Shifter (13 page)

            In this case, it meant stalking a small group of vampires with her. Just her, because Carol had decided that it would look weak for them to take too many other wolves. Or maybe she’d just wanted an excuse to get Kevin alone. Either way, she was stalking along beside him, closing in on a quartet of vampires who were all obviously young and confused about what had happened to them. Kids, transformed by Pietre or his creatures. Not that it changed anything.

            He and Carol rushed forward, splitting as they attacked to make it look like they were going for separate targets, then charging towards a young male vampire in dark clothing. Carol hit him at knee height, while Kevin went higher, attacking his throat. Because the vampire was falling, he didn’t have the chance to block Kevin’s lunge at him, and maybe he hadn’t learned to defend that single vulnerability yet anyway. Kevin’s jaws clamped around his throat and crushed down. The vampire died instantly.

            The two of them split their attack then. Kevin went after the largest of the group, a boy who had clearly been a jock before being transformed. He even wore a letter jacket, and judging by the size of him, he’d probably played plenty of football. Kevin slammed into him anyway, expecting that the young vampire wouldn’t be able to deal with the ferocity of his attack.

            Maybe the kid was quicker than he looked though, because he managed to twist out of the way of that first attack enough to keep Kevin from getting his jaws around his throat. Kevin drove into him, knocking him backwards, and the vampire rolled before trying to take off into the woods. Kevin twisted suddenly, knowing that he should focus on the remaining ones.

            There were two, one male, one female. Carol was attacking the female one, who was hissing in an animal mixture of rage and fear while lashing out with nails that had grown to claw length. Her fangs were out too, and Carol was having to hang back, being careful while she looked for an opening. Unless she could get the throat cleanly, even most new vampires would heal too quickly for wounds elsewhere to stop them.

            The last of the male vampires was circling around, trying to get behind Carol. Kevin leapt at him, catching him from the side. Like the jock, it wasn’t quite a clean hit, and the vampire managed to roll. Unlike the jock, this one kept fighting, its nails and fangs extending just as the girl’s had. The vampire stepped back, swiping the air with those fingers as though testing them out for the first time. Kevin pressed forward, forcing him back into the trees. He didn’t like leaving Carol like that, but she could handle a single vampire alone.

            Kevin snapped at and harried the vampire he was fighting, not standing in one spot for more than a second, using the trees to his advantage as he dodged between them, attacking in sudden rushes. It was simply a question of judging his moment… there! Kevin leapt forward, his jaws closing on the throat of the vampire he was chasing, ending its existence with a single powerful bite.

            He turned back towards the spot where Carol had been fighting, expecting her to have finished off the vampire she was battling against by then. She had, but what Kevin saw made him start forward. Carol was on the ground, while the jock vampire Kevin had driven off was standing over her, ready to bring his claws down in a vicious strike. He’d obviously doubled back, probably attacking Carol from behind, because that was the only way Kevin could think of that he’d be able to defeat her.

            Kevin knew he had to do something, but even with his werewolf speed, he knew he wouldn’t be able to cover the ground in time. Carol was obviously too hurt or stunned to move out of the way, too. That thought made Kevin want to cry out, or do
something
. It wasn’t that he loved Carol, but he still didn’t want her dead. Especially not when she was just about the only way for him to force Josh back here and get to Briony. Yet what could he do now? Kevin’s mind raced, trying to think of an answer.

            A dark furred form shot out of the trees, slamming into the back of the vampire. Its jaws clamped around the creature’s neck and even from where he was standing, Kevin heard the snap of breaking bone. Right then though, he wasn’t looking at the vampire. He was too busy looking at the new wolf. He
knew
that wolf.

            Kevin transformed, stepping forward into the space between the trees. Carol had transformed too, and was standing there, scowling down at the newcomer.

            “Now?
Now
you come back?”

            Josh transformed, and stood there smiling faintly at his sister while the vampire on the ground burned to nothing. “It looks like it was just as well I did. I must say that your new boyfriend hasn’t done a good job of keeping you in one piece.”

