The Monday after the masq ball was a long day thanks to all the ticked-off Charmers who had sided with Bethany and believed I was the worst jerk on the planet. Since they were probably right, I didn't bother to try and defend myself when they huddled in glaring, whispering groups in the halls and cafeteria. I just kept my head down, sat outside at my old grounding tree during lunch, and waited for the backlash to blow over.

At the end of the day, I was only too happy to go home. All I wanted was to eat, tackle a little homework and then crash.

After parking inside my family's four-car garage, I got out of my truck and crossed the dim space toward the door leading into the kitchen.

Halfway across the garage, I heard it...the worst kind of wailing I'd ever heard.

I ran the rest of the way to the steps and threw open the door, sure I would find someone on the floor bleeding to death or something.

Instead I found Dad standing with one arm around Mom while his free hand furiously dialed numbers on his cell phone. What the...

He looked up as I opened the kitchen door, relief the barest flicker in his eyes. "Tristan, you're home. Good. Call your sister for me, will you?"

He tossed me his phone. I caught it out of reflex.

"What's-" I started to ask.

"They're dead!" Mom cried out, her bony fingers clutching Dad's beefy arms like claws. "Cynthia, James, the girls. They were slaughtered like animals by those murderous undead filth. I'll kill them. I'll kill them all!"

Dad shushed her, hugging her to him and rubbing a big hand across her back. After a few seconds, he looked over her head at me, his expression intense.

"The police found Cynthia and James and your cousins dead at their home. It appears they were murdered-"

"By vampires," Mom hissed, spit flying from her mouth, her eyes round and rolling wildly. I'd never seen her like this. She looked unhinged. And dangerous.

Then their words fully registered and I had to grab the doorjamb for support.

My aunt and uncle and cousins were all dead. Maybe from a vampire attack.

We saw them once a year, so I wasn't that close to them. But still, they were family....

I pictured Katie and Kristie the way I'd seen them the New Year's Eve before last, all smiles and freckles and bouncy blonde curls and giggles.

They would have been ten this year.

"Are you sure it was..."

Dad nodded. "When your mother couldn't reach Aunt Cynthia all day, she asked one of the other New York descendants to go check on them at their apartment. They found them, called 911-"

Mom wailed again.

"Come on, honey, let's go upstairs for a while," Dad said, trying to steer Mom toward the hallway.

"I want to go to New York," she said. "I have to see them."

Dad and I shared a look. Mom leaving Jacksonville like this was a bad idea. Mom was almost equal to Dad in magical abilities, if not stronger in some areas. That made her a loaded gun nearly impossible to disarm. Normally her sense of propriety and desire to protect the Clann's secrets held her abilities in check.

But now her only sister's family had been murdered by a vampire. I couldn't see how anything could possibly keep her from literally going nuclear all over New York.

Dad was going to have his hands full this week keeping Mom's temper reined in and under control.

"I'll call Emily and let her know," I said to Dad's back as he led Mom upstairs.

Emily picked up on the second ring. "What's up?"

"Uh, I've got some bad news. Aunt Cynthia and Uncle James and their girls..." My throat convulsed and I had to clear it before I could finish. "They're...they're gone, Em."

"What? What happened?" she gasped.

"They think it was a vampire attack." Just saying the words made me feel sick. I braced a hand against the cold granite island, dropping my head.

"Oh my God," Emily whispered. "Are they sure?"

"Dad says they're pretty sure. A descendant found them first."

"Could it have just been made to look like a vamp attack?" In the background, horns blared then quickly faded. Emily must be driving through Tyler like even more of a maniac than usual.

"Maybe. Are you coming home?"

"Yeah. I should be there soon."

"Okay." I started to hang up, hesitated. "Listen, drive careful, okay? I don't think Mom could handle you getting into a wreck right now."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be home in thirty." With a sniffle, she ended the call.

I dropped down onto a barstool at the island and rested my head in my hands.

This couldn't be happening. As far as I'd heard, the Clann hadn't had anyone die in a vamp attack in decades. How could a vamp have taken out an entire family of descendants like that? And especially my aunt and uncle. Aunt Cynthia and Uncle James were almost as powerful as my parents.

Twenty-three minutes later, Emily's car roared up the driveway and into the garage. She must have broken the speed limits and then some to get here that fast. Seconds later she burst into the kitchen, giving me a quick, hard hug before heading upstairs at a jog.

"Emily," Mom wailed as my sister opened our parents' bedroom door. "They're gone!"

Emily murmured something, followed by our mom's sobs before someone shut the bedroom door again.

A few minutes later, Dad came back downstairs. He dropped onto the barstool beside me, his heavy frame making the metal creak in protest.

"Well, looks like we'll be going to New York." He sighed. "There's no talking her out of it, not with the state she's in."

"You'd better at least keep her drugged or something then," I said, not joking in the least. "Otherwise there's no telling what might happen."

"I know. I'll take some sleeping pills with us. While we're gone, Emily will stay here-"

"Dad, come on. I'm seventeen. I don't need a babysitter."

