Shifter (Wicked Woods #6) Read online

  “You didn’t succeed,” Briony assured him.

  “I am still here, aren’t I? My power is…”

  “Your power is nothing,” Sophie said, stepping forward as though she might attack. “You’re still alive because Briony is a better person than you will ever be. She took her power, and she controlled it. She has more compassion, and more love, in her than you will ever have. She stopped the destruction of the vampires, Pietre, not you.”

  Pietre shook his head. “No, that can’t be. I have seen the power of the vampires on Palisor. I have felt some of what was rising up. I know the legends. The only way you could beat them would be to unleash that power.”

  “You’re still alive, aren’t you?” Briony pointed out.

  “Briony followed her father’s path,” Sophie explained. “She drove them back. She locked them away. The way we’re going to lock you away, Pietre.”

  Pietre laughed then. “You don’t have the power. None of you do. Again and again, you’ve tried to destroy me. Again and again, you have failed. I survived the vampire apocalypse through my power, and so did my vampires.”

  Briony saw then just how mad the master vampire was. How mad he’d always been. Yet he could still think. Still choose. In his way, he was worse than the Xylyx vampires had been. Worse even than Marcus had been. The vampires from the chasm had been nothing more than killing machines, while Marcus… as evil as he had been, he’d really been nothing more than the product of a time when the world had been more brutal.

  Pietre didn’t have those excuses. He was old, but not so old that he didn’t understand how the world worked. He’d claimed to love Sophie once, yet he’d killed so many members of her and Briony’s family. He’d terrorized Wicked. He’d gone to war with the werewolves and tried to force her to give him a way into Palisor. He’d tried to manipulate Marcus, controlled half of the town’s council and now it seemed that he was determined to transform everyone he could into his kind.

  It was time for that to stop. Whatever it took.

  “Pietre,” Briony said. “I gave Marcus a chance. I told him that he could live. Well, I’m going to make you an offer that’s better than that. Humanity. I don’t know how to do it yet, but I believe that the scepter has the power to make you human again. Surrender, and I will try to give you that.”

  Pietre looked at her incredulously. “Do you think I want that?” He gestured to his unremarkable, middle aged form. “Do you think I want to age any more than I have? Do you think I want to grow old and die? Remind me, how long do the Hugtandalfer live?”

  A long time. Briony hadn’t thought about that much yet, but she had a long life ahead of her as Palisor’s queen. At least assuming nothing went wrong in the next few minutes.

  “And if you could actually do it,” Pietre pointed out, “you’d have transformed young Fallon already. We all know how much he aches to be human again.”

  “I haven’t done it yet,” Briony admitted, “but I’m sure that I can.”

  “And all I have to do is surrender?” Pietre laughed at that. He turned to the vampires he’d transformed, and to the older ones with them. “Kill them. Kill all of them. This ends here.”

  The vampires rushed forward. If they’d still been in Palisor, it wouldn’t have been close to an even fight. The werewolves would have been able to kill the vampires far too easily for that. Yet here, where they didn’t have the same deadliness in their bite, it was a different story.

  Briony felt water falling around her, and she saw that sprinklers had started around the diner. She saw the holy water in them burn a couple of vampires who came too close, but for the most part the fight was away from the diner. Away from the diner, but in the middle of the street. What would the people of Wicked think about vampires and werewolves battling through their town? About the same things they’d thought about being dragged away to be transformed into vampires, probably. The town was never going to be the same.

  For now though, Briony had more immediate things to think about. A vampire leapt at her, screaming in rage. She hit it with the staff she carried and it burst into flames. She spun, summoning up her magic and blasting another with fire. Archer, obviously taking his cue from her, transformed and strafed more vampires with flame. More than a few of the new vampires looked at the dragon in terror.

