DARREN SHAN
THE DEMONATA VOL. 1 & 2

Lord Loss & Demon Thief

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Lord Loss

Dedication

Excerpt

Rat Guts

Demons

Dervish

The Grand Tour

Portraits

Spleen

Carnage in the Forest

A Theory

The Cellar

The Longest Day

Arooooo!

Family Ties

The Curse

The Challenge

The Choice

The Summoning

The Battle

A Change of Plan

Spiral to the Heart of Nowhere

The Change

Demon Thief

Dedication

Into the Light

Fugitives

The Witch

Marbles

Ding Dong

Kidnap

Walking on Water

Demons and Disciples

Opening Windows

Frying Pan

Fire

Adrift

Punks

The Monster Mash

The Reluctant Disciple

Searching

Hell-Child

Fly on the Wall

At Home with Lord Loss

The Challenge

Amazeing

Marbleous

Kernel in the Sky with Demons

Thieves

The True Thief

The Theft

Goodbyes

Home Alonely

Kah-Gash

Also by Darren Shan

Copyright

About the Publisher

Lord Loss

DEDICATION

For: Bas – my demon lover

OBEs (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to:

Caroline “pie chart” Paul

D.O.M.I.N.I.C. Kingston

Nicola “Schumacher” Blacoe

Editorial Evilness:

Stellasaurus Paskins

Agents of Choas: the Christopher Little crew

EXCERPT

LORD LOSS

Lord Loss sows all the sorrows of the worldLord Loss seeds the grief-starched trees

In the centre of the web, lowly Lord Loss bows his head

Mangled hands, naked eyesFanged snakes his soul lineCurled inside like textured sinBloody, curdled sheets for skin

In the centre of the web, vile Lord Loss torments the dead

Over strands of red, Lord Loss crawlsDispensing pain, despising allShuns friends, nurtures foesRavages hope, breeds woeDrinks moons, devours sunsTwirls his thumbs till the reaper comes

In the centre of the web, lush Lord Loss is all that’s left

RAT GUTS

→Double history on a Wednesday afternoon—total nightmare! A few minutes ago, I would have said I couldn’t imagine anything worse. But when there’s a knock at the door, and it opens, and I spot my mum outside, I realise—life can always get worse.

When a parent turns up at school, unexpected, it means one of two things. Either somebody close to you has been seriously injured or died, or you’re in trouble.

My immediate reaction—please don’t let anybody be dead! I think of Dad, Gret, uncles, aunts, cousins. It could be any of them. Alive and kicking this morning. Now stiff and cold, tongue sticking out, a slab of dead meat just waiting to be buried. I remember Gran’s funeral. The open coffin. Her shining flesh, having to kiss her forehead, the pain, the tears. Please don’t let anyone be dead! Please! Please! Please! Ple –

Then I see Mum’s face, white with rage, and I know she’s here to punish, not comfort.

I groan, roll my eyes and mutter under my breath, “Bring on the corpses!”

→The head’s office. Me, Mum and Mr Donnellan. Mum’s ranting and raving about cigarettes. I’ve been seen smoking behind the bike shed (the oldest cliché in the book!). She wants to know if the head’s aware of this, of what the pupils in his school are getting up to.

I feel a bit sorry for Mr Donnellan. He has to sit there, looking like a schoolboy himself, shuffling his feet and saying he didn’t know this was going on and he’ll launch an investigation and put a quick end to it. Liar! Of course he knew. Every school has a smoking area. That’s life. Teachers don’t approve, but they turn a blind eye most of the time. Certain kids smoke—fact. Safer to have them smoking at school than sneaking off the grounds during breaks and at lunch.

Mum knows that too. She must! She was young once, like she’s always reminding me. Kids were no different in Mum’s time. If she stopped for a minute and thought back, she’d see what a bloody embarrassment she’s being. I wouldn’t mind her having a go at me at home, but you don’t march into school and start laying down the law in the headmaster’s office. She’s out of order—big time.

But it’s not like I can tell her, is it? I can’t pipe up with, “Oi! Mother! You’re disgracing us both, so shut yer trap!”

I smirk at the thought, and of course that’s when Mum pauses for the briefest of moments and catches me. “What are you grinning at?” she roars, and then she’s off again—I’m smoking myself into an early grave, the school’s responsible, what sort of a freak show is Mr Donnellan running, la-di-la-di-la-di-bloody-la!

BAWring!

→Her rant at school’s nothing compared to the one I get at home. Screaming at the top of her lungs, blue bloody murder. She’s going to send me off to boarding school—no, military school! See how I like that, having to get up at dawn each morning and do a hundred press-ups before breakfast. How does that sound?

“Is breakfast a fry-up or some cereally, yoghurty crap?” is my response, and I know the second it’s out of my mouth that it’s the wrong thing to say. This isn’t the time for the famed Grubbs Grady brand of cutting-edge humour.

Cue the enraged Mum fireworks. Who do I think I am? Do I know how much they spend on me? What if I get kicked out of school? Then the clincher, the one mums all over the world love pulling out of the hat—“Just wait till your father gets home!”

→Dad’s not as freaked out as Mum, but he’s not happy. He tells me how disappointed he is. They’ve warned me so many times about the dangers of smoking, how it destroys people’s lungs and gives them cancer.

“Smoking’s dumb,” he says. We’re in the kitchen (I haven’t been out of it since Mum dragged me home from school early, except to go to the toilet). “It’s disgusting, antisocial and lethal. Why do it, Grubbs? I thought you had more sense.”

I shrug wordlessly. What’s there to say? They’re being unfair. Of course smoking’s dumb. Of course it gives you cancer. Of course I shouldn’t be doing it. But my friends smoke. It’s cool. You get to hang out with cool people at lunch and talk about cool things. But only if you smoke. You can’t be in if you’re out. And they know that. Yet here they stand, acting all Gestapo, asking me to account for my actions.

“How long has he been smoking? That’s what I want to know!” Mum’s started referring to me in the third person since Dad arrived. I’m beneath direct mention.

“Yes,” Dad says. “How long, Grubbs?”

“I dunno.”

“Weeks? Months? Longer?”

“A few months maybe. But only a couple a day.”

“If he says a couple, he means at least five or six,” Mum snorts.

“No, I don’t!” I shout. “I mean a couple!”

“Don’t raise your voice to me!” Mum roars back.

“Easy,” Dad begins, but Mum goes on as if he isn’t there.

“Do you think it’s clever? Filling your lungs with rubbish, killing yourself? We didn’t bring you up to watch you give yourself cancer! We don’t need this, certainly not at this time, not when–”

“Enough!” Dad shouts, and we both jump. Dad almost never shouts. He usually gets very quiet when he’s angry. Now his face is red and he’s glaring—but at both of us, not just me.

Mum coughs, as if she’s embarrassed. She sits, brushes her hair back off her face and looks at me with wounded eyes. I hate when she pulls a face like this. It’s impossible to look at her straight or argue.

“I want you to stop, Grubbs,” Dad says, back in control now. “We’re not going to punish you—” Mum starts to object, but Dad silences her with a curt wave of his hand “–but I want your word that you’ll stop. I know it won’t be easy. I know your friends will give you a hard time. But this is important. Some things matter more than looking cool. Will you promise, Grubbs?” He pauses. “Of course, that’s if you’re able to quit…”

“Of course I’m able,” I mutter. “I’m not addicted or anything.”

“Then will you? For your sake—not ours?”

I shrug, trying to act like it’s no big thing, like I was planning to stop anyway. “Sure, if you’re going to make that much of a fuss about it,” I yawn.

Dad smiles. Mum smiles. I smile.

Then Gret walks in the back door and she’s smiling too—but it’s an evil, big-sister-superior smile. “Have we sorted all our little problems out yet?” she asks, voice high and fake-innocent.

And I know instantly—Gret grassed me up to Mum! She found out I was smoking and she told. The cow!

As she swishes past, beaming like an angel, I burn fiery holes in the back of her head with my eyes, and a single word echoes through my head like the sound of ungodly thunder…

Revenge!

→I love rubbish dumps. You can find all sorts of disgusting stuff there. The perfect place to go browsing if you want to get even with your annoying traitor of a sister.

I climb over mounds of garbage and root through black bags and soggy cardboard boxes. I’m not sure exactly what I’m going to use, or in what fashion, so I wait for inspiration to strike. Then, in a small plastic bag, I find six dead rats, necks broken, just starting to rot. Excellent!

Look out, Gret—here I come!

→Eating breakfast at the kitchen table. Radio turned down low. Listening to the noises upstairs. Trying not to giggle. Waiting for the outburst.

Gret’s in her shower. She showers at least twice a day, before she goes to school and when she gets back. Sometimes she has one before going to bed too. I don’t know why anybody would bother to keep themselves so clean. I reckon it’s a form of madness.

Because she’s so obsessed with showering, Mum and Dad gave her the en suite bedroom. They figured I wouldn’t mind. And I don’t. In fact, it’s perfect. I wouldn’t have been able to pull my trick if Gret didn’t have her own shower, with its very own towel rack.

The shower goes off. Splatters, then drips, then silence. I tense with excitement. I know Gret’s routines inside out. She always pulls her towel down off its rack after she’s showered, not before. I can’t hear her footsteps, but I imagine her taking the three or four steps to the towel rack. Reaching up. Pulling it down. Aaaaaaaaannnddd…

On cue—screams galore. A shocked single scream to start. Then a volley of them, one running into another. I push my bowl of soggy cornflakes aside and prepare myself for the biggest laugh of the year.

Mum and Dad are by the sink, discussing the day ahead. They go stiff when they hear the screams, then dash towards the stairs, which I can see from where I’m sitting.

Gret appears before they reach the stairs. Crashes out of her room, screaming, slapping bloody shreds from her arms, tearing them from her hair. She’s covered in red. Towel clutched with one hand over her front—even terrified out of her wits, there’s no way she’s going to come down naked!

“What’s wrong?” Mum shouts. “What’s happening?”

“Blood!” Gret screams. “I’m covered in blood! I pulled the towel down! I…”

She stops. She’s spotted me laughing. I’m doubled over. It’s the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

Mum turns and looks at me. Dad does too. They’re speechless.

Gret picks a sticky pink chunk out of her hair, slowly this time, and studies it. “What did you put on my towel?” she asks quietly.

“Rat guts!” I howl, pounding the table, crying with laughter. “I got… rats at the rubbish dump… chopped them up… and…” I almost get sick, I’m laughing so much.

Mum stares at me. Dad stares at me. Gret stares at me.

Then—

“You lousy son of a – !”

I don’t catch the rest of the insult—Gret flies down the stairs ahead of it. She drops her towel on the way. I don’t have time to react to that before she’s on me, slapping and scratching at my face.

“What’s wrong, Gretelda?” I giggle, fending her off, calling her by the name she hates. She normally calls me Grubitsch in response, but she’s too mad to think of it now.

“Scum!” she shrieks. Then she lunges at me sharply, grabs my jaw, jerks my mouth open and tries her hardest to stuff a handful of rat guts down my throat.

I stop laughing instantly—a mouthful of rotten rat guts wasn’t part of the grand über-joke! “Get off!” I roar, lashing out wildly. Mum and Dad suddenly recover and shout at exactly the same time.

“Stop that!”

“Don’t hit your sister!”

“She’s a lunatic!” I gasp, pushing myself away from the steaming Gret, falling off my chair.

“He’s an animal!” Gret sobs, picking more chunks of guts from her hair, wiping rat blood from her face. I realise she’s crying—serious waterworks—and her face is as red as her long, straight hair. Not red from the blood—red from anger, shame and… fear?

Mum picks up the dropped towel, takes it to Gret, wraps it around her. Dad’s just behind them, face as dark as death. Gret picks more strands and loops of rat guts from her hair, then howls with anguish.

“They’re all over me!” she yells, then throws some of the guts at me. “You bloody little monster!”

“You’re the one who’s bloody!” I cackle. Gret dives for my throat.

“No more!” Dad doesn’t raise his voice but his tone stops us dead.

Mum’s staring at me with open disgust. Dad’s shooting daggers. I sense that I’m the only one who sees the funny side of this.

“It was just a joke,” I mutter defensively before the accusations fly.

