Page 280 of His Sunshine Baby

“It’s the river!”

The river? The river runs from the north into our territory, crossing Silver City in the west to go down to the sea. I turn around and run towards the former Sea Moon wolves’ territory, close to the seafront. Liam’s right behind me, keeping up with my speed until we get there. Neither of us bothers to shape-shift; we are fast enough and unsure about the situation too. We finally stop, and Moon Goddess, the smell is even worse here. Both Liam and I cover our noses in the same movement.

“Mother Moon Goddess. Oh, that’s so bad,” gasps Liam.

No kidding. It’s worse than bad, that’s… A dozen werewolves and humans are just like us, staring in utter shock and disgust at the river, just a couple of feet beneath our level.

The water turned red and dark. So thick and red… The smell of blood covers any other smell, even that of the sea nearby, and it’s reeking. Even worse, we quickly spot corpses floating by down the stream. Someone pukes on the other side of the river, not making it any better. I can’t blame them, it’s the most horrifying scene I’ve ever seen in my life. How many dead bodies does it take to fill a river with that amount of blood?

Liam and I both look upstream of the river; it’s coming from the north.

“I think that’s one nasty warning,” mutters Liam, as shocked as I am.

“Grab them!” I yell to the men present.

Humans and werewolves look at me as if I was crazy, but as soon as they see me extend my arm towards the river, start obeying.

“Why are we getting them, exactly?” asks Liam, helping me pull the closest body we could grab out of the river.

“We need to know where they came from,” I say, “and to see if they…”

I get my answer before I can finish my question. Liam, too, has a disgusted face. The poor man we grabbed and rolled over has his neck open wide, the flesh ripped open.

“If they were killed by vampires?” sighs Liam. “Yeah, guess they were.”

“That can’t be good,” I growl.

I stand up, trying to look and think about what to do next, but I’m really clueless at this point. The men keep pulling the bodies out of the water, despite being grossed out by their state. Are those blood-suckers toying with us? Or getting ready for battle? Liam takes out his phone once again, calling Sylviana, but I need to get this across the quickest way possible.

“Damian, Nora, Nate, we just found human corpses in the river.”

“What? Humans?”

“Yeah, a lot. I mean we found… five, no, six bodies so far, but judging by the amount of blood, there’s at least four or five times that. It reeks, it’s horrible. The river turned red.”

“Moon Goddess.”

“Your cousins flee Silver City, and now corpses in the river?” says Nate. “That’s a lot for one day.”

“I know, it’s not good, really not good.”

“I’m coming,” says Damian.

“Liam, what is Sylviana saying?”asks Nora.

“She’s just as shocked.Blood in the river is not good for the Water Witch, so actually, the vampires might have done this without her consent.”

“What? I thought she controlled them?”

“Yeah, well, maybe she needs to work on her taming thing.”

I can’t believe he still manages to come up with some sarcasm in such a situation. We pull three more bodies out of the water by the time Sylviana and Damian arrive on the scene. The witch is absolutely horrified.

“Where is Estelle?” I ask.

“I left her with Nora,” explains Sylviana. “By the Mother Earth, those poor people.”

She sits next to the closest corpse, checking their injuries. The blood that immediately stains her hands and dress doesn’t seem to worry her one bit. She keeps frowning and patting them here and there for a while.

---