by Kailin Gow
“Come on,” he said. “It’s only a little way from here.”
Briony followed eagerly. Fallon led the way down a little path to a spot where the trees cleared, and paused. It was perfect. A small stream bubbled through a meadow, and flowers surrounded it. Rocks in the stream made for a small weir, so that the water bubbled and frothed. The trees didn’t resume at the far side, so that there was a clear view out over most of Wicked.
“I came here a few times with my brother to fish,” Fallon explained. “I haven’t been back since… that night, but I thought you would like it.”
“It’s beautiful,” Briony said, and it was. She reached out to slip an arm around Fallon, and he held her, resting his chin on top of her head, gazing out with her over the pristine landscape. She snuggled up to him, feeling safe in his strong arms.
A landscape through which a familiar figure was approaching.
Briony tensed at the sight of Kevin. She had not seen him since she had kissed Fallon. She hadn’t had a chance to talk to him. How angry would he be, seeing them here like this? She turned to Fallon to try and explain things, and saw that his expression was one of barely restrained fury. Did he already know?
“Fallon? What is it?”
“Kevin. My… brother.”
The shock of that hit Briony, and not just at the thought that she had kissed both brothers without ever knowing who they were. There was also plenty of surprise at the way Fallon was reacting to the news that his brother was alive. Shouldn’t he be happy?
Apparently not, judging by the way he stormed towards Kevin. The other young man didn’t look any happier either.
“You’re alive?” Fallon demanded. “I thought you were dead!”
Kevin paused a few strides away, nostrils flaring. “And you are dead, I see.”
Briony hung back, not wanting to get in the way, even though there was a part of her that felt she should be trying to make this right.
“You didn’t even look for me, did you?” Fallon demanded.
“Did you look for me?” Kevin shot back. “I wouldn’t have been hard to find.”
“I looked all over town!”
“When you weren’t busy playing at being human.”
Ah, Briony thought, that was it. Kevin was a hunter, after all. He wouldn’t like the idea of a vampire for a brother. But if even Aunt Sophie could come around to the idea of Fallon, then he surely could. Fallon’s expression twitched into a sneer.
“Not human? You think I can’t smell what you are?”
“Then there’s no point in hiding it, is there?”
One instant, Kevin was standing there. The next, there was the largest wolf Briony had seen. No wonder he hadn’t been fazed by the sight of werewolves. And she had thought he hunted these things. At least, Briony hoped as the wolf let out a deep growl, she hoped that was all the hunting he did.
The worst part was that Fallon was falling into a fighting stance. Briony grabbed him by the shoulder.
“Fallon, what are you doing? He’s your brother.”
“He’s a werewolf!” Fallon snapped back. His fangs were fully extended, his eyes red. He looked, if anything, even worse than he had on the night of the homecoming dance. “He has to die.”
“Why?” Briony demanded. She didn’t quite step in front of Fallon. “Why does he have to die just because he isn’t human anymore?”
“Not because of what he isn’t. Because of what he is. Vampires and werewolves have hated each other forever.”
Briony was going to ask why, but she didn’t need to. She could imagine it for herself. Two predators, both hunting the same prey. Of course they would hate each other. It would be simple instinct. And little things like mere family ties wouldn’t get in the way.
“Go!” Fallon ordered Briony, pushing her back. “Run! Once this begins, who knows if we will be able to stop?”
With that, he flung himself forward. The wolf that had been Kevin did the same. The two of them clashed together in a howling, snarling, biting whirl of flesh, each doing his level best to kill the other. All Briony could do was stare at it, trying helplessly to think of something she could do to stop the slaughter.
Briony took a deep breath, looking for a break in the violence. There was only one thing to do, even if it was stupid. The moment that there seemed to be space to do so, she threw herself forward, getting between Fallon and Kevin. For a moment, just for a moment, she suspected that she might have misjudged it. Fallon’s eyes were a deep crimson as he started to swing a punch towards his brother. Kevin snapped and snarled. Briony forced herself not to move.
With a jerk, Fallon forced the strike aside before it could touch her. He tried to step to the side, around Briony. She stepped with him. Kevin tried to wheel around to the other side, but Briony stayed between them, keeping there in a careful dance of protection. Though who was going to protect her was anyone’s guess.
“Stop this!” Briony ordered. The boys ignored her, continuing to circle and snarl. “You don’t really want to kill each other.”
“Oh, we do,” Fallon said, “we definitely do. More than anything. It’s instinct.”
“Then fight the urge.” Briony knew that she did not have long. Eventually, one of them would attack despite her presence, and then… well, they would probably all die. “Fight it, both of you.”
“We can’t!” Fallon looked anguished. “This is a part of what we are, Briony.”
“Like trying to bite me was?”
“Yes!”
“But you fought that, Fallon. You didn’t give in. You just have to be strong.”
“This is stronger.”
The wolf gave a snarl then. Briony guessed that Kevin agreed.
“Then I suppose Aunt Sophie is right. I can’t trust you. If you cannot fight your instincts in this, then how will you fight them around me? There isn’t any hope for us.” She looked around to Kevin. “For any of us.”
