few guards who had rushed to help were watching them.



They ate at an inn named by Sandra, at Tom 's Wachtelstube. A thick plume of smoke hung in the air and it reeked of beer. Everything had definitely not been aired for years. Sandra and Karl Gotthard had moved to a barn not far from the village.


Hundreds of bearded men stood here and waitresses were pacing up and down. Here travelers from all over the world came together and it reminded Destin of his homeland, Gorstadt.


The food and beer were delicious. With full bellies, they rented a room on the second floor and shortly thereafter slipped into it.


But Destin sat down at the counter and ordered another beer. He thought he was old enough now to have a real alcoholic drink.


After 3 hours and 9 beers the spirit of Destin was so foggy that he stayed on the way to the toilet, under a table a lot and there drunk.


Suddenly the big double doors of the pub swung open and a man dressed in black burst in.He stumbled to the counter in heavy boots and waved to the landlord with black iron gloves.


This came immediately and the black asked with a strange hiss:





"Well, gnomes and dwarfs come by here every day, but a boy is over there under the table. The little one just collapsed. Too much drunk, I suppose!" the landlord wanted to start a long conversation, but the black man just said:





Then he turned and walked towards Destin. The big guy grabbed his arm with one hand and carried him outside. As long as the dark one was in the room, it was quiet, but now the hustle and bustle began again.


The big black man shook Destin. They stood in the shadow of the darkness in front of the restaurant. The sky was strangely overcast and noises came to their ears from everywhere. The crickets chirped in unreachable places by rubbing their back legs against their bodies.The village square and street were dusty and there was a slightly salty smell in the air.


Destin finally woke up and felt the rider's ice-cold claws. He started shaking and tried to hold on. He didn't succeed. Suddenly he saw the shadowdriver's face. He was more familiar with this face than anyone else, although he had never seen it before. It was wrinkled, the skin looked burned and smelled putrid. The dark eyes glowed angry and fixed him, but the mouth was expressionless. It was a face made of old skin and bones. But its wearer was as playful as a child. Then the creature opened its mouth and began to stutter:


- Boy, I ... I ... get Gotthard, ... he ... he will know ... know ... why ...-


Destin did as he was told and shot through the alleys. The familiar black disappeared back into the shadows and merged with the darkness.




Gotthard lay bare-chested on a heap of straw and stretched.Here in the stable it was pleasantly warm. Sandra had snuggled close to him and he held her tightly in his arms. He felt strong and young. Until now he had forgotten that he had the body of a vampire. With his yellow skin he was almost indistinguishable from the straw. They were both old people, but he had found his great love in her. Up until that moment, he wasn't sure why Benedict had passed on his knowledge to him. And he didn't like the fact that the wizard was in him.


It was slowly getting colder and the teacher snuggled deeper into the hay. He was just about to fall asleep when Destin 's sweating figure stood in the entrance.


"He is here!" the boy gasped and didn't wait for Dr. Gotthard was properly dressed, but rushed straight back down, because the hut stood on top of a steep mountain slope, on which the cows and sheep grazed.


- stop! -


A sound was thrown through the room and the rider emerged from the shadows of the hay bales with his hood down and raised his hand to hold Destin back.

- As a rider, I am ... I am allowed to travel through ... through the shadowy world ... to ...! -


He spoke in a shaky voice, sat down next to the sleeping girl and ran her through her red hair.


- She is pretty! -


He stated and then looked at the teacher.


- Did you sleep with her? -


"What is that to you, shadow creatures?" growled the teacher and found himself caught. Now Destin also contributed something:


“It's Benedict!” Karl Gotthard turned pale.


"Exactly!" he began, grabbing his head. "Now I remember! The wizard wanted me to meet you here. That's why he transferred his thoughts to me! You stutter because you don't have your brain completely under control, because you are still under the spell from Petrus. The only way to become you again would be to get your body back. So we have to dig your body out of the barrow and plant your spirit in it!Benedict wanted us to meet here and get the body. Have the gnome patch it up again. And you brought me into this world too! "Slowly the teacher became louder and louder and more mad. The spirit of the magician and the spirit of the teacher came into conflict.


"Listen up, Karl, that's the ghost of Benedict that's haunted you!"


But Gotthard didn't listen to him and kept laughing:


"Three days ago Benedict sent you 12 years in the past to ask me to come here. Of course, he got the technology for this from the aliens who live in space in a spaceship above us! Ha, ha! But we forgot one thing to ask , "He was strangely calm now, but the malicious grin remained. He shook his belt and pulled out a long dagger glowing in the moon and went on, “Are you really the real one?” With that he snapped out and pierced the black guy. The creature shrieked and reared, but Gotthard stabbed again and again until it collapsed on the hay.

"Nobody touches my girl!" he hissed, spat on the one lying on the floor and put the dagger back in his belt pouch. Destin looked at him perplexed and scared. He didn't recognize the man who was walking towards him.


"Do you want to?" asked the mad teacher and picked up the dagger again. Destin screamed and rushed out of the barn.


Gotthard laughed treacherously and turned to the now no longer sleeping and lying on the floor Sandra:


"Hey baby, look at that crazy guy on earth! He thought he could screw me! I've known for a long time that we had a traitor around!"


Sandra got up and put her arms around the triumphant vampire. After kissing him, she breathed in his ear:


"You were right! There was a traitor in our group, but unfortunately you chose the wrong one!" At the end her voice had sounded strangely dark. When she said that, she looked him mesmerizing in the eye and grinned maliciously.While Gotthard sank tense and trembling, Sandra changed shape to the man with the beard. To Peter. To Destin's father. He gave a short laugh and walked straight through the stable door.


The teacher doubled over on the floor and trembled in pain. His body was tense and his skin was slowly becoming wrinkled and bony. Then his skeleton broke and he was dead. Only a pile of ash remained of him.


The black man woke up from his faint and slowly sat up. His wounds were healed again. Thanks to the blue protection on his left hand and the ring of fire on his right. He knew where the rest of the talismans were hidden. One, the gnome had. The second was owned by the real Sandra. The third one could be found with Peter. The sword, the flash of anger, hung in Sandra's room over the fireplace. Peter held the stone of power in his strong hand.


The black man disappeared into the shadows again, pulling down the hood.It would only be a few minutes before the big fight. But nobody knew how much would happen in a few minutes.




Destin had run down the hill, often tripping over rocks. Now he was standing at the door of the inn again. He took another strong breath and then entered. When he pushed open the double doors there was a loud squeak. That was the only sound he heard, because otherwise nothing moved. People were still sitting at the tables as before, but no one moved. Now Destin touched her. They were hard and cold. Hard and cold as stone. Panic broke out in him and he walked quickly and without breathlessly up the stairs to the upper floors. It was dark in the dining room and the corridors and the building was mysteriously cold.


It was also quiet on the upper floor, only the floorboards creaked under his feet. It scares him that he was making this noise. When he opened the door to their beds, they were neatly placed and had not been used.The duvets were untouched and none of his friends were there, he thought. Tremble