Which reminded me, as he and I walked quickly but carefully down the frozen sidewalk, shrouded in a sudden mist that had blown up all around us, heads bent against the icy onslaught, I did not see one single cat. Okay, yeah, the weather was awful, especially after I'd messed with it, and cats don't like anything wet, but I didn't remember once in the months I'd lived at the House of Night walking anywhere on campus and not seeing at least a couple cats chasing after each other.

"There aren't any cats around," I said.

Darius nodded. "I already noticed."

"What does it mean?"

"Trouble," he said.

But I didn't have time to think about what the absence of cats might mean (and to worry about where my Nala might be). I was already feeling the drain of energy. I had to focus all of my strength and concentration to keep a running whispered litany going to wind, fire, and water. "We are the night, let the spirit of night cover us...shroud us with mist...blow, wind, and keep evil eyes from seeing us..."

We were almost to the dorm when I heard the girl's voice. I couldn't make out what she was saying, but the high, nervous tone definitely meant that something was wrong. The tension in Darius's arm, and the way he was peering around, trying to see through the elemental soup surrounding us, told me that he'd heard it, too.

As we got closer to the dorm, the voice got clearer and louder, and the words began to make sense.

"No, really! I--I just wanta get back to my room," the frightened girl's voice said.

"You can get back. After I'm done with you."

I froze, pulling Darius to a stop with me as I recognized the guy's voice even before the girl answered him.

"How about later, Stark? Then maybe we can--" Her words were abruptly cut off. I heard a little scream that ended in a gasp, and then there was an awful wet sound, and the moans began.

Chapter Twenty

Darius started forward, pulling me with haybe we?_im. We got to the little stoop that was the entrance to the girls' dorm. There were wide stairs, framed with staggered, waist-high stone walls, excellent for sitting on and flirting with your boyfriend after he'd walked you to the door and before he kissed you good night.

What Stark was doing was a twisted mockery of the good-night kissing that usually went on there. He was holding a girl in what could have been an embrace, had it not been obvious that, just seconds before his teeth had locked on her neck, she'd been trying to get away from him. I watched, horrified, as Stark, oblivious to our presence, continued his attack on her. It didn't matter that the girl was now moaning with sexual plea sure. I mean, we all know that's what happens when a vamp bites someone: The sex receptors in both the "victim" (and in this case she was definitely his victim!) and the vamp were stimulated. She was physically feeling plea sure, but her wide, terrified eyes, and the rigidity of her body made it obvious she would fight him if she could. Stark was drinking in huge gulps from her throat. His moans were feral and the hand that wasn't holding her tight against his body was fumbling at the girl's skirt, lifting it so that he could situate himself between her legs and--

"Free her!" Darius commanded, pulling his arm from my grasp and stepping out of the pocket of concealing mist and night that had been hiding us.

Stark dropped the girl with no more thought than he would have given an empty QT Big Gulp. She whimpered and on hands and knees scrambled away from him toward Darius. Darius tossed an old-time handkerchief he'd pulled from his pocket at me, and said, "Help her." Then he situated himself like a muscular mountain between the hysterical girl and me and Stark.

I crouched down, realizing with a start of surprise that the girl was Becca Adams, a pretty blond fourth former who had had a crush on Erik. As I watched Darius confront Stark, I handed Becca the handkerchief and murmured soothing words to her.

"You seem to keep getting in my way," Stark said. His eyes still glowed red, and there was blood on his mouth that he wiped absently away with the back of his hand. Again, I could see a darkness that pulsed around him. It wasn't completely visible, but more of a shadow within a shadow that shifted in and out of my vision, something that was actually easier seen when I wasn't looking for it.

And then it hit me. I knew where I'd noticed such strange liquid darkness before. It had been in the shadows of the tunnels, and then again in the glimpse of the spectral form of Neferet that had turned into the Raven Mocker who had almost killed me! With more sudden insight I recognized this darkness further. I was sure it had been present, pulsing like a living shadow around Stevie Rae before she'd Changed, only then my eyes and mind had just registered my best friend's need and anguish and struggle, and I'd processed the darkness she'd been moving in only as internal. Goddess, I'd been a fool! Overwhelmed, I tried to make sense of this new knowledge as Darius confronted Stark.