Changeling (16 page)

The demons moved towards him from each side. They inched forward slowly, their eyes intent on him, waiting to make their move.

Trey wasn’t about to let them both rush him. He had already decided that Tattoos was the more dangerous of the two, but he really didn’t relish the idea of Harelip tearing towards him with that long, curved blade in its hand. He feinted towards Tattoos, and then spun round on Harelip as the demon came at him, raising the knife. Trey sank his teeth into the demon’s outstretched forearm, pulling the creature up off its feet and shaking it in the air until the knife clattered to the ground.

Tattoos sprang up on to Trey’s back and sank its own teeth into his shoulder, biting down hard with needle-sharp fangs. The demon reached around, trying to claw Trey’s face, but its hands were intercepted by Trey’s own and grasped in the werewolf’s powerful grip. Trey felt the demon’s teeth still clamped on to the flesh around his collarbone as Tattoos bit down harder to inflict the maximum amount of pain.

‘Do something, Shnirop!’ screamed Harelip, kicking out against Trey’s huge body, its clawed feet raking great gouges where they connected. ‘He’s going to bite my friggin’ arm off if you don’t do something!’

Trey heard the train approaching way before the demons did. His werewolf hearing was amazingly acute and he guessed that the train must be approaching at full speed as it raced along the tunnel towards them.

Just then, Tattoos shifted its weight on Trey’s back and raised its legs up at the knees on either side of Trey’s body. The demon planted its feet against the werewolf’s hips and released its bite on his shoulder.

Trey guessed what it was planning – the demon had raised itself higher in order to deliver a killer bite to Trey’s neck, to sink those merciless, razor-sharp teeth through his carotid artery and put an end to him.

The train arrived just in time, bursting free of the black tunnel and filling the empty platform with a tidal wave of sound. Trey knew what he had to do. He released his vicelike hold on Harelip’s arm just as the train was about to draw level with them and kicked the demon away from him. The creature flew straight into the path of the speeding train, and Trey saw it hit the windows in front of the horrified driver seconds before the train entered the tunnel at the other end of the station. He felt the other demon on his back and threw his entire weight against the tiled wall behind him, crushing Tattoos with his weight and knocking the breath out of the nether-creature. He spun on the pads of his right foot and raked a huge, rending tear across the demon’s throat, turning his own head to try to avoid the hot fountain of black gore that spewed on to him from the demon’s already dead body.

The piercing squeal of the train’s brakes against the rails as the driver executed his emergency stop knifed through Trey’s head. He quickly looked up and saw that the people in the final carriage of the train were staring back towards him in wide-eyed horror as they glimpsed what appeared to be a giant werewolf standing on the platform of a London Underground station.

Fortunately, by the time the train finally came to a halt, it was entirely inside the tunnel to his right and Trey was obscured from sight. He looked down at where the dead body of the demon lay and saw that it was starting to fade. He watched until it had disappeared completely.

I’ve got to get out of here, thought Trey, his mind racing now that the fight was over. I need to become human and get the hell out of here before this place is crawling with police.

He morphed back to his human form and stared down at his naked, bleeding body. Deep cuts to his legs and abdomen wept blood freely and the gash under his eye was also bleeding profusely. As soon as he had transformed, the pain of the cuts could be felt to their full effect – his human nerve endings shrieking at the damage done to them. He looked down at the clothing that had moments before housed the shimmering black body of the demon and noted that there was no blood on them. There was nothing to suggest what outrages had been perpetrated on the body that had inhabited those garments moments before. He reached forward and picked up the tracksuit jacket, pulling it on over his naked torso and grimacing as he fastened the zip, aware that seconds before it had been sodden with the demon gore. But it was perfectly dry now. The blood, like the demons, had disappeared. Besides, Trey couldn’t afford to be too picky right now. He pulled on the tracksuit bottoms, and even considered trying the shoes on, but quickly realized that they would not even come close to going over his feet.

On unsteady legs he walked over to where the Liberty bag had been thrown to the floor. He picked it up and, checking inside, was strangely relieved to see that the foul nether-creatures had not damaged the package that he had bought for Alexa.

