I opened and closed my mouth. I had no clue what to say. If Chera had been blunt and pushy and reporter-like it would have been easy to do the whole “no comment” thing and walk away, but she seemed genuinely nice and just politely curious. Sounding as nervous as Stark looked, I said, “Well, I’m not really comfortable with the whole special label, even though our Goddess Marked me with extra tattoos.”

“Oh, I get it.” Chera motioned to the cameraman. “Jerry, cut that part.” Then she turned her attention back to me. “I apologize. I’m not here to make anyone uncomfortable.”

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“To get an inside reaction to the killing of Tulsa’s mayor.”

“We didn’t kill the mayor,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to accuse you! Any of you! Not at all,” Chera assured us, sounding as sincere as she looked.

“Is someone making accusations?” Thanatos hurried up, with Damien following closely behind.

Chera glanced at the cameraman. “Jerry, stop recording, please.” She held her hand out to Thanatos. “High Priestess, I am Chera Kimiko, Fox 23 News.”

Thanatos took her hand. “I am Thanatos, this House of Night’s High Priestess. And I recognize you, Miss Kimiko.”

“Please, call me Chera. I’m not here to accuse anyone of anything. I’m only trying to show the whole story, the real story behind Charles LaFont’s death.” She held out her hand to one of the guys with the lights. “Andy, let me see my iPad.” The guy handed it to her—she tapped the screen and then held it up so that we could see Aphrodite’s mom being interviewed by a concerned-looking man in a suit that didn’t fit very well.

“Mrs. LaFont, please accept our condolences on the death of your husband, our beloved mayor,” said the reporter.

“I do appreciate the sentiment, but I will not be consoled until my husband’s vampyre murderer is brought to justice.”

Diana and I sucked air. Thanatos seemed to turn to stone. Darius and Stark looked like they might explode. But Aphrodite’s mom, Mrs. Charles LaFont, looked beautiful and devastated and mesmerizingly passionate in her sleek black dress and her pearls. She dabbed a lace handkerchief at the corners of her tear-filled blue eyes before she continued.

“So, you are sure your husband was killed by a vampyre?” the reporter prompted.

“Absolutely sure. I was there. I found his brutalized, blood-drained body.” Mrs. LaFont looked from the reporter straight into the camera. “Something has to be done about the House of Night.”

The interview broke for a commercial and Chera tapped the screen off.

“The only side that is being heard is that of Mrs. LaFont, and while I sympathize with her loss, I am a journalist, and I believe in telling the whole story.”

“Miss Kimiko, there is no drama and intrigue and the story of a murderer being hidden here. There are only students and professors, and a school day that has been disrupted because of the tragic events of last night.”

“Please, Thanatos, don’t see me as an enemy. Allow me to tell the rest of the story and film some of your students just going about normal activities. Allow me to show Tulsa who you really are. I have always believed that fear and hatred are fueled by ignorance,” Chera said earnestly, meeting Thanatos’s gaze without wavering. “If our city has nothing to fear from your House of Night, allow my camera to show that. Let it educate Tulsa.”

“Chera, it does seem that your intentions are good, but as I already said, our students are not going on with normal activities today.”

“Excuse me, Thanatos.” Damien held up his hand.

“Yes, Damien. What is it?”

“Most of the fledglings are still having breakfast in the cafeteria. That’s a normal school activity.”

“I would love to film your students there!” Chera said.

“Very well. Damien, you may escort Miss Kimiko to the cafeteria. I will join you, but will remain in the background so that she may film an authentic cafeteria experience.”

“Ooooh! This will be fantastic!” Damien gushed.

“That is exactly what I think, too.” Chera smiled at him.

“Miss Kimiko,” Thanatos said. “We will only film in the cafeteria. That is as much outside interference as my school can tolerate today.”

“I understand and appreciate even this small opportunity,” Chera said.

“Then Damien shall lead the way to our cafeteria,” Thanatos said. “Zoey, Stark, Darius, as you were.”

Relieved to have the focus shifted away from us, I nodded at Thanatos and the three of us scurried out the door, though I felt Chera’s curious gaze follow us.

“Do you think any publicity is good publicity?” Darius asked.

“No!” Stark and I said together.

Kalona

The winged immortal hated that the human had been killed. Not that he minded that the man had lost his life. From the information Kalona gleaned from the others, the mayor had been a weak, simpering, useless human being. Kalona only minded that it had happened while he was Warrior to the High Priestess of Death, and the human had been killed on his watch.

Kalona also hated that Neferet had so obviously been the murderer. With a grunt of irritation, Kalona leaned back in the roomy leather chair and threw a dagger into the chipped target that was mounted on the wall across from Dragon Lankford’s desk. It struck true in the center of the blood-colored bull’s-eye.

“I should have been more vigilant. I should have known the Tsi Sgili would find a way to regain her corporeal form and return to begin her revenge.” As he spoke he threw another knife. It stuck and held beside the first. “But instead of protecting, I was hiding”—he said the word as if it had a foul taste—“lest the local humans be shocked at the sight of me.” His laughter lacked humor. “No, instead of me shocking them, they were treated to two deaths.” Kalona reached for another dagger, and his hand brushed the delicate blown glass sunflower held within a crystal vase on which was etched a likeness of Nyx, arms raised cupping a crescent moon. The movement caused the vase to rock, so that it lost balance, toppled, and fell toward the stone floor.

A ball of light, bright as the rising sun, exploded within the office. Time was suspended. The vase and flower paused in their fall, hovering just above the unforgiving stone floor.

A hand, tanned to burnished gold, reached from the ball of light, and plucked from the air first the flower, and then the Goddess-etched vase, setting them to right on the desk.

“Brother, you need a job,” Kalona said sarcastically.

“I have one,” Erebus said, stepping from the ball of light. He sat, slouching irreverently on the edge of Dragon Lankford’s wide wooden desk. “I protect that which is exquisite and beautiful.” He gestured to the crystal vase.

Kalona snorted. “Are you comparing Nyx to a vase? I’m not entirely sure the Goddess would appreciate the comparison.”

“And yet it is a valid one,” Erebus said. “The vase is exquisite and beautiful, and you treated it carelessly. Had I not interceded, it would have been broken.”

“It was I and not Nyx who was broken.”

“I stand corrected. Comparing the Goddess to a vase is foolish. Nyx could never be so easily broken, especially as she will eternally have me as her protector,” Erebus said.

“You? The protector of a goddess?” Kalona’s humorless laughter filled the room with the coldness of winter moonlight, causing some of Erebus’s summer brilliance to mute. “Brother, you will always only be one thing, but that is not a Warrior. I was the only one of us who could fulfill more than one duty for the Goddess.”

“Love is not a duty,” Erebus said.

“Isn’t it? I wouldn’t think I knew more of love than you, but I do know that sometimes it is a duty to keep love alive, and not to allow its light to dim.”

“Little wonder you could not keep her,” Erebus said. “Loving a goddess should never be a duty, no matter what rhetoric you attempt to wrap that word in.”