The Twilight Circus

by Di Toft

  The vampire slayers finished the job. The hive was dead. In the windowless room, the last traces of the vampires hung in the dank air. All that could be seen of the slayers was the gleam in their eyes; they were covered from head to toe in the black blood of the undead.

  “Oh man, oh man!!” yelled Fish. “We did it!”

  Nat wiped the vampire gunk from his eyes. “I’ve just remembered something,” he said tiredly.

  “What’s that?” asked Fish.

  “It’s Christmas Day,” he said. “Merry Christmas, everyone.”

  CHAPTER 25

  HUNTING WITH THE HOWLERS

  Safely back at the camp, in the orange light of the fires, the Twilighters rejoiced. It was, after all, Christmas night, and thanks to the slayers, the hive was dead! From their cozy cardboard boxes by the biggest bonfire they had lit all winter, Woody and Fish told the story between them, the others chipping in with the bits they had forgotten. But for all the rejoicing, Nat was quiet. The hive might be dead, but there was still the unsolved problem of Lucas Scale. He still remembered the heart-sinking feeling of discovering the eye in the snow globe, and it made him feel sick and uneasy. He could think of nothing else.

  He felt uncomfortable in Crescent’s presence, too. There was something different about her—a different smell. And she looked different: sort of scruffy, like she hadn’t taken a bath for a while. It seemed she had given up sulking, but she still hadn’t offered Nat an apology or any explanation for her cowardly behavior during the vampire attack. And now she was rounding up the Howlers for a hunt.

  “Come with us,” she urged Woody. “We can help you look for your clan. That’s what you came here for, wasn’t it?”

  Woody hesitated. He had felt frustrated not being able to search for them, but he could sense that there was something wrong with Nat. Instead of celebrating like everyone else, Nat seemed strangely quiet, miserable, even. Woody didn’t want to find the clan with Crescent in tow, either.

  “If you’re coming, hurry up,” whined Ramone. “I’m starving.”

  “You’re such a greedy pig,” sniffed Crescent, lifting her lip, showing less than clean teeth. She turned to the others. “Did you know he eats roadkill?”

  Ramone flushed. Crescent had no business telling anyone his secrets. “Only if it’s fresh,” he muttered. “It’s a waste otherwise.”

  “Come on, Woody,” urged Otis. “It’s about time you came on a run with us.”

  “Go on, it’s fine,” said Nat. “I don’t mind, honest.”

  “Tell you what,” said Crescent, turning to Nat. (Even her eyes look odd, thought Nat. Sort of far away, as though she’s not really here.) “I’ll bite you if you want. Can’t be certain you’ll live, but it’s worth a try. At least you wouldn’t be a mutt anymore!”

  If Nat felt stung by Crescent’s spiteful words, he hid it well.

  “If I throw you a stick would you leave?” he said, enjoying the look of outrage on Crescent’s face.

  “Well, sorry, but it’s true, isn’t it?” Crescent smirked. “You’re neither human nor Wolven.”

  Woody frowned, then his face lit up. “I know,” he said to Nat, “you can run with me, then when you get tired, I’ll come back with you. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds like it’s not going to work,” snapped Nat, more sharply than he’d intended. “I’ve only got two legs, remember?”

  Woody looked crestfallen.

  “Oh, just go,” said Nat, getting up from his box. “Crescent’s right, I’m neither human nor Wolven. I’m a bloody mongrel.”

  The ancient ritual of dung adornment was a solemn and serious matter, not to be taken lightly, and Woody realized worriedly that Crescent intended him to be part of the hunt, too. This meant Woody had to be initiated into the werewolf pack in the traditional manner.

  Salim had found a pile of steaming wild boar droppings, and Crescent, as the alpha wolf, was the first to roll on top of it, taking care to smear it commando-style on her furry face. Woody, as an honored guest of the pack, went second, his white fur streaked with the whiffy dung. Ramone and Salim rolled around in whatever was left, hoping to confuse their quarry with the smell of its own dung.

