Changeling

by Steve Feasey

  The old man waved his fingers in the air before him. ‘All of my memories of being a Wolfan – all of the emotions and experiences that I’ve just described are from Changes that were not during a full moon.’ He stopped, waiting for an interruption that didn’t come. ‘That’s only possible in a pack because the members of a pack can induce the Change in each other whether the moon is on the wax or the wane. Day or night, they can become lycos.’

  Trey stared at his uncle, trying to take this in. ‘So it’s like having the amulet, it’s like—’

  ‘No, it’s nothing like that. We were still Wolfan, still animalistic in our needs and urges.’ He stopped again, trying to find the best way to explain. ‘It’s as if the pack exerts a mass will. We discovered it quite by chance. A few of us found each other over the years. We kept in touch and became friends, sharing experiences and concerns. Eventually, some of us – those first few, back in 1978 – decided to get together at a full moon for the Change, have a group lockdown, as it were. We found a strongroom that was large enough to take us all and we settled in together for the night. It wasn’t until the next morning, when we were all talking, discussing how frustrating it was not to be able to remember and wishing that we could, that it happened. We began to morph. All of us. All at the same time. But it wasn’t like it was the night before; the pain was nowhere near as bad or as long, and afterwards we could … remember. We were able to remember what had happened.’ He shook his head, recalling. ‘That first time … it was out of this world. It was the most exciting thing that I’d ever experienced.

  ‘I had a bit of money back then. Some of the others pitched in with what they could, and eventually I bought this place. A huge swathe of land that we could live in. We fenced it off to keep out intruders, and we all moved out here and set up a community by the lake. We had cabins built. We were happy … really happy.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nothing at first. Like I say, we were happy. But then we had a few problems. A few … breakages of the rules.’

  ‘Rules?’

  ‘Yeah, we had rules. You can’t have twenty lycos living together in a community without rules. So we had specific days that we would set aside to morph as a pack. Nobody was allowed to go off in a splinter group and do their own thing. You need a minimum of three, you see? Three is the magic number.’

  Trey shook his head, ‘Three what?’

  The old man shook his head and sighed as if he was in the presence of a simpleton.

  ‘You need three or more lycos to enforce the Change, and they need to be in close proximity to each other. A pair of lycos can’t get it to happen.’

  ‘What other rules did you have?’

  ‘We could date outsiders – non-lycos – but they weren’t allowed anywhere near the community on one of these set days.’ He nodded as though remembering the importance of this rule. ‘Anything on four legs was fair game as far as hunting was concerned, but there was a strict rule on never killing anything on two legs – if you know what I mean. And finally, we would still lock down during the full moon – we were very strict on that.’

  ‘Which rules were broken?’

  ‘All of them,’ he said and looked away.

  ‘All of them?’ Trey said, thinking about the third rule. ‘People were killed by the pack? Hunted?’

  His uncle batted the questions away. ‘Bad things happened. The community went into meltdown. I blame your father.’

  Trey blinked, surprised by the way that Frank had casually thrown this remark in at the end. ‘Why do you blame my dad?’

  ‘He undermined me. He came to visit me with his new girlfriend, your mother Elisabeth – they weren’t married then. Said that he wanted to see what we had set up over here. He was being nosy, sticking his muzzle in where it wasn’t wanted. He threw the whole community into disarray.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That thing around your neck for one. Some of them had heard about the amulet and the powers that it gave to the lyco wearing it. I guess it must have seemed strange to them that it had passed to my younger brother and not me. His presence undermined my authority as the Alpha. Oh, he never made any attempt to displace me or anything … not openly. But Daniel had a way about him – he was so confident and sure of himself that some of the pack thought that maybe he should be the Alpha. Your father said that he had no intention of staying and taking over as the pack leader, but I think he was lying. The pack started to in-fight and it was impossible for me to stop it.’ He stopped and sucked at his teeth, considering how to go on. ‘Then there was the incident with your mother.’

  Trey held his breath, waiting. The clock ticked loudly on the wall.

  His uncle lifted his glass, finishing off the last of the whisky. ‘She was walking down by the lake one evening when she was attacked. She was lucky to survive.’ He shook his head, letting the statement hang in the air between them. ‘Nobody admitted to doing it. It wasn’t a day when the pack had planned to hunt, so there shouldn’t have been any Wolfan about. Like I say, you need at least three lycos to force the Change, and everybody could account for their whereabouts at the time of the attack. Everyone except your father, that is. People said that it might have been an accident, that something had gone wrong and that he attacked her; others said that he had planned it, that he wanted to turn her – make her into a female lyco so that he wouldn’t have to endure the curse alone. I think that it was an accident, that he lost control over the werewolf inside him and attacked her.’

  Trey looked over at the old man, his vision blurred by tears, unable to take in what had just been said.

  ‘But he had the amulet … he had control over his powers.’