“I hate you!” Gret hisses, then bursts into fresh tears and flees dramatically.

“Cal,” Mum says to Dad, freezing me with an ice-cold glare. “Take Grubitsch in hand. I’m going up to try and comfort Gretelda.” Mum always calls us by our given names. She’s the one who picked them, and is the only person in the world who doesn’t see how shudderingly awful they are.

Mum heads upstairs. Dad sighs, walks to the counter, tears off several sheets of kitchen paper and mops up some of the guts and streaks of blood from the floor. After a couple of silent minutes of this, as I lie uncertainly by my upturned chair, he turns his steely gaze on me. Lots of sharp lines around his mouth and eyes—the sign that he’s really angry, even angrier than he was about me smoking.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

“It was funny,” I mutter.

“No,” he barks. “It wasn’t.”

“She deserved it!” I cry. “She’s done worse to me! She told Mum about me smoking—I know it was her! And remember the time she melted my lead soldiers? And cut up my comics? And–”

“There are some things you should never do,” Dad interrupts softly. “This was wrong. You invaded your sister’s privacy, humiliated her, terrified her senseless. And the timing! You…” He pauses and ends with a fairly weak “…upset her greatly.” He checks his watch. “Get ready for school. We’ll discuss your punishment later.”

I trudge upstairs miserably, unable to see what all the aggro is about. It was a great joke. I laughed for hours when I thought of it. And all that hard work—chopping the rats up, mixing in some water to keep them fresh and make them gooey, getting up early, sneaking into her bathroom while she was asleep, carefully putting the guts in place—wasted!

I pass Gret’s bedroom and hear her crying pitifully. Mum’s whispering softly to her. My stomach gets hard, the way it does when I know I’ve done something bad. I ignore it. “I don’t care what they say,” I grumble, kicking open the door to my room and tearing off my pyjamas. “It was a brilliant joke!”

→Purgatory. Confined to my room after school for a month. A whole bloody MONTH! No TV, no computer, no comics, no books—except schoolbooks. Dad leaves my chess set in the room too—no fear my chess-mad parents would take that away from me! Chess is almost a religion in this house. Gret and I were reared on it. While other toddlers were being taught how to put jigsaws together, we were busy learning the ridiculous rules of chess.

I can come downstairs for meals, and bathroom visits are allowed, but otherwise I’m a prisoner. I can’t even go out at the weekends.

In solitude, I call Gret every name under the moon the first night. Mum and Dad bear the brunt of my curses the next. After that I’m too miserable to blame anyone, so I sulk in moody silence and play chess against myself to pass the time.

They don’t talk to me at meals. The three of them act like I’m not not there. Gret doesn’t even glance at me spitefully and sneer, the way she usually does when I’m getting the doghouse treatment.

But what have I done that’s so bad? OK, it was a crude joke and I knew I’d get into trouble—but their reactions are waaaaaaay over the top. If I’d done something to embarrass Gret in public, fair enough, I’d take what was coming. But this was a private joke, just between us. They shouldn’t be making such a song and dance about it.

Dad’s words echo back to me—“And the timing!” I think about them a lot. And Mum’s, when she was having a go at me about smoking, just before Dad cut her short—“We don’t need this, certainly not at this time, not when–”

What did they mean? What were they talking about? What does the timing have to do with anything?

Something stinks here—and it’s not just rat guts.

→I spend a lot of time writing. Diary entries, stories, poems. I try drawing a comic – ‘Grubbs Grady, Superhero!’ – but I’m no good at art. I get great marks in my other subjects – way better than goat-faced Gret ever gets, as I often remind her – but I’ve all the artistic talent of a duck.

I play lots of games of chess. Mum and Dad are chess fanatics. There’s a board in every room and they play several games most nights, against each other or friends from their chess clubs. They make Gret and me play too. My earliest memory is of sucking on a white rook while Dad explained how a knight moves.

I can beat just about anyone my age – I’ve won regional competitions – but I’m not in the same class as Mum, Dad or Gret. Gret’s won at national level and can wipe the floor with me nine times out of ten. I’ve only ever beaten Mum twice in my life. Dad—never.

It’s been the biggest argument starter all my life. Mum and Dad don’t put pressure on me to do well in school or at other games, but they press me all the time at chess. They make me read chess books and watch videotaped tournaments. We have long debates over meals and in Dad’s study about legendary games and grandmasters, and how I can improve. They send me to tutors and keep entering me in competitions. I’ve argued with them about it – I’d rather spend my time watching and playing football – but they’ve always stood firm.

White rook takes black pawn, threatens black queen. Black queen moves to safety. I chase her with my bishop. Black queen moves again—still in danger. This is childish stuff – I could have cut off the threat five moves back, when it became apparent – but I don’t care. In a petty way, this is me striking back. “You take my TV and computer away? Stick me up here on my own? OK—I’m gonna learn to play the worst game of chess in the world. See how you like that, Corporal Dad and Commandant Mum!”

Not exactly Luke Skywalker striking back against the evil Empire by blowing up a Death Star, I know, but hey, we’ve all gotta start somewhere!

→Studying my hair in the mirror. Stiff, tight, ginger. Dad used to be ginger when he was younger, before the grey set in. Says he was fifteen or sixteen when he noticed the change. So, if I follow in his footsteps, I’ve only got a handful or so years of unbroken ginger to look forward to.

I like the idea of a few grey hairs, not a whole head of them like Dad, just a few. And spread out—I don’t want a skunk patch! I’m big for my age – taller than most of my friends – and burly. I don’t look old, but if I had a few grey hairs, I might be able to pass for an adult in poor light—bluff my way into 18-rated movies!

The door opens. Gret—smiling shyly. I’m nineteen days into my sentence. Full of hate for Gretelda Grotesque. She’s the last person I want to see.

“Get out!”

“I came to make up,” she says.

“Too late,” I snarl nastily. “I’ve only got eleven days to go. I’d rather see them out than kiss your…” I stop. She’s holding out a plastic bag. Something white inside. “What’s that?” I ask suspiciously.

“A present to make up for getting you grounded,” she says, and lays it on my bed. She glances out of the window. The curtains are open. A three-quarters moon lights up the sill. There are some chess pieces on it, from when I was playing earlier. Gret shivers, then turns away.

“Mum and Dad said you can come out—the punishment’s over. They’ve ended it early.”

She leaves.

Bewildered, I tear open the plastic. Inside—a Tottenham Hotspur shirt, shorts and socks. I’m stunned. The Super Spurs are my team, my football champions. Mum used to buy me their latest kit at the start of every season, until I hit puberty and sprouted. She won’t buy me any new kits until I stop growing—I out-grew the last one in just a month.

This must have cost Gret a fortune—it’s the brand new kit, not last season’s. This is the first time she’s ever given me a present, except at Christmas and birthdays. And Mum and Dad have never cut short a grounding before—they’re very strict about making us stick to any punishment they set.

What the hell is going on?

→Three days after my early release. To say things are strange is the understatement of the decade. The atmosphere’s just like it was when Gran died. Mum and Dad wander around like robots, not saying much. Gret mopes in her room or in the kitchen, stuffing herself with sweets and playing chess nonstop. She’s like an addict. It’s bizarre.

I want to ask them about it, but how? “Mum, Dad—have aliens taken over your bodies? Is somebody dead and you’re too afraid to tell me? Have you all converted to Miseryism?”

Seriously, jokes aside, I’m frightened. They’re sharing a secret, something bad, and keeping me out of it. Why? Is it to do with me? Do they know something that I don’t? Like maybe… maybe…

(Go on—have the guts! Say it!)

Like maybe I’m going to die?

Stupid? An overreaction? Reading too much into it? Perhaps. But they cut short my punishment. Gret gave me a present. They look like they’re about to burst into tears at any given minute.

Grubbs Grady—on his way out? A deadly disease I caught on holiday? A brain defect I’ve had since birth? The big, bad cancer bug?

What other explanation is there?

→“Regale me with your thoughts on ballet.”

I’m watching football highlights. Alone in the TV room with Dad. I cock my ear at the weird, out-of-nowhere question and shrug. “Rubbish,” I snort.

“You don’t think it’s an incredibly beautiful art form? You’ve never wished to experience it first-hand? You don’t want to glide across Swan Lake or get sweet with a Nutcracker?”

I choke on a laugh. “Is this a wind-up?”

Dad smiles. “Just wanted to check. I got a great offer on tickets to a performance tomorrow. I bought three – anticipating your less than enthusiastic reaction – but I could probably get an extra one if you want to tag along.”

“No way!”

“Your loss.” Dad clears his throat. “The ballet’s out of town and finishes quite late. It will be easier for us to stay in a hotel overnight.”

“Does that mean I’ll have the house to myself?” I ask excitedly.

“No such luck,” he chuckles. “I think you’re old enough to guard the fort, but Sharon…” Mum “… has a different view, and she’s the boss. You’ll have to stay with Aunt Kate.”

“Not no-date Kate,” I groan. Aunt Kate’s only a couple of years older than Mum, but lives like a ninety-year-old. Has a black-and-white TV but only turns it on for the news. Listens to radio the rest of the time. “Couldn’t I kill myself instead?” I quip.

“Don’t make jokes like that!” Dad snaps with unexpected venom. I stare at him, hurt, and he forces a thin smile. “Sorry. Hard day at the office. I’ll arrange it with Kate, then.”

He stumbles as he exits—as if he’s nervous. For a minute there it was like normal, me and Dad messing about, and I forgot all my recent worries. Now they come flooding back. If I’m not for the chop, why was he so upset at my throwaway gag?

Curious and afraid, I slink to the door and eavesdrop as he phones Aunt Kate and clears my stay with her. Nothing suspicious in their conversation. He doesn’t talk about me as if these are my final days. Even hangs up with a cheery “Toodle-pip”, a corny phrase he often uses on the phone. I’m about to withdraw and catch up with the football action when I hear Gret speaking softly from the stairs.

“He didn’t want to come?”

“No,” Dad whispers back.

“It’s all set?”

“Yes. He’ll stay with Kate. It’ll just be the three of us.”

“Couldn’t we wait until next month?”

“Best to do it now—it’s too dangerous to put off.”

“I’m scared, Dad.”

“I know, love. So am I.”

Silence.

→Mum drops me off at Aunt Kate’s. They exchange some small talk on the doorstep, but Mum’s in a rush and cuts the chat short. Says she has to hurry or they’ll be late for the ballet. Aunt Kate buys that, but I’ve cracked their cover story. I don’t know what Mum and co are up to tonight, but they’re not going to watch a load of poseurs in tights jumping around like puppets.

“Be good for your aunt,” Mum says, tweaking the hairs of my fringe.

“Enjoy the ballet,” I reply, smiling hollowly.

Mum hugs me, then kisses me. I can’t remember the last time she kissed me. There’s something desperate about it.

“I love you, Grubitsch!” she croaks, almost sobbing.

If I hadn’t already known something was very, very wrong, the dread in her voice would have tipped me off. Prepared for it, I’m able to grin and flip back at her, Humphrey Bogart style, “Love you too, shweetheart.”

Mum drives away. I think she’s crying.

“Make yourself comfy in the living room,” Aunt Kate simpers. “I’ll fix a nice pot of tea for us. It’s almost time for the news.”

→I make an excuse after the news. Sore stomach—need to rest. Aunt Kate makes me gulp down two large spoons of cod-liver oil, then sends me up to bed.

I wait five minutes, until I hear Frank Sinatra crooning—no-date Kate loves Ol’ Blue Eyes and always manages to find him on the radio. When I hear her singing along to some corny ballad, I slip downstairs and out the front door.

I don’t know what’s going on, but now that I know I’m not set to go toes-up, I’m determined to see it through with them. I don’t care what sort of a mess they’re in. I won’t let Mum, Dad and Gret freeze me out, no matter how bad it is. We’re a family. We should face things together. That’s what Mum and Dad always taught me.

Padding through the streets, covering the six kilometres home as quickly as I can. They could be anywhere, but I’ll start with the house. If I don’t find them there, I’ll look for clues to where they might be.

I think of Dad saying he’s scared. Mum trembling as she kissed me. Gret’s voice when she was on the stairs. My stomach tightens with fear. I ignore it, jog at a steady pace, and try spitting the taste of cod-liver oil out of my mouth.

