The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  Tearing myself away from the masochistic horror of listening to Chevalier’s voice, I walked on. More voices came. With each step I took, they seemed to reach back further into the past, dredging up old memories.

  The voices from Kinloch Kirk had been hard to resist, but these next ones were like a living torture. I was not proud of many things I had done in the past, but nor had I ever tried to deny I had done them. I was a vampire, and that came with baggage. But

  to hear those voices, forcing me to relive my darkest times… It was monstrous.

  Victims from six centuries of blood drinking took their turn to speak. Some had come to me willingly, but those could be the hardest to hear as I realized their willingness often masked something else, something I had not cared about at the time, blinded by my lust for blood.

  Others had fought, and to hear them fight again, with no hope of success, cut me to the quick. Some cursed me, some screamed, some begged to be spared, and I wished I could help them. The worst were those who forgave me.

  “It wasn’t your fault, Sinjin.”

  “You had no choice, Sinjin.”

  “We don’t blame you, Sinjin.”

  “You had to kill us.”

  “It was us or you.”

  “What a pity it had to be us.”

  “My mother cried when I died.”

  On I plodded, heavy footed, the voices of my past massing around me, assailing me, washing over me in an unending tide. At first I wondered how this was supposed to urge me to leave the path, but I quickly realized all these voices were tempting me to self-destruction. Why did I deserve to live when so many had died by my hands? I’d had centuries of life to become a better man, while they had enjoyed a few brief decades. Did I not owe it to them to die now?

  Perhaps I did.

  “Sinjin?”

  “Son, is that you?” my mother asked.

  I had been praying these voices would not come. The voices of my parents remained clear and familiar even though I had not heard them in so, so long.

  “Son, what have you done?”

  “What have you made of your life?”

  “You have hurt so many people.”

  “Can you imagine how that makes us feel?”

  “I am sorry!” I wailed into the darkness, feeling half the man I was when I first started this terrible walk which was… How long had I walked this dreadful road?

  “Then prove it.”

  “Let go, now.”

  It would be so easy. There was a void to my right that seemed to beckon me, drawing me into the comforting darkness. There was no suffering there, no torment, no more voices.

  “Join us, Sinjin. It’s what you deserve.”

  It was. But I could not let down Bryn.

  “Sinjin?”

  “ Bête Noir ?” The words fell from my cracked lips.

  “Sinjin!”

  The other voices vanished and the only one left was Bryn, in deep distress.

  “It’s happening now, Sinjin. The baby is coming. I need you.”

  The voice was coming from up ahead and I ran towards it without thinking.

  “Something’s wrong, Sinjin. Something is wrong with the baby.

  It’s hurting me! I need you.”

  Here! Bryn’s voice was coming from this void here.

  “Please! Come to me! I can’t bear the pain! Only you can help me!”

  “Bryn!” I yelled back at her, helplessly.

  “Why aren’t you coming? Don’t you love me?”

  “Of course I love you!”

  “Then help me! It’s coming, Sinjin. It’s not right. It’s trying to kill me! Sinjin!”

  My foot raised to take the next step into the blackness. My brain knew that none of this was real, but my heart was dragging me on.

  “Sinjin!” Her voice was a shriek.

  But no.

  I put my foot back on the path and turned my back on the screams of my beloved. The Bryn I wanted to help was not in there; she

  was up ahead. The only way to help her was to continue forward.

  The only way to save my Bryn was to walk away from this one, even as her screams tore at me.

  It would not be easy, but I would be stone. I was good at that.

  If this walk through the dark had taught me anything, it was that I was good at this; walking away. I had been a monster, and perhaps I still was, a monster who had learnt to look like a man, walk like a man, and, to an extent, act like a man.

  I would not be subject to my own nightmares; I was the nightmare.

  I did not get scared; I was the reason that others were scared. I was not proud of it, but I was who I was; I was Sinjin Sinclair, Master Vampire, and no trial could strip me of that.

