Part Three

The sun’s next dawning saw a weary Angelus trudging out to his family’s stables to care for the horses’ needs. As the eldest child, it was his duty to do so.

Long practice allowed him to do his horse-related chores quickly and with ease. He checked over each horse for signs of injury or sickness, refilled each trough that needed it, removed the extra blankets placed on the horses for sleep in the cold winter nights, and did a once-over on the tack, to make sure there were no needed repairs. As the last of his duties for the morning, Angelus returned to his home to awake his younger brother.

"Terris! ‘Tis time fer ye to brush the horses! You’d better get up afore Da catches you sleepin’ in..." Angelus shook his sibling as he spoke: his brother had always been a particularly deep sleeper.

"Da’s went out last night. It were late enough that he wouldn’t even be thinkin’ about waking up yet...he willna catch me at nothin’," Terris’ groggy voice eventually responded.

Angelus paused, brows furrowed. "Out? What do ye mean ‘he went out?’"

"I mean ‘he went out!’ He left when you an’ Cyranainia were finishing up th' play. He went somewhere, he wouldna say where."

Something suddenly didn’t feel right to Angelus. "Terris, I’ve been up all night -- one of the reasons I was tryin’ to wake *ye* up, I wanted to some sleep -- an’ I didn’t hear anyone come in the house."

Terris blinked, "ye mean he didna come back home?"

Terris’ brother nodded, not liking the way this was turning. He had the sudden urge to ask whether or not a certain Slayer he knew was involved. "Did he take Máighread out with ‘im?"

Terris was, by now, fairly awake. "Aye -- I think so." Noting the growing look of concern on the face of his sibling, Terris asked, "ye don’t think they’re in some sort o’ trouble, do ye?" he paused, "Vampire trouble?"

Angelus thought for a moment.

"I hope not. But ye would think they’d try to be back -- or at least check in with somebody -- before dawn..."

Terris nodded once, worry starting to form a sizable lump in the pit of his stomach. "Should we look for ‘em?"

The older of the two brothers again paused in thought. Then, slowly, "aye, maybe it’s best that we should. But somebody wou’ have to brush the horses..."

It was Terris’ turn to think. "How ‘bout Cyranainia? She’d probably do it if we asked..."

"Shall we go ask ‘er, then?"

Terris nodded and moved out of his bed. Angelus waited as his brother slipped on a tunic and trousers from a nearby cabinet, then walked with his brother out of the room and into the hallway.

But, as Angelus raised his hand to knock on the well-made wooden door of his sisters' room, something unexpected and unusual happened.

A scream -- gut wrenching and loud as a banshee’s -- came from the room, and ripped through the house. It was a scream that deafened all who heard it; that sounded so completely horrid, so completely filled with pain, that there was only one thing that could have caused it.

It was a scream of the dying.

Do you want to read part four? Go here.

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