Changeling Dark Moon

by Steve Feasey

  Trey blinked his eyes shut for a second, hoping that when he opened them again the phantom would be gone.

  ‘You look like him, you know,’ the vampire said.

  The sound that came out of Trey was little more than a whisper. ‘Who?’

  ‘Your father.’ An ugly sneer formed on the nethercreature’s face, mocking the boy. ‘I’ll let you into a secret, Trey. Just before I removed his head from his shoulders, your father begged me to kill him. Such was his exquisite suffering that he lay at my feet and pleaded with me to end his torment. Eventually, when I became bored with him, I obliged.’ The vampire’s eyes flashed menacingly, and Trey flinched under their despicable gaze. ‘Soon you too shall beg for an end to the misery you will experience at my hands, Trey. Although I think that I will take longer with you. Yes, I think that I shall enjoy watching you squirm and beg like your pathetic coward of a father.’

  Trey threw himself out of the bed towards the foul creature. He reached out with clawed fingers to grab at the vampire but instead passed clean through the apparition, crashing into the chest of drawers on the other side and knocking a tumbler to the floor, where it shattered, bejewelling the carpet with tiny glass daggers. He forced himself to his feet, ignoring the pain as a number of the glass shards bit into the soles of his feet. He spun around, anticipating some kind of attack.

  The vampire’s laughter filled the room, but there was no longer any sign of Caliban.

  Trey sank to the floor, a harsh, ragged sob escaping his lips. He hung his head and gently pulled his feet towards him, staring down at them as if they belonged to somebody else. Blood pooled, growing into heavy droplets before snaking down his soles as tiny rivulets to deposit their crimson contents on the floor. Tears welled up in his eyes and he blinked, allowing them to fall and join their ruby cousins sinking into the carpet. His heart rate was gradually returning to its normal speed and he slowly brought his nerves under control.

  The sound of a knock on his door made him jump and hit his head on the wooden drawers behind him. His nerves were shot to pieces.

  ‘Trey?’ Alexa’s voice was muffled. ‘Are you all right, Trey? Steph and I thought that we heard a crash.’

  Trey looked from the wreckage that had been the bedside lamp to the bloody mess on the carpet.

  ‘Trey?’

  He went to say something but stopped himself, remembering the good time that she appeared to have had this evening. This was the first time in a long while that she had let her hair down, and he wouldn’t screw that up for her by talking about apparitions, regardless of how much he wanted to. No, he could wait. Wait and talk to Tom about it first thing in the morning, before the briefing.

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ he said, trying to keep his voice steady. ‘I was messing about and accidentally knocked a glass on to the floor and it smashed.’

  ‘Do you need a hand clearing it up?’ It was Steph’s voice this time.

  ‘No. No, thanks. It’s all done.’

  ‘OK. As long as you’re all right. Goodnight, Trey.’

  ‘Night, Alexa. Night, Steph.’

  He sensed them still hovering outside his room and he held his breath, willing them to leave, until he heard the sound of her door closing against the music that was still spilling out from her room. Then he puffed out his cheeks and tilted his head back so that he was staring up at the ceiling, still trying to bring himself under control. It hadn’t been real. He’d tell Tom about what had happened, but it hadn’t been real and there was no need to bother him now. The vampire was just trying to scare him. He’d done a great job.

  He picked the tiny glass shards out of his feet, collecting them together in a small pile and inspecting the cuts. He knew how quickly he healed and that by the morning there would be nothing to suggest that he’d cut himself at all. He grabbed a shirt that had fallen out of his laundry basket, tore it in two and used the pieces to wrap his feet, hoping to limit any more sullying of the carpet. He’d have to let Mrs Magilton know about the blood so that she could get the carpet cleaned. He could almost hear her already, going into histrionics at the sight of the mess that he had made in the room.

  When he was done he picked up all of the broken pieces and placed them on his sideboard. The photo of his mother and father was on the wooden top, and he stared at it for a long while, thinking about the terrible things that Caliban had said.

