The Twilight Circus (23 page)

He knew it wasn't professional or big or clever to laugh at such an important moment, but he just couldn't help it. It was like listening to a really duff line out of a rubbish movie.

“That's the recommended dialogue in a properly conducted séance,” said Fish grumpily. “We'll have to start again now.”

They placed their fingers on the glass again, and this time when Fish asked the question, no one laughed. Nat made himself concentrate and banished all other thoughts from his mind.

“
Is there anyone there
?” repeated Fish. Nothing,
rien
, nada, zilch. The glass tumbler stayed innocently in the center of the table.

They sat like that for some minutes. Nat wondered if Scarlet and Natalie felt as daft as he did. His head filled up with random thoughts as he tried to brain-jack Scarlet. Her aura was the deep purple color of concentration.
Good for her
! Then he tensed. He could hear other voices in his head, faint at first, then increasing in volume until the noise became massive, as if the voices were competing with each other, clamoring to be heard. A sickly taste came into his mouth: a familiar, sweet taste of roses.

Then, incredibly, the glass began to move. Trying to focus on it, Nat looked at the others. Fish had a feverish smile of triumph on her lips, while Scarlet and Natalie looked as though they were ready to get up and run away as fast as they could. The glass moved smoothly across the table toward Nat and came to a brief stop at the
T
. It journeyed back into the middle of the table and set off again toward Nat but dipped slightly to his right to stop at the R. It moved backward and forward, to and fro, five more times until it had spelled the word:

T. R. A. P. P. E. D.

A ringing sound like a glass makes when you rub a wet finger around the rim filled Nat's brain and
Ow, it hurt
! He was no longer aware of the other three sitting at the table. All he was aware of was the rich, cloying taste of roses, which was so overpowering it made him want to vomit.
Oh no! Not again
, thought Nat in panic, knowing what was coming next. The ringing sound had reached an almost unbearable pitch and, paired with the smell of roses, Nat felt as though he was going to pass out. And then there was nothing but freezing darkness and he felt a horrible twisting sensation in his stomach, as though he was being sucked out of the world by an industrial-strength vacuum cleaner.

When Nat opened his eyes, he knew immediately what had happened, but it didn't stop him from reeling in shock. He was no longer in the black tent; Fish, Scarlet, and Natalie had all disappeared. Above him, the darkening night sky sparkled with frosty vapors of cold air, framing the glittering moon and stars. In the near distance loomed the unwelcoming silhouette of the Black Chateau,
where he and Woody had fled the giant mosquitoes.

He had gone over, gone backward in time! It had happened to him twice before. Once, when Iona de Gourney wanted to show him something important, and the other when Lucas Scale had almost killed him. Iona had told him that at times of great stress, worlds sometimes collide and get mixed up.
Well yeah
, Nat thought to himself,
you could call this a stressful moment. I've gone from the vampire-infested South of France back in time to who knows when? Without a coat. In the dead of winter. I'm freakin' freezing
!

The Black Chateau looked dead. There were no lights shining in the windows, or any other sign of life. Nat hugged himself for warmth, his teeth chattering, trying to make sense of this latest unwelcome adventure. Iona de Gourney had warned him the potion could repeat itself, and Fish's séance must have been the trigger. And the fact that he had been catapulted into the Salinas plains near to the Black Chateau could only mean he was about to be shown something interesting. Or
terrifying
.

Darkness came and a young moon looked down on him, huge in the clear black sky. Nat saw in horror that the dark and light areas on the surface of the moon seemed
to shimmer for a moment, rearranging themselves to form the shape of a skull.

I'm not seeing that
, Nat told himself firmly.
That didn't happen
.

He tried Woody again on the two-way thing; if ever he needed a friend, it was now. Then he was struck by an awful thought.
If he'd gone back in time, even a little bit, he wouldn't be able to contact Woody by the two-way thing. It would be impossible
. This was bad. He decided that, whatever happened, he couldn't stay out on the plain—he would freeze. He set out for the chateau, thinking perhaps he could find an outhouse or somewhere to spend the night. At least it had stopped snowing for now.

