Chosen

us. Neferet wanted me separated from everyone so that I'd also separate myself from you. But I'm not going to stop depending on you… believing in you … ever.

Then I opened my eyes and walked resolutely to Damien. He usually greeted me with a cute smile. Tonight he met my eyes steadily, but there was nothing sweet or friendly about him.

'As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the first element, wind!' I spoke with a strong, clear voice, raising my arms over my head when I said the element's name, and was unimaginably relieved when a powerful gust of air whirled around Damien and me, lifting our hair and making our clothes flap. I turned to my right and walked to Shaunee.

I didn't expect her to welcome me, and she didn't. She watched me silently with her dark, guarded eyes. I pushed back the despair her rejection made me feel and evoked fire.

'As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the second element, fire!'

I barely paused to feel the rush of heat that beat against my skin, but moved quickly to Erin, who as also silent and withdrawn.

'As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the third element, water!'

I turned my back on scents of the sea and walked over to Aphrodite. She met my gaze steadily and smiled grimly at me.

'It sucks to have your friends pissed at you, doesn't it?' She said it quietly, so that only I could hear her.

'Yeah,' I whispered back. 'And I'm sorry I had something to do with your friends getting pissed at you.'

'Nah,' she shook her head. 'It wasn't you. It was my stupid shitty choices. Just like it's your stupid shitty choices that got you into this mess.'

'Thanks for reminding me,' I said.

'I'm just here to help,' Aphrodite said. 'Better hurry this thing along. Scary Stevie Rae is losing it.'

I didn't have to look over my shoulder at Stevie Rae to know Aphrodite was right. I could feel Stevie Rae's restlessness increase. It was like she was a tightly wound rubber band that was getting ready to either break or zing out of control.

'As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the fourth element, earth!'

The clean, sweet scents of a spring meadow swirled around Aphrodite and me. I was still smiling when I turned to move back to the center of the circle and complete the casting by calling spirit when Stevie Rae broke.

'No!' The word was an almost unrecognizable snarl of rage and despair. 'She can't be earth! I'm earth! It's all that's left of me! I won't let her take it away!'

With blinding swiftness, Stevie Rae hurled herself on Aphrodite.

'No! Stevie Rae, stop it!' I cried, trying to pull Stevie Rae off her, but it was like trying to move a marble column. She was too strong. Aphrodite had been right. Stevie Rae wasn't human or fledgling or vampyre. She was something more—and that more meant more dangerous. She was holding Aphrodite in an ugly parody of an embrace. I saw the sharp glint of her fangs and then Aphrodite screamed as Stevie Rae buried her teeth into her neck.

'Help me get her off!' I yelled, looking desperately at Damien and the Twins as I kept trying to pull Stevie Rae from Aphrodite.

'I can't!' Damien cried. 'I can't move.'

'We can't either!' Shaunee said.

The three of them had been rooted into place by their elements. Damien was being pressed to the ground by a furious wind. Shaunee was surrounded by a cage of fire. Erin was suddenly encased in a pool of bottomless water.

'You have to finish the circle!' Damien yelled above the wind. 'Call all of the elements to help you. That's the only way you can save her.'

I ran to the center of the circle. Raising my arms over my head I completed the casting. 'As High Priestess in training for our Great Goddess Nyx, I use her power and authority to call to my circle the fifth and final element, spirit!'

Power surged through me. I gritted my teeth and tried to control the trembling within my body. Aphrodite's screams were getting weaker and weaker, but I couldn't think about that. I closed my eyes so that I could concentrate. Then I spoke the goddess-given words that drifted through my mind, like the sweet, sure answer to a child's prayer. My voice was magnified magically. I felt the words materialize, sparkling, in the air around me.

'Wind blow away that which is tainted

Fire burn through the blackness of hatred

Water wash clean evil intentions unsated

Earth nourish her soul with darkness abated

Spirited fill her so that from death she is emancipated!'

Like I was throwing a ball, I hurled at Stevie Rae the sizzling elemental power that I felt between my hands. At that moment I felt a searingly familiar pain ripple from the base of my spine all the way around my waist. My scream echoed Stevie Rae's.

I opened my eyes to a bizarre sight. Aphrodite had fallen to the ground during Stevie Rae's attack. Stevie Rae's back was to me, so I could only see Aphrodite's face. At first I didn't understand what was happening. They were surrounded by a swirling, glowing ball of power made up of all five of the elements. The two girls kept fading in and out of focus as the power rolled and thickened around them. But I could see that Stevie Rae was no longer holding on to Aphrodite. Now it was Aphrodite who was clutching Stevie Rae and forcing her to keep drinking from the wound on her neck. Stevie Rae was still drinking her blood, but she was struggling to stop—trying to pull away.

I rushed forward to try to separate them again, but when I hit the bubble of power it was like walking into a glass door. I couldn't get through it, and I had no idea how to open it.

'Aphrodite! Let her go! She's trying to stop before she kills you!' I cried.

Aphrodite's eyes met mine. Her lips didn't move, but I heard her voice clearly inside my head. No. This is how I make up for everything I caused. This time it's me who was Chosen. Remember, I made this sacrifice freely.

Then Aphrodite's eyes rolled back in her head and her body went limp as the breath slipped from between her smiling lips in a long sigh. With a terrible cry, Stevie Rae finally pulled away, collapsing on the ground beside Aphrodite's body. The bubble of power broke and then faded into nothingness. I knew the circle had been broken, too. I could feel the absence of the elements. I didn't know what to do. I didn't seem to be able to move.

Then Stevie Rae looked up at me. She was crying pink-tinged tears and her eyes were still a strange, reddish color. But her face was her own again. Even before she spoke I knew that whatever Neferet had broken in her when she'd caused her to become the walking, talking dead, had been healed.

'I killed her! I—I tried to stop! She wouldn't let me go, and I couldn't pull away! Oh, Zoey, I'm so sorry!' she sobbed.

I stumbled to her, Loren's words ringing in my head, You should keep in mind that you're invoking powerful magic, and there's always a cost associated with that. 'It wasn't your fault, Stevie Rae.' I told her. 'You didn't—'

'Her face!' Damien's voice came from just behind me. 'Look at her Mark.'

I blinked, not really understanding, and then I gasped. I'd been so busy looking into her eyes, so busy seeing the old Stevie Rae, that I hadn't noticed the obvious. The crescent moon that rested in the middle of her forehead had been filled in. A beautiful pattern of tattoos made of swirling flowers with long, graceful stems all twined together framed her eyes and stretched down her cheekbones.

But the tattoos weren't vampyre sapphire. They were the brilliant scarlet of new blood.

'What are y'all lookin' at?' Stevie Rae said.

'H-here,' Erin fumbled with her ever-present purse and pulled out a makeup mirror, handing it to Stevie Rae. 'Ohmygoodness!' Stevie Rae drawled. 'What does it mean?'

'It means you're healed. You've Changed. But what you've Changed into is a new kind of vampyre,' Aphrodite