Hunted House of Night - By Kristin Cast Page 0,134
now. Take Neferet and the Raven Mockers and go someplace far away where you can live in peace and not hurt anyone else."
"Or?" he asked, looking amused.
"Or I will, as my human consort put it, kick your butt out of here," I said firmly.
His look of amusement widened into a charming smile. "A-ya, I do not believe I will leave this place. I find I like Tulsa very much."
"Remember that you brought this on yourself," I said. Then I spoke to the women surrounding me. "The poem says: Joined not to conquer, instead to overcome. I'm Night. I've led you to Sister Mary Angela--she's Spirit." I held out my left hand and Sister Mary Angela grasped it firmly. "Stevie Rae, you're Blood. Aphrodite, you're Humanity."
Stevie Rae walked over to Sister Mary Angela, and took the nun's other hand, and then she looked at Aphrodite, who nodded and grasped her offered hand.
"What are they doing?" Neferet's voice came from closer than she was before. I looked up to see that she was moving quickly toward us.
"A-ya! What foolishness is this?" Kalona didn't sound amused anymore, and he, too, was approaching our circle.
"And Earth completes." I held my hand out to Grandma.
"Do not let the Ghigua join them!" Kalona cried.
"Stark! Kill her," Neferet commanded.
"Not A-ya!" Kalona shouted. "Kill the old Ghigua."
I held my breath and met Stark's eyes as Neferet said, "Kill Zoey. No mistakes this time. Aim for her heart!" As she spoke, darkness slithered from the shadows around her. Stretching over to Stark, I watched them wrap around his ankles and begin to move up his body. I saw clearly the struggle that was going on within Stark. Neferet's dark power could still affect him. My stomach clenched. Was his Warrior's Oath to me enough to break that hold? I wanted to trust him. I'd decided to trust him. Had that been a stupid mistake?
"No!" Kalona roared. "Do not kill her!"
"I will not share you!" Neferet cried. Her hair was whipping around her, and she seemed to grow bigger as I watched. I had been right to believe she was no longer what she once had been, not in body and not in soul. She whirled from Kalona to Stark. "By the power with which I awakened you, I command you hit the mark. Shoot Zoey through her heart!"
I was staring at Stark, trying to will him to choose good--to keep choosing good and to turn from Neferet's cloying darkness, so I saw the exact moment he understood his way out. As if he and I were back in the little room off the field house again, I heard myself saying to him, You have my heart...And his response: Then both of us better stay safe. A heart's a hard thing to live without...
"That's what my aim won't miss." Stark spoke across the icy distance to me as if he and I were alone. "The part of my lady's heart I hold as my own." The shadows that had gripped his body were instantly washed from him as he made his decision.
And with a rush of panic I understood what he was going to do.
Aiming straight at me, he drew the bow and shot.
As he let loose the arrow, I cried, "Air, fire, water, earth, spirit! Hear me! Do not let that arrow touch him!" I flung my power out toward Stark, channeling all five of the elements. The arrow did a weird shimmer, and suddenly it was not heading in my direction, but speeding back toward Stark's heart. It waill not sh6 G cs mere inches from his chest when the elements blasted it, disintegrating it with such force that Stark was thrown back and lay crumpled, but not skewered, on the ground.
"You bitch whelp!" Neferet shrieked. "You're not going to win this!"
Ignoring her, I held my hand out to Grandma. "And Earth completes," I repeated.
She took my hand in hers and, joined together, we faced the onrush of Kalona and Neferet.
"Do not curse them." Sister Mary Angela's voice was so serene it seemed otherworldly. "He is all too familiar with darkness and anger and curses."
"A blessing," Stevie Rae said.
"Yeah, people who are filled with hate don't know how to handle love," Aphrodite said, meeting my eyes briefly and smiling.
"Bless him, Grandma. We'll join you," I said.
Then my grandma's strong voice rang out, amplified with the power of spirit and blood, night and earth, all joined through the humanity of love.