Marked

friends, suddenly reared up again. I had to go to the ritual. I sighed.
    "Come on, Z. You don't want to miss the show, do you?”
    Erik was standing by the back door, looking like Superman with his blue eyes smiling at me.
    Well, hell.
    "Are you kidding? Hateful girls, totally cliquish drama-trauma, and the possibility for embarrassment and bloodletting. What's not to love? I wouldn't miss a minute of it.” Together Erik and I followed the group out the door.
    Everyone was walking quietly to the wall behind the rec hall, which was too close to where I'd seen Elizabeth and Elliott for me to feel comfortable. And then, weirdly, the kids seemed to disappear into the wall.
    "What the―?" I whispered.
    "It's just a trick. You'll see.”
    I did. It was actually a trap door. Like the kind you see in those old murder movies, only instead of a door in a library wall or inside a fireplace (as in one of the Indiana Jones movies―yes, I'm a dork), this trap door was a small section of the thick, otherwise solid-looking school wall. Part of it swung out, leaving an open space just big enough for one person (or fledgling or vamp or possibly even a freakishly solid ghost or two) to slip through. Erik and I were the last ones through. I heard a soft whoosh, and looked back in time to see the wall closing seamlessly.
    "It's on an automatic keypad, like a car door," Erik whispered. "Huh. Who all knows about this?”
    "Anyone who's ever been a Dark Daughter or Son.”
    "Huh." I suspected that was probably most of the adult vamps. I glanced around. I didn't see anyone watching us, or following us.
    Erik noticed my look. "They don't care. It's school tradition that we sneak out for some of the rituals As long as we don't do anything too stupid, they pretend like they don't know we're going." He shrugged. "It works out okay, I guess.”
    "As long as we don't do anything too stupid," I said.
    "Shush!" Someone in front of us hissed. I closed my mouth and decided to concentrate on where we were going.
    It was about four thirty A.M. Uh, no one was awake. Big surprise. It was weird to be walking through this really cool part of Tulsa―a neighborhood filled with mansions built by old oil money―and have nobody notice us. We were cutting through amazingly landscaped yards and no dogs were even barking at us. It was as if we were shadows…or ghosts.…The thought gave me a creepy chill. The moon that earlier had been mostly obscured by clouds was now shining silver-white in an unexpectedly clear sky. I swear that even before I was Marked I could have read by its light. It was cold, but that didn't bother me like it would have just a week ago. I tried not to think about what that meant about the Change that was going on inside my body.
    We crossed a street, then slid soundlessly between two yards. I heard running water before I saw the little footbridge. The moonlight lit up the stream as though someone had spilled mercury across the top of it. I felt captured by its beauty, and I automatically slowed down, reminding myself that night was my new day. I hoped that I would never get used to the dark majesty of it.
    "Come on, Z," whispered Erik from the other side of the bridge.
    I looked up at him. He was silhouetted against an incredible mansion that stretched up the hill behind him with its huge, terraced lawn and pond and gazebo and fountains and waterfalls (these people clearly had entirely too much money), and he reminded me of one of those romantic heroes out of history, like…like…Well, the only two heroes I could think of were Superman and Zorro, and neither of them were truly historical. But he did look very knight-like and romantic. And then it registered on me exactly which amazing mansion we were trespassing on, and I hurried across the bridge to him.
    "Erik," I whispered frantically, "this is the Philbrook Museum! We're really going to get in trouble if they catch us messing around here.”
    "They won't catch us.”
    I had to scramble to keep up with him. He was walking fast, much more eager than me to catch up with the silent, ghostlike group.
    "Okay, this isn't just some rich guy's house. This is a museum. There are twenty-four-hour security guards here.”
    "Aphrodite will have drugged them.”
    "What!”
    "Ssssh. It doesn't hurt them. They'll be groggy for a while and then go home and not remember anything. No big deal.”
    I didn't reply, but I really didn't like that he was so 'whatever' about drugging security guards. It