“I better help her,” Stark murmured.
“No, you better help me.” I grabbed his hand. He gave me a question mark look. I lowered my voice and leaned into him. “You heard Lenobia. Her mouth needs to be shut. I need some of your red vampyre mojo,” I explained.
His eyes got big, but he nodded and whispered back, “What do you want me to do?”
“Let her cry, but no more screaming or shouting,” I said quietly.
He nodded again, and we went to Aphrodite, who was staring helplessly at her sobbing mom.
I met Aphrodite’s gaze, willing her to understand the true meaning of my words. “Stark’s going to talk to your mom. Is that okay with you?”
Aphrodite’s eyes flicked to Stark, then to her mom, before coming back to me. “Yeah. Actually, I think that’s a really good idea.” She took her mom’s elbow and, speaking to her quietly, said, “Mom, you’re right. We don’t need to go inside the school. But there’s a pretty courtyard right over there, away from the vampyres. Why don’t you and I sit at one of the benches while we wait for the police to get here? Okay?”
“The human police! I want the human police to find your father’s vampyre killer!”
“Like Lenobia said, the human police are on their way. Right now Stark and Zoey are going to come with us while we wait. You know, Stark’s not a normal vampyre. He’s a Guardian. He’s, uh, worked with the police before—the human police,” Aphrodite fictionalized as she guided her mom away from the crowd and toward the small, dark courtyard just outside the professors’ quarters. “So, Mom, I want you to let Stark ask you some questions while we wait for the human policemen to get here.”
Stark stepped up, nodded at Aphrodite, and then took her place beside Mrs. LaFont. “Ma’am, I’m really sorry about your husband,” he said in a soft, charming voice. Even I could hear the mesmerizing red vampyre magick within it as he continued. “I’m going to make sure you’re safe and all I want you to do right now is to go with me to the courtyard and cry quietly there. It would really be helpful if you didn’t scream or shout anymore.”
Aphrodite and I let out twin sighs of relief when we heard her echo back to him, “I’ll go with you to the courtyard and cry quietly there. No screaming or shouting.”
“Are you okay?” I asked Aphrodite while we followed Stark and her mom.
She moved her shoulders. “I don’t know. They—I mean my parents—they have never liked me. Actually, they’ve been mean to me for as long as I can remember. Seriously, it was a relief to have them out of my life. But it feels weird and sad to know my dad’s body is over there by the wall.”
I nodded and linked my arm with hers, wanting to reassure her with touch, even though I knew she wasn’t usually a toucher. “I totally understand what you mean. When my mom died it hadn’t mattered that she’d been mean to me for years, and picked the step-loser over me. All that mattered was that I’d lost my mom.”
“She was hugging me while she cried,” Aphrodite said, sounding young and broken. “I can’t remember the last time she hugged me.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say in response to that, so I just stood there with Aphrodite, holding tightly to her, and listening to her mom’s sobs while the sound of police sirens got closer and closer.
I was glad to see Detective Marx again, even though the circumstances were what Stark later called a complete and total cat herd. Marx, at least, wasn’t a vampyre-hating human. He had nice brown eyes, and I remembered how they lit up when he’d told me about his twin sister and how even after she’d been Marked and gone through the Change, the two of them had still kept in contact. It was nice to know that at least one cop in Tulsa wasn’t going to open the doors to a human lynch mob because Stark’s red vamp mojo ran out super fast, and Aphrodite’s mom was definitely in a pro-lynch mob state of mind.
“Arrest them!” Mrs. LaFont hurled the words at the detective. “Arrest all of them! A vampyre did this, and a vampyre should pay for it.”
“Ma’am, whoever is responsible should pay for this crime, which is why I’m going to thoroughly and carefully investigate your husband’s murder. I will find who did this. I give you my word on it. But I cannot, and will not, arrest every vampyre at this school.”
“Thank you, Detective. As High Priestess here I agree with and appreciate your professionalism, as well as your integrity.” I was super relieved to hear Thanatos’s authoritative voice. “Please be assured we will cooperate fully with your investigation. We, too, want the mayor’s killer to be found and brought to justice, as we do not believe a vampyre to be responsible for this tragedy.”
