The Changeling

by H. P. Mallory

  “Meaning there’s nothing we can do against them,” I voiced the thoughts of everyone in the room.

  “We won’t give up,” said Jolie. I promise, Bryn. Whatever is wrong with your baby, we will find a way to help her.

  I smiled back at my sister. I knew she’d stop at nothing to help me, but based on what Mathilda had just said, I wasn’t sure how much use that would be.

  “Odran,” Rand turned to the Fae King, “these are your people, surely there’s something you can do?”

  Odran hedged and fidgeted in his chair. He was a proud and arrogant man, and I guessed he wasn’t happy at having to admit he had next to no control of those whose were, theoretically, under his command. Sometimes it seemed the only thing stopping the elder Fae from taking over Faery was that they just didn’t care.

  “It’s nae that easy. The old ones are a law unto the’selves.”

  “At the very least,” said Jolie, “can you tell us how to get in touch with them or find out which of them might be responsible?”

  Again, Odran squirmed. “Ye dinnae oonderstand the nature o’ these beings. They arenae tae be trifled with.”

  Jolie’s jaw was set. “I will trifle with them. And they will soon find that we aren’t without power of our own.”

  Odran was about to speak again, but Mathilda suddenly stood.

  “Something is happening. Something strong.” Her eyes seemed to glow as she tasted the tremendous build-up of magical power within the room. “A portal is opening. Here. Now.”

  As she spoke, the air at the door end of the room stirred and then swirled into a vortex, the door vanished as light and sound was drawn into the whirl. Lights flashed, colors swam, and then, in the eye of the maelstrom at the center of the portal, three dark figures took shape, approaching from a great distance but moving fast.

  “Ready yourselves!” commanded Jolie. “Call the guard.”

  We all prepared for the coming attack as the figures came closer, rushing towards us, becoming more real as they approached, gaining form and feature until they burst into the council room from the portal which closed behind them.

  “Sinjin!” I cried.

  My vampire lover smiled and dusted off the shoulder of his dark suit. “In the flesh.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  Bryn

  “And she told you?” My heart was in my mouth as Sinjin’s explanation about his visit with Gaia, The Mother, came to an end.

  “She told him!” Damek burst out, his arms waving around him as if they were acting independently of his brain. He’d apparently been silent too long and was irritated he hadn’t featured in the story as much as he might have, particularly towards the end. “The Earth Mother told Sinjin she was gonna help him, and when me and Dayna woke up, we found him just standing there, and he said,

  ‘It’s time to go home’.” He took a breath. “And then this portal opened up in front of us, and we walked through it, and here we are! We were in Africa just moments ago and now… I can’t believe we made it!”

  “She told me,” Sinjin confirmed as he glanced at Damek and simply shook his head. It was good news, but my vampire love wasn’t smiling. The story wasn’t over, and I had a hunch our troubles weren’t over either.

  “Well, what did she tell you?” I demanded.

  “You’ve heard of changelings?” he asked.

  I had. Everyone in the room had. It had once been common practice when the Fae were younger, wilder, and crueler, and it still happened in some parts of the world. In the night, when everyone was asleep, Fae folk would creep into houses to steal mortal babies from their cots and cribs, and then whisk them away to Faery to raise them as their own.

  The stolen children gradually became part Fae, and grew up never knowing the secret of their ancestry. Why Fae did this, I’d never really understood. It seemed to be partly for fun, partly because they were bored or simply to be cruel. Some of the old Fae could be very cruel, as they lacked empathy and had little to no understanding of the mortals they tortured. To the Fae, it was a game. To the mortals, nothing could be more devastating.

  In place of the babies, the Fae would leave behind what were called Changelings. Visually, the Changeling was indistinguishable from the stolen child—a perfect facsimile—and at first the Changeling would act like that child as well, so the parents wouldn’t even know their son or daughter had been taken from them. But then the baby would change; it wouldn’t eat, it wouldn’t drink, it wouldn’t play.

  Its features became sharper, less human. Its eyes sunk back into its head, so it started to look almost like a little old man.

