by Kailin Gow
Briony wasn’t so sure about that. What was there at the inn for her now that Aunt Sophie wasn’t there? Its size would only serve to emphasize the emptiness of it while she tried to find a way to get her great aunt back. To emphasize how alone she was once more.
They reached the inn quickly, and Briony left the boys at the door. She was too tired for the kind of one-upmanship that would result if she tried to kiss either Kevin or Fal on goodbye. After a day spent on battles, riding werewolves across forests, and dealing with Aunt Sophie’s disappearance into another world, Briony was too tired to do anything except fal straight into bed and sleep. Even then, thoughts of how she might go about locating Pietre buzzed around her dreams.
She woke early, to the sound of movement downstairs. Vampires? Or maybe some of Pietre’s human al ies? Even Josh might think he had reason to send some of his people, especial y after the way Briony had left in the middle of their rescue attempt. Whoever it was, they probably did not have good intentions. Briony did not hesitate. Pausing only long enough to pul on a robe over her nightclothes, she took the silver edged sword from the spot where she had left it against the wal and crept down.
She found Kevin, Jake and Fal on sitting in the kitchen. Kevin was cooking bacon and eggs, while the other two were sitting at the kitchen table. Al three looked over as Briony entered, and Briony was al too aware that she was holding the sword. Al too aware of what she was wearing too, given the way Kevin and Fal on were watching her every movement.
“What are you three doing here?”
“We thought you’d want to start looking for Pietre,”
Jake said.
“Plus I wanted to make you breakfast,” Kevin added.
Today, he was dressed in a nice checked shirt and jeans, so he had obviously been home to change. Fal on, on the other hand, looked like he could have been standing outside al night. Perhaps he had.
“That’s great,” Briony said. “I’l just go and get dressed.”
She had a shower first, of course, since she stil smel ed of smoke from the burning house. Then she picked out a royal blue t-shirt and dark jeans, adding a pale sweater before she headed back down. By the time Briony got back to the kitchen, breakfast was ready. She ate hers hungrily.
“We al have ideas about finding Pietre,” Jake said.
“You do?” Briony hadn’t been sure that they had any options left, now that his lair was gone.
Fal on nodded. “He’l need to tel the rest of the vampires where his new power center is. He won’t tel us, but there are ways we can find out.”
“Like approaching people we know are vampires,”
Jake said.
“Or getting the information from a few of those human fol owers he has,” Kevin added, taking a piece of toast. “It wouldn’t be hard to persuade them.”
“It might be harder than you think,” Briony said.
She’d already thought of al those options the previous night, and dismissed them. “If Pietre is going underground, then he won’t exactly leave people who know where he is out on the street. He’l tel them to keep out of sight.”
“Or he’l make them disappear,” Kevin said. He put his toast down. “You know, suddenly, I don’t have so much of an appetite. I thought we had this worked out, but you’re right. There are stil so many problems.”
Briony nodded, though she didn’t stop her own breakfast. After everything that had happened, she was so hungry that…
“That’s it,” she said.
Jake looked across the table at her. “What is?”
“Where do we know Pietre has access to?
Somewhere that has been closed off to other people, and is stil near the center of the town?” When the boys didn’t seem to get it, Briony finished her thought. “The diner. It’s the perfect place for him.”
The others looked a little doubtful, but in the absence of any better ideas, they went. Briony drove, with Jake in the passenger seat and the other two in the back. Briony had left the sword at home. It wasn’t the kind of thing she could be seen carrying around town, so she would just have to rely on her cross with its hidden blade if it came to violence.
Parking in front of the diner, the four of them slipped inside. The front seemed empty. Maybe it hadn’t been such an obvious place for Pietre to go after al .
“I was so sure he’d be here,” Briony said.
Kevin put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We stil haven’t checked the back.”
Briony shook her head. “If Pietre were here, he would have heard us by now.”
Even so, they went through to the office. Briony went in after Fal on, and stopped dead in the doorway. George stood against the far wal , pinned to it by a stake and utterly stil . Briony couldn’t help wincing at the sight of her friend and former employer like that.
“I told you that we had to stake him,” Fal on said.
“But he’s not dead?”
Fal on shook his head. “If he were, then there wouldn’t be a body. He’s just weak from the lack of blood. I can’t believe Pietre just left him like this.”
“I can,” Jake said, and Briony found herself agreeing. It would be just like the master vampire to abandon someone like this if they failed him.
“Can we do anything for him?” Briony asked.
Kevin moved up beside her. “That might not be such a good idea, Briony. If we take the stake out, he’l be mad with the lack of blood. He’l be weak, but he’l be desperate.
George wil attack any potential source of blood.”
“Like me, you mean.”
Kevin nodded.
“I don’t care,” Briony said. “George deserves better than that. If you and Fal on hold him, I should be able to take the stake out without a problem.”
“And then what?” Fal on asked. “He’l stil need blood to recover.”
