And it was. The “me” froze as we stared at each other. She was probably about nine years old, and she blinked up at me in terrified silence.

“Zoey Look at me.” Heath wrenched me around, holding my shoulders in a grip that I knew would cause bruises later. “You have to get out of here.”

“But that’s me as a kid.”

“I think all of them are you—pieces of you. Something’s happened to your soul, Zoey, and you gotta get out of here so that it can get fixed.”

Suddenly I felt dizzy and sagged in his arms. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. The words I spoke were as true and as final as his death. “I can’t leave, Heath. Not unless all those pieces of me are me again. And I don’t know how to make that happen—I just don’t know!”

Heath pressed his forehead against mine. “Well, Zo, maybe you should try using that annoying mom voice you used on me when I drank too much and tell them to, I dunno, to stop all this bullpoopie and get back inside you where they belong.”

He sounded so much like me that he almost made me smile. Almost.

“But if I’m back together, I’ll have to leave here. I can feel it, Heath,” I whispered to him.

“If you don’t put yourself back together, you won’t ever leave here because you’re gonna die, Zo. I can feel that.”

I looked into his warm, familiar eyes. “Would that be so bad? I mean, this place seems a lot better than the mess that’s waiting for me back in the real world.”

“No, Zoey.” Heath sounded pissed. “It’s not okay here. Not for you.”

“Well, maybe that’s ’cause I’m not dead. Yet.” I swallowed and admitted, only to myself, that saying it out loud did sound kinda scary.

“I think there’s more to it than that.”

Heath wasn’t looking at me anymore. He was staring over my shoulder, and his eyes had gone all big and round. I turned around. The writhing figures that looked uncomfortably like bizarre, unfinished versions of me were hovering in and out of the black mist, milling and chattering and basically acting weirdly super nervous. Then there was a flash of light that turned into a huge set of dangerous, pointed horns, and with a terrible flapping noise, something descended on that end of the meadow, causing those spirits, those ghosts, those incomplete pieces of me to begin to scream and scream and scream while they scattered and disappeared before it.

“What happens now?” I asked Heath, trying—unsuccessfully—to keep the terror from my voice as we started backing across the meadow.

Heath took my hand and squeezed. “I don’t know, but I’ll be here with you through all of it. And right now,” he whispered in a voice filled with tension, “don’t look behind you, just come with me and run!”

For one of the few times in my life, I didn’t argue with him. I didn’t question him. I did exactly what he said. I held on to Heath and ran.

Chapter 6

“Stevie Rae, this isn’t a good idea,” Dallas said as he hurried to keep up with her.

“I’m not gonna be gone long, promise,” she said, stopping as she got to the parking lot and looked around for Zoey’s little blue car. “Ha! There it is, and she always leaves the keys in it, ’cause the doors don’t lock anyway.” Stevie Rae jogged up to the Bug, opened the creaky door, and gave a victory shout when she saw the keys dangling from the ignition.

“Seriously, I wish you’d come to the Council Chamber with me and tell the vamps what you’re up to, even if you won’t tell me. Get their opinion about what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours, girl.”

Stevie Rae turned to Dallas. “Well, that’s the problem. I’m not sure what I’m doin’. And, Dallas, I wouldn’t tell a bunch of vamps stuff I wouldn’t tell you first, you gotta know that.”

Dallas rubbed a hand down his face. “I used to know that, but a lot’s happened fast, and you’re actin’ weird.”

She put her hand on his shoulder. “I just have a feelin’ that there might be somethin’ I can do to help Zoey, but I’m not gonna figure that out sittin’ up there in that room with a bunch of uptight vamps. I need to be out here.” Stevie Rae spread her arms, taking in the earth around them. “I need to use my element to think. It seems there’s somethin’ that I’m missing, but the understanding of it is just outside my reach. I’m gonna use earth to help me make that reach.”

“Can’t you do that from here? There’s lots of nice earth all over the school.”

Stevie Rae made herself smile at him. She hated lying to Dallas, but then again, she wasn’t really lying. She was really going to see if she could figure out a way to help Z, and she couldn’t do that at the House of Night. “There’re too many distractions here.”

“Okay, look, I know I can’t stop you from going, but I need you to promise me something, or I’m gonna make an ass outta myself by actually tryin’ to stop you.”

Stevie Rae’s eyes widened, and this time she didn’t have to force her smile. “You’re gonna try to kick my butt, Dallas?”

“Well, you and I both know it’d just be me tryin’, but not succeeding, which is where the ‘make an ass outta myself’ part comes in.”

Still grinning at him, she said, “What do you want me to promise?”

“That you won’t go back to the depot right now. They almost killed you, and you look all recovered and stuff, but they almost killed you. Yesterday. So I need you to promise you’re not going back down there to face them tonight.”

“I promise,” she said earnestly. “I’m not goin’ down there. I told you—I want to try to figure out how to help Z, and fightin’ with those kids definitely won’t help her.”

“Swear?”

“Swear.”

He let loose a relieved sigh. “Good. Now what am I supposed to tell those vamps about where you’ve gone?”

“Just what I told you—that I gotta get surrounded by the earth and left alone. That I’m tryin’ to figure out something, and I can’t do it here.”

“All right. I’ll tell ’em. They’re gonna be pissed.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll be back soon,” she said, getting in Zoey’s car. “And don’t worry. I’ll be careful.” The engine had just turned over when Dallas rapped on the window. Suppressing an annoyed sigh, she cracked it.

“Almost forgot to tell ya—I overheard some of the kids talking while I was waitin’ for you. It’s all over the Internet that Z isn’t the only shattered soul in Venice.”

“What the heck does that mean, Dallas?”

“Word is that Neferet dumped Kalona on the High Council—literally. His body is there, but his soul is gone.”

“Thanks, Dallas. I gotta go!” Without waiting for him to reply, Stevie Rae shoved the Bug into gear and drove out of the parking lot and off the school grounds. Taking a quick right on Utica Street, she headed downtown and to the northeast, toward the rolling land on the outskirts of Tulsa that held the Gilcrease Museum.

Kalona’s soul was missing, too.

Stevie Rae didn’t for an instant believe that he’d been so wracked with grief that the immortal’s soul had ripped apart.

“Not likely,” she muttered to herself as she navigated the dark, silent streets of Tulsa. “He’s after her.” As soon as Stevie Rae said the words aloud, she knew she was right.

So what could she do about it?

She didn’t have a clue. She didn’t know anything about immortals or shattered souls or the spirit world. Sure, she’d died, but she’d also un-died. And she didn’t remember her soul going anywhere. Trapped . . . It’d been black and cold and soundless, and I’d wanted to scream and scream and . . . Stevie Rae shuddered, clamping down on her thoughts. She didn’t remember much of that terrible, dead time—she didn’t want to. But she did know someone who understood a lot about immortals, especially Kalona, and the spirit world. According to Z’s grandma, Rephaim hadn’t been anything but a spirit until Neferet had set loose his gross daddy.