Changeling (16 page)

‘Well, you seem to have everything in hand,’ Tom said, the unmistakably peeved tone in his voice raising a small, guarded smile to Lucien’s lips.

‘I think we should go and see how Alexa is getting on,’ the vampire said, standing up and coming around the desk to his friend. He placed a perfectly manicured hand around the
Irishman’s shoulders and gently steered him towards the door. ‘Tom, is there any chance that I could trouble you to make me one of your fabulous cups of tea?’

Alexa sat stiffly in the chair, her spine perfectly straight as if some wooden board had been placed down the back of the black and grey waistcoat that she wore over her
T-shirt. Tom bent forward and placed a cup on the table in front of her, but one look at the girl told him that she was completely unaware of his presence. Her eyes had taken on an eerie silvered
sheen giving them a strangely insect-like appearance, and they stared off unblinkingly into the distance.

‘Is she . . . OK?’ Tom asked in a hushed tone, looking at the girl with concern. ‘She looks like some kind of bloody zombie or something.’

‘I can hear you, Tom,’ Alexa said, although there was no hint of emotion in her voice – the words coming out in one long monosyllabic drone.

‘She has to go into that state for the spell,’ the Ashnon said from the couch on the other side of the room. The demon was lounging back against the pillows and leafing its way
through a celebrity magazine. ‘Alexa is perfectly safe, but she is having to work incredibly hard at the moment.’ The demon looked up, casting its eyes in Lucien’s direction.
‘I’m impressed. She is turning into a very talented sorceress. She reminds me of her mother.’

There was a stillness in the room. The demon looked up to find the vampire staring back at it. It flicked its eyes in Alexa’s direction.

‘When was the last time you saw Gwendolin?’ the Ashnon asked Lucien. ‘It’s just that the last time that I was in the Netherworld there was talk that—’

‘There is always talk in the Netherworld,’ Lucien replied. ‘Nether-creatures like nothing more than to gossip and speculate. The clever ones are those that know when to hold
their tongue. Those that don’t, often find that they no longer
have
a tongue to hold.’

The vampire’s eyes shone for a second, burning with a ferocity that sent a chill running up Tom’s spine as he looked between the two of them.

The Ashnon swallowed loudly, and a nervous smile flickered across its lips. It looked down into its lap at the magazine again, suddenly finding something fascinating to fix its eyes upon.
‘I meant no offence, Lucien. Forgive me.’

‘It’s coming here,’ Alexa said into the empty space ahead of her. ‘The Necrotroph is heading straight this way.’

Jurgen paced the floor in front of the large stonework fireplace that dominated the main living area of the cabin. Marcus sat in a fireside chair and watched him, careful not
to stare too openly at the pack Alpha and run the risk of Jurgen interpreting it as some kind of open challenge.

For the last few months the pack had witnessed Jurgen change into the edgy, paranoid and volatile person that stood before him now, and Marcus knew that the tiniest thing could send him hurtling
into a terrible rage. These rages had escalated too, and the violence that accompanied them was getting too much for everyone to bear.

Marcus had no idea why he had been summoned, and knew better than to ask. Past experience had taught him that it was better to just sit and wait until Jurgen was ready.

They’d arrived back at the lake after leaving the new boy at his uncle’s house. Marcus had no sooner showered and changed into a fresh set of clothes than his
walkie-talkie had squawked: Jurgen informing him that he wanted to see him in his cabin immediately. The second-in-command – the Beta – had wanted nothing more than to curl up on his
bed and sleep, but he’d gone over, knowing from the sound of Jurgen’s voice that whatever it was that he was being called for, it wasn’t going to be good.

He’d entered the simple accommodation to find Jurgen standing alone in front of the unlit fire as if he had taken up the position for dramatic effect. Marcus was greeted with a nod of the
head in the direction of a chair, and obediently took up his position. That had been a little over fifteen minutes ago, and not a word had been uttered between the two of them since. Jurgen had
taken up an incessant pacing, his heavy boots marking a monotonous bass beat as they crossed the hearth, leaving Marcus to simply sit and wait.

