He leaned so close to the coffin, it was as if he hissed the following words directly into my ear. “And have you never wondered, Miss Not-Too-Shabby-in-Bed, from whence we recruit her?”

Uh-oh.

“Why don’t you find out?”

And with that, they flipped a latch and turned the coffin on its end, tipping me out. Plunging forward, I braced myself for a crash that never came. I fell down and down, too shocked by the disappearance of the ground even to scream.

And when I finally landed, things got even worse.

5. Initiation

Blankets buffered my fall, and after the first bounce, I felt strong male arms close around my torso to keep me steady. But I was no one’s whore. I lunged out with my fists.

“Help!” I clawed at my face, fighting to get my wet hair out of my eyes, and kicked to untangle my legs from the blankets. “Help! Rape! Fire!”

(I’d always been taught that people pay more attention when you yell “Fire” than when you yell “Rape” because fire endangers them as well. Fun world we live in, huh?)

“Help me, please!” My fist grazed someone’s jaw.

“Ow! Amy, jeez, chill out.” I paused in my flailing for a moment and peered through the ropy strands of my hair to see who was holding me. It was Malcolm, robed, but with his hood pushed back off his face.

“Get your hands off me, you political slime,” I shouted, “or I swear to God I’ll make sure your father never holds elected office again!”

These are the types of threats one makes at Eli.

He laughed then, and loosened his grip, setting me on my feet. “You’re preaching to the choir, girl.” He brushed my hair back behind my ear. “And no one’s going to touch you, least of all me. It was just a joke.”

I looked around at the boys who stood there, holding the ends of the makeshift blanket parachute, and then up at the staircase landing, where the plywood coffin stood open. A few more robed figures were traipsing down the stairs to join us, pushing their hoods back as they went.

“Well, it wasn’t funny,” I said, straightening my clothes and glaring at Malcolm. “Especially the bit about the pool. I have a phobia about water.”

“What?” Malcolm’s voice betrayed genuine surprise.

“Oh, right. Like you know who my third-grade homeroom teacher was but not why I never joined the swim team?”

Malcolm’s gaze flashed to the leader of the staircase crew, who merely lifted his chin in defiance. The guy was slim of build, with dark hair and very pale skin. I’d never seen him before, but knew instantly that this was my Sith M.C., Shadow Guy #2, he of the This-Is-Your-FBI-File line.

“Well, now you can add it to your fucking files.” I wrung out my left pant leg and straightened. “Where’s the exit?”

Malcolm’s face fell. “You’re not leaving?!?”

“You bet your GPA I am!” I pointed at Darth Digger. “I wouldn’t join a tea party that asshole’s at.” I headed off, ignoring the squishing sound in my left sneaker and hoping that I was correct in my assessment that I was walking toward something vaguely exit-esque. The hallways were lined with dark red paper and lighted only intermittently by dim candles in skull-shaped sconces. With my luck, I would end up in their dungeon, and in seventy years, it would be my cranium lighting their way.

“Amy, wait!”

I turned, but it wasn’t Malcolm who’d put his robed hand over mine.

“I’m sorry,” the jerk said. His head was bowed as if in contrition, but the position just made him look like he was doing that evil looking-at-me-through-his-eyebrows thing so popular on horror movie posters. “Can we start again?” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Poe.”

“Is that Korean?”

He blinked at me. “It’s my society name.” He pointed back at Malcolm. “Like Lancelot. We can’t use any others while inside the tomb.” He raised his eyebrow and gave me a wry smile. “And now that I’ve told you, you’ve got to join.”

“Or what?”

“Or we’ll have to kill you.” Totally deadpan.

I nodded and opened the door. “Good luck with that. I’m going home.”

No such luck. The door did not lead to High Street, but instead to a small, square courtyard ringed all around with towering walls of brown sandstone. Crap.

Poe chuckled softly. “Nice try, Neophyte.” He leaned against the doorjamb and I could see Malcolm—I mean, Lancelot—join him on the other side.

Wait, what the hell was I thinking? I wasn’t a Digger. I could call him whatever I wanted. Malcolm, Malcolm, Bo-Balcolm…I folded my arms across my chest.

“Come on, Amy,” Malcolm said. “It’s a little late to back out now. You accepted the tap.”

“That was before the swimming lesson.”

Malcolm tossed a look at Poe, who returned a smug smile. “I told you this would happen.”

“Poe,” Malcolm said in warning.

The guy sighed, then grumbled, “Okay. We don’t have a pool.”

My jaw forgot how to work. “But how—”

“Old trick,” Poe said through clenched teeth. “Coolers filled with water on either side of you, sloshing. Super Soakers for the leakage.”

Genius. Malicious, but genius. And it was killing him to tell me. I loved it.

Malcolm stepped forward and took my hands in his. “I won’t lie and say we’re all nice, Amy, but we’re good people to have on your side. Trust me. This is the best thing you’ll ever do at Eli.” His eyes were pleading, practically desperate, but he straightened then, and spoke in a much louder voice. “The life that we invite you to share in our society is based on such intangible factors that we cannot meaningfully convey to you either its nature or its quality. I’d ask you not to judge our worth by a few ill-advised jokes.” And then, in a hushed whisper: “Come on, what do you say?”

I was so going to regret this.

“Aye.”

I told Lancelot that I’d prefer they didn’t carry me.

He said it couldn’t be helped.

I wanted to know in advance where I would be taken.

He said all would become clear in time.

I was absolutely adamant that there would be no drinking of the blood of slaughtered virgins.

He said he’d see what he could do.

And that’s how I found myself suspended in the arms of six hooded figures, blindfold loosened at last, poised over what looked for all the world like a skull full of blood. But in the plus column, how was I to know the sexual proclivities of the blood’s previous owner?

“Drink it! Drink it! Drink it!” the figures chanted. The cup was lifted and placed in my hands, and the blindfold whisked away completely. The bone was smooth and almost slippery beneath my fingers, worn, perhaps, from almost two centuries of use. They’d plugged up the holes with the same clay that lined the interior, but that small nod to decency hardly swayed me. Drink it? This had been part of a person once.

And in all likelihood, it had also been a biology project, my rational side reasoned. Where else would college kids get their specimens? Okay, Amy, time to get into the spirit of the proceedings. Skulls, schmulls. I took a deep breath and Tory’s Cupped it.

A fruit juice of some sort, perhaps mixed with Gatorade. There was a strange, tart current beneath the flavor, hinting at an additional ingredient—maybe dye to give it that dark red coloring?—but I’d bitten my tongue enough times in my life to know this wasn’t blood. I finished it off, gave the skull a little rub on my shirt—no way in hell would I lick the bowl—and earned a few chuckles from my companions who recognized the act.

“Thatagirl,” Lancelot said, as he tied the blindfold back on. “And away you go!”

Looking back, it’s tough to define a chain of events for Initiation Night. Everything moved so quickly, with such chaotic visuals, and a cacophony of sounds, that I remember it mostly as a series of tableaux—a slide show of moments that all led up to the main event. They kept our blindfolds on as we moved from room to room, perhaps to make each vision all the more shocking by revealing it to us all at once, when we were already in the midst of the scenes. Indeed, with all the frenzy of the players, it took me several flashes of sight to even notice I was now in the company of other neophytes, two or three intersecting in any given room at a time.