Changeling (21 page)

After a second, he looked away, wondering if she had sensed the shame that he felt.

‘OK,’ he said in a small voice. He puffed out his cheeks, grabbed hold of his jacket, and crossed the room, ushering her out. ‘But I’m warning you, Ella. I don’t
see any way back for him this time.’

The Necrotroph sat in the car in the underground car park, the engine still idling. The demon was steeling itself for what lay ahead, playing over in its mind the various
scenarios that might present themselves and not liking any of the options. It
had
to re-infiltrate Lucien Charron’s organization, and quickly. Caliban had tried to make contact the
night before, and the Necrotroph had had to make up some cock and bull story about why it was taking so long to find a suitable host. The entire situation was a mess, and it could see no way of
achieving what it needed to. Because of that damned girl.

She was the demon’s top priority now - the Irishman would have to wait. The demon replayed the scene when she had spoken to it through the host that it was currently inhabiting.

I might not know exactly where you are right now, but I can sense you out there,
she’d said. And then much more worryingly,
I believe that I will be able to find you, demon. I
can’t quite yet, but soon I think I will be able to do just that.

Lucien’s organization had the girl, and they were hoping to use her to find out where the demon was hiding. If they succeeded, the Necrotroph was doomed. How much time did it have? It
doubted that it had very much.

The problem was this stupid body that it found itself in now. It couldn’t think of any way that it would be able to get to the girl from within the body that it currently occupied. The
mechanic was perfect when the plan had been to take over the head of security, but there was no way that it could hope to get access to the teenager through it.

It thumped the steering wheel, jumping in alarm when the horn sounded in the enclosed concrete space. Finally realizing that the engine was still running, it turned the key. The demon twisted in
its seat, looking around to see if anyone might be in the car park and if they had been alerted to its presence by the sound.

The Necrotroph needed to find an interim host. It would use up precious time, but it could think of no other way. It would have to possess someone inside Lucien Charron’s organization who
would stand a better chance of getting to the girl. But this increased its risk of exposure, as the Tipsbury girl now seemed to know when it was transferring between bodies.

Damn it all! It needed that blasted girl out of the way as soon as possible.

Ronald Given’s hand stretched out to remove the keys from the ignition. He opened the door and climbed out, straightening up and stretching his back with a slight wince.

The demon walked round to the back of the car to fetch the human’s work things from the boot. It looked up at the pinging sound that announced the arrival of the elevator, and watched as
the doors in the far wall slid open, blinking in surprise when it saw who the two occupants standing in the brightly lit interior were. They stepped out of the lift and began to walk towards it.
The Necrotroph couldn’t believe its eyes – although strictly speaking they weren’t
its
eyes at all. It was as if all of its prayers had been answered: the Irishman Tom
O’Callahan and the Tipsbury girl were coming this way. They were walking straight towards it, as if the Devil himself had delivered them into its arms.

It steadied itself, taking complete control of the host body, suppressing all non-essential parts of the brain to avoid any mishaps that might alert the girl to its presence. It stood by the car
and waited for them, a big welcoming smile plastered on the Given man’s face.

‘Ronald,’ O’Callahan called across to him. ‘Good to see you back. I understand that you’ve been ill for the last couple of days?’

‘Yes, I’ve had some kind of virus. Just haven’t felt myself, you know. But I’m OK now.’

‘That’s grand. Good to have you back with us.’

The Necrotroph nodded in their direction, smiling all the while.

‘Are you two off somewhere?’

‘Yes, I’m taking this young lady to meet someone. Sorry, how rude of me. Philippa, this is Ronald. He helps keep all of Lucien’s cars on the road and is a dab hand at fixing
anything that you can take a screwdriver to. Ronald, this is Philippa Tipsbury. She’s helping Lucien out with something.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ The Necrotroph held out its hand and shook the teenager’s. A small bead of sweat ran into Ronald Given’s eye, and he blinked the salty liquid
away.

