Changeling

by Steve Feasey

  The demon frowned, and it occurred to Trey that it was trying to calculate whether he was being serious or not. It finally made up its mind and nodded in the direction of Trey’s bags.

  ‘If you’d like to follow me,’ it said and walked off in the direction of the exit without a second glance.

  Trey looked between the receding back of the nether-creature and the trolley full of bags, and shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Welcome to Canada,’ Trey muttered under his breath. He pushed his weight into the trolley, and set off after the creature.

  4

  The Incubus demon made its way along the hospital corridor towards the fan of light that spilt out from the nurses’ station into the gloom. The inside of the building was hot, and the temperature exaggerated the smell of sickness and disinfectant that wafted out from the wards. The demon paused, looking across at the window set into the wall opposite. The darkness of the night on the other side of the glass transformed the surface into an ebony mirror in which the demon checked its reflection, straightening the white doctor’s coat it was wearing, and pushing at a strand of hair that had escaped across its forehead. It adjusted the stethoscope around its neck and cupped a palm, breathing into it to check its breath. Satisfied, it flashed a white-toothed grin at the human reflection staring back at it.

  As an Incubus demon, it had the ability to read its victims’ desires and transform its own looks to match. In this instance it had not had the opportunity to meet the person that it was trying to seduce, so it adopted a facade that it knew would appeal to most women: a polished and refined version of Hollywood’s current biggest-grossing heartthrob. To the Incubus, the face that stared back at it was, like all humans, utterly repulsive. But it knew that it wouldn’t be to the woman that it was about to meet.

  It took a deep breath through its nose and nodded at its reflection one last time in the window before continuing along the corridor, finally coming to a stop at the desk where a young female nurse was writing up her paperwork.

  ‘Hi,’ the demon said, leaning over the high counter top and feigning interest in her notes. ‘I’m Dr Cash. I’m the locum SHO for psychiatrics. I’m here to see a Miss …’ it paused, glancing down at the clipboard that it was carrying, ‘Tipsbury … Miss Philippa Tipsbury.’

  The young nurse looked down at her notes and frowned. ‘I’m afraid that I don’t seem to have a message to say that you would be coming, Dr—?’

  ‘Cash. But please, call me David. No, you won’t have. I’ve just finished my shift and I thought that I could pop along and have a quick look at the patient’s notes before I leave for the night. I’ll be doing the rounds here tomorrow. You wouldn’t be a love and get them for me, would you?’ The demon looked up at the board on the wall at the rear of the nurses’ station and scanned the patient information that had been written in marker pen. The Tipsbury girl was in room five, just down the hall from where it was standing. The Incubus was keen to get out of this place – it hated hospitals; the smell was terrible. But first it had to get rid of this nurse. On its way up in the lift it had considered ignoring the instructions of the Necrotroph that had sent it on this job, by simply walking up to the station and killing anyone present. But it would not do to displease the Necrotroph and its master, Caliban, by disobeying orders. The Necrotroph was not to compromise its latest host body disguise. It had to infiltrate the vampire Lucien’s organization again, so the Incubus had been dispatched to do its dirty work for it.

  The demon returned its attention to the girl, catching the look in her eye. It was a look the demon knew well.

  ‘They didn’t tell me that the nurses up here were as good looking as you,’ it said, leaning its elbows on the counter to bring its face nearer to hers. ‘I’d have popped along before if I’d known.’ The demon smiled its pearly white teeth at her as she blushed. ‘Are you new?’

  ‘Quite new. I’ve only been here for a couple of months,’ she said.

  The demon gave her a roguish smile, ‘Look, I know this is a bit cheeky, but I’ve just come off the back of a fourteen-hour shift. I don’t suppose that I could ask you for a cup of coffee, could I?’ It saw the doubt flash across her features, her eyes cutting to the corridor to their left, and quickly added, ‘I’ll man the desk here and if anyone asks, I’ll just tell them that you popped out for second to do something for me.’ The demon held her gaze for a moment, and was relieved when the doubt on her face was gradually replaced with a shy smile.

