Changeling (19 page)

And then she was out.

She’d fallen; stumbling as the door behind her hit her in the back and sent her sprawling into the blackness where she collapsed, hitting her head painfully on the floor. Slowly raising
herself up on to her hands and knees, she looked down at the cold, black rock beneath her. The hard, rough surface had grated the skin from her palms, and a hot, stinging burn had already started
up. The rock seemed to radiate a black energy that made her feel desperately scared, and she blinked, pressing her eyelids together before letting them spring open, hoping to turn the black rock
into the grey, regular paving slabs she’d spied through the hotel doors.

From somewhere behind her she became aware of the muffled cries of the receptionist. His voice sounded incredibly distant as though he were shouting at her from inside some giant goldfish bowl.
She couldn’t make out what he was saying. She did recall the warnings that he had screamed at her as she had hurtled through the lobby. How he had told her not to leave. How he had begged her
to stop.

It was too late now.

She slowly raised her head, looking out from between the strands of hair that hung over her eyes at the lightless landscape before her.

There was no New York.

There was not, and never had been, any sign of her father.

There was nothing out here in this pitiless landscape except for the huge winged demon that was laughing down at her, its great black tongue lolling from its mouth as it eyed the foolish human
whom it had so easily lured from the Ashnon’s protective custody.

It reached down and effortlessly picked her up in its clawed hands, cruelly digging the talons down into the soft flesh of her torso until she screamed. The demon threw the girl over its neck.
Leaping into the air it beat its great leathery wings, and carried its prey off to its master.

‘What is he doing here?’ Jurgen said, the words harsh and sharp as he barked them out in the close confines of the kitchen.

There was no answer.

‘Hit him again,’ Jurgen said with a nod of his head.

‘Jurgen, don’t do this.’ Marcus’s voice was small and quiet from behind the larger man.

Jurgen ignored him, ‘Hit him again, I said.’

Luke looked at them, his eyes flicking between the two faces. When his eyes finally settled back on Jurgen’s baleful glare, he balled his hand into a fist and punched Frank in the side of
the head. A small shower of red flicked up into the air, landing in neat, crimson circles on the door of the fridge before growing tails that slowly tracked their way down the white surface. More
blood, mixed with spit, hung from the old man’s lower lip, reaching down towards a widening pool of the stuff that had already soaked into his shirt.

‘You need to stop this,’ Marcus said from behind Jurgen. He looked down at the crumpled figure of the blind man and shook his head. ‘This isn’t right.’ He reached
out a hand and took hold of Jurgen’s elbow.

Jurgen spun round to face him, his eyes blazing with a ferocity that made Marcus back away a step. ‘I told you that I was coming down here for some answers.’ He motioned with his
head at the man strapped into the chair behind him. ‘He can give me those answers.’

‘He’s an old man.’

Jurgen stepped back, his eyes scanning Marcus from head to toe, as if sizing him up. ‘I expected more from you. I thought you understood the importance of the pack; the importance of
keeping it safe. I was wrong about you – you’re weak. If you don’t like what is happening here you’re free to leave.’ His eyes flicked for a second towards the kitchen
doorway. Marcus didn’t move; he stood eyeing Jurgen, considering what was the best course of action. When Jurgen spoke again he spat the words in an open display of contempt. ‘Or
perhaps you think you can stop me in some other way? Maybe you think you should be the pack leader? Maybe you think it’s your time?’

The silence in the room was broken only by Frank’s ragged breathing. Marcus cut his eyes in the man’s direction, inwardly wincing at what he saw there and wishing that he had the
courage to take up the challenge and help him in some way. But Jurgen seemed to have lost his mind, he was uncontrollable right now, and Marcus knew that he stood little chance up against him in a
straight fight. He met the Alpha’s eyes again.

‘I want nothing to do with this,’ he said. He looked over at Luke for a moment, but knew that the youngster was too terrified of Jurgen to come with him. He shook his head, and
keeping his eyes fixed on Jurgen backed out of the kitchen doorway, before turning on his heels and hurrying down the hallway to the front door.

