It was a long week. Mom and Dad took turns shouting and threatening me over the phone about the burned vamp ward. But I flat-out refused to wear one and risk hurting Savannah. I told them I didn't care if they grounded me again, flew home and ordered me to, or had Emily and Mrs. Faulkner beat on my bedroom door and yell about it for days. It wasn't happening, and that was all there was to it.

Mom nearly went ballistic. Dad promised we'd have a talk when they got home next week. And that was the end of the discussion for now.

I stayed busy all week, using every bit of spare time to make replacement vamp ward blocks. Along with the other descendants on campus, Dylan and the twins stuck to wearing only one ward each, but even those few wards were enough to wear out my blocking charms on a daily basis. Even with drawing energy, I was distracted and played lousy during Friday night's away game. Coach Parker ended up benching me for most of the game in disgust.

I used the weekend to draw energy and worry about Savannah. Would she listen to my warning to be careful? Or was she still practicing using power without supervision? How often did she practice? She would have to go somewhere away from her dad to keep it a secret; there was no way the vamp council was knowingly allowing her to develop her skills. Was she outside in the cold?

Short of calling her and demanding that she let me supervise her practice sessions, there wasn't much I could do to keep her safe. And it made for a lot of sleepless nights.

She was at school on Monday, though, so I could relax while at school. That afternoon after football practice, I headed home and was surprised to find Dad's car already in the garage. They'd gotten home late last night, Mom sleeping in this morning and Dad off to work long before breakfast. I checked my watch. It was only five-thirty, hours before I'd figured he would come home tonight since he probably had a ton of work to get caught up on.

Hoping he was tired and comatose on the living room couch, I walked softly down the hall between there and the kitchen to check on him.

Halfway down the hall, I passed his open study door and discovered him on the phone behind his desk.

Great. Maybe he'd be too busy working from home to give me that "talk" he'd promised.

I turned toward the foyer, but I wasn't quick enough. A sharp snap of fingers commanded me to turn around again and join him in his study.

I eased down into the creaky leather armchair across from him. This was not going to be good.

My left knee bounced as I stared at my hands. Then I began to actually listen to what he was saying.

"No, you don't want to do that, and here's why. We don't know for sure that vampires are the killers in the first place. Yes, I'm serious! Two holes in the neck does not automatically equal a vamp killing." He paused. "Yes, that's true, their bodies were drained. But they could have just as easily been bled out somewhere else then dumped where they'd be found fast. Think about it. Anybody under the sun could be behind it. If we start jumping to conclusions, we could be playing right into their hands. That's why for now I'm asking everyone to stay calm, lay low, wear a ward and let me and the vamp council do the investigating. I guarantee you, we will find out who's behind these murders, and they will be made to pay for it." Another pause. "Yes, I said the vamp council. No, I already told you, these are not council-sanctioned attacks." One last pause. "You be safe, too, and be sure to stay in regular contact with other descendants, at least once a day or so. Okay? Yep, you, too."

He hung up, ran a hand over his receding silver hair, then sighed loudly. "And that's the life of the Clann leader in a nutshell. Putting out brush fires one call at a time."

"We should get a website or something so we can release one mass statement to all the descendants at the same time."

Dad grinned. "You know, that's not a bad idea. We could use a little more organization around here."

The tension in my shoulders eased. Maybe he wasn't planning on punishing me after all.

I looked at his desk, which appeared to have been barfed on by a paper monster, and laughed. "Yeah, because obviously being organized is a major focus in this house."

He chuckled.

"But seriously, Dad, how do you do it? How do you say the same things over and over without going nuts?"

"That's the life of any leader worth a dime. You've got to have patience."

"Even with the prejudiced idiots?"

"Even them. We're only the Clann leader till death or revolt."

"I heard you warning them to wear their wards. Which is what I kind of needed to talk to you about."

"Mmm-hmm. I've been meaning to talk to you about it, too."

Uh-oh. Here it came. "I'm sorry I refused to wear the ward."

Silence. His eyebrows shot up, and he leaned back in his chair and clasped his thick fingers over his gut. "But?"

"But I couldn't do it. Not with a half vamp with no immunity to the wards on campus. She can't help what she is any more than I can. Why should she pay for something that's going on halfway across the country?"

Dad's mouth turned down. He rubbed his chin through his beard. "You know, your momma's really sore about it. She made that ward herself."

"Yeah, I know she was mad. But it just wasn't right. And it's not like I don't have other ways to protect myself."

He nodded slowly. "That's what I told your mom when she was sobbing about her poor, unprotected little boy and nearly making herself sick over it."

I tried not to roll my eyes at the less-than-subtle guilt trip attempt.

He sighed. "She's mad, but she'll get over it. Did anything else happen while we were gone?"

I rocked back in the chair. He sounded like he was asking for a report or something. "Um, not really. Well, there was a small problem with Dylan showing up at school wearing two wards. But I had a talk with him about it."

"Oh yeah? What kind of talk?" He grinned, leaning forward in his chair.

"I, uh, might have flash burned one of his wards." Seeing his eyes widen, I added, "But I ripped it off his wrist first. And I made sure no one else was around to see."

"So I should be expecting a whining call from his father any second now?"

"Maybe." In fact, I was surprised Mr. Williams hadn't already called. "He might not have told his dad about it, though. It happened while Dylan and I had a little face-off about Dylan wrecking Savannah's truck a couple of weeks ago, and then his working with the Faulkner twins today to try and wreck her new car."

Dad grumbled a swear word. "Okay, I'll handle it."

