Betrayed

'What do you mean by knew?' Detective Martin, the shorter cop, said sharply.

'Well, I mean that I don't hang out with human teenagers any­more, but even before I was Marked I didn't see Chris or Brad much.' I wondered what he was so uptight about, and then I real­ized that because Chris was dead and Brad was missing that my talking about them in the past tense probably sounded really bad.

'When was the last time you saw the two boys?' Marx asked.

I chewed my lip, trying to remember. 'Not for months—since the beginning of football season, and then I just went to maybe two or three parties and they were there, too.'

'So you weren't with either boy?'

I frowned. 'No. I was kinda dating the Broken Arrow quarter­back. That's the only reason I knew any of those Union guys.' I smiled, trying to lighten things up. 'People think Union players hate BA players. It's not really true. Most of them grew up to­gether. A bunch of them are still friends.'

'Miss Redbird, you've been at the House of Night for how long?' the short cop asked as if I hadn't tried to be pleasant.

'Zoey has been with us for almost exactly one month,' Neferet answered for me.

'And in that month did either Chris or Brad visit you here?'

Totally surprised, I said, 'No!'

'Are you saying no human teenagers have visited you here at all?' Martin fired the question quickly.

Caught off guard I sputtered like a moron and I'm sure looked completely guilty. Thankfully, Neferet saved me.

'Two friends of Zoey's did see her during her first week here, although I do not believe you'd call it an official visit,' she said with a smooth, adult smile aimed at the detectives that clearly said kids will be kids. Then she nodded encouragement at me. 'Go ahead and tell them about your two friends who thought it'd be fun to scale our walls.'

Neferet's green eyes locked on mine. I'd told her all about Heath and Kayla climbing the wall with the ridiculous idea of busting me out. Or at least that had been Heath's idea. Kayla, my ex-best friend, had just wanted me to see that she'd staked a claim on Heath. I'd told Neferet all of that, and more. How I'd kinda accidentally tasted Heath's blood—until Kayla had caught me and totally lost her mind. Staring into Neferet's eyes I knew as sure as if she'd said the words aloud that I was to keep the little blood-tasting incident to myself, which was more than okay with me.

'There really wasn't much to it, and it was a whole month ago. Kayla and Heath thought they'd sneak in and bust me out.' I paused to shake my head like I thought they were totally crazy, and the tall cop jumped in with, 'Kayla and Heath who?'

'Kayla Robinson and Heath Luck,' I said. (Yeah, Heath's last name really is Luck, but the only thing he was particularly lucky about is not getting picked up DUI.) 'Anyway, Heath is kinda slow sometimes, and Kayla, well, Kayla's really good at shoes and hair, but not so good at common sense. So they hadn't really thought out the whole 'Hey, she's turning into a vampyre and if she leaves the House of Night she'll die' issue. So I explained to them that not only did I not want to leave, I couldn't leave. And that was about it.'

'Nothing unusual happened when you saw your friends?'

'You mean when I went back to the dorm?'

'No. Let me rephrase the question. Nothing unusual hap­pened when you saw Kayla and Heath?' Martin said.

I swallowed. 'No.' Which wasn't actually a lie. Apparently it's not unusual for fledglings to experience a vampyre's bloodlust. I shouldn't so early in my Change, but my Mark shouldn't be filled in and I shouldn't have the added decorative tattooing of an adult vamp either. Not to mention the fact that no other fledgling or vamp had ever been Marked on the shoulder and back like I had. Okay, I'm not exactly a normal fledgling.

'You didn't cut the boy and drink his blood?' The short cop's voice was like ice.

'No!' I cried.

'Are you accusing Zoey of something?' Neferet said, stepping closer to me.

'No, ma'am. We're simply questioning her to try and get a clearer idea of the dynamics of the friends of Chris Ford and Brad Higeons. There are several aspects of the case that are rather unusual and …' The short cop rambled on and on while my mind raced.

What was going on? I hadn't cut Heath; I'd scratched him. And I hadn't done it on purpose. And 'drinking' his blood wasn't ex­actly what I'd done—it was more like I lapped it up. But how the hell did they know anything about it? Heath wasn't very bright, but I didn't think he'd run around telling people (especially not detective people) that the chick he had the hots for drank blood. No. Heath wouldn't have said anything, but—

And I knew why they were asking me questions.

'There's something you should know about Kayla Robinson,' I said suddenly, interrupting the short cop's boring tirade. 'She saw me kiss Heath. Well, actually Heath kissed me. She likes Heath.' I looked from one cop to the other. 'You know, she really likes Heath, as in wants to date him now that I'm out of the way. So when she saw him kiss me she got pissed and started yelling at me. Okay, I admit I didn't act very mature. I got pissed back at her. I mean, it's just wrong when your best friend goes after your boyfriend. Anyway'—I fidgeted, like I was embarrassed to admit what I was telling them—'I said some mean stuff to Kayla that scared her. She freaked out and left.'

'What kind of mean stuff?' Detective Marx asked.

I sighed. 'Something like if she didn't go away I'd fly off the wall and suck her blood.'

'Zoey!' Neferet's voice was sharp. 'You know that's inappro­priate. We have enough problems with image without you fright­ening human teenagers on purpose. Little wonder the poor child spoke to the police.'

'I know. I'm really sorry.' Even though I understood Neferet was playing along with me, I still had to work at not cringing away from the power in her voice. I glanced up at the detectives. Both of them were staring at Neferet with wide, startled eyes. Huh. So, up until then she'd only shown them her gorgeous public face. They had no idea what kind of power they were dealing with.

'And you haven't seen either teenager since then?' the tall cop asked after an uncomfortable pause.

'Only once more, and then it was just Heath alone, during our Samhain Ritual.'

'Excuse me, your what?'

'Samhain is the ancient name for a night you would probably best know as Halloween,' Neferet explained. She was back to stun­ningly beautiful and kind, and I could understand why the cops looked confused, but they returned her smile as if they had no choice. Knowing Neferet's powers—they might not. 'Go on, Zoey,' she told me.

'Well, there were a bunch of us and we were having a ritual. Kinda like a church service outside,' I explained. Okay, it was nothing like a church service outside, but no way was I going to explain circle-casting and calling the spirits of carnivorous dead vamps to a couple human cops. I glanced at Neferet. She nodded encouragement. I drew a deep breath and mentally edited the past as I talked. I knew it really didn't matter what I said. Heath didn't remember anything about that night—the night he'd al­most been killed by the ghosts of ancient vampyres. Neferet had made sure that his memory had been totally and permanently blocked. All he knew was that he'd found me with a bunch of other kids and then passed out. 'Anyway, Heath snuck into the ritual. It was really embarrassing, especially since ... well ... he was totally wasted.'

'Heath was drunk?' Marx asked.

I nodded. 'Yes, he was drunk. I don't want to get him in any trouble, though.' I'd already decided not to mention Heath's un­fortunate, and hopefully temporary, experimentation with pot.

'He's not in trouble.'

'Good. I mean, he's not my boyfriend but he's basically a good guy.'

'Don't worry about it, Miss Redbird, just tell us what hap­pened.'

'Nothing really. He crashed our ritual, and it was embarrass­ing. I told him to go home and not come back, that we were through. He made a fool out of himself and then passed out. We left him there, and that was it.'

'You haven't seen him since?'

'No.'

'Have you heard from him in any way?'

'Yeah, he calls way too much and leaves annoying messages on my cell. But that's getting better,' I added hastily. I really didn't want to get him into trouble. 'I think he's finally getting it that we're through.'

The tall cop finished taking some notes, and then he reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag that