Changeling (13 page)

His face was a freeze-frame of abject agony, jaw jutting forward, lips peeling back from his teeth in a kind of frantic sneer. To Trey it seemed to go on forever and he wondered why he had not passed out yet from the pain. To the others that watched, the transformation took less than a second.

And then nothing.

The chronic pain that he had tried to retreat from so utterly was gone as quickly as it had come. Trey opened his eyes and looked
down
at Lucien, who was standing looking up at him in an open-mouthed expression of awe.

‘Holy Mary, mother of God, will you look at the size of him?’ Tom muttered from behind his barricade.

The monster in front of Lucien stood at least seven foot tall. A deep-chested, wide-shouldered slab of muscle and bone that looked as if it weighed at least three hundred pounds. Grey-and-black fur covered it from head to toe, and a pale pink tongue lolled slightly from the mouth in the great wolf head. And teeth. There were so many teeth. The creature shook its head and stared at Lucien with yellow-and-orange eyes, the pupils of which were tiny pinpricks of black in the centre.

Trey looked down at his body and flinched at the sight. He lifted one massive hand and turned it from front to back, puzzled to see that it was more human than he had expected. Rough pads had formed on his palms and between the joints of his fingers, and he doubted he would be able to take up needlework as a werewolf, but he was surprised at the level of manual dexterity that he retained. He brought the hand nearer and examined the huge black claws protruding from the end of each digit. He raised the hand to touch his face.

Nothing about his head felt right. Large ears stuck out from the top of his head and his
muzzle –
it was strange having to put names to body parts that, moments before, he hadn’t even had – felt enormous. In a comedic gesture, he daintily reached up with his forefinger and thumb and placed them around one of the huge canine teeth, running them up and down to gauge the size and length.

‘There are full-length mirrors in the dance studio. You can take a good look at yourself shortly,’ Lucien said, looking up at him, a wide and genuine smile on his face.

Everything was too loud and too intense, as though the world had been hollowed out and the noises within it were bouncing around like bingo balls, jumbling and overlapping each other. But he also found that he could pick out the slightest noise and seem to isolate it from the rest of the cacophony, amplifying it and tuning out the surrounding hubbub. He could hear the fizzing of the tungsten filaments as they burned in the lightbulbs twenty feet above his head. He could hear Hopper and Tom breathing, open-mouthed, in their corners. Outside the court he could discern the scritching sound of Alexa’s cotton leggings rubbing against the seat fabric as she jiggled her leg up and down, anxiously watching the scene unfold.

Trey had never needed glasses, but looking at the world through werewolf eyes made everything seem so much sharper and more intense. It was too much. Too much information was registering, and his mind struggled to assimilate the sensory bombardment that it was being subjected to. He could pick out the individual pores on Lucien’s face, the weave of the fabric on his tracksuit top. He also noted with a curiously detached interest that Hopper
shimmered.
Trey could see through the human exterior that Hopper wore in this world, and underneath Trey spied the real form of the demon, with its greedy eyes and wide, cruel mouth. The demon was looking back at him, its leathery eyelids flickering momentarily over the onyx-black globes that were its eyes. It flicked a snake-like tongue from between its lips as it studied him. Anxiously, Trey turned his head in Tom’s direction and was relieved to see that Tom looked just like Tom.

But it was the smells that were the hardest thing to try to comprehend. They were everywhere and of everything and, like the sounds, they scrambled and clamoured over each other, assaulting him from all directions. They were not just smells; they were intermingling colours and hues that stimulated a hitherto unused part of his brain to interpret them and provide feedback on their meaning. The purple of Lucien’s aftershave was mixed with a leafy green aroma of fresh sweat, which was not unpleasant. Hopper stank of blackish-green dung that Trey had not the slightest recollection of detecting when they were first introduced. His own smell was quite different to how he had expected it to be; it was oaky and muddy like the smell that hits you when you newly open a bag of garden compost. And these smells were layered over the rubber-and-sweat colour-wash of the squash court itself, which Trey pictured as a light-brown haze.

