Changeling (27 page)

Trey cradled his dead uncle in his lap as the last of the day slowly slipped away behind the ridge of trees to his right. He would have stayed like that, a tableau of grief and sadness, had Ella
not come and gently placed her hand on his shoulder. He looked up at her and she smiled sadly back at him. He stood on legs that struggled to support him and wrapped one of the blankets she’d
brought him around himself, watching as she used the other to cover his uncle.

They sat in Ella’s cabin drinking hot tea and warming their bodies in front of the fire that she’d lit. They’d sent Lawrence back to Frank’s house to
fetch Trey some clothes. The boy had been a nervous wreck, repeating his apologies over and over again to Marcus, who Ella had patched up with bandages and steri-strips from the first aid kit.
Marcus had been more than gracious – shaking his head at the younger boy and telling him that he was going to be fine.

‘The speed we heal,’ he said, cutting off Lawrence’s objections, ‘by the time tomorrow morning arrives I won’t even know that I’ve been shot.’

Lawrence had told them how he’d panicked when he’d looked out of his window and seen the others facing down Jurgen in front of the woods. Because of the position of his cabin, he had
seen none of the terrible things that the Alpha had done, and knew nothing about Luke’s death until told of it by the others.

‘I didn’t know what was going on,’ he said, his hands still shaking as he held the steaming mug. ‘I thought you’d all lost your minds and were going to kill him. I
only meant to fire over your heads. Scare you.’ He looked over at Trey and then lowered his eyes. ‘He was going to kill you too, wasn’t he?’

Trey shrugged his shoulders, and returned his gaze to the dancing flames in the fireplace. ‘I guess so.’

‘What happened to him?’ Lawrence asked. ‘How did he get like that?’

‘He got it into his head that everyone was against him,’ Marcus said. ‘None of us were safe from him any more.’

When they’d finished their drinks they’d given Lawrence the keys to the car, with instructions on what to bring back with him.

After he’d gone the other three had sat in silence, nobody wanting to be the first to try and piece together the events that had led to three deaths that day. But eventually they began to
talk, going over everything that had happened and filling in the gaps for one another.

Trey got up and stood by the window, listening to Marcus as he unfurled the terrible story of how Jurgen had beaten and tortured his uncle, and how Frank had convinced Ella to find the amulet.
The old man must have known that it would come down to a confrontation with Jurgen, despite his assertion to Ella and Marcus that he’d simply planned to give the chain back to Trey and
persuade him to leave. He stared out at the bodies lying next to each other outside Ella’s cabin. They’d moved them there and covered them with blankets. In the light that spilt out
from the cabin’s interior they looked like strange mummified forms. There was a big clean-up job to do, and none of them relished the idea of burying their friends and loved ones. That was
when Trey remembered Galroth and the demon’s offer of help if it was needed. The stone that the demon had given him had been in the pocket of the jeans he’d been wearing before the
three of them transformed and faced down Jurgen. He moved towards the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Ella said, getting up from her chair.

‘I need to find something.’

He left the cabin and moved off towards where the car had been. He easily spotted the torn remains of their clothing and bent down, tossing remnants to each side until he found what he was
looking for. Thankfully, the pocket was still intact, and he fished around inside it, sighing with relief as his fingers met the smooth surface of the small red stone. He removed it and headed back
to the cabin.

When he walked in, he sensed an atmosphere and could see from the irritated looks on Ella and Marcus’s faces that they’d been arguing about something. He closed the door and
waited.

‘I want to burn the cabins,’ Ella said. ‘I’m the sole pack Alpha now and my one wish before I disband it would be to remove any trace of the LG78 – both past and
present incarnations – from this place forever.’ She looked at Trey as if to suggest that he had the final say in this.

‘Fine by me,’ he said. He paused a second. ‘I think my uncle’s place should go too.’ He looked out of the window for any sign of the Land Rover’s return.
‘I’ll have Galroth do it.’

Ella frowned over at the teenager, unsure of what he meant and wondering who, or what, Galroth was. She was worried about Trey. When he spoke, his voice was flat and toneless, as if he were
battling to control the emotions that were churning away inside him. She got up out of her seat and moved over to stand by his side. ‘None of this is your fault,’ she said, placing her
hand on Trey’s arm.

