“Stop the car!” Etienne shrieked.
Arwen spoke in a low voice. “For fuck’s sake, Trystan. Don’t be daft. Drive your bloody car and get us there safely. How the hell am I going to explain to my–”
“Try phoning Helen again!” Trystan shouted.
“She’s not answering!” Arwen said.
Etienne gripped the passenger seat’s headrest. “Stop the car! He wants to kill me!”
“Cut it out, Etienne! Trystan couldn’t kill you even if his continued existence depended on it ’cause it would piss Helen off and he won’t want that ’cause he may even care for her.”
Trystan’s snarl was ugly. How dare the little whelp... “Phone your father, get Anabel’s number. We need to get the address in Johannesburg,” Trystan said through clenched teeth.
The Hudson hit a patch of gravel and slewed across the road. Both youngsters shrieked but Trystan pulled Rose straight, not wanting to think how much damage he was causing his car. When this is done, he’d fix her up, give her some TLC. She must just see him through tonight.
“Fuck it!” Arwen swore.
“What?” Etienne and Trystan answered simultaneously.
“I’m out of frigging airtime!”
“Not much longer now,” Trystan muttered.
“Just watch it coming down the pass,” Arwen said.
“You forget, Mistress Potty-mouth, I’ve been living here for almost a century. I could drive this road blindfolded.”
“Big whoopee, Mr. Leech... Now be careful!” They hit a ditch and she gave a small squeak.
Trystan tuned out the two kids. He’d have to trust that Arwen would force Etienne to keep his secret.
Since when did he care so much about Helen anyway? Was it guilt? Lust? Hunger? Or, was it that he couldn’t stand the idea that she was currently hot property among the undead? To a degree, he was to blame for the sudden interest shown in her. If only he’d stopped Arwen from creating a spike in Helen’s Essence that night... The witch had awakened some vital part of Helen’s being and now there was no shutting it off.
Etienne and Arwen argued all the way into the hamlet. He kept his peace and concentrated on the road revealed in the sweep of Rose’s headlights.
How many hours of driving could he manage before sunrise?
Nieu Bethesda slept, oblivious to the small drama playing itself out when they roared to a stop outside Anabel’s house.
“Quick!” Trystan said to Arwen. “I need an address and a phone number.”
“So, I must face the grandmother on my own?” Arwen pouted and he wanted to shake her, hard.
“Please, Arwen!” Etienne begged.
“Fine!” She slipped out of the car, and slammed the door a lot harder than she should have.
Why oh why was he involving these kids? Maybe he was too yellow to do it himself, to have to answer difficult questions, manipulative jerk that he was. Or perhaps he was playing up to his true nature, gathering his own cabal of minions, just like the elders. They never did their own dirty work, did they?
So, he and Etienne remained in the car, with the windows rolled down, listening for sounds, like footsteps or raised voices.
Etienne said, “You really are a vampire, aren’t you?”
“Perhaps.”
“No, really.”
“Really, then,” Trystan said, and sighed. “And the less you know about it, the better.”
“How did Arwen–”
“Find out?”
“Yes.”
“She’s too bloody perceptive, that’s what.”
“Well, she is a witch.”
“As if that explains everything.” Trystan gave a dry chuckle. “What’s taking her so damn long?” He slapped the dashboard.
“Well, can you imagine how Helen’s gran might feel to be disturbed at almost ten at night? Arwen is doing some pretty fast talking now, as you can imagine.”
Trystan growled quietly. Anabel had been...persuasive. Oh, the irony of the vampire who got emotionally involved with a creature he should treat as food.
“I don’t understand why you can’t go talk to Anabel yourself, why you’re involving us.”
Trystan turned to face the dwarf. “It’s complicated. Why must I explain myself to you?”
Etienne narrowed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. “There’s more going on here than I know about. I’m not given to believing in the supernatural but...I’m tempted to believe Arwen this time. And it’s not just because you’re giving me the fucking creeps.”
“Well, I won’t be bothering your reality for much longer. You can have your weekend away from school, like you’d originally planned,” Trystan said. “I’m leaving both of you here nice and safe the moment I get the information I need.”
