“Yes?”
Lynette reasoned aloud. “I will always remember how it changed the attitudes of Mrs. Muir and her staff to witness your glorious power as you called to the sprites on the loch. With your permission I will enlist the aid of the five girls in filling the sacrificial bowls, and then I will instruct them to watch as you summon the sprites.”
“That is an excellent idea! But do be sure they watch from a window of the house. I do not believe their reactions will be as sophisticated as were the Scottish women.”
“Good point,” Lynette said. “What else would you have me do?”
“You will need to begin readying those five for tomorrow. Remind them of the importance of their willingness to sacrifice for their goddess.”
Stress began to build between Lynette’s shoulder blades again. “My lady, I’m not sure how to spin their deaths into something palatable.”
Neferet laughed. “Oh, no, no, no. You need not mention their deaths. Tell them that except for their cloaks, they must be naked. Their sacrifice is that they cast a circle around the grotto tomorrow even though they might be caught—naked, in the cold, showing their support for a vampyre goddess.”
“Well, that makes it much easier. I’m pretty sure they’re fine with nudity. And their daddies’ money will have bought them out of much more difficult circumstances than circling naked at Woodward Park.”
Neferet said, “So true.”
“Watching you summon sprites and use Old Magick tonight will enthrall them.”
“Of course it will. Oh, do be sure you warn them that the weather is going to be challenging, but remind them that it’s as it must be. I need to blind the House of Night.”
“More fog?”
“Oh, no! I do not make the same mistake twice. Two instances of blanketing fog in January would be enough to cause even the most obtuse High Priestess to be suspicious. And I need much more than momentary concealment. I need to make a show of casting a circle using humans, sacrifice them, and open the tomb. I will use weather to gain the privacy I need, but I must work with the type of weather the elements easily produce in winter in Tulsa.”
Lynette smiled. “Ice storm?”
“Let’s just call it freezing rain, shall we?”
10
Other Lynette
Lynette had never been a violent person—not even when her mother was sharing her with the loathsome men who used to visit their trailer when she was a preteen, but dealing with the five Tulsa debutantes had her rethinking her personal stance on nonviolence.
The young women were horrible. As far as Lynette could tell, they had no redeeming qualities and their only talent was the ability to grow long, thick hair. Then she overheard Kelsey and Jenna talking about needing to go to Ihloff Salon at Utica Square to get their extensions redone, and she realized they couldn’t even do that on their own.
Vanessa was definitely the ringleader. She was closest to Amber, the girl who pretended her affinity was for fire, but the only way Lynette knew they were supposed to be best friends was because the two called each other “bestie,” and not because they seemed to actually be friends. There was a definite pecking order between them, with Vanessa reigning at the top. Amber was second, with the earth girl, Jordan, and the air girl, Jenna, pretty much on the same level, followed at the bottom by the water girl, Kelsey.
Through listening and observing, two things Vanessa and her crew would never think to do, Lynette decided the reason Kelsey was so low in the pecking order was simple—her family had money, but they didn’t allow Kelsey unrestricted access to it. Apparently, Kelsey was the only one of the five who had to turn in her grades to her parents and not just pass every class but maintain a B average. And that’s why the other four belittled her.
Lynette would’ve felt sorry for Kelsey had it not been so obvious that the girl wanted nothing from life more than to win the approval of Vanessa and the others.
“And she’s not bright enough to realize she will never win their approval—not unless they allow someone they think even less of than Kelsey into their group,” Lynette mumbled as she sipped the cup of coffee she’d brewed and read another House of Night interview on the laptop.
Vanessa looked up from the copy of Vanity Fair she was thumbing through as she and the other four women drank wine in the green sitting room. “What was it you said, Nettie?”
Lynette swallowed the response she wanted to give and turned on the overly stuffed settee to smile at Vanessa. In the short time Neferet had been gone, Vanessa had decided to give Lynette a nickname. It was obvious she wanted Lynette to ask her about the name but, unlike the poisonous young woman, Lynette wasn’t stupid enough to fall into her trap.
“I was just telling myself that the Goddess will approve of the offering you and the rest of the girls decided upon.”
“Nettie,” Vanessa said from her wingback chair that was angled in front of the sitting room’s fireplace. “Please stop calling us girls. We are empowered women. Every one of us is well over twenty-one.”
Lynette forced herself not to laugh. “I apologize. I didn’t realize you were so old. You all are still in college, aren’t you?”
Amber was sitting on a chair that was a twin to Vanessa’s. She lifted the hand that wasn’t holding a glass of wine and counted off. “One, we aren’t old. You are. Two, yes, we’re still in college. Our parents wanted us to have the full experience and not rush through.”
“Oh, my mistake. Sorry. Exactly how long have you five been at TU?” Lynette pitched her voice to sound authentically interested, which was easy. She’d been catering to the rich and powerful for most of her adult life, and one thing was consistently true about them—most were entitled assholes who believed their
