In the kitchen, she grimaced as she drained the last three liters of blood she found in the refrigerator.
“We do loathe cold blood.” She shuddered. Neferet dabbed her mouth and then headed out to the rear grounds of the villa.
The evening was frigid, but it had stopped raining. Neferet considered prodding the low-hanging clouds so that she left Tulsa in a misery of another ice storm, but then decided not to waste her energy.
“Also, we do not know how long we shall be in that Other World. It may only take a few days to dispatch our impostor, reclaim our Lynette, and establish dominion over that Tulsa House of Night—then we shall return here to mete justice out upon Zoey Redbird and her friends before we take up the rule of two worlds.” Neferet spoke to herself as she gathered what was left of the three humans she’d murdered. She’d directed her children to pick the bones clean, and they had done an excellent job of stripping them of tendon and meat—so much so that they reminded Neferet of driftwood. She placed three piles of bones in a triangle in the area under the pergola beside the partially frozen koi pond and fountain.
Then she searched the villa until she found a bottle of expensive brandy, a fat red candle that smelled of cinnamon, and three white pillar candles, which she placed before each mound of elegant bones. She sat on a wrought iron chair, sipping brandy from a crystal snifter as she stared at her reflection in the frozen water and thought how attractive she looked with her cheekbones and collarbones so very prominent, when her tendrils of Darkness returned.
“Ah, darlings! We are so pleased that you are recovering from our unfortunate fast.” She drank the last of the brandy and then threw the snifter against the ice so that it shattered and rained diamond shards across the mirrored surface. Then she stroked the leathery serpents while they wound around her legs and slithered up her body. “You are gaining your size back! We are so pleased by that. Now, children, rest yourselves, but remain vigilant. This is the last step before we leave this Tulsa for the other and embark upon our quest to reign over two worlds.”
The tendrils slithered away to rest watchfully, twined in living nests in the thickest of the shadows surrounding their mistress. Then Neferet shook back her hair, smoothed her dress, and began lighting the three white candles she’d placed before the piles of ivory bones.
When the candles were lit, she took the bottle of brandy and poured it over all that remained of two humans and a Son of Erebus Warrior and then, holding the red candle, she stood in the middle of the triangle of bones and faced south—the direction of the element fire.
Neferet lifted the candle and struck a long, wooden match, invoking. “Come, fire! We are the Goddess of Darkness, Neferet. With bone and power, we invoke you!” She touched the match to the flame, which lit immediately, burning high and hot. She walked to the first pile of brandy-soaked bones and began her summoning.
“I revere the old ways—deep magick that listens,
watches from shadows of night.
Fire, aid me as I burn these offerings,
ancient sacrifice—to honor and delight.”
Neferet touched the lit wick of the red candle to the first pile of bones, and with a whoosh they were engulfed in a deep, blood-colored flame. She moved counterclockwise to the second mound of offerings.
“As in the days of Daeva, Rusalka, and Abyzou—
I embrace chaos and encourage spite.
I am Goddess! No longer shackled by Nyx
and her command to walk only in the Light.”
She lit the second mound of human offerings, and the oily red flame leaped high, licking the top of the pergola. Neferet stood before the final pile of bones.
“Free from trite confines—the mores of goodness
and what modern mortals call right.
I summon thee, mighty beast who breathes death
and is clothed in magnificent white!”
Neferet threw the candle against the last of the bones—those that had belonged to the Son of Erebus Warrior. Red wax exploded against ivory as the flame consumed all that was left of Odin. Neferet strode to the center of the fiery pyramid. Surrounded by fire and the scent of boiling marrow, she waited.
She did not have to wait long.
From the deepest of the shadows, her children began to writhe with excitement, they glided to her, weaving through the flames to pool around her feet, and then from the dark that rested beneath the shadows—that was always there, waiting and watching—twin horns of slick white appeared, an impossible width apart, followed by the massive head and shoulders of the incarnation of evil—the White Bull.
He filled the grounds of the villa. His enormous cloven hooves cut into the winter grass and splintered the shrubbery, breaking apart the carefully laid stone paths and knocking over statuary.
Ah, my heartless one. It pleases me that you have escaped your tomb.
“It was but a temporary inconvenience,” she said, breathing deeply of the foulness that was his breath. “Let us not speak of it again.”
As you wish. He moved closer, and the ground shook each time his hooves cleaved the earth. The White Bull came to the first pile of flaming bones and inhaled deeply. This pleases me. It has been years uncounted since the last human bones were burnt in offering to me.
“Scent them again, my lord.” Neferet pitched her voice to a seductive purr.
The hulking bull inhaled again, and his bottomless eyes widened. Vampyre! Specifically,