  The werewolves rushed forward, working as a pack. Josh hit a vampire low, so that Carol could tear his throat out. Jake ripped another to pieces, while Kevin kept his human form and slipped behind one who came at him, breaking the vampire’s neck. It was fast and brutal, a sudden wave of violence that was somehow worse because it was happening here. Huge battles with magical creatures involved were chaotic and terrifying on Palisor, but at least they fit there. Here, they were just wrong.

  Briony saw Sophie going after Pietre. She should have known that her great aunt would do that, and so far, she seemed to be making a good job of it. She was cutting her way through the crowd of new vampires, her swords swinging in glittering arcs. Even the older vampires that were left from Pietre’s group barely slowed her down, and if they did, it was only long enough that Vigor could appear by her side to lend his blade to the assault.

  Briony stepped forward into the fight, swinging the staff she held. Killing vampires. She saw that Sophie had cornered Pietre now, and the master vampire’s claws skittered against her blades, drawing sparks as though they were also made of steel. Pietre disappeared from in front of her, winding shadows around himself, and a second later Sophie cried out as a line of blood appeared on her leg. She managed to get a swift sword thrust in though, forcing Pietre back.

  The Preservation Society had joined the fight by then, their weapons adding stakes and crossbow bolts, vials of holy water and silver blades to the battle. Briony saw Maisy fire a crossbow at a vampire to get the attention of a whole group of them, only for Steve to throw a water bomb as they got closer. Briony spun then, moving to intercept another vampire as it tried to get close to her…

  …and found herself face to face with Pepper Freeman. Briony hadn’t thought too much about the other kids at Wicked’s high school in the past month or two. She’d spent her time fighting wars they couldn’t understand, in places they wouldn’t believe existed. She doubted that most of them would even remember her, given how little time she was there. Yet she remembered Pepper. After all, the head cheerleader had gone out of her way to make life unpleasant for her. Now here she was, her mouth open to reveal fangs. When had they transformed her? Had she just been walking down the wrong street? Had she volunteered? After all, her family had always supported Pietre.

  She was here. She was a vampire, and just the slightest touch of the scepter would be enough to destroy her. Briony kicked her away instead, back into the melee. She couldn’t do it. She might have thought she hated Pepper once, but after all this? Pepper didn’t matter. She was just some kid who used to be mean to her. Set against everything else Briony had come up against, she wasn’t important, except as a reminder that these weren’t faceless, mindless beasts they were killing.

  Briony slammed the staff on the ground again, sending out another wave of painfully bright light.

  “Stop! Everybody stop!”

  Briony poured as much of her power into those words as she could, and almost to her amazement, they worked. Fights ground to a halt in front of her. Vampires looked around like they couldn’t quite remember what they were doing. Briony concentrated, forcing her magic into whatever space Pietre’s control over them occupied. If she could do it with the Xylyx vampires, she could do it with these.

  Slowly, impossibly, the battle ground to a halt. It was obvious that the vampires were losing. Most of the older ones were dead.

  “Stop,” Briony said.

  “Ignore her,” Pietre countered, stepping forward. “Kill her.”

  “Why do you have to do what Pietre says?” Briony demanded. She kept her magic pulsing out. “He’s just a foolish old man who has lived too long. If you fight, you’ll pro
bably end up dead. You can see how the fight has been going.”

  “I command you to kill her!” Pietre raged, grabbing a vampire and shoving him towards Briony. He struck the scepter and disintegrated.

  “That’s what he’ll do with you,” Briony said. “He’ll use you up and throw you away. He doesn’t care about you. He doesn’t deserve to lead you. You don’t have to do what he says.”

  There was a murmur from the vampires. While she was able to hold Pietre’s control in check, they could obviously think for themselves. At least, some of them started to drift away from the edges of the fight. Pietre looked at them in fury.

  “No,” he said. “No. You’ll die for this. You’ll all die. And you…” he turned his attention back to Briony, his eyes flaring red. He started forward and Briony raised the scepter. But there was no need for it, because in that moment a second shape hit Pietre from the side.

