20 Shades of Shifters_A Paranormal Romance Collection
Page 274
So while the others were still talking about how they planned to celebrate the victory, Briony set off alone for the car park, seeking out the spot where she had left her great aunt’s car. It took a while. One of the minor rules of the universe is that no car, no matter how carefully parked and committed to memory, is ever quite where you thought you left it. As such, Briony had to spend a good ten minutes hunting around the rows of vehicles, probably looking extremely lost in the process.
“Hi, it’s Briony, isn’t it?”
Briony whirled at the sudden voice. She hadn’t heard anyone approach. A young man her own age stood in front of her, wearing Wicked’s team colors over jeans with so many rips they barely counted as being there. Briony vaguely remembered him as one of the many people the other girls had introduced her to at some point in the evening.
“Hi,” Briony said. “It’s… Tom?”
“Tim. No one ever seems to get that right.”
“I’m sorry,” Briony said. “I met a lot of people tonight.”
“And now you’re looking for your car.” Tim took a step closer. “You’re in completely the wrong place, you know. It’s over there.”
He pointed, and just for a second, Briony followed the pointing finger. Then it occurred to her to ask how someone she had met for perhaps five seconds knew which car was hers, and where it was. She turned back towards him, just in time to watch as Tim opened his mouth to reveal fangs.
“Oh, why couldn’t you have made this easy for me?” he demanded. “A nice, pretty girl, on her own, who nobody would miss for a while. We could have had such fun. Well, I could, anyway. Now…” he leapt. At least he tried to, but at that point, Briony had the sense to pull the cross around her neck out from under her sweater, brandishing it at the vampire. She had never seen someone try to change direction in midair before, but the boy somehow managed it, edging away with his hand covering his eyes.
“That won’t protect you! Some stupid girl hiding behind her cross. What are you going to do? Stand there like that all night?”
“If I have to,” Briony said. She started looking around for her car again. She didn’t spot it, but that SUV a couple of rows over looked like the one she had parked beside.
“Oh, you’re going to try running for it,” Tim said. “How sweet.” He edged in a circle around Briony, careful not to get too close, but placing himself firmly between her and the car. “What are you going to do now?”
Briony waved the cross at him again. He flinched. “Why don’t you just get out of my way?” Briony suggested.
“What, like this?”
In an instant, the boy was gone among the cars. Briony knew better than to think that meant he had truly decided to leave her alone. She edged towards her great aunt’s car. Once she was inside it, she would be safe. Well, probably.
“I could be anywhere, couldn’t I?” The vampire’s words seemed to come from all around, bouncing off cars like a hollow echo. “I could be hiding under one of the cars, or waiting behind one. I could be right by your car, or I could be fifty yards away. You won’t know until it’s too late, Briony.”
“Oh, bite me,” Briony snapped back, and then realized that it probably wasn’t the best thing to say to a vampire. She kept her hand on the cross and scanned the area around her for movement.
“That’s the plan, pretty girl. Just come a little closer.”
Briony could hear the anticipation in the vampire’s voice. He was actually enjoying making her squirm like this. Briefly, Briony considered whether she should try making a break for the car. She even dug around in her pocket for the key, clicking on the key fob’s electronic opening system to unlock it. She suspected that she wouldn’t have time to mess around with keys once she got to the car.
“So why me?” Briony demanded, still walking. Maybe if she kept Tim talking, eventually some kind of help would arrive. Though what kind of help might actually be that helpful, when it came to vampires, was the real question. At least if he kept talking, Briony supposed she might get some sense of where Tim was hiding.
“Why not you?” the vampire countered. “You’ll make a nice enough snack. And an easy one too. Alone. Easy to pick off, and it’s not like anyone will care if the new girl disappears.”
That made Briony’s jaw clench. She clutched the cross tighter.
“Oh, angry, are we?” Tim taunted. “Like you could do anything. You can’t even spot me sneaking up right behind you.”
Briony spun, but she wasn’t quick enough. The vampire barreled into her, bearing her to the ground with him atop her, his fangs wide in anticipation of the blood to come. His hand balled in her hair, drawing her head back to expose the line of her throat. Briony couldn’t help screaming, but the sound travelled into the night in a way that suggested that there wouldn’t be anyone there to hear it, certainly not over all the excitement in the stadium.
She did the only thing she could think of. Putting the base of the cross to the vampire’s chest, and hoping that she could remember where the heart was, Briony pressed the secret catch to extend it.
There was a sharp snick from the cross, and the vampire pinning Briony gave a kind of gasp before rolling clear of her. Fire seemed to play across him in the dark, blue with a heat that wasn’t there as it consumed him. In just seconds, all that was left was a small pile of burnt cinders that no one could ever have recognized as human.
Briony stared at it for a full thirty seconds. Had she just… had she really… She scrambled to her feet, sprinting for her great aunt’s car. Diving inside, Briony locked the doors behind her, shoved the key into the ignition, and backed out of the parking lot so fast that she nearly ran over a couple of passing football fans. Right then, Briony didn’t care.
