Changeling: Zombie Dawn (4 page)

‘No,’ she said, her hands coming up before her as she backed off. ‘It was never my intention to use my sorcery skills to create zombie after zombie for you, Caliban. Why would I?’ She gestured towards the revenant and the dead body beside it. ‘You yourself compared them to a virus which spreads. We already have one zombie, and another on the way. All we need to do is capture as many humans as we can, and unleash these two among them. Before you know it, we will have the beginnings of our army. Once we release enough of them in the human realm, the numbers will grow exponentially.’

Caliban considered this. Eventually he nodded.

‘ Good. Then I suggest you get that rest you need, because tomorrow we will begin to create our undead army.’

Alexa stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for the top floor and the apartment. The various bags that she’d accumulated during her afternoon shopping trip nudged and jostled at her knees, and she glanced down at them, giving a small sigh. It seemed that even shopping wasn’t enough to lift her spirits any more. She smiled briefly as she caught sight of the Selfridges bag among her other things: in it were a pair of three-quarter-length khaki shorts she’d bought for Trey, hoping that they’d cheer him up a bit. He’d been so withdrawn lately, staying in his room and avoiding everyone. And when she asked Tom if he thought she should say something, he’d advised her not to, reasoning that Trey was simply convalescing from his injuries, and would be back to his old self in no time. She’d gone along with him, but hadn’t revealed that she thought there might be more to it than that, and that
she
was the person Trey was trying to avoid, embarrassed by the things they’d said to each other about their feelings when they were captives of the demon lord, Molok.

The elevator slowed to a halt and the doors slid apart.

The first thing that greeted Alexa was the sound of laughter: Trey’s laughter. The sound lightened her mood considerably, and she wondered briefly if Tom might not have been correct after all. He was playing music too. She stepped out of the lift on to the deep carpet, faltering when she saw the blonde-haired stranger sitting next to Trey on the leather couch. They had their backs to her, and the music was loud enough to cover the sound of her entry.

Blondie leaned in towards Trey, who was pointing something out to her in a magazine he was holding. She nudged him playfully with her head, said something and burst out laughing. Alexa couldn’t believe how strongly the girl was coming on to Trey, who seemed oblivious to her advances, too dense to pick up on the signals. Alexa watched Blondie push a stray lock of hair away from her face, smiling at Trey as she did so.

‘Hello,’ Alexa said in a loud voice.

Trey jumped up off the couch and turned to face her. He blushed, looking like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar just before dinnertime.

‘Lex . . . er . . . hi.’ He waved at her, a clumsy and awkward greeting. ‘This . . . this is Ella. She’s a friend of mine.’ He gestured in Blondie’s direction, and the girl stood up next to him, giving Alexa a little nod.

‘Nice to meet you, Ella,’ Alexa said, returning the nod and moving off in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Don’t let me stop you two having fun,’ she said as she passed.

Trey noted the strained tone with which Alexa had spoken, and he watched her as she stiffly walked the length of the room to enter the kitchen without so much as another glance in his direction.

He looked from the kitchen doorway to the girl standing at his side and then back again, as if trying to make up his mind what to do next. ‘I won’t be a minute,’ he said to Ella, pointing in the direction of the kitchen before moving off towards it.

He entered the room and closed the door behind him.

‘What’s up?’he asked.

‘Up?’

‘Yeah. And don’t tell me nothing’s up because it is.’

‘What could possibly be up?’ Alexa said, turning away from him and putting her shopping bags on the side.

Trey stayed quiet and waited.

She went over to the fridge and took out a bottle of water, opened it and took a swig. When she turned back, she raised her eyebrows, feigning surprise to find him still standing there. She pulled the bottle from her lips. ‘Shouldn’t you be out there entertaining your
guest
?’

Trey looked at her for a minute, a frown beetling his brow, and suddenly his expression changed to one of annoyance. ‘Is that what this is about? The fact that I’ve invited a friend over?’

‘Why should I have a problem with that?’

‘You tell me.’

There was another brief silence, and when Alexa spoke again, her voice was low and quiet.

‘Who is she?’ she asked.

