by Kailin Gow
Fal on gave his brother an unpleasant look. “Wel , I’m not afraid.”
“We have to get Aunt Sophie back,” Jake added.
Together, they ran for the gate’s swirling mist. To Briony it looked like they ran into a brick wal , the insubstantial vapors hardening even as they touched them, insubstantial vapors hardening even as they touched them, so that Fal on and her little brother sprawled backwards onto the grass.
“It’s rock solid,” Fal on said, standing and putting his hand against the mist. He threw his shoulder against it, the way he might have put it to a stuck door, and bounced off once more.
Jake growled in a way that was more wolf than teenager and threw himself at the portal. He ended up back on the grass in a heap, bounced to his feet, and tried again.
Repeatedly, he ricocheted off the hard surface of the portal, but it didn’t seem to slow him down.
“It’s useless,” Kevin said. “There’s no way through.”
“We don’t know that,” Briony insisted. “Maybe one of us wil have better luck.”
“And then what? We end up on another world with no idea of whether we’l be able to get back?”
Was that what was bothering him? The thought that this portal that had appeared so conveniently might leave them stranded just as easily? Some part of Briony shared that concern, yet she wouldn’t let herself give into it. She wouldn’t abandon Aunt Sophie like that.
“I’m going in,” she declared, reaching out just briefly to touch his arm. “I hope you wil too, Kevin.”
She started towards the portal, only for a young man to step past her and place himself in front of it. He either spent a lot of time somewhere that got more sun than Wicked, or his skin was simply natural y golden tanned. His eyes were amber, while his pale blond hair was close cropped above angular features. He wore clothes that might have been more suitable for a summer day, in the form of a loose white shirt and slacks. His feet were bare.
Briony couldn’t shake the feeling that she knew him from somewhere.
As she watched, the man crossed his arms before him. His voice, when it came, was rich, and carried the kind of echoes that made it sound like it came from someone much larger. “I am sorry, but you wil not pass. Not here. Not now. And certainly not with them.”
Briony watched his gaze sweep around the rest of the group.
“But we have to,” Briony insisted. “My great aunt is in there.”
The man just stood there. “Do not attempt to pass.”
Kevin stepped past Briony, his finger jabbing out towards the newcomer. “Look, I know what you are, but if you don’t move… ”
The young man moved. Specifical y, he moved his arm up and around, catching Kevin’s hand. He turned, drawing Kevin in a half circle, before reversing direction and cutting down on the inside of Kevin’s elbow with his free hand. The movement threw Kevin to the floor as though he weighed nothing.
Jake and Fal on attacked in one movement, but it seemed that the man was expecting it. He moved in towards Fal on, feinting with a low kick before sidestepping as Jake threw himself at his back. Jake’s momentum sent him crashing into Fal on just as the man they were attacking dropped low and swept Fal on’s legs out from under him.
dropped low and swept Fal on’s legs out from under him.
Kevin was on his feet now, and aimed a thunderous punch at the man’s head. Rather than block it though, the transformed dragon just stepped inside it, driving his shoulder into Kevin and knocking him back.
Briony knew she couldn’t just stand by and watch the people she cared about get hurt. She lifted the sword she held, coming on guard as her great aunt had shown her.
“Stop,” she said. “Stop or I’l … ”
She didn’t get chance to complete the threat, because the young man did the one thing she hadn’t been expecting. He charged her. Desperately, Briony thrust her blade towards him, only to find him already spinning away from the movement. His foot found the back of Briony’s knee, forcing her to the ground, even as his fingers dug into pressure points at Briony’s elbow and wrist, making the sword fal from her suddenly nerveless grip. He pushed her away, though surprisingly gently.
