Changeling: Zombie Dawn

by Steve Feasey

  Trey smiled at the big Irishman and moved towards the exit. ‘Thanks for the chat, Tom,’ he said, reaching for the door.

  Tom nodded and waved at the boy, watching him as he disappeared through the opening, before turning about again and leaning against the guardrail. He was worried about the youngster, and he determined to talk to Lucien about his concerns.

  5

  Lucien glanced at the small clock on his desk. There was an hour to go before the meeting he’d called with the others to discuss updated strategies for finding his brother, a goal he knew they were no closer to achieving as of this morning, despite all their best efforts. He was feeling tired and more than a little cranky, no doubt as a result of not having fed for two days. His eyes rested for a moment on the wooden panel behind which was concealed a small fridge with the bags of fresh blood that had been delivered by courier that morning. He should feed before the meeting. He steepled his hands in front of him and rested his forehead against the fingertips, closing his eyes for a second.

  When he opened them again it was to darkness.

  He lay in a stone casket, the cold of its walls radiating back through his own frigid flesh. The heavy lid was pulled across, plunging the interior into complete darkness. He stirred, aware that something was wrong but unable to determine what it was. He opened his eyes, looking up into the void that surrounded him and trying to ascertain what could have summoned him from his sleep. There were no sounds from the room outside, and his senses told him that there was nobody there.

  He reached up and hooked his fingers into the recesses on the underside of the lid, pushing against it and ignoring the loud, grating sound it made as it slid aside. He slowly sat up and looked around. The feeling of unease and danger refused to go.

  Caliban hissed, turning his head to look out of the window at the grey, swirling mist that marked the boundary between the two worlds. He considered calling Helde when—

  Lucien opened his eyes again, his head reeling from the vision he’d just seen. He stood up, ignoring the helter-skelter sensation that the sudden movement produced. He had experienced something like this once before – when his brother had escaped from the Netherworld after reviving the sorceress Helde. Then, as now, the vicarious experience of looking out through his brother’s eyes and sharing his thoughts had left him feeling sick and disorientated.

  His brother might have been alerted to his presence before he broke the connection. He hoped not. He glanced again at the antique timepiece in front of him, grabbed the phone and called Tom, telling him to get everyone assembled for the meeting now and that he’d be downstairs in no more than five minutes. When he disconnected from the call he smiled for the first time in days.

  He knew where his brother and the sorceress were hiding.

  6

  There were six of them in total. Hag had been the last to arrive, but now she, Trey, Tom, Alexa and two senior members of Lucien’s staff sat on one side of the table in one of the large meeting rooms downstairs, looking across at the empty seat opposite them. Despite their questions, all the Irishman could tell them was that Lucien had important news to share.

  Alexa had arrived just before the old sorceress, walking straight past her usual seat on Trey’s left and taking one at the other end of the table, putting Tom and the others between them. As she passed him he’d turned his head and nodded at her, but she’d ignored him, sitting down and fixing her gaze on the table instead.

  Hag’s entrance had been far from quiet. The old woman, who had returned to the human realm with them after Trey’s adventures in the Demon Games, had burst into the room, shouting and cursing at the vast tree-like mandragore she’d ordered to stay outside. The huge creature stood on the other side of the doorway, its enormous bulk blocking out everything behind it. The creature was the thing of nightmares. A cruel, ancient looking face – deep-set black eyes above a horizontal slash that served as a mouth – was set into the top of the ‘trunk’ body which was a vast bloated version of the bulbous root the thing had been grown from. Thick, muscular limbs hung down, and these, like the rest of the creature, were covered in coarse, bark-like skin. Clumsy and cumbersome, the creature shuffled around after the sorceress everywhere she went, an imposing bodyguard whose scream had once been deadly, killing every living thing in the vicinity of the noise, until Hag had had her sentinel’s voice removed.

  ‘Did you have to bring that thing with you?’ Tom asked the sorceress.

  The mandragore narrowed its eyes at Tom, opening its mouth wide in a threatening gesture.

