Changeling (15 page)

Park Avenue was the bustling mass of life that she had always imagined it to be. The view from her window was not what she had hoped or expected, and she was disappointed that she could not see
any of the more famous buildings and monuments that she associated with the city. Everything was hemmed in; huge buildings stood shoulder to shoulder in the street opposite, and even from this
height, they obscured the view that the hotel must have once commanded. She reached forward and grasped the handle of the window, hoping to open it to allow the sounds of the city, which she could
just make out through the glass, to enter the room. But the handle wouldn’t budge, and the angry horns of the taxis as they pushed their way through the mass of moving metal below remained
muffled and indistinct. She sighed. She’d always wanted to go to New York. She’d watched countless films and television series that had featured the city as a backdrop, and she had
always hoped that her dad might take her there one day so that she might see it for herself. The unbidden memory of her father darkened her mood and she had to fight back the tears that inevitably
threatened whenever he wandered into her thoughts.

Her father would never be taking her anywhere again; the Necrotroph had seen to that.

That was what she was doing here – in this mirage that looked and sounded, and no doubt smelt, like New York, but was really . . . she shuddered. She didn’t want to think too closely
about what and where this place really was.

The Ashnon had told her that she was perfectly safe here, describing the safeguards and sorcery that kept its guests completely protected whilst they were in its charge. Protected, that is, as
long as they stayed inside the hotel and did not venture outside. If they did that, the demon was powerless to help them.

‘Think of it as one of those all-inclusive resorts that they have in some of the less pleasant destinations,’ the demon had said, sounding like some kind of supernatural travel
agent. ‘Everything is on tap at the resort, and you’re perfectly safe – as long as you
stay
on the resort complex. Go outside, and the bad guys might get you.’

‘It shouldn’t be for very long,’ Alexa had added, shooting the Ashnon a withering look. ‘You’ll be out of there and back with us before you know it.’

Philippa took a big gulp from the water bottle, enjoying the feeling as it fizzed in her mouth. Her head felt weird, as if it were stuffed full of cotton wool, and she thought that it might be a
good idea to lie down for a while. She reached out, taking hold of the curtains to draw them against the world, and as she turned her head to do so, the scene outside the window changed. It was
quick and almost imperceptible, but it made her heart jump in her chest, and she stopped, freeze-framed with her arms spread wide to the world outside. It seemed to her that, for a tiniest fraction
of a second, from the periphery of her vision, she had caught a glimpse of the real world on the other side of that glass – a world that was darker than anything that she could imagine. It
was no more than a flicker caught from the corner of her eye, and was gone almost as soon as it had appeared, but for that fraction of a second she knew that she had somehow caught a glimpse of
what lay beyond the illusion, and that glimpse was enough to send a knife of the purest terror through her.

She became aware that she was holding her breath, and she let it out, breathing rapidly in time with her heart, which was galloping away inside her.

There had been something else. In that momentary flash she had seen something else – no, not seen, but
sensed.
Something in the shadows opposite the building. There had been
something lurking in the shadows, and it seemed to her that it had been looking up at her window.

She pulled the curtains shut and looked over at the phone on the bedside table. Alexa had given her a number that she could call in an emergency. In reality, it wasn’t a number at all
– any more than the telephone was a real telephone – but a spell that was activated by her performing a certain action in this realm, and Alexa had thought that a phone call would be
the simplest thing for her to remember.

She looked down at her hands and saw that they were shaking. She was spooked. No, more than that, she was terrified by what she thought she had seen in those shadows because she
had
seen
something outside the window. She told herself to calm down, to get a grip. The situation didn’t really constitute an emergency, not yet, and she remembered how Alexa had told her to only use
the spell if she had to – as a last resort. She pursed her lips and chewed at the inside of her mouth, something she always did when she was nervous, and forced herself to turn away from the
phone.