  Fallon.

  Chapter 21

  Fallon hit Pietre so hard in that first clash that Briony winced. She started to move forward to help, but she knew that she couldn’t. Not yet. People had only stopped fighting because of her. If she started again, then things would go very wrong, very quickly. So she had to stand there while Fallon jumped at Pietre, lashing out at him with fists and feet while the master vampire came back at him with claws.

  When had Fallon gotten fast enough to dodge those sweeping nails? When had he acquired the strength to hold Pietre back as the master vampire tried to thrust his fangs forward into Fallon’s throat?

  “You can’t beat me boy,” Pietre said. “You’re still young. I am a master vampire.”

  “The only thing you’re a master of,” Fallon shot back, kicking him hard in the stomach, “is talking too much.”

  Pietre stumbled back, and then seemed to recover. He lunged at Fallon, and those claws of his drew blood. “I made you. Everything you are today is because of me.”

  For a moment, Fallon had to give ground as Pietre attacked, the master vampire’s hands moving in patterns too fast for the eye to follow.

  “Everything I am today comes from not being what you are,” Fallon retorted. He kicked down, catching Pietre in the knee hard enough that the master vampire cried out. “It comes from having people around me who care about me. People I love.” He glanced back at Briony then.

  “And look what has happened,” Pietre argued. “She married your brother. A werewolf. She betrayed you, the way Sophie betrayed me. We should be on the same side.”

  He lunged then, tackling Fallon to the ground and rearing over him. He hit Fallon once, then again.

  “Look at you. You’re pathetic. You go on about love, but you don’t even have it anymore. What’s left after that? Love is a lie.”

  Fallon shoved up, pushing Pietre off him.

  “You’re wrong, Pietre.”

  He hit the master vampire hard in the stomach, moving to dodge the swipe of his fingernails.

  “Briony might have married Kevin, but that doesn’t change how beautiful loving her was. It doesn’t change the fact that loving her kept me from being like you. It doesn’t change how much I care about my friends, about my brother, about everyone who still cares about me.”

  He hit Pietre again and again.

  “You’ve gained a lot of power in your trips to Palisor,” Pietre said. “But I have my own tricks.”

  He started to weave shadows around himself, but Fallon darted forward, grabbing at the spot where he’d started to disappear. He didn’t seem to care about the wounds that appeared almost all over him.

  “It wasn’t Palisor,” Fallon said. “It was just realizing that I was strong. It was having people around me who wanted me to be strong. That’s not what you are, Pietre. You pretend to be strong, and to do that, you keep the people around you weak. Well, I’m not weak. Let me show you.”

  Fallon leapt the way only he could leap, and he carried Pietre with him. Together they rose into the air so high that even Briony could barely make them out. Then they dropped. They dropped together like a stone. Faster than Fallon normally fell. Faster than could be safe, even for a vampire. Briony saw Pietre then, struggling underneath Fallon as the younger vampire drove him down into the ground like a hammer.

  They hit the concrete with a crash hard enough to crack the sidewalk. Dust flew up, making it impossible to see what was happening. All Briony could do was stand there, and hope, and maybe feel a little guilty for hoping.

  “It’s okay,” Kevin said beside her, slipping his hand into hers. “I hope he’s all right too.”

  The dust cleared, and Fallon was standing there. Pietre was at his feet, looking up and groaning. The master vampire looked like he could barely move then, but Briony knew even that wouldn’t be enough. Eventually, he would heal. Eventually, he would try to cause more chaos in Wicked. A month ago, she would have staked him. Now though, she had another option.

  She looked over to Archer, who was back in his human shape. “Xylyx isn’t the only pocket of reality connected to Palisor, is it?”

  “No, my queen.”

  “Are there any that would hold a vampire?”

  “Several.”

  Briony nodded and let go of Kevin’s hand so that she could touch her fingers to Archer’s shoulder. “Think of one.”