→Home. I spot a chink of light in Mum and Dad’s bedroom, where the curtains just fail to meet. It doesn’t mean they’re in—Mum always leaves a light on to deter burglars. I slip around the back and peer through the garage window. The car’s parked inside. So they’re here. This is where it all kicks off. Whatever ‘it’ is.

I creep up to the back door. Crouch, poke the dog flap open, listen for sounds. None. I was eight when our last dog died. Mum said she was never allowing another one inside the house—they always got killed on the roads and she was sick of burying them. Every few months, Dad says he must board over the dog flap or get a new door, but he never has. I think he’s still secretly hoping she’ll change her mind. Dad loves dogs.

When I was a baby, I could crawl through the flap. Mum had to keep me tied to the kitchen table to stop me sneaking out of the house when she wasn’t looking. Much too big for it now, so I fish under the pyramid-shaped stone to the left of the door and locate the spare key.

The kitchen’s cold. It shouldn’t be – the sun’s been shining all day and it’s a nice warm night – but it’s like standing in a refrigerator aisle in a supermarket.

I creep to the hall door and stop, again listening for sounds. None.

Leaving the kitchen, I check the TV room, Mum’s fancily decorated living room—off-limits to Gret and me except on special occasions – and Dad’s study. Empty. All as cold as the kitchen.

Coming out of the study, I notice something strange and do a double-take. There’s a chess board in one corner. Dad’s prize chess set. The pieces are based on characters from the King Arthur legends. Hand-carved by some famous craftsman in the nineteenth century. Cost a fortune. Dad never told Mum the exact price—never dared.

I walk to the board. Carved out of marble, ten centimetres thick. I played a game with Dad on its smooth surface just a few weeks ago. Now it’s scarred by deep, ugly gouges. Almost like fingernail scratches—except no human could drag their nails through solid marble. And all the carefully crafted pieces are missing. The board’s bare.

Up the stairs. Sweating nervously. Fingers clenched tight. My breath comes out as mist before my eyes. Part of me wants to turn tail and run. I shouldn’t be here. I don’t need to be here. Nobody would know if I backed up and…

I flash back to Gret’s face after the rat guts prank. Her tears. Her pain. Her smile when she gave me the Tottenham kit. We fight all the time, but I love her deep down. And not that deep either.

I’m not going to leave her alone with Mum and Dad to face whatever trouble they’re in. Like I told myself earlier—we’re a family. Dad’s always said families should pull together and fight as a team. I want to be part of this—even though I don’t know what ‘this’ is, even though Mum and Dad did all they could to keep me out of ‘this’, even though ‘this’ terrifies me senseless.

The landing. Not as cold as downstairs. I try my bedroom, then Gret’s. Empty. Very warm. The chess pieces on Gret’s board are also missing. Mine haven’t been taken, but they lie scattered on the floor and my board has been smashed to splinters.

I edge closer to Mum and Dad’s room. I’ve known all along that this is where they must be. Delaying the moment of truth. Gret likes to call me a coward when she wants to hurt me. Big as I am, I’ve always gone out of my way to avoid fights. I used to think (fear) she might be right. Each step I take towards my parents’ bedroom proves to my surprise that she was wrong.

The door feels red hot, as though a fire is burning behind it. I press an ear to the wood—if I hear the crackle of flames, I’ll race straight to the phone and dial 999. But there’s no crackle. No smoke. Just deep, heavy breathing… and a curious dripping sound.

My hand’s on the door knob. My fingers won’t move. I keep my ear pressed to the wood, waiting… praying. A tear trickles from my left eye. It dries on my cheek from the heat.

Inside the room, somebody giggles—low, throaty, sadistic. Not Mum, Dad or Gret. There’s a ripping sound, followed by snaps and crunches.

My hand turns.

The door opens.

Hell is revealed.

DEMONS

→Blood everywhere. Nightmarish splashes and gory pools. Wild streaks across the floor and walls.

Except the walls aren’t walls. I’m surrounded on all four sides by webs. Millions of strands, thicker than my arm, some connecting in orderly designs, others running chaotically apart. Many of the strands are stained with blood. Behind the layer of webs, more layers—banks of them stretching back as far as I can see. Infinite.

My eyes snap from the walls. I make quick, mental thumbnails of other details. Numb. Functioning like a machine.

The dripping sound—a body hanging upside down from the webby ceiling in the centre of the room. No head. Blood drops to the floor from the gaping red O of the neck. Even without the head, I recognise him.

“DAD!” I scream, and the cry almost rips my vocal chords apart.

To my left, an obscene creature spins round and snarls. It has the body of a very large dog, the head of a crocodile. Beneath it, motionless—Mum. Or what’s left of her.

A dreadful howl to my right. Gret! Sitting on the floor, staring at me, weaving sideways, her face white, except where it’s smeared with blood. I start to call to her. She half-turns and I realise that she’s been split in two. Something’s behind her, in the cavity at the back, moving her like a hand-puppet.

The ‘something’ pushes Gret away. It’s a child, but no child of this world. It has the body of a three-year-old, with a head much larger than any normal person’s. Pale green skin. No eyes—a small ball of fire flickers in each of its empty sockets. No hair—yet its head is alive with movement. As the hell-child advances, I see that the objects are cockroaches. Living. Feeding on its rotten flesh.

The crocodile-dog moves away from Mum and also closes in on me, exchanging glances with the monstrous child, who’s narrowing the gap.

I can’t move. Fear has seized me completely. I look from Mum to Dad to Gret. All red. All dead.

Impossible! This isn’t happening! A bad dream—it must be!

But even in my very worst nightmare, I never imagined anything like this. I know that it’s real, simply because it’s too awful not to be.

The creatures are almost upon me. The croc-dog growls hungrily. The hell-child grins ghoulishly and raises its hands—there are mouths in both its palms, small, full of sharp teeth. No tongues.

“Oh dear,” someone says, and the creatures stop within spitting distance. “What have we here?”

A man slides out from behind a clump of webby strands. Thin. Pale red skin, misshapen, lumpy, as though made out of coloured dough. His hands are mangled, bones sticking out of the skin, one finger melting into another. Bald. Strange eyes—no white, just a dark red iris and an even darker pupil. There’s a gaping, jagged hole in the left side of his chest. I can look clean through it. Inside the hole—snakes. Dozens of tiny, hissing, coiled serpents, with long curved fangs.

The hell-child shrieks and reaches towards me. The teeth in its small mouths are eagerly snapping open and shut.

“Stop, Artery,” the man – the monster – says commandingly, and steps towards me. No… he doesn’t step… he glides. He has no feet. The lumpy flesh of his lower legs ends in sharp strips which don’t touch the floor. He’s hovering in the air.

The croc-dog barks savagely, its reptilian eyes alive with hunger and hate.

“Hold, Vein,” the monster orders. He advances to within touching distance of me. Stops and studies me with his unnatural red eyes. He has a small mouth. White lips. He looks sad—the saddest creature I’ve ever seen.

“You are Grubitsch,” he says morosely. “The last of the Gradys. You should not be here. Your parents wished to spare you this heartache. Why did you come?”

I can’t answer. My body isn’t my own, except my eyes, which don’t stop roaming and analysing, even though I want them to—easier to shut off completely and black everything out.

The hell-child makes a guttural sound and reaches for me again.

“Disobey me at your peril, Artery,” the monster says softly. The barbaric baby drops its hands and shuffles backwards, the fire in its eyes dimming. The croc-dog retreats too. Both keep their sights on me.

“Such sadness,” the monster sighs, and there’s genuine pity in his tone. “Parents—dead. Sister—dead. All alone in the world. Face to face with demons. No idea who we are or why we’re here.” He pauses and doubt crosses his expression. “You don’t know, do you, Grubitsch? Nobody ever explained, or told you the story of lonely Lord Loss?”

I still can’t answer, but he reads the ignorance in my eyes and smiles thinly, painfully. “I thought not,” he says. “They sought to protect you from the cruelties of the world. Good, loving parents. You’ll miss them, Grubitsch—but not for long.” The creatures to my left and right make sick, chuckling sounds. “Your sorrow shall be short-lived. Within minutes I’ll set my familiars upon you and all will soon finish. There will be pain – great pain – but then the total peace of the beyond. Death will come as a blessing, Grubitsch. You will welcome it in the end—as your parents and sister did.”

The monster drifts around me. I realise he has no nose, just two large holes above his upper lip. He sniffs as he passes, and I somehow understand that he’s smelling my fear.

“Poor Grubitsch,” he murmurs, stopping in front of me again. This close, I can see that his red skin is broken by tiny cracks, seeping with drops of blood. I also notice several appendages beneath his arms—three on either side, folded around his stomach. They look like thin, extra arms, though they might just be oddly moulded layers of flesh.

“Wh-wh… what… are… you?” I moan, forcing the words out between my chattering teeth.

“The beginning and end of your greatest sorrows,” the monster replies. He says it plainly—not a boast.

“Mu-Mum?” I gasp. “Dad? Gr-Gr… Gr…”

“Gone,” he whispers, shaking his head, blood oozing from the cracks in his neck. “Remember them, Grubitsch. Recall the golden memories. Cherish them in these, your final moments. Cry for them, Grubitsch. Give me your tears.”

He smiles eagerly and his right hand reaches for my face. He brushes his mashed-together fingers across my left cheek, just beneath my eye, as though trying to charm tears from me.

The touch of his skin – moist, rough, sticky – repels me. Without thinking, I turn my back on the hell of my parents’ bedroom and run. Behind me, the monster chuckles darkly, clears his throat and says, “Vein. Artery. He is yours.”

With vile, vicious howls of delight, the creatures give chase.

→The landing. Growls and grinding teeth getting closer every second. Almost upon me. My legs slip. I sprawl to the floor. Something flies overhead and collides with the wall at the top of the stairs—the croc-dog, Vein.

A tiny hand snags on my left ankle. Artery’s teeth close on the turn-ups of my jeans. I pull away instinctively. Ripping—a long strip of material torn clean away. No damage to my leg. Artery rolls backwards, choking on the denim.

Vein scrambles to its feet, shaking its elongated crocodile’s head. My eyes fix on its legs. They don’t end in dog’s paws, but in tiny human hands, with long, blood-stained, splintered nails—a woman’s.

I wriggle past Vein on my stomach and drag myself down the stairs, gasping with terror. Out of the corner of my eye I spy Artery spitting out the denim, jumping to his feet, rushing after me.

Vein crouches at the top of the stairs, reptilian eyes furious, readying itself – herself – to pounce. Just as she leaps, Artery crashes into her. Vein yelps as her companion accidentally crushes her against the wall. Artery wails like a baby, kicks Vein out of the way, and totters down the stairs in pursuit of me.

My hands hit the floor. I lurch to my feet and start for the front door. I’ve a good lead on Artery, who’s still on the stairs. I’m going to make it! A few more strides and…

Something brushes between my legs at an incredible speed. There’s a sharp clattering sound. The door shakes. At its base, Artery rights himself and grins at me. The grotesque hell-child is rubbing his right shoulder, where he collided with the door. The fire in his eyes burns brighter than ever. His mouth is wide and twisted. No tongue—just a gaping, blood-red maw.

I scream incoherently at Artery, then grab the telephone from its stand – the closest object to hand – and lob it with all my strength at the demon. Artery ducks sharply. Unbelievably, the telephone smashes through the door, ending up in the street outside.

I’ve no time to ponder this impossible feat of strength. Artery’s momentarily disorientated. Vein’s only halfway down the stairs. I can escape—if I act quickly.

Making a sharp turn, I dive for the kitchen and the back door. Artery reads my intentions and bellows at Vein. The croc-dog leaps from the stairs and sails for my face and throat. I bring up an arm and swat her away. Vein’s nails catch on my arm, rip through the material of my shirt and make three deep gouges in the flesh of my forearm.

Yelling with pain, I kick out at the demon’s crocodile head. My foot hits it just beneath the tip of its snout. Vein’s head snaps back and she tumbles away with a grunt.