  Hag tutted in the creature’s direction. ‘Hush. The silly fool of a man didn’t mean to be rude. Did you?’ She raised her eyebrows at Tom, but got a withering look in response. Hag turned once more to the creature as if it were a naughty child, and indeed in many ways it was like a child to her; she had raised the thing from a root, feeding it blood and milk and honey until it became the terrible thing now in the doorway. ‘Just stop sulking and wait for me there,’ she said, slamming the door on the creature’s face.

  She took a seat, rolling her eyes at those already sitting round the table. ‘I wanted to leave it in the Netherworld, but it made such a fuss that I had to bring it along with me.’

  Moments later Lucien appeared. Moving briskly, he took up a seat at the centre of one side of the oval table so that he could see, and be seen by, everyone.

  ‘Thank you for coming. I won’t keep you long,’ he said, glancing around him for the first time. ‘I think …’ He began, then stopped and shook his head a little. ‘No, I know where my brother is hiding.’

  ‘And how do you know this?’ Hag said. ‘Have you had a tip-off, because I’d be very wary of—’

  The vampire held a hand up to stop her. ‘A short while ago, I had another of those strange episodes. Like the one I had when Caliban was escaping the Netherworld. It was as if I were looking through his eyes and experiencing his thoughts.’ He paused, frowning now. ‘I don’t seem to have any control over when these “visions” will occur. They are something new to me, but they could be very useful.’

  Hag pursed her lips and nodded, as if she had no problem accepting this. Nevertheless, the strange look she gave him at the same time unsettled the vampire. Since being brought back from the dead a second time by Trey and his daughter, after Caliban had attacked and poisoned him, Lucien had found himself experiencing changes. In many ways he had seemed to be reverting to the vampire self he had so carefully erased as part of his fight against the Netherworld – fangs regrowing, his appetite for blood still under control but much, much stronger. But when they were in the Netherworld together Hag had alluded to more significant alterations to come. He had chosen to ignore her. He still did.

  ‘Where is he?’ Alexa said.

  ‘In Leroth.’

  There was a long silence, during which Alexa glanced in Trey’s direction for the first time; he was the one staring at the table now, his face suddenly pale upon hearing this news.

  The Tower of Leroth was where Trey had killed Gwendolin, Alexa’s mother, while defending himself and their friend Charles from the sorceress. The two of them had only spoken once about this, and although Alexa had never indicated that she blamed him for what happened, she knew that Trey had seen and done terrible things there – things which still haunted him.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.

  Lucien nodded in response. ‘I take it we do not have anyone watching the place, Tom?’

  ‘That’s right. With the death of Gwendolin, we assumed the tower had been abandoned by Caliban. She was thought to be the only person capable of translocating the place and so making it useful to him.’ He hissed through his teeth. ‘I’m sorry, Lucien, I should have—’

  The vampire halted his friend with a shake of his head. ‘You were not to know. And you are not to blame. I should have foreseen this when Caliban and Helde escaped the Netherworld. They would need somewhere to hide. What better place than Leroth?’

  ‘And you think it’s s
till in Iceland?’ Alexa asked.

  The vampire nodded. ‘That is the impression I got from the brief time I was inside my brother’s head.’

  ‘Helde could move the tower,’ Hag said. ‘The question is, why hasn’t she done so already? Why leave it where it was?’

  ‘Exactly because they know we have not been keeping an eye on it.’ Tom suggested. ‘If the tower moves, they run the risk of being discovered.’

  ‘Or,’ Hag said, frowning as she ran through the possibilities in her mind, ‘because she’s been too preoccupied with something else.’

  ‘Nursing Caliban back to health?’ Tom suggested. ‘We know he was in a bad way when they escaped.’

  ‘He was fine,’ Lucien said. ‘My brother is back to full strength.’

  ‘So she’s doing something else,’ Alexa mused. ‘Something that she needed to be at Leroth for.’

  Everybody considered this for a moment.

  ‘The Shield,’ Hag said. ‘She’s looking for the Shield.’

  ‘What Shield?’ Tom asked.

