“Donkeys need a job,” Mark said. “Just like old men.” He winked at her. “We gather firewood. She has a little frame I made for her.” He pointed to the barn wall where a triangularwooden contraption was hanging. “We’ll maybe breed her in the spring so she can have a foal.”
“Because my mother needs more animals.”
“Ha! I wonder if Marie is still awake. She was asking after you yesterday.” Marko walked over to adjust the space heater, then went to the window, swinging the small wooden door open to look at his house in the distance. “Marie’s the one who suggested breeding her. She grew up with?—”
The man let out a soft grunt.
Tatyana turned, and the world seemed to move in slow motion.
Marko turned, blinking wide eyes in confusion.
An arrow speared the human’s chest.
“Sándor!” Tatyana screamed her Hazar’s name and ran over to Marko, catching him before he fell to the ground. “No!”
The donkey started braying when she saw Marko fall.
The human looked down at the arrow in his chest, his face already pale but stoically calm. “Not my heart. Not my heart. Leave it and go. Marie?—”
“I’m going for help!” She ran to the opposite wall of the barn—slamming the window shut as she ran—and grabbed the axe that Marko used to chop wood.
There was a thunk on the roof of the barn.
She looked up. “Sándor?”
“Ten men on the perimeter. I’ve already called to the city.”
Even flying, it would take them half an hour at least.
“Marko has an arrow in his chest.”
“Is he talking?”
She looked over, and Marko gave a weak nod. “He’s okay for now.”
“Don’t touch the arrow.”
“He’s lying on his left side.” And Betty was braying up a storm, kicking at the wooden side of the stall.
“Betty, calm down!” Tatyana shouted even though it didn’t seem to make a difference. “Sándor, are there Hazar in the houses?”
“I see two over each house right now.”
That meant that whoever was shooting at them would have to get through two Poshani to get to either Marie or Anna.
“What do we do?”
“Right now we—” Sándor was cut off, and there was a scuffing sound on the roof overhead.
She glanced at Marko, put a finger to her lips, and pointed to the door before she reached over and shut off the lights.
The barn was engulfed in darkness a second before she bolted for the door.
Tatyana ducked down as she slipped out the barn door, grateful for the cloudy sky that cast the house and barn in deep shadows.
She could smell them.
Some kind of roasted meat she didn’t recognize. Sour milk. Something distinctly human, but vampires too.