"No arguments, Tristan. It's the only way your mom and I are going to let you stay here. Your mom would already prefer you and Emily come with us. But to be honest, I don't think you two need to be anywhere near New York. If there's a rogue vamp in that area, the farther you two are from it the better. Furthermore, an adult descendant will be coming to stay here with you."

"Are you serious? I'm probably more advanced than any of them now!" That wasn't cockiness, either, and we both knew it. Dad had been training me to become the fifth generation Coleman to lead the Clann someday, and the weekly practice sessions over the last couple of years had taught me almost everything he knew about magic. Even Dad sometimes had trouble blocking my practice spells.

Not that he seemed to remember that right now.

"Son, do you have any idea how serious this situation is? We're talking about a possible total breakdown of the peace treaty if we don't get a hold on this thing right away. The Clann leader's in-laws were just taken out by one or more vamps in direct violation of the treaty. We've got to find out what's really going on before the Clann makes up its own mind and starts calling for another war."

War? We hadn't had a battle with the vamps in decades.

I searched his face, gauging the hard glint in his eyes and the grim set of his mouth. He was serious.

"You don't think it was just some random vamp who accidentally lost control?"

Dad shook his head. "I wish I could believe that. But you know how big New York is. What are the odds that a vamp would lose control in a city of that size and only go after your mother's family? Plus, it was too clean a hit. They were attacked at home with no witnesses and no sign of a break in."

He scrubbed both hands over his face, his palms rasping over his beard. "Your mother's convinced it's a message, that they're all but openly declaring war on us."

"What do you think?"

"I think it was planned ahead of time. Beyond that, I don't know. We've got to find out if this was a rogue attack or a council-sanctioned hit. And we've got to do it fast before mass hysteria breaks out within the Clann."

He stared ahead at the kitchen without seeming to see anything. "I spent my whole life, and my father half of his, working with the council to create that peace treaty. There's no way I'm going to make any rash decisions to destroy all that hard work without knowing exactly what's going on and seeing if we can stop this train from going off a cliff."

"Can you talk to the council?"

"I'm going to try to reach out to them. But with your mom around, it's not going to be easy. She doesn't want to hear anything short of an immediate declaration of war on all vamps."

I blew out a long breath, running a hand through my hair. This was getting crazy fast. "You've got to calm her down, Dad. And everyone else, too."

"I know. Our cell phone provider's gonna love us this month." One corner of his mouth hitched in a halfhearted attempt at a smile. "In the meantime, I need to know you and your sister will be protected. So do you think you could help your old man out and put up with a babysitter just for a few days till I get back?"

"Yeah, okay." If it made him feel better so he could focus on his job in New York, I guessed I could put up with a babysitter. I just wished he'd change his mind and let me come with him to help him get some answers.

Emily returned downstairs, joining us at the island, her face pale and splotchy beneath its usual tan. "Mom said to call the airlines. She's already packing."

Dad nodded. "I'd better grab the Clann address book while I'm at it." He headed down the hallway off the kitchen toward his study.

"Don't forget your phone's charger cord, too," Emily called out.

"Right. Thanks, Em!" he yelled back.

In the kitchen's silence, Emily and I stared at each other without having to say a thing. She couldn't believe this was happening any more than I could.

Emily sighed. "I'd better go check on Mom, make sure she's packing clothes instead of weapons or something."

She trudged back up the stairs, not bothering to keep her footsteps light and graceful like she usually did.

Unsure what to do, I headed upstairs to my room, opting to lie on my bed and stare at the ceiling. Like everyone else in the house, I left my door open. As a result, my parents' unguarded thoughts drifted throughout the house like radios left on in other rooms They must have been pretty upset to let their mental guards down so completely, even at home. Usually they tried to protect Emily and me more.

I couldn't hear Emily's thoughts, though. Apparently she'd learned how to keep her mental guard up no matter what. Probably because she didn't want our parents to ever learn just what their perfect princess really had been up to over the years.

I wouldn't be surprised if she'd found a way to keep her mental guard up even during her sleep.

Between our parents, Mom's thoughts were the most unguarded and definitely the loudest, her mind a painful mix of wondering how soon she and Dad could get to New York, how she might track down the killer, memories of growing up with Aunt Cynthia.

And surprisingly, memories of an old farmhouse in the middle of nowhere that Mom seemed scared to death to enter.

Later Mom came into my room like a small tornado, her ebony hair once again secured in a harsh bun low at the back of her neck, her outfit all black.

The wrist cuff she carried was also black leather and stamped with a Celtic border along both its edges. In the center was stamped some kind of circular Celtic knot.

"Give me your hand," she demanded, her eyes and cheeks dry now, her lips set into thin lines.

Sitting up, I held out my left arm.

She wrapped the cuff around my wrist and snapped its buttons closed to secure it.

"What is it?" I turned it around so I could see the Celtic knot. On closer inspection, it looked more like some kind of crest.

The Clann's group crest. I recognized it from the same design that had been carved into the back of the stone throne Dad sat in for all the Clann gatherings in the woods.

"It's a vamp ward," she explained.