Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I hate him!” Zoey insisted, surprising even herself with the anger in her voice. “Since he joined out family,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her tone, “nothing has been right. Mom is totally different. It’s like she’s forgotten that she’s my mom and not just his wife.” And it felt good, admitting that. Not trying to be diplomatic, and tell her mom that she was happy for her, but she wanted her back, and pretend John was anything but the destruction of her family. She only had one parent to begin with, and then she had none. Neferet wasn't going to tell her that he was family now and that she had to try to understand. Neferet seemed like she'd get it a bit better. 

That was why she admitted why it bothered her so much: “I guess it wasn’t really home for a long time.” The words left her mouth, but she didn't so much speak the words as hear them, and know they were real. Maybe that was why it was so easy to leave, and start over here. 

Neferet looked like a statue. Vampyres really didn’t need to breathe, Zoey realized. She seemed to freeze in place, her eyes seeing something that wasn't in the room, something in the surface of her desk, where she seemed transfixed. When finally she seemed to catch her breath, her voice was different, quieter, “It wasn’t a home, it was a prison,” she volunteered. Zoey wondered if she was hearing her thoughts again, or something. That could have been where her mind went when she froze. 

She didn't try to pretend Neferet was wrong, whether she'd inferred it or straight up found it in her head. Zoey just nodded, “yeah. I wasn’t sure I was going to get out of there when I got marked. John was all ready to try to pray it all away, even if I got hurt, so we’d look like his perfect family. I had to climb out the window to Grandma,” she admitted. It hardly seemed real to her now, but she could remember being all light-headed, and scrambling out her window and down the siding of the house--Goddess, she was lucky she didn't hit her head before she'd even made it to her Grandma. 

Neferet's eyes changed--they went even darker, and one of her hands wrapped around the necklace she was wearing, fingers curling until her knuckles turned white, and the pearls and wire that wrapped around her fist cut into her skin enough Zoey was sure she wasn't going to have circulation too long. For all the ways she became something Zoey had never seen before, something frightening, her voice was the same; it came out slow and measured, but deadly serious, “do you think he’s any danger to you here?”

Zoey shook her head, “I’m pretty sure that would mean admitting I exist to his friends,” she half-laughed, like that was some kind of joke that fell flat. It wasn't funny, except in a really sad way, that it was good John had probably already disowned her and her mom probably hadn't thought twice, because her husband said this was for the best. She wondered if Barbie would ever hear that she'd even left, or if Kevin would notice from the basement where he was probably holed up with one of his games. It wasn't like anyone was going to ask, except maybe Mr and Mrs Luck.  

Neferet’s hand released her necklace, fingers turning red when the blood rushed back into them. There was a deep red line from the wire--it might have even bruised. What the hell was that necklace made of? The look didn't leave her eyes, which had gone from emerald green to almost black. Her voice was still measured, like she was planning each syllable, like delivering lines on stage back when Zoey took drama. “If you think he’s any threat, tell me and we will deal with it," she said, and Zoey shivered. Innately, she wasn't sure what the deal with it was, but it seemed like that necklace was capable of a lot on its own. Her skin had prickled a little, but it subsided when she thought about it too hard. Neferet had seemed almost dangerous. Something told her dealing with him wasn’t just a restraining order, or some kind of magical barrier. 

"It's going to be alright," Neferet assured her, "he won't hurt you. I understand what family can be capable of.” Zoey wondered what Neferet thought she was talking about, to warrant the look on her face, and the dark eyes, and the bruise on her hand that she didn't even seem to notice. Somehow, it didn't seem like a normal reaction to hearing about a lame, vaguely authoritarian step parent who moved in and turned the house into a failed theocracy with his holier-than-thou crap.

"He wouldn't..." Zoey trailed off, a little awkwardly, not sure where these assumptions would have come from. Was she being that dramatic? "He's just a loser who preaches too much, and thinks we all have to live by his stupid book," she explained, "I'm pretty sure even he wouldn't try preaching around here," she tried for a joke, but it fell flat. Neferet still hadn't seemed to breathe, so she added, "I'm not in danger or anything, I swear, he's just really annoying." Zoey had to wonder if step-losers threatening fledglings was a common occurrence around the House of Night. Something they taught in High Priestessing 101, if that was a real class. 

Neferet seemed to release whatever breath she was holding, and the ambient temperature of the room rose by at least three degrees. She shook out her hand, and the green returned to her eyes, casting doubt on whether the almost-black intensity was a figment of the light. The silence no longer felt austere. "Of course," Neferet responded, "We won't tolerate his sermons, though if you'd like to invite your grandmother, there is a visitation night coming."