  Then, after a few days, the Changeling would vanish, leaving nothing behind but fine grey ash, or a pile of dead leaves, and the poor, confused parents would have nothing to do but mourn.

  Changeling babies weren’t real, they were animated replicas given a facsimile of life by Fae magic, and when that magic wore off, they disintegrated.

  “My baby is a Changeling?” I clutched my stomach as if trying to cover the growing child’s ears from these lies.

  Sinjin’s face was a mirror of my own; broken. “I am sorry, Bryn.

  It took me a long time to accept it, as well. But I do not think Gaia can be wrong, and I do not think she would lie to me. I am not sure she even understands lying.”

  “No!” I cried.

  “Wait,” Dureau held up his hands. “Sinjin, I appreciate how much you’ve gone through to get this information, but it can’t be true,” he said, shaking his head. “Changeling babies are only used to replace those stolen, and you can’t steal a baby from inside the mother’s womb.”

  Sinjin turned to look at Mathilda who shook her head sadly. “It is rare. Even back in the old days it was rare. Only the most powerful of the elder Fae could sneak inside the mother unnoticed to swap out the unborn child with a Changeling. It is an ugly kind of magic, but it is possible. Or used to be.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I couldn’t accept any of this. It couldn’t be happening. “Changelings only last a few days, don’t they?”

  “A week at most,” nodded Mathilda. “That is true. The magic fades.”

  “Well, I stopped being able to sense my baby weeks ago. So it can’t be a Changeling, right? I can still feel her.”

  But Sinjin’s expression hadn’t changed. There was more bad news to come, and I got the sense this wasn’t just bad news for me.

  “I put the same thing to The Mother, and she smiled and laughed and said, ‘So what does that tell you, little vampire?’.”

  “And?” I pressed.

  Sinjin looked about the room. He seemed to be checking the doors.

  “The magic only fades because the Fae has gone.”

  “So if the magic hasn’t faded…” I began.

  “It’s still here!” snapped Mercedes, catching onto the horror quicker than anyone else in the room.

  Mathilda too had turned as white as a sheet. “That would make sense. The curse of discord laid across us all takes a similar level of Fae magic. One of the old ones is among us.”

  “But we’d know!” exclaimed Jolie. “Surely we’d know.”

  “They are pranksters,” explained Mathilda. “Tricksters and shape-shifters. They can disguise themselves so completely, even their thoughts take on the character of the one whose shape they’ve borrowed.”

  “Impossible,” Odran shook his head violently. “Perhaps the rest o’ ye might be fooled. Boot if one o’ the elder Fae was aboot, then Ah would be aware o’ it.”

  Sinjin turned his steely gaze toward the Fae King. “Yes, Odran. I rather think you would be aware of it. In fact, I think if an elder Fae was concocting such a plan, for whatever purpose, then one of the first things they would do would be to get you out of the way.”

  “An’ yet, here Ah am,” declared Odran. “As ye can plainly see.”

  “And there you were after I saw someone in my room,” I breathed, the full meaning of what Sinjin was suggesting starting to dawn on me. “Ther
e you were when Klassje became suddenly jealous of me when I was talking to Dureau.” Sinjin gave me a look but I waved him away. I’d deal with his questions later. “There you’ve been through everything that’s been happening here.”

  Sinjin turned his ice-blue eyes to the Scottish Fae King, boring holes into Odran. “Give it up, whoever you are. Show yourself.”

  Odran’s face assumed an expression of affronted dignity. “Ah’ve never been so insulted in all mah life. How dare ye? Do ye nae know who Ah am?” But as he spoke, he seemed to be trying to suppress a smile, like someone telling a joke and struggling not to laugh. “Ah’ve half a mind to… to…” His head sunk to his chest and a moment later he began to laugh. But it wasn’t the big booming laugh of Odran, this was a thin, throaty sound that made pins of ice prick their way up my spine.

  Slowly, Odran raised his head. The face was still that of the brash, handsome Fae King, but the expression wasn’t. His eyes were dark and wicked, his smile was a thin curve, twisting his face, showing an evil flash of bright, white teeth beyond. “Well, you can’t blame a man for trying.”

