Changeling Dark Moon Read online

  ‘Look at all that metal that is already embedded into her, Charles. If I let her drop, it could kill her.’

  Charles stared up at the thing suspended overhead, and when he turned back to Trey the werewolf realized what the expression on his face was – it was fear.

  ‘If that is what I think it is, Trey, you won’t kill her. Let her drop. Just let me get a bit nearer so that we can get that thing open as quickly as possible because I’m guessing that it is going to make one hell of a noise, and when it does all hell is going to break loose here.’

  Trey watched Charles walk out and stand just to one side of where he expected the hanging cage to land. He looked down at the final length of chain in his hands, took a deep breath, and let go.

  The boat cut through the calm waters, churning a V-shaped wake behind it that spread out slowly before disappearing back down again into the vast body of the Indian Ocean.

  Martin sat alone at the front of the boat, looking forward into the late-setting sun that was clutching at the horizon, determined to shed a few more rays into the world before the night took it over completely. The drone of the engine was strangely hypnotic, and this, coupled with the rocking motion of the boat, somehow managed to assuage the rising panic that he had allowed to build up inside him throughout the day. He was still convinced that Philippa was going to try to kill him, but an inner calm had somehow developed within him in the last hour or so and he was determined to use this trip to try to understand the rage that had somehow spored and grown inside his daughter.

  Or maybe it wasn’t her at all. Maybe his hunch – that something to do with his work was responsible for all this, a spell or some other magic – was correct. He almost hoped this to be the case, because if not it meant that he had failed as a father. It meant that she was so angry at the world, and him in particular, that she thought that violence was the only way she could resolve it. He thought of the recent cases he had read about in the US where teenagers, unhappy with the world, had gone on terrible killing sprees. He recalled how all these tragedies had ended in the perpetrator taking their own life, and he winced – he would not lose his daughter. He would tell her that he knew she planned to kill him and he would find a way to stop her and keep both of them safe.

  It still came as a terrible surprise when he heard his daughter ask the pilot of the boat to stop the engine. They were only about ten minutes into the boat journey and he could see the island of Curieuse – their supposed destination – up ahead in the distance, looming darkly out of the water. Another boat, much larger than the one they were in, was anchored in the ocean about four hundred metres away, and when Martin turned to look at his daughter it was this that she was eyeing suspiciously.

  Becoming aware of his scrutiny, she turned her face to his and looked at him with an expression that was impossible to read.

  ‘Why have we stopped?’ Martin asked.

  Philippa ignored him, looked over at the larger boat again and studied it for a moment or two. There was nobody on board and all the lights were out, suggesting that the crew had anchored for the night and taken a smaller boat over to the island in the distance.

  ‘I said, why have we stopped?’ Martin asked again, his voice cracking a little.

  Philippa glanced at him before switching her attention to a large fishing gaff that was lying on the deck near her feet. She picked up the tool, which was about a metre long, and studied the great, curved hook at the end of the aluminium pole, bringing it close to her face and turning it around slowly before her. She hefted the device in her hand, feeling its weight.

  Martin’s heart hammered away inside him and he rose slowly to his feet, holding out his hands in front of him. ‘Philippa, put that down. Do you hear me? Put that thing down at once!’

  Philippa smiled at him. Then she swivelled swiftly on her heel, swinging the pole through the air in a wide arc that ended at the head of their Seychellois captain. The pole caught him a painful blow and he cried out in surprise at the unexpected attack, looking up at the girl in front of him in wide-eyed terror. Philippa pulled hard on the handle of the pole, dragging the huge hook at the end of the implement into the skipper. She watched, her head cocked slightly to one side, as the man stood up in the back of the gently rocking boat, his hands flying up to grasp at the metal hook, his fingers attempting to gain some purchase on the now slippery metal. His mouth dropped open and he emitted a long, rasping hiss as a stream of blood poured down his chin.