‘We met in Canada. She’s a lycanthrope. A Bitten. She saved my life.’

Alexa looked as if all of the stuffing had suddenly been pulled from her. She gave Trey an incredulous look, her mouth open in a little oh.

‘She saved your life?’

‘Yes.’

Alexa let out a short derisive snort and shook her head. ‘I can’t believe you sometimes.’

‘What?’

‘How come you’ve never told me about her, hmm? How come I know nothing about this girl who
saved your life
until I walk into this apartment to find you sitting with her on the couch giggling away together like a couple of . . . idontknowwhats?’

‘In case you hadn’t noticed, you and I haven’t exactly had a great deal of time for each other since we got back. This place—’

‘And whose fault is that, hmm? Whose fault is it that we’ve hardly said more than a few words to each other since coming back?’ She paused briefly. ‘You’ve been avoiding me, Trey!’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Is it? Then how do you explain that every time I walk into a room, you find some excuse to walk out again. How is it that if I’m in the living room, you stay in your room and only come out once I’ve gone. Don’t deny it, Trey, because if there’s one thing you are not, it’s a good liar.’

She stared at him, her jaw pushed forward, lips pressed together, eyes wide as if daring him to contradict her.

‘Look—’

‘No, you look,’ she interrupted angrily. She stopped and took a deep breath, pulling herself together. When she spoke next, her voice was softer. ‘I don’t want you to feel that you owe me anything. When we were in the Netherworld you and I said things about the way we felt towards each other. You came to rescue me, Trey, and I’ll never forget that. But in times of immense pressure people do, and say, strange things.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I suppose what I’m trying to tell you is that I don’t want the things we said ... to come between us. Let’s put it down to the stress we were both under, eh? If we can do that, hopefully we can go back to the way things were before and not feel uncomfortable around each other.’

Trey stood looking back at her, unable or unwilling to say anything for a moment or two. Eventually he shook his head and blew out his cheeks. ‘You’re saying you didn’t mean any of those things, is that right?’

‘I’m saying that perhaps we were both a bit . . . rash.’

She looked up to see the muscles at the side of Trey’s jaw bunching and unbunching as if he were desperately trying to contain himself.

‘Fine, if that’s the way you want it,’ he said.

‘Don’t you?’

He bit his bottom lip, and was about to say something else when he obviously thought better of it. Nodding his head stiffly at her, he turned and left the room.

Alexa looked across at the worktop where she’d thrown her shopping and spotted the bag containing the shorts she’d bought for Trey. She wasn’t quite expecting the tears that quickly came to her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

Ten minutes later, when she’d calmed down and washed her face, she went out into the living room again. Trey and Ella had left.

Tom opened the door and stepped out on to the roof of the building, glancing across at the chrome-and-glass construction that housed the swimming pool as he did so. The pool was rarely used, and he could usually guarantee that he would be alone up here when he needed to think. He was tense. He’d been working all morning to try and locate where Caliban and Helde might have gone when they disappeared from the Netherworld, but had had no luck. When he detected movement out of the corner of his eye he spun round, crouching slightly, his hand already reaching inside his jacket for the semi-automatic pistol in its shoulder holster.

Trey had looked back over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening. He noted how frazzled his friend looked, and it struck him as strange – except for Lucien, Tom was the most level-headed and unflappable person he knew. He nodded his head at the Irishman, and turned back to look out over the London skyline.

Tom hesitated for a moment before walking over to stand beside the boy. The two of them studied the vista in silence for a while.

‘Nice up here, isn’t it?’ the Irishman said eventually.

‘Yeah. It’s peaceful.’

The two shared another long silence. ‘You OK?’ Tom finally said.

Trey shrugged noncommittally. ‘I suppose so.’

‘A penny for your thoughts, young man.’

‘I was just wondering when it’ll all end,’ Trey said. He turned his attention to the Canary Wharf tower and the other tall buildings which surrounded it. ‘When all of this
madness
that’s become my life will finally stop. Is it too much to ask? To wish for a life that doesn’t involve looking over my shoulder all of the time in case a murderous vampire or one of his cohorts is creeping up on me? A life that’s just a bit more . . .
normal
?’

