The moment the two vampires are out of sight, my head floods with all the partygoers’ thoughts and my brain threatens to explode. I can’t catch my breath, my lungs tight inside my rib cage, every one of my muscles tensed. I walk back to Kaia in a daze, unable to deal with all this extra emotion, fear, and confusion, not when I have so much of my own already. Moaning, I grip the sides of my head and try to concentrate on something, anything other than the onslaught of thoughts.
The beach is a wreckage of bodies, some just badly injured, others obviously dead. Blood stains the sand around the weakening fire. And the smell, the copper tang of pennies mixed with ocean brine is too much. Nausea roils inside my gut.
Nicholas is lying where he fell, his chest ravaged and bloody, his body curled around itself. I make my way to him on unsteady legs, shaky as a newborn lamb. Pressing two fingers gently to the side of his neck, I check his pulse. A rush of relief envelopes me. His skin is still warm, and his heartbeat is surprisingly strong too, though he’s unconscious. The entire width of his chest is covered in angry gashes and his left leg is bent at an unnatural position, the femur jutting out through his jeans. Even unconscious, his thoughts are fragmented and angry. He’s upset with himself, that much is clear. He keeps picturing the moment when the vampire broke his leg, so intently that I back away, putting a bit of distance between us.
I rush to Kaia next. She’s lying face down in the sand, blood leaking around her in a gory halo. Gently, I turn her over. Her eyes are open and fixed, staring sightlessly up at the sky, sand stuck to the irises.
“Oh no, no, no,” I murmur, my chest and throat tight, tears welling up in my eyes. She came tonight because she wanted to get me out of the house. I try CPR, but after several grueling minutes, I realize it’s no use and stop. She’s lost too much blood and her skin is cooling already, her lips gray. If we hadn’t come, if I’d chickened out like I usually do, she’d still be alive. Fighting a sob, I tear my gaze away, from her body to the smoke still lingering from the house fire across the bay.
The people around me are openly weeping. Some haven’t stopped screaming. There are at least three dead bodies on the beach in addition to Kaia’s, lying close to the water, the tide lapping eagerly at their sides. The thoughts around me are deafening now, overwhelming. A jumble of fear, confusion, grief, anger—it’s so much, too much. Pain explodes behind my eyes. I can’t stay here.
“Stop, stop, STOP!” I yell, clutching the sides of my head. I can’t block them out. Can’t release them without screaming them into the wind. There are so many! My eyes are squinched shut, but I can feel the stares as I fail to fight the swell of thoughts and give in. They begin spewing from my mouth in a jumbled stream, everything I’m hearing mentally coming rapid fire, peppering the air like gunfire. At least two people who have until now been busy recording the ghastly wreckage of the attack aim their phones on me. I spent so much time isolated, trying to avoid this exact sort of moment and now it’s happening, and I can’t stop it, can’t stop myself from giving them a show, the mental load inside my skull still so massive. Every thought I say out loud is one less inside my head.
“Look, someone’s coming,” a girl bundled in a thick cardigan that’s spattered with blood shouts, pointing at the parking lot above us.
I let out a breath. Speaking the thoughts must be working. My head is getting lighter, less full.
Twin headlights knife across the cliffside as a long, black car swings into one of the parking spaces. It’s got heavily tinted windows and looks like something from another era. Definitely not a cop car or ambulance.
Three people emerge from inside. There’s a rail-thin white man with a sharp, angular face and close-cropped wavy hair, a startlingly handsome black man with cork-screw coils and a shadow of a beard lining his chiseled jaw in a three piece suit and a ghostly pale woman with smoky eyes and wild black hair cascading down her shoulders, dressed in a tailored navy shirt with leather pants and riding boots. They almost seem to glide down the stairs to the beach, as if their feet barely touch the steps. The closer they get to the fire, to me, the quieter the world gets, all those thoughts receding with the tide. My body relaxes, every one of my muscles untensing. I gape at the trio. Each of their minds is a void, just like both the vampires were. And Mr. Kane downtown. That can’t be a coincidence.
“Help us!” Blond girl shouts, running toward them, but when she gets a few feet away, she falls to her knees. Her thoughts turn instantly from the attack to awe as she gazes at the man in the suit. He has her transfixed. One word overtakes her thoughts as she stares at him.