He toyed with the silver fist that hung beneath the blanket, his fingers tracing the shape of it as he thought of the things that his uncle had told him before dying.

‘Maybe not,’ he said finally. ‘But I wonder if any of this would have happened if I hadn’t come here.’

Trey had changed into the clothes that Lawrence had fetched for him, and he now stood in front of the fireplace, taking in the three expectant faces staring back at him. Ella,
Marcus and Lawrence watched him hold the bright red stone in front of his eyes, fascinated by the swirling and eddying nature of the crystal’s interior. He placed its smooth surface on to his
forehead, holding it there with the tip of his index finger.

‘Galroth,’ he said in a low voice, feeling more than a little foolish and closing his eyes so that he wouldn’t have to look at the others.

At first nothing happened, and he was about to open his eyes and shrug when he felt his body go rigid, the muscles all locking, anchoring him to the spot. The sudden feeling of weightlessness
that followed was unsettling, and if he hadn’t been vaguely aware of the floor through the soles of his feet, he would have sworn that he was floating. He had the odd sensation that some part
of him
had
left his body, and that that part of him was now somewhere else altogether.

‘Mr Laporte?’ Galroth’s voice filled Trey. The sound wasn’t received by his ears, but seemed to pulse through each and every cell of his body.

‘Galroth, I need your help,’ he said, unsure if it was his mouth that was making the sounds or if his thoughts were being unconsciously translated into the words.

‘You are in danger. I will come.’

‘No, wait,’ Trey blurted. ‘I
was
in danger, but I’m not any more. But I need you to help me with some things here – at the lake by my uncle’s place.
You don’t need to get here using magic; I remember how exhausting you said that that would be for you. You can simply drive here. But you might need to bring some people with you –
people that can help dig.’

There was a pause. ‘I see.’

The demon was silent again, and Trey thought that it had gone when its monotone drawl filled him once more.

‘Your timing is impeccable, Mr Laporte. I heard from Tom today. He told me that if I had not heard from you by this evening, I was to come by and check on you. Shall I contact him and tell
him that you are safe?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘And you
are
safe?’

‘Yes.’

‘I will be with you in about two hours, Mr Laporte. Shall I bring excavation implements? Spades, pick-axes, shovels?’

‘Yes, bring them. And bring some canisters of petrol – sorry, gasoline – too.’

‘Very good.’

He felt the demon’s presence disappear and he was left all alone in the void. ‘Galroth?’ He was on his own.

‘Galroth?’ he repeated. Fear began to steal up on him as he realized that he had no idea how to get back to his body. ‘How do I switch this thing off? How do
I—’

He was standing back in the room. He blinked his eyes open and looked at the others. ‘He’s on his way.’

The demon came with two helpers. Unlike Galroth, the others had adopted human disguises that were unremarkable, and Trey wondered again why his Canadian escort had chosen such
a strange mantle with which to camouflage itself in this realm.

The demons worked quickly, taking over the entire operation and asking the humans to stay in Ella’s cabin until they were ready for them to come out. The way in which they went about the
task suggested to Trey that this was not the first time that Galroth and its friends had been involved in a clean-up operation of this sort. When they finally called Trey and the others outside,
the bodies were wrapped in sheets of tarpaulin that had been secured with rope. The unmistakable sight of the human bodies beneath the material caused Ella to issue a sharp cry, and Marcus pulled
the girl to him, hushing and talking to her in a low, comforting voice.

Trey looked at a bag of white powder that Galroth had brought along. ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘Quicklime,’ the demon responded in a slow monotone. ‘It helps with the decomposition. Are you ready?’ it asked.

Trey nodded.

They buried Jurgen and Luke first. They’d dug their graves by the lake, next to a willow tree that hung its branches out over the water. Nobody had any words to say as they lowered the
bodies down into the holes and began to cover them, first with the lime and then with the excavated soil. When the demons had finished their task they moved back to the cabin to fetch the other
body.

