“Not a lot. I focused mostly on knives, not vampyre sociology,” Darius said.

“Well, I have the stupid advanced handbook,” Aphrodite said. When we gave her a group gawk she frowned. “What? I was a sixth former before this happened.” She pointed at her unMarked forehead. “Sadly, I had to rejoin my old schedule today.” When we all kept staring without speaking she rolled her eyes. “Oh, for shit’s sake, I have homework, that’s all. The book’s in my extremely attractive Anahata Joy Katkin bag in the retard bus.”

“Aphrodite, stop sayin’ retard!” Stevie Rae shouted at her. “I swear you need to check out www.r-word.com. Maybe you’d learn that some people get their feelin’s hurt by the r-word.”

Aphrodite blinked several times and then scrunched her forehead. “A Web site? Seriously.”

“Yes, Aphrodite. Like I have tried to tell you a bazillion times, using the r-word is demeaning and just plain mean.”

Aphrodite sucked in a deep breath and let it out in a rant: “What about having a site for the c-word—as in cunt, which demeans half of the world? Or, wait, no. Let’s keep it the r-word site only make the r-word rape, which does more than just hurt upper middle class mommies’ feelings. Or—”

“Seriously.” I stepped between them. “We get it. Can we go back to Shaylin and the True Sight issue?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Aphrodite said, flipping back her hair.

“Aphrodite’s mean, Z, but she makes a good point,” Erin said.

I glared at Shaunee who only nodded enthusiastically, but didn’t chime in. My head felt like it was going to explode. “Ah, hell,” I said, throwing up my hands in frustration. “I can’t remember what we were saying before the retard part.”

“Information about True Sight is on the bus,” Rephaim said, surprising all of us. He smiled shyly. “I didn’t really understand much of the rest of the conversation. I also got that Aphrodite is mean, but I already knew that.”

Beside me Stark turned a bark of laughter into a cough.

I sighed.

“Okay, let’s get on the bus and get back to the depot. Aphrodite and Damien, meet me in the kitchen with the advanced handbook.” I paused and glanced at Stevie Rae, who was still holding Rephaim’s hand. “You wanna join us after, um, you know, the sun rises and such?”

“Z, you don’t have to tippie-toe around it. Yes, Rephaim’s gonna change into a bird when the sun comes up, and I’d like to be with him ’til then.” She glanced up at Rephaim who was smiling down at her like it was his birthday and she was some super amazing present he’d just opened.

“Seriously?” I heard Shaylin ask Erik.

“Yeah. It’s a long story,” Erik said.

“No wonder his color’s so weird,” she said.

I was curious about Rephaim’s color, but I knew now was not the time to ask her a bunch of questions, so instead I just said, “Kramisha, would you please figure out where Shaylin will be staying?”

“I ain’t sharin’ my room,” Kramisha said. Then she gave Shaylin an apologetic look. “Sorry. I don’t mean no offense.”

“That’s fine. I’ve had to have people around me ever since I went blind. I’d rather have my own room, too.”

Kramisha smiled. “That’s right. I like me an independent woman, and I’ll help you find a room of your own.”

“Deal,” Shaylin said.

“Er.” Erik cleared his throat to get our attention. I thought he looked nervous and unusually unsure of himself. “How about I follow the bus in my car, and Shaylin comes with me? I can fill her in on some of the stuff like Rephaim and the whole red fledgling thing in general on the way.”

“Trackers are just supposed to track and Mark,” Aphrodite said.

“Yeah, and fledglings are supposed to be Marked with a blue crescent, and then Change or die,” he countered.

“I think it’s okay that Erik follows us,” Stevie Rae said, which surprised me because I knew she wasn’t exactly an Erik fan. “What do you think, Z?”

I shrugged. “Okay with me.”

Erik gave a little nod and then he and Shaylin headed for his car in the parking lot.

“Are we ready to go?” Darius asked.

“I guess, or at least we will be as soon as our ever-so-friendly driver gets here,” I said.

Darius smiled. “That would be me. “I told Christophe I’d handle the drive back and forth to the depot from here on.”

I couldn’t resist a look at Aphrodite. Her face was frozen and her eyes looked huge.

“Hey, Aphrodiky is going out with a bus driver!” Shaunee said.

It looked like Erin had some smart-ass comment she was going to add, but Aphrodite closed the space between her and the Twins. “Darius isn’t a bus driver. He’s a Son of Erebus Warrior. He can kill you, but he’s honorable and good so he won’t. I, on the other hand, am not honorable or a Warrior. I will kill you, or at the very least mess you up so bad you won’t make the next Miss Jackson’s trunk sale.”

The Twins sucked air and I quickly said, “All righty then, let’s all go back to the depot. Looks like we have some studying to do.” I grabbed Aphrodite’s wrist and practically dragged her to the bus. She jerked away from me, but was still following when I started to climb the stairs. Then an orange ball of fur hurled herself into my arms. “Nala!” I yelped, almost dropping her in surprise. “Oh, baby girl! I’ve missed you so much.” I petted her and kissed her and laughed when she sneezed on me and then started to grumble in her old lady voice, “mee-uf-owing” even while she was purring like crazy.

While I was cuddling Nala there was a terrible screeching sound from the bowels of the bus, and suddenly Aphrodite was pushing past me yelling, “Maleficent! Mommy’s here!” It seemed to rain white fur. The kids on the bus jerked legs and arms out of the way as the ugliest, most smoosh-faced, huge, hateful cat in the universe padded down the aisle hissing and yowling. Aphrodite stooped, picked her up, and began telling her how beautiful and wonderful and smart she was.

“That cat ain’t right,” Kramisha said, peeking over my shoulder. “But Aphrodite ain’t right, either, so I guess it works out just fine.” Her gaze went from Maleficent to Nala, who was still grumbling at me. “Actually, a whole bunch of these cats ain’t normal.”

“Whole bunch?” I looked up over Nala’s furry orange head and, as I suspected, the yellow mini-limo was full of red fledglings and cats. “When did this happen?”

“They was here when we got here,” Kramisha said. “Like I said—they ain’t normal.”

“Huh, well. I suppose this means the depot really is our new home,” I said, feeling for the first time that it could be true.

“Z, home is where you are,” Stark said, reaching over me and scratching Nala on her head.

I smiled at him and felt warm inside—almost warm enough to make me forget about moonstone-colored eyes and the fact that people around me kept dying …

CHAPTER TEN

Kalona

“What did you just say to me?” Kalona bellowed at the Raven Mocker, who cringed away from him.

“Rephaim issss a human boy,” Nisroc repeated. His less-evolved brother, the one who had escaped the changeling creature’s wrath, moved restlessly, backing up behind him.

Kalona paced around the clearing between the hunting blinds. It wasn’t yet dawn, but the other Raven Mockers, the ones who had returned from searching out their brothers from the Oklahoma countryside, were already huddled inside the tree houses, hiding, escaping, cringing away from the possibility of prying eyes. He’d stood out there, watching each of them return, looking for something that he was loath to admit to himself. He’d been looking for humanity—for a son to talk with, to share with, to plan with. But all he’d been met by were sniveling, cringing beasts. Rephaim was the most human of all of them, Kalona had been thinking, for what seemed like the thousandth time, when Nisroc had landed in the clearing minus one son and with unbelievable news of another.