“This is what we have to do,” Fallon insisted. “This is what we are. We cannot stop that, Briony. Please, just get out of the way before you get hurt.”
“Before you hurt me, you mean. This is a choice, Fallon, your choice.”
“Don’t you see? There is no choice.”
Briony shook her head. She didn’t believe that. She wouldn’t believe that. The moment she believed, it meant that Fallon and Kevin were nothing more than monsters, and that meant…
“You really believe that people are no more than that?” Briony demanded, pulling her cross pendant from around her neck and brandishing it. Fallon took a step back. “Well, I am supposed to be a hunter. I am supposed to kill vampires, Fallon. And werewolves. If none of us truly has a choice, then should I just give in to what I am supposed to be too? Should I kill the pair of you?”
Fallon didn’t seem to have an answer to that. Nor, it seemed, did Kevin, who had changed back and stood glaring at his brother.
“I could move you out of the way,” he said. “I’m not a vampire, I’m not afraid of crosses.”
“This is silver,” Briony pointed out. She activated the catch to let the blade spring free. “And so is this.”
“You would really kill me to stop my brother from getting hurt?” Kevin demanded, looking hurt. “I thought you cared. I know you kissed me. Oh, didn’t she tell you that, little brother? She kissed me too.”
“If you try to move me, I won’t be killing you for Fallon,” Briony said. “I will be killing you because you will have become nothing more than a monster. If you can’t control yourself that much, how could anyone be safe?”
Kevin fell silent at that, and so did Fallon, but it was a tense silence. They weren’t trying to attack each other anymore, but that was simply because Briony was in the way. She knew just from looking at them that the moment she stepped back, one of them would attack the other. She simply didn’t know what to do.
The faint sound of applause came to her, and Briony looked around. There were shapes in the trees, and more out across th
e meadow. At least a dozen of them. Probably more. What were they? Werewolves, vampires? It was too much to ask that they might be human. Far too much.
They started to step out from the shadows, one by one, taking their time. They clearly knew that there wasn’t anywhere to run, and they were enjoying it. They were pale, and glorious, dressed in everything from clothes from the nineteenth century to the latest fashions, their eyes glowing red in the half-light. Many of them were Briony’s age, while others looked a little older, in their twenties and thirties. Not one of them was anything less than beautiful. Vampires.
The applause continued, just slow enough to be sarcastic, but not coming from any of the vampires who had stepped forward so far. Those glanced nervously between Briony and a point she couldn’t see in the trees. Whatever was going on then, it concerned her.
Finally, the sound gave way to that of a throaty chuckle. It wasn’t a maniacal laugh, or a deranged titter, or any of the other out of control expressions of mirth Briony might have associated with villainy, but somehow, that amused little sound managed to convey a sense of evil in a way Briony wouldn’t have thought possible. She really didn’t want to meet that laugh’s owner, which was a pity, because Briony suspected that in a moment or two, she was going to.
“Pietre,” Fallon whispered, and Briony could hear the fear there.
At first glance, the man who stepped from the trees did not seem like he should have inspired such emotion. He was as good-looking as any of his flock, though perhaps a little older when he was transformed, looking forty when none of those around him got close to it. He was dressed in modern clothes, an expensive looking suit in dark gray that went well with his nicely-groomed pale blond hair. His shoes looked better suited to a sidewalk than to trampling through woodland. He looked, to Briony, like a fairly successful businessman or at least an older elegant European male model that just happened to have wandered into the middle of a group of vampires.
She went on thinking that right up to the point where he looked at her directly. Power rolled over her then. Power, and age, and the sense of something darker behind it. The sense of a life, not just infinitely prolonged, but utterly given over to evil. Briony could almost taste it, dull and metallic on her tongue. In that moment, she found herself in no doubt that this was the vampires’ leader, the master.
“Well.” His voice held just the faintest trace of an accent. Was it from some far off place, or just some far off time? “Finally, I get to meet you in the flesh. Sophie’s young replacement. It is an honor, of course.”
The mocking little smile that went with that told the truth about what he was feeling. Briony made sure that she kept the cross between them. It probably said a lot about how terrifying the new arrival was that even Fallon and Kevin had given up trying to kill one another for the time being, standing near one another, their eyes darting to the surrounding danger.
“I am Pietre,” the master vampire said. “Could I persuade you to put that trinket down, Briony?”
He knew her name. Briony cursed herself for her stupidity. There were vampires in her school. Of course he knew her name. “No.”
“Ah, of course. You think it will protect you. I will have to change your mind on that. But first…”
He moved as quickly as any vampire Briony had seen, stepping past her to Fallon and Kevin. In a second, he had a hand around each of their throats, and had lifted them clear off the ground. Kevin made a strangled sound.
“Strictly speaking,” Pietre said, “Fallon here does not need to breathe. It is a habit. An affectation. One I gave up on long ago. On the other hand, a snapped neck will kill him as surely as any other vampire.”
“What do you want?” Briony demanded, still keeping her cross up.
The vampire ignored her. “Heart and neck. I always tell them, guard your heart and neck, but do they listen? His heart… well, I think you have that, and now, thanks to Fallon’s efforts against his brethren, I will have his neck. As for the wolf, it’s always nice to deal with vermin.”
