Arla slid to a halt at the second booth just long enough to check she had still gone unnoticed. A smug smile pulled at her lips. Though a small success compared to her overall mission, it gave her an extra boost of confidence.
	[i]Think ninja.[/i] With that, she hurried into the tent. She stumbled once, the motion around her making her head throb a bit harder, but righted herself with a couple quick steps.
	She glanced around the now deserted arena. Everything still stood mostly as it had before. Only a few strands of lights had been unplugged, and now the music pulsed from outside the back of the tent rather than inside it. She could almost see the ghosts of the performers still in the ring. 
	Alas, even the bouncers had abandoned their posts. Which left no one for her to ask to find the ringmistress. But someone, she figured, would have to come out this way at some point. She stopped at the end of the folding bleacher. She shifted her weight. She hated the thought of having to wait, but her only other option was to return to the back yard herself and risk being spotted by the vampire.
	With a heavy sigh, she went to the bleacher closest to the back exit. She scanned the area around her, looking for anything pointed and wooden as she went. She shrugged out of her backpack and knelt down beside the stands.
	Constantly glancing to the back exit, she took her precious camera from around her neck and returned it to its padded bag. She’d rather it not end up a casualty of war. She frowned, inwardly scolding herself for not thinking to attempt getting a decent picture as proof.
	The thought made her pause. She glanced to the back entrance again, then dug inside her backpack for the case with her smaller, point-and-shoot camera. Finding it, she pulled it out. She clipped it to her belt, then pulled the silvery camera from the case. 
	She stared at its black screen for a moment, then turned it on. She looked away as it started up before the screen automatically adjusted its brightness to her set preferences.
	Her thumb hovered over the playback button. She glanced to the entrance to the afterparty again, but no one had yet to come out. She took a deep breath, then hit the button. The last photo she’d taken popped up on the screen.
	The light of the flash glinted harshly off the dusty green scales of a lizard man, his body half outside the picture and tilted from the low, hasty camera angle. The picture froze the shock on his snarling, blood-stained maul from the sudden flash that had blinded him. Further behind the scaly creature, a bright smudge in the darkness caught the light. The lizard’s pale, spidery companion.
	She draped her hand over her side, the shallow scrapes of a narrow miss hidden beneath her shirt. The picture wasn’t of a vampire, but if Frieda needed proof Arla wasn’t insane, that might work. Plus, the camera's flash had already helped her once. It wasn’t a stake, but maybe she could get lucky a second time. Desperate times and all that.
	She tapped the shutter-release button to ready it to take pictures. The battery was nearly depleted, but she estimated it would last her for what she needed it to. She set it to not turn itself off after being idle, then slipped it into its pouch at her hip. She zipped it up only halfway, giving her quick access to it.
	One minute. She’d wait one more minute for someone to come into the arena before hunting someone down herself.