I don’t stop to check on Artery. I burst through to the kitchen and throw myself at the door. My fingers tighten on the handle. I twist—the wrong way! Reverse the movement. A click. The door opens…

… and slams shut again as Artery rams it. The force of the demon banging into the door knocks me aside. I roll out of harm’s immediate way. When I sit up, Artery has recovered and is standing in front of the door, legs and arms spread, three sets of teeth glinting in the glow of the red light cast by the fire of his eyeless sockets.

I back away on my knees from the green-skinned hell-child. Stop—growling to my rear. A panicked glance. Vein closing in, blocking my retreat.

I’m caught between them.

Artery’s smiling. He knows I’m finished. A cockroach topples from his head, lands on its back, rights itself. It starts to scuttle away. Artery steps on the roach and crushes it. Holds his foot up to me, so that I can see the insect’s smeared remains. Laughs evilly.

A snapping sound behind me. The stench of blood and decay. Vein almost upon me. Artery hisses—he wants to join in the bloodshed, but he’s wary. Won’t desert his post. Better to stay and watch Vein kill me than go for the kill himself and leave the door unguarded. I sense the demon’s fear of the one upstairs. He called these two his familiars—that means he’s their master.

Vein butts me in the back with her leathery snout. Growls throatily. It’s over. I’m finished. Dead, like Mum and Dad and…

“No!” I roar, startling the demons. My thoughts flash on the telephone smashing through the sturdy wood of the front door, and Artery and the speed with which he moved. My eyes fix on the dog flap. Much too small to fit through, but I don’t think of that. I focus only on escape.

I bring my legs up. Come to a half-crouch. Propel myself at the dog flap as Vein snaps for me with her teeth. I fly through the air, faster than any human should or could. The fire in Artery’s sockets flares with alarm. The demon snaps his tiny legs together. Too late! Before they close, I’m through, fingers pushing the dog flap up out of the way, arms, body and legs following. Shrieks and howls behind. But they can’t harm me now. I’m flying… outside… free!

→Soaring. Arms spread like wings. Exhilaration. Magic. Momentary delight. I feel invincible, like a –

Smash!

The backyard fence cuts short my flight. I hit the ground hard. Come up groaning and wheezing. Right elbow cut where I rocketed off the rough wood of the fence. Woozy. I stagger to my feet. Feel sick.

I remember the demons. My eyes snap to the dog flap. I turn to run…

…then stop. No sign of them. Ordinary night silence.

They aren’t following.

I stare at the dog flap – tiny – then at my arms and legs. The three red ravines gouged out by Vein. My shirt and jeans ripped from where the demons snagged me. My left shoe missing—it must have come off mid-flight. But otherwise I’m unharmed.

No way! Even if the dog flap had been bigger, I couldn’t have dived through it at that speed without scraping myself raw. How did…?

All questions die unvoiced as I recall the horror show of the bedroom.

“Mum,” I sob, staggering towards the back door. I pause with my hand on the handle. Almost turn it. Can’t.

I get down on my knees. Cautiously poke open the dog flap. Peer into the kitchen. No demons—but the many bloody prints on the tiles are proof I didn’t imagine the chase.

On my feet. Again I try to enter. Again I can’t bring myself to do it. Memories too terrifying. The demons too threatening. If I could help my family, perhaps it would be different. But they’re dead, all of them, and I have too much sense (or not enough courage) to risk my life for a trio of corpses.

Stepping back from the door, I stare up at the house. It looks like all the others from the outside. No webs. No blood. Normal walls and windows.

“Gret,” I mutter mindlessly. “I never said sorry for the rat guts.”

I think about that for a moment, stunned, sluggish. Then I raise my face, open my mouth and scream.

It’s a wordless scream. Pure hatred. Pure sorrow. It builds from somewhere deep within me and bursts forth with the same impossible force I summoned when lobbing the telephone at Artery and diving through the dog flap.

The glass in the windows shatters and explodes inwards, ripping curtains to shreds, littering floors with jagged, transparent shards. The glass in the houses to either side also explodes. And in the nearby cars and street lamps.

I scream as long as I can – perhaps a full minute without pause – then lapse into a silence as all-encompassing as the scream. It’s an isolated silence. Almost solid. No sounds trickle out and none penetrate.

After a while people emerge from the neighbouring houses, shaken, making their cautious way to the source of the insane howl. I see their mouths moving, but I don’t hear their questions, or their cries when they enter my house and come racing out shortly after, faces white, eyes filled with terror.

I’m in a world of my own. A world of webs and blood. Demons and corpses. Nightmares and terror. The name of the world from this night on—home.

DERVISH

→Lost, spiralling time. Muddled happenings. Flitting in and out of reality. Momentarily here, then gone, reclaimed by madness and demons.

→Clarity. A warm room. Police officers. I’m wrapped in blankets. A man with a kind face offers me a mug of hot chocolate. I take it. He’s asking questions. His words sail over and through me. Staring into the dark liquid of the mug, I begin to fade out of reality. To avoid the return to nightmares, I lift my head and focus on his moving lips.

For a long time—nothing. Then whispers. They grow. Like turning up the volume on the TV. Not all his words make sense – there’s a roaring sound inside my head – but I get his general drift. He’s asking about the murders.

“Demons,” I mutter, my first utterance since my soul-wrenching cry.

His face lights up and he snaps forward. More questions. Quicker than before. Louder. More urgent. Amidst the babble, I hear him ask, “Did you see them?”

“Yes,” I croak. “Demons.”

He frowns. Asks something else. I tune out. The world flames at the edges. A ball of madness condenses around me, trapping me, devouring me, cutting off all but the nightmares.

→A different room. Different officers. More demanding than the last one. Not as gentle. Asking questions loudly, facing me directly, holding my head up until our eyes meet and they have my attention. One holds up a photograph—red, a body torn down the middle.

“Gret,” I moan.

“I know it’s hard,” an officer says, sympathy mixed with impatience, “but did you see who killed her?”

“Demons,” I sigh.

“Demons don’t exist, Grubbs,” the officer growls. “You’re old enough to know that. Look, I know it’s hard,” he repeats himself, “but you have to focus. You have to help us find the people who did this.”

“You’re our only witness, Grubbs,” his colleague murmurs. “You saw them. Nobody else did. We know you don’t want to think about it right now, but you have to. For your parents. For Gret.”

The other cop waves the photo in my face again. “Give us something—anything!” he pleads. “How many were there? Did you see their faces or were they wearing masks? How much of it did you witness? Can you…”

Fading. Bye-bye officers. Hello horror.

→Screaming. Deafening cries. Looking around, wondering who’s making such a racket and why they aren’t being silenced. Then I realise it’s me screaming.

In a white room. Hands bound by a tight white jacket. I’ve never seen a real one before, but I know what it is—a straitjacket.

I focus on making the screams stop and they slowly die away to a whimper. I don’t know how long I’ve been roaring, but my throat’s dry and painful, as though I’ve been testing its limits for weeks without pause.

There’s a hard plastic mug set in a holder on a small table to my left. A straw sticks out of it. I ease my lips around the head of the straw and swallow. Flat Coke. It hurts going down, but after a couple of mouthfuls it’s wonderful.

Refreshed, I study my cell. Padded walls. Dim lights. A steel door with a strong plastic panel in the upper half, instead of glass.

I stumble to the panel and stare out. Can’t see much—the area beyond is dark, so the plastic’s mostly reflective. I study my face in the makeshift mirror. My eyes aren’t my own—bloodshot, wild, rimmed with black circles. Lips bitten to tatters. Scratches on my face—self-inflicted. Hair cut short, tighter than I’d like. A large purple bruise on my forehead.

A face pops up close on the other side of the glass. I fall backwards with fright. The door opens and a large, smiling woman enters. “It’s OK,” she says softly. “My name’s Leah. I’ve been looking after you.”

“Wh-wh… where am I?” I gasp.

“Some place safe,” she replies. She bends and touches the bruise on my forehead with two soft, gentle fingers. “You’ve been through hell, but you’re OK now. It’s all uphill from here. Now that you’ve snapped out of your delirium, we can work on…”

I lose track of what Leah’s saying. Behind her, in the doorway, I imagine a pair of demons—Vein and Artery. The sane part of me knows they aren’t real, just visions, but that part of me has no control over my senses any more. Backing up against one of the padded walls, I stare blankly at the make-believe demons as they dance around my cell, making crude gestures and mimed threats.

Leah goes on talking. The imaginary Vein and Artery go on dancing. I slip back into the shell of my nightmares – almost gratefully.

→In and out. Quiet moments of reality. Sudden flashes of insanity and terror.

I’m being held in an institute for people with problems – that’s all any of my nurses will tell me. No names. No mingling with the other patients. White rooms. Nurses—Leah, Kelly, Tim, Aleta, Emilia and others, all nice, all concerned, all unable to coax me back from my nightmares when they strike. Doctors with names which I don’t bother memorising. They examine me at regular intervals. Make notes. Ask questions.

→What did you see?

→What did the killers look like?

→Why do you insist on calling them demons?

→You know demons aren’t real. Who are the real killers?

One of them asks if I committed the murders. She’s a grey-haired, sharp-eyed woman. Not as kindly as the rest. The ‘bad doctor’ to their ‘good doctors’. She presses me harder as the days slip by. Challenges me. Shows me photos which make me cry.

I start calling her Doctor Slaughter, but only to myself, not out loud. When she comes with her questions and cold eyes, I open myself to the nightmares—always hovering on the edges, eager to embrace me – and lose myself to the real world. After a few of these intentional fade-outs, they obviously decide to abandon the shock tactics and that’s the last I see of Doctor Slaughter.

→Time dragging or disappearing into nightmares. No ordinary time. No lazy afternoons or quiet mornings. The murders impossible to forget. Grief and fear tainting my every waking and sleeping moment.

Routines are important, according to my doctors and nurses, who wish to put a stop to my nightmarish withdrawals. They’re trying to get me back to real time. They surround me with clocks. Make me wear two watches. Stress the times at which I’m to eat and bathe, exercise and sleep.

Lots of pills and injections. Leah says it’s only temporary, to calm me down. Says they don’t like dosing patients here. They prefer to talk us through our problems, not make us forget them.

The drugs numb me to the nightmares, but also to everything else. Impossible to feel interest or boredom, excitement or despair. I wander around the hospital – I have a free run now that I’m no longer violent – in a daze, zombiefied, staring at clock faces, counting the seconds until my next pill.

→Off the pills. Coming down hard. Screaming fits. Fighting the nurses. Craving numbness. Needing pills!

They ignore my screams and pleas. Leah explains what’s happening. I’m on a long-term treatment plan. The drugs put a stop to the nightmares and anchored me in the real world—step one. Now I have to learn to function in it as a normal person, free of medicinal depressants – step two.

I try explaining my situation to her – my nightmares won’t ever go away, because the demons I saw were real – but she refuses to listen. Nobody believes me when I talk about the demons. They accept that I was in the house at the time of the murders, and that I witnessed something dreadful, but they can’t see beyond human horrors. They think I imagined the demons to mask the truth. One doctor says it’s easier to believe in demons than evil humans. Says a wicked person is far scarier than a fanciful demon.

Moron! He wouldn’t say that if he’d seen the crocodile-headed Vein or the cockroach-crowned Artery!

→Gradual improvement. I lose my craving for drugs and no longer throw fits. But I don’t progress as quickly as my doctors anticipated. I keep slipping back into the world of nightmares, losing my grip on reality. I don’t talk openly with my nurses and doctors. I don’t discuss my fears and pains. Sometimes I babble incoherently and can’t interpret the words of those around me. Or I’ll stand staring at a tree or bush through one of the institute windows all day long, or not get up in the morning, despite the best rousing efforts of my nurses. I’m fighting them. They don’t believe my story, so they can’t truly understand me, so they can’t really help me. So I fight them. Out of fear and spite.

→Somewhere in the middle of the confusion, relatives arrive. The doctors want me to focus on the world outside this institute. They think the way to do that is to reintroduce me to my family, break down my sense of overwhelming isolation. I think the plan is for the visitors to fuss over me, so that I want to be with them, so I’ll then play ball with the doctors when they start in with the questions.

