Page 42 of Howling Eve

Raskyuil stiffened, his gaze slowly swinging among the humans shuffling around. They were right. He hadn’t noticed, too intent on making sure no one was stepping over invisible boundaries created for the carnival. While the lack of children wasn’t entirely unusual among some fae communities, especially younger communities that didn’t yet have any breeding members, among humans who reproduced rapidly it was highly unusual. Every town they’d stopped at had some children among them.

A thought occurred to him, and he narrowed his eyes on them. “How is it that you were able to follow us?”

If what he suspected was true, it should have been impossible for the vampires to follow them. MaryAnne’s ability to follow the fairy road was one thing; she had tapped into the power of the Ha’shena. But he couldn’t imagine the vampires having any sort of ability to do so, which meant they couldn’t be responsible for the disappearance of MaryAnne’s younglings.

The male shrugged. “Not far. Three settlements at most. We almost lost you after the second one, but we got lucky at the outpost. We caught rumor of the carnival there from a merchant who had struck back out onto the road. A carnival seemed like a good place to lurk to find willing prey.”

Raskyuil inclined his head thoughtfully. The two towns prior to the outpost had been close together along a common stretch of road not unlike traveling from the outpost to The Bend. There had been no unexplained deaths to draw negative attention to the carnival from the locals, so it was clear that the vampires were truthful on that matter as well. They weren’t a threat, nor did they have the answers that he needed, though they had still revealed startling insight. There was no good reason to detain them and keep them from their hunt.

“Not here,” he grumbled. “This is not like the other places,” he admitted, then paused. “Have you noticed anything unusual pertaining to the children of other towns as we’ve passed through? Any rumor or concern that has taken hold in our wake?”

The female narrowed her eyes on him, but she shook her head as she warily stepped back. “No. Nothing. But it makes me like this place even less. You are right—this is a bad place to hunt. Come, Johnathan. We will hunt elsewhere.”

The male grunted in agreement with his mate, and the pair peeled away and headed for the exit. Raskyuil didn’t try to stop them but watched them curiously, his skin prickling from how quickly they left. The female had almost seemed afraid. Vampires were as much born of the night as trolls, if not more so since, unlike his kind, most couldn’t tolerate the sunlight beyond the gentle light of the dusk and dawn. There was no real reason for a vampire to fear the carnival, not if they could slip so easily among the guests without anyone noticing.

His mouth flattened grimly as he turned back to the path leading to Nivira’s tent. He was even more anxious having his female out of his sight now. That didn’t bode well for the fact that she would be expected to take on her carnival duties tomorrow. They needed to figure out what happened to the younglings—and soon.

The fog was denser than usual. He didn’t even want to know how bad it got in the winter, and he had no intention of staying long enough to find out. It rose, curling thickly in the air, condensing between the tents even as it streamed across the path. Shapes seemed to form within the fog in the play of shadow and light as the etheric music of the carnival continued to play.

The vague form of younglings dashed between the tents and guests, running and prancing a bit to the music. Two forms appeared to join hands as they raced ahead, and Raskyuil paused, eyeing the fog, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. There was something about it that unnerved him. The shapes were too distinct for his comfort as it gathered further and came to life in the dark.

His eyes narrowed, his eyes following the eerie shapes in disbelief. The faint forms of younglings took on more clarity, like ghostly apparitions as they hurried by in the shadows, and fog pooled along the path. Their faces, however, disturbed him. Some wore sorrowful grimaces and others stretched wide in gleeful smiles, all fog and shadows without a sign of life among them… and a sound, a faint echo of cries while other seemed to laugh as they drew along their companions.

Raskyuil lurched, ready to give chase even as the sight chilled him to the bone. What was this? The question beat within him with urgency. He had to know. MaryAnne’s grief was a living thing that consumed her and therefore consumed him as well even without the mating consummated.

The urge was strong within him to follow, a sense of knowing thrumming within him. Suddenly the smallest of them stilled, a youngling with an impression of floating tails of hair gathered on either side of their head, and for a moment appeared to become more visible as their little hand swiped over their eyes. His heart wrenched, and a fierce protective feeling rose within him when another sob tore through the mist. The apparition’s head turned, and an empty ghostly face with dark pits of shadows for eyes stared directly at Raskyuil. Its little mouth opened and then opened wider, the sound of the wail intensifying as a single word seemed to penetrate the fog.

Help.

His heart jumped, and he took a heavy step back and immediately collided into another. A male grunted in surprise, and Raskyuil whirled around, his teeth bared, coming face to face with Barok. The orc raised his hands warily, his green eyes flashing as he peered at Raskyuil and then darted around warily.

“Jumpy, aren’t you? What is it? You act like you’ve seen a ghost,” he grumbled.

Raskyuil swallowed as he looked around once more to find that the fog had thinned more naturally and lay in quiet embankments once more. There was nothing within them. He drew in a deep breath, forcing calm through his mind. There was nothing. What sort of magic was this?

He shook his head. “I thought I saw something, but I was mistaken,” he rumbled, in effort to avoid being questioned further.

Barok frowned and peered at the fog, his eyes squinting. “Doesn’t surprise me. I hate this place. The fog plays tricks with the mind here. But Elwyn insists that it makes the perfect winter grounds for whatever mad reason. Can’t figure aelves out anyway,” he muttered.

“Anything wrong? Does it have anything to do with the vampires? I saw a pair who appeared to be leaving,” Nathiel remarked flatly as he drew up to their side, abandoning his performance and tucking his brightly painted juggling sticks under one arm.

He peered down the path warily, his face painted ghoulishly with streaks of white clay forming a sort of skull-like appearance. More of the paint was streaked in a skeleton fashion over his chest and arms. His hands tightened at his sides, his gaze fixed on the path that the vampires took, though they were long out of sight.

“No. It’s just the fog,” Raskyuil tersely replied. “The vampires were a surprise, but nothing unusual and nothing I couldn’t handle.”

“What did they want?”

“They thought to feed here,” Raskyuil replied honestly, though he withheld the full truth, including just how long the vampires had been following the carnival. “They changed their mind.”

Barok’s lips peeled back from his tusks in disgust, perhaps not entirely unwarranted considering that vampires and orcs often coveted similar mountainous regions and had engaged in territory skirmishes before. “Good riddance.”

Nathiel grunted and shook his head. “It’s strange, though, isn’t it—their sudden appearance here? They’ve seldom bothered with the fae before, preferring to keep to their own far-flung kingdoms where the sun never reaches. I wouldn’t have imagined that any would willingly come here. Only outcasts have ever bothered to cross the veil in the past. I can’t even imagine one choosing to be this far from fortified abodes where they can indulge their pleasures.”

“Perhaps they are traveling,” Raskyuil replied, impatient with the conversation and eager to be on his way to Nivira’s tent to collect his mate.

“As long as they leave and are well away from my clan, I don’t care,” Barok replied, his nose wrinkling as he glanced down the path one last time. “Fucking vampires,” he growled before stomping away.

Relieved, Raskyuil struck out for Nivira’s tent, but that relief shifted to annoyance when he noticed that Nathiel was following close at his side, a concerned look on his face. It seemed that he wasn’t going to be saved from further discussion on the subject after all.

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