Shifter (3 page)

            “I can smell vampires,” Carol said beside him. There was anger there that didn’t quite disguise the trace of fear in her scent. Kevin knew she wouldn’t be scared of the fight itself, but she’d been captured and tortured by the vampires once. That kind of thing left a mark.

            “It’s going to be fine, Carol.”

            “I don’t need a pep talk,” she snapped back. That was her. She’d always rather be angry than scared.

            “Do you think the diner’s defenses are working?” Jake asked.

            Kevin thought. They’d had holy water sprinklers and more there before, for the last attack. Would those be ready again?

            “We can’t take the chance,” he said. “Just remember to keep out of the way of any holy water that does come your way, Jake.”

            “I’ll be fine,” the boy promised. “What I want to know is where Pietre’s vampires are. I can smell them, but they aren’t here.”

            Kevin nodded. Here on the street, he could smell them too. Yet the only vampire he saw in the next few seconds was George, the diner’s grey haired, fifty something owner, who stepped out onto the street with a questioning look. He was a well-built man who had spent some time in the military, and still had that sense of crisp neatness about him, even wearing casual slacks, a shirt with its sleeves rolled up and a cook’s apron over the top.

            “What’s going on here, Kevin?” he asked. “You aren’t all here for lunch, I guess?”

            “We heard that Pietre was causing trouble in town,” Kevin said. “We heard he was heading here. Wait, why don’t you know that?”

            There was something wrong there. Something very wrong. That’s when the first howl of pain went up from the end of their defensive line. Another quickly followed.

            “Someone stabbed Chris,” Carol said, looking down the line. “Where are they coming from?”

            Kevin didn’t know. He looked around, trying to figure it out. “Everybody watch your backs. No, better than that, every second person turn around. I don’t want anyone sneaking up on us.”

            “This close to the diner?” one of the werewolves asked.

            “Just do it,” Kevin ordered. There wasn’t enough time to stand there and debate it. Not with his werewolves getting hurt. Three of those who had come were on the ground. He didn’t know how badly injured they were. But how could vampires get close to them without being seen…

            Kevin found himself remembering Pietre’s trick of appearing and disappearing, wrapping the shadows around himself so it seemed like he was invisible. Could he have somehow taught that trick to other vampires?
Would
he have, since it was something they could just as easily use against him? There was only one way to find out.

Kevin looked down the line, checking the end of it where the three werewolves had been hurt. There was a wall casting a long shadow there. Kevin walked towards it, trying to look like he was just checking on the injured wolves, but actually straining his senses.

That was why, when a vampire appeared in the shadow of the diner halfway there, he was ready. He caught the arm holding the knife that swung towards him, breaking it effortlessly and catching the silver blade as it dropped. He stabbed the vampire once, then again, striking the heart. He had a brief instant to look at the vampire, which seemed to be no more than a high school kid in a t-shirt and cut of jeans, before it died and blue fire leapt up to consume it.

That wasn’t the only thing that leapt up. Vampires appeared from the shadows, charging forward at the wolves. One leapt at Jake, and the smaller wolf dealt with it easily, but when a second tried to join in, Kevin jumped forward to intercept it. Her. It was a girl maybe Briony’s age, with cheerleader good looks and blonde hair tied back in pigtails like she was deliberately trying to be cute. Maybe that was what made Kevin pause just long enough for fangs to sink into his neck.

With a roar of pain, he shoved the vampire back. He leapt forward, transforming into a wolf mid leap and tearing at the vampire. He managed to get a grip on her neck, snapping it easily, then letting go as her body started to burn to ash. He looked around for the next vampire. There were plenty to choose from, though his werewolves seemed to be handling them. Kevin threw himself at another of the previously invisible attackers.

 Again, he quickly slipped in, got a grip on the vampire’s neck and ended it. It was easy. Almost
too
easy. Kevin pulled back from the fight, changing back into human form and trying to think. Vampire after vampire was falling to his werewolves, but there was still no sign of Pietre. He looked around at the vampires still fighting, too, and he could see just how young they had to be. Newly made, and mostly, it seemed, from high school age kids. In fact, he thought he recognized one or two. Hadn’t they been in his classes when he was a substitute there?

