Covet (Clann)

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