  Woody’s blood fizzed and crackled in his veins. His heart rate increased as he gulped in lungfuls of ice-cold air and sped after Crescent and the Howlers, the wild, dangerous smells of the forest flooding his senses as his paws flew across the snowy ground. The Howlers had picked up the ripe, musky smell of a large male boar, a tricky creature that carried with it the dark, damp smell of fungus and death. Woody had no doubt about what would happen to the boar when the Howlers tracked it down, but shocked himself by becoming so caught up in the thrill of the chase that he pushed it from his mind. Crescent streaked ahead, her russet coat easy to spot in the moonlight. The darker wolves followed and called to each other joyfully as they ran in pursuit of their prey. Woody brought up the rear, enjoying the freedom and excitement of the chase, savoring each moment to remember later.

  “AAAAAOOOOOOOOOGhaaaaaaaaaarrr!” Cre scent had spotted the boar at last. It was enormous, easily outweighing the wolves. Ramone, Otis, and Salim had formed a close protective shield around her, flanking both sides while they calculated the size and weight of their prey. Woody hung back, still not sure what to do. The boar ran for its life, its body hunched into a bullet shape, trying to make itself appear smaller. Ramone and Salim raced ahead, closing in on the unfortunate boar as Crescent and Otis were now almost close enough to snap at its heels.

  Woody willed himself to watch what happened next. The boar, knowing it was time to fight to the death, did a neat trick and stopped abruptly. It turned and faced the pack, its small red eyes glinting defiantly. The werewolves skidded into it, sending it sprawling. It quickly recovered and faced them, its razor-sharp tusks gleaming bone-white in the moonlight. The werewolves crept toward it, saliva dripping from their fangs, the hackles on their backs making them appear bigger and meaner.

  But the boar wasn’t fazed by the snarling werewolves at all. It prepared to fight. It charged and the Howlers broke formation, Salim now yelping in terror. Crescent rounded on the boar, her lethal teeth extended toward it like those of a great white shark. Woody howled a warning, but it was too late. The boar turned neatly, avoiding Crescent’s teeth, and lacerated Salim’s flank with his tusks, ripping it with the ease of a cutthroat razor.

  There was no sound. The boar swung around again, sensing it had a chance for survival after all. Salim lay on his uninjured side, stunned and panting, bleeding heavily from the jagged wound. The shock had made him morph between wolf shape and human shape, the effort making the blood flow even faster. Otis and Ramone pawed at him in concern, but Woody noticed that Crescent seemed oddly unconcerned, even eager to leave Salim behind. She doesn’t smell right, he thought to himself. She smells bad, like some part of her has gone rancid. And when he looked into her eyes, he thought he could detect a mean gleam in them.

  With an enormous effort, Salim calmed himself by breathing deeply and allowing his body to deal with the pain.

  Woody trotted over to Salim and sniffed. Satisfied it wasn’t as deep as he first thought, Woody bent his head and licked the wound carefully, cleaning the blood away. Salim whimpered as he worked, and then relaxed as he felt the healing warmth begin to repair the flesh. Fifteen minutes later, he rose unsteadily to his feet. Woody drew away and turned back the way they had come, anxious to be on his way. He’d had enough. He wanted to go home to his little bunk in the Silver Lady, where Nat would already be asleep. But the others hung back, ears pressed to their heads, tails wagging slowly, hungry for blood. Woody stared at them. Surely they weren’t going after the boar again? He tried to brain-jack Crescent for an answer. There was nothing there anymore. It was as though she had gone.

  CHAPTER 26

  WHITE WOLF FALLS

  The Howlers were out of control. Woody ran a little way, then ran back toward them, doing it again so they’d get the picture an
d follow him. Crescent stared at him dully. Before he could react, she turned, vanishing back into the deep forest with the Howlers, who were following close behind, calling to each other in joyous yowls.

  Woody shook himself. No way, he thought. He could still hear the Howlers hollering to each other as they crashed noisily through the undergrowth. He thought again of his cozy little bunk bed and trotted in the opposite direction. He felt cold and lonely and suddenly very miserable without Nat. Why had he come? Of course Nat felt left out—with his two human legs instead of four, he would never have been able to keep up! Woody felt guilty, too—he should have stuck up for Nat when Crescent had been so spiteful. Why was she being so mean? He decided that as soon as he got back to the Silver Lady, he would wake Nat up and they would have a midnight feast and Woody would apologize for deserting him, and everything would be all right again. Now that the hive was dead, they could hunt for his clan together as he had always imagined they would.

