"I wasn't hiding from you! I didn't know what to do-where to find you."

"Don't lie to me." Neferet's voice had gone soft and in that softness Aurox heard a black, endless danger. "Don't ever lie to me."

"Okay, okay. Sorry," the vampyre said hastily. "I guess I just didn't think."

The nest of fledglings had been stirring, awakening as their vampyre and Neferet had been speaking, and now Aurox could see faces, wide-eyed with fear, staring from Neferet to him.

He longed to crush those staring faces under his hooves.

A rattling cough came from the nest.

Neferet sneered. "How many of you are there?"

"After the depot when Zoey and her ass**les fought us, ten are left besides me." He glanced at Kurtis. "And him."

"He isn't dead. Yet," Neferet said. "So there are eleven fledglings and one vampyre. How many of your fledglings have begun coughing?" Dall as shrugged. "Two, maybe three."

"There are too many of them. They need to be around vampyres or they will die. Again," she added with a cruel smile.

From the fledgling nest more fear washed over Aurox. He ground his teeth together, fighting the urge to feed from it.

"Will you come around us then? Like you used to?"

"No. I've had a change in plans. It's time you joined me. All of you joined me."

"You mean at the House of Night? That's impossible. We're not what we used to be and we don't want to-"

"What you want is of no consequence to me unless you obey me. And if you do not obey me you will die." The vampyre seemed to stand straighter. His anger burned brighter, as did the single electric bulb. "I won't die. I've already Changed. Some of them might," he gestured to the fledglings that crouched all around his feet, "but I say that's survival of the fittest."

"You're not as smart as I remembered, Dall as. Let me speak plainly and simply then so even you can understand: if you and your fledglings do not obey me you will be the first to die. My creature will kill you. Now. Or whenever I command him to. Make your choice." The bulb's light dimmed. "I choose to obey you," Dall as said.

"Wise choice. I want you cleaned up and back at the House of Night in time for classes tonight."

"But how-"

"Use the school's showers to wash the stench off yourselves. Steal clothing. Clean clothing. Or buy it. At seven thirty, just before classes begin, a House of Night bus will be waiting down the street at the east entrance to the University of Tulsa. You'll board it. You'll resume classes. You'll sleep at the House of Night." Neferet paused, waving a hand dismissively. "I'll have windows covered or open a basement or something. But you will live at the House of Night."

"How will we satisfy our hunger?"

"Carefully. And what you cannot satisfy carefully you will control, at least until the world has turned and changed to embrace your needs."

"I don't get it! Why do you even want us there?"

"Rephaim, the Raven Mocker you failed to kill more than once, has been gifted with a human form during the night and has mated with Stevie Rae. He is allowed to attend the House of Night, along with Aphrodite, and the other red fledglings-Stevie Rae's red fledglings."

"I'm supposed to go to school with him? And her? Together?"

The bulb glowed brightly again.

"You hate them, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Good. That is the reason I want you there-want you all there."

"Because we hate them?"

"No, because of what your hatred, controlled by me, will cause," she said.

"And what's that?" he asked.

Neferet smiled. "Chaos."

* * *

They left shortly after Neferet finished instructing the vampyre called Dall as in the ways he could and could not cause chaos. Apparently, his purpose was much like Aurox's purpose-Neferet commanded and controlled his violence and held his all egiance. He was not to kill -yet. And always, always, there was the underlying thread of seeding dissent and discontent and hatred.

Aurox understood. Aurox obeyed.

When Neferet commanded that he control the beast within him, he obeyed and followed her from the rotting nest up through the cool, clean corridors of the school.

At the front door the old guard lay where Aurox had left him.

"Is he alive?" Neferet asked.

Aurox touched him. "Yes."

Neferet sighed. "I suppose that is for the best, even though it's slightly inconvenient. You'll need to go back downstairs and tell Dall as I want the old man's memory wiped clean. Tell him to implant the suggestion that he was wounded when the school was robbed." She tapped her chin, considering, and looked down the hallway at the glass cases that held memorabilia and the library beyond with its neat rows of books and gleaming, ornate light fixtures. "No, I have a more amusing idea. Tell Dall as to make the human believe he was wounded when the school was vandalized. Then on the way out, I want you to smash the cases and destroy the library. Do it quickly. I'll be waiting outside. And I do not like to be kept waiting."