Dyed in Red

One: Seeking the Truth

ONE

"Your mother was a lovely lady. Your father was never interested in romance, so I was stunned when he told me he was engaged," said Arthur. I stood behind him while he shuffled through the archive computer at the hunters' headquarters.

I had just informed him of my revelation about my mom and Zach's observation that a few seemingly important vamps never surfaced again. I first asked Arthur what he knew about my mom, which was very little.

"They hid the whole vampire thing so well," I noted.

"Quite! In retrospect, there were many signs. When Devyn first introduced us, she said she was very camera shy and never took photos."

I almost laughed. "And as a vampire hunter, that didn't sound suspicious to you?"

He glanced back at me, smiling wryly. "I trusted Devyn. I was delighted that he found someone."

The air between us grew dreary for a moment. I patted Arthur's shoulder. "We're on the road to make sure people like my dad wouldn't be persecuted by their deranged pupils."

"Oddly specific." He finally chuckled. "Devyn also didn't tell anyone else about their marriage. He said it was because he didn't want her or you roped in the media. Looking back, it was to protect you from people like Henrietta."

"Yeah...."

"Oh, here's the Ceallakánn file."

Harvick told me that our vampire family name was Ceallakánn, which sounded dope as hell.

Arthur squinted through his reading glasses. "It happened almost a century ago. Hunters weren't good at filing back then. They were mostly people who had nothing to do except train to fight monsters."

I leaned in and read the dismal amount of information on the page. "Someone anonymously tipped them?"

"So it seems. Someone called and just gave the locations of all the houses," Arthur said, staring at the screen. "That date... why does it look important? Oh, those tips were given exactly a year after we invented the anti-vampire smoke bomb."

"The one that weakens a vampire's senses?"

"Yup. People were probably really eager to use the smoke on the field."

We both dismissed that minor detail. I kept reading, went past the death number, went past the captured number, went past the dead captured number, and arrived at a small note at the end of the page.

"'300 personnel were deployed to take down all the estates at once: 15 Chiefs, 100 Specialists, 185 Elitists. Of these, 6 Chiefs, 59 Specialists, 114 Elitists gave their lives.' Oh my God," Arthur read. "Even with the smoke, they took out more than half of the force."

I felt a strange sense of pride before I mentally slapped myself. Lots of people died here; hunters and vampires alike. I lost my grandparents.

"Still, we didn't find any clues," I spoke, sighing.

Arthur turned to me in his chair. "Not here, but I'll take a squad to the crime scene. If the attacker drew Devyn and Mihaela to that mountain, it could mean they were nearby. We'll go sweep the area."

I nodded. "Good idea. I'll talk to more people and see what I can find."

Next, I sat on the couch in Harvick's office. Lost was everything in the Ceallakánn libraries after the manors burnt down, so I couldn't do any research there. But Harvick still had his brain.

"I don't think our family had any enemies," he said. "We lost contact with the other families centuries ago, but we were a kind bunch. We never banished any Elites and even saved many turnees."