Jurgen spat in the direction of the retreating Marcus. As the other man opened the front door, the crazy little dog came bundling in past him, racing up the hallway to get to his owner. Jurgen
slammed the kitchen door on the creature, leaving it to yap and scratch and bark on the other side.

He turned back to the scene of the interrogation, walking over and bending at the waist so that his head was on the same level as Frank’s.

‘I’m losing my patience,’ he said in a whisper. ‘I suggest you wise up and start to tell me what I want to hear. So I’ll ask you again – what’s the boy
doing here?’

‘I’ve told you,’ Frank said, although he was having trouble forming his lips around the words. ‘He’s visiting me. He’s my brother’s kid.’

‘How come you never told me about this
brother
before? You said that you had no family. You told me that if I set up on this land I wouldn’t be getting any unexpected
visitors. We pay you for the privacy and freedom and protection that this place allows us. We pay you very well. How come you forgot to tell me that you had a brother, huh?’

Frank raised his shoulders for a second before letting them sink back down. ‘I got a bad memory.’

Jurgen sighed and stepped back, nodding at Luke who swung again, this time aiming at the stomach. The blind man’s breath burst out of him accompanied by a great ‘Ooof!’

The dog’s barking increased in volume, as though it could somehow sense what was happening on the other side of the door.

‘Well, we’d better see what we can do to help you with your memory problem.’

Frank’s head was slumped forward now. His arms were tied behind his back with gaffer tape, his legs strapped to the wooden chair in the same way. A wet cough brought more of the blood up
and he spat it on to the floor between his legs.

‘Where’s this brother now?’

Another cough and another gob of red on the floor.

‘He’s dead. Been dead for years.’

‘And yet suddenly his kid turns up here. Why?’

Frank shrugged his shoulders. Luke went to hit the old man again, but was stopped by a shake of his leader’s head.

‘Where did he come from?’

‘I’ve told you.’

‘Tell me again. It seems like my memory isn’t that great either.’

‘London, England.’

‘And have you never met him before? Your own nephew?’

‘I didn’t even know the kid existed.’

‘What’s he doing here?’

There it was – that question again. Frank couldn’t get his head around what was going on. Jurgen and his guys had broken into the house through the front door, smashing the small
window at the side of it and reaching through to unlock it. They hadn’t even knocked. They’d gone through the house, shouting up a storm, going from room to room.

They’d hurt Billy. Frank had heard the dog howl in pain. Then the front door had slammed and Billy could be heard scratching at the wood, still barking wildly in frustration, trying to get
back in. Frank had been in the larder, fetching a fresh bottle, and he came out shouting into the darkness, demanding to know who was in his house.

They’d surrounded him, asking him where Trey was. He’d asked where his dog was, what they’d done to Billy. Jurgen had laughed at him then and started to push him around, asking
again where Trey was. And Frank had told them all to go to hell.

Jurgen had come up to him then, standing so close that Frank could feel the guy’s hot breath on his cheek. He’d told him that he’d give Frank one last chance to tell him where
the boy was. Frank had told him where to go again, and pushed the punk away, yelling at them all to get out of his house. It was then that Jurgen had taken the bottle out of his hand and hit him in
the side of the head with it. It wasn’t like the movies. The bottle hadn’t broken into a thousand pieces and sent Frank staggering about, it had stayed intact, making a horrible
thunking sound as it connected with the old man’s skull, and he’d collapsed in a heap on the floor.

When he’d come round, he was tied to the chair. He’d gotten real mad then, cursing them and telling them all what he thought of them, their parents, and anyone else that might have
ever had anything to do with their miserable lives. They’d laughed at him for a while, expecting him to let up, but when it became clear that he wasn’t going to, when they’d
become tired of his cursing, Jurgen had ordered the youngest one to beat him. Frank thought back to when he could still see; he’d been in quite a few scraps in his life, and being hit was
never a good thing. But when you couldn’t see when the blow was coming, couldn’t prepare yourself in any way for the impact, it was terrifying. He was damned if he was going to show
these lowlifes how scared he was, but he
was
scared – mostly by the sound of the uncontrolled menace in Jurgen’s voice.