Aunt Kate’s the first. She clutches me tight and weeps. Talks about Mum, Dad and Gret non-stop, recalling all the good times that she can remember. Begs me to let the doctors help me, to talk with them, so I can get better and go home and live with her. I say nothing, just stare off into space and think about Dad hanging upside-down. Aunt Kate leaves less than an hour later, still sobbing.

More relatives drop in during the following days and weeks, rounded up by the doctors. Aunts, uncles, cousins—both sides of the family tree. Some are old acquaintances. Some I’ve never seen before. I don’t respond to any of them. I can tell they’re just like the doctors. They don’t believe me.

Lots of questions from my carers. Why don’t I talk to my relatives? Do I like them? Are there others I prefer? Am I afraid of people? How would I feel about leaving here and staying with one of the well-wishers for a while?

They’re trying to ship me out. It’s not that they’re sick of me—just step three on my path to recovery. Since I won’t rally to their calls in here, they hope that a taste of the real world will make me more receptive. (I haven’t developed any great insights into the human way of thinking—I know all this because Leah and the other nurses tell me. They say it’s good for me to know what they’re thinking, what their plans are.)

I do my best to give them what they want – I’d love if they could cure me – but it’s difficult. The relatives remind me of what happened. They can’t act naturally around me. They look at me with pitying – sometimes fearful – expressions. But I try. I listen. I respond.

→After much preparation and discussion, I spend a weekend with Uncle Mike and his family. Mike is Mum’s younger brother. He has a pretty wife – Rosetta – and three children, two girls and a boy. Gret and I stayed with them a few times in the past, when Mum and Dad were away on holidays.

They try hard to make me feel welcome. Conor – Mike’s son – is ten years old. He shows me his toys and plays computer games with me. He’s bright and friendly. Talks me through his comics collection and tells me I can pick out any three issues I like and keep them.

The girls – Lisa and Laura – are seven and six. Gigglish. Not sure why I’m here or aware of what happened to me. But they’re nice. They tell me about school and their friends. They want to know if I have a girlfriend.

Saturday goes well. I feel Mike’s optimism—he thinks this will work, that I’ll return to my senses and pick up my life as normal. I try to believe salvation can come that simply, but inside I know I’m deluding myself.

→ Sunday. A stroll in the park. Playing with Lisa and Laura on the swings. Pushing them high. Rosetta close by, keeping a watchful eye on me. Mike on the roundabout with Conor.

“Want off!” Laura shouts. I stop her and she hops to the ground. “Look what I saw!” she yells gleefully, and rushes over to a bush at the side of the swings. I follow. She points to a dead bird—small, young, its body ripped apart, probably by a cat.

“Cool!” Lisa gasps, coming up behind.

“No it’s not,” Rosetta says, wandering over. “It’s sad.”

“Can we take it home and bury it?” Lisa asks.

“I don’t know,” Rosetta frowns. “It looks like it’s been–”

“Demons killed my parents and sister,” I interrupt calmly. The girls stare at me with round, wide eyes. “One of them ripped my dad’s head clean off. Blood was pouring out. Like from a tap.”

“Grubitsch, I don’t think–” Rosetta says.

“One of the demons had the body of a child,” I continue, unable to stop. “It had green skin and no eyes. Instead of hair, its head was covered with cockroaches.”

“That’s enough!” Rosetta snaps. “You’re terrifying the girls. I won’t–”

“The cockroaches were alive. They were eating the demon’s flesh. If I’d looked closely enough, I’m sure I’d have seen its brains.”

Rosetta storms off, Lisa and Laura in tow. Laura’s crying.

I gaze sadly at the dead bird. Nightmares gather around me. Imagined demonic chuckles. The last thing I see in the real world—Mike marching towards me, torn between concern and fury.

→The institute. Days – weeks? months? – later. Lots of questions.

→Why did you say that to the girls?

→Do you want to hurt other people?

→Are you angry? Sad? Scared?

→ Would you like to visit somebody else?

I don’t answer, or else I grunt in response. They don’t understand. They can’t. I didn’t want to scare Lisa or Laura, or upset Mike and Rosetta. The words came out by themselves. The doctors can’t help. If I had an ordinary illness, I’m sure they could fix me. But I’ve seen demons rip my world to pieces. Nobody believes that, so nobody knows what I’m going through. I’m alone. I always will be. That’s my life now. That’s just the way it is.

→ The relatives stop coming. The doctors stop trying. They say they’re giving me time to recover, but I think they just don’t know how to handle me. Long periods by myself, walking, reading, thinking. Tired most of the time. Headaches. Imaginary demons everywhere I look. Hard to keep food down. Growing thin. Sickly.

The nurses try to rally my spirits. Days out – a circus, theme park, cinemas – and parties in my cell. No good. Their efforts are wasted on me. I draw into myself more and more. Hardly ever speak. Avoid eye contact. Fingers twitch and head twists with fear at the slightest alien sound.

Getting worse. Going downhill.

There’s talk of new pills.

→A visitor. It’s been a long time since the last. I thought they’d given up.

It’s Uncle Dervish. Dad’s younger brother. I don’t know much about him. A man of mystery. He visited us a few times when I was smaller. Mum never liked him. I recall her and Dad arguing about him once. “We’re not taking the kids there!” she snapped. “I don’t trust him.”

Leah admits Uncle Dervish. Asks if he’d like anything to drink or eat. “No thanks.” Would I like anything? I shake my head. Leah leaves.

Dervish Grady is a thin, lanky man. Bald on top, grey hair at the sides, a tight grey beard. Pale blue eyes. I remember his eyes from when I was a kid. I thought they looked like my toy soldier’s eyes. I asked him if he was in the army. He laughed.

He’s dressed completely in denim—jeans, shirt, jacket. He looks ridiculous—Gret used to say denim looks naff on anyone over the age of thirty. She was right.

Dervish sits in the visitor’s chair and studies me with cool, serious eyes. He’s immediately different to all who’ve come before. Whereas the other relatives were quick to start a false, cheerful conversation, or cry, or say how sorry they were, Dervish just sits and stares. That interests me, so I stare back, more alert than I’ve been in weeks.

“Hello,” I say after a full minute of silence.

Dervish nods in reply.

I try thinking of a follow-up line. Nothing comes to mind.

Dervish looks slowly around the room. Stands, walks to the window, gazes out at the rear yard of the institute, then swings back to the door, which Leah left ajar. He pokes his head out, looks left and right. Closes the door. Returns to the chair and sits. Unbuttons the top of his denim jacket. Slides out three sheets of paper. Holds them face down.

I sit upright, intrigued but suspicious. Is this some new ploy of the doctors? Have they fed Dervish a fresh set of lines and actions, in an attempt to spark my revival?

“I hope this isn’t a Rorschach test,” I grin weakly. “I’ve had enough inkblots to last me a–”

Dervish turns a sheet over and I stop dead. It’s a black-and-white drawing of a large dog with a crocodile’s head and human hands.

“Vein,” Dervish says. He has a soft, lyrical voice.

I tremble and say nothing in reply.

He turns over the second sheet. Colour this time. A child with green skin. Mouths in its palms. Fire in its eyes. Lice for hair.

“Artery,” Dervish says.

“You got the hair wrong,” I mumble. “It should be cockroaches.”

“Lice, cockroaches, leeches—it changes,” he says, and lays the two sheets down on the floor. He turns over the third. This one’s colour too. A thin man, lumpy red skin, large red eyes, mangled hands, no feet, a snake-filled hole where his heart should be.

“The doctors put you up to this,” I moan, averting my eyes. “I told them about the demons. They must have got artists to draw them. Why are you–”

“You didn’t tell them his name,” Dervish cuts me short. He taps the picture. “You said the other two were familiars, and this one was their master—but you never mentioned his name. Do you know it?”

I think back to those few minutes of insanity in my parents’ bedroom. The demon lord didn’t say much. Never told me who he was. I open my mouth to answer negatively…

…then slowly let it close. No—he did reveal his identity. I can’t remember when exactly, but somewhere in amongst the madness there was mention of it. I cast my thoughts back. Zone in on the moment. It was when he asked if I knew why this was happening, if my parents had ever told me the story of –

“Lord Loss,” Dervish says, a split second before I blurt it out.

I stare at him… uncertain… terrified… yet somehow excited.

“I know the demons were real,” Dervish murmurs, picking up the pictures and placing them back inside his jacket, doing up his buttons. He stands. “If you want to come live with me, you can. But you’ll have to sort out the mess you’re in first. The doctors say you won’t respond to their questions. They say they know how to help you, but that you won’t let them.”

“They don’t believe me!” I cry. “How can they cure me when they think I’m lying about the demons?”

“The world’s a confusing place,” Dervish says. “I’m sure your parents told you to always tell the truth, and most of the time that’s good advice. But sometimes you have to lie.” He comes over and bends, so his face is in mine. “These people want to help you, Grubitsch. And I believe they can. But you’re going to have to help them. You’ll have to lie, pretend demons don’t exist, tell them what they want to hear. You have to give a little to get a little. Once you remove that barrier, they can go to work on fixing your brain, on helping you deal with the grief. Then, when they’ve done all they can, you can come to me – if that’s what you want – and I’ll help you with the rest. I can explain about demons. And tell you why your parents and sister died.”

He leaves.

→ Stunned silence. Long days and nights of heavy thinking. Repeating the name of the thin red demon. Lord Loss, Lord Loss, Lord Loss, Lord…

Torn between hope and fear. Could Dervish be in league with the demons? Mum saying, “I don’t trust him.” I’m safe here. Leaving might be an invitation to danger and further sorrow. I won’t improve in this place, holding true to my story, defying the doctors and nurses—but I can’t be harmed either. Out in the real world, I might have to face demons again. Simpler to stay here and hide.

→One morning I wake from a nightmare. In it, I was at a party, wearing a mask. When I took the mask off, I realised I’d been wearing Gret’s face.

Sitting up in bed. Shaking. Crying. I stare out the window at the world beyond.

I decide.

→Exercising. Eating sensibly. Putting on weight. Talking directly with my doctors and nurses, answering their questions, letting them into my head, “baring my soul”. I allow them to help me. I work with them. Lie when I have to. Say I saw humans in the room that night. Police come and take my statement. An artist captures my new, realistic, invented impressions of the murderers. My doctors beam proudly and pat my back.

Weeks pass. With help and lots of hard work, I get better. Dervish was right. Now that I’m working with them, they are able to help me, even if we’re progressing on the basis of a lie—that demons aren’t real. I weep a lot and learn a lot—how to face my grief, how to confront my fear and control it—and let them guide me out of the darkness, slowly, painfully, but surely.

In one afternoon session with a therapist, when I judge the time to be right, I make a request. Lots of discussions afterwards. Long debates. Staff meetings. Phone calls. Humming and hawing. Finally they agree. There’s a big build-up. Lots of in-depth therapy sessions and heart-to-hearts. Tests galore, to make sure I’m ready, to reassure themselves that they’re doing the right thing. They have doubts. They voice them. We talk them through. They decide in my favour.

The last day. Handshakes and emergency contact numbers from the doctors in case anything goes wrong. Kisses and hugs from my favourite nurses. A card from Leah. Facing the door, a bag on my shoulder with all I have left in the world. Scared sick but determined to see it through.

I leave the institute on the back of a motorbike. Driving—my rescuer, my lifeline, my hope—Uncle Dervish.

“Hold on tight,” he says. “Speed limits were made to be broken.”

Vroom!

THE GRAND TOUR

→Dervish drives like a madman, a hundred miles an hour. Howling wind. Blurred countryside. No chance to talk or study the scenery. I spend the journey with my face pressed between my uncle’s shoulder blades, clinging on for dear life.

Finally, coming to a small village, he slows. I peek and catch the name on a sign as we exit—Carcery Vale.

“Carkerry Vale,” I murmur.

“It’s pronounced Car-sherry,” Dervish grunts.

“This is where you live,” I note, recalling the address from cards I wrote and sent with Mum and Gret. (Mum didn’t like Uncle Dervish but she always sent him a Christmas and birthday card.)

“Actually, I live about two miles beyond,” Dervish says, carefully overtaking a tractor and waving to the driver. “It’s pretty lonely out where I am, but there are lots of kids in the village. You can walk in any time you like.”