  Before, she had thought of the location the gate would open to. She’d been the one thinking of Wicked, trying to get home. Now, she just summoned her power, trusting that Archer would find the right place for this gate to open. Briony stared at the patch of ground beneath Pietre, pulling magic into her. Then she released it.

  The sidewalk where Pietre lay seemed to swirl like a whirlpool, going from something solid to something so fluid the vampire slid through without a sound. There were sounds though, on the other side. The sound of hounds barking and steel doors slamming closed. The sound of marching feet and people shouting things a long way off. An image came into Briony’s mind of a dungeon. Of a world that was nothing but dungeons. Mile upon mile of underground imprisonment. Somewhere even Pietre would have trouble escaping from. Briony let the power fade and the sidewalk went back to being just a sidewalk.

  She looked around. There were so many people in the street. There were vampires there, members of the Preservation Society, and werewolves. There were ordinary people from the town, who looked around as though knowing that their lives would never be the same again. Wicked had always been the town where people managed to ignore the supernatural things happening around them, yet now, Briony suspected that wasn’t going to be possible anymore.

  Fallon looked bad right then. He had several deep wounds, yet he seemed to be ignoring them for the moment. He looked around the assembled crowd, staring at the vampires there.

  “Most of you don’t know what is going on,” he said. “You were turned without a choice and pushed by Pietre to feed your hunger by hurting people. It doesn’t have to be that way. You have a choice, and you need to make it, if you aren’t going to be the kind of monster who gets hunted down. Think of your friends, your families. The people who love you.”

  “And then what?” Pepper asked it. Briony was almost glad to see that she’d survived the fight.

  “And then you keep on doing it,” Fallon told her. He looked around again. “How many of you are there now? Too many to go around hunting people. One vampire is too many to have hunting people. We’ll have to find a new way. A better way. And we will. Come on, all of you. We should leave. There are a lot of things we need to talk about.”

  He led the way, and the vampires followed him. Briony wasn’t surprised by that. Right then, they were looking for someone to help them make sense of things. Had any of Pietre’s older vampires survived? She couldn’t see any of them, and they would have been at the heart of the fighting. Even if they had, Pietre wasn’t there anymore to command them. Maybe they would change. So long as Fallon kept control of the rest, maybe it didn’t matter whether they did or not.

  “You’re just going to let them go?”
Josh asked. “You think that vampires can live without hunting down humans?”

  “Do you want another fight that badly, Josh?” Briony countered. “It’s done. Maybe it isn’t done forever, but life doesn’t work like that. For now, we just have to find a way to make things work.”

  The first thing that meant was getting everyone off the street. That took a while. Most of the werewolves wouldn’t leave until Josh ordered them. Then there were the members of the Preservation Society, who were reluctant to move out from the safety of George’s Diner until they were certain that this wasn’t all some ploy by the vampires to get them into the open. There were plenty of ordinary people in there too, sheltering away from Pietre and his creatures. Most of them looked like they’d seen far too much in a short space of time.

  In the end, they decided to make George’s Diner their base while they talked through what would happen next. Josh showed up again with his sister, while Fallon came in with a couple of people Briony recognized as members of the town’s council. Briony knew that she ought to be at the heart of what happened next, but at the start of it at least there were so many people trying to talk at once that she just wanted to take a step back. She commandeered a booth with Kevin and just sat there with him, content to let the rest of it slide over her while she waited for the arguments to subside a little. Somewhere along the line, she must have drifted off to sleep, because she found herself waking with her head on Kevin’s shoulder.

  Briony smiled at the thought that she might be doing that for a long time to come. Then she looked up and saw why she’d woken up. Sophie was there, sitting down opposite them.

  “What did I miss?” Briony asked.

  “A bit,” Sophie admitted. “Josh and Fallon spent a while arguing over what should happen to the vampires next, but Josh has his own problems. His pack doesn’t want any more fighting.”