Stevie Rae

"She's really coming home?"

Damien's voice was so soft and shaky that Stevie Rae had to lean down over the bed to hear him. His eyes were glassy and more than a little vacant, and she couldn't tell if that was because the drug/blood cocktail the vamps in the infirmary had come up with was actually working, or whether he was still in shock.

"Are you kiddin'? Z got on the first plane outta there. She'll be home in, like, three hours. If you want, you can come to the airport with me to pick her and Stark up." Stevie Rae was sitting on the edge of Damien's bed, so it was easy for her to give Duchess's head a rub--since the dog was curled around Damien. When he didn't make any response except to stare blankly at the wall in front of him, she gave Duchess another pat. In return the Lab thumped her tail weakly once, twice. "You're a dang good dog and that's all there is to it," Stevie Rae told the blond Lab. Duchess opened her eyes and gave Stevie Rae a soulful look, but her tail didn't thump again and she didn't make her usual happy huffing dog noise. Stevie Rae frowned. Did she look thin?

"Damien, honey, has Duch had anything to eat recently?"

He blinked at her, looked confused, looked at the dog curled around him, and then his eyes actually began to clear, but before he could say anything Neferet's voice came from behind Stevie Rae, though she had no way heard the vamp enter the room.

"Stevie Rae, Damien is in a very fragile emotional state right now. He should not have to be concerned about such trivialities as feeding a dog or acting like a common butler and going to the airport to collect a fledgling."

Neferet swept past her. Full of motherly concern, she bent over Damien. Stevie Rae automatically stood up and backed several feel away. She could have sworn that something in the shadows that lapped around the hem of Neferet's long, silky dress had begun to slither toward her.

In a similar reaction, Duchess moved off Damien's lap and curled up morosely at the end of his bed, joining his still sleeping cat, all the while keeping her unblinking gaze trained on Damien.

"Since when is picking a friend up from the airport the butler's job? And believe me--I know what's what with a butler's job."

Stevie Rae glanced over at the doorway where Aphrodite seemed to have just materialized. Well, slap me and call me a baby--am I so out of it I can't hear nothing anymore? Stevie Rae thought.

"Aphrodite, I have something to say to you that applies to everyone in this room," Neferet said, sounding regal and super-in-charge.

Aphrodite put a hand on her slim hip, and said, "Yeah? What?" "I have decided that Jack's funeral should be in the manner of a fully Changed vampyre. His funeral pyre will be lit tonight, as soon as Zoey arrives at the House of Night."

"You're waitin' for Zoey? Why?" Stevie Rae asked.

"Because she was Jack's good friend, of course. But more important, because of the confusion that reigned here when I was under Kalona's influence, Zoey served as Jack's High Priestess. That unfortunate time is, thankfully, behind us, but it is only right that Zoey light Jack's pyre."

Stevie Rae thought how terrible it was that Neferet's beautiful emerald eyes could look so perfectly guileless, even when she was weaving a web of deceit and lies. She wanted so badly to scream at the Tsi Sgili that she knew her secret; Kalona was here and she was controlling him, and not the other way around. She'd never been under his influence. Neferet had known from the start exactly who and what Kalona was, and what she was doing now was lying her butt off.

But Stevie Rae's own terrible secret stopped the words in her throat. She heard Aphrodite draw in a breath, like she was getting ready to launch into a major ass-chewing, but at that moment Damien drew everyone's attention to him when he put his head in his hands and began to sob, saying brokenly, "I- I just c-can't understand how he can be gone."

Stevie Rae pushed around Neferet and pulled Damien into her arms. She was happy to see Aphrodite stride over to the other side of the bed and rest her hand on Damien's heaving shoulder.

Both girls gave Neferet narrow-eyed looks of distrust and dislike. Neferet's face remained sad but impassive, like she knew Damien's grief but she let it wash around her and not into her. "Damien, I'll leave you to the comfort of your friends. Zoey's plane lands at Tulsa International at 9:58 tonight. I've set the funeral pyre for midnight exactly, as that is an auspicious time. I shall see all of you then." Neferet left the room, closing the door behind her with an almost inaudible click.

"Fucking lying bitch," Aphrodite said under her breath. "Why is she playing nice?" "She's seriously up to somethin'," Stevie Rae said while Damien cried into her shoulder.

"I can't do this." Damien suddenly pulled back and away from both of them. He shook his head back and forth, back and forth. The heaving sobs had stopped, but tears continued to leak down his cheeks. Duchess crawled up to him and lay across his lap, with her nose pointed up near his cheek. Cammy curled up tightly against his side. Damien wrapped one arm around the big blond dog, and another around his cat. "I can't say goodbye to Jack and deal with Neferet's drama." He looked from Stevie Rae to Aphrodite. "I understand why Zoey's soul shattered."