Chapter 6
Briony had always been very careful when she had been driving. She had listened carefully to the various warnings that went with it, and had tried to make sure she followed them. You shouldn’t drink and drive, they said, or drive when you were tired, or angry, or using your cell phone.
To that list, Briony suspected that they should add “don’t drive when you have just killed one of your classmates who have turned out to be a vampire.” Just because it probably wouldn’t come up that often, didn’t mean that it wasn’t important. At the moment, for example, she was bumping along the roads through the wood with an almost complete disregard for the speed limits, bouncing around in the car every time it hit a pothole and trying to remember the way back to Aunt Sophie’s house at the same time.
That wasn’t easy. It looked different in the dark, and Briony had to admit to herself that she hadn’t been paying a great deal of attention anyway. She was used to places with plenty of signposts, not to mention where there were enough street lights that you could see more than twenty feet in front of yourself at night.
Should she have turned right at that last fork in the road, or was it further on? Briony wasn’t sure. She was too busy replaying everything that had happened in the parking lot. The cat and mouse before the vampire had leapt. Being pinned to the ground. Placing the cross over his heart and pressing the hidden catch.
She had just killed one of her classmates. Oh.My.God. But if she hadn’t, she would’ve become his meal. Just the thought of that was enough to make Briony swerve slightly across the road. She tried to concentrate, but it wasn’t that easy when the thought of what she had done kept coming back. She had killed him, just like that. Yes, he would probably have killed her if she hadn’t, but that didn’t really make things much better.
Briony glanced down, and saw that she was doing almost twice the speed she should be. She braked, pulling the car back to a reasonable speed.
The first thing Briony felt was the car’s wheels jerking through another pothole. It lost traction on the road as it did so, and Briony panicked, trying to slam on the brakes. She knew she had done the wrong thing when the wheels locked, and the car kept going, off towards the trees.
The crash wasn’t a bad one. Had
she still been travelling as fast as she’d been going before, for example, it could have been a lot worse. As it was, the car skidded, bumping into a large elm hard enough to bring things to a jolting stop. The world flashed white for a few seconds as the air bag opened then deflated.
Briony sat very still for a second, wide-eyed. She couldn’t believe she had crashed…that she had crashed Aunt Sophie’s car, and that the air bag went off, but deflated. Briony spent a few more seconds assessing her situation and making sure she wasn’t hurt anywhere, and then clambered out of the car to inspect the damage. The front was dented, obviously. As for the rest of it, Briony didn’t really know enough about cars to judge whether she should try driving home with it as it was.
A howl cut through the darkness.
Briony scrambled for her cell phone, hoping that she would at least be able to call her great aunt and get help soon. She didn’t want to be out in this forest a minute longer than she had to. That feeling intensified when more howls answered the first, and Briony heard the sound of footsteps in the trees beyond the car. The trouble was, a glance down confirmed that there wasn’t any reception for her phone so deep among the trees.
It was at that point that things got a lot worse. Briony wasn’t sure where the first wolf came from. It had to have come out of the trees while she was still looking down at her phone, because by the time she looked back up, it was already sitting in the road, staring at her. It was a large, brown-coated thing, with intelligent eyes.
Other wolves moved out of the forest to join it, padding out one by one until they sat almost a dozen strong around the car. Around Briony. She fumbled for the cross, taking it out and pressing the hidden catch so that its sharp blade extended. There was still blood on it from where she had stabbed the vampire.
“Who wants to be first?” Briony demanded. She had had enough of things wanting to eat her for one day. She let anger fill her up, nearly spilling over the fear as she stood waiting for one of the creatures to make a move. For a moment, at least, the sight of the silver blade seemed to give them pause.
A smaller wolf with pale fur leapt first. Briony’s old cheerleading training immediately kicked in, and she ducked, bringing the sharp point up like a lance so that it jabbed into the creature’s side. The thing’s teeth were only inches from her face, and Briony had to use one arm to keep its scrabbling claws from scratching her. She drove the knife in deeper, and it stilled.
Briony pushed the creature away, and it fell limply to the ground. Then, somewhere between one breath and the next, it changed. The fur gave way to skin, the wolf’s form to that of a young woman about Briony’s age. Briony was sure that she had seen her before. Maybe somewhere at school? Was anybody in this place just a normal human?
Briony didn’t have time to answer that, because more of the creatures leapt at her. She swung the silver cross left and right, slashing at the advancing creatures, but with so many of them, it was all she could do to keep them from ripping her to shreds. One would feign from one side, and another would lunge in at Briony as soon as she reacted.
Briony felt something grabbing hold of her, and she realized that one of the werewolves had become human again. He gripped her arms with strong hands, pinning them to Briony’s sides as she struggled to stab backwards at him. Briony knew that she was in trouble. With a blade in her hands, she could keep him busy trying to prevent her from cutting him, but that was it. It was only a matter of time before one of the other wolves took advantage of it to bite her.
