One Night Burns (The Vampires of Livix, #1) by J Gordon Smith

can’t blame her for trying to mourn faster. Bethany told me her parents had expected a little girl, that would have been Bethany’s older sister, but lost her in some late term pregnancy mishap. Bethany believed her birth lifted them from that darkness, piecing the story together from random talk in the family over the years including pointedly questioning her father.” I wiped my eyes so I could see.
    “That’s awful. Losing two children.”
    I sat back flipping through the thoughts and words like a paperback, “Hey. Did you say attackerS? As in multiples with an ‘S’?”
    “I didn’t mean anything specific with it. Something must be going on in the vampire community to pull him in. He’s separate from the vampire police. Not really independent but pretty much on his own.”
     
    -:-  -:-  -:-
     
    We came to the worn cement steps at the entrance of Wayward and Sons Funeral Home. Thick fluted columns reached two stories to the porch ceiling. The building stood stark in black and white paint reapplied in maintenance coats like foundation makeup applied too thickly and revealed cracks and creases in its corners accentuating its age.
    How many sad people trudged up these steps since the building’s construction?
    I wore a black and maroon sheath dress with a shiny black narrow belt and low heels. They clicked up the concrete steps and across the threshold. Garin cut a precise shape in his black wool suit behind me as we entered.
    I tipped up my sunglasses and stuck them in my hair that I had wrapped up and held with some ebony combs. I looked around. The heavy drapes creating a sudden quietness and darkness. A little sign in the foyer revealed Bethany’s full name and an arrow to the right. I clutched my purse tightly. It wheezed air from the zipper like an old bagpipe as the crumpled tissues stuffing it compressed. Squeezing it kept me from needing them, yet.
    Somber people scattered in tight clumps. Chairs hovered silently in the thick sound deadening carpet. The low ceiling and wide columns sprinkled throughout the interior made it seem claustrophobic or too much like a crypt holding the weight of purgatory above us. Mrs. Gale stooped at the side of the casket clinging to Mr. Gale’s shoulder keeping herself still. Their faces drooped grim and ashen. Patrick played with a hand held computer game while ear buds plugged into the game chattered incessantly but unintelligibly at a low volume. Smudges streaked his face. Shouldn’t have a seven year old here. But probably to keep him close and safe. Others stood, appropriately nervous and sympathetic, but not too close. Some of Bethany’s other college roommates and friends and a few people I recognized from high school glided around the room. I waved a fleeting gesture to those I knew.
    I shuffled to the casket. Black stained wood like furniture in a fashionable home store enclosed her. The lid split open at the top and white tulips laid arrayed like a gown along the whole bottom half of the casket. The interior upholstering glowed in cream fabric. Bethany rested in there like a princess lost in magical sleep in a forgotten world. Although no prince would ever be able to wake her.
    Garin whispered against my ear as he hugged me. Looking over my shoulder. “No vampire feeding.” He squeezed me with his arms.
    How did I get reassured from that? I don’t know. I asked him to check for me. It helped a little and I grasped at the fleetingness of it. It gave me strength to clutch Mrs. Gale’s hand. I hardly noticed Garin shake hands with Mr. Gale and say something unimportant. I touched Patrick’s shoulder. His eyes flashed to me for a second before going back to his game. Furry cartoon characters in little battles. And then I fled.
     
    We ended up at the park on a bench near the fountain. For a while young maple trees and the ceders behind the bench shielded us from the hot sun.
    I could see from the great oak at one end of the park to the band stage marks in