you didn’t treat me like a damn child.”
Evanna laughed. “When you have a few more centuries under your belt, I will consider you an adult. Until then.” She pinched his cheek.
“Charna’s guts!” Vancha roared. “You go too far!” He threw himself at her and they rolled across the floor of the tent. He was punching and kicking at the witch, but she only laughed and tossed him clear. As he landed, he whipped a star from his belt and launched it at her head.
Evanna plucked the deadly throwing star from the air and calmly picked her teeth with one of the prongs. “Still playing with your shurikens?” she mumbled. “I thought you would have found a new toy by now.”
Vancha looked like he would attack again, but in the end he threw back his head and laughed. “By the gods of the vampires, you’re a piece of work! Come, let’s drink toasts to absent friends and sing songs of the old nights.”
“I will drink with you anytime, my dear,” Evanna said. “And with your companions too.” She clicked her fingers at the servants. “Milk for Master March.” Then she looked at the others. “Ale, I suppose?”
“Aye!” Larten and Wester exclaimed.
“Why not?” Seba added with a smile.
Barrels of the finest ale Larten had ever tasted were brought, and the rest of the night was a blur for him from that moment on.
Chapter Eight
Larten woke in the afternoon with a pounding head. He was in a hammock, though he had no recollection of getting into it. As he rose, he saw that someone had painted a series of tattoos on his hand with a piece of charcoal or some similar marker. He frowned, thought about making investigations, then decided he was better not knowing. Groaning, he made his way to a barrel of rainwater outside and dunked his head.
When he came up for air, one of Evanna’s assistants — the one with the dark hair and gray eyes
— was standing beside him, holding out a mug of something hot and steaming.
“Drink this,” she said.
“It’s not ale, is it?” Larten asked, his face whitening at the thought.
The assistant smiled briefly — she looked quite pretty when she smiled — then shook her head. “A cure of my mistress’s. You will feel better after you drink it.”
Larten had tried a number of hangover cures in the past, none of which had done much for him. But to be polite he took the mug from the woman — not much more than a girl when seen by daylight — and downed half of it. He finished off the rest a few moments later and almost immediately his headache began to lift.
“This is amazing,” he gasped. “What is in it?”
‘You’d feel sick again if I told you,” the girl laughed. She had crooked teeth, Larten noted, but a man could easily ignore a flaw like that.
“I do not think you told me your name,” Larten said smoothly.
‘You think wrong,” she answered. “In fact you made up a song about it. Lovely Arra Sails, nectar to all males, how I'd like to spear you like a whaler spears a whale! There was more, but that, sadly, was the best line.”
Larten winced. “I have a habit of making up insulting rhymes when drunk. My apologies.”
“No need. Your songs about my two sisters were worse. But they were nearly as drunk as you, so I doubt they’ll remember.”
“Three sisters working for the same mistress? That is unusual.”
“They’re not my real sisters,” Arra sighed, as if explaining something obvious to an idiot. “That’s just how Evanna refers to us.” She shrugged. “They’re pleasant enough, though I don’t think of them as friends.” Arra squinted at Larten and pursed her lips. “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”
“Aye,” Larten said proudly.
“Don’t vampires perish in direct sunlight?”
“Not immediately. I would start to burn if I stayed out, but it would not kill me for a couple of hours. A lot of the myths are false or distortions of the truth.”
“Evanna doesn’t talk much about vampires, except to complain about how you follow her around like dogs.”
Larten scowled at that but said nothing. He headed back inside but Arra blocked his way. “That’s my tent over there.” She nodded at one of the three small tents that stood next to Evanna’s. “If you have no pressing business, I’d like to talk with you and learn more about vampires.”
Larten arched a merry eyebrow.
‘When I say talk, I mean talk,” Arra growled, reading his mind. “You tried to kiss me last night.”
“How did you respond?” Larten asked.
Arra smiled. “Let’s just say the next verse of your song began with, Nasty Arra Sails, she has a vicious
tongue.'
Larten managed a laugh, then followed Arra into her tent. Like Evanna’s, it was larger than it looked from the outside, though it was plainly decorated and Arra didn’t have many personal belongings. The pair sat on her bed — Arra making sure there was a discreet distance between them — and Larten spoke for a long time about his life, the clan and Vampire Mountain. Arra listened with silent interest to everything. It was only when he spoke about flitting that she interrupted.
“My mistress can flit too. And she can breathe out a gas to make people faint, although she rarely needs to. Do you think the vampires inherited their magic from Evanna or her father?”
“Have you met Desmond Tiny?” Larten asked.
“No. But I have heard of him through visitors like yourself.”
Larten had always taken the magical talents of the clan for granted, such as their longevity, strength and speed. But now that he thought about it, he realized that such gifts were mysterious. Had their supernatural talents developed naturally, or were they the work of a meddler with more power? Larten made a mental note to ask Seba later, though he had a feeling his master wouldn’t be able to answer the question either.
“Tell me about yourself,” Larten said, changing the subject. “How did you come to work for Evanna? Are you the age you look or are you old like your mistress?”
“Old?' Arra screeched, chucking a pillow at him. “Manners, vampire, or I'll stake you to the ground outside and leave you to burn.”
As Larten smiled, she relaxed and told him a bit about where she’d come from, how she’d run away from home in search of adventure and found Evanna. “Or was found by her,” Arra added suspiciously. “I’ve a feeling she sends for apprentices. We don’t just wander into her life, even if we seem to.”
Evanna had taught Arra a few spells, but mostly the girl was employed as a servant, to cater to her mistress’s guests and clean up after them. She wasn’t happy about that. She wanted to learn the secrets of Evanna’s world and become a mighty sorceress.
“It’s notas if she even needs us,” Arra complained. “I’ve seen her snap her fingers and conjure up a full meal, or wave a hand at a dirty room and suddenly it’s clean. She just likes having servants to boss around.”
‘Why don’t you leave?” Larten asked.
“I will,” Arra said. “But I don’t want to move on until I have somewhere else to go. I fled without direction once, when I left home, but I’d rather not leave everything to chance a second time.”
Her eyes narrowed. She started to ask Larten something, but then somebody whistled in the distance and she grimaced. “My mistress wants me.”
“She whistles for you like a dog?” Larten grinned.
“If you laugh, I’ll poison your next drink,” Arra growled, then hurried to see what Evanna wanted. Larten followed, still smiling. It had been nice, chatting with Arra. She was a sharp little thing, and scowls came easier to her than smiles, but Larten liked her. He hoped they could be friends, at least for a while, before he moved on with Seba and Wester. After that he figured it was unlikely that he would ever see the surly-looking girl again.