The pace of the fight picked up, and Briony found herself on the edges of it as she tried to rub some feeling back into her arm. Fal on attacked with a flurry of punches, only for their strange foe to parry every one without any appreciable effort. The palm smash he threw in return sent the young vampire sprawling. Jake tried to get around to the stranger’s back again, only to be undone by a tripping throw as he attacked. Kevin succeeded in grabbing the man, but was knocked down with a couple of quick strikes at close quarters for his trouble, leaving him gasping for breath.
Briony thought about throwing herself back into the Briony thought about throwing herself back into the battle, but realized that she probably wouldn’t be able to do much good. Their opponent was dealing with them al easily, constantly moving, changing direction rapidly, and coming out with moves they simply didn’t expect. Against that, one more person wasn’t going to make much difference.
What she could do was try for the gate. The natural drift of the fight had taken it away from the front of the portal, so if Briony got very lucky indeed, she might be able to make it there while the three boys served as a distraction. It had to be worth a try.
She kept low, trying to maintain the il usion that she was too badly hurt to take any further part in the combat as she edged around towards the gate in every moment where the stranger’s back was to her. Only when she was sure that she was close enough did she sprint for it.
Briony made it perhaps halfway there before she saw that there was something wrong with the gate. Mist poured off it, not just contained within the gate now, but bil owing out onto the ground around it. In a matter of a second or two, Briony couldn’t even make out the stone arch. Even as she stood there staring, the mist flowed away, leaving nothing behind it. It was like the gate had never been there.
Back at the fight, the stranger seemed to have noticed the change. He shoved Fal on into his brother, knocked Jake from his feet with a whirling throw, and stood there, his eyes fixed on Briony. He smiled.
“I wil see you again, I think.”
“I wil see you again, I think.”
With that, he shifted, his dragon form appearing from nowhere. Before Briony could think to say anything, the great creature was airborne, moving away as fast as it had come. Briony was left standing there, unable to say anything, and with just one thought going round and round in her head.
Aunt Sophie was trapped.
Chapter 10
It was Jake who eventualy broke Briony out of her immobility, taking her hand and pul ing her gently away from the gate.
“Briony, we can’t stay here. The dragon might be back.”
Briony shook her head. “He won’t be back.”
“We don’t know that,” Kevin said.
“We do.” It was so obvious to Briony now. “He did what he came here to do. He kept us from going through after Aunt Sophie.”
Shaking free of Jake’s grip, she went back to where the gate had stood. There was nothing to see there. No flattening of the grass where the stone arch had stood. No dew on it as the aftermath of the mist. Even the signs of their struggle in front of it were fading. It seemed that this clearing was a place that wanted to keep its secrets.
“There has to be some way of opening it again,”
Fal on said, moving up beside her. “Maybe if we try drinking from the stream again?”
Briony was wil ing to try it, because it would be stupid to overlook something that obvious, but somehow she knew things wouldn’t be quite that easy. The dragon wouldn’t have left them alone there if it was. Even so, she knelt by the stream, cupping cool water in her hands and raising it to her lips.
Nothing happened. No mist rose, and no doors appeared. However this doorway to another world worked, it was more complex than that.
“It’s going to be al rig
ht, Briony,” Kevin said, moving to wrap his arms around her. Briony shook her head, stopping him. She needed to be strong right then, to think.
Not to let herself feel the pain of losing her great aunt like this. Besides, with Fal on there as wel , letting Kevin hold her like that would only start an argument. Briony sighed.
When had her life become so complicated?
“How is it going to be al right?” she asked. “You said it yourself, Kevin. There could be anything over in that world, and none of us understands how to get there.”
Kevin looked away for a moment.
“I don’t blame you for trying to talk me out of it, Kevin,” Briony said, guessing the cause of it. She moved in close to him, and this time she did hug him. Fal on would just have to deal with it. “I don’t think the dragon would have let me through regardless of when I tried.”
“We stil have to find a way to open it again,” Kevin said.
“Yes.” Briony moved away from him to look at the spot yet again. If she hoped that it would yield some fresh insight, though, it didn’t.
