by Steve Feasey
An image of Alexa suddenly flashed into his mind, and his face flushed with shame at how he had momentarily forgotten her. He thought of how concerned she had been for him before he’d left, picturing her sitting next to him on his bed back in London, quizzing him on when he might return. A wave of sadness filled him – the perfect counterpoint to the ecstasy that he had recalled moments before.
He knew that he wouldn’t be able to go back.
Frank’s revelations about his father’s attack on his mother had reinforced doubts that Trey had always had about his powers. Despite everything that Lucien had told him – how he believed that Trey was destined for greatness, and how he believed the boy would fulfil an ancient prophecy that would lead him to defeat a vampire lord and restore peace between the Netherworld and the human realm – despite Lucien’s insistence that Trey could control his lycanthrope powers, Trey had always felt that there was some part of him that had the capacity to go wrong; something that might be triggered at any time, and lead him to do something terrible. Something like his father had done. Another dreadful thought entered the teenager’s mind: what if his father had done it on purpose? What if he’d deliberately attacked his mother, turning her into a lyco so that he could have a full-blood werewolf child? What if Lucien had encouraged him to do that to try and realize the prophecy?
He shook his head, sighing at the mess that he found himself in.
Whatever the truth was, there was one thing that Trey now believed – he was not safe to be around, even with the amulet. And he would not risk the lives of the people he’d come to care about. He forced all thoughts of returning to England from his head, screwed his eyes shut and allowed the tears of frustration to snake down his cheeks and on to the rough surface of the blanket.
He jumped as a loud clanging noise filled the house, as if two metal dustbin lids had been crashed together like cymbals. The noise was answered by excited yaps and barks from Billy who, from the sound of things, was running around the house in a state of euphoria. He guessed that the timer that kept the cage door locked had tripped, and that the old man’s incarceration was over for another month.
Trey listened as the old man began to move around the house. He could hear the shuffling gait approaching his door, and he lay perfectly still, holding his breath and staring at the wooden surface.
‘Are you in there, Trey?’ his uncle asked.
Billy let out a short woof and scratched at the door.
‘I’m going to cook some breakfast for us,’ Frank continued. ‘I know that you’re still sore at me, Trey, and I can’t blame you for that. I shouldn’t have said those things that I did. I blame it on the whisky. I’d had too much to drink.’ There was a long pause then, and Trey resumed his breathing, thinking that the old man had given up and gone. ‘No, that’s not right,’ his uncle said in a soft voice that Trey had not heard since his arrival. ‘I can’t blame it on the drink. It was me. It was wrong of me to say those things to you.’
Trey wiped at his eyes and raised himself into a sitting position, the bed moaning in response. He let the silence hang.
‘Well,’ his uncle said, moving back a little from the door. ‘I’ll pour you a coffee, dish everything up and you can make up your own mind if you want to join us or not. C’mon, Billy.’
Trey listened to the man shuffle away, wanting some time on his own before deciding whether to face him or not.
Frank was sitting at the table nursing a mug of coffee. The food that he had made them was still hot – the early morning sunshine highlighting the wispy tendrils of steam rising from the plates.
‘Good morning,’ he said, as Trey, fully clothed now, took the seat opposite him.
‘Morning,’ he replied before starting in on the plate of fried food.
As a rule he hardly ever ate cooked breakfast, preferring a bowl of cereal and a couple of glasses of fruit juice, but as soon as the first forkful of greasy bacon and egg landed on his tongue he realized that this was exactly what he needed, and hungrily followed it up with another.
He realized something else – his uncle was sober. He watched as the old man sat listening to him eat, holding the mug of coffee in front of his face, enjoying the feeling of heat on his skin.
He let the boy eat in peace, not wanting to disturb him as he refuelled his body. But eventually, as the gaps between the sounds of the fork hitting the surface of the plate grew further apart, he spoke. ‘You didn’t come back last night.’
Trey placed his utensils on the plate and looked up again, wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
‘No. Sorry.’
Frank shook his head. ‘No need to apologize. You ain’t beholden to me in any way.’
‘That may be, but I said that I’d be here with you for the Change, and I wasn’t. I—’
‘Believe it or not, kid,’ his uncle interrupted, the familiar harsh tone creeping back into his voice for a moment, ‘yesterday was not the first time I’ve been through the night of a full moon on my own. I’m quite used to looking out for myself. I didn’t ask you to hang around here; you invited yourself, remember?’
Trey nodded his head, then realizing that his uncle would not have seen the response, added, ‘Sure.’
His uncle took a sip of coffee. ‘Where’d ya go?’
‘Out. I needed a walk; time to think, you know?’
‘All night? That’s quite a walk.’
‘I needed to get my head around what you’d told me about my father. I’d been foolishly kidding myself that I had this werewolf thing under some degree of control, but when I heard what he’d done to my mother—’
‘Trey—’
‘Let me finish. Now I know that it’s all just been a lie. Everything Lucien told me about my father and how he’d used his powers to fight evil. Everything he told me about how he loved my mother. Everything he told me about being a lyco and the Amulet of Theiss. It’s all just lies.’ The words poured out of him in a torrent.
