Tempted (House of Night #6)(77)

Stevie Rae remembered having a bad feeling from the second she'd seen him. The truth was she'd never liked the kid. He was a big, stupid pig farmer from northeastern Oklahoma who basically thought women were one step below hogs on the redneck What You're Worth Scale. Yepper, I found him and bit him! He practically crowed. That thing? You got to be kidding. He smelled nasty, Nicole had said. Yeah, and how'd you get him to hold still while you ate him? Starr asked. Kurtis wiped his mouth with his sleeve. A splotch of red smeared his shirt and the scent of it hit Stevie Rae, completely shocking her. Rephaim! That was Rephaim's blood. I knocked him out first. It wasn't hard to do, with his broken wing and all. What are you talkin' about? Stevie Rae snapped the words at Kurtis. Bovinelike, he blinked at her. She was getting ready to grab him and shake him and maybe even have the earth open up and swallow his big, stupid ass, when he finally answered. I'm talking about the birdboy.

What'd you call 'em, Raven Mockers? One showed up here. We been chasin' it all around the depot. Nikki and Starr got sick of messing with it and went out to chomp on some of the late night Taco Bell fourth meal feeders, but I had me a taste for chicken. So I kept after him. Had to corner him up on the roof in one of those tower things, you know, the far one over there, away from the tree. Kurtis pointed up and to his left. But I got him. Did he taste as bad as he smelled? Nicole's shock and revulsion were as obvious as her curiosity. Kurtis shrugged his beefy shoulders. Hey, I'll eat anything. Or anyone. They all dissolved into laughter. All except Stevie Rae. You have a Raven Mocker on the roof? Yeah. Don't know why the hell he was down here in the first place. Especially all beat up and broken. Nicole lifted a brow at her. Thought you said it was okay to go back to the House of Night 'cause Neferet and Kalona were gone.

Looks like they left some shit behind, huh? Maybe they're not really gone. They're gone, Stevie Rae had said, already moving toward the door to the basement. So none of you want to come back to school with me? Three heads shook silently back and forth as red-tinged eyes followed her every move. How about the others? Where are they? Nicole shrugged. Wherever they want to be. Next time I see any of them I'll tell 'em you said they should go back to school. Kurtis cracked up. Hey, that's great. Let's all just go back to school! Like that's something we really want to do? Look, I gotta go. It's almost sunrise. But I'm not done talkin' about this with you. And you should know that I may want to bring the other red fledglings back here to live, even though we'll officially be part of the House of Night. And if that happens y'all can either be with us and act right, or you need to leave. How about this: How about you keep your pu**y fledglings at school, and we'll stay here because this is where we live now, Kurtis said. Stevie Rae stopped moving toward the exit.

Almost as if it was second nature to her, she imagined she was a tree with roots growing down, down, down into the amazing, incredible ground. Earth, please come to me. In the basement, already underground and surrounded by her element, it was a simple thing to pull power up through her body. As she spoke, the ground rumbled and shook with the force of her irritation. I'm only gonna say this one more time. If I bring the other red fledglings back here, this will be our home. If you act right, you can stay. If you don't, you will leave. She stomped her foot and the entire depot shook, sending plaster cascading from the low basement ceiling. Then Stevie Rae drew a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down, and imagining all the energy she'd called flowing out of her body and back into the earth. When she spoke again her voice sounded normal and the earth didn't shake.

So, y'all decide. I'll be back tomorrow night. See ya. Without giving them another glance, Stevie Rae hurried out of the basement, through the maze of rubble and metal grates spread haphazardly around the abandoned depot grounds to the stone stairs that led from the parking lot at railroad track level up to the street level of what used to be a thriving railway station. She had to be careful as she rushed up the stairs. It had stopped sleeting, and the sun had actually come out the day before, but night had brought falling temperatures and almost everything that had thawed had refrozen. She reached the circle drive and the big covered entryway that used to keep Oklahoma weather from train passengers. She looked up and up and up. The building was just creepy-looking. That's all there was to it. Z liked to describe it as something out of Gotham City.

Stevie Rae thought it was more like Blade Runner meets Amityville Horror. Not that she didn't heart the tunnels under the building, but there was something about the stone exterior with its weird mixture of art deco and machine design that creeped her out. Of course, some of her freaky feeling could have been because the sky was already starting to shift from black to gray with the coming dawn. In retrospect, that should have stopped her. She should have turned around, gone back down the stairs, climbed into the car she'd borrowed from the school, and driven to the House of Night. Instead, she'd stepped squarely into her fate and, as Z would have said, then the poopie hit the fan. She knew there were circular stairs inside the main part of the depot that led up to each tower room--she'd done lots of exploring during the weeks she'd lived there.

But no dang way was she going back inside that building and taking a chance that some random red fledgling wouldn't be tucked into bed and would see her--and question her--and find out the truth. Plan B led her to a tree that at one time had obviously been decorative, but had long since overgrown its concrete circle so that its roots had broken through the ground below in the parking lot, exposing lots of frozen earth and allowing it to grow taller than it should have. Without its leaves, Stevie Rae didn't have a clue what kind of tree it was, other than the kind that was tall enough that its branches brushed the roof of the depot, near the first of the two towers that faced out from the roof on the front side of the building, and that was tall enough for her. Moving quickly, Stevie Rae went over to the tree and jumped to grab the branch closest to her head. She scrambled up the slick, bare bough, shimmying along it until she got to the main part of the tree. From there she made her way up and up, silently thanking Nyx for her red vampyre enhanced strength 'cause if she'd been a normal fledgling, or maybe even vamp, she'd never have been able to make the treacherous climb.