‘I can only imagine how you must be feeling at the moment, Trey,’ Lucien said in a quiet voice, breaking through Trey’s thoughts. ‘It will simply be too much for you to take in all at once, but you must try to go along with it for a while longer.’ He took a step towards him and looked up with a crooked smile. ‘Now comes the dangerous part, Trey. Dangerous for me, that is, not you, because I will not hurt you in any way that will cause you any lasting damage. But you – well, everything is new to you. You must discover your power and speed, and how you can utilize them to your advantage. To do all this, we must fight. Try to maintain control. And do please try not to kill me, Mr Laporte.’

He stepped forward, jamming the cattle prod into Trey’s stomach.

The pain was dialled right down. The high-voltage shock passed through him, and, yes, it still hurt like hell, but it was not in the same league as the torture the device had inflicted on him only moments before. It was like comparing an almighty kick in the head to being doused in petrol and set on fire.

As the charge hit him Trey heard his new voice for the first time. It was a deep and guttural roar that escaped from deep inside him. In his mind he had shouted for Lucien to stop this madness, but these words were not the sounds picked up by his ears – instead he heard that lion-like bellow that echoed loudly around the walls.

‘Are you just going to stand there and let me hit you with this again and again?’ Lucien said. ‘Or are you going to try to do something about it?’

Snarls and growls replaced the pleas that he tried to make, his inability to speak adding to the frustration and anger that Trey was experiencing.

‘Perhaps you like it,’ Lucien continued. ‘Is that it, Trey? Is that why you stand there like some docile cow and allow me to hurt you like this?’ Lucien sneered up at him, his eyes hard pools of fire in his contorted face. ‘Fine. If that’s what you want.’ He feinted to his left, and then, shifting his weight quickly on to his right foot, he leaped towards Trey, aiming the tip of the cattle prod straight at his face.

Trey rocked back and instinctively threw up his right hand and grabbed the fibreglass rod halfway down its length. Snarling, he brought his left hand round towards Lucien’s head; his fingers flexed, black-dagger claws scything the air.

But Lucien simply wasn’t there. Trey swiped thin air, and his right fist that had been holding the cattle prod closed upon nothing. The searing pain in his right buttock announced exactly where the vampire had gone and he let out another roar of agony, rounding to face Lucien again.

Lucien tut-tutted and shook his head his head in disappointment. ‘Imagine,’ he said, ‘if I still had teeth and talons, you’d be lying dead in a pool of your own blood right now.’

A new emotion stirred within Trey now. He felt the anger rising up inside him and he welcomed it, relishing the way that his new body responded to the adrenalin that coursed through him, feeding his already highly tuned senses. His muscles were bunched and tight as he eyed the vampire, looking for an opportunity to attack.

Trey lunged towards him, his lips pulled back to reveal rows of teeth sharp enough to shear through a man’s arm. He hooked the thin air where Lucien had been standing a fraction of a second before and howled as he felt the pain once more course through him. This time however, ignoring the pain, he pushed back against his front foot, and shoulder-charged the area behind him that he guessed Lucien to be in.

The vampire smacked into the far wall with a satisfying thump and Trey was upon him. He launched himself through the air, aiming to land with both feet on his prone opponent. Instead, only the waxed wooden floor connected with his bare soles as, once again, Lucien misted.

There was something different this time though. Trey noticed that the vampire appeared to flicker momentarily as he disappeared. From the corner of his eye, Trey caught a glimpse of that little flicker again, about six feet to his left, an eye-blink before Lucien reappeared in that very spot.

He’s getting tired, Trey thought. Either he can’t mist for extended periods, or that crash into the wall has taken a lot out of him.

‘Better,’ Lucien said. ‘But you are still really only moving at half speed and you are too fixated on the pain. You need to learn to ignore the pain and concentrate on stopping the cause of it.’ He flipped his wrist against the leather strap, the cattle prod’s handle jumping into his grasp. ‘Ready?’ he said.