Eventually Jurgen stopped. Placing a forearm on top of the mantelpiece, he turned round to look at his deputy, a frown beetling his brow, as if he’d forgotten that he’d summoned
Marcus and was surprised to find him there. The look of confusion disappeared, replaced by the familiar, hostile glare that always seemed to adorn Jurgen’s features these days.

‘What do you make of him?’ Jurgen finally said, breaking the silence.

‘Who?’

Jurgen waited, the small muscles at the sides of his jaw bunching up as he ground his teeth in impatience.

‘The new guy?’ Marcus added.

Jurgen glared back at the other man.

‘He seems OK. Why?’ Marcus glanced at Jurgen’s hands as he repeatedly clenched and unclenched them into fists.

‘I don’t think he is
OK
. There’s something not right about him. Something that he’s not telling us.’ Jurgen turned to gaze into the ashes of the dead fire,
as if the answers he sought might somehow be contained therein.

Tephromancy
, Marcus thought. That was the name for divination through ashes: tephromancy. He chastised himself for letting his mind wander – it wouldn’t pay to drop his guard
when Jurgen was in this kind of mood. He wondered what it was that had set the Alpha against the newcomer so quickly. He himself thought that the kid had seemed fine, but it wouldn’t pay to
disagree with Jurgen. Then again, if he said nothing the situation was apt to escalate out of all proportions.

‘What do you base these . . .
feelings
on?’ Marcus asked slowly.

Jurgen turned and looked down at his second-in-command. His eyes scanned the other’s face before a small smile crept into the edges of his mouth.

‘He’s keeping something hidden from us.’

‘He’s just a kid, Jurgen. Mixed up and afraid like the rest of us were when we were his age and found out what we’d become – what we’d inherited from our
fathers.’

The Alpha returned his attention to the ashes. ‘How did you feel the first time that you Changed with the pack?’ he said. ‘I mean, how did it feel to know that you could be the
wolf that lay dormant inside of you
when you wanted to
? To truly experience what it was like to be a werewolf for the first time?’

Marcus considered the question. ‘It felt incredible,’ he said, remembering. ‘Exhilarating and enlivening and breathtaking and—’

‘Did you see him when we Changed in the woods this morning? Did you look at him at all?’ Jurgen turned to face the other man.

Marcus shook his head.

The Alpha leaned forward, bending at the waist so that his face was no more than a hand’s width away from Marcus’s. ‘I did,’ he said. ‘I was watching him. I always
watch them the first time. I like to see their reaction when they first realize what is happening to them; that dawning realization followed by the ecstasy of the moment. Do you remember the first
time Ella Changed? The way that she sprang around for an age before sitting back on her haunches and howling with the joy of it?’

Marcus smiled at the memory.

‘This kid did nothing.’ Jurgen straightened up and wandered over to the window, replaying the scene in his head. ‘He Changed as if nothing at all had happened. He just took in
his surroundings and then just looked at the rest of us, waiting to see what was going to happen next. It was like he’d done it a thousand times before. Water off a duck’s back. Piece
of cake.’

‘Are you sure that you’re not just imagining that? Different people react in different ways, and—’

‘Yes, I am sure that I am not just imagining it, Marcus!’ He crossed the room in a beat, looming over the chair, so that he stood before Marcus, his fists clenched again. This time
Marcus had to force himself to maintain eye contact, trying not to back down too easily in the face of this aggression. Eventually Jurgen pulled back and resumed his position in front of the
fire.

‘There’s something up with that kid, I tell you.’

‘OK, Jurgen. What do you want to do?’

Marcus waited, watching the Alpha’s face lose the red flush that it had filled with seconds before.

Jurgen nodded to himself. He took a deep breath in through his nostrils, holding it for a second. ‘Go fetch Luke. Bring him here. We’re going on a little trip.’

Marcus reluctantly stood up. ‘Where are we going?’

The smile on Jurgen’s face was unsettling. ‘Don’t bring Ella,’ he said by way of an answer.

Trey lifted the large, weed-filled terracotta pot with one hand while his fingers blindly groped in the dirt underneath until they came to rest on the key. His uncle had had
the forethought to tell his nephew where he kept the spare key, and Trey was glad to find that it was still there. Letting himself into the house, he closed the door as quietly as possible behind
him, holding the latch in his fingers and leaning his weight into the wood so that it engaged silently with the frame. He needn’t have bothered. Billy came flying down the hallway, his claws
skittering on the wooden surface, and he gave Trey a short bark of welcome. The teenager couldn’t help but smile down at the little tattletale, and bent down to give the dog’s ears a
brief rub.

