I stood up and called down the sidewalk, 'John! Come out, come out, wherever you are!'
Sure enough, a man detached himself from one of the stand-up tables that were situated at the opposite end of the sidewalk near the Starbucks entrance. I studied him as he walked up to us, trying to understand what my mother had ever seen in him. He was a totally unspectacular guy. Average height—dark, graying hair—weak chin— narrow shoulders—skinny legs. It wasn't till you looked in his eyes that you saw anything unusual, and then what was reveled was an unusual absence of warmth. I'd always thought it was weird that such a cold, soulless guy would constantly spout religion.
He reached our table and started to open his mouth, but before he could speak I tossed my 'gift' at him.
'Keep it. It's not my family and it's not my beliefs,' I said, looking him squarely in the eyes.
'So you're choosing evil and darkness,' he said.
'No. I'm choosing a loving goddess who has Marked me as her own and gifted me with special powers. I choose a different way than you. That's all there is to it.'
'As I said, you choose evil.' He rested his hand on my mom's shoulder, like she needed his support to be able to sit there. Mom covered his hand with hers and made sniffling sounds.
I ignored him and focused on her.
'Mom, please don't do this again. If you can accept me, and if you really want to see me, then call and we'll meet. But pretending you want to see me because John tells you what to do hurts my feelings and isn't good for either of us.'
'It is good for a wife to submit unto her husband,' John said.
I thought about mentioning how chauvinistic and patronizing and just plain wrong that sounded, but instead I decided not to waste my breath and said, 'John, go to hell.'
'I wanted you to turn away from the evil,' Mom said, crying softly.
My grandma spoke up. Her voice was sad but stern. 'Linda, it is unfortunate that you found and then bought completely into a belief system that insists as one of its basic tenants that different means evil.'
'What your daughter has found is God, no thanks to you,' John snapped.
'No. My daughter has found you, and it is sad but true that she never liked to think for herself. Now you're doing her thinking for her. But here's a little independent thought that Zoey and I would like to leave with you,' Grandma continued speaking as she handed me my lavender plant and first edition of
As we walked away, John's voice whipped out at us, sharp and cutting with anger and hatred. 'Oh, you'll hear from me again. Both of you will. There are many good, decent, God-fearing people who are tired of tolerating your evil, who believe enough is enough. We won't live side by side with worshippers of darkness for much longer. Mark my words … wait and see … it is time you repented …'
Thankfully, we were soon beyond hearing his rant. I felt like I was going to cry until I realized what my sweet old grandma was muttering to herself.
'That man is such a damn turd monkey.'
'Grandma!' I said.
'Oh, Zoeybird, did I call your mother's husband a damn turd monkey out loud?'
'Yes, Grandma, you did.'
She looked at me, her dark eyes sparkling. 'Good.'
CHAPTER 4
Grandma tried to save the rest of my birthday celebration. We walked across Utica Square to the Stonehorse Restaurant, where we decided to have some decent birthday cake. Which meant Grandma had two glasses of red wine and I had a brown pop and a huge, gooey slice of devil's food cake. (Yes, we enjoyed the irony.)
Grandma didn't try to make it all better by fabricating some crap about my mom not meaning it… she'd come around … just give her time … blah…blah … blah. Grandma's way more practical and tons cooler than that.
'Your mom's a weak woman who can only find her identity through a man,' she said as she sipped her red wine. 'Unfortunately, she chose a really bad man.'
'She'll never change, will she?'
Grandma touched my cheek gently. 'She might, but I honestly doubt it, Zoeybird.'
'I like it that you don't lie to me, Grandma,' I said.
'Lies don't fix things. They don't even make things easier, at least not in the long run. Best to tell the truth and then clean up an honest mess.'
I sighed.
'Honey, do you have a mess you need to clean up?' Grandma asked.
'Yeah, but unfortunately it's not an honest one.' I gave Grandma a sheepish smile and told her about my disastrous birthday party.
'You know, you're going to have to straighten out this boyfriend issue. Heath and Erik are only going to put up with each other for about this long.' She held up her fingers, measuring out roughly an inch's worth of 'this long.'
'I will, but Heath was in the hospital for almost a week after that whole serial killer thing that I saved him from, and then his parents jetted him off to the Cayman Islands for their Christmas vacation. I haven't even seen him in a month. So I really haven't had the chance to do much about the Heath and Erik issue.' I focused on scraping the bottom of my plate instead of looking at Grandma. The 'whole serial killer thing' was utter b.s. I'd saved Heath, but it hadn't been from something as simple as a crazy human. I'd saved him from a group of creatures that my best friend, the undead Stevie Rae, had been (and probably still was) leader of. But I couldn't tell Grandma that. I couldn't tell anyone that, because behind it all was the High Priestess of the House of Night, my mentor, Neferet, and she was way too psychic for my own good. She can't seem to read my mind, at least not very well, but I tell someone—she reads his or her mind—we're all in a lot of trouble.
Talk about stress.
'Maybe you should go home and make it right,' Grandma said. Then, when she saw my startled look she added, 'I mean, make the birthmas present issue right, not the Heath and Erik issue.'
'Oh, good. Yeah, I should do that.' I paused, thinking about what she had just said. 'You know, it really has turned into my home.'
'I know.' She smiled. 'And I'm glad for you. You're finding your place, Zoeybird, and I'm proud of you.'
Grandma had walked me back to where I'd parked my vintage VW Bug, and hugged me good-bye. I'd thanked her for the great presents again, and neither of us had mentioned my mother. There are just some things it doesn't do any good to talk about. I'd told Grandma I was going back to the House of Night to make things right with my friends, and I'd meant to. But instead I found myself driving downtown. Again.
For the past month every night I could make a lame excuse or sneak out by myself, I'd been haunting the streets of downtown Tulsa. Haunting… I snorted to myself. That was an excellent word to use for me searching for my best friend, Stevie Rae, who had died a month ago, and then become undead.
Yes, it was as weird as it sounded.
Fledglings died. We all knew that. I'd witnessed the death of two of the three who had died since I'd been at the House of Night. Okay, so everyone knew we could die. What everyone didn't know was that the last three fledglings who had died had resurrected, or come alive again, or … hell! I suppose the easiest way to describe it is that they had become the stereotype for vampyres: the walking undead who were bloodsucking monsters with no humanity left within them at all. And they smelled bad, too.
I knew because I'd been unlucky enough to see what I had at first thought were the ghosts of the first two dead fledglings. Then human teenagers started being killed, and it had looked like someone was trying to set up a vampyre as the killer. That sucked, especially since I'd known the first two boys who had been killed, and the
