Revealed (House of Night #11)(24)

I squinted against the camera lights. Holy crap! It was the Fox News anchor. My first thought was: Wow, she’s even prettier in person. My second wasn’t so positive: Wow, there must be some major poo hitting the fan if Fox 23 sent Chera here.

“Thank you so much! I really appreciate all of my fans,” Chera was saying to Damien, who, totally star struck, was still grinning at her.

“Damien, why don’t you tell Thanatos there’s a reporter here?” I smiled and gave him a little push toward the stairway that led to Thanatos’s office.

“Oh, absolutely! I’ll be right back!” As Damien hurried past Chera he paused and added, “I really do just love you!”

Chera beamed a beautiful smile at him and opened her arms. “Damien, you are precious. How about a hug?”

“Ohmygod, yes!” Damien’s grin lit up his face as he hugged Chera. I heard her whisper, “Adam told me to say hi.”

“Oooh! Tell him hi for me right back!” Damien finished squeezing her and then he hurried toward Thanatos’s office.

I swear if he’d been a puppy he would have wagged himself to death.

“You’re the first red vampyre I’ve seen in person! Your tattoos are quite beautiful.” Chera and the camera were now focused on Stark.

“Yeah, uh, I’m a red vampyre,” Stark said, glancing nervously back and forth from the camera to Chera.

“Your name is Stark, right?” Chera asked him.

“Right.”

Way conscious of the camera that was blinking the red record light, I’d opened my mouth to try to figure out something to say that didn’t end up with me hysterically shrieking, grabbing Stark, and bolting from the room, but Chera was peering up at Stark, smiling, and looking captivated as she studied his Mark. She moved closer to him. Sounding friendly and totally harmless she said, “The pattern is intriguing. It looks like arrows. You’re not from Broken Arrow, are you?”

“Uh, no. I’m from Chicago.”

“Are the arrows symbolic?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. I’m a pretty good archer,” he said.

Chera turned her big brown eyes on me and smiled as if she and I were BFFs. “Your tattoos are amazing, too. And you have them everywhere! I think I see birds and flowers and, wow, even flames and waves within that filigree design. You must be a very special young vampyre.”

I opened and closed my mouth. I had no clue what to say. If Chera had been blunt and pushy and reporter-like it would have been easy to do the whole “no comment” thing and walk away, but she seemed genuinely nice and just politely curious. Sounding as nervous as Stark looked, I said, “Well, I’m not really comfortable with the whole special label, even though our Goddess Marked me with extra tattoos.”

“Oh, I get it.” Chera motioned to the cameraman. “Jerry, cut that part.” Then she turned her attention back to me. “I apologize. I’m not here to make anyone uncomfortable.”

“Why are you here?” I asked.

“To get an inside reaction to the killing of Tulsa’s mayor.”

“We didn’t kill the mayor,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to accuse you! Any of you! Not at all,” Chera assured us, sounding as sincere as she looked.

“Is someone making accusations?” Thanatos hurried up, with Damien following closely behind.

Chera glanced at the cameraman. “Jerry, stop recording, please.” She held her hand out to Thanatos. “High Priestess, I am Chera Kimiko, Fox 23 News.”

Thanatos took her hand. “I am Thanatos, this House of Night’s High Priestess. And I recognize you, Miss Kimiko.”

“Please, call me Chera. I’m not here to accuse anyone of anything. I’m only trying to show the whole story, the real story behind Charles LaFont’s death.” She held out her hand to one of the guys with the lights. “Andy, let me see my iPad.” The guy handed it to her—she tapped the screen and then held it up so that we could see Aphrodite’s mom being interviewed by a concerned-looking man in a suit that didn’t fit very well.

“Mrs. LaFont, please accept our condolences on the death of your husband, our beloved mayor,” said the reporter.

“I do appreciate the sentiment, but I will not be consoled until my husband’s vampyre murderer is brought to justice.”

Diana and I sucked air. Thanatos seemed to turn to stone. Darius and Stark looked like they might explode. But Aphrodite’s mom, Mrs. Charles LaFont, looked beautiful and devastated and mesmerizingly passionate in her sleek black dress and her pearls. She dabbed a lace handkerchief at the corners of her tear-filled blue eyes before she continued.

“So, you are sure your husband was killed by a vampyre?” the reporter prompted.

“Absolutely sure. I was there. I found his brutalized, blood-drained body.” Mrs. LaFont looked from the reporter straight into the camera. “Something has to be done about the House of Night.”

The interview broke for a commercial and Chera tapped the screen off.

“The only side that is being heard is that of Mrs. LaFont, and while I sympathize with her loss, I am a journalist, and I believe in telling the whole story.”

“Miss Kimiko, there is no drama and intrigue and the story of a murderer being hidden here. There are only students and professors, and a school day that has been disrupted because of the tragic events of last night.”