The Thief of Always

by Clive Barker

Wendell had made a real glutton of himself at lunch, and had declared that it was far too hot to play,

The water was icy cold, and eager. It quickly closed over his head.

The idea that the lake now had something that he’d owned was somehow worse than a thief running off with his bike. A thief was warm flesh and blood; the lake was not.

His possessions had gone into a nightmare place, full of monstrous things, and he felt as though a little part of himself had gone with it, down into the dark.

but the breeze that came to warm his face when he broke through the thicket, and the sound of birds that pleased his ear, could not keep from his mind the thought he’d tried to ignore when he’d gone down to the water.

But that was just the first of many fine surprises the Holiday House sprang in quick succession.

Every muscle in his body seemed to be in motion: tics, jigs and jitterings that had wasted him away until he barely cast a shadow. Even his hair, which was a mass of oiled curls, seemed to hear some crazed rhythm. It writhed on his scalp in a knotted frenzy.

Jive said. “I hope you call your family now and then.” “Yep” said Harvey. “I called them yesterday.” “Are they missin’ you?” “Didn’t sound like it.” “Are you missin’ them?” Harvey shrugged. “Not really,” he said.

“You’re going to make the most of bein’ here then?” said Jive, practicing a weird little dance step up and down the stairs. “Yeah,” said Harvey. “I just want to have fun.” “Who doesn’t?” Jive grinned, “Who doesn’t?”

“It has to be something he’ll never think of,” Harvey said. “That shouldn’t be difficult,” said Jive.

Heights had never bothered him; he liked to be up above the world looking down on it.

The wind gusted against them, threatening to carry him off the roof then and there.

But most of all he liked the fear he was causing; liked the look on Wendell’s upturned face, and the sound of panic in his chest.

“I’m too fat to eat,” he said. “But there’s another kid around here somewhere—” Harvey growled at this. “There is!” Wendell said. “I swear. And there’s more meat on him than on me!” “Listen to the child,” said a voice in the bushes at Harvey’s side. He glanced around. There was Jive, his wiry form barely visible among the barbs. “He’d see you dead, young Harvey.” Wendell heard none of this. He was still advertising the edibility of his friend,

“A game?” said Jive. “No, no, boy. It’s more than that. It’s an education.”

“We should leave him like this,” said Jive. “He’d get around to sucking blood sooner or later.” “Nah,” said Marr. “There’s only so much magic to go around, you know that. Why waste it on a miserable little punk like this?”

“You missed your chance there, kiddo,” he said. “You could have been one of the greats.”

“Those who’d say that all the great powers in the world are bloodsuckers and soul-stealers at heart. And we must serve them. All of us. Serve them to our dying day.”

“I’m glad!” Wendell said. “I’m so, so glad. You’re my best friend, for always.” I was vampire food five minutes ago, Harvey thought; but he said nothing.

What had Jive meant, for instance, when he’d told Harvey that turning him into a vampire was not so much a game as an education?

What kind of lesson had he learned by jumping off a roof and scaring Wendell?

And all that stuff about soul-stealers and how they had to be served; what had that meant? Was it Mr. Hood that Jive had been speaking of; ...

If Hood was somewhere in the House, why hadn’t anyone—Lulu, Wendell or hi...

If Mr. Hood was indeed here, where was he hiding, and why?

Harvey shuddered. Had he played trick-or-treat in a murdered boy’s shoes?

There was one strangeness however. The sound of running water led him through to the bathroom, where he found the bath full almost to brimming, and Lulu’s clothes scattered in the puddles on the tile.

“But she’s been keeping to herself.” Mrs. Griffin looked hard at Harvey. “I wouldn’t pay too much mind if I were you, child,” she said. “Mr. Hood doesn’t like inquisitive guests.”

