Chapter 2
Danni
One Year Earlier
The clicking of my keyboard drowns out the busy traffic filtering through the open windows of the office bullpen, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling distracted.
There’s nothing duller than writing up an article detailing the different kinds of lace some princess in England wore to some tennis game.
No offense to the people who do this and enjoy it, but it’s not me.
I’ve been back in my hometown of Hillsview, Arizona, writing vacuous articles for almost a year. It pained me to swap the bustling subways of New York for desert and mountains, but I had to come back. I had a job to do. I was here, putting up with this shit for one reason and one reason only.
To find my mom’s killer.
Mom was the entire reason I got into journalism in the first place.
Originally, I had planned to join law enforcement.
I even went through six months of Army-style basic training; learning how to psychologically out-maneuver your opponent wasn’t for the weak.
But I realized all too quickly that becoming a police officer wouldn’t get me what I wanted.
The mystery surrounding mom’s death often made people look at me like I had three heads. The cops had laughed hysterically at my witness statement, claiming my story had been a cocktail of wild imagination and shock.
I know what I saw.
My mom was killed by a vampire. Ever since then, I bounced between jobs I thought might help me bring her killer to justice. I had run out of leads in New York. Every time I got close enough to catch him, he disappeared. That’s how I ended up writing shitty articles for Hillsview News.
Up until now, there’s been no pattern in the vampire coven’s appearances.
Until I saw a recent article about a strange circus that visits Hillsview only once every fifteen years.
The exact date and timeframe was identical to the night of my mom’s murder, and it also matched the other articles I’d seen.
Wherever this circus pops up across the country, people seem to go missing. From what I can tell, it started out small. Only a couple of people from each town had disappeared into thin air. Not enough for a decent journalist to put two and two together.
I’d probably have missed it myself if I didn’t see what had happened to my mom. It’s the only advantage I have in this situation.
Cursing the hottest and longest day of the year under my breath, I flex my fingers and crack my neck as a bead of sweat trickles down my back.
I stare down at the blurry words on the computer screen, my mom’s face flashing to the forefront of my mind’s eye.
I try to stifle my irritation over how none of this mindless journalism matters to me.
Finally, I look up from my computer at the sound of my name being called.
“Danni! My office, now!”
I cringe and crinkle my nose at the sound of my boss’s abrupt tone. Alan’s steely eyes meet mine over the deep brown cubicles and I gulp, wondering what the fuck I’ve done to piss the douchebag off now. It’s no secret in the office that I don’t like Alan in the slightest.
He runs a tight ship and makes it known to absolutely anyone who would listen that he gave up his job at the New York Times to come over and run this joint. So naturally, everything must be perfect.
I have to force myself not to roll my eyes as I get up and head into his office on the other side of the floor.
I straighten my white blouse and black pencil skirt, then inhale deeply to calm myself before I enter the room. I instantly regret it. His office reeks of stale cigar smoke and an old, spicy cologne that stopped being produced in the 1940’s. Alan is a walking cliché.
I force myself to plaster a false smile on my face as I enter.
“You wanted to see me, sir?” I say sweetly, purposely leaving the door open as I take a seat in front of his enormous desk.
“You got that piece on Princess Florence done yet?” He doesn’t look up from the papers he’s examining in his hands. Alan is very good at making a person feel like they’re the smallest fish in the pond.
“Almost done, sir.” I keep my tone cheerful and respectful despite my insides screaming at me to tell him to stick his job right where the sun doesn’t shine.
“Good. I need you to head out into the field tonight. Straight after you’re done here.”
My heart leaps and I have to ball my hands into fists to hide my excitement. Could this be it? If my calculations are correct, the circus will arrive in Hillsview any day now.
“Yes, sir. What am I reporting on, exactly?”
Please tell me I’m finally going to catch a vampire tonight.
Alan finally looks up from his papers with narrow, beady eyes. “Circus. Tonight. Autumn Fields just outside of town.”
