Changeling

by Steve Feasey

  She slowly reached out for it. The mirror seemed impossibly heavy, and Philippa struggled to hold it up with one hand. Her eyes cut to Alexa, and she was relieved to see the other girl’s calm and encouraging smile.

  Philippa slowly turned the looking glass in her hand so the mirrored surface faced her. Her arm began to shake with the effort, and her heart thumped noisily, quickening her breath. She did not want to look into the mirror – her eyes danced around the edges of the frame instead. But eventually she forced them to rest on the reflective surface, and take in what she saw.

  There was a face staring back at her. It was a face that she had never seen before, but behind the eyes of the middle-aged man she could sense the real creature that controlled them now – the Necrotroph demon that had inhabited her body and so nearly killed her.

  She brought the hand mirror down on to the table top, smashing the glass and sending tiny flashing splinters flying into the air.

  Philippa opened her eyes and was sitting up in the bed again, Alexa holding her hand.

  ‘Ronald Given,’ Philippa said, blinking and allowing the tears to snake their way down her cheeks. ‘It’s in a man called Ronald Given. He works for Lucien – he’s a mechanic who looks after your father’s cars.’

  Alexa leaned over and hugged her. ‘Thank you, Philippa,’ she said.

  ‘Could it see me? Could that thing see me back through that mirror?’

  ‘No,’ Alexa said. ‘If there had been any danger of that, I would not have tried what we did.’ She held the girl at arm’s length and looked deep into her eyes. ‘We will not allow you to come into any further danger, Philippa. You have my promise on that. You need to sleep now. You are perfectly safe here. I need to go and tell someone about this. As soon as I have, I’ll come straight back.’

  She gave the other girl’s shoulder one last squeeze, stood up and exited the room, leaving Philippa alone.

  11

  Trey was truly thankful for the rubber gloves that he’d found under the sink in the kitchen – he hadn’t fancied trying to tackle the grime that had been allowed to build up in the house without something on his hands. He’d started in the kitchen, washing everything down with bleach and disinfectant until his eyes smarted from the fumes. He opened all of the windows, ignoring the shouts from his uncle complaining about the cold draughts. Billy could come and go as he liked via a small flap in the outside door, but Trey had discovered a small key that you could turn to close the little flap. It was shut and locked now, keeping the animal outside while he waited for the floor to dry.

  His uncle had issued a small, derisive laugh when Trey had asked if he’d have a problem with him cleaning the place up a bit. ‘Knock yourself out, kid. You wanna do some spring cleaning around here, go ahead, but don’t move any of the furniture about too much. I won’t know where the hell I am if you do that.’

  Frank had then proceeded to get drunk. He’d anchored himself in the chair in the living room, polishing off the remaining whisky in the half-filled bottle before falling into a deep and noisy sleep – his snores filling the house. The sound carried out to the kitchen, a low rumble, like thunder warning of an impending storm.

  Trey welcomed the opportunity to do something to get him out of the dingy back room – something that he could do on autopilot, allowing him to consider everything that his uncle had already told him. Despite the man’s gruff and hostile demeanour, Trey felt a measure of pity for him. He seemed to have been given a tough time of it by Trey’s grandfather, and it was little wonder that he had resented his younger brother as a result of being – as no doubt Frank saw it – passed over for the younger son. There was nothing that Trey could do to put that right, but he hoped that he might be able to get to know his uncle a bit more and uncover another side to him.

  The floor was almost dry now, and Trey couldn’t ignore the scratching sounds at the door any longer. He turned the key on the dog-door, and Billy came crashing in though the opening, jumping up at Trey and yapping in delight at having been let in. Trey looked down at the terrier, his eyes met with a head-cocked look of expectancy.

  ‘What is it?’ Trey asked. The little dog ran away for two or three steps, before returning to Trey’s ankles to assume the quizzical look again. ‘Hungry?’