  He was so glad to have a picture of his parents again. Recently he’d tried to conjure their faces, desperate not to let the memory of them fade. But he’d struggled, castigating himself for beginning to forget them. His only previous photograph of them had been destroyed in a fire at the care home that he’d lived at before coming to live with Lucien – the fire had been started by Caliban’s people and was meant to kill him – but now he could see their faces again and couldn’t help but wish that they were with him, helping him to get through all of this.

  He sighed and walked to the bathroom, stepped into the shower cubicle and turned the tap on to full and allowed the hot needles of water to wash over him. When he was done he re-entered the bedroom, glancing at the mess of covers that had fallen from his bed. He bent down and picked them up, piling them on top of each other on the mattress. He walked round the bed and sat at the desk, reaching across and sliding a book towards him – he doubted if he would get much sleep tonight.

  A hot, springtime sun skewered its way through a gap in the curtains, causing Trey to grumble and flinch as it came to rest on his face. He had finally fallen asleep in the chair and he grunted at the sharp pains that sprang up in his legs and back as he rose from his crumpled sleeping position. He pulled his feet up to inspect them and was unsurprised to find that they were now unmarked. He quickly showered and dressed, glancing at his watch and wondering if he could still grab Tom before the morning meeting. He left his room and quickly crossed the apartment to the kitchen, hoping to grab something that he could eat while searching for the Irishman.

  On the kitchen table were the remnants of someone’s breakfast – the vestiges of a still-lukewarm coffee and a plate of toast crumbs told Trey that Alexa was already up. She’d left one of her old books face down next to the plate. The ancient brown leather cover had worn away at the corners, and the animal hide was turning back on itself like a small tongue licking at the surface.

  Trey grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl, and holding it in his mouth he wiped his hands and reached over to pick up the book, glancing at the text on the page where she had left it open.

  It was written in a language that he did not recognize and he tilted the book with one hand, as if reading the text at a different angle would somehow make it decipherable. He flicked through some of the pages, hoping that they might reveal something to suggest what the book was about. The paper was incredibly thin and reminded him of the pages of a Bible that he had leafed through in his grandmother’s house as a small boy.

  Trey’s hand stopped at a page that caught his interest. The words on this page were much larger and bolder than in the rest of the book. He frowned at the text, trying to work out what language it could be. He shook his head. Taking the apple from his mouth, he started to sound out the words phonetically, stopping and going back to the start of each line and saying it out loud once he thought he knew how they should be said. The words had an odd resonance and Trey was vaguely aware that somehow they wanted to be read, as if they had been locked away within the confines of the pages for too long and now desired nothing more than for someone to once more make the sounds that their letters formed. Inside his mind a warning klaxon went off and he instinctively knew that he should stop what he was doing and put the book down. But those words wanted to be heard. They whispered to him, urging him to continue. And as he said them aloud he could feel the power in them grow.

  He was halfway through the passage when Alexa came rushing into the kitchen screaming at him to stop. She hurled herself across the table to grab the book out of his hands, slamming it shut and glaring at him wi
th thinly disguised contempt.

  ‘What the bloody hell do you think you are doing, Trey?’ she said, her face having taken on an unpleasant red hue.

  ‘I was just reading from that book. Don’t have a fit, Alexa.’

  ‘Do you have any idea what type of incantation you were just speaking aloud then? You were halfway through a summoning, Trey. And if you had managed to get to the end, a bloody great demon, the like of which I hope to never lay eyes on, would have suddenly been let loose upon this earth. Now I don’t know about you, but I am really not overly keen on the idea of having a twenty-foot demon whose name translates as The Disemboweller summoned into the kitchen of my house.’ She brandished the book in his face. ‘This thing hasn’t been seen for over five hundred years so I can’t say for sure what might happen, but I’m guessing with a name like Mr Disemboweller he isn’t going to be the type of fellow that you invite round for a cup of tea and a slice of Battenburg cake!’

  ‘Well, if the book’s that sodding dangerous, what the hell are you doing leaving it around, you halfwit?’ Trey shouted back at her.

  They glared at each other across the table, neither willing to be the first to back down, when suddenly Trey’s face cracked into a broad smile. The giggles started next and were quickly transformed into gales of laughter.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Alexa asked, crossing her arms.

