Changeling (21 page)

Trey took one last look at the receptionist before setting off after his friend, silently padding along with a long, effortless gait, his ears brushing against the ceiling despite his hunching forward in an effort to make himself less tall. At one point Tom had looked over his shoulder to check that he was still behind him, and Trey noted the look of horror that flashed across the other man’s face as he caught sight of the giant lycanthrope hot on his heels.

Before he reached the entrance to the pool Tom grabbed one of the towels from a row of shelves on which they were stacked in neatly folded bundles. He threw the cotton bathsheet behind him, smiling as it snagged an outstretched claw.

‘To cover your modesty when we get outside. Now, move it,’ he said, opening the double doors at the end of the passage. ‘There’s no telling how many more of those lunatics are around.’

They entered the foyer to the health suite and stopped as a chirruping sound came from Tom’s trouser pocket. He hooked his mobile out and held it to his ear.

‘… No, we’re fine, Lucien … yes, he’s used the Ring and all hell broke loose … No, we’re coming out via an exit near the rear, I’m trying to locate an emergency door near the pool … Yes, Lucien, Trey’s fine. You might want to see if you can get him a jacket and some trousers to put on, though … that’s right … no, it was unavoidable – he was attacked, but he was poetry in motion, you should have seen him.’

Tom listened to Lucien for a short while more. ‘Right, we’ll see you there,’ he said, and pressed the button to end the call.

He turned and smiled nervously at the sight of Trey standing next to him. ‘C’mon, White Fang, let’s get going. Lucien is meeting us with a car round the back.’

Trey morphed back just before they emerged from the back of the building, wrapping the towel around his waist and running across the street to the waiting car that was parked with its doors open and the engine running. As they sped off in the direction of Dam Square, Tom filled Lucien in on what had happened at the hotel.

Lucien sat and listened impassively, never interrupting Tom until he got to the part where Trey had morphed to defend himself against the attack from the lunatic receptionist.

‘Was the man seriously hurt?’ Lucien asked.

‘No. He may have a break here or there, and he’ll have a doozy of a headache when he comes round, but he’s alive, if that’s what you mean,’ Tom said, looking over at Trey reassuringly and offering him a little wink.

‘They went insane,’ Trey said into the silence that followed. ‘Those men just went mad. There was nothing in their eyes, just a blackness. And that poor woman that was murdered . . .’

‘Those men were not to blame for their actions, Trey,’ Lucien said. ‘The Ring of Amon will make killers out of anyone that hears the wearer recite the Spell of the Dead. Our only hope is to get to Caliban before he can do any further damage. As we feared, the ring’s power is effective over the mobile networks, so it will not be long before he scales up the test and affects hundreds, if not thousands, of people.’

The silence descended on them again as the occupants considered what had happened. The hum of the car’s tyres on the road was regularly punctuated by the quick
clock-clock
sound made whenever they went over one of the city’s numerous tram rails. Trey looked out of the window at the people who walked by the canals or sat in the last of the day’s winter sunshine enjoying a coffee outside one of the roadside cafes. He thought how bizarre it was that they had no idea what was happening in their beautiful city, and how all this would change in an instant if Caliban were allowed to unleash the dreadful power of the ring on its inhabitants.

‘Jens and I have been to look at the building that they are holding Alexa in. There’s no easy way in for us, Tom. It’s an old disused factory on the edge of the city. Because of its situation there’s no way to approach it without being detected, so our options are severely limited. I think that our only choice will be a frontal assault. Jens will gather some men together to provide us with plenty of cover, but we’ll have to take our chances going in.’

They slowed down and stopped at a traffic light, watching as the cars and push-bikes streamed by in front of them.

‘I think we might be missing the bigger picture here, Lucien,’ Tom said quietly. He shifted in his seat slightly so that he could see Lucien’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. ‘Why would he bring you all the way here and set all of this up if he wanted to kill you before you got into that building? You’ve already said that he’s making no attempt to stop us from locating Alexa. He
wants
us to come to him. That little show he put on for us at the hotel just now was nothing more than muscle flexing. He wants you to know that he can unleash that power when he chooses. He wants you to try to stop him. He’s drawing you in, Lucien. And if that is the case, a frontal assault of the kind you have just described may be counter-productive to what we hope to achieve. Hell, it could be disastrous.’

