With a big sigh, Aphrodite finally turned around, saying, "Fine. Let's go. But I'm taking her with us." And I saw what it was that she and Darius had been doing with their hands.

"It's a cat!" I said.

Aphrodite rolled her eyes. "No s.h.i.t? Imagine that-there's a cat at Street Cats."

"It's an ugly cat," I continued.

"Don't call her that." Aphrodite was instantly defensive as she struggled to stand up while clutching the ginormic white cat in her arms. Taking her elbow, Darius made sure Aphrodite didn't fall back on her b.u.t.t. "She's not ugly. She's unique, and I'm sure quite expensive."

"She's a Street Cats cat," I said. "She only costs an adoption fee, same as all the rest of them."

Aphrodite stroked the cat absently, and it closed the beady eyes that sat in its totally smushed face and started to purr, skipping beats every now and then, like a missing engine, which probably meant she was full of hairb.a.l.l.s. Aphrodite ignored the messed-up purring and smiled lovingly down into the cat's flat face. "Maleficent is clearly a purebred Persian who ended up in these dire circ.u.mstances because she is the sole survivor of an awful tragedy." Aphrodite wrinkled up her perfect nose, and her haughty gaze took in the neat cages that were filled with all different sizes and shapes of cats. "She definitely doesn't belong in such an ordinary place."

"Did you say her name is Maleficent? Isn't that the name of the evil witch in Sleeping Beauty?"

"Yes, and Maleficent was way more interesting than that sickeningly sweet, goody-goody Princess Aurora. Plus I like her name. It's powerful."

I reached out hesitantly to pet the huge cat ball of white fur. Maleficent opened her eyes to slits and growled menacingly at me. "Maleficent's root word is malevolence," I said, pulling my hand quickly out of her paw range.

"Yes, and malevolence is a powerful word," Aphrodite said, making kissing noises at the beast.

"Is she declawed?" I asked.

"Nope," Aphrodite said happily. "She could put an eye out with those big paws of hers."

"Lovely," I said.

"I think she's as unique and beautiful as her new mistress," Darius said. I noticed that when he petted Maleficent, the cat narrowed her eyes at him but didn't growl.

"And I think your judgment is impaired. But whatever. Let's go. I'm starving. I didn't get any breakfast, and we've already missed lunch, so we're gonna have to grab something quick on the way back to school."

"I'll get Maleficent's things," Darius said, striding to the side of the room to pick up a neat little bag that had For Your New Kitty written in lovely cursive script on the side of it.

"Did you already pay for her?" I asked.

"She absolutely did," said Sister Mary Angela from the doorway. I noticed she walked carefully around Aphrodite and Maleficent, staying well out of paw range. "It's just wonderful that the two of them have found each other like this."

"You mean no one else could touch the cat?" I asked.

"Not one single person," Sister Mary Angela said with a big grin. "At least not until lovely Aphrodite stepped through the doors of the kennel. Sister Bianca and Sister Fatima said it was nothing short of a miracle how Maleficent took to Aphrodite immediately."

Aphrodite's smile was one hundred percent authentic, and it made her look young and heartbreakingly gorgeous. "She was waiting for me," she said.

"Yes," the nun agreed. "She was, indeed. You two are a good match." Then she looked at me and Darius, including all of us in her next words. "I think Street Cats and the House of Night is a good match, too. I feel great things for us in the future." Then she raised her right hand over us and said, "Go forth under the watchful eye of our Blessed Mother."

We mumbled our thanks to Sister Mary Angela. I had the weird urge to give her a hug, but her outfit-the whole wimple and black robe/dress thing-didn't seem conducive to hugs. So instead I did a lot of what felt like overexuberant grinning and waving as we left the building.

"You were grinning and waving like a fool," Aphrodite said as she waited for Darius to open her door and help her and the tail-twitching, flat-faced Maleficent into the front seat of the Lexus.

