“Yeah, it’s super gorgeous upstairs too!” gushed Amber as the other girls nodded and smiled and followed them up the stairs.
Neferet paused every few steps to study the enormous black-and-white photos that hung against the red wall. “These nudes are quite—unusual.”
Each photo was of one of the girls, naked and bareback on a horse. They all had extensions so that their blonde hair reached their waists and were in various positions from reclining to straddling.
“There’s a story to those,” said Vanessa.
“Yeah,” Jordan, the girl who had represented earth, spoke up. “It was during our Epona phase. That’s why we took the pics on the horses.”
“Please, Jordan. Get real.” Vanessa shot the other girl a narrowed-eye look. Lynette found it interesting that Jordan not only stopped speaking, but also faded into the background. Vanessa controls the other four, Lynette realized.
The young woman explained to Neferet as they slowly climbed the staircase. “I realized super fast that Epona wasn’t a real goddess, especially when Neferet, well, our Neferet revealed herself as an immortal. So, we just keep these pictures for fun because they’re, you know, gorgeous. Our photos honoring Neferet are in our bedrooms.” She lowered her voice conspiratorially and in a mock whisper said, “We keep them up there because some people don’t get why we worship her.”
Neferet clicked her pointed nails against the banister. “Of course they don’t. The general public is ignorant. That is a well-established fact,” she said smoothly. “Now, Vanessa, tell me about how Neferet revealed herself as immortal to this world.”
Lynette took mental notes as Vanessa, with occasional input from the other four women, outlined a bizarre sequence of events beginning with the death of Tulsa’s mayor—which they blamed on Zoey Redbird—to the slaughter of humans at the Boston Avenue Church—culminating with this world’s Neferet basically barricading herself within the Mayo Hotel while she was besieged by the Tulsa Police Department and House of Night vampyres. They also described a being who sounded a lot like Erebus who they claimed had been Neferet’s Consort, but who was killed in the Mayo battle. Eventually, after literally hundreds of human deaths, which the five young women blamed on the House of Night, Neferet broke free from the Mayo siege but was ambushed at Woodward Park and sealed into the grotto through magick and the sacrifice of an immortal.
Lynette thought the story sounded about one-quarter truth and three-quarters the fabrication of rich girls who have little else to do.
Lynette cleared her throat as they paused in the upstairs landing outside five bedrooms and a dayroom that was Easter-egg purple. “Vanessa, does the rest of Tulsa, excluding the House of Night vampyres of course, feel as you five do about what happened to the Goddess Neferet?”
Vanessa barely glanced at her and made a dismissive motion with her long, squared-off fingernails. “Oh, the politicians and media and such don’t, but whatever. They’re all controlled by men. Of course they’re going to say what the House of Night tells them to. We know better and so do a lot of other people. Just go look at our Neferet’s tomb. It’s practically covered with offerings.” Vanessa turned her back on Lynette as she curtsied awkwardly to Neferet. “And now, my lady, I thought you might like Kelsey’s room. It faces north and gets the least sunshine.” She pointed to a modest-sized room painted a jarring shade of coral. “Oh, and there’s a room downstairs off the kitchen Juanita stays in sometimes when the weather’s bad or whatever and she can’t get home. Your maid can have that one.”
Instead of answering, Neferet strolled around the upper floor, looking in all of the bedrooms. Lynette followed her, intrigued by the photos that decorated the rooms. Each girl had filled her walls with framed naked photos of herself. In them, they’d had their faces painted with the strange black makeup they still wore that made them appear as if they wore Mardi Gras masks. They posed with their arms aloft, light illuminating them as if they were standing—or lying or straddling chairs—in the middle of a spotlight. Lynette decided that they were pretending to be divine, and she had to stifle the urge to laugh. She’d witnessed the power Neferet possessed, had watched her summon Old Magick, naked except for the tendrils she called her children. Compared to her, these women—these girls—looked like they were playing dress-up in their mothers’ closets.
“Do you like them?” Vanessa asked breathlessly.
“Them? You mean the rooms?” Neferet answered.
“Oh, well, that too. But I meant our photos. They’re a tribute to Neferet. If you like them then our goddess must too.”
“I can only speak for myself, but I have never seen humans create such a tribute to a vampyre goddess before, and it says much about how you worship. I’m sure your Neferet will find it as fascinating as I.”
“Oh, good! Yea!”
Neferet had stopped before a bedroom that was considerably larger than the others with an enormous marble bathroom attached and a closet bigger than Lynette’s first condo. The suite’s theme was gold. The walls were gold leafed. The ceiling was gold. The plush carpet was gold. The enormous bed had gold and ivory linens as well as a canopy in what looked like an impossible amount of gold lace. On the walls was photo after photo of Vanessa—naked, of course, and posing over and over in what she obviously considered to be proper goddess form.
“I shall take this suite, and Lynette shall take the one in coral that is beside mine.”
Vanessa’s cheeks blazed pink. “But, that’s my room.”
Neferet smiled. “Yes, I am aware of that as all of the photos on the walls are of you. Your room is the most luxurious. Would you expect a goddess to sleep in a second-best suite?”
“Well, no.”
“Excellent. And I need my handmaid beside me, so she will take Kelsey’s room. I must go out now and feed before the
