Chapter 40

Yah, we headed in the right direction all right. We had driven through the night, guided by the glow of Uncle Ulrich’s macabre party invitation. The road wound out of the city and into the countryside.

As the sun began to rise, we drove into a tiny village town hunkered down at the base of a completely sinister mountain. It was a quaint little place with thatched buildings and Tudor styled architecture. It even had a little fountain in the cobblestoned square. But every eave was covered in garlic bulbs and flowerbeds had been replaced with stakes poking out of the ground for easy access.

I pulled our now not-so-out-of-place car in front of an inn. The windows were shuttered and the doors locked.

“Looks like they might have had some experience with vampire types,” I muttered as I stepped out of the car.

“Your keen observational skills would put a Dark Elf to shame,” replied Killian dryly, his eyes scanning the sky for trouble.

I pulled a crossbow out of the trunk and strapped it to my back, “I think I deserve a raise.”

“Done,” said Killian.

The door to the inn opened and the proprietor cautiously stuck his head out, white horseshoe hair sticking up like he had just rolled out of bed. He startled at the sight of Killian and me. He might have been old, but before I could even twitch, he had a crossbow aimed at my heart with the safety off. I mean, I know after our all night journey we probably looked like hell, but that doesn’t mean we were actually FROM hell.

I put my hands up, “Just travelers.”

“Many say that,” he stated matter-of-factly, “but you were here before sunrise.”

“That’s true…”

“I’ll need you to take a drink from the fountain,” he said, motioning to font in the center of town.

I lowered my hands a little and looked at him skeptically, “Now, I don’t have much room to argue, because you’ve got an arrow pointed at my heart, but do you mind me asking why?”

“It’s full of holy water. If you are a creature of darkness, you’ll not be able to touch it.”

The fountain was hewn from stone and the clean looking water bubbled softly from terraced level to terraced level, but I could see that the original design had been altered to feature religious symbols and wards.

“It’s not poison to people?” I asked.

“Not to people,” he said.

The innkeeper gave me the room to make up my mind, but I could see he wasn’t going to budge. I was going to drink or I was going to die and he was fine with whatever I decided. I gave Killian a shrug, “Shall we get on with it? I’m a little thirsty.”

He looked at the fountain, “We do not appear to have much choice.”

He and I walked over and stood at the edge for a moment. Man, I hoped it wasn’t some spelled potion that was going to turn us into mud statues or something. In unison, we dipped our hands into it and raised the liquid to our lips.

Water. It was just plain, old-fashioned, holy water.

I actually reached down and scooped up another handful.

We turned back to the innkeeper. He had lowered his crossbow and walked over to us with his hand out, “My name’s Gus. I apologize. We can’t be too careful around here anymore, not since the vampires moved into the mountains. We can’t even trust the sun to reveal the dark ones. It is a sorry day that I should have to greet weary travelers in such a manner.”

I took his hand and shook it, “We understand completely. This is Killian, I’m Maggie.”

“An elf come all this way?” asked Gus, noting Killian’s ears.

“An elf and a tracker,” I replied. “We have had our own fair share of scuffles with vampires. In fact, they are the reason we’re here.”

“You’re not in cahoots with them, are you?” asked Gus, his friendly manner turning a little cautiously frosty. This guy had a hair trigger suspicion button just waiting to be pushed.

“They kidnapped my mother,” I said. “We’re here to get her back.”

“Your mum,” said the innkeeper, rubbing his jowls and shaking his head, “I’m afraid you’ll need all the help you can get.”

“Tell me about it.”

“If you can follow me across my threshold without an invitation, I’ll have some breakfast for you and a place where you can put your feet up. There’s not many of us here, but we do what we can, and any enemy of our enemy is a friend of ours.”