Darren Shan - Blood Beast

She also spends a lot of time researching the Demonata, pumping Dervish for information, finding out all she can about them. She’s especially hot on Lord Loss—if he’s able to cure our lycanthropic curse, she doesn’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do it too.

“We’re not powerful enough,” Dervish tells her.

“Maybe it’s just a matter of knowing the right spells,” Juni suggests.

“I don’t think so,” he says. “If that was the case, Bartholomew Garadex would have discovered them. He was dogged in his determination to end the curse but he got nowhere by himself. It takes a demon master to overturn the spell.”

“But—”

“No,” Dervish insists. “Bartholomew was the world’s most powerful magician of the last couple of centuries. If he wasn’t able to do it, none of us can. We’d be wasting our time if we went down that avenue.”

“What if we tried Lord Loss?” she asks. “Maybe you’re wrong about him not accepting the chess challenge again.”

“No,” Dervish laughs shortly. “That isn’t an option.”

“But if he’s the only one who can turn Grubbs back…” Juni persists.

“It’s not an option,” Dervish says again. Firmly. End of discussion.

I’m enjoying my time alone with Juni. She’s different than when she was merely counselling me. Magic is her thing, what really interests her. She’s more open when we’re talking about spells and demons. She lets her guard down and stops treating me like a patient. Sometimes it seems we talk more about her and magic than we do about me and my problems, but that’s fine. She still sees Bill-E and some of my friends in her professional capacity, but not as much as before. She’s due to finish at our school at the end of the week. Misery’s not returning but he’s being replaced by another counsellor. Juni’s done what she set out to. Time to move on to another job, another challenge. But she’s not thinking about that until after the weekend. First she wants to see what happens to me when the full moon rises.

Thursday. Testing for magical potential again. In the TV room. Dervish is in the kitchen, keeping out of the way. Juni’s trying something new. Up to this point she’s probed carefully, gently, just scratching the surface. Tonight she wants to go deeper.

“Relax,” she says, standing behind me as I squat on a stool. “Clear your mind.” She puts her hands on my head. “I’m going to provoke you.” Her fingers slide to my neck and her nails scratch the flesh there, lightly. “I’m going to pick and poke at your flesh while I jab magically at you. It will be more irritating that way. I’m hoping something will stir within you in response, drive me out and stop me hurting you.”

“ ‘Hurting’?” I repeat uneasily.

“Don’t worry.” I sense her smile. “I won’t really hurt you. Trust me.”

She massages my shoulders. At first it’s nice but then she digs her thumbs in. Works her way down my arms, pinching, scratching. Nothing too severe. Just irritating, like she said.

She mutters spells while she works. I feel magic seep into me, a weird sensation beneath my skin. It’s like having a dead leg, only I’m itchy all over.

Minutes pass. Juni works. Down my back, my chest, my legs. Very prickly now, twitching and jerking, wishing she’d stop, wondering if I should say something or just grit my teeth and bear it. Finally, when I’m on the point of calling it quits, she releases me.

“Nothing,” she says, sounding disappointed. She puts a couple of fingers on my left cheek. “You can open your eyes.”

As I blink my eyes open, I catch her looking at me. A strange look. As if she thinks I’m lying and disapproves of me. There’s even a shade of hostility in it.

“It was definitely there before,” I tell her as she takes her fingers away.

“I’m sure it was,” she says, the suspicious look disappearing.

“Maybe it’ll come back tomorrow or the next night. When the moon…” I nod towards the window, where the curtains keep out the light of the almost full globe.

“Perhaps,” she says. “Magic is certainly affected by lunar movements. Most mages experience a surge of extra energy around the time of a full moon. But it’s strange for you not to be showing any signs.”

She sits beside me. Brings a hand up and ruffles my hair. Smiles fondly, then whispers, “Tell me your secret. The thing you won’t talk to Dervish about. I haven’t asked before and I won’t ask again if you don’t answer. But I think you want to reveal it.”

Mouth dry. Heart beating hard. I wasn’t going to tell her. I meant to keep it secret. But now that she’s asked, I realise she’s right. I want to share it with her. Hell, I’m suddenly longing to spill the beans.

“He called the Lambs,” I croak.

“Lambs?” she frown. “What have sheep to do with this?”

“No. Family executioners. The Lambs. When one of us turns… if the parents can’t bear to keep them alive, but can’t kill them by themselves, the Lambs do it.”

“Ah. I remember. The dream in Slawter. Their laboratory.” Her frown deepens. “You think Dervish summoned them? That he’s plotting against you?”

“Not plotting,” I mutter. “But if I turn and he can’t control me, I think he wants them to kill me. He said he was going to ask a magician for help, but he didn’t. He called in the Lambs instead. And that’s… y’know… not fine, but I know why he did it. I just wish he’d waited. Or told me he was summoning them.”

“He hasn’t told you?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know?”

I explain about his conversation on the phone, the black folder, the tramp. She asks me to describe the tramp but I can only give her a very general description.

“You’re certain he’s a lamb?” she asks dubiously.

“Pretty sure.”

“He never said?”

“No. But he’s been hounding me. I’ve seen him outside this house. And at the cave.” We’ve told her about the cave, how Loch really died. Dervish took her there to get a sense of it. One magical whiff of the place and she agreed he’d done the right thing, that it needed to be hidden from the world. “Why would he be following me if he wasn’t one of the Lambs?” I ask.

“There are all sorts of people in the world,” Juni says. “Some follow boys for dark—but very human—reasons.”

“I know.” I shift uncomfortably. “But it’d be an awful coincidence, this tramp taking an interest in me at this precise time.”

“I sometimes think the world runs on coincidences.” Juni pats my hand. “Don’t worry about the tramp. I’ll keep an eye out for him. And I’ll do a bit of work on Dervish and find out if he really contacted the Lambs.”

“You won’t tell him what I said, will you?” I ask, alarmed, not wanting him to think I’ve been bad-mouthing him behind his back.

“I’ll be discreet,” Juni vows and gets up to leave.

“Juni,” I stop her. “When you find out… if he did call them in… will you tell me the truth?”

A long pause. Then, “Do you really want to know?”

“Yes.”

“You can handle it if he did?”

“Yes.”

She smiles and touches my cheek again. “You’re so brave,” she whispers, then draws the fingers away. “I’ll tell you what I find out. I promise. No lies. You can trust me always, Grubbs, about everything—even if you can’t trust Dervish.”

The shakes. Bad. Dervish and Juni keep me pressed down on the bed, talking constantly, wiping sweat from my face with a series of fresh towels, Juni muttering calming spells which don’t make the slightest difference.

Friday. The night before the full moon. The sickness struck at school, in the middle of physics. I had to rush for the toilet. Didn’t make it. Was violently sick against the classroom door. Lots of cheers from the boys, gasps of disgust from the girls. Didn’t stop to catch an earful from Mr. Clifford. Bolted for the toilet and spent the next ten minutes hugging a hard plastic seat.