He left the station without remembering climbing the same deserted steps that he had run down shortly before. He was panicked, and his heart thumped in his chest.

He’d just killed. He had just taken a life. No matter that they were not human and he was in mortal danger himself; he had just killed those things with his bare hands.

The same London streets greeted him: the same air, the same sickly street lighting, the same petrol-choked smell of the city assaulted his olfactory senses. But something had changed. Something that was more
him
than anything that was around him had changed forever, and he sensed that there was no way of ever going back to how things had been before.

He walked along, glancing down at the clothing that he had taken from the dead creature only moments before, and noticed how the bloodstains from his own wounds were now soaking through the material, appearing black in the orange light cast from the overhead street lamps. He touched the sticky fluid, knowing that while he was in no mortal danger – the cuts and gouges were deep, but not life-threatening – the continuous loss of blood could cause problems soon enough if he did not get some treatment. He looked around him and was surprised to find that he had stumbled along without thinking and had entered the park, so that he was now standing about twenty metres inside the perimeter fence.

The air smelled cleaner here, the grass releasing its night-time perfume into the air and masking the worst of the city’s stench. A large oak tree grew to his left, its ancient branches hanging out over him like the bony outstretched appendages of some great spider that had stopped and frozen, caught in the act seconds before it was about to reach down and grab him and sweep him up into some unseen hungry maw.

Trey looked up between the branches at the sky and the myriad stars that blinked their light at him from unimaginable distances, and he felt the overwhelming urge to morph into his wolf self again. Part of this desire was the knowledge that he would not feel a fraction of the pain that was gnawing at his human body now, but the greater part of him knew that he would feel
alive
out here in this great open space, running beneath the night’s canopy, his wolf senses taking in the smells and sights and sounds of everything around him. But over and above this strange compulsion was the instinctive knowledge that he must not give in to these urges, that he must control these feelings at this early stage of his powers, so he pushed the thoughts away, pushed them back down deep inside him.

His thoughts turned again to the two demons that had lured him into an ambush, and he remembered the look on their faces as he had killed them, trying to save his own life. He recalled the bitter, metallic taste of their blood in his mouth, and then shook his head in disgust as a rogue thought knifed its way into his consciousness.

It had tasted good
,
some alien voice seemed to whisper in his mind, and he fought against a wave of nausea that threatened to make him sick.

It hadn’t tasted good, he told himself. It had been revolting and terrible.

He was shaken from these thoughts by the sound of the carrier bag hitting the floor, having slipped out of his hand. He looked down at it and frowned slightly, as though seeing it for the first time. He bent down and picked it up again, noting the drip of blood that splashed against its surface as he did so.

He needed to get away from here, away from the area around the station and to safety.

Stumbling out of the park’s exit gate again, he tried to hail a taxi that was passing by. The driver slowed down and swung in towards him before quickly speeding up again and accelerating away upon noticing the bloody mess that was the boy’s clothing.

Alone, bleeding and scared, Trey did the only thing he could: he found a phone box and called Lucien, asking him to come and rescue him.

Tom had dressed Trey’s wounds as best he could in the back of the car on the journey home. He worked in the sparse light given out by the car’s cabin light, applying bandages around the boy’s body after doing his best to disinfect and seal the wounds with Steri-strips.

‘That should hold you together until we can get a doctor to look at you,’ he said, patting Trey on the arm and sitting next to him.

Lucien drove through London in silence. He’d not asked any questions on the way home, except to enquire if Trey was OK and to ask if Tom felt that they should take him to a hospital. Trey was unsure whether it was anger or worry that kept the tall vampire from asking what had happened to him, but once they had parked in the car park and Lucien came round to help Tom in getting him upstairs, the look of concern on his face and the way he spoke to Trey as they assisted him into the lift put the teenager’s mind at rest. Lucien had called ahead from the car, checking with Alexa if the doctor was on his way, and when the lift doors opened Trey saw a strange little man waiting alongside Alexa and assumed that he was the medical help that Lucien had alluded to.