My heart leaps.
This is it.
Years of planning and countless sacrifices have all led up to this moment.
“Is there a problem, Danniella?”
I clench my fists harder, my nails biting deep into my palms. He leans back in his chair and puts his hands behind his head, typical male dominant subliminal messaging.
“No, sir. I’ll make sure I leave on time.” I rise and head for the door, eager to go home and change into something more appropriate.
“There’s something off about this circus. It’s why I’m sending you in.”
I freeze at the edge of the doorway, slowly turning back to him.
Does he know? No, he couldn’t.
Alan is a good reporter, or at least he was in his heyday. But there’s no way he could know that these creatures are real. I swallow hard and decide to feign ignorance.
“What do you mean, off?” I wait for Alan’s typical speech about teen drinking.
He leans back in his chair, the metal showing its age with an ominous creak as he pensively gazes out of the window.
“The big top only comes into town once in a blue moon. They chose Hillsview of all the places in the country to pop up this year. But the kicker is when people leave, they don’t remember anything about the attractions. I want to know why they keep coming back when there’s nothing new here.”
I frown, my brain working overtime to put the pieces together. The reports I’d read didn’t have those types of details, either. It would make sense why the articles were always so vague.
Why can’t they remember?
“So maybe it’s from drugs?” I ask tentatively. “Isn’t a circus supposed to be a family event?”
With a large, hairy hand, Alan pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance. I’ve apparently asked too many questions. I step further into the doorway. “Sorry, sir. I’ll be sure to avoid the food so I can gather a coherent report for you.”
His only reply is a curt nod before he glances back down at his papers and begins shuffling through them again.
All thoughts of lace and Princess Florence leave my mind as I walk from Alan’s office to the staff kitchen. After finding the coffee pot empty, I go through the motions of the prep like a zombie, my mind filing through the catalogue of reports I’ve memorized over the years.
What could cause someone to forget an entire event?
Not just one person, but hundreds of people…
A new drug perhaps? Something under-developed or brought in from another country so it hasn’t really hit the streets here yet?
Or is it something else? Magic?
I finally pour myself a cup and head back to my desk—ignoring the stares from my co-workers for me to quickly finish off the Princess piece—and start pulling up articles about this circus.
The earliest article I come across dates back to the 1920’s, but by the looks of it, they’d been to Hillsview long before that, too. I scroll through pages and pages of archives, but nothing seems suspicious. There are no corresponding reports of anyone suffering memory loss.
So how did Alan know about that fact? Is he running his own type of investigation on the circus without anyone’s knowledge? Can he be an unlikely ally in all of this?
But the weird thing is, I haven’t found a single image of the circus or the acts. There’s nothing visual included with these articles. No photographs. No drawings.
An uneasy feeling settles in the pit of my stomach. Even though I think I know what I’m walking into, a vague idea of the layout and escape routes would be helpful.
I wonder how they’ll get away with it this time, what with the boom of social media in the last few years…
I chew my bottom lip as I spin my pencil between my fingers. The answer seems obvious, but my mind can’t seem to stop dancing around the words.
There’s only one way I’m going to find out.
“You’ll need to show this ticket at the door.” Alan’s voice practically makes me leap from my chair. He plops an old-fashioned, red-and-gold striped ticket in front of me. “Do you have the piece on Florence ready yet? I need to send it to print.”
“Alan, you scared the hell out of me.” I place my hand over my thundering heart. Before it can settle, however, I realize my mistake. I’d called him by his name, something he told me in my interview to never do.
I slowly drag my eyes up to meet him, terrified of the scrutiny I surely will now be under.
“Make sure that report is left on my desk before you leave.”
I gulp again and nod a little too enthusiastically. Well, if he isn’t going to mention it, neither will I.
As soon as he’s out of eyesight, I snatch up the ticket and squint at the tiny writing underneath the big garish bold letters.