Desmond Tiny greeted the trio from behind Mr. Tall's door after finally returning to the Cirque.

"Ah! Well if it isn't my favorite vampire, I was wondering when we would bump into one another again so soon" Mr. Tiny chuckled, looking up at Larten.

Once it was revealed who it was, Evra automatically pulled Nyx behind him, all of them tensing up at his presence.

Nyx whimpered. It's been over a year since she saw Mr. Tiny, however it was brief. The creature in her recognized him too, and it was not having any of it. Like before, his heart shaped watch and her eyes started to glow.

Nyx grunted in discomfort, rubbing her eyes with her hands, trying to get the glow to stop.

Kill him, this male's voice crept in her mind suddenly.

It wasn't her voice or anyone else she recognized. She never heard this voice before but on the other hand, a part of her knew whose voice she's listening to, even though the name is but a slip of her tongue, she knew the voice.

An ancient voice, from someone much…much older than anyone in this area.

Kill…him…

Kill…

Kill….

KILL DESMOND TINY!

"Hey, what's wrong?" Evra asked, bringing the child back from her wandering thoughts. Her eyes were still glowing when he got her to look up at him.

"What…? Nyx blinked confused, now seeing all eyes were on her.

Before Larten could speak, Tiny cuts him off with his own inquiries.

"Seems you kept the stray anyway. Still an oddity she is." Mr. Tiny hummed, looking down at the tiny vampiress. "So Nyx is it? Heard you had fun in the city."

The way he spoke to her didn't sit right with the little girl. Though the voices did stop, Nyx felt her nerves lit up. a wave of anger washes over her just standing at the fat man and she won't know why until later why she feels anger towards Mr. Tiny when he was just talking.

"Not really. I'm tired and I don't feel like talking to you." Nyx grunted, not wanting to be in the same continent as him, especially with what was happening to her.

Both Larten and Evra's eyes widened at her blatantness.

"Oh and she actually speaks!" Tiny mocked a surprise since last time they met, Nyx was still a mute. "Wonders how a year changes a soul."

"Is there something you need of us?" Larten asked as he gazed inside the trailer to see Mr. Tall inside watching the interaction.

While making sure Nyx stayed behind him and Evra.

Mr. Tiny studied them before smirking. "Quite honestly yes, I was hoping to have a chat, but it seems it would have to wait until later. Preferably before the two of you set off again, after all, you heard the little lady, it's her bedtime."

Nyx's jaw tensed up at his mocking before they stepped aside for Mr. Tiny to fully depart from the trailer.

"Until then. Oh, welcome back home, Master Von." Mr. Tiny said cheeky to the snakeboy before he walked off. Presumably to his camp that was away from the Cirque.

As soon as he was out of sight, they were able to breathe again.

"I don't like him." Nyx said openly, casting a dark look towards the direction of where Tiny went, the glow fading out once he was out of the area.

"He does not provide much good company, that is for certain…" Larten muttered, looking at where Tiny went also and looking down at the girl.

That was twice that Larten had seen her eyes react to being close to Mr. Tiny and his mystical heart shaped watch. Nyx was weaker a year ago and nothing much happened, but both he and Evra both saw how she was reacting to him. He didn't have to say it but he and Evra both felt something radiating off of her.

The cold blooded look Nyx held, a predator's stare marking its soon to be prey.

Up in her disarray bedroom, hiding underneath the thin covers of her bed, hearing frightened, pained howls below in the main floor. Covering her ears with her hands to block out the screams.

Oh how the little girl relishes the moments where she wasn't the target of her sire's cruelness however the smell of the human's blood hurt her stomach. Haven't fed on any nourishment in several months, only being fed when Silas allows her.

She could try swiping bottles again but Silas hadn't filled any up in a while.

The screams soon stopped, only reduced to soft sobs, sounds of footsteps going up the creaking steps. The child's heart already began to race as he marched up to the second level. Hearing him stalk up to the bedroom door, she remains underneath the covers when the door opens.

"Oh Sweetpea," Silas calls for her, "come down with me."

With a pained growl in her belly, the little girl pulled the covers off of her and sat up. She looked at him with a soulless gaze. Silas's shirt was gone and already had blood around his mouth and on his chest and abdomen and arms. The black veins pulsated, visibly replacing his blood vessels.

The child pulls the cover off of her before getting off of the bed. Her unruly long hair touched the ground as she slowly walked over to her Master.

Silas chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and led her down the stairs. "Calliope, my love, you've been doing so well lately, your efforts deserve a reward." He giggled. Exciting to see what was going to happen.

The little girl didn't listen to what he was saying, the closer they got down the steps, the louder she could hear the human's frantic heartbeat. The smell of blood was all too intoxicating to the tiny vampire after not feeding in so long.