"I was being polite. Plus, I like her," I said, opening my own door. I slid into the backseat and after strapping on my seat belt looked up into the glaring eyes of Maleficent, who was stretched out across Aphrodite's chest and over her shoulder so that she could hang halfway over the seat and stare at me. "Uh, Aphrodite, shouldn't you put her in a cat carrier or something?"

"Oh my G.o.d! Are you mean and hateful or what? Of course she doesn't ride in a cat carrier." Aphrodite stroked the beast, causing white fur to float all around us like a disgusting cat hair shower.

"Jeesh, never mind. I was just thinking of the cat's safety," I lied. Actually, I was thinking of my safety. Maleficent looked like she'd love to have a big bite of Zoey for dinner. Which reminded me. "Hey, I'm starved," I told Darius as he started the car.

"We gotta stop somewhere quick so I can eat something."

"Fine with me. What do you want?" he said.

I glanced at the time on the car dash. Unbelievably, it was after 11 P.M. "Well, the time is definitely going to limit what's open." I heard Aphrodite whisper something about "stupid going-to-bed-early humans" to Maleficent, which I ignored. I looked around, trying to remember what decent fast food places (that is, Taco Bueno and Arby's versus McDonald's and Wendy's) were close by. And then a lovely and familiar aroma drifted through the cracked windows of the Lexus to me. My mouth had already started to water when I spotted the big yellow-and-red sign next door. "Oh, yum! Let's go to Charlie's Chicken!"

"It's awful greasy," Aphrodite said."That's part of its deliciousness. Heath and I used to eat there all the time. It fulfills all the basic food groups: grease, mashed potatoes, and brown pop."

"You're disgusting," Aphrodite said.

"I'll pay," I said.

"Done deal," she said.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Darius volunteered to stay in the car and babysit Maleficent while Aphrodite and I got something to eat, which I thought was above and beyond the call of duty.

"He's way too good for you," I told Aphrodite. For as late as it was, Charlie's was really busy, and sheeplike, we jostled around with the rest of the herd animals, finally getting in line behind an obese woman who had really bad teeth and a balding guy who smelled like feet.

"Of course he's too good for me," Aphrodite said.

I blinked in surprise at her and said, "Excuse me? I couldn't have heard you right."

Aphrodite snorted. "You think I don't know I'm awful to my boyfriends? Please-I'm selfish, not stupid. Darius will probably get sick of my c.r.a.p within a couple months. I'll dump him right before he dumps me, but at least it'll be a fun ride till then."

"Did you ever think about being nice and not putting him through your usual c.r.a.p?"

Aphrodite met my eyes. "Actually, I have been thinking about it and may consider changing things up with Darius." She paused and added. "She chose me."

"She who?"

"Maleficent."

"Well, yeah, she chose you. She's your cat. Just like Nala chose me and Darius's cat, whatever her name is . . . uh . . ."

"Nefert.i.ti," Aphrodite said.

"Yeah, Nefert.i.ti, she chose him. So what's the big deal? Happens all the time. Cats choose their fledglings, or sometimes their vamps. Most every vamp eventually gets one and-"

And I suddenly realized why the cat choosing her had made such an impact on Aphrodite.

"It makes me belong," she said quietly. "Somehow I'm still a part of the whole"-she paused, talking so low, I had to lean into her to hear her-"I'm still part of the whole vamp thing. It means I'm not totally an outsider."

"You couldn't be an outsider," I whispered back. "You're part of the Dark Daughters. You're part of the school. And most important, you're part of Nyx."

"But since this happened"-she brushed her hand across her forehead where she hadn't needed any makeup to cover the Mark that no longer was there-"since this happened, I haven't really felt like I was a part of anything. But Maleficent changed that."

"Huh," I said, more than a little taken back by Aphrodite's sincerity.

Then she shook herself, shrugged, and-looking much more like the Aphrodite we all knew and couldn't stand-said, "Whatever, though. My life still sucks. And after I eat this cheap, greasy c.r.a.p with you, I'll probably break out."

"Hey, a little grease is good for your hair and nails. Kinda like vitamin E." I b.u.mped her shoulder. "I'll even order for you."

