Hunters of the Dusk (4 page)

I sighed and cast my eyes to the ceiling. “OK. I won’t tell Mika.”

“Nor the others,” he pressed. “I would be highly unpopular if word leaked.”

“What do you mean?”

Seba cleared his throat guiltily. “The ticks,” he muttered. “The new spiders have been feeding on ticks, so they have moved upward to escape.”

“Oh,” I said, thinking of all the vampires who’d had to cut their hair and beards and shave under their arms because of the deluge of ticks. I grinned.

“Eventually the spiders will pursue the ticks to the top of the mountain and the epidemic will pass,” Seba continued, “but until then I would rather nobody knew what was causing it.”

I laughed. “You’d be strung up if this got out!”

“I know,” he said with a grimace.

I promised to keep word of the spiders to myself. Then Seba headed back for the Halls — the short trip had tired him — and Harkat and I continued down the tunnels. The farther we progressed, the quieter Harkat got. He seemed uneasy, but when I asked him what was wrong, he said he didn’t know.

Eventually we found a tunnel that led outside. We followed it to where it opened onto the steep mountain face, and sat staring up at the evening sky. It had been months since I’d been out in the open, and more than two years since I’d slept outside. The air tasted fresh and welcome, but strange.

“It’s cold,” I noted, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms.

“Is it?” Harkat asked. His dead grey skin registered only extreme degrees of heat or cold.

“It must be late autumn or early winter.” It was hard keeping track of the seasons when you lived inside a mountain.

Harkat wasn’t listening. He was scanning the forests and valleys below, as if he expected to find someone there.

I walked a short bit down the mountain. Harkat followed, then overtook me and picked up speed. “Careful,” I called, but he paid no attention. Soon he was running, and I was left behind, wondering what he was playing at. “Harkat!” I yelled. “You’ll trip and crack your skull if you —”

I stopped. He hadn’t heard a word. Cursing, I slipped off my shoes, flexed my toes, and then started after him. I tried to control my speed, but that was impossible on such a steep slope, and soon I was racing down the mountain, sending pebbles and dust scattering, yelling with excitement and terror.

Somehow we stayed on our feet and reached the bottom of the mountain in one piece. Harkat kept running until he came to a small circle of trees, where he finally stopped and stood as though frozen. I jogged after him. “What . . . was that . . . about?” I gasped.

Raising his left hand, Harkat pointed toward the trees.

“What?” I asked, seeing nothing but trunks, branches, and leaves.

“He’s coming,” Harkat hissed. “Who?”

“The dragon master.”

I stared at Harkat. He looked as though he was awake, but perhaps he’d dozed off and was sleepwalking. “I think we should get you back inside,” I said, taking his outstretched arm. “We’ll find a fire and —”

“Hello, boys!” somebody yelled from within the circle of trees. “Are you the welcoming committee?”

Letting go of Harkat’s arm, I stood beside him — now as stiff as he was — and stared again into the cluster of trees. I thought I recognized that voice — though I hoped I was wrong!

Moments later, three figures emerged from the gloom. Two were Little People, who looked almost exactly like Harkat, except they had their hoods up and moved with a stiffness that Harkat had worked out of his system during his years among the vampires. The third was a small, smiling, white-haired man, who struck more fear in me than a band of invading vampaneze.

Mr. Tiny!

After more than six hundred years, Desmond Tiny had returned to Vampire Mountain, and I knew as he strode toward us, beaming, like a rat catcher in league with the Pied Piper of Hamlin, that his reappearance meant nothing but trouble.

CHAPTER SIX

M
R. TINY PAUSED
when he reached us. The short, plump man was wearing a shabby yellow suit — a thin jacket, no overcoat — with childish-looking green rain boots and a chunky pair of glasses. The heart-shaped watch he always carried hung by a chain from the front of his jacket. Some said Mr. Tiny was an agent of fate — his first name was Desmond, and if you shortened it and put the two names together, you got
Mr. Destiny.

“You’ve grown, young Shan,” he said, running an eye over me. “And you, Harkat . . .” He smiled at the Little Person, whose green eyes seemed wider and rounder than ever. “
You
have changed beyond recognition. Wearing your hood down, working for vampires — and talking!”

“You knew . . . I could talk,” Harkat muttered, slipping back into his old broken speech habits. “You always . . . knew.”

