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“Hm,” Soma said.
Mina knew that sound, and the expression that went with it – the slight crease between his brows, the barest downward turn of his lips. It meant he didn’t want to do something but also didn’t want to disappoint her.
She put her hand on his arm and looked up at the sign on the building in front of them. DEMON CASTLE DRACULA, it said in blocky red letters. Below that was a helpful arrow pointing to the end of the silver queue rails leading to the entrance. It was an unassuming square building, but the front was hidden behind a wooden facade of a European-style castle, with painted-on brick towers at each corner.
“It does seem just a little tasteless,” she said. “But the Battle of 1999 is practically a legend by now. This is just going to be a bunch of community theater actors showing off their makeup skills, really. Anyway, we’ve already seen the rest of the carnival.”
And she had a stash of stuffed animals he’d won for her to show for it. They’d had to rent a locker. Mina couldn’t help but wonder if that was actually part of his apprehension now, that he was aware that his prowess at carnival games might be at least partly supernatural, a reminder of the side of himself he hadn’t had to think about for the past year.
And now here she was trying to drag him into this haunted house, when he’d been face to face with real monsters.
“Sorry,” she said. “We don’t have to. Let’s go ride the carousel again.”
“No, we can go,” he said. “It would be silly of me to be afraid of something like this, wouldn’t it?”
His stubborn side had come out, and Mina knew there was no arguing with him now. They stepped into the queue behind a group of teenage boys who kept telling each other just how not scared they were, a little too loudly to be convincing. A tinny speaker was playing eerie ambient music somewhere near the ticket booth, punctuated occasionally by the screams of guests in the building.
Happy screams, though. The screams of people who were having fun being scared because they knew they were actually totally safe. Mina wanted that feeling, for both of them, and she kept her arm linked with Soma’s as they gave the attendant their tickets and entered the theatrically creaky door.
They entered a long, dark hall, lined with fake cobwebs and dim lights that shuddered sporadically. A fog machine came on with a sudden hiss and one of the boys ahead jumped and screamed, causing his friends to dissolve into laughter. Mina heard Soma give a low, barely-audible chuckle, and smiled.
The hall opened into a larger room filled with fog, a single stone well in the center. A woman with long, dark hair sat at the edge of the well, sobbing softly into the sleeve of her robe; the only light in the room was directly above her, leaving the rest of the room in darkness. As the group edged nervously around her, Mina caught movement from the corner of her eye, and gripped Soma’s sleeve harder as a burly man in a werewolf mask leapt from the shadows and howled. She couldn’t help but let out a little shriek, which turned into a laugh when the group of teens nearly fell over themselves in their haste to get away.
Something moved in her peripheral vision, and she looked up to see a little green imp, flapping batlike wings, floating just over Soma’s head. He didn’t pay it any mind, but oddly, it seemed to be following them. Was it on some kind of rail in the ceiling? It even left the room with them, winding through another dark and foggy hallway. Mina expected it to fall into her face and startle her at any moment, but it never did, just followed along quietly even as more costumed performers jumped out to scare them.
Eventually they found themselves abruptly pushing open the exit, the night air especially clear and cold after the close confines of the winding maze of rooms in the attraction. Mina took a few particularly deep breaths. “That was fun,” she said.
“It wasn’t bad,” Soma admitted. “What now? Are you tired?”
“No, let’s go get a snack,” she said. But when he started to move toward the food vendors, Mina let go of his arm, stopping in her tracks.
The imp was still there. It had left the building entirely, and was still floating above Soma’s head. There were clearly no wires or strings holding it aloft, just the beating of its leathery wings.
Soma followed her gaze. “Ah,” he said. He didn’t seem at all alarmed by its presence. “I forgot.” He made a quick movement with his hand, and the imp vanished as though it had never existed.
“That…” Mina managed. “That was… yours?”
“It’s perfectly safe,” he said. “It follows my orders and won’t attack if I don’t want it to. I… suppose I summoned it out of reflex.”
“You can still do that, then?”
“Yes,” he said quietly. “After… what happened with Celia Fortner, I thought I should make sure I can defend y-- defend us. Hopefully I’ll never have to, but…”
“No, that makes sense,” Mina said. “I hope so, too. But you know, you’re not alone. You have people watching out for you.”
“Speak of the devil,” Soma muttered.
An odd choice of words, perhaps. But as they approached the food stalls, Mina recognized the long-haired man in the dark suit buying a taiyaki from a flustered-looking young woman. He was, as always, ethereally beautiful, even as he turned to them and took a bite of the fish-shaped pastry.
“M-Mr. Arikado!” Mina stammered. “What on earth are you doing here?”
He swallowed his bite and said, “Why shouldn’t I be here? I thought it might be nice to see the sites, try the local delicacies. It’s quite delicious, by the way, I highly recommend them.”
“Sure you did,” Soma said, eyes narrowing.
There was a tension between them Mina felt any time the two men were together – some kind of strange connection she couldn’t quite identify. She wasn’t sure if Soma felt it, too; she’d never asked.
“I suppose you deserve a little honesty,” Arikado said with a sigh. “I thought I felt a ripple of dark energy a little while ago, so I thought I’d slip in and observe unobtrusively.”
“That was me,” Soma admitted. “I used my power for a moment. It wasn’t anything serious.”
“Hm,” Alucard said. The way he frowned as he said it looked so much like Soma, Mina was a little taken aback. “Well, please don’t hesitate to contact me if you need anything, all right?”
Soma just glowered for a moment, until Mina nudged him in the ribs. “All right,” he relented.
Arikado lifted his half-eaten taiyaki in farewell and strode away, disappearing into the crowd.
“I know you don’t like him babysitting you,” Mina said. “But he’s only trying to help.”
“I know,” Soma said. “I don’t know if he’s trying to help me or protect the world from me, though.”
“It can be both,” Mina said quietly. “Don’t forget, he saw Dracula’s power firsthand. It’s natural for him to be wary of it. But I think he does care about you, in his own way.”
“You’re right, as usual,” he said. “I just wish I knew for sure he was a friend.”
“You have friends,” Mina insisted.
Soma turned toward her, and in the multicolored lights of the carnival, his smile softened into something warm and genuine. “Yeah,” he said. He reached for her hand, and gave it a squeeze. “Yeah, I guess I do.”