  A little yap was accompanied by the dog performing a neat little pirouette, its back legs anchored to the floor while the front ones bounced around to describe a tight little circle.

  ‘OK, let’s see what we can find for you.’

  A walk-in larder was positioned next to the back door, and Trey entered the cool and musty smelling cupboard, nosing along the shelves for any sign of dog food. Stacked against one wall were four boxes full of bottles of the whisky that his uncle had been drinking all morning. He moved towards the rear, the gloom at the back of the room making him squint at the writing on the tins that lined the shelves. Like Old Mother Hubbard, it looked as if Frank had neglected to get in any provisions for his four-legged housemate.

  He heard a key rattle in the back door and someone entered the house. The outside door slammed into the open larder one, closing it and plunging Trey into complete darkness.

  Billy was barking an excited welcome at whoever it was that had come in, and Trey could just make out the murmured cooing of the visitor greeting the dog back.

  The girl had her back to him as he stepped out from the larder. At the sound of the door opening behind her, she twisted on her heel, raising the large can of dog food over her head to smash it into his. She stopped when she saw him, her eyes taking him in for a second, and flicking between him and the back door.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘I was about to ask you the same question,’ Trey said, studying her.

  She was very attractive. Her long blonde hair was plaited down her back and ice-blue eyes stared out at him from a flawless face. She was tall, perhaps an inch or so taller than Trey, and dressed in a white blouse with jeans that showed off her legs. He thought that she must be about seventeen or eighteen years old.

  ‘My name’s Trey,’ he said, holding out his hand in greeting.

  She was still holding the heavy metal can over her head, and she made no effort to lower it and take up his proffered handshake.

  ‘And what the hell are you doing in here?’ she asked. She had a slight accent. Trey couldn’t quite work out what it was, but it sounded vaguely Scandinavian. He idly wondered if he just assumed this because it fitted with her appearance – standing there defiantly waving a heavy tin of food as a weapon, she certainly looked as though she could be from Viking stock.

  ‘I’m Frank’s nephew. I turned up this morning. I’ve come over from England to visit him.’

  ‘Frank’s never said anything to me about having any kin. How do I know you are who you say you are? You could be a burglar for all I know.’

  ‘A burglar in the pantry?’ Trey said, raising an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s all right, Ella,’ Frank’s voice came from the doorway behind her. Neither Trey nor the girl had heard him creep up to the kitchen. ‘He’s my brother’s son.’

  She slowly lowered the makeshift bludgeon, but her face maintained the cold, hard look that she had worn throughout the encounter. She nodded her head towards Trey by way of a greeting.

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ Trey said.

  ‘If you two want to get acquainted, keep the noise down. I’m trying to get some sleep in here,’ his uncle said, turning his back on them and shuffling away noisily. ‘And one of you can fetch me a bottle of Scotch from the pantry there – someone’s drunk all mine.’

  They sat down at the kitchen table together, two cups of coffee resting on the gaudy light-blue Formica top between them. A lance of light coming in from the window illuminated dust particles that danced lazily in the air. Ella sat in the chair opposite Trey who, try as he might, couldn’t help but stare at the puckered pink scar that dominated her right forearm. She made no effort to conceal the wound with clothing, and
when she lifted her cup to her lips, the snaking scar was shown off to its best effect.

  ‘How’d you get it?’ Trey said, knowing there was little point in pretending he had not been looking at it. ‘The scar, I mean. It looks nasty.’

  Ella’s eyes held his for an uncomfortable moment. ‘Yes, it is – was – nasty. Are you always so rude when you meet someone for the first time, or have you been picking up tips from your uncle?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—’

  ‘It’s OK. It is quite some scar.’ She looked down at it, a sad smile forming on her lips.

  ‘It looks like some kind of animal bite,’ Trey said, watching at her carefully over the rim of his cup.

  The girl did not respond; instead she turned her head and smiled at Billy, who was wolfing down the food that she had placed in his bowl.