And though the conversation got normal after that, even pleasant, Zoey couldn't quite shake the way Neferet had looked earlier, black eyes, and gripping that necklace like it was a lifeline, until it bruised the back of her hand. Syllables that fell like metric beats, stripped of whatever intensity made the rest of her freeze like a statue. We will deal with it. She couldn't help but hear a threat in those words, and shiver when she thought about it. She couldn't forget that the High Priestess was probably centuries old, and somehow inhuman in a way almost no one else here was. 

Chapter Text

“I hate him!” Her voice rung out through Neferet’s office, sharper than she usually spoke. Neferet could have heard a pin drop in the hallway between that, and her admission. She knew not to, but she was waiting for it. Waiting for an echo.

She didn’t breathe as Zoey continued, “Since he joined our family,” she drew out the word, sharp-edged. It meant nothing to her but some arbitrary prison the man had overtaken, “nothing has been right. Mom is totally different. It’s like she’s forgotten that she’s my mom and not just his wife.” She stopped again, seemingly collecting herself. It was too much. A mother who should not—in this case, would not protect her. A father who’d turned the world on its head. A distorted nightmare of a reality. Footsteps in a hallway and the overpowering scent of brandy. Haunted doorknobs that turned themselves. She didn’t look into Zoey’s thoughts—she’d seen all of it already.  

Seen all of it, and yet did not have words to offer. She’d never been one to speak of it—she acted. 

She waited, almost able to taste that Zoey wasn’t done—she’d never interrupt—not if the fledgling wanted to do what she still could not bear to do. She would not take her voice, not about this. 

“I guess it wasn’t really home for a long time.” Her voice was soft, almost a little resigned. She’d have sounded like that a long time ago, seeking refuge in Camille’s tea room, trying to speak words no one there would either hear or understand. Trying to tell her she was trapped. It wasn’t home—it was a place to be escaped, only when it was too late, and Nyx finally saw fit to intervene. Had Nyx reached Zoey in time?

Would she see, if Nyx hadn’t, why Neferet became what she was? She could be guided. She could become as free as Neferet would, when she finally found the way to make Earth bleed sacred red. She didn’t have to accept that she’d never see justice, the way Cordelia insisted Neferet did. She could be the mentor she would have needed.

And so she offered, “It wasn’t a home, it was a prison.” Her voice was different, lacking her normal power. Soft, almost tenuous. It was the most she’d spoken of it since 1893. She didn’t breathe. Didn’t move, it was comforting, turning to a statue, tempering her admission with hardness, strength. She didn’t need to breathe. He had, purple face and bulging eyes. She could be humane, but she was inhuman. She needed to be. 

 Zoey agreed, “yeah. I wasn’t sure I was going to get out of there when I got marked. John was all ready to try to pray it all away, even if I got hurt, so we’d look like his perfect family,” she remarked, an edge to her voice, suggesting the worst. That man would have killed her.  “I had to climb out the window to Grandma,” she admitted. 

The prick of thorned roses, and the cold night air meeting skin too numb to feel real. She’d hardly felt each thorn, through the rest of the pain. She’d hardly felt the dirt and pavement beneath her feet, nor registered her surroundings, trees and houses blurring like too-wet paint into something that couldn’t be real. It hadn’t been real until she’d stumbled to a halt, reaching Arthur. 

She reached for her necklace, forcing her fingers to move slowly. When she’d started over, the shadows returned it. It was power. It was choice. Just as it had before, the wire bit into her fingers, pulling her back from that place. Her fingertips prickled, and she summoned the image to mind, trying to drown out the rest. His eyes, popping from his purple face. The moment he knew that he would die and she would live. The moment he saw what she was becoming, and then was snuffed out like a candle. Those eyes, glassy and doll like. A crumpled up marionette. 

She had the power. She was the goddess of death, if only until she had to return a facade, to persuade her mentor all she’d sought was an apology. People like him could only apologize in blood. 

Perhaps, John was going to join that list. If Zoey gave her a reason, he’d never reach her again. She was careful how she asked, in slow, measured syllables—she wouldn't ask what he'd done, just what she needed to know. “Do you think he’s any danger to you here?” Her meaning was clear: she’d known even then that a world with her father was not one she’d live in. She made a choice to whose life was forfeit, and left the world a better place. She’d do it again, even if this man had never known her. 

Zoey shook her head, “I’m pretty sure that would mean admitting I exist to his friends.” 