  ‘OK,’ she said, ‘but if any of the patients call, you come and get me. How do you like it?’

  ‘I hope you’re talking about the coffee,’ it said, grinning as she started to turn pink again. ‘White, four sugars please. I like sweet things.’

  The Incubus watched as she stood up and exited into the room behind the workstation. It waited for a few seconds to make sure that she wasn’t about to pop back, and then quickly snaked along the corridor to the door it had identified previously. It looked through the glass window at the darkened room on the other side, peering in at the single occupied bed that was set against the wall to the left. Satisfied that no staff were attending the sleeping figure buried under the covers, the demon quickly opened the door and slipped inside, letting the heavy fire door silently close behind it. The demon stood motionless for a second, taking in the scene while its eyes became accustomed to the darkness of the room. It took a deep breath and reached inside the white coat to locate the handle of the long, curved knife that it had tucked into the waistband of its trousers. Taking the weapon in its clenched fist, the demon approached the bed and the sleeping figure. It raised the weapon high over its head, the deadly point quivering slightly in the air.

  ‘And what do you think you are going to do with that?’

  The voice came from behind the demon and it whirled around to face the tall Irishman who had stepped out of the shadows from behind the door. In doing so, it sealed its fate.

  Lucien Charron threw back the covers and was on his feet within an instant. The demon was vaguely aware of the incredibly quick movement behind it and guessed at what kind of creature might be capable of moving at such speed. It was about to turn and confirm its fears, when the room began to spin and tumble; visual signals still being sent from eyes to brain despite the fact that the demon’s head had been permanently separated from the neck that had, up until that moment, done such a good job of supporting it. It saw the floor rushing up to meet it, and then the world went black for the last time.

  A volcano-like eruption of black gore spewed up into the air. The Incubus’s body remained upright for a second or two before realizing it had no right to do so. It crumpled to the floor, the doctor’s coat no longer white as it rapidly became soaked in the black filth that continued to pump from the corpse. Tom and Lucien looked down at the decapitated body as it began to fade from view – the dead demon returning to the world that it had come from. Within a few moments there was nothing to show that Dr Cash had ever visited the room except for the pile of clothes that contained his name badge. Even the black blood that had soaked the clothes was now beginning to disappear, and Tom bent down to pick them up, catching Lucien’s eye as he did so.

  ‘You were right,’ he said.

  ‘I usually am,’ the vampire replied with a smile. ‘Let’s go.’

  They walked out of the room and along to the end of the corridor, stopping at the last door and giving it a quiet tap. Alexa, still wearing the nurse’s uniform, peered out at them from behind the glass panel, before pulling the door open and letting them in. They saw the tension drain from her features at the sight of them, and she stood up on tiptoe to hug her father. Breaking away from Lucien, she smiled at Tom, nodding her head at the pile of clothing in his arms.

  ‘It went well then?’ she asked.

  ‘As well as we had planned,’ her father replied. ‘If it had not been for our people picking up on the movement of the Incubus in this area, we might not have realized what was happening until it wa
s too late.

  ‘Now I think that we need to get Philippa out of here as soon as possible before any other doctors come to check on her notes.’

  Philippa was sitting in a darkened corner of the room. They could see how badly her hands were shaking as she looked back at them from beneath her eyebrows.

  ‘We’ll leave now, Philippa,’ Alexa said. ‘You’ll come and stay with us until we have dealt with the Necrotroph. Afterwards, my father will help you to do whatever you decide to. We have a spare room and you are welcome to stay as long as you—’

  ‘Will you be there with me?’ Philippa asked in a voice that bordered on the hysterical. She would not look at the vampire, keeping her eyes fixed on his daughter instead.

  ‘Yes,’ Alexa said, nodding her head in encouragement. ‘I’ll be there with you.’

