Disclaimer: I am not Darren Shan. I don't own his books or characters. Wow.

Author's Note: Well, hello again! If you're a returning reader from The Fourth Hunter, thanks for sticking with this! :D See, I might not be fast, but I keep my promises - this is the sequel to The Fourth Hunter! Being a sequel, unless you read that, this probably won't make much sense.

If you want a refresher (since it's been a while), there's a little recap thing at the end of The Fourth Hunter. Chances are, there'll be spoilers throughout, so if you haven't finished the original series, I'd do that first too.

Anyway...now that that's all out of the way, here we go!

-The Sixth Path of Destiny-

After Evanna had gone, nearly half an hour passed before anything was said. Mr. Crepsley's face had been buried in his hands since, and Arra had been equally still and silent. Harkat and I kept occasionally meeting each other's glances, but, like the others, had nothing to say and would immediately shake our heads and stare off into space. It was Vancha, stretched out on the floor and absently tossing his throwing stars into the air, who first broke the silence.

"The question is, what next?"

Arra gave a bitter laugh and picked up the stick Evanna had been using as a physical metaphor for destiny and started plucking twigs off it. Something about watching her rip twigs off a branch that had demonstrated our destiny made me uncomfortable, but I didn't dare say anything. "I'm not sure I know the answer to 'what now', let alone 'what next'," she said. "I don't want to be part of destiny like this. Vampires fight. They don't -," she gave a disgusted cough, "have children and make peace."

I looked at Mr. Crepsley, expecting him to say something to comfort her, but even he seemed speechless. I slid my gaze to Harkat, who looked as hopeless as I felt. Finally, with nothing uplifting to say, I settled on, "But you heard Evanna, there's no going back," which I realized after the fact probably wasn't going to make her feel any better.

"No, I suppose there's not," she admitted coolly.

"If you could, would you?" Vancha asked.

She looked at him incredulously. "Didn't you hear anything I just said?"

"Yes," he said. "But tell me flat out: IF you could go back, and IF you could make this never happen, would you."

She stared at him, her brow furrowed, and didn't answer. Instead, she turned to Mr. Crepsley, who had at some point unseen to me uncovered his face. His skin was pale, and his expression drawn. His scar stood out against his paleness, making him look almost scary. "What's wrong?" she asked, frowning, because he suddenly looked quite off. But he shook his head, looking away with his eyes narrowed. "You don't look right."

"I am tired," he said shortly.

"It has been a very long night," Vancha nodded. "We will all think more clearly once we are well rested. I say we take Evanna's advice and sleep."

"Sleep?" Arra almost laughed.

Vancha grimaced, "Eventually, we will all have to accept destiny and move on." He sighed, then tried to smile encouragingly. "Try to think of yourself as a pioneer - a first among the likes of vampiresses." This didn't seem to improve her mood, because she threw the destiny stick at him and caught the left side of his face, leaving a nasty scratch. He grinned and quickly healed it with his spit. Folding her arms across her chest, Arra glanced over at Mr. Crepsley, who was staring at his feet, hands clamping then opening again nervously.

"Really," Arra said, frowning at him. "What's the matter?"

He looked up at her, and even with his face hidden in the shadows, something seemed wrong. "Nothing," he said curtly. "I told you, I am tired."

I had never heard Mr. Crepsley use a tone like that with Arra. Something was wrong with him tonight. Arra stared at him for a second, lips pursed, then raised her eyebrows and looked away. Vancha shifted uncomfortably, sensing the sudden, inexplicable tension. He looked around as if hoping an idea would come to him, and when it did, his expression fell grim once again."It would be easy for Desmond Tiny to track us down while we are at his daughter's residence," he said. "I believe it's already light out, and neither of you," he pointed to the other vampires, "share my desire for a bit of sunny travel, and so I believe we should get out of here as soon as the sun sets."

We nodded in agreement. "This place creeps...me out anyway," Harkat said. "And I don't know...if I trust Evanna."

"I believe we should," Mr. Crepsley told him, his voice strained. "Evanna is certainly...eccentric, but she would not have told us any of this had she not wanted to help us. She is disobeying Des Tiny and risking his wrath to help mediate peace; I do not believe she would sell us out or lie."

"She wouldn't lie, but she's been known to leave out portions of the truth," Vancha said gruffly. "She admitted it herself - there's more she isn't telling us. I think we should figure out what that is, and we won't get to the bottom of anything sitting around her cave. We should do what she and her bloody fate-meddling father instruct and go where the wind takes us."

"And where's that?" Arra asked.

We all fell silent, and I tried to tune in with my inner self to figure out where I wanted to go. Something came to me, and I looked up at my fellow hunters. No one seemed about to jump in with suggestions, and so I announced, "I want to go back to where it all started...for me at least."

"And where is that?" Vancha asked, but Mr. Crepsley looked up with something of a smile on his face.