  The voice was no longer Odran’s, it was like a chorus of high, reedy, buzzing voices, as if a swarm of bees had taken up residence in his throat. It had none of the power of Odran’s

  voice, but it was immediately unnerving and insidious; wheedling and yet malign.

  “Show yourself,” Sinjin repeated.

  The creature that was no longer Odran laughed again. “As you wish.”

  Suddenly the skin of its face mashed and twisted, re-ordering itself into new features. At the same time, its limbs shrunk, Odran’s massive, sinewy arms reducing down to emaciated twigs, terminating in spindly, clawed fingers. Loose, dark skin clung to the slender bones, tufts of sparse black hair sprouted from the body. The whole shape of his torso changed, bending and breaking from Odran’s upright, towering posture into something hunched and crouched. Odran’s clothes sprang from him, spun in the air and became an old fur coat that then wrapped itself around the morphing body.

  But it was the face at which I and everyone else was staring.

  Odran’s mouth widened into a thin arc; his big white teeth fell to be replaced by broken battlements of chipped and yellowed teeth, pointing out at angles. His nose lengthened; his ears grew long and pointy, sprouting more coarse, black hair. His eyes retreated to devilish pin pricks staring out at us with amused evil.

  As the change came to an end, the creature reached a slim hand into its voluminous coat and pulled out a red cap which it placed upon its head.

  “The Fir Darrig,” breathed Mathilda, instantly identifying the creature that crouched before us in Odran’s seat, grinning broadly.

  “What have you done with our friend?” demanded Jolie.

  “Friend?” the Fir Darrig laughed, cackling in the cacophony of conflicting voices that issued from its throat. “How can you call yourselves friends? Any of you? You turned on each other with barely a push.”

  “Where is Odran?” Jolie wouldn’t rise to the creature’s taunts.

  “Why should I tell you that?”

  “Because if you don’t, you’ll regret it,” she answered.

  The Fir Darrig threw back its head to laugh again, thin fingers holding its sides as its whole body shook. “And which one of you will make me regret anything? You’re all barely better than mortals.”

  “You talk a big game,” snarled Rand, “but I wonder if talk is all that you can do.”

  The Darrig didn’t look like it would stand a chance in a fight with Rand or Dureau or Sinjin, or me, in fact. Hell, based on appearances, even Mathilda would kick its bony ass. It looked as brittle as bone and as insubstantial as paper.

  Part of me thought Sinjin could have torn it into pieces. But the wiser part of me was wary. As I saw a white aura of power around Mathilda, so the Darrig glowed with a blue aura like a gas flame.

  There was tremendous power there. The creature’s confidence might be an act, but I didn’t think so.

  “Tell us where Odran is and return Bryn’s baby, and you will be allowed to go free,” said Jolie, cautious but stern.

  The Fir Darrig executed an elaborate and mocking bow. “So kind, your Majesty. But I think I would rather keep them both.”

  My heart seemed to stop in my chest—it was the first time he’d acknowledged he’d taken my baby. That meant my baby was still alive!

  “You will tell us where they are!” Sinjin had been striving to keep a check on that volcanic temper of his for fear of what might happen to our child, but he’d now been pushed too far.

  “Tell me, or I will make you.”

  The Darrig’s broad smile spread even wider, splitting its ugly face in two. “You’ll have to catch me first, vampire.”

  It didn’t vanish, but the Fir Darrig moved so quickly, it almost appeared to.

  “Seal the doors!” yelled Jolie as the Darrig became a streak of dark lightning, racing across the room like a bullet.

  The Guards were quick, but the Darrig was quicker, shooting through the gap in the closing doors.

  “After it!”

  I saw the look of grim determination on Sinjin’s face before he dematerialized. You can’t run from a vampire. At least I really hoped you couldn’t.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Sinjin

  As the hideous creature slipped out the doors, I gave chase in a fashion only available to a vampire. I dematerialized, leaving the council chamber behind me and rematerializing at the top of the stairs. I was just in time to see the Fir Darrig in the hall below, racing towards the doors, and I vanished again instantly.

