Awakened

a robe to wear and then call animal control or the police or someone.”

Neferet smiled and turned her head so that she could gaze at the bull, too. He was standing in the middle of the closest lavender field. If one didn’t know better it would, indeed, appear as if he were burning everything around him.

Neferet knew better.

“He isn’t burning the field; he’s freezing it. The withered plants just look scorched. Actually, they’re frozen,” Neferet said in the same matter-of-fact tone she often used in her classroom.

“I’ve— I’ve never seen a bull do that before.”

Neferet lifted one brow at Linda. “Does he truly look like a normal bull to you?”

“No,” Linda whispered. Then she cleared her throat and, obviously trying to sound stern, said to Neferet, “I’m sorry. I’m confused about what’s going on here. Do I know you? May I help you?”

“There is no need for you to be confused or concerned. I am Neferet, High Priestess of Tulsa’s House of Night, and I do most certainly hope you can help me. First, tell me when you expect your mother to return.” Neferet kept her voice affable, though her mind was a jumble of emotions: anger, irritation, and a lovely shiver of fear.

“Oh, that’s why you look familiar. My daughter Zoey goes to that school.”

“Yes, I know Zoey very well.” Neferet smiled smoothly. “When did you say your mother would return?”

“Not until tomorrow. Can I give her a message from you? And would you, uh, like a robe or something?”

“No message and no robe.” Neferet dropped her mask of affability. She lifted her hand and swept several tendrils of Darkness from the shadows surrounding her, then she flung them at the human woman, commanding, “Bind her and bring her out here.” When Neferet felt none of the familiar, painful slice that was the payment for manipulating the lesser threads of Darkness, she smiled at the mammoth bull and dipped her head in acknowledgment of his favor as she approached him.

You shall pay me later, my heartless one, rumbled through her mind. Neferet shivered in anticipation.

Then the human’s pathetic screams intruded on her thoughts and she made a motion over her shoulder, snapping the command, “And gag her! I cannot be expected to bear that noise.”

Linda’s screams stopped as abruptly as they had begun. Neferet stepped into the frozen lavender that encircled the beast, ignoring the cold on her bare feet and against her naked skin as she strode directly up to his great head and stroked one finger down the length of his horn before she dropped to a graceful curtsey before him. When she rose, she smiled into the complete blackness of his eyes and said, “I have your sacrifice.”

The bull’s gaze flicked over her shoulder.

This is not an old, powerful matriarch. This is a pathetic housewife whose life has been consumed by weakness.

“True, but her mother is a Wise Woman of the Cherokee. Her blood flows in this one’s veins.”

Diluted.

“Will she serve as the sacrifice or not? Can you use her to make my Vessel?”

I can, but your Vessel will be only as perfect as your sacrifice, and this woman is far from perfect.

“But will you invest him with power that I can command?”

I will.

“Then my wish is that you accept this sacrifice. I will not wait for the mother when I can have the daughter, and the same blood, now.”

As you wish, my heartless one. I grow weary of this. Kill her quickly and let us move on to other things.

Neferet didn’t speak. She turned and walked over to the human. The woman was pathetic. She wasn’t even struggling. All she was doing was sobbing silently as the tendrils of Darkness cut red swaths across her mouth and face, and all around her body where they bound her.

“I need a blade. Now.” Neferet held out her hand and instantly pain and cold filled it in the shape of a long, obsidian dagger. With one swift motion, Neferet slit Linda’s throat. She watched the woman’s eyes widen and then roll to show only their whites as her life’s blood drained from her.

Catch all of it. Let none of the blood be wasted.

At the bull’s command the tendrils of Darkness writhed all over Linda, attaching to her throat and to any other part of her body from which blood seeped, and began sucking. Mesmerized, Neferet saw that each pulsing tendril had a thread that returned to the bull, dissolving into his body, feeding him the human’s blood.

The bull moaned in pleasure.

When the human was drained to a husk of herself, and the bull was thrumming and swollen with her death, Neferet gave herself to Darkness, utterly and completely.

Heath

“Go long, Neal!” Heath drew back his arm and aimed for the receiver in the Golden Hurricane’s jersey with the name SWEENEY in bold letters across his back.

Sweeney caught it, and then feinted and dodged around a bunch of guys in crimson and cream OU uniforms to make the touchdown.

“Yeah!” Heath raised his fist, laughing and shouting. “Sweeney could catch a gnat off a fly’s back!”

“Are you enjoying yourself, Heath Luck?”

At the sound of the Goddess’s voice Heath put away his fist pump and gave Nyx a semi-guilty smile. “Uh, yeah. It’s great here. There’s always a game I can quarterback—awesome receivers, great fans, and when I get tired of football there’s that lake just down the street. It’s stocked with bass that would make a pro fisherman cry.”

“What about girls? I see no cheerleaders, no fisherwomen.”

Heath’s smile faltered. “Girls? No. Well. I only have one girl and she’s not here. You know that, Nyx.”

“I was just checking.” Nyx’s smile was radiant. “Would you sit and talk with me a moment?”

“Yeah, sure,” Heath said.

Nyx waved her hand and the old-school replication of a college football stadium disappeared. Suddenly Heath found himself standing on the precipice of an enormous canyon, so deep that the river that roared through the bottom of it looked like only a thin silver thread. The sun was rising over the opposite bank of the ridge, and the sky was shaded with the violets and pinks and blues of a beautiful new day.

Movement in the air caught Heath’s eye, and he noticed hundreds, maybe thousands of sparkling globes that were tumbling down into the gorge. He thought some of them looked like electric pearls, and others like geode balls, and still others were fluorescent colors so bright they almost hurt his eyes.

“Wow! It’s awesome up here!” He shaded his eyes with his hand. “What are those thingies?”

“Spirits,” Nyx said.

“Really, like ghosts or something?”

“A little. Mostly like you or something,” Nyx said with a warm smile.

“Well, that’s just weird. I don’t look anything like that. I look like me.”

“Right now you do,” Nyx said.

Heath glanced down at himself, just to be sure he was still, well, him. Relieved at what he saw, he looked back at the Goddess. “Should I get ready to change up?”

“That depends entirely upon you,” Nyx said. “As you would say in your world: I have a proposition for you.”

“Awesome! It’s cool to be propositioned by a goddess!” Heath said.

Nxy frowned at him. “Not that kind of proposition, Heath.”

“Oh. Uh. Sorry.” Heath felt his face getting really warm. Jeeze, he was a retard. “I didn’t mean anything disrespectful. I was just kidding…” He stuttered to a stop, wiping his face with his hand. When he looked at the goddess again, she was smiling wryly at him. “Okay,” he started again, relieved she hadn’t blasted him with a thunderbolt or something. “About that proposition?”

“Excellent. It’s nice to know I have your full attention. My proposition is this: choice.”

Heath blinked. “Choice? Between what?”

“I’m so pleased that you asked,” Nyx said with only a little teasing sarcasm in her divine voice. “I’m going to give you a choice between three futures. You may choose one of the three, but know before you hear the choices