"Bullshit," I said.
"She's right," Stevie Rae said. Her voice was cold and mean. "When we died, so did our humanity."
"That might be true with them, but I don't believe it's true with you," I said.
"You don't know anything about this, Zoey," Stevie Rae said.
"I don't have to. I know you, and I know our Goddess, and that's all I need to know."
"She's not my Goddess anymore."
"Really, just like your mamma's not your mamma anymore?" I knew I'd hit a nerve when I saw her jerk as if she were in physical pain.
"I don't have a mamma. I'm not a human anymore."
"Big f-ing deal. Technically, I'm not a human anymore, either. I'm somewhere in the middle of the Change, which makes me a little of this and a lot of that. Hell, the only one here who's still human is Heath."
"Not that I hold your un-human-ness against you guys," Heath said.
I sighed. "Heath, un-human-ness isn't a word. It's inhumanity."
"Zo, I'm not stupid. I know that. I was just coining a word."
"Coining?" Had he really said that?
He nodded. "I learned about it in Dickson's English class. It has to do with …" He paused, and I swear the creatures were even listening expectantly. "Poetry."
Despite our awful situation I laughed. "Heath, you really have been studying!"
"Told you so." He grinned, looking completely adorable.
"Enough!" Stevie Rae's voice echoed off the round walls of the tunnel. "I'm done with this." She turned her back to Heath and me, ignoring us completely. "They've seen us. They know too much. They have to die. Kill them." And she walked away.
This time Heath didn't mess with trying to pull me behind him. Instead he whirled around and, completely catching me off guard, tackled me so that I landed on my butt on the disgusting mattress with an oofh. Then he turned to the closing circle of snarling undead creatures with his legs planted a hip's width apart and his hands balled into fists and he gave his Broken Arrow Tiger football growl.
"Bring it, freaks!"
Okay, it wasn't that I didn't appreciate Heath's machoness. But the boy was in over his cute blond head. I stood up and centered myself.
"Fire, I need you again!" This time I yelled the words with the command of a High Priestess. Flames burst into life from the palms of my hands all up and down my arms. I would have liked to have taken time to study the fire I'd called into being—it was cool that it could burn on me, and not actually burn me, but there was no time for that. "Move, Heath."
He looked over his shoulder at me, and his eyes got huge and round. "Zo?"
"I'm fine. Just move!"
He jumped out of my way as, burning, I walked forward. The creatures cringed back from me, even as their hands tried to reach around me to get to Heath.
"Stop it!" I yelled. "Back off and leave him alone. Heath and I are going to walk out of here. Now. If you try to stop us, I'm going to kill you, and I have a feeling that this time you're going to die for good." Okay, I really, really didn't want to kill anyone. What I wanted to do was to get Heath out of there, and then find Stevie Rae and have her explain to me how fledglings who were supposed to have died could be walking around with bad attitudes, glowing eyes, and smelling like mold and dust.
From the edge of my vision I saw a movement. I turned in time to see one of the creatures launch herself at Heath. I lifted my arms and flung the fire at her as if I were throwing a ball. As she screamed and went up in flames I recognized her and had to fight hard not to be sick. It was Elizabeth No Last Name—the nice girl who had died last month. Now her burning body writhed on the floor, reeking of spoiled meat and decay, which was all that was left of her lifeless shell.
"Wind and rain! I call you," I cried, and as the air around me began to swirl and fill with the scent of spring rain, I got a flash of Damien and Erin sitting cross-legged beside Shaunee. Their eyes were closed in concentration and they were holding votives the color of their elements. I pointed my fiery finger at Elizabeth's smoldering body and it was washed in a sudden flush of rain, then a cool breeze took the green-tinged smoke, lifting it above our heads, and carried its stench down the tunnel and out into the night.
I faced the creatures again. "That's what I'll do to any of you who try to stop us." I motioned for Heath to walk in front of me, and I followed him, backing away from the creatures.
They followed us. I couldn't always see them as we rewound our way through the dark tunnel, but I could hear their shuffling feet and muffled snarls. It was about then that I began to feel the exhaustion. It was like I was a cell phone that hadn't been charged in a while, and someone was talking on me too long. I let the fire that outlined by arms go out except for a flickering flame that I cupped in my right hand. No way Heath could see to walk out of here without that, and I was still backing behind him, keeping an eye out for attacking creatures. After I passed two offshoot tunnel branches I called for Heath to stop.
"We should hurry, Zo. I know you have this power thing going on, but there are a lot of them—more than what were back there. I don't know how many you can handle." He touched my face. "Not to be mean or anything, but you look like shit."
I felt like poo, too, but I didn't want to mention it. "I have an idea." We'd just come around a curve where the tunnel had narrowed until I could touch either side of it by spreading out my arms. I walked back to the narrowest part of the curve. Heath started to follow me, but I told him, "Stand over there," and pointed farther down the tunnel the way we were heading. He frowned, but did as I told him.
I turned my back to Heath and concentrated. Lifting my arms, I thought of newly plowed fields and pretty Oklahoma meadows filled with uncut winter hay. I thought about the earth and how I was standing within it ... surrounded by it ...
"Earth! I call to you!" As I lifted my arms a vision of Stevie Rae flashed across my closed eyelids. She wasn't as she used to be—sweet-faced and concentrating hard over a glowing green candle. She was curled up in the corner of a dark tunnel. Her face was gaunt and white and her eyes glowed scarlet. But her face wasn't an emotionless parody of herself or a cruel mask. She was weeping openly, her expression filled with despair. It's a start, I thought. Then, with a swift, powerful motion I lowered my arms while I commanded, "Close!" In front and above me, pieces of dirt and rock began to fall from the ceiling. At first it was just a trickle of pebbles, but soon there was a mini-avalanche going on that quickly drowned out the pissed-off growls and hisses of the trapped creatures.
A wave of weakness crashed over me and I staggered back.
"I got ya, Zo." Heath's strong arms were around me and I let myself rest against him for a moment. Several of his cuts had broken loose during our escape, and the ripe scent of his blood tickled against my senses.
"They're not really trapped, you know," I said softly, trying to keep my mind off how much I wanted to lick the line of blood that was trickling down his cheek. "We passed a couple other tunnels. I'm sure they'll be able to find their way out eventually."
"It's okay, Zo." Heath kept his arms wrapped around me, but he pulled back enough so that he could look into my eyes. "I know what you need. I can feel it. If you feed from me you won't be so weak." He smiled, and his blue eyes darkened. "It's okay," he repeated. "I want you to."
"Heath, you've been through way too much. Who knows how much blood you've already lost? My drinking more of it isn't a good idea." I was saying no, but my voice trembled with desire.
"Are you kidding? A big, studly football jock like me? I got plenty of blood to spare," Heath teased. Then his expression turned serious. "For you, I have anything to spare." While he looked into my eyes, he wiped one of his fingers down the damp red slash on his cheek and the rubbed the blood on his bottom lip. Then he bent and kissed me.