Silence - By Kailin Gow Page 0,39

Briony away from us werewolves, then I can hold back.”

Fal on let out a breath. “Good. Then there’s something I need to tel you. I saw something.”

“What?” Jake and Kevin asked it together.

“Something that might help us find Briony and get her back. A dragon. A dragon came through the gate from Palisor. At least, I guess it did. I saw it flying overhead and I tried to fol ow, but it was just too quick.”

“I wonder why it was there,” Josh said. “From the notes my ancestors have left, dragon-shifters general y only appear in our world for a very good reason. There isn’t enough magic here to make it comfortable for them long term. If this dragon is like the last one, the golden one, then he wil be here to open the gates and bring someone back through into Palisor. Perhaps if we could work out whom, we could find it more easily.”

“Perhaps it wil find us,” Brian suggested. “The golden one was drawn to us as fel ow shifters, wasn’t he?”

“It’s possible,” Josh said, “though we can’t know for certain.”

“Let’s hope that’s the case,” Kevin said. Fal on noted that he moved a little away from Carol. “But we can’t risk it not happening. We should track the dragon. It’s our best shot at getting Briony back.

People wil be missing her by now. People at school.

People at the diner.”

“People like you, you mean,” Carol added, obviously not happy at the sudden distance between her and Kevin. She smiled and looked between Kevin and Fal on. “Tel me, when she gets back, which one of you gets her?”

“Stop trying to cause trouble, Carol.” Josh’s tone was firm.

Carol mimed locking her lips closed and throwing away the key before stalking off.

Josh sighed and looked after his sister.

“Brian, make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid.

Kevin, I’m sorry, but we can’t just go chasing around looking for dragons. You’ve heard the rumors about the new vampires coming in from the west. We need to focus our efforts on them, or who knows what wil happen?”

Jake spoke up then. “If the dragon’s here, and the vampires are coming here, maybe the vampires are here because they know something about why the dragon’s here. Maybe they’l lead us to the dragon.”

“Maybe,” Josh said. “Though it would help if we had some idea of what they were here for.”

Fal on’s eyes widened then as he realized that he had forgotten al about the warning he was supposed to deliver. How could he have been that foolish? No, the answer to that was obvious. He’d been too caught up in the possibility of getting Briony back. Yet now, he knew he had to say something.

“I think,” he said, “that I might know something about what they’re planning next.”

“And how would you know that?” Kevin demanded.

Fal on looked at his brother. “Because they told me, Kevin. They told me exactly what they’re going to do.” He hesitated. “And now I think it might be too late.”

Chapter 16

“What is it you need to tel us?” Josh asked.

Fal on hesitated, just barely. What would Josh, Kevin and Jake think when they heard? Stil , he had to tel them.

“I was running to deliver a warning when I spotted the dragon,” he said. “I found out that the vampires were planning something. Something big.

And Wicked is involved somehow.”

“But you let yourself get distracted,” Josh said.

“It was for Briony.” Fal on looked at his brother, and Kevin nodded. He, at least, could understand that. “But now I need to get back. I need to get to the diner and warn as many of the Preservation Society as I can about the new wave of vampires coming in. I just hope I’m not too late.”

“So do I,” Josh said, and Fal on wasn’t quite sure whether it was a threat. The Werewolf King turned to Kevin. “I’m going to head back to the mansion with Carol and Brian. You and Jake are welcome to come. I would ask Fal on, but he obviously has other things to do.”

“And in any case,” Fal on said. “I don’t feel like having my throat ripped out by a bunch of angry werewolves. Now can someone point me back in the direction of Wicked?”

Kevin nodded towards the trees, and from somewhere, Fal on got the impression that his brother was actual y a little sad to see him go. If so, it would be a first now that he was a vampire.

“I’l be over