  Encouraged by his plan, Woody gathered speed, becoming a white blur through the trees. As he sped along, he tried to think of what he would say to Nat and wondered if Crescent and the Howlers would catch the boar. He hoped the wily old boar had got a good start on them—it didn’t deserve to be ripped apart by werewolves. Woody was so busy putting his world to rights, he didn’t notice a shimmering pale shape shadowing him.

  The mysterious shape mirrored Woody’s actions with perfect harmony. If Woody swerved, the creature, who was lurking about ten feet deeper into the woods on Woody’s left, swerved, too. If he jumped, the creature did, too. When Woody sensed he was being followed, he was more curious than scared. His first glimpse out of the corner of his eye showed him a large pale creature that ran on four legs, and it smelled … Oh, it smelled so familiar! He decided to draw the creature out from its cover. Woody ran in and out of the thick trees and, to his delight, the other did the same. Then he ran as fast as he could to see if the other creature could match him. It did so with ease, and Woody stopped to see if it would show itself. The snow, which until now had teased and dusted the forest paths with delicate, insubstantial flakes, decided to step up production. Woody’s eyelashes were crusted with the stuff and it made his vision blurry. He peered through the clearing, but all he could see was a monochrome landscape of black trees, white snow, and black sky. There! There it was—movement! Woody held his breath. His Wolven senses, so fabulously enhanced to suss out any situation before any other cryptid creature he had ever met, had failed to identify the one thing he sought most.

  An enormous white Wolven emerged from its cover of trees, its fur bright in the moonlight, its eyes glowing softly like topaz gems. Woody thought he must be dreaming—or hallucinating. He had waited for this moment since Iona de Gourney had revealed there might be survivors from his clan. But with all the bad vampire stuff kicking off, he had almost given up hope of finding them. And now he could scarcely believe his good fortune: A Wolven—maybe even a member of his clan—had found him! Woody hesitated, not sure how he should approach this white, shimmering creature. Here goes nothing, he thought. He took a deep breath and tried to stop himself rushing up and risk scaring it off. Cautiously, Woody trotted forward in polite friendly mode, his tail wagging slightly, ears erect, lips drawn slightly back in an openmouthed, friendly grin, and prepared himself for a little social sniffing. The other Wolven chuffed gently and danced before him encouragingly. Then it sped away, with Woody following closely, deeper and deeper into the forest. The pair of Wolven weaved in and out of the dense trees like white smoke. Woody lost all sense of time and direction as he concentrated on following the Wolven up ahead.

  Nat had hung around waiting for Woody to come back from his run so that he could apologize about earlier. Worst of all, either the two-way thing wasn’t working, or Woody was out of range.

  Nat had left the Twilighters celebrating around the roaring fire, and he could still hear the music from Maccabee Hammer’s fiddle, and hearty laughter drifting on the freezing night air. Nat didn’t feel there was much to celebrate. The shrieks of the undead as they writhed on the floor of the factory still rang in his head, and there was the small matter of Lucas Scale, too. The cold fact that he was still alive was hard to bear, and without Woody to share his fears it felt worse. Nat felt himself tense and sniffed the cold air. Above the racket of celebrations, he could hear stealthy footsteps in the snow. Fish.

  “What’re you doing?” asked Fish in surprise. “It’s freezing out here.”

  “Same as you, I expect,” said Nat. “Thinking about what happened this afternoon.”

  “I wouldn’t dwell on it for too long.” Fish smiled wearily. “It’ll give you bad dreams.”

  Nat gave her a ghost of a smile. “How’s Del?”

  Fish shrugged. “Same as he was before. Nat, I’m —”

  “Scared,” broke in Nat. “We didn’t get the head vampire, did we?”

  Fish shook her head miserably.

  Back in the moonlit forest, Woody still chased the other Wolven. It was bigger and faster than he was, and there were times he thought he had lost it, but then he would spot it in the distance, waiting up ahead, tongue lolling, tail wagging. But when at last Woody felt he could run no more, the other Wolven disappeared from view. Woody looked around him, sniffing the freezing night air, but he could neither smell nor see it anymore. Anxiously, he paced the perimeter of a circular clearing in the trees.