‘Well, we’d better be off.’ Tom moved towards the black BMW that was parked in a bay off to their left. He stopped, patting his pocket, a deep frown creasing his forehead.
‘Ah, crap. Would you believe it?’ he said, shaking his head and looking at the girl. ‘I’ve left the keys upstairs in the apartment. We’ll have to go up and get
them.’ They started to move back in the direction of the lift.

‘I could take her wherever she needs to go,’ the demon said, wincing inwardly when the words came out too quickly and eagerly. It looked between the girl and the man. ‘I mean,
if you wanted me to, I could take her. My car’s just here and—’

‘Ah, no thanks, Ronald. I’m to take her in person. Lucien’s orders.’

The Necrotroph knew not to press the matter. It would only draw suspicion on itself if it continued to act in any way that seemed out of character, but it couldn’t believe how close it was
to its quarry. Cursing its bad luck, the demon shrugged its shoulders and turned away, opening the boot. It looked down at the toolbox and briefly considered simply taking out a hammer and
eliminating the two of them. But it knew that the Irishman would not be dispatched so easily. It lifted the box out and set it on the floor.

‘I tell you what though,’ Tom said to it, stepping forward and speaking in a conspiratorial tone. ‘You could do me a huge favour by waiting with Philippa here for a second
while I shoot up to the top floor to grab my keys.’He turned and spoke to the girl. ‘If that’s OK with you, Philippa? Just wait here with Ron while I shoot up in the lift?
I’ll be back down in just a few minutes.’

The girl glanced between the two of them for a second. The Necrotroph held its breath, not daring to move.

Eventually the girl nodded. ‘Yeah, fine. I’ll just wait here with Ronald until you get back.’

The demon watched the lift doors close, returning the little wave that the big, dumb Irishman gave them both from between the rapidly narrowing gap. It counted slowly to ten in
its head to make sure that the doors weren’t going to slide back open. When it was certain that they were alone, it turned to face the girl.

She nodded her head, a polite smile momentarily flashing over her lips before she returned her attention to her feet, nudging a small stone back and forth with the toe of her Converse trainers,
the tiny staccato sound the only break in the oppressive silence of the car park.

The demon also stared down at the stone, lost in thought.

‘So you fix Lucien’s cars?’ she asked, glancing up for a brief moment.

The demon had no idea how long it might have – minutes at most. It would have to act quickly. There was nothing for it – it would have to do what it needed to out here in the open.
It was high risk, but the stakes were so critical that it felt anything was justified right now.

‘Yes, I look after the entire—’

The mechanic stopped, a look of fear and astonishment on his face. His eyes opened impossibly wide and than screwed shut. He sucked in a harsh and ragged breath and clutched at his chest,
fingers curled into claws as they grabbed at the flesh beneath his shirt. He bent forward at the waist, a hoarse hissing sound escaping his lips until he lifted his head and looked up at her, his
eyes beseeching her to do something. The terrible grey colour of his face perfectly matched the concrete walls behind him.

‘Mr Given, are you OK?’

She watched as he sank to his knees, his eyes still locked with hers. He couldn’t speak. His mouth was turned down in a ghastly grimace and tears made their way into the creases that lined
the corners of his eyes. That terrible sound came out of his mouth again, and he fell over on to his back, still clawing at his chest with his fingers.

The girl moved to stand over him, looking down at him with a mixture of pity and terror. She glanced back at the elevator doors for a moment before returning her eyes to the dying man.

She sank to her knees beside the man’s body, her hands fluttering in the air over his chest, as if unsure what to do for the best.

The demon looked up at her through the dying man’s eyes, willing her to come forward just a little closer, knowing that it had her now. If it could lure her in just a little more and make
the transfer to her body as quickly as possible, it would be able to use the apparent heart attack and her subsequent attempt to revive poor old Ronald Given as the perfect cover, and not have to
worry about hiding the man’s body.

The man was trying to say something. His mouth was still set in that ghastly upside-down grin but she couldn’t make out the words. The girl leaned further forward to hear him better.

