“What have you done?” Changeling James shouted at me. He took two steps forward, stared at the glowing sword in my hand, and stepped back toward the gate again. “We need to abandon these forms,” he hissed to his companion. “There will be others.”
“No, there really won’t,” I said, stepping toward them.
Changeling Sarah leapt at me in a hissing, clawing rage. I tried to swing the sword but she had me pinned against the stone wall of the mausoleum, making it hard to find the space the sword needed to strike. Her breath smelled of rotting meat as she hissed into my face.
I kicked her back with one boot, giving myself the room I needed to attack. She tried to lunge forward, but I swung the glowing blade in an upward arc, as if I were using a driver at a golf range, and the enchanted blade sliced up through her side and shoulder blade. She fell to the ground among the brambles and hawthorn vines. Howling in pain, she looked up at me with those reptilian eyes. Her entire body had changed now. She had assumed her true form. It was more snake-like than anything else, her body covered in scales that had a green hue, her mouth filled with needle-sharp fangs and a long forked tongue that flickered out from between her lips, tasting the air. Her scales shone slickly in the rain that was now coming down hard, turning the earth beneath my boots into mud.
Changeling James was running. He had fled through the open gate and was stumbling along the trail toward the house, casting glances over his shoulder at me as he ran.
“Felicity,” I shouted toward the mausoleum. “I need to get to the house.” I stepped through the brambles toward the changeling on the ground. I had to finish it. If it was allowed to live, it would go into hiding until it found another victim to imitate. I raised the sword above my head and swung it down with enough force to cut through its scales, skin, and heart. The creature collapsed, dead, its dark blood staining the wet ground.
Felicity appeared beside me, squinting against the rain that was streaking down the lenses of her glasses. I had told her to stay out of danger while I dealt with the changelings and to look after the bodies of James and Sarah. She looked down at the reptilian creature lying in the mud. “Is that what they really look like?”
I nodded. “Yeah. The other one went to the house. You stay here and wait for James and Sarah to wake up. They’ll be disoriented. The last thing they’ll remember is walking through the woods at Dark Rock Lake, and maybe some vivid nightmares.”
“Okay. Be careful, Alec.”
“Always,” I said, moving quickly through the open gate and on to the trail that led to the house. I ran over the wet dirt, the sword feeling light in my hand because of the adrenaline coursing through my veins. When I emerged from the trees and onto the lawn, my momentum sent me slipping on the slick grass. I lost my footing and landed on the ground, sliding on the wet lawn like a soccer player celebrating a goal. I scrambled to my feet and began running again, my clothing and skin soaked.
The front door to the house was open, all the lights inside burning bright. I entered the house and shouted, “Amelia!” I wasn’t sure what the changelings plan was now that it was fleeing, but I needed to make sure Amelia and her husband were safe. I tried to remember his name. George. I was sure his name was George. I shouted, “George!”
The house was silent for a few seconds, but then I heard a crash and a scream from upstairs. I bounded up the stairs, trying to pinpoint the source of the sounds. A second scream sent me sprinting along the hallway, past framed family portraits, to a closed door. I kicked it open and rushed inside. There was no time for caution; I had to use surprise, speed, and aggression if I wanted an advantage over the changeling.
I barely had time to take in my surroundings as I entered the room because my vision focused on Amelia Robinson, crouched over the body of a man I presumed to be her husband. She was sobbing, “George,” over and over. He was dressed in a dark suit and there was a ragged slash across the front of his neck and a stain on his shirt the color of red wine. Standing over him and his wife, long claws dripping blood, was the changeling. It turned toward me as I burst through the door and hissed, its tongue flickering in my direction.
My first thought was Amelia. I also remembered that there was a daughter, Georgia, somewhere in the house. I had to protect them. I reached for Amelia and grabbed her shoulder, pulling her away from her husband and out of reach of the changeling. She screamed, “No! George!” as she fell backward against the closet door. Her eyes went to the creature that had killed her husband—I was sure he was dead because of the amount of blood staining the carpet around his body—and she screamed again, but this time in terror.