“How?”
Trystan laughed then, enjoying the look of discomfort which distorted Etienne’s face. He could taste his fear, and reached to read more of the small human’s welter of thoughts.
It would be so ridiculously easy to snuff–
Arwen yanked open the door, a sudden motion which caught Trystan unawares. He hissed.
“Drive!” Arwen commanded. “She’s marching over to my dad’s place right now.”
“Arwen, he’s–” Etienne began, only to be cut off as Trystan started the Hudson. Rose’s V8 engine thundered into life, no doubt waking half the road.
The last thing he needed right now was for Anabel to recognize the car. As if rumors of the ghostly ’48 Hudson patrolling the N9 National Road weren’t already enough.
He’d drop the kids off once he reached the drift.
“Where’s she staying?” Trystan asked.
“Twenty-two Highbury Road, Houghton. I asked for a telephone number but then she got suspicious, wanted to know why I was here so late. We started arguing.”
“Arwen,” Etienne said, “he wants to leave us here to go after Helen on his own.”
“Don’t you dare consider it, vampire! You’re not going to eat her!” Arwen yelled.
He slammed his foot down on the brake, and Rose skidded to a halt in a spray of gravel.
“Get out. Both of you. Now.”
“No.” Arwen clutched the dashboard, her gaze boring into his.
He broke eye contact first. “You’ll get out or I snap your fingers.”
“Do you expect us to trust you with Helen?” Etienne spoke from the back.
“This isn’t some cross-country jaunt with ice-cream and candy-floss along the way.”
Arwen continued to glare at him from beneath her fringe. “I wasn’t expecting it to be.”
“Neither of you know her that well,” Trystan countered. “Why risk your lives for her?”
“Why are you so concerned about her, death breath?” Arwen asked. “Why freak out at all? Why not continue to skulk around Nieu Bethesda as if we’re completely ignorant of your existence?”
“I can’t!” Trystan groaned. What was he getting himself into? By all rights he should kill them both now and throw their bodies out along the way for the scavengers to pick at their bones.
They were just god-damned stupid kids. He had been like that at their age and see where that got him.
If the Black Pope got these kids in his clutches– He’d surely have some fun tormenting the dwarf. Arwen would be another matter. She would have...uses, especially for a vampire such as he bent on dominating the rest of the southern Africa. And, if the Black Pope laid his hands on Helen, there was no telling what he could or would do.
Etienne broke the silence. “I’m in enough trouble as it is. I may as well go along for the ride. I don’t care if it’s dangerous. Helen is my friend. I may not have known her for a long time, but I don’t want to see anything bad happen to her, either.”
Trystan caught sight of the boy’s frown in the rear view mirror then rubbed a grimy hand across his eyes. “And you, Little Miss Magic? Why would a borderline sociopath like you give a rat’s behind about Helen, when you’d just as soon use her in your l
ittle esoteric experiments? Not even your father would be that stupid.”
“My father,” Arwen said, “is as yellow as you are, vampire. So, what’s Helen to you? Lunch, or something more?”
“You have no idea what’s going on, that you would commit yourselves to such...to such madness. If you must know, your little friend Helen is smack bang in the middle of a very nasty game.”
“What?” Etienne asked.
“If he tells you, he’s gonna have to kill you.” Arwen laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.
“We all may develop a terminal case of ceasing to exist,” Trystan said, “if we are not careful. Which is why I’d rather you two stay put and live out your brief, natural lives in relatively blissful ignorance.”
Arwen spoke. “So, spit it out, vamp boy. We don’t have all night. What are we getting ourselves into?”
“Vampires,” Trystan said. “Lots of them.” He shouldn’t be doing this.
He restarted the Hudson’s engine. “Did you ever hear any urban legends about a phantom Hudson ’48 prowling the length of the N9?”
Chapter 29
Life is a Circus
They drove as far as a twenty-four-hour truck stop on the outskirts of Johannesburg where Trystan pulled the car to the side of the road.
