He was lying across the path just inside the clearing. I could have pictured him maybe sitting down on a rock or something, but never lying flat on his back like that. Not even in the clearing.
"Dad!" I crouched down, shook his shoulder. His head rolled toward me, his eyes wide open and flat with no shine, no hint of that spark I was so used to seeing in them.
"Dad?" Holding my breath, I laid a hand on his chest.
Nothing. No rise and fall from breathing. No heartbeat. And he was cold.
Not wanting to believe it yet, I checked his neck. No pulse.
"Dad!" I placed both hands on his chest and hit him with a jolt of energy like I'd seen Dr. Faulkner do for Savannah's grandmother last spring. But the attempt to restart his heart didn't do anything. I tried again, willing him to blink, breath, gasp, anything. Deep down, though, I already knew it was too late. But I still had to try.
I lost count of the number of times I tried to restart his heart, until finally I stopped. He was gone.
Then I saw the punctures in his neck, and I knew, but I didn't want to believe that, either.
No way could my dad, the fourth-generation leader of the Clann, be taken out by a vamp. It wasn't possible. Especially here in the clearing, where he would have been surrounded by some of the most powerful wards in the world. This place was magically designed to protect hundreds of descendants at a time. No vamp could have gotten past the edge of the clearing without a descendant present and consciously allowing them in, the way I had Sav's dad when we'd returned from France. And even if the wards had failed somehow, Dad was too strong, too skilled with magic. He would have fought, and Emily and I both would have felt that use of power and been able to come help him.
It had to have been a setup.
Even as I stared down at his body, at those unblinking eyes, I couldn't believe he was gone. My eyes burned, my chest so tight I couldn't catch a deep breath. He was supposed to live forever, or at least until he was eighty or ninety years old. I was supposed to have decades still to learn from him. He was invincible, the single most powerful and magically gifted descendant in the Clann.
Even though I knew he was gone and couldn't be saved, I didn't want to leave him there. But I had to. I hadn't brought a phone with me, and Dad's was nowhere in sight. I had to go back to the house and tell Mom.
Mom.
I remembered her reaction to the death of her sister. There was no way she was going to be able to handle losing Dad. Once the shock wore off, I didn't know how I was going to deal with it. It wasn't real to me yet. I didn't want it to be real yet.
I walked back down the path toward the house, across the back yard, the grass crunchy beneath my feet from frozen frost. Too soon, I was on the steps leading up to the kitchen, and then inside.
"Hey, did you-" At the stove, Mom turned toward me, a metal spatula in one hand, a glass of red wine in the other.
She took one look at my face, reading the thoughts I was too freaked out to hide.
She shook her head. "No. He's too strong."
"Mom," I choked out, slowly crossing the kitchen, the words lodged in my throat and refusing to come out.
"No," she whispered, the glass of wine hitting the floor, shattering, spilling red fluid like a crime scene all over us and the tiles and cabinets.
I tried to hug her, to offer some kind of comfort, knowing she needed me to be strong for her like Dad had been at her sister's funeral last weekend. But she shoved past me and out the kitchen door, not even taking a coat or the flashlight.
I had to run after her. She didn't even slow down when she reached the dark woods. She tripped over a branch on the path halfway to the clearing, would have fallen if I hadn't grabbed her elbow to steady her. She didn't say anything to me, just wrenched her arm free and took off running again.
I shined the light ahead of us just in time before she would have tripped over him.
She stood there for a few seconds, then a high-pitched wail tore its way out of her throat.
If the old stories about banshees had ever been true, this is what they would have sounded like.
She fell to her knees beside him, and it was like reliving that nightmarish day Savannah's grandmother died in her arms. Once again, I was helpless, useless, without the right words to make this easier for any of us.
I went to my mother, tried to hug her shoulders, but she shoved me away.
"He's not gone," she growled, sounding like something wild, completely unlike the mother I'd known. My mother had often been scary during my life, especially when I'd done something wrong. But she'd never sounded this inhuman before.
She tried spell after spell on Dad's body, lighting up the surrounding woods and the clearing with her magic and her will.
"Mom, he's gone," I said.
"No, he's not! I just need the right spell. Your father's too strong to die. He's still in there. If I can find the right spell, I can bring him back."
