Changeling Dark Moon Read online

  Tom burst in through the door at the back of the range, staring in horror as the seven-foot werewolf turned round to look at him.

  ‘Change back, Trey. Quickly!’ Tom said, looking through the door he had just come through.

  Trey morphed back again just as David Rampton appeared.

  The club secretary looked aghast at the sight of the boy standing naked in the firing range, surrounded by destroyed equipment.

  ‘My God, what … what have you done?’ he said. His voice was high and strained, accompanying the dark crimson colour that had flooded his face.

  Trey looked at him and then back down at the wreckage around him. ‘Er, there was a problem with the equipment. It got jammed and I lost my temper with it. I’m … truly sorry, Mr Rampton. I’ll pay for the damage … sorry.’

  ‘You bloody hooligan. What on earth do you think you are playing at?’ He stopped for a moment, his eyes registering the incredible sight in front of him. ‘And why in God’s name aren’t you wearing any clothes?’

  Trey grabbed his jacket, which was hanging on the back of a chair in the bay and wrapped it round him as best he could to cover his nakedness. He could not think of a single excuse for why he would have been standing stark naked in the middle of a firing range.

  ‘I got hot,’ he said, looking away and shaking his head at the absurdity of his answer.

  Tom came to his rescue, his calm voice cutting though the silence in which David Rampton seethed and fumed and struggled for the words to express his fury. ‘He has some problems, David. He’s been through some bad times recently, which have caused him some … emotional difficulties. I thought that bringing him down here might help him to get his head right again, you know, the discipline of shooting and all. Please accept our apologies for all of this and, as Trey said, we’ll pay for everything.’

  David Rampton looked over at Tom as if noticing him for the first time. ‘Too bloody right you will. This equipment costs a small fortune. And you will also have to compensate the club for this bay having to be closed during the repairs. I will have to terminate both of your memberships with immediate effect. People like you, young man,’ he said, jabbing an angry finger in Trey’s direction, ‘are simply not welcome at a club like this.’ He turned to look at the Irishman again. ‘You can pick your things up in the week, Tom. Right now, I’d like you both to leave.’

  Tom started to say something, but stopped, nodding instead. ‘OK, David. We’ll go right away. Come on, Trey; let’s get out of here.’

  Trey walked towards him, stepping over the tangle of wires at his feet. He nodded his apologies again to the older man and allowed himself to be ushered out.

  ‘What happened?’ Tom said, as the car that had come to collect them pulled away.

  ‘Caliban happened,’ Trey replied. ‘One second I was looking down at the target at the end of the range, the next thing I know, he’s emerging out of some kind of portal, trying to get to me. I didn’t have any choice. I’m sorry.’

  Tom looked at him, shaking his head slowly. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about, Trey. I shouldn’t have left you on your own like that.’

  Trey looked out of the window at the high-rise buildings that made up London’s financial district. Lunchtime was coming to an end and the office workers were all making their way back to their desks, walking along the streets slowly and trying to soak up as much of the sunshine as they could. Normality filled their lives, and Trey was bitterly jealous of them all. He doubted that he would ever feel anything close to normal again.

  ‘I wanted to believe he might have given up,’ Trey said, shaking his head at his own foolishness. ‘We haven’t seen or heard of him in all this time. You said yourself that he’d dropped off the radar and couldn’t be found. So I hoped …’ The teenager tipped his head back and closed his eyes, picturing the scene at the shooting range again in his head. ‘This is how it’s always going to be, isn’t it? Me always looking over my shoulder, waiting for the next time he attacks.’

  Tom was silent for a while. He looked over at the young man sitting next to him, and when he spoke it was in a soft voice that Trey had to strain to hear. ‘Yes, Trey, I think that you’ll always have to be on your guard. Caliban doesn’t really do “giving up”. That is, until we can stop him for good. But you won’t be on your own.’ The Irishman reached over and gave the boy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. ‘You have Alexa and me to watch your back, and we’ll all find a way to get Lucien well again soon. If we get Lucien back, we will be able to stop Caliban.’ It was the Irishman’s turn to look out of the window, and Trey turned his head to study him.

