In the next second, I land with a soft bounce on the mattress as Sean scrambles to sit up. "Sorry, little girl," he apologizes, temporarily muffling the mouthpiece on his cell with his hand before resuming the conversation with his brother. "How many killed? How much destroyed? Is it the same as before?" he urges Silas, his voice full of horror.
Snatching the covers to my breast, I flounder to a sit beside Sean. The early morning chill in the bedroom sends a shiver of foreboding along my exposed back, but I tamp it down and lean close to my mate. I tug the phone away from his ear and press the speaker button before Silas can give his answer. "Hey, Silas," I announce myself so that he's not surprised on what I've recently made a conference call.
"Hi Sandy." There's no doubt by the tone of his voice that he's not wholly pleased that I'm listening in now. Whether that's because Sean can be so Neanderthal and overprotective or because he genuinely didn't want me overhearing remains to be seen. It might be why he texted instead of calling, then again, I am still a triumvir mate. "Sorry to wake you."
"It's okay. I hope you don't mind if I listen in."
Even in the dark, I can see the irritated golden glow of Sean's eyes as I address the request to Silas, and I can feel my mate bristle that I did. It's a tough row to hoe. Sean and Silas are brothers. While the two were together in Desert pack, they used to alternate holding the alpha and Second triumvir positions in the Desert leadership triumvirate.
Until Sean came here.
At which point he developed an unnatural crush on the Candlewood Luna—my sister, Darby—and Alpha Ian's mate, then negotiated an alliance and essentially a Second triumvir 'trade' to get himself into Candlewood. And since he can be a conceited and puffed-up jerk, he thinks I don't know any of this. Or that it still sometimes chaps him that his brother is now an alpha, while Sean's a Second triumvir.
Which is frankly absurd, in my opinion. As Darby is wont to say: 'you don't love a Were because he's particularly bright—you love him for the passion he brings to living.' Among other clever things she has to say.
In Candlewood, Sean may be merely a Second triumvir, but it's still the most powerful pack in the country and is highly regarded in the global community as well. Which means that by default, he's regarded highly in the global community and his opinion is held more valuable than that of the alphas of packs in many other places.
"I don't mind at all," Silas answers, kindly and with a smile in his voice. "I know you'll wrangle it out of Sean anyway. Besides, you might be of some help."
Next to me, Sean huffs doubtfully, earning himself a painful pinch in the side. "Ow!" he whispers, flinching away. "You'll pay for that."
I doubt it—I doubt it genuinely. I flash him a generous smile, knowing his Were vision, like most canines, is keener than mine and allows him to see it in the dark. "I'm not certain what help I can be, but I'm happy to try," I reply to Silas. "What makes you think I might?"
"Because it's a recurring problem," Silas replies flatly. "And whatever it is, it's coming from the ocean."
"Wait," Sean interjects. "Before you get into the backstory, tell us what's happened. Demons Tangle Shoals. Attacked. When? How many injured and killed? How much damage?"
"Hang on." There's a lull and muffled voices while Silas deals with something—on the scene from the sounds of it—issuing curt orders with alpha efficiency.
"Sorry," he says, returning to Sean and I waiting. "The development off the Demons Tangle, Vista del Oceano, on the outskirts of Ciudad d'Arena—sixteen houses, essentially bulldozed and another twenty severely damaged. Three confirmed dead. Nine injured. Nineteen missing so far. Happened slightly after midnight. The residents tell the same story they always do."
Silas' terse recount leaves me wholly numb, shocked and confused.
Ciudad d'Arena has had its problems in the past. With vampires trafficking feeder humans across the borders most notably. But under Silas and Sean, the vampires were all but wiped out in their territory, and those left certainly behaved better than their compatriots in other parts of the country. Once the alliance was struck between Desert pack and Candlewood pack, Ciudad d'Arena underwent a spectacular revival and booming growth. Plus, the vampire problems were significantly curbed when Ian killed the Coven master of the largest vampire empire in the country.
So to hear such an unemotional, collected report of an incident that will doubtless shock the now-thriving community, well, it leaves me speechless.
Beside me, Sean sighs heavily.
"What's the story the residents always tell? Or are you being facetious?" I ask.
"This gets into the backstory that Sean wanted me to wait to give you," Silas explains. "This isn't the first attack like this in Ciudad d'Arena. All of them since Desert pack started recording them have happened in the areas off of Demons Tangle, right off the Pacific. And they all happen the same way."
"How many is 'all of them'?" A myriad of conflicting emotions crashes around inside me at the mere thought of something skilled of that kind of destruction. Something emerging from the ocean to do it.
"In the two-hundred-fifty years since the MacOmbs settled in Desert territory, it's getting close to thirty," Sean answers. "All of them off Demons Tangle. They increase in frequency when this particular shoreline is developed for any use."
'Increase in frequency' when human—or in this case, also maybe Were—habitation encroaches on the shoreline directly off the shoals. Oh sweet goddess. Nausea twists my stomach and a scalding flush of dizziness washes over me. I'm almost afraid to ask. "What's Demons Tangle?"
"It's an area of dangerous coastal features—labyrinthine shifting sandbars, unpredictable currents, rough waves, tidal rips and rocky reefs—made worse by unpredictable weather, including storms and thick fogs. It stretches for about twenty-five miles along the coast and into the ocean, but the most consistently dangerous area is here. It's a low-lying area that backs up against the bluffs above."
"There's no good soundings of the area—the sandbars are anywhere from five to fifteen feet deep and shift anytime there's a heavy storm surge, which makes them perilous for boats, swimmers and surfers alike," Sean says grimly. "Swimming races out to the Demons Tangle are common as a rite of passage or initiation, mostly for the college kids, and there are a lot of drownings. Unfortunately, it's also a seven-mile long, spectacularly beautiful stretch of prime ocean view realty as well, so there's constant demand for development there, despite these—incidents."
"And what are the 'incidents'?" I ask softly, my voice muffled by my fingers covering my mouth. My thoughts tumbling chaotically as an unpleasant similarity is beginning to form in my head.
"Night attacks," Silas supplies. "Always night attacks. They're attributed meteorologically to equinox tides, sometimes to mini-tsunamis, with waves reaching up to three meters. Survivors say the first notable thing is the sound—the water retreating from the shoreline. Then comes a strange, sickening stench. Then the returning water and the accompanying noise. Accounts get conflicting and crazy from there. The more frightened the survivors are, the more outlandish the stories."
"I'll bet," I mutter and an icy shiver washes over me. My eyes close in the darkness as my fears threaten to overwhelm me. "Equinox tides and mini-tsunamis have to have a cause—a supermoon on an equinox, a landslide or earthquake that triggers them. I take it there's nothing of that nature to account for them?"
"No."