"Probably, but I need to do some research and get my ideas straight first."

"Very well, come to me when you're ready. And feel free to spend as much time in the media center as you need," Neferet said.

I hesitated. "Do I need a pass?" She smiled. "I am your mentor and I have given you permis sion, what more could you need?"

"Thanks," I said, and hurried out of the classroom feeling stu pid. I would be so glad when I'd been at the school long enough to know all the little inside rules. And, anyway, I don't know what I'd been so worried about. The halls were deserted. Unlike my old high school (South Intermediate High School in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma--which is a totally boring suburb of Tulsa) there were no Napoleon Complex, overly tanned vice principals with noth ing better to do than to prowl the halls harassing kids. I slowed down and told myself to relax--jeesh, I'd been stressed out lately. The library was in the front center area of the school in a cool multilevel room that had been built to mimic the turret of a cas tle, which fit in well with the theme of the rest of the school. The whole thing looked like something out of the past. That was probably one of the reasons it had attracted the attention of the vamps five years ago. Then it had been a stuck-up rich kids' prep school, but it had originally been built as a monastery for the Saint Augustine People of Faith monks. I remember that when I asked how the prep school had been talked into selling to the vamps Neferet had told me that they'd made them a deal they couldn't refuse. The memory of the dangerous tone her voice had taken still made my skin crawl. "Me-eeh-uf-ow!" I jumped and almost peed on myself. "Nala! You scared the crap outta me!" Unconcerned, my cat launched herself into my arms, and I had to juggle notebook, purse, and small (but chubby) orange cat. All the while Nala complained at me in her grumpy old lady cat voice. She adored me, and she'd definitely chosen me as her own, but that didn't mean that she was always pleasant. I shifted her, and pushed open the door to the media center. Oh--what Neferet had told my stupid step-loser John had been the truth. Cats do roam free all over the school. They often fol lowed "their" kid to class. Nala, in particular, liked to find me sev eral times a day. She'd insist I scratch her head, complain a little at me, and then take off and go do whatever cats did with their free time. (Plot world domination?) "Do you need help with her?" the media specialist asked. I had only met her briefly during my orientation week, but I remem bered her name was Sappho. (Uh, she wasn't the real Sappho--that vampyre poet had died like a thousand years ago--right now we were studying her work in Lit class.) "No, Sappho, but thank you. Nala doesn't really like anyone except me." Sappho, a tiny dark-haired vamp whose tattoos were elaborate symbols Damien had told me were Greek alphabet glyphs, smiled fondly at Nala. "Cats are such wonderfully interesting creatures, don't you think?" I moved Nala to my other shoulder and she grumbled in my ear. "They're definitely not dogs," I said. "Thank the Goddess for that!"

"Do you mind if I use one of the computers?" The media cen ter was lined with row after row of books--thousands of them--but it also had a very cool, up-to-date computer lab. "Of course, make yourself at home and feel free to call on me if you can't find what you need."

"Thanks." I picked a computer that sat on a nice big desk and clicked into the Internet.

This was something else that was way different than my old school. Here there were no passwords and no Internet fil tering program that restricted sites. Here students were expected to show some sense and act right--and if they didn't it's not like the vamps, who were almost impossible to lie to, wouldn't find out. Just thinking about trying to lie to Neferet made my stomach hurt. Focus and stop messing around. This is important. Okay, so an idea had been milling around in my head. It was time to see if there was anything to it. I pulled up Google and typed in "private preparatory schools." Zillions came up. I started narrowing. I wanted exclusive and upper class (none of those stu pid "alternative academies" that were really just holding pens for future criminals--ugh). I also wanted old schools, ones that had been around for generations. I was looking for something that had passed the test of time. I easily found Chatham Hall, which was the school Aphrodite's parents had thrown in her face. It was an exclusive East Coast prep school and, man, did it look stuck-up. I clicked out. Any place Aphrodite's freak parents approved of would not be something I wanted to use as a role model. I kept searching .. . Exeter ... Andover ... Taft ... Miss Porter's (really--hee hee--that's the school's name) ... Kent .. . "Kent. I've heard that name before," I told Nala, who had curled up on top of the desk so that she could watch me sleepily. I clicked into it. "It's in Connecticut--that's why it's familiar. This is where Shaunee had been going when she was Marked." I browsed through the site, curious to see where Shaunee had spent the first part of her freshman (or third former) year. It was a pretty school--there was no denying that. Stuck-up, sure, but there was something about it that seemed more welcoming than the other prep schools. Maybe it was just because I knew Shaunee. I kept going through the site--and suddenly sat up straighter. "This is it," I muttered to myself. "This is the kind of stuff I need." I pulled out my pen and notebook paper and got busy taking notes. Lots of notes.