  ‘I was just imagining this gigantic demon sitting down at the table with a cup of tea and a slice of Mrs Magilton’s Battenburg cake. I can hear her now: “If you so much as drop one of those crumbs on my floor, I’ll have your guts for garters, Disemboweller or no Disemboweller.”’

  Alexa struggled to keep the stern expression on her face, but then she too cracked up.

  ‘Please, Trey,’ she said once their laughter had dissipated, ‘be careful around these old books. Many of them have tremendous power and shouldn’t be opened by anybody who doesn’t know what they are doing.’

  ‘You gave me one of these old books for my birthday,’ he pointed out.

  ‘And told you to open it only when I am with you.’

  The phone rang in the kitchen. The ring tone indicated that it was an internal call from the office. Alexa picked up the receiver and listened to the person on the other end of the line. The mood in the room changed instantly, and Trey could see the tension in Alexa’s features. She thanked the person, hung up and looked over at Trey with what he thought looked like excitement mixed with apprehension.

  ‘There’s been a breakthrough. Charles thinks that he’s located Leroth and my mother, and he wants me to go down to have a chat.’

  ‘Charles?’ Trey said, feigning ignorance. ‘Oh, you mean Lord Farquar.’

  ‘Don’t start all that again, Trey. He’s actually very nice, if you take the time to get to know him.’

  Trey had bumped into Charles Henstall on a number of occasions while they had all been trying to locate Alexa’s mother. The older boy had looked down his nose at Trey each time, and Trey had taken to referring to him by the nickname.

  ‘Let’s go.’ Alexa was halfway out the door when Trey stopped her.

  ‘Alexa, there’s something that I need to tell you about last night. When you came to my door. I—’

  ‘If you’re worried about the stupid lamp, don’t be.’ She glanced again at the phone on the wall, eager to be on her way. ‘What?’ she said, when she looked back at his frowning face.

  ‘Caliban. He was in my room. Well, he wasn’t physically in my room, but he paid me a visit and—’

  ‘Oh, Trey,’ she said. ‘Why on earth didn’t you say something?’

  Trey shook his head and looked down at the table. ‘I didn’t want to spoil your evening,’ he mumbled. ‘Besides, like I said, he wasn’t really there – just some projection of him … magic or something.’

  ‘Come on, we need to tell the others and find out what Charles has discovered.’ She took him by the elbow and pulled him out of the kitchen, across the lounge and towards the elevator.

  ‘What is it?’ Tom asked as he entered the door of the research area. He looked tired and was still wearing the same clothes that he’d been in the evening before. Trey took one look at him and guessed that his friend had had almost as good a night’s rest as his own. ‘This had better be good, to call off our planned meeting.’

  Alexa and Charles were hunched over the table looking at the screen of a notebook computer that had been set up on it. The tension in the room was palpable. Trey sat a little apart from the other two and stood up as Tom entered, looking over at the Irishman with relief.

  ‘We think that we’ve found Gwendolin … my mother,’ Alexa said without turning her attention from the screen.

  ‘I still don’t understand why it’s taken so long,’ Trey said.

  ‘The Tower of Leroth, where Gwendolin resides,’ Charles said, also opting not to turn from the data displayed on the laptop, ‘is not a static location. In fact, it isn’t really a location at all. It’s a portal between two worlds, this one and the Netherworld.’

  Trey guessed that Charles was about eighteen years old, maybe slightly younger, but he spoke in a way that suggested he was much older. His tone and manner suggested a privileged upbringing coupled with a good education. There was something about him that rubbed Trey up the wrong way.

  ‘Could you explain that again in English, please, Charles,’ Trey said. ‘I’m not too hot on gobbledegook.’

  Charles glanced at him before straightening up and addressing everyone in the room. ‘As you already know, Trey, Leroth can exist in both planes at once and has the ability to change the location at which it creates the bridge between them. Unlike other smaller portals that can be opened between the worlds, which are tiny in comparison, it occupies a vast area and can be disguised to blend in with its surroundings.’ He raised an eyebrow as if checking that Trey was taking all of this in before turning back to smile at Alexa.