She knew full well what this was. After doing it so many times, she had considered calling it, "Death Walk".

When the child was on the main floor, she looked towards the living area, she did not see what her victim looked like. After being without blood for a while, all the girl saw was glowing red veins, the crimson mercury seeping out of various wounds her master made.

Silas leaned close to his love's ear. "Go and enjoy yourself."

And with a push, the child stumbled forward but regained her composure, Silas moved to the raggedy couch and sat down, leaning back in his seat getting comfortable.

Watching the show.

"Please…please no more. Let me go."

The girl couldn't tell if the human was male or female, all she knew was that this person had the resource she craves. After hearing pleas for many years, their words, their begging was worth nothing.

They all die. Every human that had ever stumbled or brought here died….

It's just the matter of who did it.

The hunger was unbearable. As much as the child doesn't want to, she had no choice.

Almost zombie-like, the girl shuffles forward towards the human.

After failed pleas and begging, it turned into screams again.

Nyx let out a sharp gasp, awakening in a hammock. Sweat poured from her brow as she tried collecting herself from her nightmare. The screams lingered, echoing in her ears.

After checking in with Mr. Tall, Nyx had decided to stay close to Larten, having her a hammock in the corner of the tent, feeling safer staying next to the red cladded vampire who was still resting in his coffin.

Nyx could tell that there was still sunlight out, peeking through the fabric, probably having a few hours of light left before she and Larten embark their long journey to Vampire Mountain.

The screams continued to echo in her mind. She clutched at her beating chest, shaking at the memory.

She hears all of them. All of those she drained over the years.

In desperate need of some air, Nyx slipped out of Larten's tent and walked out.

As she noted, she had a couple of hours of light left before she was to leave.

The screams continued to wreck her mind, Nyx kept her head down and just began walking. Needing some space between everyone and herself.

If anyone had tried to get her attention, she would just go past them, never acknowledging them as she walked out the cirque.

Nyx ventured off, roaming the woods that surrounded them but she found no peace there.

The screams of the dead, Silas's voice and touch lingered.

The guilt Nyx felt over the years. The anger bubbling up.

She stopped walking when the screams became too much, she covered her ears.

"Shut up! Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

A sinister cackle of Silas echoed loudly, causing Nyx to look up.

And there he was. Silas was casually leaning against a nearby tree, laughing at his assistant's mental state.

But she wasn't smelling his scent.

Even her mind wasn't freed from him.

"You're not here, get the hell out of my head!" Nyx snapped at her apparition.

Silas chuckled. "Daww, you really think that's going to work, Sweetpea?"

"Why can't you just die?! Why after all this time, you're after me!?" She roared at the figment of her stressed out mind. "What will it take for me to be freed of you?! You took so much of me, why won't this torture stop!?"

Her balled up fists began to produce sparks of red light as she felt her anger taking control.

"But my love, even if you somehow kill me, our fates are interconnected." Silas sneered.

Nyx felt a hand touching her hair, she jumped and turned to see her apparition was behind her.

"Damn you!" Nyx cried out.

"Even if I die, my legacy will linger in you, after all my sweet, I created you. I'm the reason why you're so special to our kind." Silas continued.

He began circling around her. A lion circling its dinner. "I'm not even physically here and yet I cling to your pretty little head."

"No!"

"You think Vampire Mountain can protect you. Ooh my sweet, if you think I'm horrible, just you wait. Once every single male vampire knows just how special you are, you'll never have a moment's peace."

"I told you to shut up!" The sparks of her hands intensified, the anger kept building up and up.

The apparition then leans close to her ear. "And Larten is going to have first dibs since you're now his."

With a roar, Nyx turns and punches Silas. However, her fist went through him and collided with the tree behind him. The bark shattered and splinters went flying, feeling the wood itself cracking on impact.

Nyx's hand shook, seeing how her skin split and blood began to pool out after the apparition disappeared.

The sight of her own blood made her feel disgusted, feel sick.

Nyx lets out a howl before she just begins to punch the tree repeatedly over and over again. Each contact she lets out a roar of anger. Each hit produced red sparks, scorching the wood.

"Damn you! DAMN YOU! I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!" Nyx screamed as she continued to punch the tree in her anger induced fury. Her fists indenting and cracking the tree, ignoring the pain radiating from her fists as she lets it all out.

"I'll kill you! I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU!" With one last punch, pouring all of her strength into it, a red shock wave came out of her, where she slammed her fists, the tree snapped.

Nyx jumped back when the top part of the tree began falling. Making a loud thud when it crashed.

Both of her knuckles were bloodied, shaking as the adrenaline was wearing off but the anger still lingered.

Mr. Tall's scent wafts her nose as she sensed him approaching.