Mr. Tiny nodded, then started forward. “Enough of the chitchat, boys. I have work to do and I must be quick. Time is precious. A volcano’s due to erupt on a small tropical island tomorrow. Everybody within a ten-mile radius will be roasted alive. I want to be there — it sounds like great fun.”

He wasn’t joking. That’s why everyone feared him — he took pleasure in tragedies that left anyone halfway human shaken to their very core.

We followed Mr. Tiny up the mountain, trailed by the two Little People. Harkat looked back often at his “brothers.” I think he was communicating with them — the Little People can read each other’s thoughts — but he said nothing to me about it.

Mr. Tiny entered the mountain by a different tunnel from the one we’d used. It was a tunnel I’d never been in, higher, wider, and drier than most. There were no twists or side tunnels leading off it. It rose straight up the spine of the mountain. Mr. Tiny saw me staring at the walls of the unfamiliar tunnel. “This is one of my shortcuts,” he said. “I’ve shortcuts all over the world, in places you wouldn’t dream of. Saves time.”

As we progressed, we passed groups of very pale-skinned humans in rags, lining the sides of the tunnel, bowing low to Mr. Tiny. These were the Guardians of the Blood, people who lived within Vampire Mountain and donated their blood to the vampires. In return, they were allowed to extract a vampire’s internal organs and brain when he died — which they ate at special ceremonies!

I felt nervous walking past the ranks of Guardians — I’d never seen so many of them gathered together before — but Mr. Tiny only smiled and waved at them, and didn’t stop to talk.

Within a quarter of an hour we were at the gate that opened onto the Halls of Vampire Mountain. The guard on duty swung the door wide open when we knocked but stopped when he saw Mr. Tiny and half closed it again. “Who are you?” he snapped defensively, hand snaking to the sword on his belt.

“You know who I am, Perlat Cheil,” Mr. Tiny said, brushing past the startled guard.

“How do you know my — ?” Perlat Cheil began, then stopped and gazed after the departing figure. He was trembling, and his hand had fallen away from his sword. “Is that who I think it is?” he asked as I passed with Harkat and the Little People.

“Yes,” I said simply.

“Charna’s guts!” he gasped, and made the death’s touch sign by pressing the middle finger of his right hand to his forehead, and the two fingers next to that over his eyelids. It was a sign vampires made when they thought death was close.

Through the tunnels we marched, silencing conversations and causing jaws to drop. Even those who’d never met Mr. Tiny recognized him, stopped what they were doing and fell in behind us, following wordlessly, as though part of a funeral procession.

There was only one tunnel leading to the Hall of Princes — I’d found another six years ago, but that had since been blocked off — and it was protected by the Mountain’s finest guards. They were supposed to stop and search anyone seeking entry to the Hall, but when Mr. Tiny approached, they gawked at him, lowered their weapons, then let him — and the rest of the procession — pass.

Mr. Tiny finally stopped at the doors of the Hall and glanced at the domed building that he’d built six centuries earlier. “It’s stood the test of time quite well, hasn’t it?” he remarked to no one in particular. Then, laying a hand on the doors, he opened them and entered. Only Princes were supposed to be able to open the doors, but it didn’t surprise me that Mr. Tiny had the power to control them too.

Mika and Paris were within the Hall, discussing the war with a group of Generals. There were a lot of sore heads and bleary eyes, but everyone snapped to attention when they saw Mr. Tiny striding in.

“By the teeth of the gods!” Paris gasped, his face whitening. He cringed as Mr. Tiny set foot on the platform of thrones, then drew himself straight and forced a tight smile. “Desmond,” he said, “it is good to see you.”

“You too, Paris,” Mr. Tiny responded.

“To what do we owe this unexpected pleasure?” Paris asked with strained politeness.

“Wait a minute and I’ll tell you,” Mr. Tiny replied, then sat down on a throne —
mine!
—crossed his legs, and made himself comfortable. “Get the gang in,” he said, crooking a finger at Mika. “I’ve something to say and it’s for everybody’s ears.”

Within a few minutes, almost every vampire in the mountain had crowded into the Hall of Princes and stood nervously by the walls — as far away from Mr. Tiny as possible — waiting for the mysterious visitor to speak.

