Changeling (20 page)

‘That looks like some awesome hardware, Tom.’

The Irishman looked up, his face serious as he indicated the weapons arranged in front of him. ‘Don’t you get any ideas about touching any of this kit now, Trey. I’m scared silly handling some of this stuff, and I know what I’m doing. The last thing any of us need right now is you shooting your foot off or something.’

He started to strip the small machine-gun, laying the pieces methodically on a square of white material that he had placed to one side.

‘What’s that? An Uzi?’ Trey asked.

‘No,’ Tom said, without looking up, concentrating on his task. ‘Heckler & Koch MP5K sub-machine gun. Savage tool. Great stopping power.’

‘What are they?’ Trey said, pointing with his foot at a line of six cylindrical canisters.

‘Concussion grenades. Just about the best little beasties you can use in enclosed spaces that you want cleared of anything alive before you enter. My experience in dealing with nether-creatures in the past has led me to believe that “when in doubt, blow the thing to oblivion” is a good mantra to stay alive by.

‘This,’ he said, holding up an ugly-looking weapon, ‘is a Remington 870 Modular Combat shotgun – not my weapon of choice, but it would seem that they had trouble getting a Mossberg in time. The rest of it is just bits and bobs that might or might not come in handy.’ He looked up at the boy and noted the confused look on his face. ‘None of this stuff is particularly useful for
killing
nether-creatures like vampires. But even a vampire goes over when hit full on with a couple of rounds from this beast,’ he said, patting the stock of the weapon. ‘Then it’s a matter of dispatching them in the most appropriate manner.’ He nodded towards the bag, and Trey noticed the pile of sharpened wooden stakes in the bottom.

‘Do they work?’ he asked.

‘Supposed to. If you survive long enough to get a chance to use one. And you manage to hit the heart. Other than that it’s beheading, fire, explosives or entombment. The options aren’t great.’

‘What about a crossbow? Like you see in the movies?’

Tom smiled at him. ‘Have you ever tried firing one of those things?’ he said, with a shake of his head. ‘No. I think the hand method is about the only way to be certain.’

Trey paused, uncertain whether or not to ask the question that had been nagging at him since he had first seen the note left for Lucien. ‘You don’t think Caliban has any intention of returning Alexa, do you? Regardless of what Lucien does or doesn’t do.’

Tom looked up at him and inhaled sharply through his nose. He held the breath for a couple of seconds before letting it out again. ‘No. I think there’s more chance of Lucien getting an audience with the Pope. Caliban is using Alexa to lure Lucien in so that he can eliminate him. He knows that Lucien can’t stand by and let him use the Ring of Amon, so he’ll try to remove him from the equation. It’s a good tactic, and if it works he’ll be free to turn this world into hell.’

‘What’s Lucien doing with Jens?’

‘He’s recceing the site where Caliban is holding Alexa and then he’ll be back with a report on how we should approach. Jens could undoubtedly have told us everything that we would have needed to know, but Lucien will want to be doing something – anything – to keep his mind off what might happen to Alexa now that his brother has got hold of her.’

‘Tom, how
did
Caliban manage to get to Alexa? If he’s as intent on eliminating Lucien as you say he is, I’d have thought that the building in London would have been more secure.’

‘More secure? That place is bullet- and bomb-proof, has security systems coming out of its arse and a team of people that weave enough witchcraft in and out of it to make your head go pop.’ He stopped and put the magazine he had been loading with ammunition down. ‘It’s the question that Lucien and I have been asking ourselves since she was taken.’

‘Could it have been Hopper?’ Trey asked.

‘No, he’d already gone by then. Although that treacherous, vile vermin had a big hand in the attack on you. He’s unquestionably working for Caliban now, but my guess is that he was charged with spying on you and feeding back any information that he could. Besides, he’s a cowardly worm and wouldn’t have had the guts for something like this. No,’ he continued, ‘I think that as much as it pains me to admit it, Alexa was taken by someone inside our own organization. There’s a rat in the camp, Trey, and as soon as this nonsense is over with I’m going to find out who it is and permanently separate them from their oxygen supply.’