            “Not my boyfriend,” Carol said pointedly. “My fiancé.”

            Josh looked from her to Kevin and back again. His eyes narrowed slightly. “Ah, I see.” He started to take a step towards Kevin, and then seemed to think again, looking back towards Carol in obvious surprise. “I never thought you’d do something like that, Carol.”

            “You weren’t here,” she snapped at him.

            “And now I am. We’ll talk later about this.”

            Kevin started to step forward to intervene, but he stopped as another figure entered the small space between the trees. Archer looked around, seeming almost disappointed that the fight was over.

             “Josh, we have to hurry.”

            Josh glanced at him. “Yes, you’re right. Kevin, I’m here to fetch you. You have to go with Archer.”

            And Archer rarely left Briony’s side now. “Briony’s here?” Kevin asked.

            “Briony is back in Palisor,” Josh explained, “and she needs you. Well, she needs a werewolf, and unfortunately, I’m not the one she wants.” He looked genuinely disappointed by that, but recovered well. “And of course, you going to Briony solves a great many problems.”

            “Like the threat of me marrying Carol?” Kevin asked.

            Josh flashed him an angry look. “Yes. But I can live with that now. There are more important things. Go, Kevin. Go, or I’ll assume that you actually mean to fight for my sister.”

            “I don’t need anyone to fight for me,” Carol said.

            “I’m starting to see that,” Josh said, “though I think you’d be in trouble if I hadn’t before.”

            Carol snorted. “I’d have dealt with it.”

            That actually got a small smile from Josh. “Of course you would.”

            Kevin didn’t have the time for that. “Josh, what’s going on? What made you leave Palisor? Why are you back?”

            Josh looked at him and shrugged. “There are dangerous things going on. A… I guess you could call it a kind of prison, for some of the most evil creatures on Palisor has opened up. I don’t have all the details, but I do know that without more help, Palisor will fall. And then so will Wicked. Briony won’t do what is needed with me. Perhaps she will with you.”

            “And what’s needed?” Kevin asked.

            Josh shook his head. “Ask her that when you get there. Just make sure you don’t fail. All of us are counting on you.”

            Kevin looked at Josh for several seconds. Could this be some kind of plan on the werewolf leader’s part? No, Kevin couldn’t see how it could be, except inasmuch as it got him his throne back, and Josh had been quick enough to step away from that. As far as he could tell, this was genuinely about trying to help Palisor and Wicked.

            Kevin nodded. “Alright. I’ll go. And… thank you, Josh.”

            The words were hard to get out, but he managed them. Across from him, Carol looked furious.

            “Just like that, you’re going to Palisor?” she demanded. “You’re going to abandon me? It’s always her, isn’t it?”

            “It’s always Briony for me,” Kevin agreed.

            “You…”

            But by then, Kevin was already running. He could guess at how much that would hurt Carol, but he had more important things to think about. She’d tried to use him for her own ends, and as far as he was concerned she and her brother were welcome to one another. He was just interested in getting back to Briony.

            “Which way?” he yelled as Archer caught up with him.

The dragon pointed. “Down there. I closed the gate after us when we came through, but there’s a spot that will open again. I can feel it.”

Kevin didn’t argue with that. He knew that the dragons could find gates, though how they were going to open it when they got there, he didn’t know. Were they going to be stuck here, locked out of Palisor? They came into a clearing that had all the markers of a gate, from the small stream and the wild flowers to the brightly colored trees and the general feeling of peace.

Archer gestured with his hand and to Kevin’s shock, mist sprang up, forming itself into the familiar shape of an arching gate to Palisor. When had he acquired the ability to do that? Did it even matter, just so long as Archer was providing him with a way to get back to Briony? He stood there, watching as the mist within the gate shimmered and cleared, revealing the landscape beyond it. The gate hadn’t done
that
for anyone but Briony before, either.