“My husband’s throat was ripped out and his blood was sucked from his body! That is a vampyre attack.” Mrs. LaFont’s eyes slitted at Thanatos. Her voice was filled with venom.
“It certainly looks like a vampyre attack,” Thanatos agreed. “Which is the first reason to doubt that a vampyre committed this crime. Why would a vampyre kill the mayor of Tulsa at the House of Night during one of our open houses, and leave his body at our front gate to be discovered by humans as well as vampyres? It makes no sense.”
“You prey on humans. That makes no sense!”
“Ladies, please, arguing does not help,” Detective Marx tried to intercede, but Mrs. LaFont ignored him.
“Do you deny that you are intimately allied with Death?” She snapped the question at Thanatos.
“My Goddess-given affinity is, indeed, an affinity for death. I have a gift that enables me to help the spirits of the dead find their way to the Otherworld.”
“Is that what you were doing with my husband? Seducing and trapping him? Helping him find his way to a fictitious vampyre otherworld?” Her voice got louder and louder with each question she hurled at Thanatos.
“Of course not, Mrs. LaFont. I had nothing to do with your husband’s death.” Thanatos turned to Detective Marx. “You may question any of the people who were at the open house tonight. I was always in view of the public. Even when tragedy struck and one of our fledglings rejected the Change and died, I remained accessible to our faculty and our students.”
“A fledgling died here tonight as well?” the detective asked.
Thanatos nodded. “She will be missed.”
“Why are you asking her about the fledgling? Everyone knows they could drop dead at any second. That’s normal for their kind. My husband was killed by a vampyre. That is not normal!”
“If a vampyre did kill my father, I can promise you that vampyre isn’t part of this school!” Aphrodite suddenly said. Then, when everyone was staring at her, she bit her lip and looked away uncomfortably.
“Are you saying you know who killed your father?” Aphrodite’s mom sounded like she was entering Crazy Town again.
Aphrodite swallowed hard and then surprised me by blurting: “The only vampyre I know who would do something like this is one who would want to set up the House of Night to take the blame.” She paused, and I tried to catch her gaze and telegraph a big DON’T SAY IT look, but Aphrodite was staring at her mom, like she could actually make Frances LaFont believe her. “Mom, our old High Priestess, Neferet, has a big grudge against us, all of us. She’s mean, Mom. Worse, she’s evil. She’d do something like this.”
“That’s ludicrous, Aphrodite! Neferet was a friend of your father’s. He appointed her to be a liaison between vampyres and the city. She wouldn’t have killed him!”
“Neferet was just using Dad and the city,” Aphrodite insisted. “She’s never wanted to make friends with humans. She hates humans. Actually, the only thing she hates more than a human is our House of Night, especially after she was kicked out of here. So it makes perfect sense that she’d kill Tulsa’s mayor at the House of Night during our open house. She knows it’ll make major problems between humans and vampyres.”
“High Priestess?” Marx turned to Thanatos before Mrs. LaFont could chime in. “What do you know about Neferet and her motives?”
“As I said in an interview for Fox News more than a week ago, Neferet has been let go by our House of Night. I believe what Aphrodite is saying does make sense. Neferet was very angry with us.”
“Angry enough to kill?” the detective asked.
Thanatos sighed. “I’m afraid she is capable of great violence. That is one of the reasons the High Council stripped her of her position here and her title of High Priestess of Nyx. Despite what she said to the mayor and the City Council members, Neferet was the one who advocated violence against humans, and not us.”
“If you knew she was violent, you should have come to us with your concerns,” said Marx grimly.
“They didn’t come to you because what they’re saying is a bunch of lies!” Mrs. LaFont exploded. “Just tonight some of the City Council members, Charles, and I were talking about how odd it is that Neferet’s penthouse had been vandalized, and that she then disappeared, all after she took a public stand against what has been going on here at the House of Night. Charles himself said he suspected foul play.”
