"So we have a new kind of vampyre and a new kind of human," I said. I glanced at Stevie Rae and she grinned and nodded. "And we also have a new kind of fledgling." As soon as I finished speaking, the oak seemed to rain fledglings. I made a mental note to ask Stevie Rae later how the hell she'd hidden all of those kids up there, because I easily counted half a dozen or so of them. I recognized Venus, who I knew had been Aphrodite's old roommate, and wondered briefly if the two of them had had words yet. I also saw that obnoxious Elliot kid, who I swear I still wasn't going to like. They were all standing there, inside the circle, spreading out on either side of Stevie Rae as they looked more than a little nervous, with their bright red crescent outlines plainly visible on their foreheads.

I could hear some of the kids outside the circle crying and calling the names of red fledglings they were recognizing as dead roommates and friends, and I felt for them. I knew what it was like to think your friend was dead, and then see her walking and talking and breathing again.

"They're not dead," I said firmly. "They're a new kind of fledgling--a new kind of people. But they're our people, and it's time we found a place for them with us and learned why Nyx has brought them to us."

"Lies!" The word was a shriek, so loud that I could almost feel it battering my ears. There was a murmuring in the crowd, and then the people outside the southernmost part of the circle parted to let Neferet through.

She looked like an avenging goddess, and even I was struck speechless at her raw beauty. Her smooth white shoulders were bared by an exquisite black silk dress that molded to her graceful body. Her thick auburn hair was free, tumbling in waves down around her slim waist. Her green eyes flashed--her lips were the deep red of fresh blood.

"You ask us to accept a perversion of nature as something the Goddess made?" she spoke in her deep, beautifully modulated voice. "Those creatures were dead. They should be dead again."

The anger that spiked within me shattered her magnetism. "You should know about these creatures, as you call them." I squared my shoulders and faced her. I might not have her well-trained voice, or her incredible beauty, but I had truth and I had my Goddess. "You tried to use them. You tried to twist them. It was you who kept them as prisoners until through us Nyx healed and then freed them."

Her eyes widened in a perfect look of surprise. "You blame me for these monstrosities?"

"Hey, me and my friends aren't monstrosities!" came Stevie Rae's voice from behind me.

"Silence, beast!" Neferet commanded. "Enough is enough!" Neferet turned so that her gaze swept the stunned crowd. "Tonight I discovered another of the creatures Zoey and her people were raising from the dead." She bent and picked up something that lay at her feet, tossing it into the circle. I recognized Jack's satchel as it landed, opening to spill out the nanny cam monitor and the camera itself (which should have been safely hidden in the morgue). Neferet's eyes scoured the crowd until they found him; then she snapped, "Jack! Do you deny that Zoey made you plant this in the morgue, where you locked the body of the recently dead James Stark, so that she could watch to see when her wicked spells would resurrect him?"

"No. Yes. It wasn't like that," Jack squeaked. Duchess, who was pressed against his legs whined pitifully.

"Leave him alone!" Damien shouted from his place in the circle.

Neferet rounded on him. "So you continue to be blinded by her? You continue to follow her rather than Nyx?"

Before he could answer, Aphrodite spoke from beside me. "Hey, Neferet. Where's your Goddess insignia?"

Neferet looked from Damien to Aphrodite, and her eyes narrowed in anger. But everyone was now looking at Neferet and noticing what Aphrodite had said--that Neferet's exquisite black dress had no badge of Nyx over her breast. And then I noticed something else. She was wearing a pendant I'd never seen before. I blinked, not sure if I was seeing it correctly, and then, yep, I decided, I sure was. Dangling from a golden chain around her neck were wings--big, black, raven wings carved from onyx.

"What's that around your neck?" I asked.

Neferet's hand moved automatically to stroke the black wings hanging between her br**sts. "The wings of Erebus, Nyx's consort."

"Um, excuse me, but, no, they're not," Damien said. "Erebus's wings are made of gold. They're never black. You taught me that yourself in Vamp Soc class."

"I have had enough of this meaningless babble," Neferet snapped. "It is time this little charade came to an end."