Sam chose the worst possible moment to come outside.
"What's going on?" she asked, looking from one of us to the next in puzzlement.
"It's nothing, Samantha," the professor said. "Go back inside."
"It's not nothing," I said hotly. "Chief Mendez is dead."
"I don't understand," she said. "What's happening? Why is your father in handcuffs?"
"Sam," I said. "Your dad..." There wasn't an easy way to say it. "He killed Chief Mendez and tried to frame my father."
Officer Denton came back with a pair of gloves in an evidence bag.
"No!" Sam screamed. "No! Daddy, tell them it's not true." The look on Samantha's face confirmed that she had been as oblivious as I was. It was worse than I had ever imagined.
To my relief, Officer Denton took the cuffs off my father's wrists. "Think about it, Samantha," I said. "His weird disappearances? The woman with the birthmark? We both saw her that night, and then she was caught trying to poison everyone at Slim's."
I saw the exact second when realization dawned in her face.
"These people are my friends, Dad," Samantha said. "I can't believe you've been plotting to hurt them for all these years."
"Ridding the world of vermin is expensive, but it's worth every penny," he said. "And I eventually found a way to recoup some of my losses." He grinned evilly.
"You mean, illegally?" she asked.
"I did it for you, Samantha," he said. "To make the world safe for you to live in."
"What about Chief Mendez?" she said.
"It was necessary," he said.
"Necessary?" she screamed at him. "Necessary? He was Ryan's father. You killed Sean's best friend's dad. He was a good person."
"He was a Were. Vermin." The disgust in her father's voice made Sam start to cry.
Mr. Devereaux was telling us an awful lot for a criminal. It was almost like he didn't think it would matter.
Mr. Bone stepped out of the shadows. His normally smiling face looked grim as he grabbed Mr. Devereaux by the arm. "Come with me, Devereaux."
"What is this? A citizen's arrest?" Mr. Devereaux scoffed.
"Not exactly," Mr. Bone said. The look in his eyes made Mr. Devereaux cringe. "Officer Denton," Mr. Bone continued, "please arrest this man." Mr. Devereaux was lucky that Mr. Bone was a law-abiding citizen.
Sam collapsed into my arms as her father was cuffed by Officer Denton. Tightly.
Strangely, there was a smirk on Mr. Devereaux's face. "I'm sure your graduation party will be a major blowout," he called out as the officer led him away.
What did he mean by that?
Mr. Bone and my parents followed them, and then it was silent, except for the sound of my best friend's pain.
"Shhh," I said. "It'll be okay. It'll be okay." I was trying to convince myself as much as Sam. How could it be okay? Ryan's dad had been murdered. It couldn't get worse than that, could it?
Then a terrified scream echoed in my mind. I looked around to make sure I hadn't heard it, and there was silence, except for the sound of Sam's sobs. I glanced over at the Black Opal. It was completely dark. Something was wrong. The power had been cut.
"Sam," I said. "I need you to be strong now."
She sniffed. "But my father..."
"Something's wrong," I said. "Something is terribly wrong. I heard a scream."
My words drew her out of her own misery for a moment. "I didn't hear anything."
"I know," I replied. Sometimes I forgot that not everyone had powers like mine.
I sent a message to my sister. Rose, is everything all right inside?
Inside? Where are you?
Never mind that. Are you okay?
The power just went off.
Something Mr. Devereaux had said finally sank in. The graduation party would be a blowout. Would he actually be crazy enough to endanger his own daughter? I started to shake when I realized the answer.
You need to get everyone out of there now.
WHAT? WHY?
Please, Rose, just do it. I think the Scourge plans an explosion. Get everyone out of there! We'll be there to help in a minute.
No, stay there.
There was no way I was going to follow her advice.
"Sam, I have to go inside for a minute," I said. "But no matter what, don't come in after me, do you hear me?"
"Daisy, what's going on?"
The dread on my face answered her question.
"Something bad," she said with certainty. "And my dad's responsible. I'm going with you."
"Sam," I protested.
"Sean's in there," she said, her voice trembling. "And the rest of his family, including Katie. How could he do that?"