  I had been shown my own face, my own past, my own soul, and I accepted it all, only to come out the other side with my head still held high.

  The screams of the false Bryn were overwhelmed by more voices, all of them, all those I had heard so far massing into one deafening clamor, but I walked on through it all. If you have to face yourself, then the first thing you have to do is be yourself. Perhaps Sinjin Sinclair had changed over the years, but I was still Sinjin Sinclair, and while I might not always like who he was, there was no one I would rather be.

  “Interesting…”

  The clamor ceased on the instant and that single word rumbled out of the darkness.

  “You are the first of any to successfully pass the third trial by using your own arrogance to accept your true self. Very interesting.”

  I looked up into the golden eyes of Gaia.

  FIFTEEN

  Bryn

  I woke up.

  Every day I woke up the same way, hoping I might suddenly feel my child again. But I never could. That might not have changed, but everything else had. Since Sinjin had left Kinloch Kirk for Africa, everything had changed, and I wondered what he might think when he returned. If he returned.

  He’d not been gone that long really, not when you’ve considered the enormity of what he was doing. But if something had happened to him, it wasn’t as if I was going to get a call from Gaia saying, ‘ Oh, by the way, your boyfriend died while trying to reach me ’.

  I would simply never know. How long would I wait before accepting that I would never see him again? And Damek and Dayna too, for that matter. How long did a quest like this even take? Six months? A year? Longer?

  Presumably Mathilda hadn’t thought it would be that long when she suggested it, because my baby would put in an appearance before then, rendering the whole operation pointless. Presumably.

  I still felt my baby moving inside me, which gave me some comfort. I now got regular check-ups with the doctor in town, to whom I could confide nothing, but who reassured me of my child’s continuing health. But would the birth go ahead without problems?

  Surely Sinjin would be back by then?

  But what sort of world would he be coming home to? What sort of world would my baby be born into?

  I drew the curtains and looked out my window onto the home I’d come to love in my time here, but which of late had ceased to feel like home. What was worse, I felt as if I was a part of the problem. Maybe if I’d spoken up at the council meeting… But I’d done what had seemed right at the time—right for my baby. And maybe it was love for me and my unborn child that pressed Jolie into making the decision she had.

  Beyond one of the stands of pines that littered the settlement, I could see a troop of Jolie’s guards plodding back home after their night shift, manning the fences that now surrounded the Daywalker encampment. That village, which we had built for them in the hope it would become a new and happy home, had instead become an internment camp for our refugees. They were well looked after, kept comfortable and well-fed, and they continued to receive vampire blood, given willingly, to allow them to live normal lives. They were, I kept telling myself, so much better off than they had been under Luce. But maybe that was just something I was telling myself.

  Di
d any of them wish they hadn’t come here? Would any of them have gone back to Luce if they’d had the option?

  “If they want to go, then we should let them,” Jolie had said.

  But Rand pulled a face. “I agree in principal, Jolie. And, truly, I wish we could let them go if they wanted to… I don’t want anyone here who doesn’t want to be here, none of us do. But…”

  “But?”

  He sighed. “They’ve been here too long. They know too much about us. Our strengths and weaknesses. You don’t let spies go back home with all the intel they’ve gathered.”

  “They’re not spies!” insisted Jolie, angrily. “Or at least… they weren’t when they came here. They came here freely, and if any of them do want to go home now, then it’s because we have driven them to it by treating them like this! So yes, maybe they are spies now, and their village is a prison as well as an internment camp.” This course of action was tearing her apart and I could see she was close to breaking.

  Rand put a comforting hand around his wife’s waist. “I know it goes against the grain for you. But we don’t have any choice. The safety of our people has to come first.”

  “We don’t know that any of them would choose to leave,” I pointed out. “It’s not as if we’ve asked. Chances are they’d rather stay.”