She wished that Alexa were here. She’d grown to like her, and thought that they were becoming good friends. She was somebody who seemed so normal, and had managed to cope with all the
crazy and terrible things around her in a way that Philippa didn’t believe she would ever be capable of. She looked down at the water bottle in her hand and thought of how Alexa would react
in this same situation. She wouldn’t make the call.

Resolving to try and be a bit more like Alexa – to stop being so weak and helpless – Philippa took a deep breath and started to hum tunelessly to herself. She would take the nap that
she’d planned. Then, when she woke up, hopefully with a clearer head, she’d work out what she was going to do with her time here.

When she woke again it was morning. After the window incident she remembered getting changed into a pair of light blue pyjamas that she’d found in a drawer. The drawers
were rammed with clothes of every type, all her size, with a note on top of the wooden chest of drawers from someone called Hugo, who had been assigned as her personal shopper, and who would, at
her call, happily get anything for her that she wanted in order to make her stay here more comfortable. She’d lain down on the bed, not believing for a second that she would sleep, and now
here she was having dreamlessly slept her way through to the next day.

She threw the covers back and got up, cautiously approaching the window. Wrenching the curtains apart in one large, quick movement, she stared out at the view.

It was pouring. Great sheets of rain were blowing up the street and the sound of them against the glass was like somebody throwing handfuls of grit against the hotel’s exterior. If
anything, there were even more cars on the roads than she had remembered from the evening before. She experimentally flicked her eyes to one side, expecting to catch a glimpse of the black and
malevolent world that she had seen last night, but the scene didn’t change. New York, or this version of it, stayed as New York.

She was on edge, every nerve in her body tightly wound to breaking point.
Get a grip
, she told herself, moving back away from the window. She needed to keep control of herself. She
couldn’t afford to freak out at every little thing that she saw, or thought that she saw. She had agreed to do this. She’d listened to the Ashnon and Lucien, and she’d told them
that she would do it – convinced them that she
could
do it – that she wanted to help. It was a chance for her to exact revenge on the
thing
that had tried to kill her and
had killed her father.

They had told her that she would only be here for a matter of days. That they were confident of getting this mess sorted out quickly so that she could come back and start to live her life
again.

‘I can do this,’ she said to herself.

She picked up the telephone by the side of the bed and hit the button to connect to reception.

‘Yes, Miss Tipsbury. How can I help you?’ The voice on the other end of the line was light and airy, and went some way to calming her.

‘I wonder if I could get some books?’ she said, fighting to keep her voice calm and steady.

‘That won’t be a problem at all. If you’d like to make a list of the authors you like, or what type of books you enjoy, I’ll send somebody up to your room to collect it.
It shouldn’t take us any time at all to acquire them and have them brought up to you.’

‘I’d also like an MP3 player . . . and a laptop. You do have wireless broadband here, don’t you?’

‘Of course, madam.’

‘And can I rent DVDs for the player in here?’

‘We have an extensive list of films available for our guests to rent. In addition, we have the pay-per-view option that—’

‘I don’t suppose I could get a couple of games consoles and some games?’ she interrupted.

‘Just add it to your list, Miss Tipsbury.’

The receptionist acted as though this were the most normal request in the world. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘Yes, please. I’d like some breakfast sent up to my room. I’d like poached eggs on toast, some melon and strawberries, a jug of iced tea, and chocolate . . . I’d like
lots
of chocolate.’

‘I’ll have it brought up to your room immediately, madam.’

‘Afterwards I was thinking of using the gym.’

‘I think you’ll find that the health and fitness facilities on the fifth floor are very well equipped, Miss Tipsbury. We could arrange a personal trainer for you if you would
like?’

‘Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you.’

She hung up and looked about her again. She’d call back in a minute and get some flowers delivered to the room; lots of them, like she’d seen in the hotel rooms of pop stars on the
TV.

If she was going to be holed up like a prisoner in this place for a while, she might as well make the most of it.

