"So how do we refer to you?" Gavner asked. "He? She? It?"

"He will… do fine," Harkat said.

Their blue robes and hoods were for show. Their masks, on the other hand, were necessary, and they carried several spares, some sewn under their skin for extra safekeeping! Air was lethal to them — if they breathed normal air for ten or twelve hours, they'd die. There were chemicals in their masks that purified the air.

"How can you die of you're already dead?" I asked, confused.

"My body can… die, like anyone… else's. If it does… my soul goes… back to the way… it was."

"Could you agree to another contract with Mr. Tiny?" Mr. Crepsley asked.

Harkat shook his head. "Not sure. But don't… think so. One shot at… extra life is… all I think… we get."

The Little People could read each other's minds. That's why they never spoke. He wasn't sure if the others were able to speak or not. When asked why he'd never spoken before, he flashed a crooked grin and said he'd never had cause to.

"But there must be a reason," Mr. Crepsley pressed. "In all the hundreds of years that we have known them, no Little Person has ever spoken, even when dying or in great pain. Why have you broken that long silence? And why?"

Harkat hesitated. "I have a… message," he finally said. "Mr. Tiny… gave me it… to give to… Vampire Princes. So I'd… have had to speak… soon anyway."

"A message?" Mr. Crepsley leaned forward intently, but pulled back into the shadows of the shelter when the sun hit him. "What sort of message?"

"It is for… Princes," Harkat said. "I do not… think I should… tell you."

"Go on, Harkat," I urged him. "We won't tell them you told us. You can trust us."

"You will… not tell?" he asked Mr. Crepsley and Gavner.

"My lips are sealed," Gavner promised.

Mr. Crepsley was slower to make his pledge, but finally nodded.

Harkat took a deep, shuddering breath. "Mr. Tiny told… me to tell… Princes that the… night of the… Vampaneze Lord… is at hand. That is… all."

"The night of the Vampaneze Lord is at hand?" I repeated. "What kind of a message is that?"

"I do not… know what… it means," Harkat said. "I'm just… the messenger."

"Gavner, do you —" I started to ask, but stopped when I saw the expressions of the vampires. Although Harkat's message didn't mean anything to me, it obviously meant a whole lot to them. Their faces were even paler than usual, and they were trembling with fear. In fact, they couldn't have looked more terrified if they'd been staked to the ground out in the open and left for the sun to rise!

CHAPTER TEN

MR. CREPSLEY AND GAVNER wouldn't explain the meaning of Harkat's message right away — they were too stunned to speak — and the story only trickled out over the next three or four nights, most of it coming from Gavner Purl.

It had to do with something Mr. Tiny told the vampires hundreds of years ago, when the vampaneze broke away. Once the fighting had died down, he visited the Princes at Vampire Mountain and told them that the vampaneze were not "hierarchically structured" (Mr. Crepsley's phrase), which meant there were no Vampaneze Generals or Princes. Nobody gave orders or bossed the others around.

"That was one of the reasons they broke away," Gavner said. "They didn't like the way things worked with vampires. They thought it was unfair that ordinary vampires had to answer to the Generals, and the Generals to the Princes."

Lowering his voice so that Mr. Crepsley couldn't hear, he said, "To be honest, I agree with some of that. There is room for change. The vampire system has worked for hundreds of years, but that doesn't mean it's perfect."

"Are you saying you'd rather be a vampaneze?" I asked, shocked.

"Of course not!" He laughed. "They kill, and allow mad vampaneze like Murlough to run around and do as they please. It's far better to be a vampire. But that doesn't mean that some of their ideas aren't worth taking on board.

"Not flitting on the way to Vampire Mountain, for example — that's a ridiculous rule, but it can only be changed by the Princes, who don't have to change anything they don't want to, regardless of what the rest of us think. Generals have to do everything the Princes say, and ordinary vampires have to do everything Generals say."

Though the vampaneze didn't believe in leaders, Mr. Tiny said that one night a champion would step forward. He would be known as the Vampaneze Lord and the vampaneze would follow him blindly and do everything he said.

"What's so bad about that?" I asked.

"Wait till you hear the next part," Gavner said gravely. Apparently, not long after the Vampaneze Lord came to power, he would lead the vampaneze into war against the vampires. It was a war, Mr. Tiny warned, that the vampires couldn't win. They would be wiped out.

"Is that true?" I asked, appalled.

Gavner shrugged. "We've been asking ourselves that for seven hundred years. Nobody doubts Mr. Tiny's powers — he's proved before that he can see into the future — but sometimes he tells lies. He's an evil little worm."

"Why didn't you go after the vampaneze and kill them all?" I asked.

"Mr. Tiny said that some vampaneze would survive and the Vampaneze Lord would come as promised. Besides, war with the vampaneze was exacting too heavy a toll. Humans were hunting us down and might have made an end of us. It was best to declare a truce and let matters lie."

"Is there no way the vampires could beat the vampaneze?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Gavner replied scratching his head. "There are more vampires than vampaneze and we're as strong as they are, so I can't see why we shouldn't be able to get the better of them. But Mr. Tiny said numbers wouldn't matter.

"There's one hope," he added. "The Stone of Blood."

"What's that?"

"You'll see when we get to Vampire Mountain. It's a magic icon, sacred to us. Mr. Tiny said that if we prevented it from falling into the hands of the vampaneze, one night, long after the battle has been fought and lost, there's a chance that vampires might rise from the ashes and prosper again."

"How?" I asked, frowning.

Gavner smiled. "That question has puzzled vampires for as long as it's been asked. Let me know if you figure it out," he said with a wink, and drew the conversation to a troubling close.

A week later, we arrived at Vampire Mountain.

It wasn't the highest mountain in the region, but it was steep and rocky, and looked like it would be almost impossible to climb. "Where's the palace?" I asked, squinting up at the snowy peak, which seemed to point directly at the three-quarter moon overhead.

"Palace?" Mr. Crepsley replied.

"Where the Vampire Princes live." Mr. Crepsley and Gavner burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" I snapped.

"How long do you think we would escape detection if we built a palace on the side of a mountain?" Mr. Crepsley asked.

"Then where…?" Understanding dawned. "It's inside the mountain!"

"Of course." Gavner smiled. "The mountain's a giant hive of caves and chambers. Everything a vampire could wish for is stored within — coffins, vats of human blood, food, and wine. The only time you see vampires on the outside is when they're arriving or departing or going to hunt."

"How do we get in?" I asked.

Mr. Crepsley tapped the side of his nose. "Watch and see."

We walked around the rocky base of the mountain. Mr. Crepsley and Gavner were full of excitement, though only Gavner let it show — the older vampire acted as dryly as ever, and it was only when he thought nobody was looking that he'd grin to himself and rub his hands together in anticipation.

We reached a stream that was about twenty feet wide. The water flowed swiftly through it and gushed away down to the flat plains beyond. While we were working our way upstream, a lone wolf appeared in the near distance and howled. Streak and the other wolves came to an immediate stop. Streak's ears pricked up; he listened a moment, then howled back. His tail was wagging when he looked at me.