They came out of the woods in pairs, one set after the other. I counted twelve in all, though there was a thirteenth member, a taller person walking behind the rest. He was the one carrying the torch.

"Where did they come from?" I asked Evra quietly.

"I don't know," he answered. "They left the show a few weeks ago. I have no idea where they went. They kept to themselves mostly."

"Who are they?" I asked.

"They're —," he began to answer, but stopped all of a sudden. His eyes widened with fear.

It was the man bringing up the rear, the thirteenth, taller member of the group — visible now that he was closer — who scared Evra.

The blue-hooded people passed by silently. As the mysterious thirteenth person approached, I noticed he was dressed differently from the others. He wasn't very tall; he just looked big in comparison to the blue-hoods. He had short white hair, a thick pair of glasses, a sharp yellow suit, and long green rubber boots. He was pretty fat and walked with a weird waddle.

He smiled pleasantly at us as he passed. I smiled back, but Evra looked paralyzed, unable to move the muscles in his mouth.

The blue-hoods and the man with the torch walked farther into the campsite, all the way to the back, where they found a large clear spot. Then the blue-hoods began putting up a tent — they must have been carrying the equipment underneath their capes — while the larger man headed for Mr. Tall's van.

I studied Evra. He was shaking all over, and even though his face could never turn white — because of its natural color — it was paler than it had ever been before.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

He shook his head silently, unable to reply.

"What is it? Why are you so scared? Who was that man?"

"He… It…" Evra cleared his throat and took a deep breath. When he spoke, it was in a low, trembling voice, filled with sheer terror.

"That was Mr. Tiny ," he said, and I couldn't get any more out of him for a long time after that.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Evra's fear went away as the evening wore on, but he was slow to return to normal and was really edgy the whole night. I had to take his knife from him and do his share when he was peeling potatoes for dinner; I was afraid he might slice one of his fingers off.

After we'd eaten and helped clean the dishes, I asked Evra about the mysterious Mr. Tiny. We were in the tent, and Evra was playing with his snake.

He didn't answer immediately, and for a while I thought he wasn't going to, but in the end he sighed and began to speak.

"Mr. Tiny is the leader of the Little People," he said.

"The small guys in the blue-hooded capes?" I asked.

"Yup. He calls them Little People. He's their boss.

He doesn't come here a lot — it's been two years since I last saw him — but he gives me the creeps when he does. He's the spookiest man I've ever met."

"He looked all right to me," I said.

"That's what I thought the first time I saw him," Evra agreed. "But wait till you've spoken to him. It's hard to explain, but every time he looks at me, I feel like he's planning to slaughter, skin, and roast me."

"He eats people?" I asked, freaked out.

"I don't know," Evra said. "Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't. But you get the feeling he wants to eat you. And it's not just me being stupid; I've talked about it with other members of the Cirque and they feel the same way. Nobody likes him. Even Mr. Tall gets fidgety when Mr. Tiny's around."

"Well, the Little People must like him, don't they?" I asked. "They follow and obey him, right?"

"Maybe they're scared of him," Evra said. "Maybe he forces them to obey him. Maybe they're his slaves."

"Have you ever asked them?"

"They don't talk," Evra said. "I don't know if it's because they can't or if they don't want to, but nobody in the circus has ever been able to get a word out of them. They're really helpful and they'll do whatever you ask but they're as silent as walking dummies."

"Have you ever seen their faces?" I asked.

"Once," Evra said. "Usually they don't let their hoods slip, but one day I was helping a couple of them move a heavy machine. It fell on one of the Little People and crushed him. He didn't make a sound, even though he must have been in a huge amount of pain. His hood fell to the side and I caught a glimpse of his face.

"It was disgusting," Evra said quietly, stroking the snake. "Full of scars and stitches all crumpled together, like some giant had squeezed it with his claws. He didn't have ears or a nose, and there was some kind of mask over his mouth. The skin was gray and dead-looking, and his eyes were like two green bowls near the top of his face. He didn't have hair, either."

Evra shivered at the memory. I felt cold myself, thinking about his description.

"What happened to him?" I asked. "Did he die?"

"I don't know," Evra said. "A couple of his brothers — I always think of them as brothers, though they probably aren't — came and took him away."

"You never saw him again?"

"They all look the same," Evra said. "Some are a little smaller or taller than the others, but there's no real way of telling them apart. Believe me — I've tried."

Weirder and weirder. I was really intrigued by Mr. Tiny and his Little People. I'd always liked mysteries. Maybe I could solve this one. Maybe, with my vampire powers, I could find a way to talk to one of the hooded creatures.

"Where do the Little People come from?" I asked.

"Nobody knows," Evra said. "There's usually about four or six of them with the Cirque. Sometimes more turn up by themselves. Sometimes Mr. Tiny brings in new ones. It was weird that none were here when you came."

"You think it had something to do with me and Mr. Crepsley coming?" I asked.

"I doubt it," Evra said. "It was probably just a coincidence. Or fate." He paused. "Which is another thing: Mr. Tiny's first name is Desmond."

"So?"

"He tells people to call him Des."

"So?" I asked again.

"Put it together with his last name," Evra told me.

I did. Mr. Des Tiny. Mr. Des-Tiny. Mr…

" Mr. Destiny ," I whispered, and Evra nodded seriously.

I was dying of curiosity and asked Evra a bunch more questions, but his answers were limited. He knew almost nothing about Mr. Tiny, and only a little more about the Little People. They ate meat. They smelled funny. They moved around slowly most of the time. They either didn't feel pain or couldn't show it. And they had no sense of humor.

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Bradley Stretch," Evra answered darkly. "He used to be with the show. He had rubbery bones and could make his arms and legs stretch.

"He wasn't very nice. He was always playing practical jokes on us, and he had a nasty way of laughing. He didn't just make you look like an idiot: He made you feel like one too.

"We played a show in an Arabian palace. It was a private show for a sheik. He enjoyed all the acts, but especially liked Bradley's. The two started talking, and Bradley told the sheik he couldn't wear jewelry, because it always slipped off or broke because of the changing shape of his body.

"The sheik ran away and came back with a small gold bracelet. He gave it to Bradley and told him to put it on his wrist. Bradley did. Then the sheik told him to try shaking it off.

"So Bradley made his arm small and big, short and long, but he couldn't shake the bracelet loose. The sheik said it was magic and could only be removed if the wearer wanted to take it off. It was really valuable, priceless, but he gave it to Bradley as a gift.

"Getting back to the Little People," Evra said. "Bradley loved to tease them. He was always finding new ways to trick them. He made traps to hang them up in the air by their feet. He set their capes on fire. He squirted liquid laundry detergent on ropes they were using to make their hands slip, or glue to make them stick. He put thumbtacks in their food and he made their tent collapse and locked them in a van."