‘The most practical solution is to kill the host body,’ Tom said between mouthfuls of an apple Danish that he was devouring. ‘We know that the Necrotroph will
leave him for dead anyway.’ He pointed with the blunt end of the pastry in Lucien’s direction. ‘It’s the simplest, most expedient method available to us. You can’t
deny that. For the first time, we
know
where that foul creature is and who it is inside. You told me yourself that nobody survives after the creature transfers to a new body, so Ronald Given
is little more than a walking corpse. Now I like old Ron, don’t get me wrong, but if that thing is—’

‘Philippa did,’ Lucien said, stopping his friend mid-flow.

‘What?’

‘Philippa survived. Damaged, yes, but she survived.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘You know why we can’t do what you suggest, Tom,’ Lucien said, looking at his friend from beneath his eyebrows, a small smile playing at his lips.

‘I could. And knowing Ron as I do, I’d bet my back teeth that he’d want me to. I’d want
you
to do it to me if that thing had possessed my body—’

Lucien raised a hand, cutting off his friend. ‘You know that I have vowed never to take another innocent human life. I cannot, and will not, destroy what little chance this unfortunate man
has of surviving this ordeal for the sake of . . .
convenience.
He is already the victim in this affair, and yes, his chances of survival are negligible, but his death will not be at our
hands. We will do everything we can to help Mr Given to survive this, regardless of how beneficial his death might be to us at the moment.’

Tom took a gulp of tea from his mug and ran his hand over his short cropped hair. When he looked up again, he let out a long sigh. ‘You’re right. I’m sorry.’ He placed
the hot drink on top of the sideboard beside him. ‘It’s just that we have been trying to find this bloody Necrotroph for so long now, and when we do finally find it we’re forced
to wait around. I feel that we should be doing something.’

Lucien swung around in his seat and looked out of the window to his left, choosing his words with care, knowing why the Irishman was behaving in this way. ‘You must stop blaming yourself,
Tom. It was not your fault that the Necrotroph made its way into our organization, and you were
not
to blame for Alexa’s abduction. Neither was the damage that has been done to
Philippa, nor the death of her father, your doing. My brother, Caliban, is to blame for all of this, not you.’

The Irishman looked down at his feet, and when he spoke again it was in a low voice. ‘I should have known.’

‘How?’

‘For crying out loud, Lucien, I’m supposed to be the head of security for this place. You placed your faith in me and my team to keep this building and the people in it safe, and I
allowed that creature to just waltz in here and—’

There was a small cough from the doorway and they both turned around to see Philippa Tipsbury’s doppelganger standing there looking back at them.

‘It’s what they do,’ the demon said in the girl’s voice. ‘They’re so very hard to spot. Plus they’re pitiless in who they use to achieve any goal that
they have. That is why they have survived for so long.’ The girl smiled in a way that sent a cold shiver down Tom’s spine. ‘But this one’s time is up. This one has been
careless and shown us its hand.’ The demon gave them both a little nod before stepping into the room to stand by Tom’s side. The grim and determined look set into the teenage
girl’s features looked out of place and Tom had to remind himself for the umpteenth time that the girl standing next to him was not a girl at all.

‘My apologies for the interruption,’ the nether-creature said. ‘I did not intend to eavesdrop on your conversation. I merely came to inform you that the Necrotroph is on the
move. Alexa is tracking the host body from next door and—’

‘She needs to be careful not to let it become aware that it’s being followed,’ Tom said, talking across the creature.

‘She knows that,’ the Ashnon answered, smiling back at the Irishman. ‘She’s using a magic spell that I have suggested to her. It’s like a form of remote viewing,
allowing her to watch the car that the host is driving. We discussed this at length, and despite it being a rather cumbersome method, it is the one that gives us the biggest chance of remaining
undetected. For added safety, one of Lucien’s people is following in a car.’ The demon held up its hand, cutting off another interruption that Tom was about to make. ‘Yes, they
are being extremely careful not to be spotted. They are just there for insurance, in case Alexa should somehow lose contact. It’s like a police operation: Alexa is the “eye in the
sky” keeping the driver in touch with everything that she sees.’