“What now? Why’re we stopping? We’re almost there?” Arwen asked, wondering why they slowed down now that they were so close to their goal.
The night had grown pale in the east, the first signs they neared a big city apparent in the haze and the regularity of early morning delivery trucks.
Earlier, they’d passed one dismal town after the other. They’d all looked the same to Arwen, with their too-bright petrol stations and miserable huddles of corner cafes and liquor stores.
“Sun’s coming up. I’m going to wait it out. There’re some blankets in the back. You two can keep watch. You’ll need all your wits about you tonight,” Trystan said.
With a deft drag at the wheel, the vampire pulled the Hudson into a parking lot, and drove to the side of the neon-lit building where flashing signs advertised “topless waitresses” and “grand slots,” as well as “the best Lowveld pizza.”
The car ground to a halt beneath the low, spreading branches of an acacia.
So, vamp boy didn’t like sunlight. Arwen schooled her face so her amusement did not show.
“Don’t get any funny ideas, little Miss Magic. It’s going to take a lot more than a few hours’ sunshine to reduce me to a small pile of ash. You two look in the glove compartment. There’s some money. Go buy yourselves something to eat and for God’s sake, keep an eye on the car. I really don’t need to get more blood on the upholstery if some dumb criminal takes it into his head to try his luck.”
Arwen rolled her eyes. “Sure, Daddy-oh. We’ll behave, won’t we, Etienne?”
Trystan frowned at her but did not say anything as he climbed out and got into the back of the car while Etienne swung over the seat into the front.
Etienne rubbed at his face. “Don’t know about you, Arwen, but I wouldn’t mind taking a slash.”
“Gods, you can be so disgusting, Etienne. Sure. Just let me do my makeup.”
She watched Trystan in the rear view mirror as he settled down beneath a pile of old army blankets. She didn’t want to speculate too much on the darker stains marring the fabric. How long had he been...
Etienne leaned over, fiddled with the glove compartment lock and pulled the hatch open.
“You’re awfully close to pawing at my thigh, Etti,” Arwen warned him while she touched up her liner. “If you touch my thigh, I swear I’ll–”
“Oh my God! Exactly how much money do you have, Trystan?”
Arwen looked down to see what the fuss was all about. The glove compartment by her knees was stuffed with paper money, shoved into the space with very little care, as if the notes were no more important than tissue paper.
“Don’t spend it all in one go,” came Trystan’s muffled order.
Etienne’s face crumpled the way it did whenever he thought of something he did not like. “Don’t tell me, it’s from all the poor fools–”
“He’s murdered,” Arwen finished. When she looked skinny Trystan in the eye, he didn’t seem the monster but... It was undeniable. How else did he survive? It wasn’t not like the old days one read about, where vamps could set themselves up like lords with vast herds of people to do their bidding.
“C’mon, Etti.” Arwen grabbed a fat handful of cash. “The bastard can at least pay for us to have something to eat and drink. Let’s just hope this hell-hole’s kitchen is still open.”
If Trystan heard her, he gave no indication and lay perfectly still, for all intents and purposes a shrouded corpse in the back of his car.
Arwen stepped out of the Hudson, walked a few paces and stopped. How often did she stare up at the star-studded sky? Not often enough. The night was still warm, promising a scorcher of a day to follow. A few cars were parked in the lot, mostly beat-up pickup trucks and one or two rusty old Mercedes Benzes. A loud, pulsating beat emanated from within the rambling prefabricated building, causing the windows of the vehicles nearest them to rattle in their frames.
“Etienne! C’mon, I thought you were going to go take a piss or something.”
“I’m coming!” He dropped out of the driver’s side of the car.
“Pocketing some more change?”
“Whatever.” He shoved his hands into pockets that jingled.
“Suit yourself.” Arwen started for the building. “I could do with a beer.”
Then a loud, choking roar split the night and she froze. Lion! The sound was unmistakable.
Why here?