  If I had known where he was going, I could have arrived before him, but I had no idea, and the problem with dematerializing was that one could not simply give chase. If I had been following the creature, I could have kept an eye on him, but he was too quick for that—even for me. My only chance was to anticipate his moves and hope I could cut him off at some point.

  I reappeared outside with no time to appreciate being back in the comforting surroundings of Kinloch Kirk. The Darrig had already cleared a good sixty feet in the few seconds it took me to transport myself. The damn thing was faster than rumor, but it was heading for the woods, and perhaps the trees would slow it down a bit. I dematerialized once more.

  I had only just arrived back in Kinloch Kirk; there were so many things I wanted to do, so many questions I wanted to ask about all that had happened in my absence, so many minutes, hours, and days I wanted to spend with my dear Tempest, catching up with her, talking to her, appreciating her beauty and making love to her. But those were dreams for people with normal lives.

  The instant I returned, I was straight into the next thing.

  Having arrived via Gaia’s portal straight from her realm, I had not yet had a chance to recover from my African adventure, from the mental and physical strain of the trials. In fact, owing to the curious twistings of time in the borderlands—and, more so, in Gaia’s realm—I did not even know how long I had been gone. But none of that mattered now; I had a goal, a target, and I would not be denied.

  I rematerialized into the center of the woods and looked around.

  There.

  Through the darkness, I caught sight of a flash of movement weaving between the trunks, the telltale red hat of the Fir Darrig standing out proud in a stray shaft of moonlight. Now that he was closer, I had a real chance. I dematerialized to appear directly in front of him.

  The Darrig peeled off, away from me at the last instant, laughing, and I vanished again to stop him. As fast as he moved, I was always there, dematerializing and rematerializing with barely a break in between, matching him for speed. And yet, somehow I could never quite catch him. However hard I tried to match his movements so I could grab him by the throat as soon as I appeared, he was always just out of my grasp, veering off again, laughing as he went, as if this were all a great big game to him. The longer this went on, the more I realized that was exactly what it was—a game!


  The Darrig was no longer trying to escape; it was playing with the vampire, like a mouse who has learned to get the better of the cat. Once I realized this, I strove to adjust my strategy as

  we bounced about the woods, but the Darrig had yet more tricks of its own.

  I cried out in triumph as I rematerialized close enough for once and grabbed the filthy creature by the neck. For a split-second it looked terrified, and excitement coursed through me. But, in the next instant, it looked at me and vanished with a pop in a shower of brightly colored confetti and bird feathers.

  The laughter of the Darrig echoed down to me from the trees above, where it sat on a branch. It had fooled me with a magical decoy. I launched myself up into the branches, and we were off again, our chase now moving higher into the trees as he zipped along like a squirrel, and I flicked in and out of existence.

  “Sinjin! He’s over here!”

  For a moment, I thought Klassje had come to help me. But as soon as I saw the manic grin on her face, I knew it was the Darrig in disguise. A trickster and shape-shifter, Mathilda had called it, and it was demonstrating those skills now.

  Frustration had been seething in my angry veins for a while, but now exhaustion too was starting to set in. I could not have said how long it had been since I last rested, owing to the strangeness of time in Gaia’s realm. And while dematerialization comes easily to vampires, it takes energy, and I had been doing this for too long. With each jump, I felt myself weaken. My body was begging me to stop, to lie down and give up. But I gritted my teeth and pushed on, dragging my feet, pressing tired muscles into service. Each dematerialization became more of an effort; reality clung to me like a lead weight each time I tried to vanish, holding me back so it felt like I was pressing through wet cement.

  The more exhausted I became, the slower I moved and the more entertained the Fir Darrig became. It allowed me to get closer to it, taunting me, knowing I no longer had the strength to catch it. It laughed that horrible high laughter at my stubborn and useless persistence.

  But perhaps I knew something it did not. Or perhaps I remembered something it had forgotten. The Darrig was having so much fun with me, it seemed to have forgotten I was not the only one chasing it. If I could just summon up the strength to keep it occupied, perhaps the others could take it by surprise. It was a long shot, but it was all I had.