  Martin could only watch in mute horror as his daughter leaned her weight to one side and, putting all her strength into the gaff, heaved the man over the side of the craft and into the dark waters below.

  ‘Oh my God!’ said Martin in a voice that he hardly recognized as his own. ‘You’ve killed him. You killed that poor man.’

  Philippa turned to face him, frowning slightly as if surprised to see him there. She looked back over her shoulder as if to check that the man had not somehow survived the horrific attack and come bobbing to the surface, but he had sunk down into the dark waters without a trace. Very slowly, she turned back to Martin with a look that sent a zigzag of icy fear coursing down his spine.

  She stepped towards him, a malevolent smile creeping over her lips as she watched him back away from her with his hands still held in front of him in a supplicating gesture.

  ‘Please …’ he said. ‘Please, Philippa, we need to talk. We need to help you. You know that, don’t you? You know that you need help?’

  The laugh that came from his daughter was like no human sound that he had ever heard in his life, like a saw being dragged over knotted wood. And the voice that accompanied it was cold and dark and other. It was a voice that should never have come from his daughter’s mouth.

  ‘Kill you?’ the creature that inhabited Philippa’s body said. ‘And why would I want to do that, Martin? I need you alive. Oh yes, very much alive.’

  Martin stepped back again until the backs of his legs banged up against the heavy picnic hamper that he had placed in the front of the boat, with him. He considered leaping over the side of the boat, but images of her running him down in the craft, the propellers ripping through his flesh as she drove the vehicle over his half-submerged body, formed in his mind’s eye.

  She approached him again. She no longer had the fishing gaff, but he doubted whether she needed it. She looked capable of killing him with her bare hands. She stopped no more than three feet away from him. Martin stiffened, expecting an attack. Instead, his daughter’s body slumped as if all of the muscles had suddenly lost their strength, and she swayed on the spot before him like some drunken cobra that has been forced from a snake charmer’s basket. Her face was slack, the eyes staring through him, blank pools of nothingness. She opened her mouth and uttered a strangled gasp that petered out into a long ragged breath. A death rattle.

  Her body jerked suddenly, the lifeless arms that had been hanging at her sides jerking involuntarily, making Martin jump with fright at the anticipated attack he was still sure was coming.

  Still staring blankly at him, she opened her mouth wider still, stretching and elongating the oval further and further, and he was suddenly reminded of the silent screaming figure in the Edvard Munch painting, staring out into the world with the same cold, dead eyes. She coughed and gagged.

  And then the Necrotroph’s face appeared at the back of her mouth.

  It squirmed and writhed out of her throat, its contorted features twisted into a mask of effort as it struggled to free itself. Martin watched in horror as the thing struggled and rolled violently, forcing its way out until suddenly a long length of it sprang forth – a twisted face at the end of a glistening, worm-like body that snaked out of his daughter’s mouth and writhed in the air in front of him. Tiny hands with no arms waggled in the air from the sides of the torso, and below these a ring of smooth, slender tentacles that ended in what appeared to be hooks swayed and danced in the air.

  Martin’s head shook from side to side, his body denying
the terrible scene before him as he stared at the thing emerging from his child. The black eyes were fixed upon him now and he had the sensation that the thing was grinning at him. He opened his own mouth to scream, and in doing so Martin Tipsbury sealed his doom.

  The creature suddenly shot forward across the small distance that separated them, its head burrowing into his mouth. He could feel the small hands grasp on to the edges of his lips, pinching and grabbing at them as the demon struggled to force its way deeper inside the open cavity. The last of the demon’s body slithered free of his daughter’s mouth and she crumpled to the floor, the unblinking eyes still staring up at him.

  My God, Martin thought as he looked down at her. Is she dead? Please don’t say that she is dead!

  He took an automatic step backwards and tripped over the hamper, falling on to the deck. He tried to grab hold of the thing and yank it free. Clamping his hands around one of the body segments, he gripped the tubular body as tightly as he could and pulled. He had to get this thing out of him so that he could help Philippa.