That was almost enough for him to tell his wolves to leave them, but he knew he couldn’t. They were vampires, eager to feed on humans. They had to be stopped. More came towards them, openly this time, heading down the street. Again, they seemed to be no more than kids.

Jake was there beside him. “They’re newly turned,” he said. “My vampire side can sense that. They can’t be more than a few hours old, if that.”

“Pietre must have turned them, one after another,” Kevin guessed. “That’s just… sick, doing that to kids.”

Jake nodded. He’d know better than anyone. At only fourteen, Pietre had turned him. “I guess it explains why he’d teach them how to disappear,” he said. “He can’t think that they’d survive a fight with us, and even if they do, then they still won’t be powerful enough to be a problem for him.”

“So why send them against us?” Carol asked, changing back into human form and finishing off a dark haired girl who was writhing in pain on the ground.

“As a distraction,” Kevin guessed. “He’s obviously sent the first batches of new vampires to keep us busy.”

“While he does what?” Carol insisted.

One possibility came to Kevin. “He lost a lot of vampires in Marcus’ scheme. The ones who weren’t trapped in Palisor were mostly killed in the battles after that. What if he’s trying to build up his followers again, and using the school to do it? He’s sent these ones this way, then maybe he and his remaining vampires are at the school, making more like them?”

“But that’s…” It seemed even Carol didn’t have the words for it. Maybe she was just thinking about how easily it could have happened to her if she hadn’t been a werewolf. “We have to stop them.”

Kevin nodded. He pointed to four of the werewolves still there. “You four, stay here and protect the diner. The vampires that come this way shouldn’t be strong, but they might come out of the shadows, so stay alert. Try to help the three who are wounded too. The rest of you, come with me.”

“Where are we going?” one of the remaining werewolves asked.

“We need to get over to the high school,” Kevin said. “Now hurry, but stay in human form. We’ve probably shocked enough people for one day.”

“I doubt they’re that shocked anymore,” Carol pointed out. “After all the fights there have been around Wicked between us and the vampires, I’d be surprised if even stupid humans could keep pretending we don’t exist.”

“Carol…”

“What?” she demanded. “I didn’t say I wouldn’t
help
them, did I? If you want me at the high school, or anywhere else, that’s where I’ll go.”

Kevin shook his head. “It shouldn’t be just because I want you to do it, Carol.”

Carol shrugged. “Do you really have time for a debate? I thought we were in a hurry.”

They were, so Kevin started to run. The rest of the werewolves ran with him, heading for the school. He just hoped that they wouldn’t be too late. Except of course, for so many of the students Pietre had transformed, they already were.

R
unning over, Kevin was briefly concerned that they might not be able to get into the school easily; that the high school’s security would see him with what appeared to be a gang of rough looking, disheveled individuals and refuse to let them inside, even if he was a former teacher there. He’d thought that it might have caused problems, having to knock them out to get in.

            Yet one look at the school told him that they had much bigger things to worry about. The large, slightly dated buildings of Wicked’s high school were quiet in a way that full school buildings never truly were. Ordinarily, there would have been at least a few kids out in between classes, or running because they were late, or just hanging out in one of the large open spaces nearby. Now though, there was nothing. Even the small security hut on the gate was quiet, though Kevin quickly scented the reason for that. When he looked inside, there was a middle aged man in a security uniform, dead and bloodless. Kevin motioned the wolves with him past the gate.

            That was when a second security guard leapt out from the shadows beside the gate, throwing himself at Kevin. Kevin didn’t even hesitate. He grabbed the man, who in life had been bulky and muscular but who was too young in vampire terms to be truly strong, and slammed him back against the security hut. Kevin hit him once, twice, and then grabbed him, stepping behind the man to pin his arms.