She released the necklace, blood rushing to numbed skin. The back of her neck stung, from the pearls and the wire cutting in. She was not her own noose. She took another breath and felt it in her lungs. Deliberate. She did not need it, as he had. She chose it, when it gave her a voice. She’d never understood why vampyres chose to be less than they were, to act like long lived humans. “If you think he’s any threat, tell me and we will deal with it.” Again, she said with as little emotion to her voice as she could. Slowly, and evenly. Couldn’t scare her now. Her rage, though poised to help, would be overwhelming, if it didn’t appear dangerous, until she could be sure. She had to force herself to bottle it.

Around the room, the shadows were darker, her own writhing on the corners of her vision. Their edges were sharp when she looked for them. She was not numbness navigating pained watercolour. She saw clearly. She heard. And she chose. She’d remained the executioner since, and they knew her. They served her. She was alive, after all this time, years after his name was blotted out by history. John could be forgotten equally quickly. Snuffed out. She didn’t need to breathe, but he did. They all did. 

She was the monster that hunted back. 

Zoey could learn it, if she chose. Learn what power could be hers. Become more than human, but when she shivered, Neferet knew, once more, that she wouldn't. Zoey wasn’t ready for that yet—perhaps never would be. Perhaps she hadn’t hardened enough to become what Neferet had, and never would. That was fine. She was powerful enough by far to protect her fledglings.

"It's going to be alright," she kept her voice low, but tinged it with something gentle that did not come easily. Her most difficult shortcoming was that all she could manage was to remove him from the world—she could do nothing for what her fledgling suffered. Her affinity to heal was skin deep. She could mend bone, and hear the mind, but never so much as to draw out the poison that people like him left in it.

What she lacked in healing, she could more than make up. She would make the world a better place, and grow the faintest bit in power for it. Turn his existence—or lack thereof—to something worthwhile. She offered what little she could say without feeling like once again, she was the one gasping for breath. The small admission, loosed from pages she ought to have burned and not buried. ”He won't hurt you. I understand what family can be capable of.”

"He wouldn't..." Something tinged Zoey’s voice, as her cheeks flushed. "He's just a loser who preaches too much, and thinks we all have to live by his stupid book," she was backpedaling now, "I'm pretty sure even he wouldn't try preaching around here," she gave half an awkward laugh, and then continued to ramble, "I'm not in danger or anything, I swear, he's just really annoying." 

The breath slowly hissed from Neferet’s lungs, as the shadows lightened, and became simply shadows, her darkness abating. She looked down at her hand, fingers already bruising from the wire. She shook out the stiffness, watching her fingers move. She felt her lungs breathing, normally, as though she had any desire to appear human. She felt exposed. Acutely aware she’d tried to reach for someone, tried to offer things that would have horrified her. There was no common tongue. They did not climb from the same window. 

She had to harden herself again—she could have lost it all out of some misplaced sense of protection, toward a melodramatic child.  

"Of course," she forced a slight laugh, "We won't tolerate his sermons,” she played it off, as though that had been what she’d meant all along, about dealing with him. She redirected Zoey as quickly as possible, moving her away from a dark night in a historic mansion, and back into some distorted present, come into plain view “though if you'd like to invite your grandmother, there is a visitation night coming."

Zoey was enthused enough, she may have forgotten the bruises Neferet felt on her fingers, surreptitiously resting in her lap, invisible past the desk. She talked of a warmer world, flavoured with lavender and chocolate chips, and unconditional acceptance. She planned to call her grandmother, and Neferet hoped that gave her something to think about. 

Zoey Redbird was a fledgling. She also, like so many of the others, was human. 

When she left, Neferet finally let the facade slip, her vision turning to watercolour in bitter angry tears as she bit back an anguished scream. A hundred years. A hundred fucking years, and she had not forgotten the smell of brandy on breath. Had not forgotten the pain. Her hands balled into fists, and the shadows deepened, almost enough to plunge her into a comforting shadow. “Darkness,” she intoned, once again forcing her voice calm and measured, “cover me. Conceal all sound to come from this room," before pricking her finger on the thread of wire exposed near the clasp at the back. 

It complied, sealing the door, as she had it do some days when she slept, plunging the room into shadow and coating the window in sticky, tar-like webs. She screamed. She screamed again, once it was out, feeling hot tears she’d deny she shed trickling down her contorted face. She picked up a bowl from her desk, one that held assorted clutter, and hurled it at one of the shelves, watching pieces of it careening across the room. It was calming, the onslaught. She did it. The bowl had flown off her bruised fingers, and she was its end. She had control. 

She sat down, in the middle of her glass strewn, shadowy office, and held her breath, felt the whisper of the serpents she’d summoned across her skin. 

It was power, her own domain. It was all that ever freed her to feel.