  ‘When Leroth was used by Skaleb to defeat his brother in the Demon Wars, it was not just the tower’s relocation powers that were key to his victory. The tower was said to have had a powerful Shield that could be employed to protect it. Like a great domed force field that spread out around it, stopping anything getting in or out.’

  ‘And why would Helde and my brother want such a thing?’

  ‘As I told you before, Lucien, Helde is a great sorceress, and she has a particular proclivity for … raising the dead.’ Hag paused. ‘And what better place to grow a zombie army? What better place to start your war against the human world?’

  ‘How far around the tower could this Shield extend?’ Lucien asked.

  ‘That would depend on the skill and power of the sorceress holding it in place,’ Hag replied.

  A silence hung over the room as they considered what the old woman had just said.

  Trey stood up, his chair tipping backwards and hitting the floor with a loud thud, causing the others to turn and look at the teenager. It was obvious to everyone how upset he was; the muscles at the sides of his jaw were bunched and his eyes had a hard, steely look to them.

  ‘Trey?’ Lucien said, realizing that the teenager had not said a word since the location of Caliban had been revealed.

  Without so much as a backward glance, Trey turned and left the room.

  Lucien and Tom exchanged a look. Then the vampire took a deep breath and gazed about him at the remaining faces. ‘I have contacted our people in Iceland, and they are on their way to Leroth as we speak. If my hunch is right and my brother was aware of me as I visited his mind, I think we’ll be too late and Helde will have moved the tower before our people get there.

  ‘What I need you and every other person in this organization to do now is to find where she moves Leroth to. There is nothing with a greater priority right now. Is that understood?’ They nodded back at him. ‘Very well, I suggest you go and start work.’

  ‘I’d appreciate a quick word with you,’ Tom said, staying in his seat.

  Lucien nodded.

  ‘You need to talk to the boy,’ Tom said as soon as the room was clear.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’

  Tom snorted. ‘Beside the fact that he’s terrified he’s about to meet his end at the hands of your nefarious brother? No, nothing’s wrong at all.’ The Irishman frowned. ‘He’s not the same person that left for the Netherworld. He’s … different. We had a chat earlier and he asked me why I’d never walked away from all this.’ He gestured towards the busy office behind him on the other side of the door. ‘He said that it wasn’t really my fight, and … well, he suggested that maybe it wasn’t his either.’

  The vampire nodded, a sad look on his face. ‘Sometimes it’s easy to forget he’s just a young boy.’

  ‘I got the impression he was on the verge of walking away.’

  ‘I’ll talk to him. Get him to see that he’s safer here with us than anywhere else.’

  ‘That’s grand,’ Tom said, getting up from his chair.

  ‘Why haven’t you? Why haven’t you walked away from all this?’

  ‘Ah, you know me. There’s nothing I like more than a good punch-up. Besides, who’d look after you if I weren’t around?’

  ‘Who indeed?’ Lucien said. He was about to say something else when he was interrupted by Hag bursting back into the room without so much as a knock.

  ‘I need you to come with me,’ she said to Lucien. ‘Upstairs to your apartment. I want to try something, and I need you to help me do it.’

  ‘And this can’t wait?’

  ‘Well, yes, it could. But I don’t see why it should. We’ve all put it off for long enough.’ And she rushed off without another word of explanation.

  The elevator slowed to a halt, a soft pinging sound announcing their arrival at the penthouse apartment on the top floor. The doors slid open to reveal the splendour of the place.

  The mandragore was already waiting for them. They’d had to send it up in the lift ahead: the huge weight and size of the man-tree thing was nearly too much for the machinery, and they’d had to virtually fold the creature in two to get it into the elevator car.

  Hag strode out ahead of Lucien and Tom, the mandragore turning and joining the rear of the group. The old woman moved deceptively quickly as she made her way to the far end of the room, turning right into the kitchen. The light in the place was dazzling, the late morning sunshine pouring in through the wall of glass that made up one side of the space.

  Hag moved towards the balcony doors. ‘Hold him and bring him here,’ she shouted over her shoulder.

