Redeemed (House of Night #12)(76)

“Save it. Tell her yourself. Just stay with me. I’ll get you to the hospital.”

“No hospital. Take me to Thanatos.” Then he closed his eyes and didn’t speak again.

Marx kept talking to him, though, and kept pressure on the wound, even as Kalona’s blood pooled around them in an ever-widening tide.

The ambulance finally got there. The EMTs who got out looked confused and afraid, hesitant to approach.

“What the f**k is your problem? Get him on the gurney!” Marx exploded on them.

“Detective, he’s too big. He won’t fit on the gurney,” said one of the EMTs.

“We’ll lift him with you, Detective.” Marx looked up to see young Officer Carter and a dozen or so uniforms.

Marx nodded a grim thank-you. “Get the gurney out of the back. We’re gonna put him in there, and then we’re taking the bus.” Not giving the EMTs a choice, he said to Carter, “Let’s get him in there. On three, lift him.”

The officers circled Kalona and lifted him, leaving broken pieces of his wings in the blood pool. Kalona didn’t make a sound as they slid him into the back of the ambulance. Marx would’ve thought he was dead had he not climbed in beside him and saw that his heart was still pumping fresh blood from the terrible wound. Marx ripped open HemCon pads, pressing them against Kalona’s chest while he shouted through the open window at Carter, who had taken the driver’s seat. “Get us to the Council Oak Tree, stat!”

Neferet

“Up, children! Lift me so that I may witness my plan come to fruition!” The threads of Darkness swarmed to her, swirling, lifting her high enough that she could see over the balcony to the street below while being careful to keep her far enough away from the edge not to be singed.

“How magnificent! He landed perfectly in the center of the street. Almost in the same spot from which he so recently and arrogantly mocked me, disrespected me, and stole my favorite servant from me. Well, my children, he will not do that again. No man will ever betray me again.” The girl Judson and Tony had baited Kalona with was sobbing hysterically, still collapsed where the two men had dropped her. Neferet sighed and motioned for her children to lower her. “You are safe now,” she told the crying girl. “What I did was to keep all of us protected. Kalona was my enemy, thus he was also yours. You should rejoice in my victory.”

The girl wiped at her eyes with trembling hands, but she was unable to stop crying. “Kylee!” Neferet called, and the servant hurried from inside the penthouse to her. “They simply cannot grasp the fact that what I do is to protect us all. Get rid of them. Immediately. They’re giving me a headache. Judson will help you.”

“Would you have us throw them off the balcony together?” Judson asked.

“No, no, no! There is no need to waste them. Just escort them back to their rooms.”

“Yes, Goddess,” Judson and Kylee intoned together before Judson dragged the hysterical girl from the balcony and herded the remainder of the weeping mortals from her penthouse.

“There. That is so much better,” she said as blissful silence returned to her domain. She addressed the chef who had been standing there, obediently waiting for her next command. “Tony, you may return to the kitchen. In celebration of my victory, I’d like cake. Chocolate cake with night-blooming jasmine flowers decorating it. Can you do that for me?”

“It will be as you command, Goddess,” he said woodenly. Neferet smiled. Tony’s possession had definitely improved his personality.

Still smiling, Neferet strolled leisurely back to the little bistro table to retrieve her glass of wine, and then frowned in annoyance. She’d forgotten that in her haste to shoot Kalona she’d broken the goblet. “Kylee is never here when I need her,” she said and sighed. She considered commanding one of her children to bring her a new goblet. “If only you had opposable thumbs,” she muttered, more to herself than the snake-things that were never far from her. Neferet stood, and the atmosphere of the balcony utterly changed.

The balmy wind turned frigid. The scent of the spring thunderstorm was lost in the reek of a grave. Her children swarmed to her, coiling around her body fretfully.

“You have nothing about which to worry,” she told them. Neferet moved gracefully to the middle of her balcony. Straight and proud, she waited for him to materialize.

The White Bull took form before her. She shivered as his massive body solidified. His opal horns were wet at their tips, touched ever so slightly with the scarlet of fresh blood. His coat was luminous in the predawn light. Each spike of lightning that speared the sky glistened across him. White was too simple a description for his magnificence. The longer Neferet gazed at him, the more iridescent colors she saw within him—and the more she longed to stroke him.

“My lord,” she said, curtsying ever so slightly to him. “Welcome to my Temple.”

Thank you, my heartless one. I have been watching. His voice rumbled through her mind, putting to shame the power of the impending thunderstorm. You have surprised me—twice since last we met.

“I am so glad to hear it, my lord.” Neferet moved closer to him. She reached one slender finger out and touched it to the point of a razor-tipped horn. Delicately, she took her finger into her mouth and tasted the blood. “Vampyre, old vampyre. Very old and powerful. So that is what has been keeping you from me, though I cannot believe this ancient vampyre gave himself to you as freely as do I.”