‘Shh, Billy, there’s a good boy.’

He couldn’t hear his uncle. There was a perfect silence in the house, and Trey walked up the short hall, poking his head around the door to find that the living room was empty. He thought
for a second, then tiptoed over to the far wall, carefully turned the door handle and peered through into the back room. His uncle was asleep on the floor of the cage. He was curled up on the
mattress on the floor, and his snores bounced back off the bare walls, filling the room. Trey backed out, pulling the door shut behind him, pleased that he did not have to face his uncle right
away.

He went back down the hallway and entered the room that had been offered to him as a bedroom during his stay. It was little more than a repository for his uncle’s junk. Great sprawling
heaps of what looked to Trey like jumble covered almost every inch of floor space.

On his first evening in the house, Uncle Frank had led him to the room, opening the door and waving his hand in the general direction of the rear wall.

‘There’s an old army camp bed in there somewhere,’ he’d said, ‘I have no idea how the thing goes together any more, but knock yourself out, kid.’ He’d
backed out, leaving Trey the task of finding the bed, and the even more difficult job of trying to clear a space in which to put it.

The teenager walked over to the bed now and lowered himself on to the creaking frame. He pulled an old blanket up around him to keep the cold air from his flesh, and thought about everything
that had happened. He had it in his mind to sleep. Despite everything that had happened to him this morning, all he wanted right now was to curl up under the covers and sleep.

His head simply had too many thoughts and emotions jostling and elbowing at each other, and he found it almost impossible to think clearly. He couldn’t shake the feeling of elation that
he’d got when he’d been running with the pack – that feeling that they were one huge organism, greater than the sum of their parts. But he also knew that he had lost most of his
humanity. He’d been utterly animalistic; a throwback to the way that mankind must have been when men were both hunter and hunted; relying on their instincts and senses to stay alive. He
remembered how his heart had sunk as they’d emerged from the woods and he’d caught sight of this house again, how Ella had come over to him, rubbing her flank against his and reassuring
him that everything was going to be all right. He inhaled, realizing that he could still smell her scent on him.

An image of Alexa suddenly flashed into his mind, and his face flushed with shame at how he had momentarily forgotten her. He thought of how concerned she had been for him before he’d
left, picturing her sitting next to him on his bed back in London, quizzing him on when he might return. A wave of sadness filled him – the perfect counterpoint to the ecstasy that he had
recalled moments before.

He knew that he wouldn’t be able to go back.

Frank’s revelations about his father’s attack on his mother had reinforced doubts that Trey had always had about his powers. Despite everything that Lucien had told him – how
he believed that Trey was destined for greatness, and how he believed the boy would fulfil an ancient prophecy that would lead him to defeat a vampire lord and restore peace between the Netherworld
and the human realm – despite Lucien’s insistence that Trey
could
control his lycanthrope powers, Trey had always felt that there was some part of him that had the capacity to go
wrong
;
something that might be triggered at any time, and lead him to do something terrible. Something like his father had done. Another dreadful thought entered the teenager’s mind:
what if his father had done it on purpose? What if he’d deliberately attacked his mother, turning her into a lyco so that he could have a full-blood werewolf child? What if Lucien had
encouraged him to do that to try and realize the prophecy?

He shook his head, sighing at the mess that he found himself in.

Whatever the truth was, there was one thing that Trey now believed – he was not safe to be around, even with the amulet. And he would not risk the lives of the people he’d come to
care about. He forced all thoughts of returning to England from his head, screwed his eyes shut and allowed the tears of frustration to snake down his cheeks and on to the rough surface of the
blanket.

He jumped as a loud clanging noise filled the house, as if two metal dustbin lids had been crashed together like cymbals. The noise was answered by excited yaps and barks from Billy who, from
the sound of things, was running around the house in a state of euphoria. He guessed that the timer that kept the cage door locked had tripped, and that the old man’s incarceration was over
for another month.