Like her, Etienne stood rooted to the spot. Quietly, he asked, “Is that what I think it is I heard? I know we’re not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy, but–”
“Shhh.” Arwen peered into the gloom, to the rear of the building where the animal had roared. The parking lot continued to an open stretch at the back of the pub, where a number of covered trucks and caravans stood. Something large threw itself against a metal surface and another coughing roar rent the air.
The logo on the nearest truck looked familiar, a stylized lion. Arwen approached the nearest truck. The beer could wait just that little bit longer.
Etienne grabbed onto her left hand. “It’s a–”
“Shhh! Do you want to stay here by the car, Etienne?”
“No.”
“Then shurrup and keep chips at our backs.” A circus. Distant memories stirred.
“Maybe we should just go in first and–”
“Etienne.” For fuck’s sake, why was he so timid all of a sudden?
Their footsteps crunched, too loud on the gravel. Old caravans pulled up next to each other formed a barrier to their left. Then a rumble and a grassy stench, like horse but far, far more pungent. Elephant! Rattle! Bang! A large beast threw itself against bars before loosing another ear-splitting roar. The sound triggered a primal response within Arwen, urging her to flee, to find safety.
Yet all this drew forward those memories she’d long since buried, in which she reveled. They seemed more dream than reality.
Etienne jumped against her so that she fell against a truck’s grille.
“Do you mind?” she whispered. Then she looked up at the logo on the door. “Thorn Paladin’s circus.” Yes. She remembered.
“Circus?”
“Yes, Etienne, a circus. My uncle’s frigging circus. You know, trapeze artists, clowns, tigers, elephants, dwarves...you’d fit right in.”
“Bitch.”
“Ah, but the old man’s been dead for twelve years already. I barely remember him. That’s where my mother met Szandor. He was the escape artist and magician.”
She clutched at the distant memories of sawdust and horse-droppings, of candy floss and popcorn. Bead-fringed curtains on the fortune-teller’s caravan, how she’d clutched at her mother’s skirts while she juggled with fire. Straw. Fro
st riming the animals’ drinking troughs in the morning. When she’d dabbed her fingers into the water, the ice had split into bits of broken glass floating on the surface, chilling her skin.
Some of the trucks were new but she recognized the silver hulk of her late uncle’s trailer. The snarling Paladin lion leaped, fading from a dozen emblems.
“Can I help you two?” a woman inquired.
Etienne gripped Arwen’s hand, squeezing hard.
Arwen gulped and turned around to stare at a veiled, tall figure. She pulled back the veil to reveal long, angular features, the hair on either side of her face as colorless as her skin. Only her eyes stood out, pitch black, like the carapace of a beetle.
“We were just going to get something to eat.” Etienne pointed in the wrong direction, toward the road.
The tall woman turned her head slowly to where Etienne gestured, a faint smile on her lips. “Indeed.”
“You’re with the circus, aren’t you?” Arwen said.
“Perhaps.”
To Arwen it seemed as if the woman’s eyes peeled back every layer of her skin. She had a weird buzz about her, similar to a vampire’s but somehow infinitely more...violet and crackly at the edges, more organic, like a handful of snakes about to strike.
Etienne interrupted. “Arwen, can I go pee so long?” He hopped from foot to foot, his gaze straining toward the pub.
“Uh, yeah,” Arwen said.
The woman laughed, a hook of cruelty singing in the tone. She pulled the veil back over her head. “They’ll never let you two in. You may as well come join me for breakfast in my trailer. Unlike your friend in his car, I won’t eat you. And your little friend may use my bathroom.”
“Hey?” Etienne asked.
“Okay.” Arwen inhaled sharply. “Right, you expect us to just follow you, a total stranger, into your caravan to eat and drink your food.” Fuck, did she think they were crazy?
“I’m disappointed in you, daughter of Szandor, child of Molina Paladin, that you don’t remember me.”
Arwen gasped, stiffening as these words triggered more long-buried memories. A tall woman, yes. Darkness. Whips and large cats leaping through hoops of fire. A name flickered. Cold, white hands, firm hands, holding those of a small girl. A woman telling her to not be afraid, to touch the velvety forehead of a black panther that watched her with topaz eyes.
Camdeboo Nights Page 17