  Trey took the opportunity to study her face more closely and discovered that she was even prettier than he had first thought. Her eyes were so blue that he was almost convinced that the colour could not be natural, but there was no evidence of the contact lenses he had suspected. She had a strong jaw line, but this was softened by full, luscious lips that lent her a permanent ‘pouty’ look that he knew Hollywood film stars paid a fortune to achieve with collagen injections.

  She became aware of his attention and returned his stare, a hint of a smile forming on her mouth when she noticed his embarrassment.

  ‘How do you know my uncle?’ Trey asked.

  ‘I live on his land,’ she answered. ‘In a cabin, next to a lake a little to the west of here.’ She stopped, looking directly at him as if trying to calculate how much he already knew. ‘A number of us live there. I’m guessing that’s why you came here?’

  It was Trey’s turn to avoid eye contact now, and he used the surface of the hot drink as a means to that end. ‘You said a number of you live here. How many?’

  ‘There are six of us. The new LG78.’

  ‘LG78,’ Trey said, more to himself than to her. ‘I’ve heard of you. You’re all Wolfan aren’t you? Werewolves.’ He looked up, frowning at her. ‘But I thought that the LG78 had disbanded, that it had been split up.’

  ‘You say Wolfan like it’s a dirty word, Trey. As if you did not carry the same blood in your veins as your uncle. Why is that?’

  ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘Yes you did. But that’s OK. Everyone finds it hard at first. Even our own kind.’

  There was a silence, punctuated only by the sounds of the dog snaffling its food out of its bowl.

  ‘You’re a girl,’ Trey said.

  ‘Well done. I see that your grasp of anatomy is as finely honed as your manners and conversational skills.’ She looked over and smiled at him for the first time. It was a full and genuine smile, and it utterly disarmed him.

  ‘I just meant—’

  ‘I’m a Bitten. A bite survivor. That’s how I came to have this lovely looking trophy on my arm. But I sense that you’d already figured that out for yourself. I’m the only female werewolf alive anywhere in the world. How do you like that? I’m unique – imagine that.’

  Trey didn’t have to imagine anything. As the last full-blood hereditary werewolf he knew exactly how she felt.

  She stood up, the chair scraping against the floor tiles behind her. ‘Jurgen will want to meet you,’ she said.

  ‘Who’s Jurgen?’

  The smile slipped away from her face and she cut her eyes towards the door, as if expecting Frank to be standing there again. ‘How much has your uncle told you?’ she asked with a coldness in her voice that he had not heard before.

  ‘Who’s Jurgen?’ he repeated.

  ‘Jurgen’s the pack leader,’ she said. ‘He’s the Alpha male.’

  12

  Trey stepped in through the front door, and the usual oppressive silence of his uncle’s house greeted him until Billy came up to welcome him back with a little bark. He reached down and gave the dog’s ears a playful rub and was rewarded with a lick on the hand.

  He took off his coat and hung it over the bottom of the banister. He’d been for a walk to think about things and prepare himself for the evening ahead when he would witness his uncle Change with the full moon whilst locked inside that metal cage. He walked up the hallway and looked in at the reclining figure of Frank who had drunk himself into another blind stupor. If Trey hadn’t seen him do the exact same thing for the last two days, he might have assumed that Frank only did this on the day of the full moon – Dutch courage in preparation for the ordeal of having to lock himself away in that enclosure. But that clearly wasn’t the case. Frank was a chronic alcoholic. The drink made him even more scratchy and insufferable than he was when sober – a fact that Trey would not have believed possible had he not witnessed it first hand over the short time that he had spent here in the house.

  ‘What are you lookin’ at?’ his uncle shouted across the room at him. Trey had thought his uncle asleep, and the sudden outburst made him jump in alarm. The man had an eerie ability of knowing when he was being watched. ‘Don’t think you can stand there gawping at me as if I’m some exhibit at the damn zoo. I might be blind, but I know what you’re thinking. I won’t be judged by you, you understand?’ His uncle reached out for his glass again.

