Betrayed

he was probably remembering pieces of the only other time he'd seen the High Priestess—the night the vampyre ghosts had almost killed him—and imagined his mind was too freaked out for Neferet to make much sense of what was going on inside his head. Good thing, too.
    Then car doors were slamming and heavy feet were crunching through the snow.
    "Zoey, Heath ..." Neferet moved swiftly to us. She lifted her hands, which glowed with a weird, reddish light, suddenly reminding me of the undead things' eyes. Before I could run or scream or even take a breath, she grabbed our shoulders. I felt Heath go rigid as pain shot through my body. It blasted against my mind and my knees would have buckled had her hand not been like a vise, holding me up. "You will remember nothing!" The words echoed through my agony-filled mind, and then there was only darkness.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

    I was in a beautiful meadow that was in the middle of what looked like a dense forest. A warm, soft breeze was blowing the scent of lilacs to me. A stream ran through the meadow, its crystal water bubbled musically over smooth stones.
    "Zoey? Can you hear me, Zoey?" An insistent male voice intruded on my dream.
    I frowned and tried to ignore him. I didn't want to wake up, but my spirit stirred. I needed to wake up. I needed to remember. She needed me to remember.
    But who was she?
    "Zoey ..." This time the voice was inside my dream and I could see my name painted against the blue of the spring sky. The voice was a woman's ... familiar … magical … wondrous. "Zoey ...”
    I looked around the clearing and found the Goddess sitting on the other side of the stream, gracefully perched on a smooth Oklahoma sandstone rock with her bare feet playing in the water.
    "Nyx!" I cried. "Am I dead?" My words shimmered around me.
    The Goddess smiled. "Will you ask that of me each time I visit you, Zoey Redbird?”
    "No, I'm, uh, sorry." My words were tinged pink, probably blushing like my cheeks.
    "Don't be sorry, my daughter. You have done very well. I am pleased with you. Now, it is time you awakened. And also I wish to remind you that the elements can restore as well as destroy.”
    I started to thank her, even though I didn't have a clue what she was talking about, but the shaking of my shoulder and a sudden blast of cold air interrupted me. I opened my eyes.
    Snow swirled all around me. Detective Marx was bending over me, shaking my shoulder. Through the weird fog in my mind I found one word. "Heath?" I croaked.
    Marx jerked his chin to his right and I tilted my head to see Heath's still body being loaded into an ambulance.
    "Is he …" I couldn't finish.
    "He's fine, just banged up. He's lost a lot of blood and they've already given him something for the pain.”
    "Banged up?" I was struggling to make sense of everything. "What happened to Heath?”
    "Multiple lacerations, just like those other two kids. Good thing you found him and called me before he bled to death." He squeezed my shoulder. A paramedic tried to move Marx from my side, but he said, "I'll handle her. She just needs to get back to the House of Night and she'll be fine.”
    I saw the paramedic give me a look that clearly said freak, but Detective Marx's strong hands were helping me sit up and his tall body blocked my view of the muttering EMT.
    "Can you walk to my car?" Marx asked.
    I nodded. My body was feeling better, but my mind was still all mushy. Marx's "car" was really a huge, all-weather truck with giant wheels and a roll bar. He helped me up into the front seat, which was warm and comfortable, but before he closed the door I suddenly remembered something else, even though the effort made my head feel like it was going to split open. "Persephone! Is she okay?”
    Marx looked confused for just a second, then he smiled. "The mare?”
    I nodded.
    "She's just fine. An officer is walking her to the police stables downtown until the roads are clear enough to get a trailer back to the House of Night." His grin widened. "Guess you're braver than the Tulsa police force. None of them volunteered to ride her back.”
    I rested my head against the seat as he threw the truck into four-wheel drive and navigated slowly through the drifts of snow away from the depot. There must have been ten cop cars, along with a fire truck and two ambulances parked with lights flashing red and blue and white against the empty, snow-curtained night.
    "What happened here tonight, Zoey?”
    I thought back, and had to