But no one knew the old Clann ways that had once affected things on the DNA level, and the ability to bring someone back from the dead was lost to us now. No one could bring Dad back.
If only one of us had gone to check on him hours ago...
If I had only gone out to talk to him and Emily and that stranger...
Emily. She didn't know.
"Mom, we need to tell Emily."
"No, we're not telling her anything because he's not gone."
I touched her shoulder, trying to bring her back to reality. She hissed at me and slapped my hand away. "Leave us!" She leaned over Dad's body, whispering, "Come back to me, Samuel. I'm here now. I won't leave you. I know you can still hear me. Come back to me now."
I couldn't leave her here. Whoever-or whatever-had killed Dad could still be around. But I also knew I had to get Emily. She would never forgive us for taking even this long to tell her. She would be furious, sure that, like Mom, she could have done something to save him.
And the Clann. I would have to call the elders, tell them we were leaderless now that Dad was gone...
My dad was gone...I debated picking Mom up and carrying her back to the house. She was tiny enough. But she would fight me.
She pounded on Dad's chest with the heels of her fists now, and I couldn't watch. It wasn't right, her beating Dad's body and trying to bring him back like this. Anyone else could tell he was gone.
"Mom, it's too late," I tried to tell her again.
She shoved me with both hands, and I had to grab a nearby tree trunk to stay on my feet. It was like she was possessed. There was no reasoning with her, no calming her. And there would be no removing her from here, at least not by me. Not without force.
I couldn't do that to her on top of everything else. I couldn't just throw my own mother, as temporarily nuts as she was, over my shoulder like some kind of Neanderthal.
I would have to make a run for it, call Dr. Faulkner, try to yell for Emily and get her to come back with me to the woods, all as quickly as I could.
I took Mom's ward from my wrist and carefully snapped it around Mom's. Not that it would do any good. If a vampire truly had killed my dad, he had done it in spite of the wards around the clearing. But I had to at least try to offer her what protection I could. I also left the flashlight with her, keeping it on and on the ground pointed away from Dad down the path toward the house. It might help her, and it would help the descendants find her.
Then I ran as fast as I could, faster than I ever had in any football game, back to the house, stopping only when I reached Dad's desk so I could hunt through the drawers for the black spiral-bound leather notebook that contained all the descendants' names, addresses, and phone numbers.
Dr. Faulkner answered quickly. He was silent after I told him about Dad. Then, "I'm on my way. Have you called anyone else?"
"No. I need to get back to the clearing. Mom wouldn't leave...Dad."
"Good. I'll call everyone soon enough. Just take care of your mother and sister till we can get there."
I hung up Dad's office phone, then ran out of the study to the base of the stairs, yelling for Emily.
No response. She probably couldn't hear me over her own snoring. She'd always been a heavy sleeper anyways.
Should I run upstairs and tell her?
No, I needed to go keep Mom safe.
But then Emily would be here in the house alone. What if Dad's attacker came in here and went after Emily?
Cursing, I ran up the stairs two at a time then burst into her room and shook her awake.
"Wha..." she muttered groggily, raising up on an elbow and rubbing her eyes.
"Emily, wake up. It's Dad."
She frowned, blinking a little faster now. "What? What's going on? Is he home now? Tell Mom I'm really not hungry, okay?"
What was she talking about? She knew he was home. I'd seen her outside talking to him.
She had to be still half asleep or something. "Emily, you've got to wake up, get up and get dressed. The Clann's on their way, but I've got to get back to the clearing to protect Mom until they get here. And that means you have to come with me. I can't protect the both of you any other way."
Stumbling to her feet, she wrapped a fleece robe around herself. "Tristan, I swear, if this is a prank I will k-"
"Don't say it," I muttered. "This is for real. Dad's out there in the clearing. He's... He's..." I took a deep breath, pushed away my own emotions for the moment. "He's gone, Em. He's really gone."
Her eyes widened and she flew past me down the staircase and into the kitchen. I helped her balance while she shoved her feet into a pair of rubber boots in the garage. Then we were stumbling and jogging as fast as her too-big footwear would allow.
When she saw Mom with Dad's body, she gasped and fell to her knees beside our parents. And finally Mom allowed someone to hug her, burying her face in my sister's shoulder.