Suddenly, a movement caught his keen Wolven eyes. Someone was running down the rock-strewn path leading from the front of the chateau, the same one that he and Woody had fled down, escaping from the swarm of bloodsucking skeeters! Instinctively, Nat glanced around for somewhere to hide himself. From the safety of a tiny copse of trees he watched as a slim girl—he was certain it was a girl—ran down the path. Nat could feel her panic as she ran, her fair hair shining in the light of the
young moon. She ran as if the very devil was after her! He searched for her mind in the darkness, and felt she was running for her life.
Whatever she ran from would soon be awake
. Nat half ran, half fell down into the incline to meet her, but he promptly lost sight of her. He tried to ignore the voices that had returned inside his head, the same voices he had heard when Fish had conducted the séance. He continued running toward the path, hoping he would see her again before it was too late. The voices were calling the same word over and over again. It sounded as though they were calling to someone named “Saffi.”
The missing girl
! thought Nat excitedly.
She must have been here the whole time
.

Then Nat spotted her again. At the bottom of the incline surrounding the chateau was a lake, frozen for the winter, and Nat could see the girl was trying to cross it, her face a mask of fear. She could hear the voices, too; Nat could feel her thoughts as she tried to hurry across the lake. Quickly he estimated how far away she was from him and the cover of the forest. Roughly one hundred feet. His heart almost stopped as dark shapes moving under the ice came into focus. They must be the revenants Fish had told
them about, the half lives in purgatory, trapped in this world until the head vampire was slain! The girl, Saffi, was getting nearer, and Nat could see the panic in her eyes and the look of sheer exhaustion as she picked her way across the frozen water.

As Saffi lifted her right foot to take her final step off the ice toward Nat, she stumbled, falling with her frozen cheek pressed to the hard surface.

“Saffi! Come
on
, get up!” shouted Nat.

With fresh hope in her eyes, Saffi reached for Nat's outstretched hand. She scrabbled to her feet, her hand not quite reaching across. A strange keening sound echoed around the ice from the revenants below.

They're warning her about something
, realized Nat as he tried to grab her hand again.

Way above the ice came a blackness so dark that the light from the moon was blotted. Nat was still yelling her name, but Saffi turned around slowly, as though resigned to her fate. Then Nat heard the dreaded sound of leathery wings,
THWACK THWACK
and understood. He caught a glimpse of a triumphant red smile and matching eyes as the vampire swooped from the sky to snatch its prize. Nat
saw Saffi's stricken face in high-definition close-up, her lips moving silently as the dark vampire enveloped her in its wings and the revenants under the ice made their wild keening noises, which echoed around the deserted plain. It happened so quickly that by the time the moon shone again, Saffi Besson had vanished. It was as though she had never been there at all.

Nat's trip back in time had shown him Saffi's fate. He howled in despair and once more his ears were filled with the ringing sound, like a wet finger on the rim of a wine glass. Then it was dark again.

When he found himself lying flat on his back on the floor of the circus tent, Nat was dimly aware of three astonished faces looking down on him.

“
Ooof
” was all he managed to say. He tried to sit up, but his world was whirling like a dervish. He could still taste roses.

“Better give him some air,” instructed Fish hastily. “He looks like he's going to throw up.”

“
Eurgh
, thanks,” Nat groaned, and smiled weakly. “I just need to sit quietly for a while.”

But although Fish tried very hard for a nanosecond to be patient, she fired questions at Nat like a machine gun.

“What
happened? Where'd
you go?
How
did it happen? What
did
you —”

“I went back in time. It's complicated,” said Nat, struggling to his feet. “But I know where the head vampire is.”

Boxing Day at dawn, and Nat Carver had spent a miserable night trying to get to sleep. The morning brought new and worrying developments and a snowstorm of such violence it was difficult to stand up outside. The Howlers had arrived back at camp disheveled and exhausted shortly after midnight. There was no sign of Crescent or Woody, and the Howlers were no help in shedding any light on their whereabouts.