  One of the tentacles waggled in the air for a second before reaching out and delicately touching the back of his hand. Martin felt a huge bolt of pain, like an electric shock, and he would have screamed if the demon’s head had not been firmly wedged in his oesophagus. His hands flew open and he felt the demon burrow inside his throat another inch or two. The edges of his vision were beginning to grey out and he had the familiar buzzy-headed feeling that he got as a child when he held his breath for too long at the deep end of the swimming pool. The tiny hands had got a good purchase on his rear molars now, and Martin clamped his eyes shut as he felt the demon, with a huge effort, pull itself deep inside him, slipping down his gullet and descending into his alimentary canal.

  He took a huge staccato breath that came back out in a gush and he lay on his back, trembling all over, staring up at the stars. He tried to get to his feet, but doubled up in pain as something twisted deep inside him. A low groan escaped him as a series of small electric shocks fired off inside his body, followed by a hideous cutting sensation that caused him to scream into the night air, tears springing to his eyes and cascading down his cheeks.

  He thought that the pain would kill him; his legs thrashed wildly and he writhed in agony on the deck of the boat. Then as suddenly as it had begun, the pain vanished, replaced with a strange feeling of calm that rolled over him like a warm blanket, somehow letting him know that everything was going to be all right.

  He staggered to his feet, staring about him wildly until his eyes settled on the body of his daughter. He frowned down at the carcass and a great wave of sadness welled up inside him. The demon inside him tried to quash these thoughts but the depths of emotion were too great, and Martin knelt down to take his daughter’s body in his arms.

  Something inside him was telling him to pick Philippa’s dead body up and throw it overboard. A lance of pain stabbed through him again, making him gasp, and he stood up, straining to get to his feet while holding her in his arms. He looked down into her face, tears welling up in his eyes.

  And then she took a breath.

  Martin gasped and sank to his knees, fighting the commands that the demon was sending him and ignoring the electric bolts of pain that coursed through him. He laid her down on the deck, hovering over her. She opened her eyes a little and looked up at him. ‘I love you, Dad,’ she said.

  He was about to reply when the pain took him over completely. His smile faded, replaced by a grimace. He fell backwards on to the deck and let the pain take over.

  When he climbed to his feet again he had forgotten that Philippa was there. He stared about him and took in his surroundings, shaking his head and trying to remember something that he was sure was of great importance to him. A small uncomfortable pain shot through his spine, like an electric shock, and he quickly forgot everything once more.

  He knew that he had to get back to the villa as quickly as possible. He needed to contact his master and tell him what the humans were planning and …

  Who the hell was his master?

  Another bolt of lightning went off inside him and he shivered, shaking out these strange thoughts. He crossed to the rear of the boat and bent forward to grab the pull-cord that started the motor. Resting one hand on the engine housing, he pulled sharply on the handle, smiling as the machinery coughed into life. A feeling of elation ran through every part of him, and he sat down, taking hold of the tiller arm. He was about to twist the accelerator handle when his eyes fell on his daughter’s body again, her chest rising and falling rhythmically now. Then he looked over at the picnic hamper still lying on the deck at the front of the boat. He let go of the tiller, stood up and walked towards it, grimacing in pain at the series of shocks that went off up and down his spine and inside his head. He bent forward and picked the case up, staring down at the black leather straps and buckles that held it closed.

  She wasn’t going to kill me, he thought. She might not have loved me as I wanted her to, but she would never have killed me. It was that thing. That thing that was inside her! And now it was inside him, she would never be safe.

  Agony exploded inside him. He gasped and staggered forward, almost losing his grip on the hamper.