The car started to pull away again, speeding up through the intersection and heading out of the centre of the town. Lucien turned around in his seat to look at Tom, his face pinched as he weighed up what the Irishman had just said. Then, to Trey’s complete surprise, he turned in his direction and raised his eyebrows. ‘And what do you think, Trey? Everyone seems to have an opinion on how I should try to get my daughter back safely, so what’s yours, eh?’ His voice was harsh and strained, and Trey felt himself pull back slightly. Trey thought that he had never seen Lucien look as vulnerable as he did in those moments. He looked down at his feet and avoided the vampire’s stare. There was nothing that he could say that would help, so he simply held his tongue.

Tom shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Lucien sighed, and when Trey glanced up again the vampire’s expression had changed to one of sorrow and regret. ‘I’m sorry, Trey, I had no right to talk to you like that. It was unacceptable. Please accept my apologies.’

Trey held Lucien’s eyes for a moment. ‘I think that Tom is correct in how he sees the whole thing,’ he said quietly. ‘Your brother is using Alexa to get to you. The rest is just smoke and mirrors. He knew you’d come, and my guess is that he didn’t really expect you to follow his instructions and bring me along and that he probably doesn’t care whether you did or not.
You’re
the one he really wants, Lucien. If he eliminates you, he can carry out his plans for the Ring of Amon and deal with the rest of us at his leisure.’

Lucien nodded slowly before turning back around to stare at the road ahead through the front windscreen. He took a deep breath, inhaling slowly through his nose and tilting his head back until it stopped against the headrest behind him.

‘You’re both right, of course. My desire to rescue Alexa appears to have clouded my judgement somewhat. Thank you both for showing a very old vampire the error of his thinking.’ His mood shifted, and when he spoke next there was a resolution and determination in his voice that was good to hear again. ‘If my brother wants me to go to him, I will. As soon as the sun goes down, I shall go and see what he has in store for me and bring Alexa home again.’

‘We’ll go in together, Lucien, we’ll show Caliban just what—’

‘I’m going alone, Thomas. It’s too dangerous.’

‘Like hell you are,’ Tom growled from the back seat. ‘If you think that I am going to let you go into that butcher’s lair on your own, you’ve got another think coming. It’s a trap, Lucien, and even if your brother is making no attempt to conceal that fact, it’s still a trap. I’m coming along, and there is nothing you can do short of killing me yourself that is going to stop me!’

‘OK, Tom. Thank you. I’d appreciate your help and your counsel. We’ll go in together.’

‘I’m coming too,’ Trey said, staring down into the foot-well and trying not to allow his fear and anxiety to show up in his voice.

‘Absolutely not, I forbid it,’ Lucien replied, his jaw set determinedly.

‘Damn it, Lucien!’ Trey’s angry voice filled the cabin of the car. ‘You’re not my father!’

‘No, I am not. But when he was killed, I resolved to fulfil my promise to him that I would ensure that his son would be kept safe. I certainly have no intention of allowing you to face your father’s murderer and suffer the same fate.’ He paused, adding, ‘I knew it was a mistake to bring you along. Do not make this any more difficult than it already is, Trey.’

‘I want to help, Lucien.’

‘Then help by doing as I ask and staying out of this.’

Lucien looked out of the window as if to emphasize that this was the end of the matter. Trey followed his gaze and watched the tall gabled buildings flash past and the people going about their everyday business. He thought of the woman lying dead in a pool of her own blood outside the hotel room. She would not have expected to die that day. She might have had plans to go to the museum or take a trip on one of the river boats that ferried tourists through the canal system. She was someone’s daughter and possibly someone’s mother, and now those people would never see her alive again. For the first time in years, his thoughts turned to his own mother. He struggled to conjure up the picture of her face – he had pushed all thoughts of his parents out of his mind for such a long time – but all he could remember was her smile and her kind blue eyes, framed by long brown hair. If he was honest, even these memories were from the pictures of her that his grandmother had shown him.