‘I asked you a question, Frank,’ Jurgen said, pulling the old man out of his reverie. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘Visiting. He heard what nice company I keep, so he thought he’d drop by and see for himself.’

Jurgen smiled. To Luke, who hadn’t taken his eyes off the pack leader since they’d set foot in this house, there was something terrible in the way he looked down at the old man.

‘You sent for him, didn’t you?’ Jurgen nodded his head, answering his own question. ‘He’s here to try and take over the pack, isn’t he? You called your nephew
over to do your dirty work for you. You want a Laporte to be the Alpha of the LG78 again, don’t you?’ Jurgen’s voice had risen and had taken on an almost hysterical quality now,
and Frank didn’t like the sound of it. He knew he should shut his mouth and let the kid get it all out of his system; let him talk himself out.

Instead he retaliated in the only way he could, ‘You really are one crazy son-of-a-bitch, aren’t you? Where the hell do you get such an insane idea as that?’

There was a silence in the kitchen then. Frank braced himself for another beating, but it didn’t come.

‘He’s Changed in company before,’ Jurgen said close to Frank’s ear, making the old man jump in spite of himself; he hadn’t even heard the whacko cross the space
that had been separating them.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Last night he ran with us. We got deep into the forest and had to get back this morning. This kid, your nephew, Trey, he joins us near a kill that we’ve made. Ella tells him that
we’ve got to Change to get back, and he hardly reacts. Imagine that – she tells him that he’s going to Change in daylight for the very first time, and this kid doesn’t even
blink. At first I thought he was just doing some great job of trying to be ultra-cool about the whole thing. I thought to myself, “That’s it, kid. You’re doing a good job of
pretending now, but once you Change with us in a second, once you Change and can feel what it’s like, to know what it’s really like to be a Wolfan, we’ll see how cool you’ll
be then.”’

Jurgen moved away, stepping back a few steps but remaining directly in front of Frank. ‘But that didn’t happen. I know. I was watching him. I always watch them when they first
Change. Watch them freak out and jump about like crazy little cubs, howling with joy.’ He stopped for a moment as if waiting for Frank to say something.

‘But this kid didn’t do any of that. He Changed, looked about him a bit, sniffed the air, and then was ready to go. Just like that. Just like it was
nothing
to him.’

Jurgen put his foot on the seat between Frank’s legs, resting the sole of his black cowboy boot on the wooden edge. He leaned forward and tipped the old man’s head up so that he
could get a good look at the bloody mess.

‘Do you know what I think? I think that the kid’s part of some other pack. A pack that you know about, and have kept secret from us.’ He waited, before continuing. ‘Some
pack of Wolfan that is looking to expand? You brought him here to infiltrate us. He’s here to try and take over my pack, isn’t he?’ He stopped then, a new thought freezing him in
position until the muscles at the side of his jaw tightened and he slowly turned to look at Frank again, his eyes burning with an accusatory ferocity. ‘You told him about Ella, didn’t
you? You told him that there was a female Bitten here. He’s here to try and take her away from me, isn’t he?’ His voice had risen to a shout now, and the sound was painful to the
blind man’s sensitive hearing.

‘Do you know what I think?’ Frank said. ‘I think that you might just be the most paranoid, crazy, out-of-his-tiny-mind freak that I have ever met. You proved that when you did
that terrible thing to that poor girl. Insane doesn’t even begin to describe how messed up you are, and if someone doesn’t take over as the Alpha of this group before the next full
moon, I’ll eat my—’

The roar that came from Jurgen filled the room. He bent forward and lifted the chair with the old man strapped into it as though it were a child’s toy. Spinning on his back foot, he heaved
it across the room, slamming it into the far wall with a sickening crash. Frank’s head connected with the hard surface and his whole body was already limp before the mangled and shattered
mess crashed to the floor.

The room was perfectly still for a moment. Luke was the first to react, running across the room to the figure of the old man lying in a rapidly widening pool of blood that seeped from the wound
on his head. He knelt beside the figure, ripped the tape from around his wrists and ankles, and pulled the man out of the chair. He pressed his ear to Frank’s chest, and when he looked back
at Jurgen, his eyes were wide with fear.