"Did I hear you have need of me, my u-we-tsi-a-ge-ya?"

I squeezed her hand. "Grandma, I'll always need you!"

I glanced back at Heath, who smiled at me. "Kick his butt outta here, Zo," he said; then he moved back to join Erik and Darius.

Grandma, meanwhile, had somehow risen to her feet. She took two slow steps forward, staring out at the grove of trees and the Raven Mockers swarmed there. "Oh, sons of my mothers' mothers!" she cried and her voice carried like the sonorous beat of a tribal drum out into the night. "What have you allowed him to make you become? Do you not feel your mothers' blood? Can you not imagine their hearts breaking for you?"

Amazed, I watched several of the Raven Mockers turn their heads, as if they were unable to face my grandma. In others the red glow began to die in their eyes, and I recognized sorrow and confusion in their human depths.

"Be silent, Ani Yunwiya!" Kalona's voice boomed around us.

I knew Grandma recognized the ancient name of the Cherokee people. Slowly, she turned her attention to the winged being. "I see you, Old One. Will you never learn? Must women, once again, come together to defeat you?"

"Not this time, Ghigua. You will not find me so easy to trap this time."

"Perhaps this time we will simply wait for you to trap yourself. We are a very patient people, and you did it before," Grandma said.

"But this A-ya is different," Kalona said. "Her soul calls to me from her dreams. It won't be long before her waking body calls me, too, and then I shall possess her."

"No," I said firmly. "Thinking you can possess me, like I'm a piece of property, is your first mistake. My soul is drawn to you," I finally admitted aloud, and found a surprising strength in my honesty. "But like you said, I'm a different A-ya. I have free will, and my will is not to give myself to the darkness. So, here's the deal: Leave now. Take Neferet and the Raven Mockers and go someplace far away where you can live in peace and not hurt anyone else."

"Or?" he asked, looking amused.

"Or I will, as my human consort put it, kick your butt out of here," I said firmly.

His look of amusement widened into a charming smile. "A-ya, I do not believe I will leave this place. I find I like Tulsa very much."

"Remember that you brought this on yourself," I said. Then I spoke to the women surrounding me. "The poem says: Joined not to conquer, instead to overcome. I'm Night. I've led you to Sister Mary Angela--she's Spirit." I held out my left hand and Sister Mary Angela grasped it firmly. "Stevie Rae, you're Blood. Aphrodite, you're Humanity."

Stevie Rae walked over to Sister Mary Angela, and took the nun's other hand, and then she looked at Aphrodite, who nodded and grasped her offered hand.

"What are they doing?" Neferet's voice came from closer than she was before. I looked up to see that she was moving quickly toward us.

"A-ya! What foolishness is this?" Kalona didn't sound amused anymore, and he, too, was approaching our circle.

"And Earth completes." I held my hand out to Grandma.

"Do not let the Ghigua join them!" Kalona cried.

"Stark! Kill her," Neferet commanded.

"Not A-ya!" Kalona shouted. "Kill the old Ghigua."

I held my breath and met Stark's eyes as Neferet said, "Kill Zoey. No mistakes this time. Aim for her heart!" As she spoke, darkness slithered from the shadows around her. Stretching over to Stark, I watched them wrap around his ankles and begin to move up his body. I saw clearly the struggle that was going on within Stark. Neferet's dark power could still affect him. My stomach clenched. Was his Warrior's Oath to me enough to break that hold? I wanted to trust him. I'd decided to trust him. Had that been a stupid mistake?

"No!" Kalona roared. "Do not kill her!"

"I will not share you!" Neferet cried. Her hair was whipping around her, and she seemed to grow bigger as I watched. I had been right to believe she was no longer what she once had been, not in body and not in soul. She whirled from Kalona to Stark. "By the power with which I awakened you, I command you hit the mark. Shoot Zoey through her heart!"

I was staring at Stark, trying to will him to choose good--to keep choosing good and to turn from Neferet's cloying darkness, so I saw the exact moment he understood his way out. As if he and I were back in the little room off the field house again, I heard myself saying to him, You have my heart...And his response: Then both of us better stay safe. A heart's a hard thing to live without...