“Do they know about me?” I ask.

“Only that you’re an orphan and you’re coming to live with me.”

A winding road. Lots of potholes which Dervish swerves expertly to avoid. The sides of the road are lined with trees. They grow close together, blocking out all but the thinnest slivers of sunlight. Dark and cold. I press closer to Dervish, hugging warmth from him.

“The trees don’t stretch back very far,” he says. “You can skirt around them when you’re going to the village.”

“I’m not afraid,” I mutter.

“Of course you are,” he chuckles, then looks back quickly. “But you have my word—you’ve no need to be.”

→Chez Dervish. A huge house. Three storeys. Built from rough white blocks, almost as big as those I’ve seen in photos of the pyramids. Shaped like an L. The bit sticking out at the end is made from ordinary red bricks and doesn’t look like the rest of the house. Lots of timber decorations around the top and down the sides. A slate roof with three enormous chimneys. The roof on the brick section is flat and the chimney’s tiny in comparison with the others. The windows on the lower floor run from the ground to the ceiling. The windows on the upper floors are smaller, round, and feature stained glass designs. On the brick section they’re very ordinary.

“It’s not much,” Dervish says wryly, “but it’s home.”

“This place must have cost a fortune!” I gasp, standing close to the motorbike, staring at the house, almost afraid to venture any nearer.

“Not really,” Dervish says. “It was a wreck when I bought it. No roof or windows, the interior destroyed by exposure to the elements. The lower floor was used by a local farmer to house pigs. I lived in the brick extension for years while I restored the main building. I keep meaning to tear the extension down – I don’t use it any more, and it takes away from the the main structure – but I never seem to get round to it.”

Dervish removes his helmet, helps me out of mine, then walks me around the outside of the house. He explains about the original architect and how much work he had to do to make the house habitable again, but I don’t listen very closely. I’m too busy assessing the mansion and the surrounding terrain—lots of open fields, sheep and cattle in some of them, a small forest to the west which runs all the way to Carcery Vale, no neighbouring houses that I can see.

“Do you live here alone?” I ask as we return to the front of the house.

“Pretty much,” Dervish says. “One farmer owns most of this land, and he’s opposed to over-development. He’s old. I guess his children will sell plots off when he dies. But for the last twenty years I’ve had all the peace and seclusion a man could wish for.”

“Doesn’t it get lonely?” I ask.

“No,” Dervish says. “I’m fairly solitary by nature. When I’m in need of company, it’s only a short stroll to the village. And I travel a lot—I’ve many friends around the globe.”

We stop at the giant front doors, a pair of them, like the entrance to a castle. No doorbell—just two chunky gargoyle-shaped knockers, which I eye apprehensively.

Dervish doesn’t open the doors. He’s studying me quietly.

“Have you lost the key?” I ask.

“We don’t have to enter,” he says. “I think you’ll grow to love this place after a while, but it’s a lot to take in at the start. If you’d prefer, you could stay in the brick extension—it’s an eyesore, but cosy inside. Or we can drive to the Vale and you can spend a few nights in a B&B until you get your bearings.”

It’s tempting. If the house is even half as spooky on the inside as it looks from out here, it’s going to be hard to adapt to. But if I don’t move in now, I’m sure the house will grow far creepier in my imagination than it can ever be in real life.

“Come on,” I grin weakly, lifting one of the gargoyle knockers and rapping loudly. “We look like a pair of idiots, standing out here. Let’s go in.”

→Cold inside but brightly lit. No carpets – all tiles or stone floors – but many rugs and mats. No wallpaper—some of the walls are painted, others just natural stone. Chandeliers in the main hall and dining room. Wall-set lamps in the other rooms.

Bookcases everywhere, most of them filled. Chess boards too, in every room—Dervish must be as keen on chess as Mum and Dad. Ancient weapons hang from many of the walls—swords, axes, maces.

“For when the tax collector calls,” Dervish says solemnly, lifting down one of the larger swords. He swings it over his head and laughs.

“Can I try it?” I ask. He hands it to me. “Bloody hell!” It’s H-E-A-V-Y. I can lift it to thigh level but no higher. A quick reappraisal of Uncle Dervish—he looks wiry as a rat, but he must have hidden muscles under all the denim.

We meander through the downstairs rooms, Dervish explaining what each was used for in the past, pointing out items of special interest, such as a stuffed bear’s head which is more than two hundred years old, a cage where a live vulture was kept, rusty nails which were used by the Romans to crucify people.

There’s a large, empty fish tank in one of the main living rooms, set against a wall. Dervish pauses at it and taps the frame with his fingernails. “The last owner of this place – before it fell into ruin – was a tyrant called Lord Sheftree. He kept live piranhas in this tank. One day, a woman turned up with a baby—she claimed it was his, and she wanted money to pay for its upkeep.”

Dervish crouches down and stares into the abandoned aquarium, as though it’s still full of circling, multicoloured fish.

“Lord Sheftree invited her to stay for the night,” he says calmly. “While she was sleeping, he crept into her room and removed her baby. Brought it down here and fed it to the piranhas. Took the bones away and buried them. The woman raised almighty hell, but search parties couldn’t find a corpse, and nobody had seen her arrive with a child—so there was no proof she ever had one. She ranted and raved and was eventually locked away in a mental asylum. She hanged herself there.

“Years later, when Lord Sheftree was an old man and his mind was wandering, he boasted about the murder to one of his servants, and told her where the bones were buried. She dug them up and informed the police. They came to arrest him, but the local villagers got here first. He was discovered chopped up into tiny pieces—all of which had been dropped into the piranha tank.”

Dervish stops and I gaze at him in silent awe.

He stands and faces me. “I’m not saying this to scare you,” he smiles, “but this house has a long and bloody history. There are dozens of horror stories, none quite as gruesome as that one, but all of them pretty gutchurning. I think it’s best you hear about its past now, from me.”

“Is… is the house haunted?” I wheeze.

“No,” he answers seriously. “It’s safe. I wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t. If the nightmares of the past prove too oppressive, you’re free to leave. But you’ve nothing to fear in the present.”

I nod slowly, thinking about Lord Sheftree and his piranha, wondering if I have the courage to spend the night in a house like this.

“Are you OK?” Dervish asks. “Would you like to step outside for fresh air?”

“I’m fine,” I mutter, turning my back on the fish tank, acting like I hear this sort of stuff all the time. “What’s upstairs?”

→Mostly bedrooms on the first floor. All are fully fitted, the beds freshly made, though Dervish says only four or five of the rooms have been used since he renovated the mansion.

“Why bother with all the beds then?” I ask.

“If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” he laughs.

Some of the beds are four-posters, imported from foreign countries, with histories as old and macabre as the house. It’s only when Dervish is telling me about one particular bed, in which a French aristocrat hid for four months during the Revolution, that I think about how much they must have cost.

“What do you do?” I ask my uncle. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t recall Mum or Dad ever mentioning Dervish’s line of work.

“I dabble in antiques,” he says. “Rare books are my speciality—particularly books regarding the occult.”

Dervish looks at me questioningly—we haven’t mentioned demons since he picked me up at the institute. He’s offering me the chance to quiz him about them now. But I’m not ready to discuss Lord Loss or his minions yet.

“You must be good at it, to afford a place like this,” I say, sliding away from the larger questions and issues.

“It’s a hobby,” he demurs, leading me down a long corridor full of framed portraits and photographs. “The money’s good, but I don’t worry too much about it.”

“Then how do you pay for all this?” I ask nosily.

Dervish quickens his pace. I think he’s avoiding the question, but then he stops at one of the older portraits and points at it. “Recognise him?”

I study the face of an old man—lined, quite a large nose, but otherwise unspectacular. “Is he famous?” I ask.

“Only to us,” Dervish says. “He was your great-great-great-grandfather. Bartholomew Garadex. That’s our original family name, on our paternal side—it got shortened to Grady around your great-grandfather’s time.” He points to a nearby portrait. “That’s him.” Waving a hand at the hall in general, he adds, “They’re all part of our family. Garadexes, Gradys, Bells, Moores—if one of our relations has been photographed or painted, you’ll most probably find them here.”

Returning to the portrait of my great-great-great-grandfather, he says, “Bartholomew was a sublimely clever man. He started with nothing but had amassed a fortune by the time of his death. We’re still living off of it—at least, I am. Cal preferred to make his own way in the world, and only dipped into the family coffers in emergencies.”

“How much is left?” I enquire.

“Quite a lot,” Dervish says vaguely. “Your great-great-grandfather – one of old Bart’s boys – wasted most of it. Then his son – the one who changed the family name – restored it. It’s been fairly constant since, much of it tied up in bonds and properties which yield steady profits.”

“Who does it go to when…” I stop and blush. “I mean, who’s your heir?”

Dervish doesn’t answer immediately. He gazes at the face in the portrait, as though seeing it for the first time. Then he looks away and says quietly, “I have no children. I’ve willed portions of the estate to various friends and causes. I always meant for the majority of my assets to go to Cal and his kids. Since you’re the only survivor…”

My stomach tightens—Dervish sounds as if he’s accusing me of caring more about money than my family. “I’d swap any amount of a fortune if I could bring Mum and Dad and Gret back,” I snarl.

“Of course you would.” Dervish frowns, glancing at me oddly, and I realise I was only imagining the accusation.

“Let’s go,” Dervish says. “There’s another floor to explore—and a cellar.”

“A cellar?” I ask nervously.

“Yes,” he says. “That’s where I bury the bodies.”

I freeze, and he has to stop and wink broadly before I catch the joke.

→Lots of storage space on the second floor—rooms packed with crates, statues and boxes of books. There are a couple of small bedrooms, including Dervish’s, and the centrepiece—his study.

Unlike every other room in the mansion, Dervish’s study is carpeted and the walls are covered with leather panels. It’s a colossal room, the size of seven or eight of the bedrooms, with two desks larger than most of the beds I’ve seen. There are bookcases, on which small numbers of books are carefully arranged. He has a PC, a laptop, a typewriter, several writing pads and a multitude of pens. There are five chess sets in the room, each different; one made entirely of crystal, another with solid gold pieces. A sword and axe hangs from each wall, their handles encrusted with precious jewels, their blades gleaming brightly.

“This is wild,” I grin, circling the study, checking out some of the book titles—all to do with ghosts, werewolves, magic and other occult-related items.

“Some of my rarer finds,” Dervish says, picking up a book and smiling as he flicks through it. “The great thing about having loads of money is not having to sell to survive.”

“Aren’t you afraid of burglars?” I ask. “Wouldn’t this stuff be safer in a museum?”

“The contents of this room are protected,” he says. “Anyone breaking in is free to plunder the rest of the house as they please—but they won’t take anything from here.”

“What sort of security system do you use?” I ask. “Lasers? Heat sensors?”

“Magic.”

I start to smirk, thinking this is another of his jokes, but his grim expression unnerves me.

“I’ve cast some of my strongest spells on this room,” he says. “Anybody who enters without my permission will run into serious obstacles. And I don’t use that phrase lightly.”

Dervish sits in the large leather chair behind one of the desks and rocks lightly to the left and right as he addresses me. “I know there’s nothing as tempting as forbidden fruit, Grubitsch, but I’ve got to ask you not to come into this room when I’m not here. There are spells I can cast to protect you – and spells I can teach you when you’re ready to learn – but it’s safest not to tempt fate.”

“Are you…” I have to wet my lips to continue. “Are you a magician?”

“No,” he chuckles. “But I know many of the ways of magic. Bartholomew Garadex was a magician—among other things—but there hasn’t been one in the family since. Real magicians are rare. You can’t become one—you have to be born to it. Ordinary people like you and me can study magic and make it work to an extent, but true magicians have the natural power to change the shape of the world with a click of their fingers. It wouldn’t do to have too many people with that kind of power walking around. Nature limits us to one or two per century.”

“Is…” I hate to say his name out loud, but I must. “Is Lord Loss a magician?”

Dervish’s eyes are dark. “No. He’s a demon master. He’s as far advanced of magicians as magicians are of the rest of us.”

“When I… was escaping… I used magic.”

“To fit through the dog flap.” He nods. “Many of us have magical potential. It usually lies dormant, but the presence of the demons enabled you to tap into yours. The magic within you reacted to theirs. Without it, you would have died, along with the others.”

