Darren Shan - The Demonata 1-5

“You knew Bill-E was a werewolf.”

“Obviously.”

“How long have you known?”

“A few months. Since he started wandering the forest in a daze around the time of a full moon, killing animals.” His head turns briefly. “You know about that?”

“Yes. That’s what put us on to you. Bill-E saw you collecting the bodies and getting rid of them in the incinerator.”

Dervish winces. “By disposing of the kills, making sure nobody else found them, I hoped to avoid suspicion and protect him. Guess I was a little too smart for my own good.”

I look back over the seat’s head rest. I can see Bill-E and Meera. Meera’s chest is rising and falling — she’s alive. I study Bill-E’s face. No hair. No fangs. But his skin’s a darker shade than usual, his fingernails have sprouted, and his cheekbones have definitely changed shape — albeit slightly. And his eyes, if they were open, would be that eerie yellow colour. And his mouth… those teeth…

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask softly.

“That your best friend’s a werewolf?” Dervish snorts.

“I’d have believed you if you’d shown me proof. I was ready to believe it about you — I could have believed it about Bill-E too.”

“Perhaps,” Dervish sighs. “But I hoped to spare you, the way I’ve spared Billy. I didn’t know until tonight how damaging the change would be. Sometimes the madness touches us but passes. I was praying that he was merely moon-sick, that the disease was weak in him and wouldn’t take hold.”

Dervish drives in silence for a while, gathering his thoughts. I don’t say anything, waiting for him to choose how to explain.

“How much of this have you guessed?” he asks eventually. “Tell me what you think you know.”

“The Gradys are cursed,” I answer directly. “Some of us turn into werewolves. It’s been happening for centuries.”

“Pretty good,” Dervish commends me. “Only it goes back a lot further than centuries, and it’s not just Gradys — it’s the entire family line. What else?”

I shrug. “Not much. We thought you had the disease, but that you could control it, or at least lock yourself up when the moon was full.”

“Nobody can control lycanthropy,” Dervish says quietly. “When the disease takes hold — as it has in Billy tonight — you’re doomed. The change takes a couple of months, but once the wolf comes to the fore, the human never resurfaces.”

“You mean Bill-E’s gone? He’s…”

I can’t continue. A terrible weight settles upon me.

“Not quite,” Dervish says, and the weight lifts as suddenly as it fell into place.

“We can save him?” I ask, excited. “We can reverse the change?”

“There is a way,” Dervish nods. “But we’ll talk more about that later — and whether or not we wish to chance it.”

“What do you mean?” I snap. “Of course we–”

“Your sister had the disease,” Dervish interrupts softly. I stare at him, horrified. “To save Billy, we’ll have to deal with Lord Loss, as your parents did. And if we do, we run the very real risk of winding up dead like them — Billy along with us.”

“What does…he…have to do with this?” I croak.

“Later,” Dervish says. “One mystery at a time. We’re nearly home. Let’s get Billy locked away safe and sound — then I’ll tell you all about it.”

→ We pull up around back of the mansion, close to the tree stumps. Dervish turns off the engine and asks me to remove the sheet of corrugated iron and open the doors leading down to the secret cellar. He bundles the pair of unconscious bodies out of the back of the van while I’m doing that.

“Did you gain access this way or through the wine cellar?” he asks while I’m pulling the doors open.

“The wine cellar,” I pant — the doors are heavy.

“Clever monkey,” he chuckles. “You’ll have to tell me about it — some other time. We’ve more pressing matters to deal with first.” He picks Bill-E up and nods me forward.

Down the steps. Steep. Dark. Have to tread carefully, feeling for each stair.

“Do you need any help with Bill-E?” I ask over my shoulder.

“No,” Dervish replies, coming down, blocking out the light of the moon. “I’ll be fine. Dart ahead and light some extra candles.”

I proceed to the bottom of the stairs, where I find a door. Pushing it open, I enter the cellar. Studying the entrance I’ve just come through, I note that the material on this side of the door is disguised to look like part of the wall, which is why I didn’t spot it during my previous visit.

As I’m lighting candles on the main table — keeping as far clear of the Lord Loss folder as I can – Dervish stumbles in, goes to the cage, opens it with his left foot and sets Bill-E down beside the deer. He makes sure Bill-E’s comfortable, then locks the door and removes the key.

“Don’t go anywhere near the cage when he wakes,” Dervish says. “He’ll howl like the devil, throw himself wildly at the bars — possibly injuring himself in the process — but steer clear, regardless. All he needs is a sliver of a chance to rip you open.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” I comment drily.

Dervish goes back up the steps and returns a minute later with Meera. He lays her down, smooths her hair back, stares at her bruised, motionless features.

“How is she?” I ask, dreading the answer.

“OK, I think,” Dervish says, and my fear lessens. “But she’ll be out for a while. He cracked her head hard on the pavement. We should get her to a doctor, have her checked over — but there isn’t time. I’ll take her to the house, out of harm’s way, before… before we see to Billy. We’ll just have to hope for the best after that.”

Dervish stands, walks around behind the desk and collapses into his chair, sighing deeply. He tells me to pull up one of the other chairs, but I prefer to stand — too nervy to sit.

“I want to know about werewolves,” I tell him bluntly. “I want to know what Lord Loss has to do with them, how you know Gret had it, and how we reverse it in Bill-E.”

Dervish nods. “Reasonable questions. But I’m surprised you haven’t asked the most obvious one — since this is a family disease, passed on from one generation to the next, how come Billy has it?”

“I know all about Bill-E’s connection to our family,” I huff.

Dervish stares at me, slack-jawed. “Care to tell me how?”

“Bill-E figured it out years ago. Like he said, it didn’t take a genius to guess that you were his father. Now tell me about–”

“What?” Dervish yelps, jerking forward. “He thinks I’m his dad?”

“Of course.” I frown. “Aren’t you?”

Dervish sits back. Groans and shuts his eyes. “I’m a horse’s ass,” he snarls. “I should have seen that coming. How can I have gone all these years…”

He clears his throat and levels his gaze on me. “Pull up a chair,” he commands. “It sounds like a bad movie cliché, but you’re going to want to sit down for this.”

I start to come back with a sarcastic reply. Spot the steel in his eyes. Drag over a chair and sit opposite Dervish, like a student before a teacher.

“There’s probably some diplomatic, sensitive, compassionate way to put this,” Dervish says, “but one doesn’t spring readily to mind, and I don’t have time to go searching. So I’ll put it plainly, no matter how upsetting it might be. I’m not Billy’s father — I’m his uncle.”

I stare at Dervish uncertainly. “I don’t understand.”

“People aren’t perfect, Grubbs,” he mutters. “Even the best of us make mistakes. Life’s complicated. We all…” He clears his throat. “Your mother never liked me, and made no secret of the fact.”