  His uncle set the glass down, shrugging his shoulders as he did so. ‘What can I say? Maybe that amulet that he and your grandfather were so damn keen on isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Maybe we lycos are so dangerous and unstable that even if you’re wearing a thing like that, you’re not safe to be around. Maybe it’s love that makes the thing go haywire because love makes you vulnerable, protective, threatened. Maybe love takes charge of the most primal and base emotions and overrides the influence of that thing around your neck.’ The old man turned his face towards Trey’s, his upper lip lifting in a sneer. ‘I wouldn’t know. I never got a chance to wear it.’

  Trey was glad that his uncle could not see the tears that flowed freely down his face.

  ‘It was decided that your father was trouble. He was banished, and he took your mother home to France.’ His uncle stopped and frowned and the silence seemed to press in on Trey from every angle. ‘Luckily for her, and for you I guess, Elisabeth survived her injuries.’ Frank nodded his head as if answering some unspoken question.

  The ticking of the clock seemed to have grown so loud that Trey thought he could feel the molecules in the air jump each time the hand leaped forward another notch. He shook his head and stared at the carpet in front of him, unable to believe what he had just heard.

  ‘You did know that, didn’t you? You did know how your mother came to be one of us?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Aw, kid, I’m sorry. I thought that you must have known. I thought that someone – your friend Lucien, maybe – would have told you.’

  ‘No.’

  His uncle shook his head. ‘Well, I’m sorry that you had to hear it like that. At least you now know what your father was and what he was capable of.’

  Trey looked over at his uncle. Despite what the old man had said, Trey doubted that he was at all sorry for telling him what had happened all those years ago. He hadn’t sounded sorry. Trey stood up.

  ‘What happened to the pack?’ he asked, his voice cracking with emotion as he struggled to get the words out.

  ‘We disbanded not long after your mother and father left. The whole thing had got out of hand and there was none of the unity that we had had when we first formed. People were splintering off into their own groups – Changing in small packs and huntin
g when they shouldn’t. A few of them refused to lock down, and then people on the outside started to get killed. The whole thing went to hell in a handcart, so I threw the worst offenders out and disbanded the pack.’

  ‘But there’s a new pack now,’ Trey said. ‘Ella told me that there was a new pack and a new Alpha, Jurgen. If everything went so wrong with the original LG78, what would possess you to allow a new pack to begin again here?’

  ‘Money.’ The old man let the word hang in the air between them. ‘That’s right, money. This Jurgen guy approached me about a year ago, telling me that he wanted to try and form a pack again. I told him that it was futile, but he was pretty insistent. He’s a rich kid, and when I say rich I’m talking seriously wealthy. His dad used to be a member of the original pack, but he didn’t stick around – went off to Russia and made a fortune in natural gas. Anyway, the kid offered me a load of cash if I would let them use the land in the same way that we used to. There’s elk and moose here to hunt, the cabins are all still down by the lake and the fences are still up to keep out intruders. His dad had told him stories about the old days, and this Jurgen fell in love with the whole idea. He even wanted to keep the old name. For old time’s sake, he said, he still wanted to call it the LG78. They’ve been here for about six months now.’

  Trey stared at the old man in disbelief. ‘Ella. The girl who came here yesterday. She’s a Bitten. She was attacked like my mother.’ He waited for a reaction. ‘Did that happen here?’

  Frank let out a long sigh, puffing out his lips as he did so. ‘What can I tell you? History has a way of repeating itself, kid.’ The old man reached for his bottle, frowning when he discovered that it was empty. ‘While you’re up, how about getting your uncle a fresh one, huh?’

  Trey looked down at the old man, glad that his only living relative could not see the look of hatred on his face. ‘Get it yourself,’ he said and turned, heading for the front door.

  13

  Lucien filtered out the noise of the train driver’s announcement that came through the speaker above his head. His eyes were screwed shut, and he hunched forward in his seat, willing the train to start moving again towards the next station so that he could get above ground and call Tom to come and fetch him.

  It had been two days since the incident in his office, and he hadn’t been back to the apartment in all that time. Instead, he’d spent the days cooped up in another place he had in Mayfair and the nights walking the London streets, deep in thought about what was happening to him. Yesterday he’d called Alexa and Tom to let them know he was OK, and that he just needed some time alone. It wasn’t unusual for him to go off like this, but with everything else going on right now, they were keen for him to come back.

  The train had been stuck in the tube tunnel now for a little over fifteen minutes and this announcement – like the last two – was another apology for the delay. Opening his eyes, he glanced at his watch again, trying to calculate how long it had been since he’d left the place in Mayfair. He must have been walking for a very long time – too long. His stomach twisted again and he hissed through his teeth in pain. He kept his head low and his eyes fixed on the dirty floor at his feet, knowing that if he looked up his eyes would be drawn to the two other night owls that shared the carriage with him; on their way home from whatever late pursuits they had been involved in. His fellow travellers had thankfully taken seats as far away from him as possible, but he was aware of their furtive glances in his direction. It was understandable – if he’d stepped on to a train late at night and seen somebody like him in the carriage, he’d have found a seat well away from them too. He tried to force himself not to think about them – it was too dangerous.