The changeling leapt at me, tongue whipping out between razor-sharp fangs. Its weight and momentum sent us crashing to the floor, struggling against each other. But even as I’d fallen, I’d retained my tight grip on the sword. I smashed the hilt into the changeling’s face, sending it scuttling away across the room, hissing angrily.
I got to my feet and walked toward the creature, the glow from my sword lighting the room in an eerie blue glow.
“Kill it!’ Amelia Robinson sobbed. “Please kill it!”
The changeling was trapped against the wall with nowhere to run. I could see its body tensing, preparing to attack. I waited.
The reptilian creature sprang forward, claws slashing at me. I drove the point of the sword into its chest and pushed until it appeared out of the creature’s back, running it through. The changeling went limp and became a dead weight, pulling the blade down. Its body slid off the blade and on to the carpet, lying there in a spreading pool of dark blood.
I turned to Amelia. “Where’s your daughter?” I needed to know that Georgia Robinson was safe and I wanted to make Amelia think about something other than the fact that her husband was dead.
“I … she … she’s at a friend’s house.” Her eyes were locked on her husband’s dead body.
“Come with me.” I grabbed her arm and led her from the room.
“Where are we going?” she asked as I took her to the stairs.
“I’m taking you to your son.”
“Okay,” she said, nodding. Her eyes were unfocused and I knew she was thinking about her husband and the creature that had killed him. She might be going into shock. I led her out into the rain and that seemed to bring her back to reality.
“I don’t want to go into the woods,” she said, pulling back from me as I led her across the lawn.
“Your son is there.”
That seemed to placate her. She followed me along the trail toward the graveyard.
When we got there, I guided her around the gravestones to the mausoleum, keeping her away from the changeling’s dead body lying in the mud.
Inside the mausoleum, Felicity had lit candles and placed them around the stone room. James and Sarah were sitting next to each other on the floor, both looking dazed. Their eyelids were stained purple from the foxglove paste.
I turned to Amelia. “This is your real son. The person who came back from the lake was an imposter.” I wasn’t going to give her a more detailed explanation right now, and I knew that she was in no mental state to listen to one. All she needed to know was that her son … her real son … was alive and well.
“James,” she said, going to him.
“Mom.” He hugged her. “I’m not sure what’s happening, Mom.”
“Don’t worry about that now,” I told them. James looked at me and the glowing sword in my hand, swallowed, and nodded.
I took Felicity to one side. “How are they?”
“Dazed, confused, and hungry.”
“You stay here with them. I’m going to get the changeling’s body out of the house and bury it along with the one out there.” I pointed out of the door at the rain swept graveyard.
“How is she going to explain her husband’s murder to the police?” Felicity whispered.
“I don’t know, but she needs to keep us out of it. The Society is skilled at keeping its investigators out of prison for
crimes they didn’t commit, but I’m not sure they’d bother helping me now. They weren’t even going to rescue me from Faerie, so I doubt they’d save me from a jail sentence. Anyway, I don’t want to find out if they would or not, so help Amelia come up with a cover story and we’ll hope that Sheriff Cantrell isn’t the sharpest tool in the box.”
Even as I said it, though, I had the feeling that Cantrell was a smart guy. I had nothing to base that assessment on other than a look of intelligence I’d noticed in his steely eyes as he’d looked out over Dearmont Lake in a photograph, but I was sure I was right about him.
My phone rang, the screen displaying Mallory’s name. I answered it. “Hey, Mallory, how’s it going?”
“Hello, Mr. Harbinger,” said a deep male voice. “I have something here that I think is very valuable to you.”
In the background, I heard Mallory shout, “Alec!”
“Shut up,” the male voice said, “or I’ll shoot you now.” His voice was calm, calculated, and had an English accent. “Come to the McDermott Farm, Mr. Harbinger, and bring the box with you.”
