Typical Irish weather made it possible for an early rise for the two trapped in the luggage compartment. Heavy black clouds obscured the last rays of the setting sun from view, sending fingers of darkness throughout the land thirty minutes before it was due. Lewis peeled back the silver tape, opening the doors to reveal the two snoring bodies. The ripping hollow reverberation made when he removed the tape, did nothing to stir them, nor did Lewis shaking them. Were it not for the loud snoring they would easily be mistaken for dead.

"I don't get it, why do they snore when they don't need to breathe?" Lewis asked.

Susan chuckled. "I think it has to do with their minds clinging to humanity. According to Emily, her dreams are solely of her life before her sire ended it. Everything since the night she died is clear as crystal in her memory. She's never dreamt of any of it, only actual events from her human time."

"Interesting." His bored tone said otherwise. "So what do we do now then? The sailor said he left the others on the island for the night."

"Hang around here I guess, those two will need to eat soon after they wake," Susan advised. "I don't mind feeding Emily, but Dainton will either need to hunt or one of you lot could let him feed."

"Eh... I think I have a cold coming on... or... or something, so I can't do it. I, eh, need to go stretch my legs." He hastily walked off, stealing a glance back when he reached the corner.

Emily stood watching him run away like the coward he was. "Where's he running off to?"

"He's avoiding being useful again," Susan supplied. "What was Mama thinking when she sent him through the portal? He's utterly spineless even by troll standards."

"Well he must have something going for him or she wouldn't have picked him."

"Judging by some of the rejects in there, I beginning to think she got desperate and sent whatever she could find."

"Shush, guard your tongue! Sidney's might pick up on your thoughts."

"It's okay, she's gone over to the island just beyond the point with some of the Draoi. She won't be back till morning."

"Just because she's not here doesn't mean we can relax our guard," Emily chastised. "We need to find a way to get rid of this lot and keep Sidney here. They're distracting her from our objective."

"What do you suggest?"

"I'm not sure yet... I can't think straight on an empty stomach."

Susan sighed, "Let's go somewhere a little more private. There's an empty cottage up the hill thanks to Micah and his posse."

A loud grumbling interrupted their chat. Dainton rubbed his stomach, stretched, and swung his legs over the edge of the hole he had spent the day in. "Ladies," he addressed them. "Would you care to fill me in on your objective over breakfast?"

"Unless you can convince any of the rejects in there to let you feed from them you'll have to go hunt your own, Susan is mine," Emily replied.

"Not a problem, Sidney has a stash of blood in convenient little containers hidden somewhere. It should only take a moment to sniff it out and I'll catch up to you."

The squishy little bags of human blood held Dainton's fascination so much that he paid no attention to where he walked. Rapid footfalls behind him, although muffled by the short grass that sprouted between the stones of the path, dragged him from his reverie. The hand that grabbed him by the shirttails a nano second later halted any advancement. By the time he looked up, barely a metre separated him from a cliff edge. He glanced quickly around to meet the fiery yellow eyes of the Fae who saved him from a nasty fall.

"What in Hades is wrong with you? I've been yelling your name since we were at the bottom of the hill," the Fae rebuffed.

"Huh?" Dainton frowned and looked around; noticing that he now stood a good half kilometre above the harbour on a narrow trail that snaked its way up the hillside. "I guess I didn't hear you."

"A deaf man would have heard me. I actually thought you were going to walk over the edge for a second there."

Dainton looked over his shoulder to the drop and the jagged rocks that could have ended him. He shuddered.

"Are you okay? You look a bit dazed."

"Dazed?"

"Yeah, your eyes are glassy and you were just staring off into space on the way up here."

He waved the blood bag. "A bit distracted. What can I do for you?"

"Susan said there's a pub down the road that serves light meals and snacks, we're all going to head down for a quick pint if you want to join us?"

"Sure, why not," Dainton agreed as they headed back down the trail. "It's not like I've anything else planned... At least I don't think I have other plans."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Probably just hungry." He pierced the bag the way Sydney had showed him and sucked lightly. The contents were a little bitter, but still good on an empty stomach.

As they reached the end of the trail, he couldn't help but glance back up to where they had been and wondered what had possessed him to walk up there in the first place.