The stomach-gripping reality of the whole situation snapped into clearer focus for Trey. He turned from Tom and looked through the window at the river below, playing out each scenario in his head. However many times he rewound and edited the scenes in his mind’s eye, they never finished with a happy ending.

‘So Lucien is going to try to rescue Alexa alone?’ Trey asked.

‘Not quite alone – he’ll have me and Messrs Heckler and Koch with him,’ Tom replied, patting the sub-machine gun that he had reassembled.

‘And me. I’m coming too,’ Trey said.

‘Ah, no. We brought you because it was safer to have you with us right now than to have you on your own – what with there being a security problem back in London. But there is not a snowball in hell’s chance of you coming with Lucien and me up against Caliban. Uh-uh.’ Tom shook his head and started to get up.

‘I don’t really have any choice, Tom. If Caliban succeeds in destroying you all, I’m as good as dead. At least if I come with you, I’ll have a fighting chance and might be of some use.’ Trey turned from the window and fixed Tom with a hard look. ‘You’ve seen how strong and quick I am –
surely
Lucien would rather have me there helping than sitting here waiting for Caliban’s goons to come and pick me off. Besides, you’ve just told me that all of these guns and stuff aren’t going to be of any real use against Caliban. You need nether-creatures to fight him and his kind.’

Tom packed the arms back into the canvas bag and pulled the zip shut. He got up and looked at Trey, a worried frown cresting his features.

‘That’s not my call to make, Trey,’ he said. ‘What you say makes perfect sense, and if it were up to me I think I’d like you around to help. But you’re only a young lad and Lucien feels very protective towards you. I can’t see him allowing you to get involved with all this. The dangers are too great.’

Just then a piercing klaxon went off. The deafening noise came from the alarm bell above the door and it filled the confines of the room, making both of them hunch their shoulders and look about in dread.

‘It’s the fire alarm,’ Trey shouted over the din, moving towards the door.

‘Wait!’ Tom ordered and held up a warning hand to the teenager. He moved to the windows and looked out at the street below. Stepping into the centre of the room again, he unzipped the bag and removed a handgun, a Glock 17. Throwing the bag over his shoulder, he gestured for Trey to step away from the door.

Tom pulled the door open an inch or two, his right hand holding the gun out of sight by his side, and peered out as other guests hurried along the corridor towards the emergency exits. He noted the concern on the faces of the people as they moved along the passageway, and how they were moving quickly but in an orderly way. Some were supporting older relatives who were less able-bodied than themselves.

A piercing scream from a woman towards the rear of the group filled the confined space of the hotel corridor, and that noise changed the make-up of the scene in the time it took to issue it from her mouth. Guests glanced behind them, then rushed forward, pushing at the people in front of them to get away from whatever it was that they had seen.

Tom moved slightly to his right, still keeping the partially closed door between him and the unfolding drama outside. He craned his neck to get a look at what it was that the woman had seen to make her let out that horrible shriek, and at the rear of the group just behind the screaming woman he spied the source of the panic.

The concierge, whom only a short while ago they had watched helping the American couple downstairs, was loping up the corridor towards the fleeing guests, a ten-inch kitchen knife held up in his fist. One look at the man’s face told Tom that he was intent on using the savage-looking blade, and he quickly raised the gun that he had been holding at his side, glancing momentarily over his shoulder to check that Trey was still safely away from the door, unable to see the horror that was unfolding.

The concierge grabbed the woman by the hair and her scream reverberated around the walls of the corridor. Tom aimed the gun, drawing a bead on the man’s chest, and was about to fire when another guest ran into his line of sight and pandemonium broke out in the small corridor. People were running in every direction: a stampede of human panic that obscured Tom’s view of the concierge and his hapless victim.

Everyone was frantically making their way to the emergency exit now, desperate to find another route to freedom that wasn’t blocked by the murderous member of staff. They tore and pulled at each other, frantic to get out at any cost.

As the crowd surged ahead of him, Tom saw the concierge stand up and smooth his hair back across his head. His eyes were black glass marbles – like the dead eyes of a porcelain doll – and his mouth broke into a sick grin as he ran past the door and into the back of the gaggle of screaming people clambering for the exit. It was impossible for Tom to get a shot off without risking killing one of the people himself. He quickly turned his head away from the scene and beckoned Trey towards him, a look of utter revulsion on his face.

