He howled. The windowpane cracked and out in the hall, Bradley sat up, about spurking time. I dropped my gun and clawed at the wall to steady myself. If he was mad enough to forget his fear of the Badge…
He was. He swooped at me with his long arms spread wide, but that’s exactly what I’d been banking on. I moved in and slammed into his legs below the knees, using all my strength, all my weight. He fell, scrambled to catch himself, couldn’t.
And landed face-first on the hot plate.
#
In the old days, it was said that there was a simple way to tell if your baby had been replaced by a changeling. You threw it on the fire. A faerie would reveal its true form, spin around and fly up the chimney cackling and giggling. Usually, at that point, the concerned parent would find the real baby had been left on the doorstep by the Fae, in what always struck me as a pretty good show of sportsmanship about the whole thing.
It makes you wonder though, about the parents who guessed wrong, doesn’t it?
#
The thing that had taken the place of Glenn Jackson wasn’t precisely a changeling, of course, but I was gambling that it was close enough for the same rules to apply.
And yes, it spun around – I was lucky to still be on the floor, or the scything swinging of his arms would have knocked me flat anyway. And yes, it laughed, although it didn’t sound amused.
It stopped, and looked at me. I saw its face all scarred from the heat, and I smelled burning leaves and burning hair.
And then it flew out the window like leaves in an autumn wind, swirling and twirling, and it was gone.
