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our feet was damp and dirty. Dragon would hate to see his place messed up like this, was what I was thinking when Kalona pointed to the center of the dimly lit arena where I could just make out the vague shapes of Thanatos and Nicole.
    “There—out there,” he said.
    “We should have lit the torches,” Lenobia was murmuring as we walked across the soggy sand. “The humans extinguished almost all the lanterns along with the stable fire.”
    I didn’t want to say anything, but the truth was that I was glad it was hard to see because I knew whatever it was Thanatos and Nicole were gathered around was not going to be pretty. I kept that thought to myself, though, and grabbed Stark’s hand, borrowing strength from his firm grip.
    “Have a care where you walk.” When we got close to where she and Nicole were, Thanatos spoke to us without looking up from where she had knelt on the field house floor. “There is evidence of spellwork here. I’ll want it saved and examined so I can discover who is responsible for this atrocity.”
    I peeked over her shoulder, not really understanding what I was seeing. A circle had been drawn in the sand. The sand looked weird and dark inside it. In the center of the circle were a couple of furry blobs. To the side of the blobs there were words scratched into the sand. I squinted, trying to make them out.
    “What the heck is it?” I asked.
    Red vampyres saw way better in the dark, so I knew when Stark’s arm went around me that whatever it was, it was bad. Real bad. Before I could repeat my question, Nicole reached into her pocket and took out her phone. “I got a flash on this thing. It’ll hurt your eyes, but at least it’ll take a picture.”
    She was right. I was blinking tears and spots from my vision in the next second. Kalona, whose immortal vision was less susceptible to being messed with by light than any vampyre, spoke solemnly. “I know whose work this is. Can you not feel her lingering presence?”
    My vision blinked clear and I moved closer, even though Stark’s grip on me tried to pull me back. Too late, I understood what I was looking at. “Shadowfax! He’s dead!”
    “Sacrificed in a dark ritual,” Thanatos said.
    “And Guinevere, too,” Nicole added.
    I felt like I was going to puke. “Dragon’s cat and Anastasia’s cat? Both of them have been killed?”
    Thanatos reached out and gently stroked her hand down Shadowfax’s side, moving from his body to the much smaller cat that was curled up beside him. “This little one did not die sacrificially. She was not part of the ritual. Grief stopped her heart and her breath.” The High Priestess stood and turned to Kalona. “You say you know whose work this is.”
    “I do, as do you. Neferet sacrificed the Warrior’s cat. It was done as payment. Darkness obeys her, but the price of its obedience is blood and death and pain. That price must be paid over and over again. Darkness is never sated.” He pointed to the words. “That proves what I say.”
    In the dim light I could see the sad, dead bodies of the cats, but the words written to the side of them were hard for me to make out. I didn’t have to ask. Holding me close to him, Stark read them aloud.
“Through payment of blood, pain, and strife
I force the Vessel to be my knife.”
    “The Vessel is what Neferet calls Aurox,” Kalona explained.
    “Oh, great Goddess, this proves more than that this is Neferet’s work.” Thanatos’s dark gaze met mine. “Your mother’s death wasn’t simply a random sacrifice to Darkness. It was the payment required to create Neferet’s creature, the Vessel, Aurox.”
    My knees turned to rubber and I moved even closer to Stark. It felt like his arm was all that was keeping me standing.
    “I knew that damn bull kid was bad news,” Stark said. “No way was he some kind of gift from Nyx.”
    “The Vessel is the opposite. He is a creature fashioned from pain and death by Darkness, and controlled by Neferet,”