  ‘I don’t think today’s attack was planned,’ the Irishman continued. ‘Caliban has been up to something, something that he is desperate to keep hidden from us. That’s why we haven’t been able to find him. But he’s been keeping an eye on us, and I think the opportunity to get at you today was too much for him to resist. From what you describe, it sounds like they rushed the creation of the portal – either that or he was too impatient to wait for it to form properly and he got stuck. You were lucky, although I don’t suppose you feel it right now.’

  Tom punched Trey gently on the arm. ‘You might want to put these clothes on.’ He indicated a small pile of clothing that he’d asked the driver to bring with him from the apartment. Turning in his seat, he stared out of his window, humming to himself and giving the boy a small degree of privacy.

  They sat in silence for the remainder of the journey, eventually pulling up next to the entrance of a huge building that was home to Charron Industrial Inc. as well as being the London home of Lucien and his family.

  Trey stood on the pavement looking up at the former warehouse. The building didn’t look much from the outside, but it contained a small army of demons, djinn and other nethercreatures dedicated to directing their powers – earthly and magical – to protecting this realm from the Netherworld. They were protecting him too. These creatures that he had come to regard as the closest thing he had to a family were also shielding him from Caliban. The vampire wanted the boy dead. Trey was a danger to him – the last hereditary werewolf. Caliban believed in an ancient legend that foretold that a full-blood werewolf would bring down a vampire ruler. As a growing force in the Netherworld, and building his powerbase, Caliban wasn’t planning on letting a werewolf get in his way.

  Tom coughed politely, bringing Trey’s thoughts round. ‘Are we going in or are you going to stand there all day gawping up at nothing?’

  Trey nodded and followed his friend through the door into the small foyer at the front of the building. They walked past an ordinary-looking security guard who Trey knew was actually a demon and stepped into the lift. The elevator started its ascent, and as it slowed Tom looked over at Trey, a strange, unreadable expression on his face.

  ‘Be nice,’ he said mysteriously. He gave Trey a stern look before turning towards the doors as they slid apart.

  ‘SURPRISE!’ A great cheer went up as they entered the apartment and party poppers went off, dumping paper twists on their heads. Trey’s nerves were so frazzled that for a split second he thought he was under attack again and almost morphed right there and then.

  ‘Happy birthday, Trey,’ Alexa said, and kissed him on the cheek.

  She was wearing a short black dress, and her long hair was piled up in a style that Trey thought looked too old for her. Nevertheless she looked stunning, and he blushed as she kissed him.

  ‘We know that you “don’t do birthdays”, Trey,’ Alexa said, holding out a bottle of beer for him, ‘but we decided that we would like to hold a little party for you. It was Tom’s idea really, but I’ll take full credit for setting it up.’

  There were some people from the office downstairs that Trey had made friends with, and Stephanie, Alexa’s best friend, was there. Mrs Magilton, the housekeeper, waved at him, a silver party hat at a jaunty angle on her head. Trey was pleasantly surprised to see Jens van der Zande in the crowd, the tall Dutchman towerin
g over everyone else in the room. He stepped forward and shook Trey warmly by the hand. Jens had been with them in Amsterdam when they had rescued Alexa from Caliban, and Trey was genuinely pleased to see him.

  ‘Many happy returns, Trey,’ the tall Dutchman said, almost managing to break his stern, chiselled features into a smile. ‘I didn’t know what to get, so I brought this for you.’ He handed Trey a rectangular package about a foot in length. ‘I thought that you might like it. A memento of your last visit with us.’

  ‘Thank you, Jens – you shouldn’t have,’ Trey said, unwrapping the paper.

  Inside was a glass case that held what looked to Trey like a grey mummified hand resting on bright purple silk.

  ‘What is it?’ Trey asked, staring down at it in horror.

  ‘Don’t you know?’ the Dutchman said, raising an eyebrow at Trey.