  ‘Caliban and Gwendolin use Leroth to stop us from countering a great deal of their activities. Gwendolin is a very powerful sorceress. She is able to wreak havoc through the use of her dark magic, but we have people within our organization who are capable of neutralizing most of the damage that she would create, but only if we can locate where the spells are being cast from. Once we know the location, we can implement anti-spells and counter-magic. So she uses the shifting properties of Leroth to thwart us moving in and out of this plane, changing location at every opportunity.’

  Trey was only half listening to all of this. He had begun to wonder whether Charles might not be human, whether he might be another one of the nethercreatures that he had spied in the office that time. He made a note to check him out the next time he got an opportunity to morph in the meeting room. A large part of him dearly hoped that beneath that suave and smarmy outward appearance was some bizarre, unnatural monster – perhaps some giant slug-like creature like Nathan.

  ‘No, Trey, I am completely human,’ Charles said, turning to look at him now and smiling at the expression of shock that crossed Trey’s features. ‘No trace of gastropod or any other mollusc, I’m afraid. Neither can I shapeshift into some half-man, half-dog creature … thank heavens.’ From the look of things, he was enjoying the complete bewilderment on Trey’s face. He went to turn away before adding, ‘I’m sorry, that was rather rude of me. I didn’t mean to intrude into your thoughts. It’s just that you were looking at me in such a bemused and … vacant way that I was unclear as to whether you were taking any of this in, so I thought I’d … take a peek. I hope you don’t mind?’

  Trey’s forehead creased into an angry frown. He had sensed something happening inside his mind, a probing force, some smooth-bodied worm had entered his head and had begun squirming its way around. He suddenly felt horribly violated. A wave of anger broke through him and he leaned forward, staring into Charles’s face, until their noses were almost touching.

  ‘Charles, I don’t know who or what you are, and quite frankly I don’t give a toss
, but if you ever “take a peek” into my mind again like that I’d be happy to show you exactly what kind of half-man, half-dog creature I can turn into. And maybe then I’ll take a peek inside your head by ripping your skull off and sifting through the contents on the floor by hand.’ The words flooded out of him too quickly and too angrily, and the silence that filled the room as a result was complete and uncomfortable. Trey turned to look at Tom and Alexa and flushed with embarrassment when he saw the look of annoyance on their faces.

  ‘When you two rutting stags have quite finished trying to establish your alpha-male credentials,’ Alexa said, ‘perhaps you’d like to join us in the meeting room next door to discuss what we need to do next.’ She closed the lid on the laptop, picked it up and walked out of the room in the direction of the meeting rooms that lined the left-hand side of the offices. Tom shook his head at the two of them and followed her out.

  Trey looked over at Charles and forced a smile. ‘After you, Charles,’ he said.

  ‘So what does all that tell us?’ Trey asked, nodding his head towards the large screen at the end of the meeting room. The same tables of data that they had all been looking at on the laptop were now showing on the huge six-foot display.

  ‘We run daily reports on levels of magic that might be being used at any one time in the world,’ Alexa said. ‘A team of people in our organization tune into this sort of thing and they are extremely sensitive to any form of magecraft that may be employed, anywhere, at any time. Different forms of magic have different signatures, and these can, by the right people, be recognized and traced. If the team considers the magic to be a harmful form, they report it and then set about detecting the geographical source so that we can counter it as quickly as possible.’ She looked up at the data on the screen before continuing.

  ‘Some forms of magic – the darkest and most malevolent kind — flag up that a big-hitter is at work, and they don’t come much bigger than Caliban and Gwendolin. This morning a huge signal was detected – intense, but so short that we couldn’t identify what kind of magic was being used. We think that someone was preparing something – a trial run perhaps. While they couldn’t detect what kind of sorcery was being used, Charles and his team managed to trace the source to Iceland. About twenty miles outside Reykjavik, to be precise.’ She stopped and looked at Trey. ‘That and Caliban’s appearance to Trey last night suggest that they have come out of hiding and are now hell-bent on achieving whatever it is that they are up to.’