  The mandragore reached out and wrapped one wooden arm round Lucien’s neck, the other around his middle, pulling the vampire in towards it in a vice-like grip and stepping into the kitchen.

  Several things then happened at once.

  Hag reached out as if to open the sliding doors that made up the wall of glass.

  Tom was the first to react, pulling the 9mm Glock 17 pistol out of the holster and aiming it at the mandragore. Realizing that the gun would have no chance of harming such a formidable creature, the Irishman quickly swung the weapon about and trained the forward sight on the centre of the old woman’s forehead.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, witch, but you’d better tell that walking log to let him go!’ the Irishman demanded. ‘And step away from those windows, or I’ll blow your ugly old head clean off your shoulders.’

  The old woman smiled at him sweetly, showing him a mouthful of ruined teeth.

  Lucien tried to ‘mist’. Like all vampires he had the ability to disappear and reappear instantaneously a short distance away. He attempted to do this now, but something was wrong. Something was stopping him misting out of the mandragore’s clutches. He glanced at Hag, and knew from the look that she shot him that she was somehow blocking his ability to escape in this way.

  ‘Let him go!’ Tom demanded. ‘I’ll not ask again!’

  ‘Or you’ll do what?’ Hag said, frowning. ‘Fire your water pistol at me?’

  Something was happening to the gun in Tom’s hand. The Glock has a plastic polymer body, and because of this can be used in extreme temperatures, where traditional metal-bodied guns might fail. But the weapon in Tom’s hand felt for all the world like it was made out of frozen steel. He took his eyes off his target for a second and glanced at the firearm. The gun had changed in appearance too. The dull, grey exterior had disappeared and the pistol had become transparent. Tom pulled the trigger, which snapped off under the pressure. He was holding a gun made of nothing but ice.

  Hag turned towards the glass doors again.

  ‘NO!’ Tom shouted. He tried to run towards her but his feet wouldn’t move. He looked about him in panic, searching for something he could use as a weapon, something he could hurl at the sorceress to stop her from doing what she was about to do.

  ‘Stop! For heaven’s sake! Do
n’t do it!’ Tom roared.

  The old woman slid back one of the huge glass panels, and the sun’s rays hit Lucien, bathing him in fiery light.

  ‘NO!’ Tom roared.

  That much direct sunlight should have killed the vampire. His skin should have boiled and blistered, turning black as it did so. Smoke and the smell of ancient burning flesh should have filled the room as he writhed about in a torment of agony. That much sunshine should have killed him within seconds.

  Lucien slowly opened his eyes and looked at the glowing sphere. It was the first time in over two hundred years that he had felt the warmth of the life-giving sun directly on his long dead skin without it instantly burning and blistering. He had never imagined that he could experience it again, and the emotions that this epiphany stirred up inside him were overwhelming. He was filled with the greatest elation he had experienced since witnessing the birth of his daughter, and try as he might, he could not fight the torrent of feeling that swept over him. He stood in the sun and allowed blood-red tears to roll from his eyes and down his cheeks.

  ‘What? What the hell – ?’ Tom stuttered. He looked down and realized that he could move again. The pistol in his hand had returned to its true state, sans trigger, which lay on the floor at his feet.

  He looked across at Lucien, who was staring back at Hag with a blood-streaked look of utter astonishment.

  ‘How did you know?’ Tom asked the sorceress.

  ‘A hunch.’

  ‘A hunch!’

  The old woman looked at him and shrugged her shoulders. ‘It was a good hunch though, wasn’t it?’ She turned to face the vampire. ‘I told you that you’d changed, Lucien. I told you that you were unique. A twice undead creature. A vampire that can walk in the sun! I told you that back in the Netherworld, but you didn’t believe me.’ She nodded at the mandragore, and the creature let go of the vampire. ‘These visions you’re having are also a result of this change.’

  Lucien turned to the Irishman now. He removed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped at the bloody tracks on his face, turning the white cotton square into a grisly scarlet mess. He seemed incapable of speech or action, something that Tom had never before seen in his friend. Eventually he seemed to gather himself together, and when he spoke it was to all of them.