‘I think Caliban’s experiment has begun. He’s used the Ring of Amon on some of the people here at the hotel. He must have discovered we were staying here. There’s nothing we can do. They’ve gone mad. We have to leave. Now.’

Trey nodded and moved to the man’s side. Tom opened the door, wide enough to put his head outside and, after a quick glance, pulled it fully open and looked out into the corridor.

The crowd at the packed exit was still clawing at the door, trying to escape. A body – that of an elderly man – lay on the floor, a rapidly widening pillow of blood spreading out on to the carpet beneath his head. Two men were bravely trying to wrestle the knife out of the maniac’s hands.

Tom stepped out and strode purposefully towards the three men. He pistol-whipped the concierge around the temple, the metal handgun making a dull
thunk
as it connected with the man’s skull. Before the man had even hit the floor, Tom had turned away and moved back in Trey’s direction. Moving swiftly past him, he grabbed the stunned boy by the shoulder and propelled him up the corridor, in the opposite direction to the emergency-exit door, the shouts and screams of the hotel guests ringing in their ears as they left the scene.

Trey’s stomach lurched at the sight of a dead woman lying on the floor no more than twelve feet from their own room door. The acid taste of vomit filled his mouth and he had to struggle not to retch. Tom grabbed him by the arm and pulled him behind him, stepping over the prone corpse.

‘That woman—’ Trey said.

‘Dead. Nothing we can do for her, Trey. You can say a prayer for her later if that’s what floats your boat, but right now we have to get out of here.’

Tom dragged the boy to the elevators, stabbing repeatedly at the button to call the lift.

‘Tom, we can’t take the elevators. The fire alarm’s ringing.’

‘This is not a fire, Trey, not yet anyway. And this lift is the quickest and safest way down right now.’ He pressed the button, readying the gun as the lift doors opened.

As they reached the lobby, the doors slid apart to reveal another scene of mayhem. People with panic-stricken eyes were pushing for the front door as others grabbed at them, peeling them away in an attempt to make their own escape. An older woman had fallen down the staircase, and a young man – possibly her son – was holding her grey-haired head in his lap, pleading for someone to help. Tom took one look at the scene, weighed up his options and, grabbing Trey by the arm, headed off to his left towards a sign pointing to the swimming pool and gymnasium. He kicked open the door in front of him and headed off down the corridor. The strong disinfectant tang of the pool’s chlorine carried on the air from somewhere up ahead.

The fear that Trey had been feeling began to build again, his head swimming with the sights and sounds that assaulted him from every direction.

‘Tom, where are we going?’

‘Just keep up,’ Tom insisted.

‘But—’

Trey stopped as a strangled scream cut into the air behind him. He turned to see the receptionist, who had welcomed them with kind smiles only an hour before, flying at him aiming a metal-and-wood bar stool at his head, his glistening black eyes set into a mask of rage.

Tom turned in time to see the arc of the chair and started to reach for his gun, knowing that he would be too late to stop the wooden seat from crushing the boy’s skull.

He never even got a chance to click off the weapon’s safety catch.

One moment the chair was hurtling towards Trey’s head. The next it thudded into the great barrel chest of the were-monster that towered over his assailant. Trey swatted the chair aside and roared at the man, flecks of spittle landing on the receptionist’s glasses as he stared into Trey’s huge mouth. Trey pushed the man backwards in a defensive gesture – to Tom it appeared no more than a swift shove – and the receptionist smashed into the corridor wall, pieces of plasterboard raining down on to his unconscious body.

The same feeling of power that he had experienced during his fight with Lucien coursed through every part of him again. Except this time he had even more control. A tiny part of him urged him to attack the man now that he was down – to rend and tear with tooth and claw. But he dialled out these thoughts as quickly as they appeared, recognizing them as some animalistic throwback to the uncontrolled Wolfan state. Instead he leaned forward, checking that the man was still breathing regularly and hoping that he was not too badly hurt.

‘He’ll be OK,’ Tom said from behind him, and Trey turned to face the Irishman, who gestured over his shoulder and set off back down the corridor at a run.