‘Goodbye, Jurgen,’ Ella said in a small voice.

Trey reached out a hand and Ella held it in her own, squeezing tightly. He shook his head at the waste of these two young lives – young men who, like him, had become enslaved to the beast
that lay dormant inside them; an inherited curse. They had not been given the chance that he had to control their powers and impulses and eventually the beast had consumed them and destroyed their
humanity forever.

Frank was buried a little further away, under a small rise in the ground that commanded a view out over the surface of the water. Trey had sent Lawrence back to his uncle’s house again,
this time to fetch the body of Billy. He came back with the dog’s body in one of the empty whisky crates, and Ella had berated him for his crassness.

‘It’s OK, Ella,’ Trey said, waving away Lawrence’s apologies. ‘My uncle wouldn’t have minded.’

Ella found a purple blanket to wrap the little dog in, and they buried the creature with its owner.

Ella came over to Trey as he stood by the grave, mirroring his earlier action, and taking his hand in hers. ‘He would have liked to be here at the end,’ she said. She nodded towards
Jurgen’s grave, ‘They both would.’

Trey nodded, letting the tears roll down his cheeks, struggling to pinpoint how he felt right now. He had lost his only living relative, a man who had admitted to terrible things before his
death – things that Trey found impossible to forgive. And yet Frank had saved him. Saved his nephew’s life, knowing that it would almost certainly cost him his own.

He stood and watched the demons finish their work until the final grave had been filled. When the earth had all been packed down, Trey stepped forward and, at the head of the mound, placed the
picture frame that he’d bought his uncle on that first day. He stood looking down at the people in the picture, realizing for the first time that the photograph must have been taken not far
from here with the same lake in the background. His parents and his uncle all looked so happy.

‘What will you do now?’ Ella asked.

‘Go home. There’s nothing for me here.’ He glanced up and caught the hurt look on her face. ‘I’m sorry, Ella. I didn’t mean . . .’

‘It’s OK. You’re right. There’s nothing here any more.’

‘I came here to try and find someone who would understand me, understand what I am and how I feel. But my uncle wasn’t like me. Neither were you or the other members of the
pack.’ He shook his head, a short, humourless snort escaping him. ‘For a moment I thought that I could be happy here, that I could join you all and live with other creatures like
me.’ He fingered the amulet beneath his T-shirt. ‘But now I realize that there are no creatures
like me
. I’m alone, like my father and his father were. I can’t run
from what I am and what I’m supposed to do.’

‘You’re talking about this
destiny
that your uncle mentioned?’

Trey nodded.

‘None of us have to do something because other people say it’s so, Trey. You have choices. Free will. You mustn’t think that you have no say in your own destiny.’

He looked at her, a sad smile on his face. ‘Maybe.’

Once Ella, Marcus and Trey had packed all their belongings, Galroth and the helpers burned to the ground every building that stood on Frank’s land.

Ella, Trey and Marcus had stood in front of the burning house and said their goodbyes. ‘What will you do now?’ Trey had asked Ella.

‘Go somewhere and make a fresh start. I have some money, so I think that I’d like to live somewhere hot. I’ll have to take a leaf out of old Frank’s book, and get used to
being locked up once a month, but I guess it won’t be that bad.’

Trey looked at Marcus, who shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Move back in with my dad, I guess.’

They’d all hugged and then Trey climbed into the front seat next to Galroth. As the car pulled away, Trey leaned out of the window and waved goodbye to the three surviving members of the
LG78, knowing that he would never see them again.

Lucien Charron turned off Charing Cross Road, which was still busy even at this time of night, and walked past the now abandoned nightclub on the corner. The exterior of the
building was festooned with peeling adverts and notices pasted there by enthusiastic fly-posters, but Lucien ignored all of these. He focused his attention on the entrance to the small, dark
alleyway at the back of the former nightspot. Despite the fact that the club had been shut for some time now, the reek of stale urine still wafted out from the alley, no doubt used by the
establishment’s former late-night revellers as a place to relieve themselves at throwing out time. He glanced behind him to check that he was not being observed, and then stepped into the
blackness.