Lucien and Tom supported him on either side, their arms linked through his in case he should fall. Trey leaned heavily into Lucien. His head was swimming and the room began to tilt alarmingly as he struggled to maintain his focus.

‘I’m sorry, Lucien,’ he managed to mumble. He thought that he might throw up on the deep cream carpet that covered the floor and closed his eyes momentarily to try regain some equilibrium.

Alexa hurried over to them as soon as the lift doors opened. Her eyes had a pink, puffy look, as though she had been crying and, despite his pain and discomfort, Trey thought she looked prettier than ever: vulnerable and delicate. He smiled up at her and nodded his head, trying to communicate to her that he was all right. He thought that he just might be falling in love with her.

A blackness that had been creeping around at the edges of his vision quickly rushed in and blanked out the world as Trey lost consciousness.

When he came to, Trey was in his bed, and Tom was asleep in a chair by his bedside. The Irishman was snoring quietly and Trey grinned at the sound. His new friend had a book in his lap, but from his prone position Trey couldn’t see the title. He tried to sit up to get a better look and his body lit up in a firework display of pain. It was impossible to pinpoint exactly which part of him hurt the most – stiletto blades of pain twisted within him from every angle. The little groan that escaped him was enough to wake Tom from his slumber.

‘I’m guessing you’ve worked out that lying down is the best bet right now,’ Tom said, that lopsided grimace of a smile contorting his face. ‘You’ll be more full of scars than me if you carry on fighting with Shadow demons on your own like that.’ He paused and nodded his head. ‘How are you, lad?’

‘To be honest, I’ve felt a whole lot better, Tom.’

The bedroom door opened and Alexa’s head appeared around the jamb. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked. ‘I heard voices and I thought I’d come and see if he was awake.’ She smiled sadly at Trey and waved at him with the tips of her fingers as she entered.

‘I’ll go and get you something to drink,’ Tom said, exiting and leaving the two of them alone.

As soon as he had gone Alexa turned to Trey, her face etched with concern. ‘I’m so sorry, Trey. This is my fault. If I hadn’t have left you in the middle of London like that, this would never have happened. I really am—’

‘Don’t be so stupid, Alexa,’ Trey cut through her. ‘If I hadn’t spoken to you like a total jerk, I wouldn’t have been on my own in London. Besides, those guys were waiting for an opportunity to get to me. They weren’t hanging around by chance – they ambushed me, and I fell for it, like an utter idiot.’ He held up his hand to stop her again. ‘To be honest, Alexa, I’m glad you weren’t around when it happened; it wasn’t a very pretty thing to witness.’ His voice had gone all small and thin, and he looked up at the ceiling, clamping his teeth together hard, trying to stop the tears that welled up in the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away with the back of his hand, hissing at the pain that this simple act caused him.

Turning his head towards her again, he asked, ‘Do you think you could help me get out of this bed?’

‘The doctor said that you were to rest.’ She paused, then added, ‘You’ve been
asleep
for two days, Trey.’

He held his breath for a second while he took this in. He’d wondered why they had felt it necessary for Tom to babysit him overnight, but the revelation that he had been unconscious for two days made him realize that perhaps they’d thought he was going to die, and decided to post a vigil by his bedside just in case.

‘My father and Tom have been taking it in turns to sit with you. Dad’s hardly been out of your room. In between sitting with you, we have been looking into what happened. The information that we’ve managed to gain from our people inside Caliban’s organization would suggest that you’re right: the demons were sent specifically to try to take you out, Trey.’ She chewed her bottom lip and flicked her eyes down to the bandages around his chest and abdomen. ‘We know that they were Shadow demons. But we haven’t been able to track either of them down yet, but when my father does …’

‘You won’t find them, Alexa. They’re dead … I killed them.’ Trey looked away from her, turning his head so that she wouldn’t see his face.

Alexa reached out and took hold of his hand in both of hers. ‘I’m so sorry, Trey. It must have been horrible. I can’t imagine how you must feel.’