"Jack, I could kiss you," I said.

"Oh, hee hees!" Jack giggled, ruffling Duchess's ears.

Then I looked from him to my other friends. Would the Twins and Damien discount another passel of lies so easily? I saw the three of them share a long look.

Damien spoke first. "Neferet is behind these undead dead kids, isn't she?"

I hesitated, wanting to save them from the truth as long as possible.

"Yes." Aphrodite took the choice away from me. "Neferet is definitely behind them. That's why Zoey didn't want to tell you guys about the other kids. Neferet is dangerous, and she wanted to keep you from that danger." She paused and looked at me. "But it's too late now. They have to know."

"Yeah," I said slowly. "You all have to know." "Good," said Damien resolutely. He reached over and took Jack's hand that wasn't stroking Duchess. "It's time we knew everything. We're ready and we're not scared."

"At least not very much," Jack said.

"Yeah, you know how much we love us some good gossip," Erin said.

"And this is some prime, inside, good gossip," Shaunee said.

"Dorkamese Twins, you can't tell anybody the gossip," Aphrodite said, clearly disgusted.

"Oh, please, we know that," Shaunee said.

"Yeah, not now we can't, but in the future, this will be some wicked good gossip," Erin said.

"All right," Damien interrupted. "Tell us, Zoey."

I took a deep breath and told them everything. All about the first time I thought I'd seen "ghosts," which had ended up being that nasty Elliot kid and Elizabeth No Last Name (whom I'd had to zap with fire and make really, really dead to get Heath out of the tunnels) when they were actually undead. I told them about the tunnels and what happened when I rescued Heath. I told them about Stevie Rae, all about her. I even told them about Stark maybe coming back undead.

When I was finished, there was a long shocked silence from my friends.

"Wow," Jack said. He looked at Aphrodite. "So you're the only one she could tell about all this stuff because for whatever reason vamps can't read your mind?"

"Yes," she said. I could see Aphrodite draw herself up and pull that cold, haughty look over her that meant she was readying herself for them to turn on her--to tell her that now that they knew everything she wouldn't be needed anymore.

"That must have been hard, especially when we were being so mean to you," Jack said.

Aphrodite blinked in surprise.

"Yeah," Damien said. "Sorry about some of the stuff I said. You were being a good friend to Zoey, even when we weren't."

"Ditto," said Shaunee.

"Sadly, ditto here, too," said Erin.

Aphrodite looked utterly stunned. I grinned and sneaked her a quick wink. I didn't say it out loud, but it definitely looked like she was becoming one of the nerd herd.

"So, now that you guys know everything, we have a lot of work to do," I said. I had everyone's attention. "Like Stevie Rae said, we gotta make sure if Stark wakes up, he doesn't do it with Neferet there all waiting to make him into her minion."

"Ugh," Shaunee said.

"It's so damn gross, 'cause he was so damn fine," Erin said.

"He might still be fine," Jack said. Then he gasped and covered Duchess's ears. "And if you're going to talk about him I think we should either just call him J.S. or spell his name. You know, out of respect for Duchess."

I looked into Duchess's brown eyes. For a moment I got trapped there, and I swear I saw pain and loss and a deep, limitless kindness.

"Okay, we'll just use his initials," I said, relieved because maybe if I just used Stark's initials, I wouldn't think about that it was really him we were discussing, and then I wouldn't remember how much we'd connected right before he died. "So, instead of trying to snatch, uh, J.S.'s body and hiding it in Z's closet or wherever, I, of course, had a much better idea." Aphrodite paused to be sure she had everyone's attention. "I got a nanny cam."

"Oh, cool!" Jack said. "I saw that on Dr. Phil the other day. God, it was just awful. Some horrid and, may I say, fat, poorly dressed nanny was caught by one of them shaking the crap out of some poor little kid."

"Then you know about them?" Aphrodite said.

"Yep," he said.

"Good. You need to sneak down to the morgue. Install the camera, and then bring the remote monitor back to Zoey. Think you can handle that?" Aphrodite said.