Dr. Faulkner found us first, with Officer Talbot right on his heels. They checked Dad, confirmed that he had been dead for hours probably, stayed with us as an ambulance showed up to take Dad's body away. Only then was Emily able to do what the rest of us couldn't, prying Mom away from Dad and walking her back to the house where she gave Mom a sleeping pill and helped her to bed. The sleeping pill was probably unnecessary, though...Mom had exhausted herself trying to bring Dad back.
While Emily got Mom settled for the night, Officer Talbot and Dr. Faulkner asked me questions in the kitchen. Their tone was calm, but they kept asking the same questions over and over.
And I kept telling them the same answers.
"I don't know who the guy was. He was dressed nice, slacks, shiny black loafers, long black wool coat. I never saw his car-he must have parked in front and walked around back. Emily seemed to know him. She hugged him hello. You should ask her who he is. I never heard them talking. I don't know what he wanted. He showed up around five or so."
At some point, Emily came back downstairs and Officer Talbot pulled her aside in the foyer. But I could hear her replies.
"I'm telling you, there was no one here. I never saw Dad come home," she insisted. "I've been in my room sick and asleep all day. Ask my mom, she'll tell you."
I'd known Emily was good, but this was a whole new level of lying. After several minutes of listening to it, I was ready to strangle her.
"Cut the crap, Emily." I wove around Dr. Faulkner into the foyer. "Just tell them the truth. This is our dad we're talking about here. You and that guy were the last ones to see Dad alive. So tell them the truth!"
Her eyes welled up with tears, her eyebrows drawn together. "But I am telling you the truth! I remember Mom going to get groceries, and you were going with her. I fell back asleep, and the next thing I know, you're shaking me awake and telling me about Dad-"
"You're saying you don't remember anything about putting on your coat and house shoes and scarf and going outside to talk to Dad and some stranger for nearly two hours?"
"No."
"No, you don't remember doing that, or no, you didn't do it?" I tried reading her mind, but it was a locked vault as always.
Could she have been sleepwalking? She'd never done it before that I knew about. But she was pretty exhausted. Maybe the flu meds or Mom's herbal drinks or the combination of them had somehow messed with Emily's mind or something?
"Does your sister have a history of sleepwalking?" Officer Talbot asked.
At the same time, Dr. Faulkner began checking Emily's pupils with a penlight he'd pulled from his pocket. "Emily, do you often lose track of time or hear about things others have seen you do that you have no memory of?"
"No." The tears ran freely down her face now. "And I think I'd remember my own dad being hurt by someone."
"Look, I'm telling you what I saw and everything I know," I said. "Maybe something or someone's messed with her memory. But I was wide awake, I haven't been sick or taken any kind of meds or drank anything, and I know what I saw. He was youngish, maybe early twenties, with light brown hair, short on the sides and back, kind of long on top. He was about Emily's height, maybe a few inches taller."
Emily frowned. She knew something.
"Who do you know that looks like that?" I asked her.
She shook her head. "Nobody." But there was something in her voice, deep down, the tiniest hint of uncertainty so faint no one but family would have caught it. And again when I tried to read her mind, her thoughts were barred to me.
"And you said you didn't get his license plate number?" Officer Talbot asked me.
"No, I said I never saw his vehicle at all."
"Did you hear him arrive?"
"No. I just saw him walk around the side of the house to the backyard."
Officer Talbot and Dr. Faulkner shared a look.
"What?" I asked.
"If he was a vamp, he could have walked in from anywhere," Officer Talbot said.
Except that didn't seem right. "A vamp would have had a hard time getting past the vamp wards in the clearing without a descendant's help, wouldn't he?"
"Unless your father was attacked outside of the clearing and then crawled within the wards' protection just before dying," Officer Talbot said.
"I don't know." I shook my head. "Something about this just doesn't seem right. Dad should have fought back, whether his attacker was human or vamp. He would have read a human's thoughts in advance and been able to stop them. And he never would have let a vampire get that close."
"Not even if he knew and trusted that vamp?" Officer Talbot asked, and I didn't like the way his eyes narrowed. He had someone specific in mind.
"Like who?"
"Oh, I don't know...how about our local resident vamps?"