‘Listen, Trey, there are some things that you—’
‘I met up with the pack.’ Trey cut across the old man, annoyed at the continuous interruptions. ‘I think that they were waiting for me. They were in the woods at the same time that I was.’ He looked over at the old man and was glad that those blind eyes were unable to see him as he fought to hold back any more tears from falling. ‘I’m moving out. I’m not going back to England. I’m going to join the pack and live with them in the cabins by the lake.’
He expected the old man to say something, but his uncle just sat there, unmoving, deep lines forming harsh valleys in the flesh of his forehead. Trey stood up, his chair scraping across the floor tiles like a bandsaw. As he turned to leave the kitchen his uncle finally spoke.
‘You Changed in front of them?’ he said in a small voice. ‘You changed into your werewolf form in front of the pack?’
Trey stopped in the doorway. ‘I changed with them.’
Frank lifted his head to look towards the sound of the boy’s voice. His eyes were dancing in their sockets and his head was shaking in little movements from side to side.
‘But the amulet. The amulet stops you from changing into one of us, it changes you into a—’
‘I don’t have it any more.’
Frank got up on his feet. The swift movement unbalanced him for a second, making him lean into the kitchen table that almost tipped over as a result. ‘What do you mean, you don’t have it? You stupid child! What have you done with it?’
Trey was already on his way down the hallway. He grabbed his coat from the hook by the front door and twisted the door handle to open it.
‘I don’t want it any more,’ he shouted over his shoulder.
‘Trey, wait—’ the old man shouted from the kitchen doorway.
‘If you want it as much as you seem to, go get it; it’s in the woods over there someplace. Good luck in finding it.’ He turned away, pulling the front door closed behind him and shutting off his uncle’s protests.
; 22
He hurried down off the porch at the front of his uncle’s house, and turned to his left, setting off through the long grass in the direction that the pack had taken after leaving him. He filled his lungs with the sweet, oily smell of the pine trees that carried on the late morning breeze. Something small and nervous broke into a desperate run in the long grass just ahead of him, and he stopped, scanning the ground to see if he could make out what it was.
He took a look back towards the house, regretting not having stopped long enough to grab some of his stuff before leaving. It meant that he’d have to go back sooner than he would want to, but not now. Right now he just wanted to get away; away from his Uncle Frank and the poison that surrounded the old man like some toxic gas. He pushed ahead, taking big strides and enjoying the emptiness and solitude. He started to ascend a low hill leading up to the trees that marked the start of the forest, a not unpleasant glowing warmth starting to build up in the muscles of his thighs. He congratulated himself for having the foresight to put on the Timberland boots that he wore beneath his jeans. He had no idea how far away the cabins were, and realized that he didn’t care – he’d walk all day and night if he had to. He stopped just before the entrance to the trees, slowly turning on the spot to take in the magnificent countryside that surrounded him. In the distance, rising up over the tops of the trees behind his uncle’s house he could make out a mountain range; the purple and brown ramparts giving way to the snow-covered peaks. He hadn’t really taken any time to admire the beauty of this country; his head had been too full of other things since his arrival. He took another deep breath, suppressing the sadness and regret he felt, and tried to cheer himself a little by telling himself that if he was going to be forced to live somewhere as a prisoner of circumstance, there were far worse places to do so.
The Range Rover jostled and bounced its occupants out of their seats as it negotiated the uneven ground. They’d taken an alternative route – a short cut that avoided the main road – but the terrain was atrocious, the ride unimaginably uncomfortable. Jurgen drove, his mouth set in a pinched slit as he concentrated on the ground ahead. Luke, in the back, was getting the worst of it – the Range Rover was an ex-military vehicle equipped with inward-facing bench seats in the rear – with no seatbelts and nothing to hang on to, the rear passenger was being thrown around like a rag doll.
‘How much longer?’ Luke shouted. ‘I’d like to think that I’m getting out of this thing with all of my limbs still attached.’
Jurgen ignored the youngster, setting his jaw and glaring at the road in response.
Marcus turned in his seat to look back at him. ‘Not much further,’ he said, nodding his head at the exasperated looks that the teenager shot in his direction. Luke was a hothead who liked to use his fists a little too freely; a habit that had caused a number of run-ins with other members of the pack. But he was fiercely loyal to Jurgen and was afforded greater leniency from the Alpha as a result.
The car bounced out of another depression in the ground, and Luke was slammed into the side of the car again, Jurgen laughing loudly at the boy’s dismayed cries.
A few moments later the car stopped, Jurgen killing the ignition and peering forward out of the front windscreen. They were on a ridge overlooking the clearing that Frank’s house occupied. Luke leaned forward over the front seats to get a better look.
‘What are we doing here?’ he asked.
‘We have some business with the new kid,’ Jurgen said, not taking his eyes from the house.