  ‘Oh, Jens, please tell me this isn’t—’

  ‘Yes, it’s his hand. Caliban’s. The one that you bit off.’

  Trey was about to say something that he was sure he would regret later on, when Tom rushed over and clamped his hand around his shoulders, steering him away from the Dutchman. ‘Come on, fella,’ he said. ‘Let’s be getting you and your delightful new gift into the kitchen. Alexa has organized the caterers, and I for one could do with a large, strong drink right now.’

  Trey allowed himself to be firmly pushed in the direction of the kitchen as the party started in earnest behind him.

  He threw the glass case with the hand in it on to one of the kitchen worktops, stepping back from it as if expecting the thing inside to suddenly come to life and crawl towards him.

  Tom picked up the macabre gift, peering in at the severed limb before glancing back over to Trey and shaking his head, a wry smile on his face.

  ‘Don’t ask,’ he said as Trey went to speak. ‘I have no idea what he was thinking either.’ The Irishman looked at the door before continuing, shaking his head sadly as he spoke. ‘I’m really sorry, boy. I’d planned to celebrate your birthday with you tonight, but I’m going to have to skip the party. This sudden appearance by Caliban is what we’ve been waiting for, and I need to get downstairs to do some work.’

  Trey nodded. ‘It’s OK. Do you want me to come down and help?’

  Tom grinned back at him. ‘You don’t get out of it that easy. Get yourself back in there and try to enjoy yourself. See if you can forget what happened today, for now at least. Alexa’s worked hard to set this all up. We’ll all meet up at six a.m. sharp to discuss anything that I might discover.’ He walked past Trey and out through the kitchen door, leaving the teenager alone.

  Trey looked at his reflection in the large sliding windows, wondering how he was supposed to go back into the other room and join a party after everything that had happened to him. He turned, glancing again at the hand in the case, and resolved to take it down to the incinerator first thing in the morning and have it disposed of. He only wished that the appendage’s former owner could be so easily destroyed.

  He took a deep breath, held it for a second, and then, plastering a cheesy grin on his face, he too left the kitchen, to join his friends in celebrating his birthday.

  Trey stood on the balcony outside the kitchen looking out over the Thames that snaked its way past Docklands on its way out to sea. The water was high now and a breeze blew up from the water, tousling his hair and carrying a briny, metallic smell that he liked.

  The party had slowly broken up as the few people that had attended drifted away throughout the evening. Guests had come up to him at various points to say goodnight and wish him many happy returns. He’d thanked them for coming and for their cards and presents before seeing them to the elevator. When they’d all left he’d come out here to get some fresh air. During the party he’d surprised himself by actually managing to heed Tom’s advice and somehow forget the earlier events of the day, but now that he was alone again they crashed back in on him and sent his mood spiralling downward. Alexa had indeed done a great job organizing everything and making sure that everyone he had befriended in the last few months had been invited.

  This is my family now, he thought. These are people that care about me. He considered how lucky he was to have the one thing that he had wanted for so many years. But why did it have to come at such a terrible price?

  He sighed again and looked down at the contents of the same bottle that he’d been handed upon entering the party. The beer was warm and flat, having been nursed in his hand all evening. He emptied the remains out over the balcony, turned and went back inside.

  Entering the apartment he was surprised to find Tom sitting in the kitchen, reading a paperback novel by some thriller writer – the book’s glossy cover had the silhouette of a gun sight’s crosshairs centred on the outline of a Nazi SS badge.

  ‘How’s it going?’ Trey asked.

  ‘Not great. I’m just having a quick break and then I’m back off downstairs. I’m convinced that this morning’s unexpected reappearance by you-know-who is the signal that he’s up to his old tricks again. I just need some small clue as to where he’s hiding. The office is quietest at this time of night so I can get more done.’

  Trey knew that there was another reason that Tom liked to work so late – there was a traitor somewhere in their midst. They knew that Caliban had an informant inside Lucien’s organization, someone who had put all of their lives at risk, and Tom had taken steps to make sure that either he, or someone that he trusted, was in the office at all times.

