Silence - By Kailin Gow Page 0,47

gave his instruction, Briony felt Kevin’s wolf form tense beside her. She knew, without having to ask, exactly what he was planning to do. He would leap into the vampires, snapping and snarling, trying to drive them back long enough for her and the others to run. It was suicidal, but for her, he would do it.

“Kevin, no,” Briony begged. “Please, no.”

It was too late though. Kevin leapt at the first vampire to move forward in a blur of fur and aggression, jaws open to bite, body arching through the air. The vampire raised an arm with casual confidence, jamming it forward to block the bite and give it time to attack Kevin while he was occupied, apparently unconcerned until the very moment when Kevin’s teeth closed on his forearm.

The vampire screamed.

It pul ed back, wresting clear of Kevin’s grip as it did so, but it seemed that the damage was done.

The vampire’s whole hand and arm were swol en to abnormal proportions, and it was holding them with its other hand as it cried out in pain. It fel to its knees, the veins on the arm standing out and almost black against its skin. And worse, that blackness was spreading. In a matter of a few heartbeats, every vein in its body was like that, and a second after that, it fel back onto the floor, blue flames claiming it as it died.

The rest of the vampires looked on in horror, and Briony had to admit, she could understand it. That was a horrible way to die. It was more than that, though. It was a way that meant vampires, ancient, powerful vampires, were more vulnerable than they had ever been before.

Even Marcus seemed impressed. “So it is true,” the savage vampire said. “The werewolf’s bite is poisonous to vampires.”

“Of course,” Vigor said. “You thought I had lied?”

“You are a hugtandalf. Weak. Pathetic. You would do anything to save your skin. Not that you have.” Marcus glared around at the vampires in the room. “I told you to kil them.”

The vampires seemed reluctant to start

forward.

“I wil kil any of you who does not fight,”

Marcus bel owed.

They attacked then, charging forward out of sheer fear of their leader. Vigor leapt forward to meet the first of them, his sword cleaving right through the startled-looking vampire. Vigor looked almost as shocked as it was and swung his sword at another. It fel as quickly as the first.

“It’s too easy,” he said above the noise of the battle.

Briony looked at the dying vampires in the instant before they burned. Their clothes weren’t the oddly medieval ones of Palisor. “It’s because they’re from my world,” she yel ed back, dodging an attack from a vampire before Kevin tore it from her. “They’re weaker than your ones. Younger.”

Young enough, in fact, that Briony might have some hope of fighting against them. Brandishing her stake, she picked out a vampire in modern clothes and struck out at it. It was stil fast, stil deadly, but at least this time it was slow enough for her to see what it was doing. One movement, another, and then Briony was driving her stake up into the creature’s heart. It fel back, already dead.

Behind her, Archer and Fletcher were fighting their way through the horde of vampires, moving in almost perfect unison. There wasn’t room in the opulent suite for them to transform, but they were stil able to whirl and move, step and strike, leaving a trail of dead vampires in their wake.

Vigor, meanwhile, seemed to be enjoying himself, using Pietre’s vampires to distract the older ones of Palisor, shoving them into the way while he fought with strength and cunning, sword to sword with some of the most dangerous creatures in the room.

Even he didn’t create the kind of havoc Kevin did, however. He tore through the vampires like they were barely there, lashing out with teeth and clawed paws, delivering scratches and bites to any vampire foolish enough to get in his way, so that vampire after vampire died with their veins bursting with the black poison. The ones who remained unbitten scrambled over one another in a bid to keep out of Kevin’s way, only coming forward when Marcus shoved them in his direction.

Al except one. Briony spotted Pietre from the corner of her eye, moving towards Kevin with predatory grace and a sword in his hand. She didn’t have time to reflect on how cruel it was that he should have been