I stare wordlessly at Uncle Dervish. He speaks so honestly, so matter of factly, that he could be explaining a maths problem. There’s so much I want to ask, so many questions. But this isn’t the time. I’m not ready.

I scratch my head and pluck a long ginger hair from behind my left ear. I rub it between my fingers until it falls, then face Dervish and grin shakily. “I’ll agree to stay out of your study if you’ll do something for me in return.”

“What?” he asks, and I can tell he’s expecting an overbearing request.

“Will you call me ‘Grubbs’? I can’t stand ‘Grubitsch’.”

→The cellar’s full of wine racks and dusty bottles.

“My other great love, apart from books,” Dervish purrs, wiping clean the label of a large green bottle. He advances, lights flicking on ahead of him as he walks. I wonder if it’s magic, until I spot motion-detection sensors overhead.

“Do you drink wine?” he asks, leading me down one of the many rack-lined aisles of the cellar.

“Mum and Dad let us have a glass with dinner sometimes, but I don’t really like it,” I answer.

“Shocking!” he tuts. “I’ll have to educate your palate. Wine is as varied and unpredictable as people. There are some vintages you just won’t get on with, no matter how famous or popular they are, but you’ll always find something you like—if you search hard enough.”

He stops, picks out another bottle, appraises and replaces it. “I roam around for hours down here some days,” he sighs. “Half the pleasure of having such a fine collection is forgetting what’s here and rediscovering it by accident years later. The choosing of a bottle can be almost as much fun as the drinking of it.” He snorts. “Almost!”

We return to the steps leading up to the kitchen and he pauses. “I have to ask you not to come down here either,” he says. “But this has nothing to do with spells or magic. The temperature and humidity have to be maintained just so.” He pinches his left thumb and index finger together. “I’m fairly easy-going when it comes to material possessions, but where my wine’s concerned I’m unbelievably cranky. If you caused an accident…” He shook his head glumly. “I wouldn’t say much, but I’d silently despise you for ever.”

“I’ll steer clear,” I laugh. “The off-licence will do for me if I want to go boozing.”

Dervish smiles and leads the way up. The lights switch off automatically behind us, plunging the cellar into cool, precision gloom.

→“And that’s it.”

Back where we started, the main hall, beneath the giant chandelier. Dervish checks his watch. “I usually have dinner anywhere between five and seven. You can eat with me—I’m a nifty little chef, if I do say so myself—or do your own cooking and feed whenever you like. The freezer’s stocked with pizzas and microwave dinners.”

“I’ll eat with you,” I tell him.

“Then I’ll shout when it’s ready. In the meantime, feel free to explore, either inside or out. And remember—you can’t come to any harm here.”

He heads for the wide set of marble stairs leading to the first and second floors.

“Wait!” I stop him. “You never showed me my room.” Dervish slaps his forehead playfully. “You’ll get used to that,” he chuckles. “I’m for ever overlooking the obvious. Well, there are fourteen bedrooms to choose from—any except mine is yours for the taking.”

“You don’t have a room set aside for me?” I ask, surprised.

“I thought about it,” he replies, “but I decided to let you choose for yourself. You can test out as many as you like. If you want to stay on the upper floor, close to me, you can—though the rooms there are quite modest compared to those on the first floor.”

He tips an imaginary hat to me, then trots up the stairs to his study.

Standing alone in the vast hall. The house creaks around me. I shiver, then recall Uncle Dervish’s promise—I can’t come to any harm here. I shake off the creeps before they have a chance to take hold.

Picking up my bag, which I dropped by the front doors when we came in, I climb the ornate stairs and go searching among the beautifully kept, expansive array of rooms for one that I can dump my gear in and call my own.

PORTRAITS

→I don’t expect to get much sleep the first night – new surroundings, new bed, new life – but surprisingly I drop off within minutes of climbing underneath the covers of the small first-floor bed I chose, and don’t wake until close to ten in the morning.

I feel good as I use the en suite bathroom. Refreshed. The sun’s broken through the clouds and is shining directly on to my bed when I come out of the bathroom. I lie on the covers and bask in the rays, smiling softly. For a moment I think of Gret’s en suite… the rat guts… the start of the nightmares. But I’m in too good a mood to dwell on all that. Shaking my thoughts free, I head downstairs for a late breakfast.

I’m finishing off my cornflakes and munching my third slice of toast when Dervish enters through the back door. He’s been jogging. Red-faced, sweaty, panting.

“I looked in… on you… earlier,” he gasps, rolling his neck around, jiggling his arms and legs. “Didn’t have the heart… to wake you.”

“I don’t normally sleep this late,” I grin guiltily.

“I should hope not.” He stretches, holds his hands over his head while he counts to ten, then relaxes, pulls up a chair and sits. “Any plans for today?”

“I’m not sure,” I admit nervously. “I’m used to having nurses plan my days for me.”

“I’ve been thinking about school,” Dervish says. “Ideally I’d like to get you started quickly, but they’re midway through term. You’d be playing catch-up from the second you sat down. I think it’d be easier if we waited until after the summer, when you can go in fresh with the rest of the class.”

“OK.” I’m relieved—I was dreading the return to school.

“If you want, I can give you some lessons, or we can enroll you for private tuition,” Dervish continues. “You’ve missed a lot, and I suspect you’ll have to repeat a year, but if you work hard over the summer…”

“I’m not worried about repeating,” I mutter. “If I was at my old school, I’d want to move up with my friends. But since I’m starting fresh, it doesn’t really matter which class I go into.”

“I like the way you think,” Dervish smiles. “OK, we’ll lay off the heavy grinds, but fit the odd bit of learning in along the way—you’ll get rusty if you don’t keep your brain sharp.”

“What about today?” I ask. “What should I do?”

“Get the lay of the land,” Dervish suggests. “Explore the house. Have a look round the grounds and neighbouring fields—you won’t get done for trespassing as long as you don’t mess with the livestock. Maybe take a stroll to the village and let the gossips have a gawk—I’m sure they’re dying to check out the new boy. You can start on the household chores tomorrow.”

“Chores?”

“Sweeping, cleaning, stuff like that.”

“Oh.” I glance around. “I thought… a place this big… you’d have a maid or something.”

“No maid!” Dervish laughs. “I have a woman who comes in once a fortnight to dust the bedrooms, but that’s it as far as outside help goes. You’ll have to earn your keep here, Grubbs m’boy! But we’ll start with the slave labour tomorrow, like I said. Find your feet first. Take it easy. Enjoy.” He rises and his expression saddens. “Hell, you’re due some enjoyment after all you’ve been through.”

→I do the village first. Carcery Vale is quaint, quiet, picturesque. Nice white or creamy houses, smiling people, the occasional car puttering down the main street. I walk through the village, familiarising myself with the layout. I pass the school—larger than I thought. It’s lunch and the students are in the yard, shouting, laughing, playing football. I don’t get close. Nervous. I’ve had months of dealing strictly with adults. I’ve almost forgotten what people my own age are like and how to get along with them.

Not many shops, and a very limited selection of goods. I need new clothes, but socks and underpants are all the local stores have to offer. I suppose there’s a town within easy driving distance where Dervish can take me. I’ll ask when I get back.

The people in the shops and on the streets eye me curiously but without suspicion. I keep expecting them to ask for my name or pass a comment – “You must be Mr Grady’s new lodger,” or “You’re not from around here, are you?” – but they just nod pleasantly and let me go about my business.

→Early afternoon. Wandering around the mansion. Checking out the rooms.

I knew the instant I arrived that this was a monster of a house, but it’s only today that I realise just how enormous it is. It doesn’t have a single modest inch or nook to it. Everything’s overblown and over the top. I feel out of place. I’m used to ordinary terrace houses, wallpaper from chain stores, furniture bought from glossy catalogues, paperback bestsellers and brand-name reference guides on the bookshelves.

But as awkward as I feel in this massive, ornate old house, I’m not scared. Although it reeks of history, and is full of barbaric weapons and grotesque items like the piranha tank, I’m not frightened. I don’t get shivers down my spine strolling through the corridors (some longer than the street where I used to live). I don’t imagine monsters lurking under the beds, or demons cackling in the shadows.

This house is safe. I’m protected within these walls. I don’t know how I know—I just do.

→The hall of portraits. I’ve been here fifteen, maybe twenty minutes, studying the faces of my relatives. Most are strangers, faded faces from the long-forgotten past – many of them young, just teenagers – but some are familiar. I spot Grandad Grady, my great-aunt Martha, a few cousins I met when I was younger—all of whom have died during the course of my short life.

I look for my picture but I’m not among them. Dad and Gret are though, in new frames. Recent photos. I remember the day they were taken, last summer, when we were on holiday in Italy.

No photo of Mum. I go through them all again, but she isn’t here. The two of us are missing.

→Shopping for clothes, twenty miles from Carcery Vale, in a large mall. Lots of people and noise. I feel lost in the crowd. Dervish sticks close by me, sensing my nervousness.

Kebabs when we’ve finished shopping. Hot and juicy. Dervish nibbles slowly at his, delicately. I finish long before him. Slurping down the last of my Coke. Studying him as he eats. Wondering if I should mention Mum’s and my absence from the hall of portraits.

“An unasked question is the most futile thing in the world,” Dervish says, startling me. Doesn’t look up. Swallows his food. Waits.

“I was looking at the photos and portraits in the hall today,” I begin.

“And you want to know why there are so many teenagers.”

I frown. “No. I mean, I noticed that, but it was Mum and me I was curious about. You have photos of Dad and Gret, but not us.”

“Oh.” He grimaces. “My faux pas. Most people ask about the teens. The photos and portraits are all of dead family members. I like to frame them as they looked at the end of their lives, so most of the photos were taken shortly before the subject’s death. We have a tragic family history – lots of us have been killed young – which is why there are so many pubescents up there.”

He wipes around his mouth with a napkin, carefully balls it up and lays it aside. “As for why Sharon hasn’t been included, it’s simple—no in-laws. Everybody on those walls is a blood relative. It’s a family tradition. But I’ve lots of photos of her, as well as Cal and Gret, in albums that you’re free to browse through.”

“Maybe later,” I smile. “I just wanted to make sure you didn’t have any underhand reasons for not including us with the others.”

“Everything’s above board with me, Grubbs,” Dervish says, then sups from his mug of coffee without taking his eyes off me. “Well—almost everything.”

→Late. Close to midnight. In my pyjamas. No slippers—I left my old pair at the hospital and I forgot to buy new ones today. The stone floor’s cold. I have to keep moving my toes to keep them warm.

I’m drawn back to the hall of portraits. Studying them in moonlight, the faces mostly concealed by shadows. Focusing on the teenagers. Dozens of them, all my age or slightly older. Wondering why the faces of the dead teens fascinate me, and why I feel uneasy.

I’m back in my room, in bed, before the answer strikes and drives all hope of sleep away in a flash. In the restaurant, Dervish didn’t simply say that many of our family members had died young—he said they’d been killed.

SPLEEN

→Settling in. Daily chores—washing-up after meals, sweeping a different couple of floors each day, polishing the furniture in one of the large halls or rooms. Lots of other, less regular jobs—taking out the garbage, cleaning windows, running errands in the village.

I enjoy the work. It keeps me busy. Not much else to do here apart from play chess with Dervish, watch TV – Dervish has a massive 55 inch widescreen set, which he hardly ever uses! – and read. Chess doesn’t thrill me—Dervish is like Mum and Dad, a chess fanatic, and beats me easily each time we play. I’d as soon not play at all, but he gently presses me to work on my game. I don’t get my family’s obsession with chess, but I guess I’ll just have to bear it here like I did at home.

I read more than I normally do – I’m not big on ‘litrachoor’ – but Dervish doesn’t have a great collection of modern fiction. I pick up a few new books in the Vale, and order some more over the Internet, but I’m not spoilt for choice. I try some of the thousands of occult books littering the shelves, figuring they’ve got to be better than watching the moon all night, but they’re too complicated or densely written to be of interest.

So that leaves me with the TV—an endless stream of soap operas, chat shows, movies, sitcoms, sports programmes. And while I never thought I’d admit such a thing, TV does get a bit boring after a while, if it’s all you have to keep yourself amused.