Kevin stood there staring at what lay beyond the gate. It was hard not to, because what lay beyond was a battle. Dragons wheeled across the sky, strafing the ground with white hot gouts of flame that reflected off the brightly metallic colors of their scales. Below, creatures surged and milled, enveloped in a mist like darkness that seemed to shift and follow them as they scattered before the flames. They looked like vampires, but not any vampires Kevin had seen before. These vampires were hairless and angular, muscled but moving differently than anything human.

Other things moved with them, utterly impossible things that crawled and slithered and in some cases flew, flitting up towards the dragons in an attempt to bring them down. One dragon did fall, plummeting to earth like a fallen meteorite, crashing into the ground while the creatures around it swarmed over it. In a matter of seconds, they left nothing but bones.

“The vampires of Xylyx,” Archer said, and the dragon shuddered.

“We have to go through into that?” Kevin asked.

Archer nodded. “It’s the way back to Briony.”

When Archer put it like that, it wasn’t even a choice. Kevin took a breath and threw himself forward through the gate, ready to fight his way through whatever lay beyond.

T
he battle around them was chaos. Tendrils of darkness flowed between vampires as they skittered and scrambled forward, attacking dragon and Hugtandalfer alike. Kevin shifted form as one came for him, barely dodging the sweep of clawed hands and clamping his teeth down on the creature’s leg. It was such a different way of fighting here in Palisor than it was back in Wicked. It was so much simpler, when any bite could kill a vampire.

            It needed to be. The next vampire was already rushing at him as the first one burst into bright flames. It was fast. Almost too fast for Kevin to avoid, passing within inches of him. He barely managed to catch it with his teeth as it shot past him, but that was enough. The creature stood there for several seconds before it started screaming and the flames finally claimed it.

            Archer transformed alongside him, his natural form shining golden in the midst of the darkness around him. He swept his tail to one side, knocking back vampires, then followed it with a burst of flame that swept over half a dozen of them at once, consuming them in a matter of moments.

            More swept in, and more after that. Kevin leapt clear of a blow, only to take a kick to the side from a second vampire. He spun and lashed out with his teeth, leaving the vampire to die, but by then he was already trying to defend against an attack from two more vampires. Kevin shifted back to his human form just long enough to throw one of them over his hip, kicked backwards to knock the second of them away and changed back into wolf form to try to finish the first with a bite. By then though, it had already spun away into the greater melee.

            Kevin didn’t know what to make of these vampires. They were strong, as strong as Marcus’ vampires had been, and they were fast, but there was also something almost mindlessly savage about them. They didn’t seem to think. They just charged into the attack. And in a lot of ways, that made them far more dangerous. At least with Marcus, they’d been able to reason with him. With these… they just kept coming, not seeming to care about their safety. Not seeming to care about anything except blood and violence.

            Kevin managed to pull back from the fight for a second as Archer let loose a second gout of flame. He looked around, trying to work out where they were, and saw that they were in a hilly environment, with a tree lined path leading up the rocky slopes, and at the top of it there was what looked like a castle, so skillfully built onto the peak of the cliff it sat on that it seemed to be part of it.

            Between them and the castle there was an army that shone silver on the ground and every color of the rainbow above it. The Hugtandalfer warriors were there, along with their dragons, and they were definitely in the middle of a hard fight. As Kevin watched, the darkness around the vampires swept forward and they moved with it, seizing a Hugtandalfer woman from the end of the line. She screamed, loud enough that Kevin could hear her above the rest of the battle, but not for long.

            Briony would be there somewhere. Briony, Fallon and the rest of them. They just had to get to them. Kevin started forward, biting the first vampire to get in his way, dodging around the second, and starting back as the third was engulfed in a jet of flame thrown out by Archer. They fought their way forward like that, working in tandem. Archer blasted vampires with his fire and Kevin did his best to keep the dragon from being swarmed by vampires. One on one, he was more than a match for them, but Archer was also a large, slow target in his dragon form. Kevin had to run in circles around him, biting any vampire that came too close while using Archer as a shelter against the worst of their attacks. Slowly, gradually, they began to move forward.