            “Where are they?” he demanded.

            The guard opened his mouth wide, showing fangs as he tried to turn his head to bite Kevin. Carol stepped forward and broke his neck, then shoved a piece of wood that looked like a chair leg from one of the chairs in the guard hut into him. The vampire guard died without a sound.

            “What did you do that for?” Kevin demanded.

            “He was going to bite you,” Carol shot back. “Besides, you know he wouldn’t have said anything useful.
You
probably know as much about where they’ll be as he did.”

            Annoyingly, Carol was probably right. There were only so many places that the vampires could use if they wanted to keep a large number of students in one spot. Of those, some offered the vampires better opportunities to control the students than others.

            “The gym,” Kevin declared. “They’ll be in the gym.”

            “There,” Carol said, reaching up to put a hand on his shoulder. “You see, I was right.”

            “Just… don’t kill anyone else without my say so,” Kevin ordered.

            Carol looked away. “Yes, my king.”

            “I’m not anyone’s king,” Kevin said.

            Carol shrugged. “Maybe you should be.”

            Kevin ignored that, leading the way to the school’s gym, he crept forward quietly, signaling to the other werewolves to keep low. Most of them did that by transforming, padding along silently behind him. They couldn’t afford to alert the vampires to their presence. Not that Kevin believed the vampires would be able to stop them, but if they were in the school, then there was too much of a chance that they would have kids nearby, and Kevin knew Pietre wouldn’t hesitate to hurt any hostages he had if he saw the werewolves coming.

            So they moved as quietly as they could around the side of the school gym, working their way to the entrance. There was a figure there, standing out in the open. Carol started forward, but Kevin put a hand on her shoulder.

            “What?” she asked.

            “The guard on the gate wasn’t in plain view like that.” He stopped, sniffing the air and then shifting shape as easily as breathing. In his wolf form, the colors of the world faded to black and white, but his other senses were so much sharper. He shifted back, looking over to Jake. “Do you sense him?”

            “The other one?” Jake asked. He nodded.

            “Take him when I take the obvious one then,” Kevin said. He changed again, creeping forward until he was in striking range of the young man, the vampire, on the door. His muscles bunched and he leapt.

            One on one, werewolves were stronger than vampires. The problem was always finding a way to actually kill them. Tearing them apart completely might work, but generally it was a question of attacking the neck and hoping for the best. The trouble was that most vampires who saw the attack coming protected their throats instinctively. In this case though, Kevin didn’t have to worry about that. He hit the vampire in front of him perfectly, his jaws closing on its throat, killing it in silence.

            A second figure appeared, a girl who opened her mouth as if to scream a warning to the vampires inside. She didn’t get the chance. Jake hit her from the side, his smaller but still powerful jaws clamping down to end her existence.        Kevin shifted back and opened the door to the gym just a crack. What he saw inside made his stomach knot in anger.

            There were kids in the bleachers. Dozens of them, maybe more. Several classes’ worth at least. They huddled together in quiet groups, whispering to one another, or praying, or just looking terrified as they had to watch what was going on down on the basketball court. There were vampires there. Old vampires. They stood around in a half circle on the three point line, and there were students on the floor beside them. One was bent over a girl who looked to be around Briony’s age, his fangs sunk deep into her throat. Another, a female vampire, had her wrist out over the mouth of a boy who didn’t seem any older than Jake, blood dripping from it as she forced him to drink in turn.

Pietre stood at the heart of it all, looking so ordinary. So utterly banal. The master vampire appeared to be in his early forties, and he wasn’t handsome. He wasn’t stunning. His hair was short and neatly cut, and he wore a suit that had probably cost a small fortune, but the overall effect was of the manager of some small business, not of one of the most powerful creatures of evil in the area.

            In this case, he was a manager overseeing a kind of horrific production line. One by one, the vampires there drained their victims, giving them back blood, only to move onto another student plucked from the bleachers, and another. Kevin heard a low growl beside him, looking down to see Jake there, peering under his arm at the scene.