  Lucien studied the Tipsbury girl, empathetic to the fear that she was still experiencing, and remembering how Trey had reacted when he had first discovered that his world was not entirely what he had always believed it to be. He turned and left the room, not wishing to distress the girl any further with his presence.

  ‘You’re safe, Philippa. You have my word on that.’ Alexa held out a hand to help the girl up.

  Philippa stared at the hand for a moment before slowly getting to her feet. She took a deep breath, remembering the reason that she was doing all this: to see the creature that killed her father destroyed. She crossed the room and placed her own hand inside Alexa’s. ‘OK, I’ll come.’

  Alexa began to lead her past Tom and out of the room. The girl halted, frowning down at the pile of clothes, including a doctor’s coat that the tall Irishman was holding in his arms. Something about the way that he held them made her certain that she did not want to know who they belonged to, or how he had acquired them. Alexa gently tugged at her hand, and they stepped out into the silent corridor. Philippa noted that there was no sign of the vampire – he seemed to have completely disappeared.

  5

  They transported Philippa back to the apartment without a hitch, Alexa speaking to the girl all the way back in the car, her voice light and cheery as if they had known each other for years. The conversation was somewhat one-sided. Philippa had not said a word since leaving the hospital, and when Alexa suggested that they should share a room that night, she took the other girl’s lack of response as a sign that she had no objection to the idea. Alexa described the opulent penthouse apartment to the girl sitting on the back seat with her, describing the various features on each floor of the building and promising to give Philippa a guided tour once they arrived. She might as well have been talking to herself, but she kept the monologue going, hoping that the sound of her voice would be enough to keep the other girl from thinking too much about what she was getting herself into.

  When the car finally stopped in the underground car park beneath Lucien’s building, Alexa walked around to the girl’s side of the car and coaxed her out, taking her by the elbow and guiding her to the elevator that led up to the apartment as if she were some kind of sleepwalker. The girl didn’t react to anything she saw: the huge, luxurious penthouse apartment might as well have not been there as she trudged through it in a trance-like state. It wasn’t until Alexa and she were alone just inside the young sorceress’s bedroom that the girl seemed to snap out of her stupor, jumping at the sound of the door closing behind her. She turned about, staring about her in consternation, as if completely unaware of what she was doing or how she had got there.

  ‘You’re OK, Philippa,’ Alexa said. ‘You’re in my room. You’re safe here. Shall I go and fix you a cup of tea or something? Then we can get you some clothes to change into and—’

  ‘No, don’t leave me,’ Philippa said. ‘Please, I don’t want to be left on my own.’

  ‘You can come with me. We’ll go out into the kitchen together if you’d prefer.’

  ‘Will he be there?’

  ‘My father?’

  Philippa nodded.

  Alexa sighed. She sat down on the bed, patting the mattress next to her to indicate that she wanted Philippa to join her.

  ‘You know where you are right now, don’t you?’ Alexa said.

  Philippa nodded.

  ‘This apartment is on the top floor. Below us are other floors that are dedicated to my father’s work: namely the protection of humans from the more nefarious elements of the Netherworld. Lucien, and people like him, do everything in their power to protect people like you from creatures like them. He would no more hurt you than I would. But not all of the creatures of the Netherworld are like my father, as you have already found out.’ She squeezed the girl’s hand. ‘My father will keep out of your way until you’re a little happier with yourself and your surroundings. He wants to talk to you, to explain some things and ask you about others. But not yet.’ She paused, maintaining eye contact with the frightened teenager. ‘Come on, we’ll get something to eat and drink.’ She stood up, holding her hand out for the other girl to take.

  ‘No. Thank you, but I just want to sleep now. Could you stay in here with me while I do?’

  ‘OK. You get yourself settled down in bed, and I’ll stay in the chair here.’Alexa smiled at the girl, nodding towards the bed behind her. ‘You will be able to cope with all of this. Sure, it’ll take time, but you can do it.’

  It was only a matter of minutes before Philippa was in a deep sleep. Alexa waited a few more to make absolutely sure that the girl was not going to wake up, then silently rose up out of her chair and slipped out of the room.

