Shimmer (Wicked Woods #2)

by Kailin Gow

  None of it was proof. Not exactly. But taken together, it seemed to present a convincing picture of Aunt Sophie’s betrayal, however much Briony tried to ignore it. Besides, there was the fact of her disappearance from the fight to consider. If Aunt Sophie hadn’t betrayed them, if she hadn’t tried to get them killed, where was she?

  Epilogue

  Darkness. Not a comforting darkness, either. Not the darkness that said that Sophie Edge was still under the covers in her own bed. Not even the kind of darkness that said she had been abandoned after being hit over the head, and that it was now simply dark out in the forest. This was, instead, the kind of tight, pressing darkness that you got when someone had taken the time to blindfold you tightly. It probably said something faintly depressing about her life to date that Sophie was in a position to recognize it.

  She wasn’t in a position to move. The constricting feel of ropes wrapped tightly around her saw to that, keeping her locked upright in the chair she sat upon. Once, perhaps, Sophie might have been flexible enough to slip free of something like that. Now though, she just had to wait, and curse her age, and try to think of a way out of whatever happened next.

  “Comfortable, Sophie?”

  It was Pietre’s voice. That was hardly a surprise. After all, who else would want her a prisoner like this? Well… probably quite a few people, after the life she had led, the monsters she had fought. Still, Pietre had definitely been at the top of the list.

  “Not going to answer me?” Pietre asked.

  Sophie would have shrugged if she could have. “What should I say? That I’m happy as I am? Do I need to ask why you’re doing this?”

  Pietre’s voice was lower then in the darkness, but closer. Practically in her ear. “It has been a long time, Sophie. Too long. I grew tired of waiting.”

  “Nobody made you,” Sophie said. She wasn’t about to make this any easier than it had to be. “You could have done what normal people do, and moved on. Have you heard of that, Pietre?”

  She felt his fingertip drift along the line of her cheek then. The line of her throat. There were a lot of memories in that touch. Just for a moment, Sophie could imagine herself thirty years younger. She shuddered.

  “No games, Pietre,” she snapped.

  “Games?” the vampire’s tone was light. “Who says that I am playing games, Sophie? This is about stopping the games. Stopping your games.”

  “I’m not playing any games with you, Pietre. I never was.”

  The silence that followed that was so absolute that Sophie might almost have thought she was alone. She knew better than that, though. In another second, Pietre had her by the arms, just inches away from her.

  “What would you call it when you spend your time lying to yourself, Sophie?” Pietre demanded. “What do you call it when you ignore the truth even as it stands in front of you?”

  Sophie steeled herself. “I call it making a mistake right, Pietre.”

  “We were not a mistake!” There was the crunch of something a little way away as Pietre hit it, or threw it, or did whatever else to it he needed to deal with his anger. He had always had a temper on him. Since she could not move, Sophie just had to wait until he came back again. “It’s time you faced up to the truth, Sophie. My patience isn’t endless.”

  Sophie laughed at that. “Your patience barely has a beginning.”

  “No? Then what do you call all these years?”

  “A good start?”

  Pietre did not get angry then. He did not shout. Instead, his voice sounded the way it always did in Sophie’s memory. Pleasant, with just that faint accent to make it exotic. Enough to carry her away completely if she let it.

  Once, anyway.

  “You belong with me, Sophie,” Pietre said. He was close to her again. So close. Another inch, Sophie guessed, and his lips would have brushed hers. “We’re family, destined to be together.”

  “We are no such thing.” Sophie shook her head as she said it. Pietre stopped the movement by taking her head in his hands.

  “You swore an oath.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “It was still an oath.”

  “I was young, and stupid. Definitely stupid to swear anything to you.”

  “It. Was. Still. An. Oath.”

  Sophie sighed as Pietre pulled back from her. “Do you think that repeating it slowly will make it matter any more? I am not that girl, Pietre. Or any kind of girl, at my age.”

  “You are. Or you were. You swore, and now that the time comes to live up to it, you try to wriggle your way out.”

  That was an idea. Working on the ropes might not be much use, but it was better than listening to Pietre pontificate.

  “Whatever oath you say I swore-”

  “You swore it! You swore it and then you broke it like I didn’t matter.” For a moment, anger gave way to hurt. The kind of hurt that had love behind it. But then, where did Sophie think the deepest hate came from? “You… broke my heart, Sophie.”

  Sophie nodded. There did not seem to be much else to do. “I know.”

  “Why? Why did you do it? Why did you abandon me for your… Pete? It’s obvious that you cared. He even had the same name!”

  “That’s a coincidence.”

  “Is it?”

  Remembered emotion welled in Sophie then. Memories of tender moments. Of the hurt when it all went wrong. Of having to make a decision. “I didn’t love you, Pietre. Not enough, anyway.”

  “Liar.” The accusation was not loud. It did not need to be.

  “It wouldn’t have worked, Pietre,” Sophie said. She could not help the note of regret that crept in, even here, even now. “I was a hunter, and you were what I hunted. It simply wouldn’t have worked.”

  “It would if you had kept to your oath,” Pietre insisted.

  Sophie felt his hands on her head again then, sliding under the blindfold and pulling it from her. She blinked in the light and drank in the sight of him. Even after all this time, she could not help taking a moment to do that. Sophie cursed herself for it.

  For his part, Pietre just kept staring at her, looking into her eyes as though she could not keep him out easily. As though he could read her every thought. Maybe he just thought that he knew her that well. Maybe he was simply that deluded.

  “I gave up so much for you, Sophie,” he said after long seconds of silence. “So much, yet the moment Peter came along, the moment you found a human replacement for me, you abandoned me. You abandoned the family around you.”