“Woody's
got
to come back,” Fish told Nat later. “Do that two-way thing. Tell him we need him.”

But Nat had already tried the two-way thing a dozen times that evening, twice after he found himself transported back to the Black Chateau. Something had happened, something important, Nat was sure. He felt sick again, but this time with worry.
Where were they? Were they together
?

It was still dark when Fish had knocked softly on the window of the
Silver Lady
. It had been a huge blow to find there was still no sign of Woody or Crescent. She was shocked at Nat's appearance; he looked tired and pale, and Fish wondered if he was going to be strong enough to
carry out the next stage of her plan. They crept toward the stables, where Nat could see the outline of two horses and two humans, their warm breath joining with the early-morning mist, giving them an unreal, ghostly appearance. Scarlet and Natalie handed the reins over anxiously, worried for their friends and the task that awaited them. Fish felt heartened as Nat vaulted easily onto Rudi, while she struggled a bit with Nikita, Scarlet's own Russian Don horse, a breed famous for once leading the Russian Cossacks into battle, which in the circumstances, thought Fish wryly, was quite appropriate.

“Don't tell JC we've gone until it's too late for them to follow,” said Fish. “With any luck, we can do this thing before nightfall.”

Scarlet and Natalie watched in silence as the two black horses and their riders were swallowed up by the dense fog and the swirling, deadly snow.

By the time Nat and Fish reached the plain, the sky had lightened, but because of the fog, visibility hadn't improved at all. It crawled over them like a freezing, damp cloak, thick enough to absorb any noise from the hooves
of the horses and the creak of their leather saddles. Nat felt his internal GPS take over and help him guide Rudi back to the Black Chateau once again. It was he who had persuaded Fish not to share her plan with the adults until they had gone; his mum would have tried to stop him or, worse still, want to come with them, and frankly he had a hard job imagining his mum as a vampire slayer.
If only they had been able to investigate the Black Chateau sooner
. Saffi Besson had been alive when the vampire had swooped out of the sky and snatched her away from Nat, but he couldn't be sure how far he had gone back into the past. He had to admit to himself that it might be too late to save her from her fate. For all he knew, she could be a vampire by now.

The closer they got to the Black Chateau, the more uncomfortable they felt, their unease transferring to the horses as both Rudi and Nikita spooked and shied away from the slightest snowdrift. Fish gamely urged Nikita into a gallop when the snow thinned slightly, but promptly fell off. As for Nat, it was difficult to enjoy the ride when there was the head vampire waiting to be slain at the other end, and just when things seemed to be as glum and as gloomy
as they could possibly get, the weather worsened again. The fog was joined by a fierce blizzard and the whiteout made visibility almost nil, but Nat sensed something moving up ahead in the swirling snow and fog. Then he saw something.
Something big and black
.

“
Now
what?” he muttered, more to himself than to Fish. He motioned to her to stop.

There appeared to be a number of black shapes moving ahead, just visible in the whiteout. Fish couldn't see a thing; she peered into the whiteness, but couldn't see as keenly as Nat, her human eyes being too weak.

“What is it?” she asked nervously. “What do you see?”

“I'm not sure,” said Nat, his face a mask. “There's something coming toward us.”

Fish's heart was in her mouth.
Vampires
!

On the open plain, there was nowhere to hide. Fish slithered onto the ground, pulling the lethal wooden stakes from her saddle bag. She was just about to pass them to Nat when she saw his expression change to one of relief. Then he smiled at her.

“It's OK,” he said. “I can see their hearts. Whatever they are, they're alive.”

The black shapes came steadily nearer, and Fish could see plumes of condensed air. She exclaimed in delight as out of the snow emerged a small family of the most beautiful animals she had ever seen. Time stood still for a few seconds as the exquisite black palominos filed past Nat and Fish, seemingly unbothered as they tossed their blueywhite manes and disappeared back into the fog. The sight of the wild horses cheered them like a good omen, making them feel how good it was to be alive.