“What box?” I asked, feeling hot anger rise in me. I gripped the phone so hard that it dug painfully into my palm.
He had ended the call.
“Fuck!” I shouted, wanting to throw the phone against the wall and watch it shatter into a thousand pieces. If he hurt Mallory, I would kill him slowly, I was sure of that. I cursed myself for bringing her into this, for putting her in harm’s way.
“Alec, what’s wrong?” Felicity’s face was full of concern.
“Someone has Mallory. I think he’s from the Society.”
“Oh my God. What can I do?”
“Call Leon and get him to get rid of the changeling bodies. He said he wanted to help, so now’s his chance. Stay here with Amelia and come up with that story for the police. I need to go and kill someone.” I turned to the door but stopped before I went outside. “Do you know anything about a box?”
She thought for a moment and then shrugged. “No, what kind of box?”
“I have no idea.” I went out into the rain, rage building inside me, expressing itself in angry tears that mingled with the rain on my face.
18
I raced to McDermott’s Farm, the Land Rover’s wipers ticking like a clock as they swept rain from the windshield. The rain was coming down so hard now that it bounced off the road, forming a mist that hung in front of my headlights like a shroud over the blacktop. I felt so angry that I was determined to kill the man who had Mallory the moment I had the chance. I didn’t care what he had to say or what he wanted: he was a dead man.
I saw a sign that said McDermott’s Farm and skidded into a turn that pointed me in the right direction. I followed a dirt road past overgrown meadows and fields. Up ahead, through the rain, I could see the lights of the farm buildings. As I got closer, I saw that Mallory’s orange Jeep Renegade was parked by the farmhouse, with a black car beside it that looked like a Bentley.
I skidded to a stop, parking the Land Rover in front of the Bentley and blocking its route out of here. No one was going anywhere without going through me first.
The dilapidated farmhouse had a rickety-looking wooden front porch that was sheltered from the rain by a sloped wooden roof. A porch light was on, casting a dull yellow glow. On the porch, there was a wooden bench that had once been white, but most of the paint had flaked away to reveal the bare wood beneath. Mallory sat on the bench.
Standing six feet away from her, a Winchester lever-action rifle in his hands, was a bearded man in an immaculate black suit, white shirt, and black tie. “Leave your weapons in the car, Mr. Harbinger,” he called to me calmly.
I nodded and got out of the Land Rover. There was a dagger in a sheath tucked into the back of my jeans, beneath my shirt, but I didn’t bring any visible weapons out with me.
“Who are you?” I asked him, walking toward the porch.
“That’s close enough,” he said when I was about twenty feet away. “And who I am isn’t important. I go by the name of Tunnock, if knowing my name makes you feel happier. Now to the subject of our meeting. Did you bring the box?”
“What box?”
He shook his head disapprovingly. “Don’t play games with me, Mr. Harbinger. I’m the one holding the gun. My employer told me that you have a box in your possession. I was told there’d be no point searching your house or office for it because you are much too clever to hide it in such an obvious place. My remit was to either recover the box or kill you. I tried the latter, but the two fools I sent to do the job never came back and here you are alive, so I can guess how that encounter went.”
“If you mean those ogres, don’t expect to see them ever again,” I said.
“That’s what I thought. So here I am in person, offering you a deal. The box for the girl. No one has to die here today.”
“If this box is so important to your employer, then why isn’t your employer here in person to deal with me?” I noticed Mallory trying to get my attention with her eyes. I glanced at her and she directed her gaze at her Jeep and nodded slightly toward the vehicle as if telling me to look there, too.
I looked over at the Jeep and felt my blood run cold. Timothy Ellsworth and a girl I assumed was Josie Carter were sitting in the backseat. Tunnock had made his move before Mallory had a chance to lock up the werewolves. I looked up at the rainy night sky. The full moon shone brightly behind dark clouds.
Twilight was passing and nightfall beginning. We were about to be joined by two werewolves and our chances of survival were slim.