I couldn't say no. "Let's go," I said. "But stay close to me no matter what. And keep a lookout for the members of the Scourge."
"What do they look like?" Sam asked.
"You'll know 'em when you see 'em," I said. "They'll be the ones trying to kill us."
We approached the front door, which was blocked. A huge silver bar was wedged through the door handles, preventing anyone from escaping.
A pudgy middle-aged man was guarding the entrance.
He didn't seem to notice me at all, as his entire attention was focused on Samantha. He grinned evilly and stepped into Sam's personal space.
"Late to the party are you, princess?" He was busy with Samantha, which meant I could use my powers of telekinesis to unlock the door. It was tougher than I thought, but I tried to remember Poppy's coaching and finally managed to get one end of the bar to wiggle a little.
"Hands off, you moron," Sam said.
I whipped my head around and saw that the creep had his hands all over Samantha.
"What do you think you're doing?" I said.
"He obviously doesn't know who my dad is," Sam said. She gave him a shove, and he released her.
"Who's your daddy?" the man leered, but he sounded worried. Good.
"Spenser Devereaux," she said. "The leader of the Scourge."
"What?" the man said. He sounded caught off-guard, maybe even a little scared. "The boss didn't say anything about his daughter being here."
It looked like he was buying Sam's story, so I returned my attention back to the bars.
"He must have forgotten," she lied convincingly.
I finally managed to free the bar. It hovered in the air, but I couldn't get it to move.
"Let me call it in," the man said. He reached for his phone. That's when the bar flew through the air and smacked him across the face. He fell to the ground.
"It took you long enough," Sam said. "That guy had breath as bad as a zombie's."
"Is he breathing?"
She stepped over him. "Would it be so bad if he wasn't? Let's go rescue our friends."
Inside, it was chaos. Members of the Scourge were locked in combat with the citizens of Nightshade, paranormal and normal alike.
Sam disappeared for a minute and I panicked, wondering if she'd already been snatched by one of the Scourge.
They weren't really trying to do much damage, I noticed. There were no guns or serious weapons. They were just trying to keep everyone inside, until the explosion.
Bane carried a bleeding Mrs. Wilder as Elise and Wolfgang forged a trail by knocking down anyone who got in their way.
Sam reappeared at my side. "There's Katie!" she said.
Jessica carried Katie as the rest of the Walsh sisters trailed behind. I flinched when I saw a short red-haired man move toward them. Jessica put Katie down behind her and then grabbed a nearby folding chair. She brought it down on his head, and the man crumpled to the ground. A tattoo stood out in stark relief on her arm and then faded away.
As they moved toward the exit, a large blond woman stepped into their path and raised her fists. Before she could strike, Samantha launched herself at the woman and tackled her to the floor.
"Come with me," I said to the girls.
Sam was still smacking the woman with her purse. "Sam, let's go. We need to get the girls out of here and then find Sean and Ryan."
With one last thump from Sam, the woman passed out. Sam smiled in satisfaction and then shouldered her purse again.
"What do you have in there, rocks?" I asked her as we moved through the crowd. Jessica had picked Katie back up and the rest of Sean's sisters followed.
"Even better," she said. "I loaded it up with rolls of quarters from the ring-toss booth."
All around us, Nightshade citizens were doing battle with the Scourge.
Flo was a whirring, kicking blur. She seemed to be everywhere at once.
"I didn't know she could fight like that," I said. A voice at my ear said, "She's a virago, Daisy. A woman warrior whose powers are only activated when the city is in peril."
"Slim! You're okay," I said, relieved. "A virago, huh?"
I filed the information away for later. I was fairly certain there was a virago in Sean's family, one who would be starting high school in the fall.
Natalie was on his other side, but she didn't speak to me. She was reciting a chant, and I was relieved when I realized it was a protective spell for the little kids.
The few times she got close enough, I saw that Flo's tattoos were swirling as she moved.
"Can you take the girls and get them out of here? As far from the club as you can go?" I asked Slim. "Sam, you go with them."
"Absolutely," he said. "I'll take them to the restaurant. I have my catering van. They should be safe there. Please watch out for my sister."
"I'll do my best," I said. But he and the girls were already gone.