And then she tiptoed down the hallway. She paused at the door to the healer’s office. Lynette could see the back of Margareta’s head. She was studying a large computer screen that was showing the local news. Lynette watched, silent and horrified, as someone’s iPhone caught Kalona’s death. First it had focused on the rooftop balcony, as if waiting for something to happen. The immortal came suddenly into view, hovering with his enormous wings spread, his arms opened wide as he faced the balcony, looking like he was positioning himself to catch something. Or someone, Lynette thought the first time the video played through. And then she heard several cracks, one right after another, and Kalona’s body was hurled backward. Shots, Lynette realized. Neferet shot him! The camera followed Kalona’s fall. He tumbled end over end, landing on his back—broken and bloody—in the middle of the street where not long before he had led her from the Mayo.

Lynette couldn’t make herself move until she’d watched the video play again. Then, as Margareta tapped replay once more, Lynette made her legs move. She held her breath until she was through the exit door and had closed it quietly behind her.

Even then she didn’t pause. She knew she was on the third floor of the building at the edge of campus. She knew the way off campus as she had been very much awake and aware when the detective and Kalona had driven her there. She’d also seen the long line of cars that filled the school’s parking lot to overflowing, so that people had had to park over the curb up and down Utica Street.

Lynette reached the ground-level door and paused, solidifying her plan. If she was questioned on her way out, she would say that she had decided to go home, that her adult daughter needed her. People weren’t being kept as prisoners at the House of Night. As long as Lynette was not recognized, she would be free to come and go.

If she was recognized and stopped—what then?

Then they will have to keep me prisoner, and they have no reason to do so. It’s a House of Night, but it’s still America. I’m still free!

But by the time Lynette reached the big iron gates, she realized she had no need to worry about being stopped or questioned. There was no one patrolling the walls of the school. All of their attention was turned inward.

It was a little over three miles from the House of Night to the Mayo Hotel. Lynette walked. As she walked, she cleared her mind and then ordered her thoughts, focusing only on what had been most important to her for more than twenty years—making her business successful.

I am going to finish the job I started. I am going to finish the job I started. I am going to finish the job I started …

By the time Lynette reached West Fifth Street, her intent was solidly set. She walked calmly, not hurrying, taking in the roadblock and the uniformed officers who leaned against their cars, drinking coffee and talking to one another. There were other civilians in the vicinity. They wore lanyards, and Lynette recognized a few of them as reporters from the local networks. She remained calm, and she kept walking, settling comfortably into the role she’d played countless times over the past two decades. Lynette faded into the background. It was a unique and important talent. She had learned years ago that if one was to be a success in the event-planning business, one must have the ability to blend with the decorations—to stay out of the pictures—to keep the focus on the bride and not on oneself.

It worked for Lynette then as it had so many times before—right up until the Mayo was in view and she slipped quietly past the final police car in the roadblock. A uniformed officer was standing beside the car obviously trying to calm down a plump blond woman who was crying hysterically and clutching the hand of a tall, balding man.

“We have to know if our daughter is okay!” the bald man was shouting at the officer over the woman’s crying. “Kylee Jackson is her name. She’s the Mayo’s receptionist.”

“Please let us go see her!” the woman sobbed.

“Mr. and Mrs. Jackson, you have to stay back. Please, I understand how upset you must be, but we have a task force at the downtown station that is handling all of the inquiries of the victims’ families.”

“They aren’t telling us shit!” Mr. Jackson said.

“They’re telling you everything—”

Holding her breath, Lynette began to sneak past the distracted officer.

“Hey, hang on there! You gotta stay back behind the cars,” the officer called to her. “No one’s allowed past here.”

Lynette turned and smiled at him. “Oh, no problem officer. I just wanted to thank you. You’re doing an excellent job in a very difficult situation. I appreciate your service, as do Mr. and Mrs. Jackson.” He returned her smile. The moment his shoulders relaxed and he turned back to the couple, Lynette sprinted away. Her blood pumped so loudly in her ears she couldn’t hear what the officer was shouting at her. Just run. Run as if your life depends upon it, she told herself.

The buildings seemed to whiz past her as Lynette ran, expecting any moment to be tackled—or even shot. Not expecting to make it.

When she reached the shrouded Mayo, Lynette was too shocked to hesitate. She hurled herself against the door, paying no heed to the fetid, bloody curtain that had become the building’s skin.

“Goddess! Let me in! Neferet, please! I’ve come back to you!” She pounded her fists against the slick surface of the door.

“Lady, get back here!” The cop had caught up with her and lunged forward to grab her arm.

The wall of flame blazed, setting him afire.

Horrified, Lynette watched him stagger back, screaming in agony as other officers, who had been physically restraining the Jacksons from following her, took off their jackets and tried to smother the flames.

With the sound of a bandage being torn from a fresh wound, the black curtain parted and the door to the Mayo opened.

Lynette bolted inside, gasping and trying to catch her breath.

“How dare you leave me!”

Neferet was standing on the landing between the floor-level ballroom and the mezzanine. The black serpents writhed all around her feet, covering the white marble of the landing and making it look as if it were alive with them.

With the single-minded intensity she had been practicing for the two hours it had taken her to walk there, Lynette went to the middle of the ballroom and knelt, bowing her head.

“Forgive me, Goddess. I was wrong. I should have never left unless you said my job was finished and you no longer needed me.”

“You let him take you away! You betrayed me!”

“Forgive me, Goddess. Not because I deserve it, but because you deserve better.”

“I deserved your loyalty!” Neferet battered Lynette with words as she glided down from the landing.

“Yes,” Lynette said. She didn’t lift her head. She squeezed her eyes closed so that she couldn’t see the serpents that slithered around her. “And you have it. I have returned to you of my own volition.”

“And why would you do that?”

“I came back because I left a job undone, and in the entire time I have been in business I have never done that. I don’t intend to start now,” Lynette said truthfully.

“We shall see about that!”

Lynette felt the violation as Neferet’s mind probed hers. She trembled, holding her breath until the Goddess’s will departed, leaving a pounding ache in her temples.

“You did return of your own will. You do want to complete your job.”

Lynette was relieved enough at the surprise in Neferet’s voice that she opened her eyes, though she did not lift her head.

“Please forgive me and allow me to finish what I started for you,” she said.

“Do not think you fool me! I feel your loyalty. I also feel that it is based in fear and is self-serving.”