Shaunee stumbled and her hand slipped from mine. The element power that held the beast dimmed.
“I’m sorry, Zoey. I can’t keep it up.” Damien let go of my hand and he fell to his knees, retching.
The bubble shivered.
I felt a terrible tug within me and knew I would soon lose spirit, too, and the beast would be free.
“Grow up, Zoey. This time you’re not going to save the day,” Neferet said.
Stark was shouting from behind me. Darius and Rephaim stood side by side in front of the open elevator, battling the threads of Darkness that kept trying to leak within.
But all of that seemed very far away to me because Neferet’s last words kept echoing around, over and over, inside my mind.
Then I remembered.
I felt spirit wrench from me and I stepped forward. I pulled the piece of folded purple paper from the pocket of my jeans, and as I did my Seer Stone flamed with heat.
I didn’t have time to question myself. I only had time to act. I jerked on the chain that held the stone around my neck and lifted it before me like a shield. Then, in a voice magnified by panic and power, I recited:
I looked through the Seer Stone and the world changed utterly. I was no longer holding a small, Lifesaver- shaped stone. Before me it had expanded so that it was a slick, round surface. I didn’t realize what it was until I saw the reflection of the room glistening darkly on its surface.
“You think to battle me with a mirror?”
I didn’t hesitate. I knew the answer. “Yes,” I said firmly. “That’s exactly what I think I’m going to do.” Holding the mirror in both hands I turned so that it caught Neferet in its surface.
She’d gotten up from the couch. The mirror trapped her reflection as she glided toward me. She was laughing cruelly and glancing dismissively into the mirror when her entire body language changed. Neferet’s head began to shake from side to side. Her mouth opened and she whimpered, cringing back as if from an invisible blow. Amazed at the difference in her, I craned my neck around and looked at her reflection.
It was a Neferet that I didn’t know. She was young—she looked barely my age. She was also pretty, extremely pretty, even though her long, green dress was torn, exposing the fact that someone had beaten her. Badly. Her face was perfect. It had not been touched. But her chest looked as though there were bite marks on her breasts. Her wrists were swollen and black with bruises. Most horrible of all was the blood that covered the insides of her thighs and dripped down her legs.
“No!” Neferet sobbed. “Not again! Not ever again!” She covered her face with her hands, keening with despair. As the Tsi Sgili wept brokenly, the tendrils of Darkness began to dissolve.
“Spirit!” I called to my element, the one that still held the beast in a fading circle of power. “Let him go.” Then I walked forward, keeping the mirror trained on Neferet. “Aurox!” My shout had the beast’s head turning from where Grandma had collapsed on the floor to me. “Darkness doesn’t control you. Come back to us! You can do it!” He shook his misshapen head. I kept walking to him. He began to circle me. I kept looking into his moon-colored eyes. “Spirit! Don’t trap him—help him!”
I felt the element enter the beast. He stumbled and went down on one knee. He roared.
“Fight it! You are more than a creature made of Darkness!” I hurled the words at him.
He lifted his head and I felt a rush of hope. His flesh was shivering and twitching. He was changing!
“Zoey, watch out!” Stark shouted.
I looked from Aurox in time to see Neferet closing on me. She was still staring at the mirror I held. Tears of blood streamed from her eyes. She had torn her own flesh with her claw-like hands. She raised them, blood-soaked and deadly. “You bitch! I won’t let you bring it all back to me! Nyx be damned—I’ll kill you myself!” Neferet rushed me.
Aurox hit her hard. He still was beast enough to have horns, and one long, white tip speared Neferet in the middle of her chest. Momentum carried them forward and together they crashed through the remnants of the web Kalona had been battling. The winged immortal jumped aside as the part beast, part boy carried a writhing, screaming Neferet across the balcony. It took less than a breath for them to reach the stone balustrade. The inhuman power of the beast’s body shattered it and the two of them fell off the rooftop.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I dropped the mirror and ran forward. “Kalona! Save him!” The immortal was in motion before I’d finished the command. Wings spread, he leaped over the broken balustrade and disappeared. I rushed after him, coming to a halt at the edge of the roof. Peering down, I saw Kalona grab Aurox’s ankle just moments before the boy, who was now completely human again, hit the pavement.
Neferet wasn’t as lucky. I could see her. She’d hit the sharp edge of the building and had tumbled and fallen, landing in the middle of Fifth Street. From this height, she looked like a broken doll. Her neck was twisted. Her arms and legs bent all in the wrong direction. Her head was a dark pool of blood.
Thanatos joined me, putting a strong arm around me as if she was afraid I might fall after Neferet. Then everyone was there, beside me. Stark took me from Thanatos and held me while I trembled and continued to stare down at Neferet’s body. Kalona landed on the rooftop with Aurox. Aphrodite helped Grandma. She slipped her hand inside mine.
“My
Still I did not look away. So when Neferet’s body began to convulse I saw it. I watched everything. Her arms and legs flailed. Her hair lifted. Her back arched. And then the Tsi Sgili seemed to dissolve. From within the folds of her blood-soaked clothes, thousands of black spiders exploded, skittering into the gutter and disappearing into the darkness.
Then I looked away. I faced Thanatos. “She’s not dead.”
The High Priestess of Death answered me, though I hadn’t framed the words as a question.
“I do not know.” Thanatos looked pale and shaken. “I have never seen, never even imagined, what we all just witnessed.”
I felt very quiet inside. I wasn’t tired. I wasn’t crying. I wasn’t pissed. I was just very, very calm. “I think we better get ready. My gut says Neferet is going to come at us again,” I said.
“Yes, Priestess. I agree,” Thanatos said.
I put my arm around Grandma’s waist, and let her lean on me. “You need to go to the hospital,” I told her gently.
“No, my
I looked into her gentle eyes. “I understand completely, Grandma. Stark and I will get you home.”
“You have to do something first,” Stark said.
“She can kiss you and tell you she loves you later. Let’s get out of here. The spider thing was the cherry on this shit sundae of a night. I need a bath and a Xanax,” Aphrodite said.
I didn’t say anything. I was getting a weird vibe from Stark. “Wait here. Everyone needs to see this.” He squeezed my hand and then he went into the penthouse. He came back a second later, holding my Seer Stone from
