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."Can you do this for me, for us, fledglings?"Damien and the Twins nodded like crazed bobble-heads.Neferet's green eyes moved to me.I nodded once.The High Priestess smiled, and I wondered if anyone else could see past her beautiful exterior to the cold, calculating person within.Looking pleased with herself, Neferet turned and ducked through the open trapdoor followed closely by the rest of us.I'd readied myself for something terrible, or at the very least for something bloody, but Loren had been right.The area that had been so gruesome just yesterday had been completely cleansed of any nastiness, and I wondered briefly how the Tulsa cops had gathered their evidence, and then shook myself.Surely Neferet had waited for them to do their job before she'd cleaned everything.Hadn't she?In the spot where Professor Nolan's body had been there was now a beautiful statue of Nyx that looked like it had been carved from a single slab of onyx.Her hands were upraised, and within them she held a thick green candle symbolizing earth.Without speaking, the vamps formed a semicircle around the statue.Damien and the Twins moved to stand behind the oversized candles that represented each of their elements.I didn't really want to, but I took my place by the purple candle that symbolized spirit.I could see the warriors had spread out and were surrounding us.With their backs to our group they stared out into the night, bristling with alertness.Without any of her usual theatrics (which were always cool to watch), Neferet walked to Damien, who was nervously holding the yellow wind candle, and raised the ceremonial lighter."It fills us and breathes life into us.I call wind to our circle."Neferet's voice was strong and clear, obviously augmented by the power of a High Priestess.She touched the lighter to the candle's wick and instantly wind whipped around Damien and her.Neferet's back was to me, so I couldn't see her face, but Damien's smile was wide and joyous.I tried not to scowl.The sacred circle was not the right place for me to be pissed off, but I couldn't help feeling annoyed.Why was I the only one who could see Neferet's fakeness?She moved to Shaunee."It warms and succors us.I call fire to our circle." As I'd experienced several times before, Shaunee's red candle burst into flame before the lighter touched it.Shaunee's smile was almost as bright as her element.Neferet followed the circle around to Erin."It soothes and washes us.I call water to our circle." As the candle lit I heard waves crashing on a distant beach and smelled salt and sea in the night breeze.I watched carefully as Neferet moved to stand before the statue of Nyx and the green candle.The High Priestess bowed her head."The fledgling who personified this element perished, and it is fitting that the position of earth remain empty tonight, and that it rests upon the spot our beloved Patricia Nolan's body has so recently rested upon.It sustains us.From it we are born, and to it we all shall return.I call earth to our circle." Neferet lit the green candle, and though it burned brightly I didn't smell even a hint of green meadows or wildflowers.Then Neferet was standing in front of me.I don't know what kind of expression she'd showed Damien and the Twins, but to me her face was strong and stern, and amazingly beautiful.She reminded me of one of the ancient vampyre Amazon warriors, and I almost forgot that she was actually dangerous."It is our essence.I call spirit to our circle." Neferet lit my purple candle and I felt my soul lift with the tickle-tummy feeling a roller coaster gives me.The High Priestess didn't pause to share any kind of special look with me, instead she began to work the crowd.Walking around inside the circle, making eye contact with the vampyres who surrounded us, she got right to the point."It hasn't happened for more than one hundred years—not so openly—not so brutally.Humans have murdered one of us.In this case they have awakened not a sleeping giant, but have provoked a leopard who they believed was tamed." Neferet's voice rose, powerful with anger."She is not tamed!" The little hairs on my arms lifted.Neferet was amazing.How could someone who was so blessed by Nyx have gone as wrong as I knew she'd gone? "They believe our fangs have been filed flat and our claws removed, like a fat household tabby.Again, they are wrong." She raised her arms over her head."From this sacred circle, cast on the site of a murder, we call on our Goddess, Nyx, the beautiful Personification of Night.We ask that she welcome Patricia Nolan to her bosom, though it is decades too early for her to have departed.We also ask Nyx to rouse her righteous anger, and with the sweetness of her divine fury, to grant us this spell of protection so that we will not be caught in the humans' murderous web." As she spoke the spell Neferet walked back to Nyx's statue."Protect us with the night;above all it is in darkness we delight."When she turned to face the crowd I saw that she was now holding a small, ivory-handled knife with a wickedly-sharp-looking curved blade."Around this coven we askNyx's curtain to be cast."With one hand she lifted the knife.With the other she wove intricate shapes in the air that around her became glittery and semi-substantial as she continued incanting the spell."All who enter or leave I shall detect,vampyre, fledgling, human, all will be checked.If harm is meantto my will it shall be bent
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