  ‘How is she?’ Lucien asked as his daughter joined him on the balcony. She came over to him and snaked her arm through his, joining him in contemplating the inky black water of the River Thames as it snaked its way through the city.

  ‘A study in psychosis,’Alexa said, with a short, sad snort. ‘The poor girl probably still thinks that she’s insane. And if she doesn’t, I bet she wishes she was. On the plus side, she seems to have latched on to me as somebody she can trust and rely upon.’

  Lucien nodded.

  ‘She reminds me of Trey when you first brought him here. That horrified look in her eye and the way that she looks at everything and everyone as though they are going to harm her in some way.’

  ‘Trey adapted,’Lucien said without turning to look at her. ‘He has come to accept what he is and what that means.’

  ‘Has he?’

  Her father smiled to himself. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath of the briny night air.

  ‘Do you miss him?’ he asked.

  Alexa paused. She turned round so that she leaned back against the balcony rail. ‘He only left yesterday, Dad.’

  There was another long silence and Alexa knew that her father was waiting for her to speak again.

  ‘I worry whether he’ll come back,’ she said. ‘Despite everything that he said, I wonder if his insistence on going alone was a way of telling us that he had no intention of returning.’

  ‘You have … feelings for Trey, don’t you, Alexa?’

  It was Alexa’s turn to fall silent. The breeze carried the sound of music playing somewhere off to her left.

  ‘Do you think that he will come back?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, I do. And when he does, he is going to need all of our support. I do not believe that Trey is going to find what he is looking for in Canada, and that will be hard for him to take. He thinks that he will find an answer to his loneliness in his uncle, but I’m afraid that might not be the case. That is why I agreed to let him go to Canada alone, despite the obvious dangers. Trey needs to find out for himself the things that are important to him now. The things – and the people – that will help him become what he must.’

  ‘What is his uncle like?’Alexa asked.

  Lucien blew a short blast of air through his nostrils and gently shook his head. ‘Trey asked me a similar question before he left, and by way of an answer I told him that I had not seen his uncle in over fifteen years.’ He stopped and turned to lo
ok at his daughter. ‘I only hope that time has mellowed the man. Because my memories of Frank Laporte were of the most spiteful, hard, uncaring and ruthless individual it has ever been my misfortune to meet. If he had not been Daniel’s brother, I would have killed him long ago and done this world a great favour.’

  Alexa stared up at her father. It was unusual for him to show any real emotions when he spoke, but the look in his eyes at the moment was nothing short of hatred.

  ‘What did he do?’Alexa asked.

  Her father shook his head, unwilling to talk on the matter any further.

  ‘Why on earth didn’t you tell Trey this before he went?’

  ‘Would he have believed me?’ Lucien replied, his face now as impassive and unreadable as ever. ‘Trey thought that I had deliberately withheld the existence of his uncle from him. Do you think my telling him that the only living member of his family is a repugnant degenerate would have washed with him?’

  Alexa looked back out at the river and sighed.

  ‘Poor Trey.’

  ‘Like I said, maybe the man has mellowed with age.’

  She looked up at her father again and knew that he didn’t believe that for one second.

  6

  Trey placed an overnight bag of clothes on the back seat, and walked round to climb into the car that was waiting for him outside the hotel. Mr Galroth – or Lurch as Trey had begun to internally refer to him – was sitting in the driver’s seat, having somehow shoehorned its extraordinarily long body into the vehicle. The car was a large four-by-four, but even so the demon looked hunched and uncomfortable behind the wheel. It turned to look at its young charge in the passenger seat.

  ‘Your eyes,’ the nether-creature said, with a tip of its head. ‘You have bags under them. You look terrible.’

  ‘Good morning to you too. I’m fine. Just a bit nervous about today. But thanks for your concern, Mr Galroth.’

  ‘Galroth.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just Galroth, not Mister. I have no true sex. I am a non-gendered being.’