“I’l fetch something,” Jake said, and hurried off before Briony could say anything. What did her little brother have in mind? Briony wasn’t sure that she could take a repeat of the scene at the werewolves’ house. She would stake George properly before she al owed that to happen.
For now though, there wasn’t anything to do except try to help him. Briony stepped forward, wrapped her hand around the stake, and pul ed.
George’s head came up, and red eyes locked onto her. A feral sound escaped him. Briony pul ed harder, bracing her foot against the wal as she yanked it clear. It gave way with a suddenness that made her stumble back, but that was just as wel , because George lunged forward, straining against the grips of the two brothers as they struggled to hold him pinned. In a sudden change of tack, George jerked around to attack Kevin, forcing the werewolf back.
“Get out of here, both of you,” Fal on said, grabbing both George’s arms and pinning him once more. “I’m strong enough to hold him, but having you two around is just going to make him worse.”
Briony did not need to be told twice. She and Kevin retreated to the safety of the diner’s front, and Briony let him wrap his arms around her.
“It’s like there’s nothing human left in there,” Briony said sadly.
“We aren’t human, Briony. None of us are. But you find a way to care for us anyway.” Gently, Kevin tilted Briony’s head and kissed her. “Anyone else would have given up on George.”
“We stil might have to. What do you think Jake is going to…? ”
“I’m back!” Jake blurred through the door, holding a large box. “I stole this from the butcher. It stil has plenty of blood in it. It should help. Why are you out here?”
“The smel of our blood was too much for George,”
Kevin explained.
“Then I’d better get in there.”
Jake hurried through to the office. Thanks to the soundproofing, Briony couldn’t hear any of what was going on inside. She was more grateful for that than she could have believed, even if it meant that al she could do was sit out there and wait while Kevin held her.
Final y, Jake cam
e back out.
“He’s ready.”
George was. When they went back into the office, he was standing, and the redness had faded from his eyes.
“Thank you,” he said. “Al of you.”
“You’re feeling better?” Briony asked.
“The hunger is stil there, but I can manage it.”
“We al have to,” Fal on said.
Jake nodded too. “But if you feed often enough, you can keep from kil ing people.”
Briony had to ask. “George, do you know anything about where Pietre might be? About what he is doing now?”
George shook his head. “He left me here rather than help me. I have heard nothing since.”
Briony sighed. From the moment she had seen George, she had been worried about that.
“What is it, Briony?” George asked.
Briony told him. She explained everything that had happened as clearly as she could, from the battle to losing Aunt Sophie.
“And you think Pietre could be the key to getting her back?”
Briony nodded. “He’s the most likely one to know something. But I don’t know how we’re going to contact him if he and his vampires are in hiding now.”
“Why,” George said, and just for a moment, it seemed that the old George was back there, “that should not be hard. We’l start by re-opening this diner, for one thing.”
“How does that help?”
“If Pietre’s vampires are hiding, then they wil wait until things have gone back to normal before they make an appearance. So we wil make things normal. You wil go back to school. Your friends wil behave as they did before the battle. Soon, the vampires wil be out. They cannot steer clear of the town for long if they want to feed.”
That raised one obvious question, of course. “And how wil you feed, George? What’s to stop your customers from becoming your dinner?”
George stood very stil . “I know what I am, and I would rather die than become that. If I harm anyone here, the other members of the Preservation Society wil kil me. I would expect them to.” He looked at her. “I would expect you to, Briony.”
Briony forced herself to nod. “But until that point, we just have to go on as normal?”
“As normal as possible,” George agreed. “Though in one sense, things wil be different. I cannot be a part of the Preservation Society any longer. Not as I am. And your great aunt isn’t here. That leaves you, Briony. You wil have to make sure that it stays strong. I have a feeling that the town wil need it before very long.”
Chapter 12
It wasn’t easy, putting everything back the way it had been. It took Briony and the rest of the diner’s staff most of the rest of the day to get it into a fit state to open again, even with Fal on and Kevin helping out. They had to thoroughly clean every surface, get new stock into the large freezers off the kitchen, and work hard to get the whole place into a condition where they could feel ready to open the doors to diners once more.
That wasn’t the hardest part of it, though. The hardest part came with every look Jil or Pete or Percy gave George, in the little hint of suspicion and fear that came with it. They had al agreed to come back to work when George had asked them, or at least when Briony had assured them that it wasn’t a trick, yet none of them seemed to be able to forget what George was now.
Not that Briony was doing much better. She found herself glancing across to the diner owner whenever she thought he wasn’t looking, just checking that everything was al right. Or, to put it another way, checking that he hadn’t turned into a rampaging monster in the time since she had last looked. Briony knew that she needed to trust George more than that, but after everything that had happened, could she?
Towards the end of the day, she voiced her fears to Fal on. “I’m worried about what wil happen with George,”
she said. “Wil he be strong enough to contain himself once there are more people in here, do you think?”
Fal on shrugged. “There’s no way to tel , but George is strong.”