Before the words came out of my mouth, I was already looking forward to reuniting with my old friends. "To the Cirque du Freak."

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

I don't think anyone really slept that day. We each retired to one of the many comfortable sofas (which seemed to have multiplied into enough for all of us by the time we got to them), lay down, and were silent, all too exhausted to talk about destiny and the future anymore. Occasionally throughout the day, I would hear or see someone sit up, yawn, and stare off into the darkness of the cave. Apart from that, we were still until an approaching noisy croaking caught our attention.

Everyone slowly lifted themselves off the sofas to see the large red and yellow lump on the floor that had seemed to be trying to communicate with us. The toad hopped in a wide, awkward circle, as if trying to give each of us a stare.

"What d'you think it wants?" I asked sleepily.

Before Vancha, who had opened his mouth, could answer, the frog gave a couple more ribbets, then leapt from the room. "Evanna must be on her way," Vancha said as the slimy red leg disappeared around the corner. He stood and cracked his neck loudly.

No sooner had he said it than we heard the footsteps out in the cave's front room. A weary-looking Arra ran her fingers anxiously through her hair and yawned. Mr. Crepsley, sitting behind her, still had that strange look in his eyes - they were no longer an emerald green, but had turned to the color of a dirty lake. I couldn't help but wonder what was wrong with him.

Harkat tapped me on the shoulder and pointed at the doorway. I followed his gaze and saw an army of frogs hopping in, each making squishing noises as their wet feet lifted off the ground. Several yards behind them, as Vancha had predicted, was Evanna. She looked the same as she had the night before (part of me was surprised, as if I had expected her to change her appearance daily), hairy as the wolfman and wrapped in dirty, yellowing ropes.

"Good evening to you all," she said with a smile.

Vancha and Harkat each muttered a greeting, but other than them, the room was silent. Even the toads had stopped ribbeting and squelching around. Her entrance seemed to bring back some of the tension from yesterday. "I take it no one got a good day's rest," she commented, sitting down and beginning to pull at a fraying end of one of her ropes.

"What tipped you off?" Arra said sarcastically.

Evanna smiled. "I don't need to be tipped off. I know. And, I know you've reached a decision as to your next move, yes?"

"The Cirque du Freak," I said unnecessarily.

She nodded, and it had an encouragingly approving air to it. "As good a choice as any. When do you plan to leave?"

"Tonight," Vancha said, poking a toad with his big toe then pulling quickly away as it snapped its tongue at him. "Larten will be able to locate them quickly, so depending on where the Cirque is, it will hopefully not be long before we meet up with them."

When Evanna considered him for a second, Arra piped in. "Will it? Be long, I mean? That is..." she frowned suddenly, "we can still flit, can't we? I can flit?"

"I'm not here to tell you what you can and can't do," Evanna said. "That's not the way destiny works. You're on a particular path of destiny, and whatever happens from there is your decision. Do not forget that your ultimate goal is the same as before - kill the Lord of the Vampaneze. There's just a small," she smiled as she tried to think of the right word, "twist. You're building the future, you make the decisions."

"That's not what I meant," Arra said.

"I know exactly what you meant," Evanna said. "And I answered your question. It's your decision."

"Since when?" Arra said, and I braced myself for a blow-out. "Last night it wasn't."

Evanna didn't look phased by Arra's raising voice tonight. "I, like Desmond Tiny, can influence destiny to a certain extent," she said calmly, "but we cannot control it. Only the players can."

"But you said that you were the one who made this whole thing happen!"

"No," Evanna corrected her. "It was one of the possible outcomes of destiny already. I merely helped it along and informed you of it. You would have figured it out own your own eventually, but as a proponent for peace between vampires and vampaneze, I thought it couldn't hurt for you to all know your specific parts in destiny. Don't make me regret my decision, Arra Sails."

Arra didn't look satisfied, but folded her arms and leaned back, exhaling as though working very hard to keep her temper.

"Now," Evanna said before we could bother her with any more questions. She clapped her hands together once and smiled. "If it's all the same to you, I'd think it best to leave sooner rather than later, and usually I think correctly."

"I already said we were planning to leave tonight," Vancha reminded her.

"I know," Evanna nodded, "but the sooner you leave tonight, the better."

"Are you trying to get rid of us, Lady?" he asked, pretending to be insulted.

She grinned. "I can never get rid of you fast enough, Sire," she chided him. "The faster you leave, the faster you can return to your mission of defeating the Lord of the Vampaneze. But like it or not," she gave a glance in Arra's direction, "it may not be long until our paths cross again." She gave a playful smile and added,"And you never know when a pretty young lady who smells just a little bit like a bog might be me checking up on you."

All righty, there you have it, chapter one of part II. I hope you liked it! You know how much I love reviews, so please let me know what you thought :) Thanks for reading!