“Aphrodite, you need to take your mom into the school. Darius, call 911 and tell them that the mayor is dead. Lenobia, Stark, Sister Mary Angela, and the Benedictine nuns, please help these people to their cars. I’ll help get Aphrodite and her mom settled and then go find Thanatos. She’ll know what to do.”
People had actually started to move and do what I’d told them to do when Aphrodite’s mom suddenly pulled away from her daughter. “No!” she shrieked, shaking her head and causing the last of her bound hair to fly loose around her shoulders. “I won’t go inside that building ever again. They killed my husband!”
“Mother,” Aphrodite tried to reason with her. “We don’t know how Dad died. He had high blood pressure. He might have had a heart attack.”
“His throat was ripped open and his blood was sucked from his body. That is not a heart attack. That is a vampyre attack!” her mother shouted at her.
I glanced at Darius for confirmation. He nodded slightly and continued to speak into his phone.
Ah, hell.
“Mrs. LaFont, if it was a vampyre attack I promise you that we will find the killer and bring him or her to justice,” Lenobia said solemnly.
“It’s just like your ex-High Priestess said—you are violent! That’s why she broke with you. We should have listened to her. We should have all listened to her. Poor Neferet was only your first victim…” Mrs. LaFont sobbed.
“I’m going to make sure the humans continue to leave. Zoey, get that woman’s mouth under control,” Lenobia whispered to us as she hurried past Stark and me. Then she raised her voice. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, again I apologize for the tragedies tonight. Let the good sisters and me help you to your cars. The Tulsa police will be here soon, and the last thing they need is to have their crime scene polluted.”
“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.