  Jolie didn’t look up at me as she spoke. “Really, Bryn? Why is that? Because of the welcome we’ve shown them?”

  I knew there had been some who had thought Jolie too soft to be Queen. They’d have thought her incapable of making the hard decisions. Those people were idiots. What made Jolie the great Queen she was, was her ability to make those decisions even while she cared about the consequences.

  Would any of the Daywalkers have left if given the choice? We didn’t find out, because we couldn’t afford to make the offer. I wouldn’t have blamed them. Life under Luce was tough, but was is it any better than life here?

  I knew Jolie visited the camp almost every day. It was important to her that she continue to look the Daywalkers in the face, to see the consequences of her decision. She was torturing herself, but she was also refusing to let herself forget what she’d done.

  She and Adam spoke most days; she listened to his concerns and did everything she could to make life in the camp comfortable for its inhabitants. They had everything they could ask for—

  everything except freedom.

  I hadn’t visited yet. I told myself I was concerned for my baby, but maybe it was closer to the truth to say I just didn’t want to look the Daywalkers in the face after I’d failed to speak up for them. Maybe I was just that much of a coward. Sinjin would be ashamed of me. I was ashamed of myself.

  But, however guilty Jolie and I (and probably some of the others) were feeling, there was no arguing with results. In a way, it was depressing, but since the internment, there had been no more

  ‘incidents’—no more fires, no more attacks, no more mysterious figures in the night. So maybe we’d done the right thing; maybe there was an agent of Luce among the Daywalkers. But even if there was, had we acted correctly by imprisoning them all due to the actions of one?

  When it began to seem as if the unexplained incidents had stopped, I started to hope that maybe what had happened to my baby might be reversed, but that didn’t come to pass. Then I remembered the conversation in the council room which had first brought the Daywalkers under suspicion. What was it Odran had said? ‘ Surely sich magic cannae be accomplished from a distance?’ . And Mathilda had replied that ‘ it would be easier if they were nearby .’

  The Daywalkers had remained nearby, but we’d denied them the ability to follow me if I were to put some distance between us.

  It had to be worth a try.

  “Where are you going?” Dureau hurried towards me as I loaded up my car.

  “I’m going for a drive.”

  “You’re taking a lot of bags.”

  I looked at the two bags I had put in the back seat of the car.

  “Hardly a lot.”

  Dureau shrugged. “A lot for you, Bryn. You travel light.”

  He knew me pretty well. “I’m spending a night away. Maybe two.”

  Dureau frowned. “Why?”

  “Because I want to.” If I told him my plans, he’d jump at the chance to find some evidence of the Daywalker’s guilt, and I wouldn’t have something that was supposed to be about my baby turned into a witch hunt. “This place is starting to do my head in.”

  “I can understand that,” nodded Dureau.

  If the ‘incidents’ that had briefly plagued the Kinloch Kirk settlement had ceased, then the overall atmosphere remained oppressive. That ‘something in the air,’ the ‘bad feeling’ that Klassje and I had discussed had remained. It wasn’t so odd when you considered that our happy, Underworld utopia had acquired a jail, but it still worried me and again made me wonder what Sinjin might think upon his return.

  “Hang on for fifteen minutes so I can grab some things, and I’ll come with you,” said Dureau.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I held up my hands. “You could at least wait for an invite.”

  “Were you going to invite me?”

  “Hell no.”

  “Well then.”

  “I want some time to myself, Dureau,” I said, exasperatedly.

  “Look, I don’t particularly want to go for a country drive right now, either. There’s too much going on here. But Sinjin asked me…”

  “Sinjin,” I said with absolute confidence, “would be the absolute last person who would want us to spend a night away together. I feel very sure about that. And the second to last person would be Klassje. Your girlfriend. Good boyfriends don’t go away with the girl they used to have a crush on. Just a little tip there.

  “I am well aware of that,” replied Dureau. “But I said I would keep you safe. I promised.”

