Like Mr. Greek-shipping-heir Graverobber needed any extra dough! “Back off,” I hissed. I turned to Howard. “As you can see, we’d really love some new blood in the brotherhood.”

“As you can see,” Graverobber echoed, “the word ‘brotherhood’ is a bit of a misnomer.”

“Both literally and figuratively. You two are at each other’s throats.” Howard shook his head. “I don’t have time for this drama. I’ve got MCATs to study for.” And with that, he turned and walked out the front door.

Everyone stood and stared with their mouths open. I turned to Poe. “What do we do now?”

“Same thing I did last year. Go beg.”

“Me? I didn’t even start the fire. Where’s his big sib?” Weren’t there any other patriarchs on campus, or were we only blessed with this creep?

“Cutting up cadavers at Berkeley,” Poe said flatly. “Oaths of loyalty clearly don’t cross the Continental Divide.”

Oh, for Persephone’s sake! I grabbed Graverobber’s arm and yanked him after me in pursuit of our stray straggler.

“Howard!” I cried, as we sprinted down the steps and through the (open) gate. “Come back! Let’s talk about this.”

A bunch of freshmen at High Street Gate gave us weird looks, so Nikolos grabbed Howard’s elbow and pulled him into the alley next to the tomb leading to the sculpture garden. Once we were well hidden by building shadow and the drooping branches of a willow, I pushed back my hood. “Look here,” I said. “You accepted the tap. We put you on the list we sent out to all the patriarchs. You’re in. How can you go back on it now?”

“That was April.” He shrugged. “I’ve had a long summer to think it over, and with all of my commitments right now, I don’t know how much I can devote to you people.”

But he hadn’t decided that until he’d gotten inside and took a good look at us. Why did I have to be the one begging this jerk to come back? I didn’t care how many third-world children he’d inoculated.

I elbowed Nikolos, and he sighed, but rallied. “Your commitments? You’re the one senior on campus who’s still involved in activities? Can you not spare a little time for us? We will definitely make it worth your while.”

Howard chuckled. “A little? You’re a senior, right? Totally new to all of this. You don’t know how much time we’re talking about.” He began ticking things off on his fingers. “I’m a freshmen counselor, I’m doing my biochem thesis, I’m on the board at the Jewish Students Center, and I volunteer at a lab downtown a few nights a week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until I was inside that tomb that I realized how much more those things matter to me than a bunch of strangers in weird costumes.”

“We don’t always wear the costumes,” I pointed out, to little avail. We wouldn’t always be strangers, either.

“Look, sweetheart, I know the guy who was grooming me to fill his spot in Rose & Grave, and he was a mess last year. Something happened where he almost lost his place in school…. I didn’t get the details.”

“So you think you’ll avoid that by denying us?” Nikolos asked.

“Getting out before I get in too deep sounds good to me,” Howard replied. “These meetings of yours are going to start taking up a couple nights a week—all night long. Wait and see. And then, when you’re struggling to finish your thesis on time, ask yourself if it was worth it. I’ll be seeing you. Or,” he added, giving my black robe the up-down, “maybe not.”

And then he was gone. I rubbed my temples in frustration, then glanced in dismay at my glitter-covered hands. Great. More mess to deal with. “Now what?” I turned to Nikolos. “Should we keep following him?”

Nikolos pulled at the tie on his robe and slipped it off his shoulders. “I’m not going to do it in this outfit,” he said. “I feel somewhat responsible. I probably shouldn’t have said those things to him back at the tomb. Let me try to catch him and make this right.”

I nodded, glad to see Nikolos was willing to shoulder some of the responsibility. Still, I didn’t have much hope. I watched him take off after our straggler, though he still hadn’t caught up by the time they turned the corner off of High Street and onto Elm.

Stunned, dejected, and yeah, a little concerned Howard First might actually be onto something, I returned to the tomb, to find Mara holding court.

“Don’t you find it disheartening?” she was asking Poe. “So many of our brotherhoods have fallen by the wayside, been gobbled up by the PC police. If you ask me, it’s these newfangled organizations that are truly the elitist ones. For all that students rail against the secret societies, who is really the one propagating racist doctrine on our campus?”

“Your newspaper?” Thorndike suggested.

“The administration is more intent on founding yet another alliance of people based on the color of their skin and cultural heritage—the Southeast Asian Alliance, the Muslim Student Alliance, the Northwestern Nepalese Students’ Union—rather than on what brought us all here in the first place, intellectual meritocracy! A fervent desire to drink from the fountain of knowledge.”

“You know, that’s an interesting point,” Soze said.

Lil’ Demon frowned. “Isn’t it the fountain of youth and the lamp of knowledge?”

Lucky shrugged. “That sounds about right. At least, there’s a lamp on the seal of my Eli throw blanket.”

Mara droned on. “There’s such a lack of respect for the traditions of this noble institution.”

“Rose & Grave?” I whispered to Angel.

“No, I think she’s still talking about Eli as a whole.”

“Well, there’s plenty of respect-lacking going on for Rose & Grave right now.” I hung my head. “I think we lost Howard.” All eyes turned in my direction. “Graverobber is still working on him but—”

“Because he’s such a good advocate,” scoffed Thorndike.

“He’s the only person who volunteered,” I argued.

Soze raised his hands. “Hey, I was on extinguisher duty.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked. “If we really lost a straggler. If he chooses the ‘new’ organizations—as our neophyte here so carefully elucidated—over us.”

Mara waved her hand in the air. “Excuse me, miss? I’m not a neophyte. They just initiated me. I’m Juno now.”

I looked at Poe. “Come on. You’re the one who knows all the policies and procedures of this outfit. Tell us what the game plan is.”

But Poe just laughed. “Right, because after that spectacular display of spitting all over my advice last spring, I’m going to completely relinquish all rights to say ‘I told you so’.” He pulled off his robe, and began to peel the Death’s-head makeup from his face. “You guys made this bed; I hope you like lying in it.”

Quoth Juno: “Where’s the party? There’s supposed to be a party after this, right?”

Quoth Lucky: “From within doth Persephone rot.”

Quoth the Middle-Eastern-guy-I-later-recognized-as-Harun-Sarmast-our-last-straggler as he stuck his head over the balcony: “Um, guys? I’ve been waiting up here with my blindfold on for a while. Anything wrong?”