Beautiful.
It’s crazy how suddenly clear her thoughts are inside my head, how easy it is to isolate from everyone else’s.
And the closer I get to him, I start to understand. He is beautiful—well handsome in a timelessly sophisticated sort of way. Perfectly symmetrical face, hair that gleams like obsidian in the moonlight, gold-tinged dark brown eyes full of intensity. Every person he nears instantly stills, becomes enraptured by him. I watch as they drop to their knees in worshipful poses. Others, who were scattered down the beach hurry back to the bonfire, inexorably drawn to this man and his companions.
What is happening?
I can sense something inside my head—a certain pull—but not the way the girl and the others do. It’s secondhand, removed. I don’t feel enraptured myself, but I feel their rapture through their thoughts. They’ve all been hypnotized or something.
The woman with the wild hair strides closer to the bonfire, her paper-white skin practically glowing in the moonlight. There is a self-assuredness about her that is almost feline. “These four are dead.” She gestures to the bodies in the surf then her gaze travels to Kaia and me. Her kohl-rimmed eyes bore into mine, fiery and intense in a way that makes my skin crawl. I can’t hear her thoughts at all. Why? Is she a vampire? But she isn’t feral like the ones who attacked us were. In fact, she’s the exact opposite, completely in control. She purses her lips as she examines the scene some more, her attention already drifting away from Kaia and me.
“Roman. Valentine. Gather everyone by the fire,” she orders.
It seems like Roman is the man in the suit and Valentine is the thin one. “We’ll deal with the living first, then the dead.” Her gaze travels from the beach to the cliffside, to the exact spot where the two vampires climbed up and she exhales heavily. “Damnit.” The curse is soft, barely audible.
Roman adjusts the gold cufflink at his wrist and smiles charmingly at the crowd still on their knees. His companion roughly corrals the others.
“Rise and form a circle around the fire,” he croons, his voice a ribbon of velvet winding through the air. Immediately, everyone does what he asks, their fear and confusion completely erased from their brains. Their thoughts begin syncing up, crystalizing into one overarching command: Form a circle around the fire. Every one of them is compelled to listen, their brains now empty save for this overwhelming need to obey.
Except I don’t feel it myself, I only sense their compulsion. Why? Is it connected to the fact that I can’t read these people’s minds?
I do as Roman says anyway. This is definitely not the time to stand out. I want to survive this night and something about this trio is every bit as terrifying as the vampires. I slip into place between two of the partygoers.
Roman goes to each person one at a time, whispering in their ear as I eavesdrop. Over and over, it’s the same story Roman weaves. A bear attacked tonight. It killed your friends.
At first, everyone’s minds push back against the narrative, but then the woman steps into the middle of the circle and pulls out a small bag. She begins uttering words in a language I don’t understand, her eyes not only reflecting the firelight, but seeming to draw it in. She reaches into the bag and pulls out a handful of what looks like ashes and throws it into the flames. Purple light shoots out from the center of the bonfire, spreads, becomes an eerie, glowing smoke that envelops the circle, then the entire beach. I see glimpses of a bear inside that smoke, stalking the circle, swatting a paw at one kid and then another. It’s magic. Is the black-haired woman a witch? It seems impossible and yet…true.
Roman is only a few people away from me now. I stiffen, my heart racing faster and faster. Somewhere in the smoke, the bear roars and several of the partygoers scream.
The witch woman’s voice echoes loudly into the night air. It’s imbued with power, almost a chorus of voices now instead of just one. She says the same strange words over and over. Horrified, I watch as the bear grows more and more solid by the second, attacking Kaia’s dead body, biting it viciously before moving on to another of the dead and doing the same. I swallow back a scream.
This was a bear attack. A bear attack. A bear attack.
Nearly everyone around the circle is now mentally chanting these words.
Suddenly, Roman is standing in front of me. His eyes bore into mine and I get this itchy, crawly feeling across my scalp. It feels like fingernails scratching at my skull.
After a second or two, his eyes widen. “Valentine,” he calls.
The spindly other man looks up from his place beside one of the dead.
“What is it?”
“Come here. This one’s a familiar.” Roman says.
I’m a what? I gape at Roman and then the other man, my heart pumping so hard I’m afraid I might have a heart attack. What’s a familiar?