“Even so…”
“Would it help if I were around?” Fal on asked. “I could help contain him if things went wrong. You could al feel safer then.”
Briony didn’t want to nod. Doing so felt like a betrayal. Yet she did it anyway.
They reopened for business that evening, and the diner was surprisingly busy, given that it had shut with no warning. People came in, looking around as though they expected some major refurbishment, but then shrugging and ordering what they always ordered when it wasn’t there. There were so many that soon, Briony and Jil were rushed off their feet, and Briony found herself more than grateful when Fal on started to lend a hand. It was fun, watching him charm customers as he waited on them, and seeing him carry orders through with that effortless grace of his.
The arrival of the next day meant a return to school.
In the face of questions about where she had been, Briony pretended that she had been il at home. It seemed like the best way to deflect attention, though it meant that once again, she found herself facing a smal mountain of notes to catch up with in every class. Couldn’t the supernatural world attack at a convenient time just once?
Despite the work, it felt good to be back. To have something normal in her life, even if it was just talking to Maisy and Steve by the lockers between classes, or explaining to people that no, she was fine now. Briony was actual y slightly surprised by how many people had missed her when she had been gone. Several of the others from the Drama society made a point of welcoming her back, while even Claire gave her a quick hug when she thought Pepper wasn’t looking.
Briony caught up on some of the gossip with Maisy when she got a moment. Apparently, Maisy was doing wel in the cheerleading squad, despite Pepper’s occasional unpleasantness. Other people, whose names Briony hardly remembered, had hooked up, or broken up, or managed to get themselves into trouble around the school.
“I suppose it al seems a bit mundane next to werewolves and vampires,” Maisy said towards the end of it.
Briony smiled. “No, I think it’s perfect. It’s nice to know that there is a normal life out there, even if I’m not the one living it.”
Yet for the next few days, that was exactly what Briony did. She went to classes. She did her work at the diner. In fact, she did slightly more than her fair share of work at the diner, because that meant that she didn’t have to go back to the inn quite so often. Even with Jake taking one of the rooms there, it stil felt too empty. Working, there were moments, just moments, when Briony could almost forget al about that.
The moments didn’t last long, though, and by the end of the week, Briony was beginning to feel a little frustrated.
Surely there should have been some sign of vampires around the diner by now? Some sign of them in the town, at least? Yet they simply weren’t there. To the people of the town, it must have seemed that several of Wicked’s more prominent citizens had al decided to go on vacation at the same time, yet nobody seemed to think it was odd. Maybe they had just become that good at ignoring things.
At the start of the second week, Jake announced that he was going to start looking for the vampires more actively, trying to sniff them out through the forest, and maybe asking questions of the hangers-on who stil seemed to be around the town. As dangerous an option as that sounded, Briony was wil ing to let Jake try it if it did something to improve their chances of getting Aunt Sophie back.
For her part, she simply had to keep going as she was. Keep working at the diner and going to school.
Balancing those two was difficult enough, without adding more to her load. Stil , at least things were peaceful.
And then, on the Wednesday of the second week, they weren’t. Briony was working her normal shift at the diner after school. Jil , the diner’s other waitress, was working with her, while Fal on had gone into the kitchen to fetch an order, when Briony heard the crack of a breaking glass. She turned to see Jil nursing a cut hand from where the glass had broken in it.
Briony was about to go over and offer to help with cleaning the wound up when a shape streaked past her and leapt. Briony barely had time to recognize George before he smashed into Jil , bearing her backwards as his teeth flashed out. Several of the customers cried out in shock at the sight, frozen to their seats with surprise.
Briony knew she didn’t have that luxury. She had to do something. Briefly, just briefly, she thought of the silver blade of the cross she wore. It was what George had said to do if he attacked someone, after al . But no, Briony couldn’t kil him. Not just like that.
She did take her cross out though, forcing it between Jil and George. The vampire diner owner reeled back, releasing Jil as he whirled towards Briony. His eyes were a feral red, just as they had been in the office when they had revived him. George took the smal est of steps towards Briony, but stopped when she brandished the cross at him. She would be safe as long as she stayed there behind it.
Unfortunately, that didn’t apply to the diners. George whirled towards one of them, a man in his early thirties, and Briony knew there wouldn’t be time to save him. She simply wouldn’t be fast enough.
Fal on was. He came out from the kitchen with the kind of speed only he could manage, hitting George from behind with a metal tray. As George turned, Fal on hit him again, sending the diner owner sprawling. Fal on grabbed him, hauled him to his feet, and marched him through into the office. He emerged alone a few seconds later, looking around the diner with the kind of confidence that could only be an act.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for the interruption to your dining. George hasn’t been feeling very wel recently. Your meals wil , of course, be on the house.”
That seemed to be that, though Jil was shaken by the experience. She went through to the kitchen to wash the cut out, and just the look in her eyes as she went was enough to let Briony know how scared she was.