  “I can keep myself safe.” I didn’t like being treated like I was fragile, like some damn piece of china. “And here is where all the bad stuff has happened. Going away is going to make me safer.”

  “Are you admitting that the Daywalkers are responsible?” asked Dureau.

  “Are you admitting they’re not?” I rebutted. “Because if you think it’s the Daywalkers putting me in danger, then you shouldn’t really be worried about me going away, should you?”

  Dureau gave me a crafty look. “Is that why you’re doing this?

  You’re trying to see if being away from them makes a difference?”

  “No,” I lied. “I’m going away because this place used to make me feel good, and now it doesn’t. I need a break from it and from some who’ve started to get on my nerves.”

  “Hey, what’s all the shouting about?” Klassje approached, and it was gratifying to see Dureau turn red, take a step back from me, and stare at the floor guiltily. “Something wrong?”

  “Your boyfriend wants to take a trip with me.” I decided to throw Dureau under the bus. He pretty much had it coming, and I was in a bad mood.

  “What?”

  “That is half the story,” Dureau tried to defend himself.

  “I can’t wait to hear the other half.”

  “Good idea,” I volunteered. “You tell Klassje the other half of the story. I’ve got places to be.”

  “You stay where you are,” instructed Dureau sternly. “You don’t get away from me that easily.”

  “What?” Klassje frowned. “What do you mean she ‘can’t get away from you’?”

  “Can I please deal with one crazy woman at a time?” asked Dureau.

  That didn’t help his cause.

  “ ‘ Crazy woman’?” intoned Klassje. “In a minute you’re going to see exactly how crazy this woman can get!”

  “I look forward to that,” I put in.

  “Klassje, please listen,” Dureau attempted to wrest back control.

  “And Bryn, I’m sorry, but I’m taking your car keys.”

  “What?”

  “I said I was sorry.”

>   Hastily he spilled out the circumstances to Klassje. “So you see why I was shouting at her and why I have to go away with her.”

  “I see why you were shouting at her,” admitted Klassje. “But there is no way you are going away for a night with Bryn.”

  Dureau looked aghast. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “Of course I trust you. But I also love you very much and I don’t want to see Sinjin rip your throat out.”

  Dureau scoffed. “I can handle Sinjin.”

  Klassje kissed him. “Dureau, I do love you, but Sinjin could kick your ass.”

  “He asked me to watch Bryn…”

  “I’ll go with Bryn,” said Klassje.

  “Bryn is quite capable of going by herself,” I said loudly.

  “Don’t look at it as a bad thing,” encouraged Klassje. “When was the last time we had a girls’ night out?”

  “I can’t drink and I have to pee every fifteen minutes because the baby is playing soccer with my bladder.”

  “Klassje shrugged. “What girls’ night out doesn’t start with those words? I can be ready in five.”

  “Dureau said it would take him fifteen minutes to get ready,” I said, as she headed off.

  “Well, he’s got a lot more hair products than I do.”

  When Klassje was gone, I looked at Dureau. “Happy?”

  “Not really. But I need those products or I lose body and gloss.”

  “I’m leaving now.”

  Dureau held up my car keys. “No you’re not. If I can’t keep you safe, then Klassje can. But let me ask you this; if you get a distance away from here and from the Daywalkers and it turns out you can feel your baby again, will you admit they’re responsible?”

  I didn’t answer, but a little voice in my head said; the old Dureau would never have said something like that . It wasn’t just the fire and the attack and my baby. Something was wrong at Kinloch Kirk that went beyond that; Klassje had been jealous; Odran had been strange; I had refused to speak up for the Daywalkers; and Dureau, who knew how devastated I’d been these past weeks, had just used my baby as a way to prove his point.

  Something was in the air, and it stank.

  “So where are we heading?” asked Klassje as I drove us out.

  “I hadn’t really planned that far ahead,” I admitted. “I guess as far as we can drive in a day and then look for someplace to spend the night.