  Sophie shook her head. “They weren’t my family. As for abandoning you, Pietre… well, I’ve already said that I was young. Maybe I shouldn’t have left the way I did.”

  “You shouldn’t have left at all.”

  “Yes, Pietre, I should have. I had to. You want to know what I saw in Peter? I saw a chance for a normal life. A life where I did not have to give up my life and become one of you. I didn’t want to die, Pietre.”

  “You would still have been young. Still have been my Sophie.”

  Sophie shook her head again. “I would have been dead, Pietre, and life is far too precious for that. I couldn’t have just given it up. Not for you, not for anybody.”

  Pietre looked furious. “I was ready to! Don’t you remember how I fought for you? How I got myself staked trying to protect you from vampires I should have cared about, should have obeyed? If it had been just a little higher, it would have struck the heart. What then, Sophie?”

  For a moment, she did not reply. It took too much effort to keep from saying that maybe it would have been better. That fewer people would have died as a result.

  “I might as well have been staked when you left,” Pietre went on. “We could have been so happy, but no, you had to leave. Did you ever care?”

  He didn’t give Sophie time to answer that, but instead walked past her and out of sight. He had obviously gone to fetch something. Sophie took the time to look around, and when she did, it didn’t take more than a second
to recognize her surroundings as George’s office. She was in the diner, then. The moose head was on the wall in its usual spot, and the table was where it always stood. The cubbyhole was open, though it was also still empty. There was nothing that would help her there.

  The obvious question came to Sophie then. Why were they in the diner? Had something happened? An attack on it? Had Pietre snuck in, or had something worse befallen the place? Sophie could not hear the sound of customers beyond, so the diner obviously stood empty. At least, she hoped it did. The only alternative seemed to be a diner full of the dead, more victims of Pietre and his kind. Sophie just hoped that George and Phil, Percy and Jill were okay.

  “Now then,” Pietre said from somewhere behind her, “you’re probably wondering why your little attempt to murder me in my home went so badly, aren’t you?”

  Sophie hadn’t been thinking of it, in truth, but she should have been. The vampires had been waiting for them, and that meant…

  “A traitor?”

  “You guessed it.” Pietre sounded pleased by that. “You always were the clever one. Though not clever enough, apparently, to keep clear of werewolf scum.”

  “Who was it, Pietre?” Sophie demanded. She ran through the possibilities. That part-vampire nephew of hers, perhaps? Her great niece’s vampire ex-boyfriend? Would she have told him about what was going on? Maybe one of the werewolves had betrayed their own kind. “Who told you?”

  “I can almost see your mind working, you know,” Pietre said. He moved back into view. “It must be so difficult for you. Who did you trust that you shouldn’t have? Who got past your defenses? It must be hard. Especially at your age. You must be wondering if you are finally starting to lose your edge. I should have turned you years ago.”

  Sophie kept a tight rein on her anger. It wouldn’t do any good. “Just tell me, Pietre.”

  “Tell you?” Pietre shook his head. “I would much rather simply show you.”

  He beckoned to someone beyond Sophie’s range of vision. As they stepped forward to stand beside Pietre, Sophie could not stop a gasp of surprise.

  “George?”

  The ex-military man looked almost, almost the same. He was still large, and broad-shouldered, though now there was an edge of grace to his movements. His hair was still greying, though now it was paler, almost white. If Sophie hadn’t been looking for the signs, she wouldn’t have spotted them.

  “You’re a vampire now, I see, George.”

  She said it as calmly as she might have remarked on him getting a new haircut, but inside, Sophie was screaming.

  Pietre smiled in a way that made it clear he knew exactly what she was feeling. He reached out to pat George on the shoulder. “I turned him shortly after you and that niece of yours ran off again. I asked myself who you would be likely to contact, and the answer just popped into my head.”

  “You’re a monster-”

  “And now, so is George.” Pietre’s smile widened. “He didn’t like it at first, but he doesn’t really have the same resistance to authority that your family have had. Besides, he became a lot more cooperative once I explained the situation between the two of us.”

  Sophie looked over to George. The big man just stood there, staring.

  “George, whatever he has told you-”

  “Pietre told me you are his wife,” George said. “Are you going to deny it?”

  That was the problem, of course. It was hard to deny what was true.

  “I wish I had known before,” George said. “It would have made a great joke in the Preservation Society. Sophie Edge, married to the most hated vampire in the region.”

  The thought seemed to amuse Pietre too, or at least he laughed. “Well, there will be plenty of time to tell them.”

  That made Sophie go cold. “What do you mean, Pietre?”

  The vampire leader stalked over to her. “I mean that it’s time to disband the Preservation Society, Sophie. Or at least to give it the proper perspective on life as a vampire.”

  “How?”

  “How do you think?” Pietre countered. “George here can get the members to meet with him anywhere he wants. After that, it shouldn’t be too big a problem to turn them.” He licked his lips. “We’ll start with dear Briony, I think. Her blood should be every bit as sweet as yours, Sophie.”

  Sophie closed her eyes. Not Briony. As much as she wanted Briony to be strong and well-trained as a slayer, Sophie worried about her. Perhaps she should never have gotten Briony involved in the Preservation Society. But having the knowledge that came with her slayer training was the best bet Briony had to survive what was to come. If Briony was like Sophie, which Sophie guessed she was, then Briony had inherited the “gift”, too. That was why Pietre married her, besides his protestation of love. It would be a matter of time before Pietre discover the truth about Briony, and then Wicked Woods would never be the same.

  *******

  Wicked Woods continues in

  Book 3 of Wicked Woods

  Silver

  July 2011