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He pulled his scarf up from around his neck to shield the bottom half of his face. The wind shifted and blew directly into his face, making his nose, his lips, and his cheeks feel as if one more rough gust would take skin and all from his very bones. When he’d started the final voyage from Blind River to Harper Rock, Ambrose had his old Ford pickup truck and enough fuel to get him to the nearest station. He had his knapsack, his saxophone case, and his dad’s old baseball cap. He had everything he needed; Blind River had gone from the present to the past. And then the front right tire blew out and he’d had to abandon his truck

Ambrose gave his arm a little shake to lower his sleeve down over his left hand and shield his skin from the cold wind. Several blocks back, he’d secured his knapsack on his back and thrust his thumb out at every passing car. There were a few station wagons, but most of the vehicles traveling along the road were big rigs, ones that he had no interest in flagging down. When the winds shifted and sent the frigid air along his spine, he took the chance to pick up his pace.

He tightened his hand on the leather handle of his saxophone case and lowered his chin toward his chest. When he looked up and settled his eyes on the horizon, he saw foreign lines and curves breaking the steady blue-black horizon. The closer he got to the city limits, the clearer the objects became, until he saw the tiny lights atop the ferris wheel and the flashing bulbs layered along the top and bottom of the merry-go-round.

The Silverlight Fairground stretched out in front of him like a runner in the middle of a long, dark hallway, and he wanted nothing more than to be immersed in the lights and sound of the fair. He hadn’t missed the city or the fairground, but he had nowhere else to go. No, he had a personal mission. He had unfinished business. Whenever he thought of Harper Rock, he thought of his past and how every step led to his future.

“It’s me. Again,” he greeted the man at the ticket booth. For the millionth time, he raised his free hand and gave the attendant a little wave. If his father hadn’t made a connection with the man, he might have been hauled away as a squatter, but Jim was the lead, the one behind Ambrose’s relocation.

“You enjoy yourself! Ride that ferris wheel!” Jim leaned over, poking his head out of the booth, and called after Ambrose. The older man had a sense of humor that grated on Ambrose’s nerves, but he ignored the playful comments.

Ambrose made his way past some of the introductory rides, like a tea-cup ride and a sky-drop ride. He wondered what it would have been like to throw his bag and his case down and jump in line. He’d never had a normal life. He’d never been to a fairground until he’d gone to Harper Rock. The last time he’d entered the city, he’d survived off greasy corn dogs and pretzels. This time, he had his cash box and an interview for a job. He even had some cash for a hotel room, but he held onto it for some of the coldest of nights.

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright for this? You almost dropped an entire case today when your side throbbed.”

Wyatt watched Sence ignore him as she moved to speak with an elderly woman looking at one of the flyers about the opening of Build-A-Buddy. “I’m fine, Wyatt. You worry too much.” She replied after a few moments, the smile across her lips unwavering as she answered questions asked – how well was her business doing, was it clean, were the fabrics used to create the stuffed animals hypoallergenic. The last one caught her off guard, but she had quickly double checked in her mind that yes, the fabrics and materials weren’t going to mess with any allergies that someone might have. There was doubt behind the woman’s eyes, but after a lingering moment, she gave a nod of her head and mentioned that her granddaughter’s birthday was coming up.

“Wonderful! We’ll be happy to see you both there. First outfit is free.” Sence gave a shy smile and bid the woman a goodbye, watching her shuffle off in the direction to where three boys around the age of ten were arguing over who would get the most tickets. A second later, Wyatt moved closer and frowned once more. “And what if you aren’t in fifteen minutes, Sen?” Her eyebrows pinched together. She knew what he was talking about and she didn’t like to – the deep wounds in her abdomen were written off as a chronic injury received in a car accident, not that a bear had ripped her open and nearly killed her a year before. “It always happens.” His stare was making her uneasy and she shook her head faintly.

He didn’t understand that it was a constant.

“I’ll be okay. I’ll call if I’m not.” Before he could begin to lecture her about staying where he can see her, as if her thrall were her father, Sence hurried off into the building crowd in the direction of the ticket booth. At least he wouldn’t follow her. Dressed in a long sleeved red sweater, a winter coat, black jeans and her usual combat boots, she fit in with the individuals moving around in the fairground. Every now and then, she would purposely bump into them along the way – slipping rings off their fingers, or cash from their pockets into her own; was the proud of it? Not really, but she thought it would be good to still practice pickpocketing even though she had her shops.

Hearing a familiar voice as she tucked a fifty into her pocket, Sence lifted her head to see the man she’d ran into before approaching from the ticket booth, minding the fact he was human, she lifted her hand in greeting. “Andrew!” That had been the name he’d given her, right? No last name, but it had definitely started with an A – or so she thought. She’d have to think more on it later, either that or just avoid saying his name completely until he had a name tag on. When it didn’t seem that he heard her, she hurried over to the booth were Jim greeted her with a grin and asked if she’d like more tickets, the small Spaniard smiling and asking if only he’d take some flyers in return to pass around.