"No no no no." Aphrodite bent over and put her finger in Damien's face. "I am not dealing with that stress again. Jack being dead is bad. Really bad. But you gotta keep yourself together."

"For us," Stevie Rae added in a much softer tone, giving Aphrodite a be nice! look. "You gotta keep yourself together for your friends. We almost lost Zoey. We lost Jack and Heath. We can't lose you, too."

"I can't fight her anymore," Damien said. "I don't have any heart left."

"It's still there," Stevie Rae said softly. "It's just broken."

"It'll fix," Aphrodite added, not unkindly. Damien's eyes were bright with tears when he looked at her. "How do you know? Your heart's never been broken." He turned his gaze to Stevie Rae.

"Neither has yours." As Damien continued to speak, the tears fell faster and faster down his cheeks.

"Don't let your hearts be broken. It hurts too much." Stevie Rae swallowed hard. She couldn't tell him--she couldn't tell any of them, but the more she cared about Rephaim, the more her heart broke every single day.

"Zoey's going to make it, and she lost her Heath," Aphrodite said. "If she can do it, you can do it, too, Damien."

"And she's really coming home?" Damien repeated the question he'd started with. "Yes," Aphrodite and Stevie Rae said together.

"Okay. Good. Yeah. It'll be better when Zoey's here," Damien said, still hugging Duchess, with Cameron pressed close to his side.

"Hey, Duchess and Cammy look like they could use some dinner," Aphrodite said. Stevie Rae was surprised to see her reach out and, tentatively, pat the big dog's head. "I don't see any dog food in here, and all Cammy has is that wretched dry stuff.

Quite frankly Maleficent won't even look at anything that doesn't appear to be fresh catch. How about I have Darius help me bring some food up for them? Unless you'd rather be alone. If so, I can take Cammy and Duchess with me and feed them for you."

Damien's eyes got all big and round. "No! Don't take them. I want them to stay here with me."

"Okay, okay, no problem. Darius can get Duchess's dog food," Stevie Rae spoke up, wondering what the heck Aphrodite was thinking. No way did Damien need to be without those two animals.

"Duch's food and stuff is in Jack's room," Damien said, ending on a little sob.

"Would you like us to bring all her stuff in here for you?" Stevie Rae asked, taking Damien's hand.

"Yes," he whispered. Then his body jerked and his face blanched even whiter than it had been. "And don't let them throw away Jack's stuff! I have to see it! I have to go through it!"

"I'm already ahead of you on that. No way was I letting those vamps get their claws into Jack's cool collections. I delegated the responsibility of boxing up his stuff and sneaking it out to the Twins," Aprodite said, looking smug.

Damien, clearly forgetting for just an instant that his world was filled with tragedy, almost smiled. "You got the Twins to do something?" "Damn right," Aphrodite said.

"What'd it cost you?" Stevie Rae asked.

Aphrodite scowled. "Two shirts from Hale Bob's new collection."

"But I didn't think his spring stuff was out yet," Damien said.

"A: Hello--gay that you know that, and b: collections are always out early if you're filthy rich and your mom `knows' someone," she said, airquoting the word.

"Who's Hale Bob?" Stevie Rae asked.

"Oh, for shit's sake," Aphrodite said. "Just come with me. You can help me carry the dog accoutrements."

"And by that you mean I'm carryin' them, right?"

"Right." Aphrodite bent and, like she did it every day, kissed Damien on the top of his head. "I'll be right back with the dog and cat crap. Oh, want me to bring Maleficent? She--"

"No!" Damien and Stevie Rae said together with twin tones of horror.

Aphrodite lifted her chin indignantly. "It's so typical that no one understands that magnificent creature except me."

"See you soon," Stevie Rae told Damien, and kissed him on the cheek.

Out in the hall Stevie Rae frowned at Aphrodite. "Seriously, even you couldn't have thought taking those animals away from him would be a good idea."

Aphrodite rolled her eyes and flipped her hair back. "Of course not, moron. I knew it would horrify him and start to snap him out of his non-thinking super-depressed state, which it did. Darius and I will bring animal food back for the dog and cat zoo up there and, just coincidentally, we'll stop by the dining hall and get some to-go stuff for our dinner, bring enough for him, and Damien is too much of a lady to kick us out or make us eat by ourselves. Et voil?! Damien has something in his stomach before he has to go through the whole funeral pyre horribleness."

"Neferet is up to something really, really bad," Stevie Rae said.