  The tiny part of him that was still Martin Tipsbury forced his body to straighten up. With a greater effort of will than he had ever shown before in his life, he forced his legs to work and walked towards the edge of the boat. Artillery shells of pain exploded within his body. and his brain was screaming at him to stop, but he somehow ignored the thing inside him and, clinging to the last vestiges of his humanity, he forced his body to obey his will. Placing his foot up on to the gunwale of the boat, he expelled a huge breath from his lungs, clutched the heavy hamper to his chest and leaped over the side of the boat into the black waters below.

  The Necrotroph had underestimated him. It had thought of him as weak and malleable and because of that it had not taken the time to get everything right before it had started to control him. It had rushed, trying to get back to the house to contact its master. And it had underestimated the bond between the man and his child. Now it was trapped inside this human body, plummeting towards the sea floor with no other being around that it could transfer to.

  The demon raged inside Martin. It tried to take control and force the stupid creature to let go of the box and kick back up towards the surface, but the more it tried to impose its own will the more the human battled it, determined to end both of their lives. It felt the crushing pressure of the water pressing in on it from all sides and then suddenly the seabed rushed up to meet the human’s feet.

  The Necrotroph knew that they were a long way down beneath the surface. Panicking now, it shrank back, hiding deep inside the human, hoping that the host too would suddenly become flooded with fear at the situation it was in and try to save itself. The Necrotroph was fairly certain that it could assist its human host in getting back to the surface but it knew that it was counter-productive for it to force the situation right now. For the first time in its very long existence it felt a shiver of fear and contemplated its death at the hands of this foolish, insignificant and inferior being. It hid away and tuned in to the thoughts of the human, hoping against hope that it would choose life over this end.

  Martin felt the release inside him as the demon retreated back away from his consciousness. He opened his eyes and looked at the blackness around him. He thought about his life and the good things that he had enjoyed in it and all of the things that he still wanted to do and see. He thought of Philippa and of the happier times that they had spent together. He thought of her as a baby and how his world had been complete somehow when she had been born. In his head he told her that he loved her. Then he opened his mouth and took in a huge lungful of saltwater, flooding his lungs and consigning himself to death.

  The demon screamed out from inside the human as it felt its host begin to slip away. It took control of every part of the human and this time there was no resis
tance. But it was too late – the host was too far gone. The creature screamed again as it realized that it would be trapped inside this body-coffin for its last few moments in this realm, until it too died.

  For Martin Tipsbury, it was the only brave thing that he had ever done in his life, and as the black hands of death began to pull him into their final embrace he could feel the demon inside him squirming in its own death throes.

  Martin Tipsbury died with a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

  Tom fired two of the grenades in quick succession into the tight knot of demons below them. He had spoken to an acquaintance about the thermobaric explosives before leaving for Iceland, trying to ascertain if they would be the right tool for the job. His friend had described the incredible explosive power of this relatively new weapon and assured Tom that if he needed to kill large numbers of enemies within a relatively small area, there really was nothing better.

  The grenade launcher spat the small bombs down into the knot of nethercreatures with an almost apologetic coughing sound that did nothing to prepare Tom and Alexa for the scale of the destruction that was to ensue.

  The grenades detonated upon impact and the resulting cloud of fire spread out in a vast, ground-hugging mushroom of flame that obliterated everything within its deadly reach. The demons and the Draugr were first engulfed in a super-hot cloud of fire before the pressure wave slammed into their bodies, tearing them apart and sending the pieces into the air like strips of sodden rag. It was all over in an instant.

  As the smoke cleared, Tom and Alexa looked down at the carnage below.

  ‘Well, that went better than I expected,’ Tom said in a small voice.

  ‘Come on,’ Alexa said, getting to her feet and moving down the hill towards the scene of destruction.

  ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Tom shouted after her.

  ‘I want to check something,’ she said, and set off down the slope.

  Tom climbed to his feet and started after her. The hill was steeper on this side and he almost slipped twice, nearly pitching head first down the grassy bank that Alexa was tackling with the grace and sure-footedness of a mountain goat.