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She’s eventually going to realize that the local humans aren’t going to bow down and worship her. A bunch of them even feel sorry for her. That is going to piss her off big time and Neferet will mess up. Again. Then she’ll be outed with the humans, just like she was with the vamps. That’ll leave her no shit pot to stir here, and if she can’t stir up some shit, Neferet will find someplace else to haunt. Getting rid of her for good could actually be, as Stevie Rae would say, easy-peasy.”
    “Stevie Rae!” I felt a flush of guilt. “Crap. I pretty much left her alone to deal with the Erin death mess.”
    “Thanatos is handling it, and by
it
I mean Shaunee. Stevie Rae and Kramisha are getting the kids together for the bus. Everyone wanted to know where you were, which brought me out here looking for you.”
    “Sorry. I guess my second to breathe is up. I’m ready to dive back into crazy. Let’s go say bye to Grandma before we get on the bus.”
    “I’m with you, Z.” Stark stood, pulled me to my feet, and kissed me softly. “I’m always with you, even if that means I’m with crazy, too.”
    I was still in his arms, feeling safe, when we heard the screaming start.
    “Holy crap, what is that?”
    I could feel the tension in Stark’s body. “Someone’s hysterical.” He took my hand again, and listened for a few seconds before he began guiding me toward the entrance to the field house. “Come on. It’s coming from around the other side of the school. Stay close to me. I have a bad feeling about this.”
    Oh, Goddess! Please, don’t let it be another kid dying …
was all I could think as we cut through the field house and jogged to the school’s parking lot.
    We were coming from a different direction than everyone else, so no one noticed us at first, and Stark and I got to get a good look at the creepy scene. In the middle of the parking lot—surrounded by dazed locals, and a gaggle of Benedictine nuns who were herding her from her headlong run from the front gates of the school—was a tall blond woman having an absolute and utter hysterical meltdown. She was wearing meticulously tailored black slacks; a light blue, skintight cashmere sweater; and a thick strand of expensive-looking pearls. Her hair had come loose from a rich lady updo, and blond wisps were sticking out from her head like she’d been electrocuted. Even though the nuns had managed to get her to stop running in circles, she was shrieking and flailing her arms like a crazy person.
    I admit that my first reaction was to feel super relieved that it was a freaked-out local and not another dying fledgling.
    Sister Mary Angela stepped from the crowd and began trying to calm the woman down. “There, there, madam. I know it is distressing when a young person dies, but we all know death is never far from every fledgling. They accept it, and so must we.”
    The screaming woman paused in her hysterics and blinked at Sister Mary Angela as if she’d just realized where she was. She drew a deep breath and her face twisted, changed, going from terror to anger so quickly it was scary. Later I realized that should have made me recognize her.
    “You think I’m crying about a
fledgling
? That’s absurd!” the woman hurled the words at the nun.
    “I’m sorry. I don’t understand wh—”
    Aphrodite rushed up, interrupting the nun and looking wide-eyed at the crying woman. “Mom? What’s wrong with you?”
    “Oh, shit!” Stark spoke under his breath to me. “That’s Aphrodite’s mom.”
    I’d dropped his hand and was moving forward before my mind had time to catch up with my actions.
    “They’ve killed him!” her mom shrieked at her.
    “Him? Who?”
    “Your father! The mayor of Tulsa!”
    The crowd gasped along with me. Aphrodite’s face went bloodless and white. Before she could speak again, Lenobia rushed up, saying, “Ladies and gentlemen, some of you have already met me. I am Lenobia, Horse Mistress of this House of Night, and