Camdeboo Nights by Nerine Dorman Page B

wall. No reason to remain hidden, not when they knew he was there, although the nagging worry of the Wareing girl and her family would be a risk he had to take.
    She was just a girl. They were both just girls, he told himself, trying to see them as the frail human creatures he knew them to be.
    “What were you trying to do?” His anger flooded away any uncertainty. Stupid, stupid girls. They had no idea, did they? “Do you have any idea what sort of trouble you are stirring up?”
    Arwen shouldered a sling-bag. Her fear was a sharp tang in the air. Helen, however, radiated only the calm green of curiosity.
    “No, you tell us,” Arwen said.
    For a split second, static crackled as reality shifted.
    Footsteps, doors slamming. Voices, roughly two hundred meters down the road.
    Someone was coming. Someone knew.
    “You’re messing with things you don’t understand,” Trystan hissed.
    Arwen squirmed behind Helen, as if she tried to make herself less of a target.
    Oh, the witch girl knew they’d been messing with stuff they shouldn’t, all right, and unfortunately Helen’s ignorance of her situation would only endanger her.
    “What do you know about any of this?” Helen gestured about her.
    “Enough!” Trystan snapped. Footsteps approached, beyond mortals’ hearing. They were coming–people who know, most likely of the Wareing clan. They would not be happy finding him here with their daughter.
    Perhaps if he could persuade Arwen, she might keep this secret. That might also prove impossible among those who traded in secrets, though.
    “Come with me.” Trystan took hold of Helen’s wrist. “We need to talk, but not here. You as well, Arwen.”
    Helen resisted for an instant, before complying.
    “Helen! He’s a–” Arwen started.
    “Don’t!” Trystan commanded. “I won’t hurt either of you. We just need to get away from here.”
    Arwen didn’t look convinced but the two girls followed him back over the low wall. He kept away from the road, keeping in line with the cemetery, farther toward the hills, and cut diagonally across the show grounds.
    “Where are you taking us?” Helen asked.
    “Shhh! I’ll explain once we get away from here.”
    Trystan had them walking until they reached the poplars bordering the river. They dropped into the shale-crusted bed and followed a dry furrow. In the pale starlight he caught sight of numerous fossils embedded in the stone. On any other occasion, he’d stop to trace the chalky outlines of the remains, and attempt to tap into the memories of millions of years ago. Some vampires could read the past. He hoped to evoke the same abilities himself.
    Not tonight. The girls stumbled, not able to see as well as he did in the dark. They followed the watercourse, sometimes crossing through the water–there had not been much rain this year–then crossing back.
    Soon, they reached the bridge that would take them back into the village proper.
    “What was that in aid of?” Arwen asked. She seemed to have worked through her initial fear.
    Helen sat on a rock and fiddled with her flip flop. “I got something stuck in my sole that’s hurting my foot.”
    Trystan reached in the direction from which they had come, sensing only Arwen’s father’s presence among the stones in the graveyard. Good. Then the white witch had not ventured out. The last thing he wanted was for their kind to start meddling. Things always got messy when that happened.
    Now, what to do about Arwen.
    She scowled at him from beneath her fringe, her gaze darting from him then back to Helen, who hummed under her breath while she picked at her shoe.
    “All right. An explanation,” Trystan said but what was he going to say? How much would he say? “There’s more to your little ritual than you’d think, Arwen.”
    “No shit, mister,” Arwen answered. “So, why’d you come muck it all up?”
    “You were succeeding far too admirably in your venture. You were about to...” If they hadn’t, already