Redeemed (House of Night #12)(12)

“Oh, much better than that. You are worshipping me now. The twenty of you are the first witnesses of my reign as Goddess of Darkness. You each will have a very special and important role to fulfill as you worship me and attend to my every need. You will offer gifts and sacrifices to me, and in return I will take from you the exhausting free will that has obviously repressed and depressed you all of your lives. Why else would you be working in such menial and meaningless jobs?”

“I don’t understand what is happening.” Elinor wept.

“Very shortly your confusion will be gone. Don’t worry, sweet Elinor, it only hurts for a moment.” Neferet raised her arm. “Children—” she began.

“Wait!” The bellman who had wanted to help Tony stepped forward and unflinchingly met Neferet’s gaze. “You said if we tried to help Chef, our fate would be the same as his. I didn’t help him. None of us helped him. So, according to your own word, you’re not going to send those snake-things on us.”

“And what is your name?”

“Judson.” He paused and then added, “Goddess.”

“Judson, that’s a name from the Old South, did you know that?”

“No, I—I, no, I didn’t,” another pause, “Goddess.”

“Well, it is. I won’t change your name, either. And about what I said before? I lied. Take them!” Neferet commanded.

Thankfully, her children had anticipated her wishes and moved swiftly, so that the annoying shrieking ended very, very soon.

CHAPTER FOUR

Neferet

Neferet sent her new supplicants, each initiated into her worship by the possession of one of her children, and commanded that they rouse the hotel guests and residents, and have them gather in the grand ballroom.

Neferet had decided she would set up her offering room in the main ballroom. It was surrounded by marble columns with a lovely high ceiling, ornate art deco chandeliers, and a wide double staircase with a curved wrought-iron banister that had a landing between the ground floor—where her supplicants would stand—and the upper-level promenade, where only her closest worshippers, or those tending to her needs, would be allowed. The others would be confined either to their rooms or to the basement holding area, which Kylee had been so kind as to show her. Or if they were too much of a nuisance, and she didn’t care to waste a tendril to possess them, they would become food for her children.

Neferet would, of course, only feed from those supplicants who captured her interest.

Kylee had been tasked with finding a chair that would have to suffice as a throne until she could have a proper one commissioned to be carved.

“You’ll need to find a master craftsman to create exactly what I require. The wood must be stained the deep red of bull’s blood,” she spoke as she chose the setting carefully. “And with none of those wretchedly cold, hard seats that the crones on the High Council prefer. Pillows of golden velvet—that is what I will sit upon.”

Neferet allowed two of the most attractive housekeepers to wrap her in a luxurious dressing gown of royal purple, and had just decided that she would not wear any shoes—she would be barefoot, as should befit a newly born Goddess, when she returned to her living room to refill her wine goblet—annoyed that there was no eager human waiting on her. She was already waiting, impatiently, for the guests and residents to be rounded up by her obedient staff so that she could make her entrance to the ballroom.

“Even for a Goddess, it is so difficult to find good help. But I shall let this mistake pass. There are only twenty of them. They must be quite busy herding the humans into my offering room. Though I shall only let it pass this one time.” She was sipping the rich red liquid, enjoying the taste of the blood the handsome bellman had so graciously volunteered to slice open his flesh to flavor her wine with, when the television caught her peripheral vision. There was a breaking news feed going across the bottom of the screen, MURDERS IN TULSA, and the anchor, Chera Kimiko, was speaking with a somber expression.

Delighted, Neferet hit the mute button, expecting to relive the delicious details of her feast. But instead of the Boston Avenue Church, the screen filled with a picture of Woodward Park, in a terrible state of burned-out unattractiveness. Then the camera shifted and Neferet’s brows lifted as they focused on the rock wall beside the grotto that had so recently been her sanctuary. She tapped impatiently at the volume in time to hear Kimiko, sounding oh-so-serious.

“This is the site of the gruesome murders of the two men, whose bodies were discovered by firefighters yesterday morning. As we reported earlier, the violent thunderstorm that created winds in excess of seventy miles per hour also carried with it deadly lightning. Lightning strikes in the Tulsa area have accounted for five deaths today, with ten more people still hospitalized in serious condition. But the death of these two men was, apparently, unrelated to the storm. Adam Paluka is live with Detective Kevin Marx, and we go to him for the details. Adam?”

The scene changed from the storm-ravaged park to a detective sitting behind a desk in a mundane-looking office. Neferet recognized him as the officer who had, annoyingly, seemed sympathetic to Zoey Redbird in the past. She scowled as she watched the brief interview.

“Detective Marx, could you please explain about the two additional deaths at Woodward Park, and have you truly ruled out storm-related causes?”

“The bodies of two men, both in their mid-forties, were discovered early yesterday. The cause of death was the same for both men—blunt force trauma and loss of blood.”