‘Couldn’t we have taken the normal route on the road through the woods? It would have been one hell of a lot more comfortable. These seats in the back of this thing are absolutely—’
‘When I want your opinion on which route to take, I’ll ask you for it. Now I suggest you shut up.’
A silence descended over them all, broken only by the sound of a woodpecker drumming on a tree and warning off any trespassers with its loud tchur-tchur call.
The engine ticked slowly as it began to cool down.
‘How do you want to do this?’ Marcus asked eventually.
‘Do what?’ Luke said from behind them.
Jurgen turned in his seat, giving the youngster the full benefit of his stare. ‘We are going down there to have a word with the old-timer and his nephew. I want to find out what makes the boy tick.’
‘Tick?’
‘There’s something about that boy that he’s keeping from us. He’s up to something, maybe something that could endanger the pack. And as Alpha, I am responsible for the safety of the pack.’
‘And what is it that you think this youngster is up to?’ Marcus asked. He looked across at the man in the driver’s seat, uneasy at the feral look on his face and the white-knuckle grip that he had on the steering wheel. He wanted to try and talk to Jurgen about his fears and suspicions – to try and calm him down and get him to consider what he was doing. But he knew that it was pointless. Jurgen had shown all too often recently that he did not take kindly to any opposition to his leadership. Right now, it was better to play along with him and try to be the voice of reason if things got out of hand.
Jurgen opened the door and began to climb out.
‘What if they refuse to tell you anything?’ Marcus called out, opening his own door.
‘Then I’ll find a way of asking the question that ensures that they will.’
The three gathered together, Jurgen clapping the other two on the shoulders. Marcus forced a smile, and tried not to notice the simmering rage that seemed to burn off the man by his side.
‘Let’s go,’ Jurgen said, and started off down the hill.
23
Philippa towelled off the sweat from her forehead and took another swig from the isotonic drink that she’d bought. She’d pushed herself extra hard on the cross-trainer, pumping her legs whilst simultaneously pushing and pulling the upright handles of the equipment until she was panting for breath. She reasoned with herself that she owed her body this to make amends for all the chocolate that she’d eaten that morning. Raul, the personal trainer that the hotel had assigned to her, came over, giving her the thumbs up as he approached. He was a tall, olive-skinned hunk of sculpted muscle, and he flashed her a grin made up of perfectly white and symmetrical teeth. It occurred to her that he would not have looked out of place on an advertising hoarding for male underwear.
‘You’re really going for it, huh?’ he said, nodding in her direction. ‘You work out a lot back home?’
‘Not as much as I should,’ she said, stepping down off the machine. ‘Thanks for your help, Raul. You’ve been great.’
‘Hey, don’t mention it. You coming back in tomorrow? I’ve got an abs workout that I’d love you to try. It’s great fun.’
‘I guess I could. Although my experience of gyms suggests that anything described as “fun” tends to result in a whole lot of pain.’
‘Come on. No pain no gain, huh?’
‘OK, you’re on.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ Raul said, turning away from her and walking towards the little desk that occupied a corner of the room.
Philippa watched him as he went. He was fit – in all senses of the word. She raised the towel again, burying her face in the soft cotton cloth and enjoying the feeling of it against her hot skin. She took a deep breath and was overcome by a sudden feeling of giddiness.
When she looked up again, the world had been turned inside out.
Her eyes opened on to a gym from hell. It was the antithesis of the clean and sterile and harshly lit place that she had just spent the last hour and a half in. The walls and ceiling might once have been white, but now black spores grew on their surface – wet, fetid, living tapestries that filled the room with a cloying stench strong enough to make her stomach heave. Hundreds of small yellow stalactites hung from the ceiling, depositing whatever foul liquid that had accumulated within them on to a floor that appeared to be made of the same black substance amassing on the walls. She looked aroun
d in short, panicked glances, finally stopping when her eyes took in the machinery that she had just been using. The cross-trainer that she had been exercising on was in fact a living creature: a nightmare beast from hell that was chained to the floor, lying on its back with its extraordinarily long arms held straight up before it by chains that hung from the ceiling. Its scaly head, chest and hips were secured to the floor by great metal strips, and the beast’s short, stumpy legs were curled in front of it, held there by some kind of sprung harness. On top of the legs someone had fastened small wooden boards which appeared to have been nailed into the flesh below. A shuddering breath escaped her as she realized that she had been standing on those boards and gripping those arms while performing her exercises.
The rest of the gym was no better. There were machines that looked more like torture devices than anything that you would use to improve your health. The middle-aged man whom she had watched working his cardiovascular system with some heavy hitting on a punchbag was in fact a grossly fat demon creature with skin the colour of raw salmon. The flesh was bloated and distended, like a balloon that has been overinflated and is about to explode with a bang. Despite this, the demon moved with a swiftness that Philippa would not have thought possible, punching again and again at the creature that was hanging from the roof in front of it. The victim of the abuse was a great sluglike creature that groaned in pain as each blow connected with its body – the impact making a low, dull thump as the demon’s fists sunk into flesh.