Mrs. Griffin frowned, her tongue working against her pale cheek as though it wanted to speak, but didn’t dare.

she took hold of his shoulders and shook him. “Please, child!” she said. “Be content with what you know. You’re here to enjoy yourself for a little time. And child, it’s such a little time. It flies by. Oh Lord, how it flies!”

“What is this place, Mrs. Griffin? Is it some kind of prison?” She shook her head. “Don’t tell me lies,”

“Yes,” she whispered, “me too. And there’s no way out. Believe me, if you try to escape again, Carna will come after you.”

and—slipping like a thief from shadow to shadow—hurried down the stairs and out into the night.

No wonder she’d retreated into the shadows, ordering him not to look at her. She wasn’t human any longer. She was becoming—or had already become—a sister to the strange fish that circled in these dark waters, cold-blooded and silver-skinned.

“But I’ve been here so long I don’t even remember…” Her voice trailed away. “Don’t remember what?” “Maybe I just don’t want to remember,” she said. “It’ll hurt too much…” She made a long, choked sigh.

and for a moment the meager starlight found her. All that Harvey had feared was true, and more. A fin grew from her bent and scaly back, and her legs had almost fused together. Her arms had become short and stubby, her fingers webbed.

But it was her face, glimpsed as she turned back to look at him, that was the greatest shock. Her hair had fallen out, and her nose disappeared. Her mouth had lost its lips and her blue eyes turned to swiveling silver balls, lidless and lashless. And yet, despite their freakishness, there was human feeling in those eyes, and on that mouth: a terrible sadness that he knew would never leave his heart if he lived to be a thousand.

when he heard the beast’s cry change. Triumph became doubt; doubt became pain; and suddenly Carna wasn’t swooping but falling, holes opening in its wings as though a horde of invisible moths was eating at their fabric.

It labored to climb the air again, but its wounded wings refused their duty, and seconds later it struck the street so hard it bit off a dozen of its tongues, and scattered half a hundred teeth at the boys’ feet.

If it had not wanted their flesh so badly, he thought, it wouldn’t have come after them at such speed, and brought this pain and humiliation upon itself. There was a lesson there, if he could only remember it. Evil, however powerful it seemed, could be undone by its own appetite.

“Weird,” said Wendell, as he stared at the rainy streets. “It’s as though I never left.” “Is it?” said Harvey. He wasn’t so sure. He felt different, marked by this adventure.

“I wonder if we’ll even remember we came here in a week’s time?” “Oh, I’ll remember,” Harvey said. “I’ve got a few souvenirs.” He dug into his pocket in search of the figures from the ark. Even as he pulled them out he felt them crumbling, as the real world took its toll on them. “Illusions…” he murmured as they turned to dust and ran away between his fingers.

One neighborhood was extremely fancy, the houses and the cars parked outside them slicker than anything he’d set eyes on. Another was virtually a wasteland, the houses half rubble, the streets strewn with garbage.

For every day he’d spent there, a year had gone by here in the real world.

as he slept in his old room, it rained: a hard March rain

countless things had changed. There were new plazas and new slums; new cars on the streets and new aircraft overhead.

“This is all my fault,” Harvey said to his mom. “We lost all that time together, just because I was bored.”

and left Harvey haunted by that thought. Was there some way to undo the damage that had been done? To take back the stolen years, and live them here, with the people who loved him, and whom he loved dearly in return?

“You think we should go back, don’t you?” “I don’t think any of those grown-ups—my dad, your mom, the police—are ever going to find the House. If we want all those years back, we have to get them for ourselves.”

“Yeah. Like…like…like a vampire.” This was the first time Harvey had thought of Hood that way, but it instinctively seemed right. Blood was life, and life was what Hood fed upon. He was a vampire, sure enough. Maybe a king among vampires.

“I’d forgotten…” Wendell murmured. “Forgotten what?” “How…beautiful it is.” “Don’t trust it,” Harvey said. “It’s all illusion, remember? All of it.” Wendell didn’t reply, but wandered away toward the trees.