Mr. Tiny had been checking his nails and rubbing them up and down the front of his jacket. The Little People were standing behind the throne. Harkat stood to their left, looking uncertain. I sensed he didn’t know whether to stand with his brothers-of-nature or with his brothers-of-choice — the vampires.

“All present and correct?” Mr. Tiny asked. He got to his feet and waddled to the front of the platform. “Then I’ll come straight to the point. The Lord of the Vampaneze has been blooded.” He paused, anticipating gasps, groans, and cries of terror. But we all just stared at him, too shocked to react. “Six hundred years ago,” he continued, “I told your forebears that the Vampaneze Lord would lead the vampaneze into a war against you and wipe you out. That was
a
truth — but not
the
truth. The future is both open and closed. There’s only one ‘will be’ but there are often hundreds of ‘can be’s.’ Which means the Vampaneze Lord and his followers
can
be defeated.”

Breath caught in every vampire’s throat and you could feel hope forming in the air around us, like a cloud.

“The Vampaneze Lord is only a half-vampaneze at the moment,” Mr. Tiny said. “If you find and kill him before he’s fully blooded, victory will be yours.”

At that, a huge roar went up, and suddenly vampires were clapping each other on the back and cheering. A few didn’t join in the hooting and hollering. Those with firsthand knowledge of Mr. Tiny — myself, Paris, Mr. Crepsley — sensed he hadn’t finished, and guessed there must be a catch. Mr. Tiny wasn’t the kind to smile broadly when delivering good news. He grinned like that only when he knew there was going to be suffering and misery.

When the wave of excitement had died down, Mr. Tiny raised his right hand. He clutched his heart-shaped watch with his left hand. The watch glowed a dark red color, and suddenly his right hand glowed as well. All eyes settled on the five crimson fingers and the Hall went eerily quiet.

“When the Vampaneze Lord was discovered seven years ago,” Mr. Tiny said, his face illuminated by the glow of his fingers, “I studied the strings connecting the present to the future, and saw that there were five chances to avert the course of destiny. One of those has already come and gone.”

The red glow faded from his thumb, which he tucked down into his palm. “That chance was Kurda Smahlt,” he said. Kurda was the vampire who had led the vampaneze against us, in a bid to seize control of the Stone of Blood. “If Kurda had succeeded, most vampires would have joined the vampaneze and the War of the Scars — as you call it — would have been prevented.

“But you killed him, destroying what was probably your best hope of survival in the process.” He shook his head. “That was silly.”

“Kurda Smahlt was a traitor,” Mika growled. “Nothing good comes of treachery. I’d rather die honorably than owe my life to a traitor.”

“More fool you,” Mr. Tiny said with a laugh, then wiggled his glowing little finger. “This represents your last chance, if all others fail. It will not fall for some time yet — if at all — so we shall ignore it.” He tucked the glowing finger down, leaving the three middle fingers standing.

“Which brings us to my reason for coming. If I left you to your own devices, these chances would slip by unnoticed. You’d carry on as you have been, the opportunities would pass, and before you knew it . . .” He made a soft popping sound.

“Within the next twelve months,” he said softly but clearly, “there may be three encounters between certain vampires and the Vampaneze Lord — assuming you heed my advice. Three times he will be at your mercy. If you seize one of these chances and kill him, the war will be yours. If you fail, there’ll be one final, all-deciding confrontation, upon which the fate of every living vampire will hang.” He paused teasingly. “To be honest, I hope it goes down to the wire — I love big, dramatic conclusions!”

He turned his back on the Hall and one of his Little People handed him a flask, from which he drank deeply. Furious whispers and conversations swept through the assembled vampires while he was drinking, and when he next faced the crowd, Paris Skyle was waiting. “You have been very generous with your information, Desmond,” he said. “On behalf of all here, I thank you.”

“Don’t mention it,” Mr. Tiny said. His fingers had stopped glowing, he’d let go of his watch, and his hands now rested in his lap.

“Will you extend your generosity and tell us which vampires are destined to encounter the Vampaneze Lord?” Paris asked.

“I will,” Mr. Tiny said smugly. “But let me make one thing clear — the encounters will occur only if the vampires
choose
to hunt the Lord of the Vampaneze. The three I name don’t have to accept the challenge of hunting him down, or take responsibility for the future of the vampire clan. But if they don’t, you’re doomed, for in these three alone lies the ability to change that which is destined to be.”