  Despite his disappointment at losing the Wolven, Woody felt he was in a special place. In the thaw it would be a perfect oasis with a pool of fresh water fed by a gushing waterfall. But with the current temperatures way below freezing, the waterfall hung in suspended animation, a thick curtain of enormous icicles and sheets of ice above the frozen pool. Woody ate some snow and let it melt in his mouth as he figured out what to do next.

  Where’d it go? Woody chuffed and whined, hoping the other Wolven would hear him and come back and show itself. His keen vision could make out the scene as though it was daylight. The ice shone midnight blue in the light of the moon, and the waterfall glinted and sparkled like cold diamonds. Panting, he leaped easily onto the rocky ledge beneath the waterfall. Negotiating his way around the back of the frozen curtain of water was tricky, and his claws were barely able to stop him from sliding off the frozen rock, but when he edged his way farther in he realized he was in a cavernous chamber. So this is where the other Wolven went! Excited, he trotted to the back of the cave, where there was a small fissure in the rock. Woody could feel the difference in the air temperature. Warmer air filtered through the crack, which was just big enough for a large wolflike creature to squeeze through. Pressing his body low onto the rocky floor, Woody crawled forward on all fours, gripping the rough surface with his claws. Flattening himself as much as he could, he pulled himself through, scrambling down from the rocks on the other side into what seemed to be another chamber, a subterranean cavern below the cave.

  Woody had been in the presence of magic before, and this place fairly thrummed with it. The chamber was as big as a medium-sized village church, and about the same shape. Up ahead, nestled in niches within the rocky ceiling were hundreds—No, make that thousands, thought Woody to himself—of tiny twinkling orbs of golden light, which gave off a warm glow, like a sunrise on a summer dawn. Toward the front of the chamber were placed a number of oblong objects in a large circle, each about the width and length of a man. Woody padded over to investigate.

  He growled in surprise. The oblong objects (and Woody counted twelve) appeared to be stone tombs. Each tomb had the effigy of the occupant in delicately sculpted marble on the top, and he stared at these in morbid fascination. It looked to him as though the gentlemen whose remains lay at rest underneath were reclining in the armor of the Knights Templar, and he shivered up to his hackles at the expressions on their marble faces. Each grave face looked rather haughty for Woody’s comfort, some appearing cross, as though they had been greatly inconvenienced at finding themselves dead. Each effigy was armed with
a huge sword, and lying at each pair of marble feet was an enormous marble wolf creature—a Wolven!

  What is this place? Woody asked himself. He was beginning to feel well and truly spooked by the whole thing, and wished again that Nat was there to share it with him. But on reflection, Woody doubted that a human could have squeezed through the gap in the cave unless there was another way in, and anyway, Nat was claustrophobic—he hated being underground. There was a sort of raised area behind the tombs, like an altar, and under the strange lighting shone a stronger light, like a great golden halo. Woody walked into the light, and if he had been in human shape he would have gasped.

  Coffers of golden treasure shimmered and glimmered in front of him, winking under the sparkling lights. Treasure far beyond a king’s ransom lit up Woody’s fur with an eerie Midas glow as he tried to take it all in. He narrowed his eyes to blot out the light and mentally added another question to the list forming in his mind. Was this the lost cargo of Templar treasure—treasure searched for across the globe for almost a thousand years? Iona de Gourney had told both Woody and Nat about the legendary lost Templar gold, which had fueled the imagination of millions of people for centuries. Iona’s ancient ancestor Sir William de Gourney had even speculated in his chronicles that the treasure included priceless holy relics such as the Grail or even the Ark of the Covenant! Woody panted with excitement and awe. What if the two things that humans had searched for over hundreds of years were here in this underground church, guarded by the King’s Wolven? What if—?

  Woody forgot about the gold abruptly. Sometime during his ponderings, the other Wolven had come back. To Woody’s overwhelming joy, more followed, their eyes alight with the same wonder that Woody felt as he gazed upon his clan. Then they were upon him, squealing with delight, tails wagging ecstatically, all wanting to touch him.