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come here, did I?’ Frank’s voice was slurred as if his tongue were too big and thick for his mouth. ‘I didn’t invite you. If you don’t like what I am and what I do, you can go back to England. Go back to your vampire friend, Lucien Charron.’ His uncle spat those last words, staring out ahead of him, waiting for a response that never came.

  Trey let the silence draw out for a moment or two. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the terrier, Billy, making his escape into the kitchen. The dog clearly knew when it was best not to be around its owner.

  Trey wasn’t so easily perturbed. He stepped into the room and took up a seat on the settee facing his uncle. He heard the dog-flap in the back door swing open and shut. Coward, he thought.

  ‘Do you get scared?’ Trey asked when it was clear that the old man had calmed down a little.

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘Of the Change. I don’t know what it feels like for you. I know that the talisman means that I can change to and from my particular werewolf form without too much pain, but I remember the first time that I almost changed involuntarily and the pain was—’

  ‘It’s like being ripped apart from the inside,’ his uncle interrupted. ‘Like something reaches up your arse, grabs hold of a big handful of you and then turns you inside out like a pair of jeans. You feel like you’re going to die. And the pain doesn’t stop. It just keeps going, more and more of it piling in on top of itself until all you are is pain. You want to die it’s so bad. You want to smash your skull into the nearest wall and let your brains fall to the floor so you can stamp on them and stop the pain.’

  Frank turned his head to look at Trey through blind eyes. ‘Is it anything like that for you?’ he asked with a sneer.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Didn’t think so,’ Frank said and lifted his glass to his lips.

  ‘Tell me about the LG78,’ Trey said after another long silence.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Uncle Frank … please.’

  The old man sighed and closed his eyes. ‘LG stands for Loup Garou: the French word for werewolf. I always thought it sounded much more elegant – more refined, you know? The first time a bunch of us got together in 1978, we called ourselves the LG78. We formed a pack – a pack of werewolves. It took quite a while, but I finally bought this land and then got some demon lord to place some Netherworld hoodoo-voodoo on the place to protect us from your friend Lucien’s brother, who at that point was intent on killing anything and everything that even smelt wolfish. I paid a heavy price for that protection, but it was worth it because we knew we could be safe here, we could exist together.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Me and a bunch of other lycos.’ He turned h
is head to face Trey, his eyes dancing backwards and forwards in their sockets. The spite and anger that had been in his tone moments before had dissipated now, and he continued. ‘There are advantages to being in a pack, Trey. That feeling of running through a forest with the other members of your group, the feeling of unity and trust and … love that you have for your pack members. It’s exhilarating. Truly, there is nothing like it. It’s the best feeling in the world.’

  Trey frowned, trying to assimilate what his uncle had just said. Finally, he voiced his concerns to the old man who was still looking over in his direction, a smile forming on his lips as if he could read the boy’s thoughts.

  ‘You told me that you don’t remember what happens to you during the Change. You told me that you’d wake up in the middle of nowhere not knowing how you got there … or what you had done.’ Trey thought back to the morning after he had experienced his first ever Change and the amnesic void that he’d felt – his room and possessions all destroyed without any clue as to who, or what, might have done it.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Then how—’

  ‘You’re talking about a moon-induced Change, like the delightful little episode that I shall be experiencing tonight, or indeed an accidental change that can occur if a lyco completely loses control of his emotions – unabated anger can bring that change about. And yes, an unfortunate – or fortunate, depending on how you look at it – result of that is an almost complete memory loss for the lycanthrope. Once the transformation is complete, there’s nothing. Maybe the odd snippet – the tiniest fraction of a memory, like a rogue image here or there, but nothing that you can put your finger on.’ He paused, letting this sink in, before adding in a small voice, ‘You normally get to read the results of your actions in the papers the next day, when some poor soul gets found with his throat torn out.’ He paused, shaking his head. ‘But as I said, there are advantages to being in a pack.’