“If you think your friends in the car are going to help you,” Tunnock said, “you might as well think again. They know that if they come out here, this young lady’s brains will be decorating the porch. Now, are you going to give me the box or not, Mr. Harbinger? Because I can just as easily kill you all. If the box is never found, my employer will be happy, just as long as you’re dead so you can’t use it.”
I had no idea what box he was talking about, but I wasn’t going to let him know that. My mind was racing, wondering what I was going to do when two werewolves came bursting out of the Jeep and Mallory and I were out here exposed.
I looked over at the Jeep. I couldn’t see Timothy or Josie anymore, just two dark hulking shapes behind the windows. A loud bang rang out and the roof of the Jeep buckled upward as if struck by huge fists. The banging and pounding increased in pace.
Tunnock looked over at the Jeep, distracted for a split second by the noise. I reached back for the knife in my jeans and flicked it out of the sheath, dropping into a crouch as I did to steady myself for what I was about to do and present a smaller target to Tunnock if he managed to shoot in my direction. Adjusting my grip on the dagger so I held the tip of its blade between my forefinger and thumb, I brought it back to my ear before whipping my arm forward. The dagger flew through the air, spinning end over end until it embedded itself in Tunnock’s chest.
It wasn’t meant to kill him, just shock him long enough for me to reach him. I sprinted for the porch and dived at Tunnock, sending us both crashing through the farmhouse’s front door. “Mallory,” I shouted, “get in the Land Rover!”
I scrambled to my feet, meaning to grab Tunnock and drag him to the Land Rover, but he shook my hands off and pointed the Winchester at me. “Time to die, Mr. Harbinger.”
I threw myself backward off the porch as he fired, feeling something hot rip into my right arm and spin me around slightly before I landed in the cold mud. Two big, furry shapes passed in front of me and I heard Tunnock scream and fire the rifle again, this time at the two werewolves.
Ignoring the pain in my arm, I sprinted for the Land Rover, meaning to get my rifle and silver-loaded shells out of the back. The shells wouldn’t kill a werewolf; the only way to do that is to drive silver through the creature’s heart and a shotgun isn’t powerful enough. The silver shells stunned them, though, and my usual method of killing a werewolf was to stun it with the shotgun and th
en drive a silver dagger through the creature’s heart.
The back of the Land rover was already open and Mallory stood there with my shotgun in hand. She passed it to me. “Fully loaded with werewolf stunners.”
“What would I do without you?” I asked as I took the gun and went back to the house.
Tunnock must have run into one of the rooms because neither he nor the werewolves were by the front door anymore.
Brandishing the shotgun, I stepped into the house and saw the path that Tunnock must have taken. To the left, the kitchen door was open, and the dust on the floor had been disturbed by shoes and huge paws. I went into the kitchen, gun leveled in front of me. There was nobody there, just a kitchen table collecting dust and cobwebs….
Then I heard a scream and a growl coming from an open door on the rear wall of the kitchen. I went to it and saw wooden steps leading down into darkness. The basement. This was where Mallory was going to lock up the wolves for the night. Tunnock had led them down there.
I closed the door and locked it.
19
As I stepped off the porch, I slipped in the mud, but managed to stay on my feet. Mallory rushed over and put her arms around my shoulders, guiding me to the Land Rover. Now that the adrenaline had burnt out of my system, the pain in my right arm flared. Blood was seeping through my shirt and trickling down over my hand.
“We need to get you to a hospital,” Mallory said.
“No, no hospital. They report gunshot wounds to the police and I don’t want to have to explain where this came from.”
She led me to the passenger side of the Land Rover and I climbed in. As she got in the driver’s seat, Mallory said, “I’ll use the medical supplies at your house to patch you up.” She backed away from Tunnock’s Bentley and spun the Land Rover around in the mud so it was facing the dirt road out of here.
“The medical stuff’s all packed in boxes. I’m not sure where it is,” I said.
“I unpacked everything for you while you were gone.”
The Harbinger PI Box Set Page 14