Trey didn’t give him a chance to come at him again. He ran at the vampire, closing the gap between them in an instant, and swung his arm round in a wide arc, knowing that he would not connect, but being careful to maintain his balance as he waited for the right moment. He watched as Lucien misted again and was relieved to see that little flicker again as he disappeared. This time Trey pivoted on his heel, watching for the tell-tale glimmer that would reveal where the vampire would appear next. He saw it no more than two feet away from him and thrust out his clawed hand just as Lucien rematerialized. He seized the vampire by the throat, catching hold of the cattle prod with his other hand. Pulling Lucien up off the floor towards him, he opened those huge jaws, a blast of hot breath hitting the vampire. Trey bellowed at Lucien and increased the pressure of his grip around his neck. A feeling of elation ran through him at the realization of his own power – more power than he had ever felt before in his life. The vampire’s face began turning from red to purple and tiny blood vessels in his eyes popped, spilling their crimson cargo into their milky-white surroundings, but he made no attempt to break free from the life-threatening grip.

Tom and Hopper leaped up, but Lucien, catching sight of them out of the corner of his eye, raised his free hand to stop them.

‘
Don’t, Trey, please!
’ Alexa’s voice cut through the curtains of rage in Trey’s mind. He could feel her anxiety as she witnessed her father hanging helplessly in his grasp and remembered how Lucien had cautioned him against losing control.

He looked at Lucien’s swollen face and relaxed the grip on his neck, the rage inside him slowly dissipating. He lowered Lucien to the ground and stepped back, panting, his tongue hanging from his mouth as he sucked in cool air.

‘
Thank you
,’ Alexa whispered in his head.

Lucien tenderly stroked his throat, looking up at Trey with a wide and admiring smile. Tom had moved up to stand behind his boss. Trey was surprised to see the vampire’s reaction, and was suddenly filled with a great feeling of shame at the way that he’d allowed himself to lose control to the anger he had felt. He hung his head, taking in his huge and powerful body as he did so.

‘Well, Mr Laporte,’ Lucien said, ‘you really are quite something, aren’t you?’ He offered his hand like a boxer at the end of a contest. ‘You might want to transform back now, Trey. I think it’s a safe bet to say that our training session is over for today.’

‘Jeez, I thought you were going to eat him!’ Tom said, shaking his head and then laughing. ‘I didn’t know whether to shoot this thing or run out and smash you over the head with it.’

Trey closed his eyes and concentrated. There was a
sucking
feeling, as if every part of him was collapsing into a central point within his abdomen – like being taken apart and put back together again. He tipped his head back and gasped, his eyes screwed shut against the pain and discomfort, which was intense, but mercifully short. He opened his eyes again and took in the lights high up overhead on the ceiling, screwing up his eyes slightly and squinting as if trying to bring them into focus. Every part of him ached. It was a deep, disturbing feeling that seemed to emanate from the very marrow of his bones, making him shake all over. His throat was dry and he badly needed a drink. And he smelled. The odour was something akin to wet dog, and it filled the air around him.

He lowered his head and looked at Lucien, who proferred his hand again. Trey shook it and nodded towards the purple welt around the vampire’s neck.

‘Sorry if I—’

‘Please, Trey, you don’t need to apologize.’ Lucien cut him off. ‘Besides, compared to someone repeatedly electrocuting you with a few thousand volts, I think that this is small fry. How do you feel?’

‘Now? Awful. Like a train wreck.’ He puffed out his cheeks and considered how to go on. ‘But when I was . . . that thing, I felt . . . exhilarated. Really alive, more alive than I have ever felt before. And the
power
, Lucien, it was incredible. When can we do it again?’

Lucien looked up at him, a smile playing at the sides of his mouth. ‘I think that we’ll be able to put you through your paces with some other types of opponent over the next few days. There’s a Nargwan demon in my employ called Luther. He’s already agreed to come along and help you out, so we can schedule something for tomorrow, if you like?’

‘No more cattle prods though,’ Trey said, looking down at the weapon hanging from Lucien’s wrist.

‘Of course not. This was just a means to an end. I thought you might need some none-too-gentle persuasion to get you to morph for the first time.’ He reached out and placed a hand on Trey’s shoulder. ‘I meant it, you know – you really are quite something. Of course, I still think that in my prime I would have been too much for you: I was
really
fast back then.’ Lucien smiled at him and then gave a small embarrassed cough. ‘You, er . . . you might want to get some clothes on.’