Roxy pushed a huge mug toward me. I figured the Czechs must have bladders of iron if they were able to drink that much on a regular basis.
"You'll never guess where Tanya and Arielle work! The GothFaire! Isn't that great? Arielle says they have all sort of attractions like palm readers, and tarot card readers and a medium, a magician, and lots and lots of vampires."
I choked on the tentative sip I was taking of the dark brown beer, just barely keeping it from taking the passage north to my nose.
"I beg your pardon?" I asked, licking the foam from my upper lip.
"Vampires," Roxy said happily. "Loads of them. Isn't that thrilling?"
"Loads of them," I repeated, looking from Roxy to Tanya to Arielle. "How many is loads?"
Although I was curious about the so-called vampires connected with the fair, I wasn't entirely surprised to hear they were present. I had a friend who had flirted briefly with the Goth society in San Francisco, and she told me that vampirism, in its pretense form, was very popular amongst the set. Some of them really got into the image, with cosmetically enhanced canine teeth, drinking animal blood obtained from slaughterhouses (something that was more common than I cared to think about), and living, in general, the vampire life without actually being undead.
"Dominic and Milos, the owners of GothFaire, are Vampyr," Tanya answered in a husky, heavily accented voice. She pronounced the word vampire in the affected, artsy-fartsy way that never failed to make my teeth itch.
"Are they? How very interesting," I said brightly. "And how enterprising of them to own a business. I wouldn't imagine vampires had much need for money, but I suppose the price of capes and dental care has gone up."
Tanya's kohl-laden eyelids lifted to pierce me with a gaze that would have had more impact on me if her pupils hadn't been dilated. Drugs, no doubt, I thought to myself. I'd heard that hallucinogenic drugs were particularly popular with the Goth groups, since they were felt to enhance the user's abilities to have visions. Duh, said I.
"There's almost twenty of us with the Faire," Arielle said quickly. "We travel all over Europe, and Dominic pays us a share of the profits, keeping none for himself or Milos."
"Ah," I nodded, willing to let the subject go. I was conscious of a slight feeling of edginess, which I put down to being in a strange country with some extremely strange people. I glanced out the window again, my eyes drawn to the line of ebony mountain silhouetted against the now dark sky. Something didn't feel right, but I couldn't decide what it was. After being in Frankfurt for a week, both Roxy and I had adjusted to the time difference, so that wasn't the problem…
Roxy glanced at her watch and asked Arielle when the fair opened.
"One hour after sunset," she said with a shy little smile. She really was cute; it was just too bad that someone had talked her into dying her hair a flat, dull black, and slathering on way too much makeup. I pegged her at about seventeen, and hoped this was an experimental phase she would grow out of quickly.
"Good. We'll go just as soon as we've had dinner, right, Joyful?"
My sense of unease grew. I glanced again at the mountains. What was it they were trying to tell me? "Hmm? Sure, if you like. We can take in the sights. Have our palms read, and watch the magic show, and stake a vampire or two through the heart."
"Joy!"
Tanya's eyes snapped open at my words, her nostrils flaring in a manner that reminded me of a horse, an observation I wisely kept to myself. Her fingernails were long, sharply pointed, and painted black. It was entirely possible she'd dipped the tips in poison.
"Sorry." I offered a cheesy smile as a token of friendship. Tanya dismissed it with an impatient snort. Once again her gaze shot to the door.
I decided to offer my olive branch to Arielle. "So, are you guys only here for a drink before the show opens, or would you like to have dinner with us? The owner said the pub grub was supposed to be pretty good."
"Pub grub?" Arielle looked confused.
"The food they serve here in the bar," Roxy said soothingly, shooting me an admonishing glance. "You're welcome to join us; we'd love to find out all about the fair and what you do there, and of course, what it's like to work with two vampires. I mean, Vampyrs."
I rolled my eyes.
"We've already had supper," Arielle said quickly, darting a nervous glance to her sister. "We're just here waiting for the men. We always gather in a public location before we open the fair. Dominic says it impresses people and makes them curious about the fair."
"I imagine it also serves as sort of a cattle call, too." At Arielle's blank look, I elaborated. "You know, it lets them look over the available stock of blood donors. Heh heh heh."
She shot another look at Tanya, and gave me a worried little feeble laugh. Roxy paused in smiling at her long enough to shoot me a warning look that I ignored. She chatted happily with Arielle about the sights at the fair, what her role was (she read tarot cards), and how she enjoyed traveling all over Europe, all the while I sat and fidgeted. The uncomfortable feeling of something portentous heading my way was growing steadily stronger. I had a momentary image in my mind of a shadow stalking through the woods, the scent of pine so strong it almost tickled my nose. I blinked the sensation aside and rubbed the back of my neck as I tried to focus my attention on what Arielle was saying.
"… was very nice, but just after we arrived there, someone was horribly murdered in the adjacent town, and the Heidelberg police closed all the roads for a day, so we were late for a show in Aufsdajm."
"Oooh, a murder," Roxy cooed. "How thrilling. Did the police grill you?"
A wave of foreboding crashed over me, almost making me gasp with the intensity of it. I looked around the room, trying to decide if it was someone staring at me that was having the affect on me, but no one was looking our way. Maybe I was just tired from a day spent on the train.
"Grill? They wanted to know if we'd seen the woman who was killed." Arielle's voice trailed away as she fretted with the stem of her glass of beer.
"And had you?" Roxy asked, ever curious.
Arielle swallowed hard, her gaze glued on the tabletop. "Yes, I had. She came to the fair a few days before. I read the cards for her."
"A great many people came to the fair that week, Arielle," Tanya snapped. "I have told you before that you have nothing to feel guilty about."
"But I didn't see the danger," Arielle all but wailed, her pale blue eyes swimming with sudden tears. "I did not see it. I saw nothing. I let her go without warning her at all!"
Tanya leaned forward across Roxy, who plastered herself against the high back of the wooden chair in an attempt to get out of the way. "You… did… nothing… wrong." The words came out hard and short, distracting me for a moment from the gathering blackness I could feel approaching.
"I know you say that, but I should have seen, I should have known…" Arielle grabbed for her napkin and wiped at the tears spilling from her eyes.
Tanya spat something out in a language I didn't understand. Whatever it was, it was effective. Arielle nodded, mumbling an apology to us while she mopped up. Roxy went immediately into comfort mode, putting her arm around the young woman and patting her shoulder.
"It's not every day you meet someone who's read tarot cards for a murder victim," I commented chattily, receiving for my efforts identical glares from both Roxy and Tanya.
"It wasn't just the one," Arielle said, blowing her nose delicately. "There was another woman murdered in Le Havre just after we left, and one in Bordeaux three months ago—do you remember, Tanya? She bought a love spell from you the week before. We saw her picture in the paper. She was the latest victim, until Heidelberg."