"That poor tree, what has it done to you to deserve that?" the tall ringleader asked, observing Nyx, his hands tucked behind his back.

Inside Mr. Tall's trailer, Nyx sitting on a beanbag chair while the ringleader was sitting on a tiny stool in front of her. He worked on cleaning her wounds with a small bowl of warm soapy water and a rag.

For such a tall man, he held Nyx's hands tenderly and carefully. Being very dainty and delicate towards the little girl.

"Your powers seem to be growing. It is not a bad thing, but without proper training, it won't be a tree that will get destroyed next time." Mr. Tall said as he dipped the rag into the bowl, wringing it out and wiping it across her busted knuckles.

"Mr. Tall…do you know what I am?" Nyx asked him.

He gave her a puzzled look.

"My nonhuman half…do you know what it is?" she asked.

Mr. Tall studied the girl as he worked on her hands. "No. To tell you the truth, I have no clue what you are, my child. I have been alive for little more than twelve hundred years, and I have yet met someone like you. Not many can block my entry up here." He motions to his head, his mind. "It is strange, even when I tried looking into your future, it was all a blank."

"You can see the future?" Nyx asked with a gasp.

He nodded. "Aye, yes, but I do not like giving much away. Knowledge of what's to come can be a gift, and a curse. There's always going to be consequences of knowing."

"But you said my future was blank. Does it mean I don't have a future?"

Mr. Tall shook his head. "No, it doesn't mean anything. It just proves that a powerful spell was placed upon you. We all have futures, time isn't linear, it changes constantly, but what I could gather is that the reason why I cannot see your future or read your mind is the work of a spell caster."

"My mama…she was a witch." Nyx grunted. "It was a spell that kept me from leaving Silas a year ago."

"Most spells break after the one who casts it dies." Mr. Tall explained. "But in some cases, the stronger the spell, the longer it lingers. I do believe the spell that kept you trapped simply wore off, but the one blocking your mind is different."

Nyx then feels him trying to prod her mind, it still makes her uncomfortable. She closed her eyes for a better visual.

"Do you feel me trying to get in?"

Nyx nodded. "Yeah, I feel you, but something's in the way."

"Like a wall, a tower of sorts?"

"Yes…"

Mr. Tall slips out of her mind, causing them to relax. "This spell, the one your mother had casted is another barrier spell."

"I'm already out of the Grove, what else could mama be blocking me?" Nyx asked, getting increasingly annoying.

"The same reason why she didn't want you to leave. Which circles back to what your nonhuman origins are. Witches started off as humans so whatever you are must come from your father's side.

"Do you know who your father is?" Mr. Tall asked.

Nyx shook her head. "I don't remember ever hearing anything about him from mama. I don't think I even have a father."

"Regardless, whatever you are, your mother did not want you to be found, that is what I'm gathering." he said. "Like I said before, there's a spell in your mind, preventing you from being found. I'm afraid if I were to try and remove it without knowing all the facts, I just may end up causing you more harm than good."

Nyx sighed after he finished cleaning her wounds.

"Don't be upset, it's not horrible, it just means you are more unpredictable, gives you an upper hand against forces we don't comprehend. You have goodness in you, that's important. Now try and relax, you and Larten have a long journey later, try to rest."

Mr. Tall then stood up, taking the bowl and rag away, dumping the water outside.

"Mr. Tall…what if I don't like Vampire Mountain? What if everyone sees me, thinks I'm just some monster or worse..?" Nyx asked, worried about herself.

Mr. Tall turns and looks at her, listens to her words before he crouches down to her level. "If the vampires in that mountain give you any grief or they don't accept you, make no mistake, Nyx, you always have a place here at the Cirque. This is your home." He smiled.

Nyx felt a little better, now knowing that if things don't work out well, she has a place to go.

Mr. Tall then escorts the small vampiress out.

Night soon rolled in, the two vampires were making last preparations for the journey.

"Now, we do have to make a stop before we go on our way to the Mountain. We shall cast our shoes aside after the stop and make the trek." Larten tells Nyx as the two gather their supplies.

"Why do we take our shoes off? What's the point in that?" Nyx asked, sitting on top of his coffin watching.

"Going to Vampire Mountain the path is harsh. It is a test to wean out the weaker vampires from the strong ones. Things such as shoes, rope, matches are not allowed. It is our custom." Larten explained, looking up at her. "It is a journey we all must take."

Nyx nodded. "You'll tell me more on the way?"

Larten chuckled softly. "We shall see."

The child then sighed. "Can't we just go now and not meet Tiny?" she then asked with a groan. Knowing that Tiny wanted to talk to the both of them before they move on.

"As much as I would rather we do just that, it is better to get it out of the way now." Larten responded, having Nyx jump down and the two left the tent, now on the way to meet up with Mr. Tiny.