Ronald Given grabbed the girl’s head between his hands, forcing her closer to his own and opening his mouth as he did so. Her eyes opened wide in terror but she didn’t pull away. She
too opened her mouth to shout for help, and in that moment the demon seized its opportunity.

The Necrotroph’s head suddenly appeared in Ronald Given’s mouth, which had stretched open impossibly wide to accommodate it. The creature’s black eyes momentarily took in the
girl’s face and then the whole thing shot forward, the glistening worm-like body thrusting itself across the gap between them. Tiny, armless hands that stuck out from the side of this body
grabbed on to the girl’s mouth, pulling against the lips viciously and forcing the head deep inside the open orifice. The demon felt the girl reach up with her own hands and wrap them around
its body, and it prepared itself to shock the girl with the row of spiked tentacles arranged along the length of its body.

But something strange happened, something that it had never experienced before. Instead of trying to pull the demon free from her throat and mouth, as so many countless others had, the Tipsbury
girl forced the demon deeper inside, grasping the slippery body and pushing it towards her own face in an effort to get the Necrotroph inside her as quickly as possible.

It occurred to the demon that something was wrong, something was terribly wrong. It tried to resist, shocking the girl’s hands again and again in an effort to make her stop. But it was too
late. The last of its body slid down the oesophagus and the demon was inside the Tipsbury girl. It swivelled round in the stomach and briefly considered what had just happened. The former host body
was almost certainly dead now – they invariably died during the transfer process; those that did not die were left as nothing more than gibbering lunatics.

It sent out tendrils into the girl’s body – great, rapidly elongating things that started hooking into the parts of the brain and spine to enable it to take complete control of the
body and mind of this new host. But as it did so, there was a dawning realization that this thing that it was now inside was not the Tipsbury girl. It was something far worse than it could ever
have imagined.

Lucien and Alexa stepped out from the shadows of the car park and rushed to where the body of Ronald Given lay. Alexa knelt down and placed her fingers against the man’s
neck, frowning and shaking her head when she couldn’t find a pulse.

The doors to the lift opened again, and Tom ran across to join them, having stopped the lift from ascending as soon as the doors had closed earlier.

The Ashnon got slowly to its knees. It seemed incapable of even the simplest movement, and as it got one foot under it, it listed to one side, almost falling to the ground again. Three pairs of
hands shot out together and they helped the demon to its feet, where it wavered on the spot like a drunkard.

Lucien stood in front of the figure and spoke – not to the demon before him, but to the demon that was now inside.

‘At long last we meet,’ he said. The vampire’s golden eyes bored into those of the thing in front of him, blazing with a ferocity that was enough to send a shudder down
Tom’s spine. ‘I know that you can hear me in there, and I wanted to tell you that your time is now over. You have taken over your last human body, and now it is time for you yourself to
be consumed.’

The facsimile of Philippa Tipsbury’s body jerked suddenly, one hand going to her stomach while the other clamped firmly over her mouth. A muffled heaving sound came from behind the hand
over her lips, but the Ashnon’s eyes were full of humour as it looked back at Lucien. There was another jerk of the body and the Ashnon buckled at the knees, almost falling to the floor. When
it looked up at Lucien again, the vampire knew that it was time. He nodded his thanks to the demon and stood back a little.

The Ashnon shot its eyes quickly to the other members of the group, still keeping the hand clamped over its mouth. It nodded once to each and then closed its eyes and tipped its head back
slightly. There was a fizzing sound in the air like rain on overhead power cables, and Tom, Alexa and Lucien felt themselves pulled forward towards the nether-creature, having to rock back on their
heels to avoid over-balancing in that direction. Then a hugely powerful but brief wind blasted outwards, taking their breath away and throwing them back a step or two. When they opened their eyes,
the Ashnon was gone.

‘Is that it?’Alexa asked, looking up at her father.

‘Yes, that’s it. The Necrotroph’s fate is sealed. The Ashnon has returned to the Netherworld, and the demon inside it will be consumed. Philippa will be returned to us shortly.
We must find out from her what she wants to do with her life now, and help her in any way that we can.’