Prologue

Purple Creek, August 1999

    The heat of the day slowly gave way to the chill of the coming evening. From the north the sky was covered with heavy, steel-gray clouds heralding the arrival of a violent summer storm. Gusts of the wind carried the distant echo of thunder. But nothing could compare with the element, which was tearing the siblings' hearts when they were standing in the local cemetery in this late August afternoon. Six brothers and their only sister, lost in thoughts, with determination visible on their faces and bottomless grief in sight. The sudden death of their mother was not only a blow for them, but it was also a shock.

    They buried Isabo only few days earlier. The police closed the investigation into her tragic death, giving the statement that she was attacked by a wild animal. A wolf, probably. That's what the sheriff said. But Jay knew more. She saw the murderer of their mother. Murderers, actually. She saw them with her own eyes. Not only the werewolf. There was a vampire as well, who quietly watched everything, standing on the edge of a forest clearing. Jay remembered the look on his face. Ecstasy in his eyes when he observed his servant-werewolf tearing their mother's throat. For her, the vampire was just as guilty.

    She was the only witness of this crime. And once she had recovered from the first shock, she ran home for help as fast as she could. But it was too late, and no one believed her. She related everything, giving all details of the macabre scene. Just to hear that her imagination went too far! That it was too strong experience and she, for sure, exaggerates everything! Because it's impossible that there's a murderer in their small, happy, quiet town! A supernatural one!

    She heard her father and Sean, mother's friend, talking quietly with sheriff and his men. They didn't want panic in a small town like Purple Creek. Jay must have admitted that she understood them. She also didn't want her friends to leave the town in panic when they got to know that a killer-werewolf prowls here. However, the fact that her own father considered her testimony for a twelve-year exuberant imagination was what hurt Jay the most. But she found some kind of consolation in acknowledgement and understanding that she could notice in Sean's eyes.

    They weren't naive. They knew that preternatural creatures live among normal people. Some of them are still hiding, but it was hard to imagine that they might live also in Purple. But Isabo's death forced Sean and their grandma to reveal the truth. The truth that was hard to accept. Because it changed everything in their lives. It turned their whole world upside down.

    They got time to think. Neither Isabela, nor Sean wanted to push them. They knew that this decision, very hard one, belonged only to them. They tried to talk about it, but the truth is that they had to form their own, separate opinion about new reality they have found themselves in. And on that day, in electrified forthcoming evening, they met by their mother's grave. They didn't have to speak. They have made their decision.

    They were a specific mixture of personalities and characters, but no matter what they always stick together. Although they were siblings, the physical similarities between them came to swarthy complexion, inherited from their mother in whose veins flowed the blood of the Spanish and Gypsy, and few small details like mouth outline, the shape of eyebrows or nose. Three pairs of twins: Carter and Christian, Jason and Jaysabel, Mark and Michael, and the youngest of them, Daniel.

    While standing in the cemetery, in violent gusts of hot August wind, the Tyler siblings made a solemn oath. They promised each other that they will not rest until Isabo's murderers meet deserved punishment. And for such a crime it could only be death. Death of their hands.

    They already knew where to go for help, and they were sure that they will receive assistance. Their grandmother was always regarded as a witch. How much it was truth, and how much residents’' fantasy, no one could tell, apart from the interested herself. For last few years she was living in Missoula, but now, after her daughter's death, she came back to take care of her grandchildren. For sure Isabela had hope that now, when they learnt the truth, her grandchildren would follow ancestors. And she was not mistaken in this matter.

    There still reminded the issue of housing, but once again the siblings were unanimous. Their father wanted to take them to New York, from where he got out for his wife's funeral, immediately. However, after violent protests of kids and their housekeeper, he decided to grant Maria the right to care for his children during his absence. That is, until they reach adulthood, as they supposed. Sean also offered help. He worked with Isabo for last few years, and he felt responsible for her kids, to some degree, as they lost their mother so suddenly. He count it was his duty to give them the knowledge and to help them to develop the gift, about which they had no idea. Until now.