Briony saw his grip start to tighten. She had to think of something. “Wait,” she tried. “Let them go and I’ll… I’ll let you do whatever you want with me.”
That got another of those laughs. Briony hated him for that. Hated that anyone could behave like this and find it amusing.
“Oh, dear Briony. How very self-sacrificing. Haven’t you worked it out yet? You are surrounded. Very soon, you will be captured. And then I get to do whatever I want with you anyway. At some considerable length. That these two will die is just a bonus.”
That made Briony shudder. She did not want to think about what the vampire had in store for her. About what a mind like that might decide to do when it had her helpless. But she couldn’t exactly fight her way free. Yes, she had her cross, but what happened when vampires rushed her from all sides? Besides, by that point, Fallon and Kevin would be dead. Briony wasn’t sure that she could live with that. Yet what else could she do?
Slowly, Briony looked down at the cross. At its sharpened blade. She thought back to the way Pietre had looked at her as he entered the clearing. To the looks from the vampires. They wanted her for something. They needed her. Silently hoping that she was right, Briony lifted the blade to her own throat.
“Stop!” she ordered. “Stop, or whatever you want me for, you won’t get the chance.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” Pietre countered.
“Wouldn’t I? You really think that death isn’t better than what you have in store? You think I’ll take that chance with Fallon and Kevin dead?”
Pietre appeared to consider it. “Put the knife down, you foolish girl.”
“No. Not until you give me your word that you won’t kill them.”
“And then?”
Briony swallowed. It had to be this way. It had to. “And then I will come with you willingly.”
The master vampire nodded, throwing the two boys down in a gasping heap.
“There.”
Briony considered running for it then, but her chances of escape weren’t any better than last time. Besides, what would stop Pietre from killing Fallon and Kevin then? She squeezed her eyes shut and dropped the blade. Hands were on her instantly, grasping her arms, caressing her cheek. The voices of other vampires came to her then, whispering close.
“Open your eyes, little human. Open your eyes, Briony. It will be so much better. Open your eyes.”
Pietre's voice cut through it. “Open your eyes, or I will change my mind, girl. I have my prize, after all.”
Briony winced at that. She knew then that this was going to be worse than she could possibly have imagined. She opened her eyes, staring up into those of another of the vampires. Such beautiful eyes. Such beautiful…
Darkness claimed her.
Chapter 20
Briony came to sitting on a chair. It was a straight-backed wooden chair that was as far from comfortable as could be, particularly in comparison to the armchairs that filled the rest of the room. Those had a slightly frayed look, as though their glory days were long behind them, but at least they went with the rest of the décor in that respect. The whole place had a look of slightly tattered opulence, as though it had been a mansion at one point, but nobody had bothered with repairs for a few years.
Her lack of comfort was at least partly down to the fact that she was tied to the chair. Securely too, because straining against whatever ropes held her didn’t result in any give. Another part of it had to do with the view. From where she sat, Briony could see out through the door to the room, across a corridor, and into the opposite room. That was bare, except for two solid looking chairs similar to hers. They held Fallon and Kevin, both tied, both bruised, and both currently unconscious. What did it take to knock a vampire and a werewolf out? Briony hoped that she would never find out.
As she watched, Pietre stepped out of that room and shut the door behind him. He was down to his shirtsleeves now, and there was blood on those. He stepped across to Briony
in an unhurried fashion.
“And so you wake.” He picked one of the armchairs and sat down. It was to Briony’s side, so that she had to strain in her seat to see him. She knew without asking that it was deliberate.
“So what? Are you going to torture me now? And I thought Kevin and Fallon weren’t going to be harmed.”
“I said not killed,” Pietre retorted. “I never said anything about leaving them alone. As for you, I am more inclined to talk right now. Harming you could cause problems. Unless you would rather I bit you?”
“Never.”
“Really? Some people rather enjoy it. Some people practically beg for it. Feeders…for instance.”
“Well, I’m not one of them,” Briony snapped. “And I can’t believe that anyone would willingly give themselves to you.”
The master vampire stepped out of sight behind her, and for a moment, Briony suspected that she had made a serious mistake. Helpless as she was, could she really afford to anger someone that powerful? Would the next thing she felt, the last thing she felt, be his fangs at her throat? Or worse, would that only be the start? What had Aunt Sophie said back at the Inn? That it would take more than one bite to drain someone completely? Just the thought of it made Briony shiver.
“Hmm…” Pietre was right next to her. “So much fear. And yet… what if it were young Fallon offering to taste you? Would it be so terrifying? Or would there be a part of you that wanted it?”
Briony shook her head, not daring to speak.
“You know,” the master vampire said, “I think you actually believe that. Suffice it to say that there are others who are more honest about their desires. There are those who will do almost anything for us.”
“You really expect me to believe that there are humans out there who sympathize with you?” Briony asked.
“I do. You would know it, if you only stopped to think. People think we are exciting. That we are beautiful. And so they help us. Either they do it for the pleasure, or from love of what we are, or the promise of what we can give them. Take this house. I would never have found it without the aid of a human or two. Though they didn’t exactly get the reward they were looking for.”