“Scry?” I asked.
“It’s a form of divination and can sometimes be used to locate someone in the present,” Raphael said.
“I’m sorry. Our powers don’t work like that.” Claudia looked at me. “But hers do.”
Everyone but Meredith expressed surprise. Chris must’ve noticed. “You knew about her and you didn’t tell us?” he said to Meredith.
“It was her secret to tell, ass—”
Mom cleared her throat.
“—dude,” Meredith finished.
“¡Joder! I should’ve known when you said you were like half-bruja blood.”
“Don’t take it too hard. I’ve apparently gotten pretty good about hiding it.” I sat quietly for a second as I gathered my thoughts. “If I understand everything right—which might be a stretch because I’m kind of a newbie—Mr. Hoel can’t do this whole vampire attack thing with wolves more alpha than he is. They’d order him to stop. So he took out the four wolves in the area that are more than him the fastest way he could, tranquilizers, and then shoved them somewhere. But no wolf could be ordered to kill their alpha, they’re not doing that. At least not yet. But even if Mr. Hoel pulls off today, he’s going to have to deal with the alphas. So, my best guess is that he’s going to ditch them someplace close to the vamps. Have them take care of them. Then celebrate with a lovely supernatural coming out party.”
“Shit,” Chris said. “It makes so much sense when she lays it out like that. How come she can see it and I couldn’t?”
Shannon rubbed her forehead. “Because she’s new to this life. She’s seeing things we wouldn’t dream of. Taking out your alpha other than at a full moon challenge is bloody disgraceful.”
Knowing what might be going on and doing something about it were two completely different things. “We need to find them. They’ll know what to do.”
“The question is,” Adrian said, “did they drop them in the caves with the vamps? Or did they stash them somewhere to be dealt with later?”
My face burned. “I have maybe a dumb question.”
“There are no dumb questions,” Claudia said with a smile.
“No. Only dumb people.” When she started to retort, I started talking again. “Do vampires stay awake during the day or are they like dead-ish? I mean some movies have them where they just can’t go out in sunlight, but others where they can’t function when the sun is up.”
“The second. When the sun is up, they’re dead,” Chris said.
“Caves.” I glanced at my watch. “Mr. H would leave them in the den to be food when the vamps wake. That doesn’t give us much time to get there, drag their asses out, and stop any attack on the town.”
“I should mention that this isn’t a small den. There are a lot of them,” Raphael said.
“Think hundreds,” Claudia said.
“Perfect. It’s not like we’ll be outnumbered at all,” Meredith said.
“Shit.” I slapped a hand over my mouth as soon as I let it slip.
“Tess!” Mom said.
“Sorry, Mom, but really—this is a completely shit scenario.”
“Tess,” Axel said. He’d been so quiet, I almost forgot he was there. “This seems really dangerous. I think you should leave with us. Let’s just go.”
“Sorry, broham. No can do.” I smiled sadly. Things had changed so much in the past couple of weeks.
“She’s right, Axel,” Dad said. “Even if I want to lock your sister up to keep her safe, she’s got a different path now.”
That made me feel nearly like a grown up. Maybe I wasn’t such a mess after all.
“You need to be sure before you go into a vampire den that the wolves are actually there,” Meredith said, breaking the silence. “Can you connect with him? Like you did before?”
“Maybe. But what if he’s all drugged-out still?”