Untamed (House of Night #4)(16)

"Uh, Stevie Rae," I said. "I'm in total agreement with you about the whole nothing wrong with being not normal thing. I mean, look at me." I flailed my hand about at my many tattoos, which were decidedly not normal. "I'm Queen of Notnormal Land, but maybe you should explain what you mean by not normal."

"This should be good," Aphrodite said.

"Okay, well, I don't really know everything about myself yet. I've only been un- undead and Changed for a few days, but I do have some abilities I don't think normal adult vamps have."

"Like . . . ," I prompted when she just sat there chewing her lip.

"Like the kinda 'becomin' part of the stones' thing I did to crawl up the side of the dorm. But I might be able to do that because of my earth affinity."

I nodded my head, considering. "It does make sense. I've found out that I can call the elements to me and I can more or less disappear as I become mist and wind and whatnot."

Stevie Rae brightened. "Oh, yeah! I remember you were all practically invisible that one time."

"Yep. So maybe having that ability really isn't that abnormal. Maybe all vamps with affinities for an element can do something like that."

"Shit, it just figures! You two get all the cool abilities. I get the pain-in-the-ass visions," Aphrodite said.

"That could be 'cause you're a pain in the ass," Stevie Rae said.

"What else?" I said before they could start bickering again.

"I'll burn up if I get out in the sun."

"Still? Are you completely sure?" I already knew the sun was a problem with her from when she had been an undead dead kid.

"She's sure," Aphrodite said. "Remember, that's why we had to go down in those nasty tunnels in the first place. The sun was coming up. We were downtown. Stevie Rae freaked out."

"I knew somethin' bad would happen if I stayed aboveground," Stevie Rae said. "So I didn't actually freak--I just was real worried."

"Yeah, well, you and I will just have to agree to disagree about your mood swings. I say you totally freaked after your arm got some sunshine on it. Check it out, Z." Aphrodite pointed at Stevie Rae's right arm. Stevie Rae reluctantly held out her arm and pushed up the sleeve of her blouse. I could see a splotch of red skin across the top of her forearm and elbow, like she'd gotten a bad sunburn.

"That doesn't look so awful. A little sunscreen, dark shades, and a trucker cap and you'll be fine," I said.

"Uh, no," Aphrodite spoke up again. "You should have seen it before she drank the blood. Her arm was seriously unattractive and crispy critter. Drinking the blood made it go from third-degree nastiness to mildly annoying sunburn, but who knows how well that would work if her whole body had been fried."

"Stevie Rae, honey, let me be clear that I'm not judging, but you didn't eat a street person or anything like that after you caught on fire, did you?"

Stevie Rae shook her head back and forth so hard, her curls whipped around crazily. "Nuh-uh. On the way to the tunnels, I took the tiniest little detour and borrowed some blood from the downtown Red Cross blood bank."

"Borrow means 'give back when you're done,'" Aphrodite said. "And unless you're going to be the first bulimic vampyre, I don't think you'll be giving back the blood." She gave Stevie Rae a smug look. "So, actually, you stole it. Which brings us to your BFF's other new ability. This one I witnessed. More than once, actually. And, yes, it was disturbing. She is freakishly good at controlling the minds of humans. Please note that the key part of what I just said is found in the root word, freak."

"Are you done?" Stevie Rae asked her.

"Probably not, but you may proceed," Aphrodite said.

Stevie Rae frowned at her, then continued to explain to me. "Aphrodite's right. It's like I can reach into a human's mind and do things."

"Things?" I asked.

Stevie Rae shrugged. "Things like make them come to me, or forget they saw me. I'm not sure what else. I could sorta do it before I'd Changed, but nothing like what I can do now, and I'm really not comfortable with mind control. It just seems so, I dunno, mean."

Aphrodite snorted.

"Okay, what else? Do you still have to be invited into someone's house to enter?" And then I answered my own question. "Wait, that must have changed, because I didn't actually invite you in here, and here you are. Not that I wouldn't have invited you in. I definitely would have," I added quickly.

"I dunno about that one. I walked right into the Red Cross place."

"You mean you walked right in after you mind-controlled that little lab tech to unlock the door for you," Aphrodite said.

Stevie Rae blushed. "I didn't hurt her or anything, and she won't remember any of it."

"But she didn't invite you in?" I asked.

"No, but the Red Cross building is a public place, and it feels different to me. Oh, and I don't think you'd have to invite me in here, Z. I used to live here, remember?"

I smiled at her. "I remember."

"If you two start holding hands and singing 'Lean on Me,' I'm going to have to excuse myself so I don't start retching," Aphrodite said. "Can you not use some of your mind control on her and get her to stop once and for all?" I asked.