  He had no idea what had made him come down into the underground system. He’d been walking, oblivious to everything around him. He’d made up his mind that he needed to talk to someone, or something, about what was happening to him and had been mentally going through a list of possible candidates. He’d been completely unaware of where he was. And somehow he’d ended up here on this train. Of all of the places that he could have found himself right now, a train was not one that he would have picked. He looked at his watch again. His blood delivery was due any moment now. He’d redirected the courier and they would leave it for him, but …

  He took his handkerchief out of his jacket pocket again, using it to wipe away the perspiration on his top lip. Another cramp jarred through his body and this time he was unable to stifle the low groan that escaped his lips. He’d asked for his daily delivery of blood to be increased from two to three bags, hoping that more of the stuff might help stave off some of the desires that he’d been having. He’d left with the intention of being back at the apartment in plenty of time for the delivery. And now here he was, in a sealed tube-train compartment, with a blood lust building inside him by the minute. He tried to block out any thoughts of the two humans in the carriage, but that was impossible.

  When he was younger he would have killed them; torn through the train like the wrath of God and taken blood from anyone on board, leaving their dead and mutilated bodies for the authorities to find. He screwed his eyes tight shut, trying to dismiss these terrible memories. He could not allow himself to think like this – not here, not now.

  He forced himself to concentrate on other matters. He wondered if Alexa had been successful in recruiting the Ashnon, and if he should not have sought the creature out himself. They needed the demon on their side if his plans for the Necrotroph were to be realized. If she had failed, he would take over from her and force the demon to see sense. And then there was Trey. The boy had not been in contact again since the first message that had been relayed to them via Galroth. Lucien would have to discuss with the demon the possibility of dropping in on the boy again. He would see to these matters as soon as he got back to the apartment – put his mind and efforts towards something concrete.

  He relaxed a little. Puffing out his cheeks, he unclenched the tight knot of flesh and bone that he had made of his hands.

  A breeze blew into the carriage from the window in the door at the far end. His body instantly stiffened again. He could smell them.

  The woman’s scent was the strongest – a mixture of sweat and perfume and stale alcohol that excited him. He thought again of the delicious thrill that had rippled through every cell of him as he’d sucked the blood from the bag the other day; imagining the metallic taste on his tongue again. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils, mixing the smell of the woman’s scent with the memory of that taste. He had no idea what she or her companion looked like, how old or young they might be, but it was of little consequence. If he did not get off the train soon, they would look like all of the others that he had killed throughout his earlier years – wilted husks of corpses lying in a pool of their own blood.

  The speaker crackled into life above him. The driver apologized again in a voice that sounded anything but apologetic, and informed them that they might be stuck for some time yet due to a problem in the tunnel up ahead.

  A groan escaped Lucien. He couldn’t stay on this train any longer.

  He rose to his feet and glanced towards the sliding doors to his right. He stumbled in their direction, trying to keep his eyes glued to them and not let them drift over to the couple sitting in the seats at the periphery of his vision.

  He failed. His eyes tracked to the side and he took in the warm-blooded creatures.

  They sat and giggled at each other, speaking in whispers. A loud squeal of delight came from the woman, and she looked up in Lucien’s direction. The laughter died in her throat as she caught sight of the tall, bald man glaring at them both through baleful eyes that seemed to blaze with a golden light. The woman’s smile was replaced by a look of pure fear, and she cut her eyes towards her male companion, hoping to find some reassurance there, but seeing only the same doubt and panic that she herself felt beneath the vampire’s terrible stare.

  Through his eyes, Lucien no longer saw them as people.
Right now they were little more than meat to him. The woman’s earlier excitement had caused the hot blood to flow quickly through her veins and arteries, and to the vampire, these bloody highways appeared as an intricate map of black roads just beneath her skin. His eyes were instantly drawn to the fat motorway on her neck that was her carotid artery as it pulsed and bulged with every pump of her heart.

  He remembered his youth again and how he had fed upon countless young women like her. His tongue snaked in his mouth, the tip seeking out the area where his fangs had once been before he had had them removed. In truth, the act of being defanged was more a gesture to himself – a symbol – rather than any real attempt to remove a danger, and he knew that he was more than capable of tearing these two people apart with his bare hands to sate the desires that boiled within him.

  He swallowed loudly, averting his gaze from the blood-map on the girl’s skin, and forcing his attention back to the carriage doors. In the blackened windows his reflection stared back at him, and he recognized himself as the monster that the girl had seen.

  His hands were trembling as he reached forward. He jammed his fingers between the black rubber seals between the two sliding doors, and forced his hands apart, his colossal strength easily opening the doors to reveal the filth-encrusted black tunnel beyond. Ignoring the loud alarm that filled his ears, he took in a huge lungful of the cold, rank air of the tunnel, and jumped down out of the carriage into the space at the side of the train. He turned and began to run, the complete darkness no problem to him as he made his way along the underground channel deep beneath the streets of London. He needed to get back to the station that the train had come from. He needed to call for Tom to come and rescue him.

  ‘What were you thinking, Lucien?’ Tom said from the front of the car that he was driving back towards home.

  He had received the call from the vampire and sped through town, collecting more flashes from speed cameras than he could possibly count.