“Impossible,” Valentine says as he gets closer, giving me a once over, his arms folded across his chest. “Impossible,” he says again, but this time there’s a healthy dose of doubt lacing his words.
“Who are you?” he demands.
“No one. Just a girl.” I hate that I sound scared, my body visibly shaking under the intensity of his stare.
Valentine grabs both of my arms. “Who are you? Your name. Tell me.”
“Seraphina,” I croak, my throat tight. His grip is vise-like and uncomfortable.
“No,no, no. Your surname.” Valentine snaps, impatient. “What familiar family are you from?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I whisper, trying desperately to wrench free from his grasp, but he only squeezes harder. “Ouch! Gray, okay?” I blurt, all my fear quickly turning to anger.
He exchanges a look with Roman then calls to the black-haired lady. “Lillian.”
The witchy woman is too busy chanting to hear. The bear has mauled all the dead bodies now and is slowly dissipating back into smoke.
It was a bear attack. A bear attack. A bear attack.
Everyone’s still chant-thinking it. Oddly, their thoughts are dimmer, hollower than they should be, like I’m hearing them from the other end of a tunnel. The longer I’m around these people the more my mind-reading seems to weaken.
A moment later, the chanting stops. The woman rolls her shoulders and kneads the back of her neck as she turns her attention to us. Of the three of them, she’s the most intimidating. Her eyes are full of ice, coldly appraising everything and everyone.
“What is it?” She asks, her gaze flitting to me.
Valentine stares me down as he answers. “She’s a familiar. That much is clear. But the family name, Gray, is not one I know. And I’ve no recollection of having encountered her before.”
Lillian’s eyebrows pinch together as she strides toward me, fiercely beautiful in her black pants and thick fur-collared coat.
“Why are you here?” she asks as she approaches.
I swallow hard and blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “Um, I came to party?”
I’m scared to death, answering as honestly as I can, but the moment the words are out of my mouth I realize it sounds like I’m being flippant, making a joke, one she clearly doesn’t find funny. So then I start babbling. About sneaking out because I’m basically a recluse and way too young to be, about wanting to meet Nicholas. I turn and point to where Nicholas is lying unconscious in the sand…except he’s not there. Blood stains the sand still, but he’s gone.
A chill runs down my spine.
How?
He was hurt badly. He was there when Lillian’s smoke bear appeared. I think. Jesus, I can’t remember. A pit forms in my stomach. Is he somewhere further down the beach, trying to get away or get help, but slowly dying instead? Maybe he wasn’t as hurt as I thought. But his leg though! There’s no way he could’ve gotten far. I reach out with my mind to see if I can find him, but I can barely even hear the chanted thoughts of the partygoers around me.
Even though Lillian is my height it feels as if she’s looming over me. She grabs my hand and turns it over, runs one icy finger down the center of my palm. “You are indeed a familiar,” she declares. “But why don’t we know about you?”
“I have no idea what the hell a familiar even is!” I shout, exasperated because I have no idea how to answer this. I throw hell in there hoping it makes me sound the tiniest bit brave even though my mother would not approve, but then again, this whole night is a laundry list of things she would not approve of, would be downright terrified of. Thinking of her puts a serious lump in my throat. I want to go home.
Police sirens echo out over the bay. Above the beach on the cliff road red and blue lights strobe insistently. Help is coming.
Roman clears his throat. “It’s time for us to go.”
Lillian nods, her gaze still boring into me. “She’s coming with us.”
I open my mouth to protest as I try to wrench myself away from them and run, but in one swift movement Valentine scoops me up over one shoulder and strides across the beach toward the stairs. For such a slightly built man, he is seriously strong.
I scream, pounding on his back with my fists, but it doesn’t appear to bother him at all. He never breaks pace, taking the steps two at a time. The others stand frozen by the bonfire, staring blankly at the flames, unaware of what’s happening. They’re still mentally chanting bear attack, bear attack, bear attack.
Across the bay the smoke from the house fire is nothing more than wisps of gray smudged over the black, phantoms escaping into the ether.
Somewhere over there my mother remains tucked into bed, soundly sleeping. Dread fills me, consumes me. Where are they taking me?
“Help!” I holler, my voice echoing across the beach, but it’s pointless. No one can save me now.