The Irishman shook his head and sighed. ‘You’re not wrong to want that, lad. And no, it’s not too much to ask.’ He thought about everything that had happened to Trey in the short time that he’d known him, since Lucien – an old friend of Trey’s father – had invited him into their lives and world. In particular, he thought about the boy’s recent exploits in Canada, where he’d gone with such high hopes of finding a family member who would help him cope with his lycanthropy Instead, he’d found his Uncle Frank: a bitter and twisted drunk who’d wanted nothing to do with the boy.

And then there had been the Netherworld and Trey’s forced participation in the vicious and twisted Demon Games to win freedom for himself and Alexa.

Nobody should have to go through such things – particularly one so young. Tom drummed his fingertips against the top of the metal rail. He thought the world of the boy, and he wished he could tell him that everything was going to be all right, but in truth, he wasn’t sure it was.

‘I think things are coming to a head,’ Tom said instead. He let the statement hang in the air for a moment before continuing. ‘Caliban has almost complete control of the Netherworld, and we know he’s planning something big here in the human realm. One way or another, this thing will end soon.’

Trey nodded. ‘Don’t you ever feel like just walking out on it all? You could, you know. No one would blame you if you just upped and left all this . . .’ he gestured with his hands in the air before him,’. . . this
madness
to the nether-creatures. It’s not really your fight, Tom.’ He stopped and shook his head, still staring out ahead of him, before adding, ‘I’m not even certain that it’s mine.’

They stood there, comfortable enough in each other’s company not to feel the need to fill the ensuing silence with pointless small talk.

Tom eventually broke the silence, speaking in a low, quiet voice that made Trey turn to look at him.

‘The answer to your question is no. I wouldn’t walk away from it all. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have a hard time dealing with a lot of the things I come across, and I often crave a bit of normality over all the “paranormality”, but whenever it gets too much for me I remember how close I was to death when Lucien saved me from those bloodsucking freaks. Not only that, Lucien is a friend of mine, just as you and Alexa are, and I’d never walk out on my friends.’

‘Alexa and I had a row.’ Trey said after a moment.

In spite of himself, Tom couldn’t help but smile at this last revelation.

‘Does this
normal
life that you want so much mean that you can’t have a girlfriend who’s a dhampir sorceress?’ Tom said.

‘It would seem it does.’

‘That sucks.’

‘Yeah.’

A cloud passed across the sun, and the two of them watched as its shadow rolled over the buildings and streets of the capital.

‘But you know, there’s no such thing as a normal life, Trey. Things have a habit of getting in the way of us leading the lives that we
think
we’d like. And anyhow, normality’s overrated.’

The sun came out again, and Trey looked across at his friend. ‘What did I do before I had you to talk sense to me, Tom?’ he said, half playfully.

‘Oh, I suspect you worked things out for yourself. It probably just took a little bit longer.’ He winked in the boy’s direction.

Trey smiled at the big Irishman and moved towards the exit. ‘Thanks for the chat, Tom,’ he said, reaching for the door.

Tom nodded and waved at the boy, watching him as he disappeared through the opening, before turning about again and leaning against the guardrail. He was worried about the youngster, and he determined to talk to Lucien about his concerns.

Lucien glanced at the small clock on his desk. There was an hour to go before the meeting he’d called with the others to discuss updated strategies for finding his brother, a goal he knew they were no closer to achieving as of this morning, despite all their best efforts. He was feeling tired and more than a little cranky, no doubt as a result of not having fed for two days. His eyes rested for a moment on the wooden panel behind which was concealed a small fridge with the bags of fresh blood that had been delivered by courier that morning. He should feed before the meeting. He steepled his hands in front of him and rested his forehead against the fingertips, closing his eyes for a second.

When he opened them again it was to darkness.

He lay in a stone casket, the cold of its walls radiating back through his own frigid flesh. The heavy lid was pulled across, plunging the interior into complete darkness. He stirred, aware that something was wrong but unable to determine what it was. He opened his eyes, looking up into the void that surrounded him and trying to ascertain what could have summoned him from his sleep. There were no sounds from the room outside, and his senses told him that there was nobody there.