  This was one of the many offices that Lucien Charron had set up around the world, and it was manned by a vast array of people (and creatures) that specialized in various aspects of magecraft, demonlore, the occult and other things that Trey still had no idea about. It was like an incident room at times and he would sometimes visit and marvel at the level of activity that kept the place buzzing with excitement.

  Most of the staff were demons, but to Trey’s eyes they looked as human as he did. The human shell that they wore in this world to disguise their true appearance was impossible to differentiate from the real thing. Unless you too were a nethercreature. Then you could see through this mantle and spy the true being beneath. It was like looking through a shimmering gauze curtain at a figure that lay just behind. Trey could see demon-form only when he was fully morphed into his werewolf state. Nosy and frustrated at this, one day he had locked himself in a meeting room and, after transforming, had peeked out from behind the Venetian blinds to see who was who and what was what. He was surprised to discover how many of his guesses as to who was human and who was not were wrong, and equally taken aback at the huge range of nethercreatures on display.

  Some were humanoid in form but with grotesque faces, features ranging from multifaceted eyes, beaks, large razor-lined mouths and even one that appeared to have a number of snake-like tentacles that hung down the front of its dark green face, the demon’s eyes mounted at the tips of these appendages. Some were utterly alien in appearance. Trey was surprised to discover that Nathan, whose desk Trey had sat at having long chats about football, was actually a giant slug-like creature. His ‘head’ – nothing more than an extension of his black glistening body – was topped by two huge bulbous eyes that seemed capable of looking in any direction. Below these was a perfectly round mouth that opened and closed like some ghastly sphincter, showing a series of perfectly triangular teeth. As Trey watched from the meeting room, Nathan laughed at a comment made by someone across the room from him, coming back with a quick retort of his own. Trey could see the human mantle that the demon wore on the outside sitting in his chair with his legs crossed, but through this he could see the giant gastropod, its body covered in mucus and that hideous mouth opening and closing as it communicated. After the initial shock, Trey merely made a mental shoulder shrug and continued to spy out the other members of the office. What did it matter? Nathan was a slug-thing, Trey was a werewolf, Lucien a vampire.

  It occurred to him how quickly he had become used to these
things. It was just another layer of weird that he had been forced to accept as his old, normal life had been peeled away piece by piece to be replaced by this supernatural one that he was now a part of.

  He’d asked Alexa if the demons that worked for her father could see the huge seven-foot werewolf – the nethercreature he was able to transform into – when he spoke with them in his human form.

  ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ she had told him. ‘In the same way that you, as a human, are unable to see into the Netherworld, the nethercreatures when they look at you see only the human Trey. But when you morph, they can see both elements of your make-up – the werewolf and something of the human form within.’

  He nodded when he heard this, but didn’t ask her the question that was really bothering him – why did everybody seem so uncomfortable around him when he was in his werewolf state? Demons and humans alike had that same nervous look about them that he had seen on the faces of people when they had spoken to Lucien, suspicion mixed with a liberal dose of fear. As if the thing in front of them was apt to turn on them and attack without provocation, like a dog that suddenly takes it into its mind for no good reason to bite the child that it grew up with.

  Trey walked into the living area, debating whether or not he wanted to put the television on. He picked up the remote control and stared at it. A shrill giggle came from behind Alexa’s door, and he half turned to look in that direction. Stephanie was staying over tonight, and she and Alexa were no doubt deep in conversation about ‘girly’ things – whatever they might be. He felt troubled and restless but didn’t want to bother Alexa right now. Instead he turned, knocked softly once, and then entered Lucien’s room, closing the door quietly behind him. Leaving the lights off, he lowered himself into the chair by the side of the bed. The LEDs from the various machines that monitored Lucien day and night emitted an eerie glow into the murk, and he cast his eyes over the still figure on the mattress before reaching across to pat the hand that lay on top of the covers, the skin soft and cold to the touch.