One of them looked like it had the same idea. It was the big, brown furred one from before, which stalked forward, growling as it came. Briony struggled, but her arms were still held firmly. All she could do was hope that it would be quick.
A commotion came from back in the trees, and a young man strode from them, waving a burning branch like it was a sword. It might as well have been, because the werewolves fell back before it, yelping and snarling as their fur singed. The one approaching Briony turned towards him, and found itself knocked away.
This close, Briony could see that the young man was perhaps a little older than she was, with short blond hair and features that almost spilled over from simply handsome into beautiful. He was wearing a dark leather jacket and jeans, along with thick boots that let him kick out at the wolves without getting his leg bitten off.
Briony took her cue from him, stamping backwards hard enough that the grip of the werewolf behind her loosened. She stabbed backwards, and felt him stumble away from her. At the same time, the newcomer threw his burning branch at the wolves and dove for the car.
“What are you waiting for?” he demanded. “Get in!”
Briony wrenched open the door on her side, hopping in and closing it after herself. Wolves scrabbled at the windows, snarling and yelping.
“Drive, or we’re both dead.”
Briony didn’t need any more encouragement than that. With a silent hope that the engine would still start after the crash, she turned the key, and almost jumped for joy when the engine started first time. She threw the car into reverse, not caring if she hit any of the wolves. For a moment, it seemed like the battered old Ford might not move, that it might be stuck in the soft ground. Then, like a cork coming free of a bottle, it plunged back onto the road.
Briony spun the wheel sharply, forcing the thing to turn back the way she had come. Switching gear again, she shot off forward as quickly as it would let her, hoping that it would be enough. How fast could wolves run, anyway? As it turned out, she didn’t get to find out. Briony glanced back in the rear-view mirror, and the werewolves were not giving chase. Instead, they sat by the road, just watching as they drove away. Somehow, that seemed more ominous than if they had been sprinting level with her rear bumper.
“So,” Briony said, “it’s lucky you were passing…”
“Fallon. And you’re Briony.”
“How did you know that?”
The boy smiled in a way that was simultaneously both deliciously exciting and utterly infuriating, his blue eyes winking. “Would you believe me if I said, ‘with my special powers’?”
“What special powers?” Briony found herself reaching for her silver cross again.
Fallon laughed. “Sorry, this probably isn’t the best moment for that kind of joke, is it? I just heard that there was someone new in town. Now, I haven’t seen you before, and you look a lot like the description, so you must be Briony.”
Briony sighed. It was nice to have a mundane explanation for once. “Sure. It’s just… this has been a weird couple of days.”
“A werewolf attack is enough to make anyone jumpy. Now, I figure that it’s probably best if I show you the way into town, and you can make your way home easily from there. Is that all right?”
Briony nodded, and let Fallon give her directions that ended up with her in the middle of Wicked, not far from George’s diner. As they drove, Briony started to notice that her passenger didn’t look very well. At least, he was looking paler and shakier by the minute.
“Are you all right?” she asked him. “None of them bit you, did they?”
“No, I… I’m fine. You know your way back from here, right?” When Briony nodded, Fallon opened the passenger side door and started to get out. “Good, then I will get going.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Briony asked.
“Completely, but thanks for caring.” He slipped out of the car, starting to walk away. It occurred to Briony that there was one thing she hadn’t said.
“Thanks for saving… oh.” By the time she’d gotten halfway through the sentence, Fallon was already gone.
Chapter 7
Aunt Sophie wasn’t too upset about her car, in the end. After all, when you spent your life fighting the forces of darkness, keeping a paint job perfectly intact was never going to be that likely. She was also sympathetic about what had happened in the parking lot, putting an arm around Briony.
“Killing the first one is hard. It gets easier.”
She had hardly dared raise the fact that both the vampire and one of the werewolves had been classmates of hers. Briony had been half-afraid that Aunt Sophie would pull her out of the school. Well, that or charge down there with a big vat of holy water. Neither seemed likely to win her friends.
She merely told Briony to be careful, and sent her on her way. Briony got to school the next day, and if she found herself a little more cautious around some of the others there, that was only to be expected. In any case, the others were still a little standoffish with her. Claire and Tracey were friendly enough, but generally only when Pepper wasn’t watching them closely. The others in her little clique were less willing to risk the wrath of their unofficial queen, and didn’t say much to Briony, even if they weren’t actively unfriendly.
One side effect of this was that Briony found herself making friends in other places. Partnered up with a short, dark-haired girl with glasses called Maisy for a science lab, Briony quickly found herself liking her, and getting on so well that Maisy invited her to sit with her and her boyfriend Steve when it came to lunch. Steve was good looking in a scruffy kind of way, with a shirt that looked like it had never heard of the concept of being ironed, and sandy-haired that seemed to have a mind of its own. He greeted Maisy with the news that he had finally come up with something that might let him beat her at chess.