The ghost floated toward her as if the small distance between them was too much.
"Where have you been?" Rashed demanded instantly. "Did you find Parko's murderer?"
Edwan's movement stopped. His body half turned until his sloping head faced Rashed, and he stayed there in a long silence.
It was unusual for the ghost to appear visibly like this. His own appearance embarrassed him, and he did not like to see horror, revulsion, or even simple distaste in the eyes of others. Normally, he only appeared to Teesha, who never showed any sign of discomfort. But lately he'd taken to materializing in the most grisly detail whenever Rashed was present.
Rashed kept his expression emotionless on purpose. "What have you learned?"
"It was a woman called Magiere." Edwan's hollow voice echoed. He turned to face his wife as if Teesha had actually posed the question. "She hires herself out to peasant villages seeking to rid themselves of vampires and their like."
"I think I've actually heard that name," Ratboy chimed in, perking up now that his attention was stimulated. "It was a traveling peddler. He mentioned something about a 'hunter of the dead' working the villages of Stravina. But it has to be nonsense. There aren't that many of our kind. Not enough to make a living off of, if anyone was good enough to try. She's a fake, a charlatan. She could not have killed Parko."
"Yes, she did," Edwan answered, his words like whispers from the past traveling down an endless hall. "Parko rests in the Vudrask River, his head… his head…"-he stuttered briefly before continuing-"his head severed from his body. She cut his head off. She knew what to do."
Ratboy scoffed under his breath from the corner. Teesha simply sat listening and thinking. Rashed began pacing again.
He'd himself heard much about the occasional "hunter" traveling the lands, calling themselves by fanciful titles such as "exorcist," "witchbane," and "hunters of the dead." Ratboy was correct on one count. They were always cheats and mountebanks merely seeking profit by preying on peasant superstitions-regardless of whether those peasant fears were based on a hidden truth. But Rashed knew something more had happened this time, and Parko had died because of it. It was difficult, almost impossible, for a mortal to kill a vampire, even one who'd abandoned his intellect to run wild through the nights, lost to the Feral Path.
"And more," Edwan whispered.
Rashed stopped. "What?"
"She's coming here." The ghost now turned completely to face Rashed. "She's purchased the old tavern on the docks."
At first no one moved, then Ratboy rushed forward, Rashed stepped close, and even Teesha was on her feet. Their questions barraged the spirit, one upon the other.
"Where did you hear…?"
"How can that be…?"
"Where did she find out…?"
Edwan's eyes closed as if the voices hurt him.
"Quiet," Teesha snapped. Both Rashed and Ratboy fell silent as she turned back to the ghost, speaking calmly and quietly. "Edwan, tell us anything you know about this."
"Everyone in Miiska knows the owner disappeared months ago." Edwan paused, and Rashed turned a suspicious glare in Ratboy's direction. "I listened to her talk with her partner. The missing owner owed money on the property to someone in Bela, so the tavern was sold off low just to pay the debt. This false hunter now holds the title to the tavern, free and clear. She will arrive late tomorrow and intends to settle here to run the tavern."
Rashed lowered his head, murmuring to himself. "Perhaps she is not such a charlatan. I didn't kill our master and leave our home just so we could end up as some hunter's bounty."
The others remained silent, lost in their thoughts.
Finally, Teesha asked, "What should we do?"
Rashed looked back at her, examining the lines of her delicate face. He wasn't about to let a hunter anywhere near Teesha. But other thoughts also troubled him. "If the hunter makes it into Miiska, we'll have to fight her here, and we can't afford that if we're to maintain the secrecy we've established. Another death in town"-he glanced at Ratboy-"could ruin everything we have here. She must not reach Miiska."
"I'll do it," Ratboy said, almost before Rashed had even finished.
"No, she managed to destroy Parko," Teesha said, her expression changing to concern. "You might get hurt. Rashed is the strongest, so he should go."
"I'm the fastest, and I blend into anything," Ratboy argued, eagerness in his eyes. "Let me go, Rashed. No one on the road will ever remember I passed by. People always remember you. You look like a nobleman." A hint of sarcasm slipped in for only a blink. "That hunter will never even see me coming, and this will all be over."
Rashed weighed the possibilities. "All right, I suppose your bad habits might serve us this time. But don't toy with her. Just do it and dispose of the body."
"There's a dog." Edwan began speaking, then his words lost coherency. "Something old, something I can't remember."
Ratboy's pinched face wrinkled into a frown. He let out a grunt of boredom. "A dog is nothing."
"Listen to him," Rashed warned. "He knows more than you."
Ratboy shrugged and started for the door. "I'll be back soon."
Teesha nodded, her eyes a bit sad. "Yes, kill her quickly and then come home."
Ratboy stopped only long enough to roll up a canvas tarp that he could tie to his back and to put some of the dirt from his coffin into a large pouch. He brought no weapons. No one saw him exit the warehouse out into the cool night air.
Thoughts of the hunt consumed him. Rashed's obsession with secrecy meant that little or no killing was ever allowed in Miiska. The three of them commonly erased the blurred memories of their victims while feeding. While this nourished the body, it did not feed Ratboy's soul nor the hunger in his mind.
He loved to feel a heart stop beating right beneath him, to smell fear and the last tremble of life as it faded from his prey and was absorbed into his own body. Sometimes he killed outsiders, strangers, and travelers in secret and hid the bodies where no one would find them. But those were too few and too far between. Occasionally, he had gone too far and caused the death of someone who lived in Miiska and then tried his best to hide the body. Of course, the one time someone truly noticeable had disappeared, the old tavern owner, it hadn't been his doing, but Rashed still didn't believe him.
Tonight, Rashed had actually given him permission, and he would make the most of it, enjoying every slow moment. He felt the hunger rise up again, begging and demanding as he realized that he still had not fed this evening.
A quarter of the night passed as he worked his way along parallel to the road. Now and then, he stopped to fully test the night with his senses. Sniffing the night air, he picked up nothing at first. Then a thin whiff of warmth reached his nostrils. He crawled through the trees and brush to the edge of the coastal road from Bela, and heard the faint creak and scrape of a wagon, its axle in need of grease.
Ratboy waited patiently beneath a wild blueberry bush. Peering through the leaves, he could see the wagon rolling closer. The horse looked old and tired. A lone driver sat with his head nodding now and again as he drifted in and out of sleep. This was certainly not the one he'd been sent to find, but it seemed a waste to let the opportunity pass. And catching the hunter while he was fully fed and powered would be best.
"Help me," Ratboy called out weakly.
The driver's head raised up, awake. In his well-worn, purple cloak, he looked to be a half-successful merchant, probably one who traveled a great deal and wouldn't be missed for a full moon. Ratboy fought the urge to lunge.
"Here, please. I think my leg is broken," he called in mournful agony. "Help me."
His face awash with nauseating concern, the merchant began climbing down instantly. Ratboy did so enjoy this.