"Could I have something diet?"

"Please. There's nothing diet about Charlie's."

"They have diet pop," she said.

I sneered down at her size 6 perfectness. "Not for you."

Since it really was fast food, it didn't take long to fill our order, and Aphrodite and I found a semi-clean table and started shoving greasy fried chicken and catsup-slathered fries into our faces. Now, don't get me wrong. Even though I was shoveling in the chicken and fries 'cause we needed to get back to school and it was rude to lounge around while Darius babysat Aphrodite's cat from h.e.l.l, I savored every bite. I mean, after a couple months of really nutritious, excellent food from the House of Night cafeteria, my taste buds needed a dose of disgustingly delicious and utterly not-good-for-me food. Yum. Seriously.

"So," I said between bites, "Stevie Rae and I talked."

"Yeah, I thought I heard her tw.a.n.g out there in the other room." Aphrodite picked delicately at a drumstick and wrinkled her nose at me when I added salt to the already totally salty fries. "You're going to bloat like a dead fish.""If I do, I'll just wear sweats until I pee it out." I grinned around a big bite of chicken.

She shuddered. "You're so gross. I cannot believe we're friends, which proves I'm in the middle of a personal crisis.

Anyway-what's up with Stevie Rae and the zoo animals?"

"Well, we didn't really talk about her or the other kids very much," I said, not willing to tell Aphrodite that Stevie Rae admitted to not being herself.

"So since you didn't talk about the crazies much, my guess is Stark was who you did talk about."

"Yeah. It's not good."

"Well, no. The kid's dead. Or possibly undead. Either isn't very good. What did Stevie Rae say about the time frame for him coming back? Or do we just wait till he starts to stink and figure he's not going to wake up."

"Don't talk about him like that!"

"Sorry, I forget that you had a thing with him. What did Stevie Rae say?"

"Sadly, she couldn't give me many specifics. Her memory of everything before she Changed is pretty sketchy. Her best advice was to steal his body and see if he wakes up. And if he does wake up, he'll need to be fed right away."

"Fed? As in a burger and some fries, or fed as in opening a vein?"

"Your second guess is the right one."

"Oh, ugh. I know you've gotten all into the bloodsucking-back-and-forth stuff, but it still squees me out."

"It squees me out, too, but there's no denying the power of it," I admitted uncomfortably.

She gave me a long contemplative look. "The Sociology book says it's a lot like s.e.x. Maybe even better."

I shrugged.

"You're going to have to do better than that. I want details."

"Okay. Yeah. It's a lot like s.e.x."

Her eyes widened. "And it's good?"

"Yes. But what happens because of it isn't always good." I thought about Heath and decided it was definitely time to change the subject. "Anyway, I'm supposed to figure out a way to get Stark's maybe-temporarily-dead body and hide it somewhere we can, in theory, watch it to see if he wakes up. Then we feed him-"

"Uh, don't you mean you feed him? I say a big No Way about having anything to do with that kid biting me."

"Yes, I mean I have to feed him." A fact that was more than a little appealing to me, even though I definitely wasn't going to discuss that with Aphrodite. "I'm clueless about how I can steal him or hide him."

"Well, he's going to be hard to move, especially since I'm a.s.suming Neferet is keeping her beady eyes on him."

"You a.s.sume right-at least that's what Stevie Rae says." I took a long drink of my brown pop.

"Sounds like you need a nanny cam," she said.

"Huh?"

"You know, one of those hidden cameras rich mommies use to watch their precious babies while they're at the country club drinking martinis at eleven o'clock in the morning."

"Aphrodite, you're from a whole different world."

"Thank you," she said. "Seriously, a nanny cam would work. I could pick one up at RadioShack. Isn't that Jack kid good with electronics?"

"Yeah," I said.

"He could install it in the morgue, and you could keep the monitor in your room. h.e.l.l, I could probably even buy the kind that comes with a portable monitor, so you could carry it around with you."

"Really?"

"Totally."

"Excellent! It was freaking me more than I can say to think about putting Stark in my closet."