"Count on it," Aphrodite said.

"Well, at least it's gonna happen in front of everybody, so she can't, like, kill her."

Aphrodite raised her brow disdainfully at Stevie Rae. "In front of everybody Neferet broke loose Kalona, killed Shekinah, and tried to order Stark, who cannot miss what the hell he shoots at, to fire an arrow at you once and at Z another time. Seriously, bumpkin, get a clue."

"Well, there were extenuatin' circumstances with me, and Neferet didn't order Stark to shoot Z in front of the whole school, just in front of us and a bunch of nuns. Of course now she's saying Kalona made her do it for both things. Plus, it's still our word against hers. No one listens to teenagers, or nuns, for that matter."

"Do you doubt for one single instant that Neferet can make whatever she does tonight look like she's as innocent as an infant?" Aphrodite paused to grimace. "Goddess, I can't stand babies--ugh, all that puking and eating and pooping and stuff. Plus, they stretch out your--"

"Really?" Stevie Rae interrupted her tirade. "I'm not talkin' 'bout girl parts and babies with you."

"I was just using an analogy, stupid. Basically, we're in for some shit in just a few hours. So get Z ready while I try to prop up Damien so he won't dissolve into a puddle of tears and snot and angst tonight."

"You know, you can't pretend to be all `I don't care about Damien' with me after I saw you kiss him on the top of his head."

"Which I will deny for the rest of my very long and attractive life," Aphrodite said. "Aphrodite, is you ever gonna get un-obsessed with your own self?"

Stevie Rae and Aphrodite came to a sudden stop when Kramisha stood up from the shadows at the edge of the porch of the girl's dorm.

"I'm gonna have to get my eyes checked. I can't see crap until it's right in front of me," Stevie Rae said.

"It's not you," Aphrodite said in a deadpan voice. "It's Kramisha. She's black. Shadows are black--hence the reason we didn't see her."

Kramisha stood up and looked down her nose at Aphrodite. "No, you did not just--"

"Oh, please, save it." Aphrodite breezed past her to the door of the dorm. "Prejudice, oppression, the Man, blah, blah, yawn, blah. I'm the biggest minority here, so don't even try to pull that on me." Kramisha blinked twice and looked as stunned as Stevie Rae felt.

"Uh, Aphrodite," Stevie Rae said. "You look like Barbie. How in the heck can you be a minority?" Aphrodite pointed to her forehead, which was completely blank and un Marked. "Human in a school full of fledglings and vamps equals mi-nor-ity."

She opened the door and twitched into the building.

"That girl ain't no human," Kramisha said. "I'd say she more like a mad dog, but I don't want to offend no dogs."

Stevie Rae let out a long-suffering sigh. "I know. You're right. She's really not nice, even when she's bein' nice. For her. If that makes any sense."

"It don't, but you ain't been makin' a whole lot of sense in general lately, Stevie Rae," Kramisha said.

"You know what? I do not need this right now and I do not know what you mean and at this second I do not care. I'll see you later, Kramisha." Stevie Rae started to walk by her, but Kramisha stepped firmly in her way. She smoothed back the outside flip edge of her yellow bob wig and said, "You got no call to have that hateful tone of voice with me." "My tone's not hateful. My tone's annoyed and tired."

"Nope. It be hateful and you know it. You shouldn't lie much. You ain't very good at it."

"Fine. I won't lie much." Stevie Rae cleared her throat, gave herself a little shake like a cat caught in a springtime shower, planted a big, fake grin on her face, and started again in a super bright tone of voice. "Hey there, girlfriend, nice to see ya, but I gotta be goin' now!"

Kramisha raised her brows. "Okay, first, don't say `girlfriend.' You sound like that chick in that old movie, Clueless. The one the blonde and Stacey Dash reformed into somethin' popular. Not. Good. Second, you can't run off right now 'cause I got to give you--"

"Kramisha!" Shaking her head, Stevie Rae backed away from the purple sheet of paper Kramisha had started to hand to her. "I am just one person! I cannot handle anythin' else right now other than the shit storm I'm already caught in--excuse my French. But you gotta keep your future-telling poems to yourself. At least till Z gets here, gets settled, and helps me be sure Damien isn't gonna hurl himself off the top of the closest high building."

Kramisha gave her a narrowed-eye look. "Too bad you ain't just one person."