‘How did my mother die?’ he asked.

‘Trey, I really do not think that this is a good time for me to—’

‘
How did she die, Lucien?
’

Lucien continued to stare out of his window, not turning to face the boy in the back. ‘Your mother and father had kept your birth a secret for such a long time. They moved around constantly to avoid being detected, and they were extremely careful to cover any signs and signals that might give away their
true nature
. Your father and I had stopped working together, but something came up, and I needed his help. We had to travel together to Italy,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It was during the time that you and your parents were living in France, in a small farmhouse.’

Trey cast his mind back but recalled very little about the house except for the kitchen, which he remembered as a large open space that was always warm and smelled of the herbs that his mother dried in little bundles from a wooden beam in the centre of the room.

‘Caliban and two of his minions managed to gain entry to the farmhouse – despite the protections that your father and I had placed upon it. Their initial intention was to steal you away and use you as a bargaining chip to stop your father and I from carrying out any further activities against them. Ultimately, they wanted you dead.

‘Luckily your mother was alerted to their presence and managed to wake the au pair who slept in the room adjoining yours. It was nothing short of a miracle that the girl managed to smuggle you out of the house without being caught, and it is thanks to her and the bravery of your mother that you are alive today. Your mother confronted my brother and tried to buy you and the girl more time to escape by telling him that she had hidden you somewhere in the house, somewhere that they would never find you. Caliban and the two demons that accompanied him tore the farmhouse apart in their attempt to locate you. When that proved fruitless, they tore your mother apart as well. They tortured her in an effort to make her tell them where you were, but she never revealed to them who you were with or how you had escaped them.’

Trey blinked back the tears that welled up in his eyes and stared out of the window, taking all of this in.

‘I’m coming with you, Lucien,’ he said, his words causing small clouds of condensation to form on the window that he was staring out of. ‘Alexa is in trouble – the same kind of trouble that my mother was in. My father couldn’t help then, but I can help now. You have to give me a chance to do this. Lucien.’

‘Stop the car please, Jens,’ Lucien insisted.

The car pulled in by a kerbside. A black wrought-iron handrail separated the pavement from the canal on the other side, and tourists stared into the vehicle that had blocked their path, forcing them up against the rail in order to pass it.

‘Jens, please remove Mr Laporte from the car,’ Lucien said coldly.

‘You can try and dump me here if you like and go on ahead without me, Lucien,’ Trey said. ‘I really have no idea how far and how fast I can run as a werewolf, but I’m guessing that I can keep up with this thing easily, even if you get out on to a motorway. So if you want to kick me out right here, go ahead. I’ll simply morph into a bloody great wolf in front of all these people and follow you on foot. I imagine that should make a great little lead item on the evening news. Like I said earlier: if you fail, I’m as good as dead anyway. Let me help, Lucien, please.’

Lucien stopped Jens with a touch of his hand and the Dutchman sat back down in his seat. Tom fiddled with the zip of his bag as the uncomfortable silence engulfed them all. The only sound that disturbed the quiet inside the small space was the ticking of the indicator on the dashboard console.

Lucien sighed and turned in his seat to fix the boy with an icy stare. Trey looked back at him, blinking against the intensity of the vampire’s gaze.

‘Once again, you will stick with Tom at all times and do
exactly
what he tells you to. You are not to do
anything
without his specific say-so. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, Lucien.’

‘I’m only allowing you to come because, beyond weighing you down with chains and throwing you into that canal there, I don’t know what the hell else to do with you.’

‘Thank you, Lucien.’

Lucien nodded his head, and Jens pulled the car back on to the road. They continued up the same road before turning at a sign indicating the direction of the motorway. The road was full of the cars of people returning home at the end of their working day. Grim expressions were on the faces of the drivers as they battled against the traffic in order to get home to their families as quickly as possible.