“Do you think there’s any chance Aunt Sophie wil come back on her own?” Jake asked. He sounded very young right then. Very frightened. But then, he had just lost yet another family member, the same way Briony had.
Briony reached out to take her little brother’s hand. “I don’t know, Jake. I hope so, but we have to assume for now that things are going to be more difficult than that.”
“Things are always more difficult than that,” Fal on said, with a bitter note in his voice as he looked at Briony.
He obviously wasn’t just talking about gates to other worlds.
“Someone has to know how to get through,” Kevin said, and his brother rounded on him with an ugly look.
“Like who? That dragon shifter? Maybe you think that if we ask real y nicely, he’l tel us how to do the thing he’s just knocked us over half this clearing stopping us from doing?”
“Stop it, both of you.” Briony wasn’t in any mood for their bickering. Particularly not when she needed to think.
“There has to be someone who knows. Aunt Sophie can’t be the only one.”
The others looked doubtful. “I’m not sure that it works like that, Briony,” Kevin said. “Your great aunt kept a lot of secrets, and I doubt that she told anyone everything. You would need someone who was very close to her for a long time just to have a chance of finding something out, and even then, it would need to be someone who she trusted enough to tel her secrets.”
Explained like that, the list didn’t seem like a long one. Even George, who had known Aunt Sophie for years, obviously didn’t know everything about her. Nor did the other members of the Wicked Preservation Society. She had only told Briony a few fragments of things, deliberately keeping others from her for reasons of her own. Briony doubted that anyone would know al that Aunt Sophie had to tel .
Except that she could think of one person. One person who had known her great aunt longer than anyone.
One person who had once been closer to her than anyone else, if what the werewolves had said was to be believed.
“I think…” Briony could hardly bring herself to say it.
“I think that we need to find Pietre.”
“What?” Fal on and Kevin said it at almost the same moment, then glared at one another for doing so.
“If Pietre and Aunt Sophie were married, the way everyone says, then he might know. He’s certainly obsessed enough with her, and he spent more than enough time around her to learn a few of her secrets.”
Kevin looked at her like she’d gone mad. “Yes, but Pietre? He’s not exactly likely to help us.”
“He’l kil us as soon as we get close,” Fal on added.
Only Jake seemed thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he said.
“If it means getting Aunt Sophie back, he might help.”
“There isn’t time for a debate,” Briony said. “We need to get back to the vampires’ home and try to find him, before one of the werewolves finishes him off. We can’t afford to lose him. I know it sounds crazy, but Pietre is the only chance we have that doesn’t involve trying to get answers out of that dragon.”
That seemed to settle it. Even if the brothers didn’t appear completely convinced, they were stil wil ing to do what she said. Kevin transformed into a wolf once more, and Briony rode on his back as the four of them thundered through the forest, retracing their steps to the master vampire’s lair. Despite the urgency of their need though, the trip seemed to take forever. Even compared with reaching the clearing the first time, returning from it was slow.
With every minute that passed, Briony found herself fighting against the frustration of it. Darkness was starting to fal , and they stil hadn’t reached their destination. Briony tried not to think of al the things that might have happened to the master vampire in the time they had been gone from his lair. Who would have thought that she would ever care about what happened to him?
They got closer to the site of the old house, and Kevin slowed. Briony slid down from his back as the others paused in the trees. It was so dark now that Briony could only just make out Jake and Fal on. Yet further on it seemed lighter, the trees ahead pierced by an orange glow.
“What is it?” Briony asked. She didn’t raise her voice. She knew the others would hear her.
Kevin transformed and moved to stand by her.
“Fire.”
Briony smel ed it then. The faintest drift of smoke on the breeze, reminiscent of campfires or the cozy, log burning fireplace in the inn’s lounge. Except that this scent did not bring with it feelings of warmth and comfort.