Even if he didn’t, she had already spread out enough over the fairgrounds and Wyatt was still passing them out to parents with children and couples that seemed eager to start a family. “Thank you!” She didn’t know what to do with the tickets and made a mental note to give them to Wyatt before she hurried off after the man from earlier.

Sence. Ambrose recognized his alias as soon as he heard it, and he recognized her voice. He pretended that he hadn’t heard her. He kept his eyes facing forward and put one foot in front of the other. If he ignored her, maybe she would go away. He wasn’t sure where the thought originated. Sence had been nice, nice enough to offer a total stranger an interview. She had given him money to get a room at a local hotel.

Alone. He always operated on his own. When he opened up to others, he opened up to others like himself, like his dad. He didn’t want to drag someone into the paranoia. He didn’t want to answer those all-too-familiar questions. Donovan had told Ambrose over and over again that hunters, what were known as paladins, were to be leery of more than the creatures of the night. Look what had happened to his mother. Look what had happened to the rest of his family.

He would have kept walking, but he ran out of pavement. The main walk of the fairground had opened up into a food court. There were all sorts of vendors around the outer edge of the open court, but the interior had dozens of tables, some made of stone and others of wood. Ambrose bypassed a few tables and settled on a stone table with four small benches. He slid his knapsack from his shoulder and dropped it next to his bench, giving it a nudge with his foot to send it further under the table. As for his saxophone case, he placed it on the tabletop and checked on the shiny brass clasps. Solid. Locked. Safe.

Glancing around, Ambrose raised a hand to try and smooth out his brown hair. He looked rough. His boots were caked with dry mud. The leather was a combination of light brown, dark brown, and a shade just shy of black. The bottoms of his bluejeans weren’t much better, being flecked with the same mud that coated his boots. His green, button-up shirt was wrinkled, mostly along the sleeves, where he had folded the cuffs and rolled the sleeves up and over his elbows. Even his hands were dirty. All the time he spent trying to switch out his front tire had left dirt and oil smudges along his fingers and the backs of his hands.

He looked homeless. For once, he felt homeless.

He slid onto the stone bench and rested his elbows atop the cool tabletop. When he turned his head to the right, he saw a little girl staring at him with a mixture of awe and what he knew to be disgust--he saw the subtle curl of her lips and the wrinkle along her forehead. The girl's mother was too busy chatting with another woman to pay attention to her child. Ambrose raised his right hand and flashed his middle finger at the girl, making her gasp and run around her mother's legs.

She had lost him.

“Well, shoot.” A frown played across her lips as she looked through the sea of people, having difficulty spotting anything other than shoulders due to her height and with a huff escaping past her lips, the small vampiress considered giving up. Unlike with her thrall, she knew that if she called out into his mind it would be a bad thing. A masquerade break, was that what her sire had called it? Sence knew that when it came to the sides, she didn’t want to be one way or another. She knew vampires and humans would have issues mixing – the scars hidden by her clothes on her legs and stomach from gunshots and swords just from the hunters down in the sewers were proof of that.

Twilight and other things like that on television had it wrong. The allure vampires had was dangerous. Fitting in was hard when you could heal wounds in days, “or minutes for some”, she thought about a man she’d seen grow a leg back in the sewers. It had surprised her how it appeared to heal layer upon layer, and admittedly, it had grossed her out a little. “Sence?” Wyatt’s voice behind her made the small woman sigh before she turned around to face her thrall with a curious expression playing across her features. “You okay?” “The man I told you about, Andrew, is here. I just... lost track of him.” She watched him give a roll of his blue eyes and give a shake of his head in response.

“What?” Sence looked confused as he moved to her, his hand lightly touching the small of her back as he began to lead her in the direction of the food court. “Nothing, come on. I’m starving.” Now it was her turn to roll her eyes as she followed his touch. She didn’t like a lot of smells, food precisely made her queasy on occasions and she crinkled her nose when her nose was assaulted. Fried bubblegum, fried bananas, chicken wings; it all never made much sense to her when she was alive and it hadn’t changed as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. “Stay.” Wyatt received a look of disbelief for the instruction and as he headed in the direction of a vender, she looked around once more.

And there he was again. When his direction was on the little girl, Sence moved over to the stone table and folded her arms in front of her chest. “I’m going to pretend that I didn’t see that.” She frowned softly, “it wasn’t very nice.” He was dirty, and she glanced over his appearance before reaching into her purse to collect a thing of wet wipes she kept from a life of having issues with germs. Her mother had been always concerned with sickness and it had rolled onto her daughter. Finding the disposable container, she set them on the table top and looked up as she heard her name called.

Wyatt probably thought she had wandered off again, and she considered on letting him think just that before giving up and calling into the man’s mind, “I’m over here. You worry too much.” Raising her hand to show where she was, she could see his annoyance but her attention was on the double order of deep fried oreos in his hand and she gave a shake of her head in disappointment. It was the closest to you are a fat *** as her expression could get. “Sorry, if she’s bothering you.” Wyatt spoke to Ambrose as he reached them. “You make it sound like I’m impossible to be anything but obnoxious. I’m not Renato.”