I hesitated. "If Mr. Williams does call you, you might want to ask him about how he's using power to punish Dylan. He's forcing his son to try and come up with ways to make me break the rules so you'll do something dumb. They want to make you look weak and biased toward protecting your family instead of upholding Clann law so they can push for new leadership. And when Dylan's less than successful at ticking me or Sav off..."

Dad's eyes flared then narrowed to dangerous slits. "You're kidding. He's using power on his own son for punishment?"

I nodded. "It doesn't leave a mark, so there's no proof of the abuse."

Dad swore again. "I'll have a talk with the elders. We'll figure something out to stop it. It would serve Mr. Williams right if his plan backfired and we banned him from the Clann."

Something tight in my chest loosened, making me realize just how much I'd worried that the Clann might not do the right thing to help Dylan after all.

"Thanks, Dad." I started to get up.

"Hey, tell me how the game went. Your mom and I were sorry we couldn't be there."

Well, maybe Dad had been. We both knew how Mom felt about descendants playing sports that might reveal their extra abilities. "You didn't miss much. I played like crap. With everything that's going on..."

"Tough to keep your head in the game?"

I nodded.

"Well, hopefully we'll find some answers soon that'll satisfy everyone and let this whole situation blow over."

"Did you mean what you said on the phone about how the deaths could be a fake vamp attack?"

Dad's big shoulders rose and fell. "It's always possible someone's playing on old fears. It could have even been a descendant behind it, for all we know right now. I went to the morgue with your mother. I saw the bodies and..." He swallowed hard, cleared his throat and continued. "Well, let's just say I've got a feeling the situation's not nearly as clear cut as your mother wants it to be."

"You know, I get that vamps are dangerous to us. But what I don't get is why all the hatred...people don't sit around hating lions or tigers for doing what comes naturally to them. And we're just as dangerous to the vamps, too."

Dad propped an elbow on the desk and slowly rubbed the back of his neck. Finally he muttered, "Don't let your mother know I told you, but...she lost both sets of her grandparents in the last war with the vamps. Her parents' families were poor folks with neighboring farms. After her parents got married, when times got too hard to afford both places, their families decided to move in together and work as a team to try and save one of the farms. One night she and her sister and parents went into town. When they got back home, they found everyone else dead. The vamps must have hit their house as a group. She says she can still remember how it looked."

Dad sighed and scrubbed a hand over his eyes, which had more than a few bags under them. "It must have been a pretty bad sight to see, especially as a little kid. She still has nightmares about it sometimes."

The farmhouse from Mom's thoughts last week, the one she was afraid to enter...

I tried to imagine coming home and finding my family murdered like that, and the rage I might feel afterwards. "Oh man."

He nodded. "And she's not the only one with memories and loss like that. Most of us lost at least one or two loved ones. It left a lot of scar tissue. So you see how it might take more than a few talks to convince everyone to settle down and forget the past."

After about a minute of silence, I got up and headed for the door.

"Oh, by the way." Dad's voice stopped me in the doorway. "Your momma's off to Tyler to pick up your sister and bring her home."

"Why?" Couldn't Emily drive herself? Had her car broken down or something?

"Emily came down with a nasty case of the flu. Can't seem to stop puking. So you might want to drink extra orange juice this week and avoid your sister's room."

"Right. Thanks for the warning." I went upstairs to my room to chill out on my bed with my MP3 player for a while. But my mind wouldn't turn off.

It seemed being the Clann leader was a lot different than I'd thought. I'd always assumed that Dad had total power and could just make an order, and the Clann had to follow it. But he made it sound like he was some ordinary elected official who had to convince people to do what was needed.

Definitely not a job I was looking forward to taking over anytime soon.

He really should consider giving the role to Emily. She had always had the ability to sway people into seeing things from her point of view. She could convince you so well that within half an hour she'd have you believing it was your idea in the first place. And that was without using a spell.

Maybe I could talk him into seriously considering it.

I heard a racket on the stairs and stuck my head out the bedroom door just as Mom and Emily reached the second-floor landing.

"Hey, sis. Sorry you're so sick. Need any help or...?"

"No, thanks," she grumbled as she shuffled into her bedroom and flopped onto her bed.

"She'll be fine," Mom said, bringing up the rear with a glass full of murky greenish-brown fluid that could only be some terrible mix of herbs and spells. "We just need to get this down her, and keep it down long enough for it to kick in."

Emily croaked, "Honestly, Mom, I'm not that sick."

Yeah, right. She just didn't want to drink that nasty crap Mom always shoved down our throats every time we got a sniffle.

"Oh please, you've been barfing for hours," Mom argued. "Now hush up and let your mother take care of you for a while."

I shut my door, grateful not to be Emily right now. I didn't know what would be worse...alone in a dorm room with the flu, or suffering from Mom's herbal drinks. But at least one good thing should come out of it. Mom would probably be too busy taking care of Emily for a few days to stir up any more anti-vamp attitudes within the various branches of the Clann. That ought to give Dad a chance to calm everyone down.

I tried to picture Mom on the phone with all of the descendants and cringed. Now that would be bad. Mom could stir up World War III in a matter of hours. As smart as Emily was, I wouldn't put it past her to be faking the flu just to keep Mom too busy to nag Dad endlessly for a crackdown on vamps' rights.

Later that night, I went to Emily's door to check on her.

It sounded like she was barfing up everything and the kitchen sink in her adjoining bathroom.

I cracked her door open and called out, "Sis, do you-"

"Go away," she moaned.

I eased the door shut and carefully stepped away from her room. I should have remembered how cranky she got when she was sick.

There was a girl who would never go down without a fight.

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