Briony rushed forwards, ignoring the others as she ran to the edge of the trees. There ahead lay the house, or what remained of it, anyway. Flames licked at it, leaping up around door frames and spurting in flares from gaps in the roof. The fire crackled and spat as it ate the structure, loud against the near silence of the forest beyond the clearing.
“No.” Briony couldn’t stop the horrified sound escaping. “What happened here?”
“There’s no sign of the werewolves,” Kevin said.
“The battle must have finished a while back.”
“No sign of any vampires, either,” Fal on added.
“Though that might be harder to tel . We don’t exactly leave bodies.”
Yet something had happened there. Houses didn’t burn themselves down, and the very lack of bodies was some kind of clue. It meant that someone had found time to clear away the carnage left by the battle, or at least relocate it inside where it could burn with the rest of the structure.
That sparked a horrible thought in Briony. “Do you think there is anyone left in there? I mean, trapping someone inside when you set light to it would be a good way to kil them, wouldn’t it?”
Both Fal on and Kevin nodded. “Vampires can be kil ed by flames, if the fire is hot enough,” Fal on said.
“And werewolves are just as vulnerable to fire as anyone else,” Kevin added.
Briony stood staring at the flame-ridden building.
Jake moved to stand beside her.
“You can’t go in there, Briony,” he said.
“I’m not thinking of going in there.”
“Yes you are,” her brother countered. “I know you.
But it’s too dangerous, even for Aunt Sophie.”
As if to make his point, a section of roof col apsed inwards, letting fresh flames flicker up in the night sky. Even from as far back as they were, Briony could feel the heat of it.
“But what if Pietre is in there?” Briony demanded.
“Then he’s probably already dead.”
And ordinarily, that would have been a good thing.
Ordinarily, Briony could quite happily have stood by while a whole nest of vampires burned. Yet here, her hopes were burning up with it.
Kevin stepped past her. “I’l go,” he said.
Briony grabbed his arm. “No, Jake’s right. You’l bur
n.”
Kevin shook his head. “I think there’s an area near the door that’s clear. I can at least take a quick look.” He bent down to kiss her, and it was tender, too tender. “You need this, Briony.”
He sprinted towards the house, and Briony watched him.
“He has to play the hero, doesn’t he?” Fal on demanded, and moved in front of Briony. His kiss was harsher, more ful of need, than his brother’s had been. “So you don’t think Kevin is the only brave one in this family.”
He streaked off after his brother, with that inhuman speed vampires had. Where Kevin ploughed in through the open door, Fal on dove through a window. Al Briony could do was stand there dumbstruck. How could they be so stupid?
“It’s not often that you find people who are literal y prepared to run into a burning building for you,” Jake observed.
“It’s not funny, Jake. What if they don’t come back?”
Her brother didn’t have an answer for that as they stood, and waited, and waited. It was too long. Far too long.
Two shapes burst from the burning building almost simultaneously. Fal on was covered in soot and ash, while Kevin’s shirt was actual y smoldering, until he took the time to drop and rol . Briony rushed forward.
“Kevin, Fal on, are you hurt?”
They both assured her that they were fine.
“There’s no sign of Pietre though,” Kevin said.
Fal on shook his head. “Same here. There’s some ash, but I can’t even tel if it’s vampire, or just the building.
There’s no sign of any werewolves.”
Briony thought about it. They could assume that Pietre had died in there, but that didn’t get them anywhere.
In any case, she suspected that if anyone had managed to survive the day’s events, he had. Besides, something about this burning had his feel to it. The feel of someone cleaning up, dealing with things, and moving on.
Of course, even if al this meant was that Pietre had decided to relocate his base of operations now that the werewolves knew about it, then the job of finding him had just become a lot harder.
Chapter 11
They started to head back to the inn, not knowing what else to do. They couldn’t stand around the burning building al night, and there didn’t seem to be anywhere else useful to go. Briony had wanted to walk back, but Kevin pointed out that it was dark, that it had been a long day, and the sooner she got back home, the better.
