Maleficent sneezed, growled, and jumped off the bed to disappear into Aphrodite's bathroom. I can't say I was sorry to see her go.

"Now keep the pot close to you while you listen carefully to me," Grandma said. I heard her draw three deep cleansing breaths before she began. "First you should know that the Tsi Sgili are Cherokee witches, only do not be deceived by the title 'witch.' They do not follow the peaceful, beautiful ways of Wicca. Nor are they the wise priestesses you know and respect who serve Nyx. A Tsi Sgili lives as an outcast, separate from the tribe. They are evil, through and through. They delight in killing; they revel in death. They have magical powers granted through the fear and pain of their victims. They feed on death. They can torture and kill with the ane li sgi."

"I don't know what that means, Grandma."

"It means they are powerful psychics and can kill with their minds."

Aphrodite looked up at me. Our eyes met and I could tell we were thinking the same thing: Neferet is a powerful psychic.

"Who is this queen the poem talks about?" Aphrodite asked.

"I know of no Tsi Sgili queen. They are solitary beings and have no hierarchy. But I am not an authority on them."

"So is Kalona one of the Tsi Sgili?" I asked.

"No. Kalona is worse. Much worse. The Tsi Sgili are evil and dangerous, but they are human and can be dealt with as any human can." Grandma paused, and I could hear her drawing in three more deep cleansing breaths. When Grandma began to speak again, her voice was lowered, as if she was worried about being overheard. She didn't exactly sound scared. She sounded cautious. Cautious and very, very serious.

"Kalona was the father of the Raven Mockers and he was not human. We call him and his twisted offspring demons, but that's not really accurate. I guess the best way I can describe Kalona is as an angel."

A cold chill went through my body when Grandma said the words Raven Mockers; then I realized what else she had said, and I blinked in surprise. "An angel? Like in the Bible?"

"Aren't they supposed to be good guys?" Aphrodite asked.

"They are supposed to be. Keep in mind that the Christian tradition says that Lucifer himself was the brightest and most beautiful of the angels, but he fell."

"That's right. I'd forgotten about that," Aphrodite said. "So this Kalona was an angel who fell and turned bad guy?"

"In a way. In ancient times, angels walked the earth and mated with humans. Many peoples have stories to describe this time. The Bible called them Nephilim. The Greeks and Romans called them Olympian gods. But whatever they have been called, all of the stories agree on two points: First, that they were beautiful and powerful. Second, that they mated with humans."

"Makes sense," Aphrodite said. "If they were so hot, of course women would want to be with them."

"Well, they were exceptional beings. The Cherokee people tell of one particular angel, beautiful beyond compare. He had wings the color of night, and he could change form into a creature that looked like an enormous raven. At first our people welcomed him as a visiting god. We sang songs to him and danced for him. Our crops thrived. Our women were fertile.

"But gradually everything changed. I don't really know why. The stories are too old. Too many of them have been lost to time. My guess is that it is difficult to have a god live among you, no matter how beautiful he is.

"The song I remember my grandmother singing tells that Kalona changed when he began to lie with the maidens of the tribe. The story goes that after the first time he bedded a maiden, he became obsessed. He had to have women—he craved them constantly, and he also hated them for causing the lust and need he felt for them."

Aphrodite snorted. "I bet it was him feeling the lust, not them. No one wants a guy who's a man ho, no matter how hot he is."

"You're right, Aphrodite. My grandmother's song said that the maidens turned their faces from him, and that's when he became a monster. He used his divine power to rule our men while he defiled our women. And all the while his hatred for women grew with an intensity that was all the more frightening because of his obsession with them. I heard an old Wise Woman speak once, and she said that to Kalona the Cherokee women were water and air and food—his very life, though he hated that he needed them so desperately." She paused again, and I could easily envision the look of disgust on her face that was mirrored in her voice as she continued her story.

"The women he raped became pregnant, but most of them gave birth to dead things, unrecognizable as infants of any species. But once in a while, one of his offspring would live, though it was clearly not human. The stories say that Kalona's children were ravens, with the eyes and limbs of man."

"Eeewww, the body of a crow and the legs and eyes of a man? That's disgusting," Aphrodite said.

A shiver passed through me. "I've been hearing ravens, a lot of them. I think one of them tried to attack me. I swiped at it, and it scratched my hand."

"What! When?" Grandma snapped.

"I've been hearing them at night. I thought it was weird that they were making so much noise. And . . . and then last night something I couldn't really see flapped around me, like a nasty invisible bird. I hit at it and then ran inside the school and called fire to make the cold it brought with it go away."

"And it worked? Fire chased it away?" Grandma said.

"Yeah, but I've felt eyes on me ever since."

"Raven Mockers." Grandma's voice was hard as steel. "What you've been dealing with are the spirits of the demon children of Kalona."

"I've heard them, too," Aphrodite said, looking pale again. "Actually I've been thinking how annoying they've been the last few nights."

"Ever since Professor Nolan was killed," I said.

"I think that's when I started noticing it, too. Ohmygod, Grandma! Could they have had something to do with Professor Nolan and Loren's deaths?"

"No, I don't think so. The Raven Mockers lost their physical forms. They only have their spirits left and can do little harm except to those who are old and very near death. How badly did they hurt your hand, sweetheart?"

Automatically I looked down at my unmarked hand. "Not bad. The scratch went away in just a few minutes."

Grandma hesitated before saying, "I have never heard of a Raven Mocker being able to really hurt a vibrant young person. They are mischief makers—dark spirits that take pleasure from annoying the living and tormenting those at the cusp of death. I do not believe they could cause a healthy vampyre's death, but they could be drawn to the House of Night by the deaths of those vampyres, and have somehow become stronger because of them. Be wary. They are terrible creatures, and their presence is always an ill omen."

As Grandma had been talking, my eyes had wandered back to the poem. Over and over I kept reading the line Through the hand of the dead he will be free.

"What happened to Kalona?" I asked abruptly.

"It was his insatiable lust for women that eventually destroyed him. The warriors of the tribes tried for years to overpower him. They simply could not. He was a creature of myth and magic, and only myth and magic could defeat him."

"So what happened?" Aphrodite said.

"The Ghigua called a secret council of Wise Women from all tribes."

"What's a Ghigua?" I asked.

"It is the Cherokee name for the Beloved Woman of the tribe. She is a gifted Wise Woman, a diplomat, and often very close to the Great Spirit. Each tribe chooses one, and she serves on a council of women."

"Basically they're High Priestesses?" I said.

"Yes, that's a good way to think of them. So a Ghigua called the Wise Women together, and they met in secret in the only place where Kalona would not eavesdrop on them—a cave deep in the earth."