"What in the Sam Hill do you mean? 'Course I'm one person. Jeeze Louise, I wish there was more than one of me. Then I could keep an eye on Damien, be sure Dragon doesn't go totally postal, pick up Zoey from the dang airport on time and figure out what's goin' on with her, get some dang thing to eat, and start to deal with the fact that Neferet is up to something of massive cat- herding proportions tonight at Jack's funeral. Oh, and maybe one of the me's could take a long bubble bath and listen to my Kenny Chesney while I read the end of A Night to Remember."

"A Night to Remember? You mean that Titanic story I read last year in Lit class?"

"Yeah. We'd just started it when I died and undied, so I never got to finish it. I kinda liked it." "Here. I'll help ya out. THE SHIP SINKS. THEY DIE. The end. Now can we please move on to somethin' more important?" She lifted the piece of purple paper again.

"Yes, hateful, I do know what happens, but that doesn't mean it's not a good story." Stevie Rae tucked an annoying blond curl behind her ear. "You say I don't tell good lies? Okay, here's the truth. My mama would say I got too dang much on my plate right now to get even one more forkful of chickenfried stress, so let's lay off the poem stuff for a while."

Totally surprising Stevie Rae, Kramisha took a big step into her personal space, and then grabbed her by the shoulders. Looking straight into her eyes, she said, "You ain't just one person. You a High Priestess. A red High Priestess. The only one they is. That means you gotta deal with stress. Lots of it. 'Specially right now when Neferet is creatin' all kindsof crazy messes."

"I know that, but--"

Kramisha squeezed her shoulders hard, and cut in saying, "Jack is dead. They's no tellin' who's next."

Then the Poet Laureate blinked a couple of times, her smooth brown brow furrowing, leaned forward, and took a giant noisy sniff of the air right next to Stevie Rae's face.

Stevie Rae pulled out of her vise grip and stepped backward. "Are you sniffing me?"

"Yes. You smell weird. I noticed it before. When you was in the hospital."

"So?"

Kramisha studied her. "So, it reminds me of somethin'."

"Your mom?" Stevie Rae said with forced nonchalance.

"Don't even go there. And while I'm thinkin' a' it, where is you goin'?" "I'm supposed to be helping Aphrodite get stuff to feed Damien's cat and Duchess. Then I have to pick up Z from the airport and let her know that Neferet has decided to step aside and let her light Jack's funeral pyre. Tonight."

"Yeah, we all heard 'bout that. It don't seem right to me."

"Zoey lighting Jack's fire?"

"No, Neferet lettin' her." Kramisha scratched her head and her yellow wig moved from side to side. "So, here's the thing: let Aphrodite take care of the Damien stuff right now. You need to go out there"--she paused and waved one long, gold- fingernailed hand vaguely at the trees that ringed the House of Night campus--"and do that communing-with-theearth-green-glowy-thing you do. Again."

"Kramisha, I don't have time to do that."

"I ain't done yet. You need to recharge your business before all hell breaks loose. See, I'm not real sure Zoey is gonna be up for what might be happenin' tonight."

Instead of brushing Kramisha and her bossy self aside, Stevie Rae hesitated and thought about what she was saying. "You could be right," she said slowly.

"She don't want to come back. You know that, right?" Kramisha said.

Stevie Rae hitched her shoulders. "Well, would you? She's been through a lot."

"I don't think I would, that's why I'm sayin' this to you, 'cause I do understand. But Zoey ain't the only one of us who's been through a lot lately. Some of us is still goin' through a lot. We all have to learn to take care of our business and deal."

"Hey, she's comin' back--she is dealing," Stevie Rae said. "I ain't just talkin' 'bout Zoey." Kramisha folded the purple piece of notebook paper in half and handed it to Stevie Rae, who took it reluctantly; when she sighed and started to unfold it, Kramisha shook her head. "You don't need to read it in front a' me."

Stevie Rae looked up at the Poet Laureate with a question mark on her face. "Look, right now I'm gonna talk to you like a Poet Laureate to her High Priestess, so you need to listen up. Take this poem and go out to the trees. Read it there. Think about it real good. Whatever it is you have goin' on, you need to make a change. This is the third serious warnin' I've got 'bout you. Stop ignorin' the truth, Stevie Rae, 'cause what you do don't just affect yourself. Are you hearin' me?"

Stevie Rae drew in a deep breath. "I'm hearing you."

"Good. Go on now." Kramisha started to walk into the dorm.

"Hey, would you explain to Aphrodite that I had somethin' to do, so I'm not comin' in?"

Kramisha looked over her shoulder at Stevie Rae. "Yeah, but you'll owe me dinner at Red Lobster."

"Yeah, okay. I like the Loobster," Stevie Rae said.

"I'm gonna order anything I want."

"Of course you will," Stevie Rae muttered, sighed again, and headed for the trees.