding 'cause of the storm. Some people were killed in midtown, which is freaking everyone 'cause midtown isn't exactly gang central, so a bunch of rich white folks have lost their minds. Last time I watched the news they were yelling about calling in the National Guard, even though the cops are saying everything is under control." He paused and I could practically see the wheels in his head turning. "Hey, midtown! That's where the House of Night is." Heath looked from me to Erik and then back to me. "So it wasn't gang bullshit. It was those raven thingies."

"Brilliant," Erik muttered.

"Yes, it was really the Raven Mockers. They started the attack when we were escaping from the House of Night," I said before he and Erik could snipe at each other again. "The news didn't say anything at all about weird creatures attacking people?" "Nope. They said a gang attacked people. Killed some of them by slitting their throats. Is that what those Raven Mockers do?"

I remembered how one had attacked me at the House of Night, almost making one of Aphrodite's two death visions for me come true by trying to cut my the LLroat--and that was before they got their physical bodies all the way back. I shivered. "Yeah, that seems to be what they do, but I really don't know much about them. Grandma knows more, but they made her get in a car accident."

"Ah, Zo, Grandma was in an accident? Damn! I'm so sorry. Is she gonna be okay?" Heath was genuinely upset. He was a big favorite of Grandma's and had gone out to her lavender farm with me more times than I could count.