Revealed

paused, straightened, and peered her way, trying to see through the darkness. “Hello? Is someone there?”
    Neferet did not need light to see. Her vision moved through the Darkness easily, comfortably. She saw his carefully combed hair, the well-tailored lines of his expensive suit, the sweat on his upper lip, and the pulse in his neck that beat steadily with his life’s blood.
    She stepped forward and shook back her long auburn hair, exposing the lushness of her naked body. Then, as if it were an afterthought, she raised her hands in an unsuccessful attempt to shield her most private parts from his widening eyes. “Charles!” Neferet repeated his name. This time she added with a sob, “They’ve hurt me!”
    “Neferet?” Obviously confused, Charles took one step toward her before halting. “Is it really you?”
    “It is! It is! Oh, Goddess, that it would be you who discovered me out here, naked, wounded, and all alone. It is so terrible! So much more than I can bear!” Neferet wept as she covered her face with her hands, allowing him to get a more thorough look at her body.
    “I don’t understand. What has happened to you?”
    “Charles!” his name shrilled behind them from the school grounds, making them both pause. “What is taking you so long?”
    “Dear, I’ve found—” Charles began to call back to his wife, but Neferet moved quickly toward him. She clutched his hand, cutting off his words. “No! Don’t tell her it’s me. I couldn’t stand for her to know what they’ve done to me,” she whispered desperately.
    His gaze was completely focused on Neferet’s bare breasts when he cleared his throat and continued, “Frances, dear, be patient. I dropped the car fob, and just now found it. I’ll have the car there in another minute or two.”
    “Of course you dropped it! You’re so damn clumsy!” came the venom-filled retort.
    “Go to her! Forget that you ever saw me.” Neferet whimpered as she scrambled back within the shadows beside the school wall. “I can care for myself.”
    “What are you talking about? Of course I won’t go and leave you out here naked and hurt. Here, put on my coat. Tell me what has happened to you. I know your penthouse was vandalized. Were you kidnapped?” Charles spoke as he moved to her. Taking off his suit jacket, he held it out to her.
    Neferet’s gaze went to his hands where they gripped the jacket, offering it.
    “Your hands are so large.” Overwhelmed by images from the past, Neferet found it hard to speak through lips that had gone cold and numb. “Your fingers. So, so thick.”
    Charles blinked in confusion. “I suppose they are. Neferet, are you in your right mind? You seem very out of sorts. How can I help you?”
    “Help me?” Her ravenous mind thrust Neferet forward from Emily’s past. “I shall show you the only way you may help me.”
    Neferet did not waste any more of her energy speaking to him. In a single predatory movement she knocked aside the offered jacket and slammed Charles against the wall. His breath left him in a shocked
oof
and he fell to the grass, gasping for air. She did not allow him time to recover. She pinned him to the ground with her knees and, making her hands into claws, ripped open his throat. As his thick, hot blood sprayed from his jugular, she fastened her lips over the gash and drank deeply. Even as he died, he did not struggle. Completely under her spell, he moaned and tried to lift his arms to more fully embrace her. His breath gurgled, ending his moans, and his legs kicked spasmodically, but Neferet’s strength grew as he moved more closely to death. She drank and drank, draining him body and spirit, until Charles LaFont, mayor of Tulsa, was no more than a bloodless, lifeless shell.
    Licking her lips, Neferet stood, staring down at what was left of him. Energy surged through her. How she loved the taste of death!
    “Charles, goddamn it! Do I have to do
everything
myself?” His wife’s voice was coming closer, as if she were moving toward them.
    Neferet lifted her bloody hand. “Mist and darkness, I command thee. Shield my body. Now! Cover me!”
    Instead of obeying her and hiding Neferet from seeking eyes, the deepest, darkest of the shadows only quivered restlessly. Through the night she felt more than heard their reply:
Your power wanes, reborn Tsi Sgili. Command us now? We shall see … we shall see…
    Rage was a luxurious emotion Neferet could not afford. She kept her anger close to her,