But, hey, it’s a million times better than the institute!

→A week passes. At ease with the house. Getting to know Dervish, though he’s a hard one to figure. Kind, thoughtful, caring—but aloof, with a warped sense of humour. He came in one day while I was watching the news. Caught a report about a serial killer who’d chopped off and collected his victims’ heads. Commented drily, “There’s a man determined to get ahead in life.” Spent the next five minutes doubled over with laughter, while I gazed at him, astonished, and the TV broadcast pictures of bloodbaths and weeping relatives.

His thirst for chess is at least equal to that of Dad and Mum, if not more so. He went easy on me to begin with, gently encouraging me to play, treating the games as fun. Now he’s showing his true colours. Insists that I play with him every night and gets irritated when I play badly.

“You’ve got to love the game,” he told me last night, tossing a captured rook at me with unexpected force. “Chess is life. You have to love it as you love living. If you don’t…”

He said no more, just stormed out of the room, leaving me at a loss for words, rubbing my cheek where the rook struck. Later, when I’d recovered and was passing him in the hall on my way to bed, I muttered, “Get a life, you freak!” The perfect comeback—just an hour too late.

He’s got no time for music. I find a grand total of three CDs in the house, all old albums by some group called Led Zeppelin. Doesn’t read fiction. Watches only the occasional documentary on TV. Spends a lot of time on the web, from what I’ve seen when I’ve visited him in his study. But he doesn’t seem to surf or play games—he mostly exchanges e-mails with contacts around the globe, or visits dull-looking encyclopaedic sites.

Apart from his books and antiques, chess and jogging, and his e-mail mates, he doesn’t seem to have any hobbies, or any apparent interest in the world beyond this house.

→There are stables – long abandoned – behind the mansion. I’m exploring one of them, idly toeing through the old nails and horseshoes on the ground in search of some interesting nugget, when somebody raps on the rotten door and startles me out of my skin.

“Peace, hombre,” the stranger chuckles as I duck and grab a horseshoe for protection. “I come to greet you, not to eat you—as the cannibal said to the missionary.”

A boy a year or so younger than me enters and sticks out his hand. I stare at it a moment, then shake it. He’s a lot shorter than me, chubby, with black hair and a lazy left eye which hangs half-closed. Wearing a faded pair of jeans and an old Simpsons T-shirt.

“Bill-E Spleen,” he says, pumping my hand. “And you’re Grubbs ‘don’t call me Grubitsch!’ Grady, right?”

“Right,” I grin thinly, then repeat his name. “Billy Spleen?”

“Bill-E,” he corrects me, and spells it out. “Actually, it’s really Billy,” he confesses, “but I changed it. I haven’t been able to do it by deed poll yet, but I will when I’m older. There’s nothing wrong with Billy – it’s a hell of a lot better than Grubitsch or Grubbs! – but Bill-E sounds cooler, like a rap star.”

He talks quick and sharp, fingers dancing in the air to accent his words.

“Are you from the village?” I ask politely.

“Yup—I’m a Valer,” he yawns, as though it’s the dullest thing in the world. “I used to live a few miles over – in a cottage smaller than this stable – until Mum died. Then I moved in with my grandparents—‘the original Spleens,’ as Mum used to call them. They’re OK, just a bit old-fashioned and strait-laced.”

Bill-E studies the disturbed nails and horseshoes on the ground and grins. “You won’t find any gold here,” he chortles. “I’ve been through these sheds more times than I can count, looking for old Lord Sheftree’s treasure.”

“Treasure?” Bill-E’s a little too chummy for my liking – I’ve never been fond of people who come along and immediately start acting as though you’re old friends – but I don’t want to say anything to insult him, at least, not until I know a bit more about him.

“You don’t know about the treasure?” He hoots as though I’ve admitted I didn’t know the world was round. “Lord Sheftree – he owned this place years ago – is supposed to have hidden cases full of treasure somewhere on these grounds. His getaway stash, in case he ever had to make a quick exit and needed some ready cash. He was a real swindler. He used to keep a fish tank full of –”

“–piranha,” I interrupt. “And he fed a baby to them. I know.”

“Dervish told you?” Bill-E looks disappointed. “I love telling that story. Just about everyone in Carcery Vale knows it, so it’s not often that I have the chance to break it to someone new. I’ll kick Dervish’s ass for spoiling it for me.”

“Excuse me,” I mutter, exasperated, “but who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”

Bill-E blinks. “No need to speak to me like that,” he sniffs. “I’m only trying to be friendly.”

“And I just want to know who you are,” I respond coolly. “You come in here, telling me your name and that you know all about me, but I’ve never heard of you before. Are you a relative of Dervish’s? A paperboy? What?”

“Paperboy!” he snorts. “I don’t think Dervish ever bought a paper in his life! If it doesn’t come bound in leather or bat’s wings, packed full of spells and dark incantations, he isn’t interested!”

Bill-E steps to the left, into the light shining through a hole in the roof. “I’m no relative,” he says. “Just a friend. I hang out with Dervish, play chess with him, do some odd jobs. He takes me for rides on his bike in return, and teaches me some spells. Has he taught you any spells yet?”

I shake my head.

“They’re cool,” he grins. “I don’t know if most of them really work, but the words you use are wicked. I feel like a real magician when I’m casting them.”

“Could you teach me some?” I ask.

“No,” Bill-E answers promptly. “That’s the first thing Dervish taught me—only a teacher is allowed to teach. He says if he ever catches me passing on my spells to anybody, he’ll can the lessons and ban me from coming here. And he means it—Dervish isn’t the sort to yank your chain about stuff like that.”

I’m warming to Bill-E Spleen – I like the way he talks about Dervish – but it’s been a while since I made a new friend, so instead of saying something simple, I find myself asking cynically, “Did Dervish tell you to come chat to me? Are you supposed to be my new best friend?”

Bill-E sneers. “My friendship can’t be bought or bartered. I usually come over a few evenings every week and at weekends. Dervish asked me to stay away this week, to give you a chance to settle in. I was looking forward to checking you out and showing you around the Vale – as a fellow orphan, I thought we might have stuff in common – but now I don’t think I’ll bother. You’re a bit too up-your-own-ass for my liking. I’ll just go see Dervish and leave you to scurry around out here on your own.”

Bill-E turns to leave in a huff.

“When did your mum die?” I ask quietly.

He stops and squints at me. “Nearly seven years ago. I was just a kid.”

“And your dad?”

He smiles crookedly. “I never knew him. Don’t even know who he was. He’s still alive – I think – so I’m not an official orphan. But I’ve felt like one since Mum died.”

“My folks only died a few months ago,” I say. “It still hurts. A lot. So if I act like a spazz, sorry, but that’s just the way I feel right now.”

Bill-E’s features soften. “When my mum died, I didn’t speak to anyone except Gran and Grandad for almost a year. If other kids came near, I’d scream and attack them. Their parents stopped them hitting back. One day, in a shop, I tried it on a kid when there was nobody around—he knocked the crap out of me. I was fine after that.”

I offer my chin. “Take a pop if you want.”

Bill-E pads over, makes a fist, then taps my chin lightly. “Come on,” he laughs. “Let’s go see what whirling Dervish is up to.”

→The study. Dervish and Bill-E catching up. Lots of names I don’t recognise. Bill-E talking about school, looking forward to the summer break. Dervish telling him about a new book on Bavarian sorcerers which he bought off the web.

“What about the eye spell?” Bill-E asks. He looks at me and points to his lazy left eye. “I’m supposed to have this operated on in a few years, but I’m sure Dervish can conjure up a spell to spare me the hassle.”

“I’ve asked around,” Dervish laughs, “but the great magicians of yore didn’t bother much with drooping eyelids. Besides, magic shouldn’t be used for personal gain, Billy.” Dervish always refers to Bill-E as Billy. I guess he’s known him so long, he finds it hard to change.

“Tell that to great-great-wotsits Garadex!” Bill-E snorts. “He used his magic to make millions, didn’t he?”

“Bartholomew Garadex was an exception,” Dervish says.

Bill-E treats the study as though it’s his own. Pulls books out and only half-pushes them back. Shoves Dervish out of the way to go surfing on the web. Opens a drawer in the desk to show me the skull of a genuine witch, “burned at the stake for casting lascivious spells on the virile young men of the community,” he informs me, waving it around in front of his face, poking his fingers into its empty sockets. Dervish lets Bill-E do as he pleases. Sits back and smiles patiently.

“He’s not normally this wound-up,” Dervish remarks when Bill-E goes to the toilet. “Your arrival upset him. He’s used to having the run of the house. I think he’s worried that things are going to change now that you’ve moved in.”

“Why does he come here?” I ask.

“His mother and I were friends,” Dervish says. “She died in a boating accident, leaving Billy in the care of his grandparents.” He pulls a face. “All I’ll say about that pair is they’re aptly named—Spleen! A more cantankerous old couple you couldn’t imagine. I felt sorry for Billy, so I started visiting and taking him out on my bike. Ma and Pa Spleen weren’t too keen – they still do everything they can to stop him coming over here – but persistence is something I’m good at. I tend to get my own way when I really want to. The odd persuasion spell helps.” He winks. I can’t tell if he’s serious or joking.

Bill-E returns, shaking water from his hands. “No towels, Derv,” he grumbles.

Dervish raises an eyebrow at me. “Fresh towels are your department, aren’t they, Master Grubbs?”

“Sorry,” I grimace. “I forgot.”

“If I was you, Mr Grady, sir, I’d sack ’im,” Bill-E says with relish, then laughs and asks Dervish to teach him a new spell.

“Will I make the two of you disappear?” Dervish asks innocently.

“Yeah!” Bill-E gasps, face lighting up—then curses as Dervish shoos us out of the room and slams the door shut behind us.

→The hall of portraits. Bill-E knows the faces and names off by heart. Giving me a lecture, filling me in on my family background. I listen with pretend politeness, only paying attention to the occasional juicy snippet.

“Urszula Garadex—pirate,” Bill-E intones, tapping the frame of a large canvas portrait. The woman in the picture only has one eye, and three of her fingers are missing, two on her left hand, one on her right. “A cut-throat. Utterly merciless.

“Augustine Grady. Servant to some prince or other. Cause of death—he got kicked in the head by a horse.

“Justin Plunkton—a banker. Nothing interesting about him.”

And so on.

After a while I ask Bill-E about the teenagers and if he knows how they died.

“Dervish doesn’t say much about them,” he replies. “I think it’s some ancient family curse. You’ll probably go toes-up any day now.”

“I’ll try hard to take you with me,” I retort.

We come to Dad and Gret. Bill-E pauses curiously. “These are new. I don’t know who –”

“My dad and sister,” I inform him quietly.

He winces. “I should have guessed. Sorry.” He looks at me questioningly, licks his lips, stares back at the photos.

“An unasked question is the most futile thing in the world,” I prod him.

“That’s one of Dervish’s sayings,” he notes. Licks his lips again. “Do you want to tell me how they died, or is it a secret? I asked Dervish, but he won’t say, and Gran and Grandad don’t know—nobody in the village does.”

My stomach tightens. Flashes of a crocodile-headed dog, a hell-child, their eerie master. “They were murdered.”

Bill-E’s eyes widen. His lazy left eyelid snaps up as though on elastic bands. “No bull?” he gasps.

My expression’s dark. “No bull.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“I was there.”

Bill-E gulps deeply. “When they were being killed?”

“Yes.”

“How’d you get away?”

I consider how much I should tell him. Decide to try him with the truth. “They were murdered by demons. I escaped using magic.”

He frowns. “If this is a joke…” Stops when he sees my face. “Does Dervish know?”

“Yes.”

“He believes you?”

“Yes. But he’s the only one. Everybody else thinks I’m making it up.”

Bill-E grunts dismissively. “If Dervish believes you, so do I.” He turns from the photos and does an odd little shuffling dance, mumbling weird words.

“What was that for?” I ask, bemused.

“One of Dervish’s spells,” he says. “It makes the dead smile. Dervish says it’s important to keep the dead happy. The reason this house isn’t haunted is that Dervish keeps its ghosts laughing.”

“Rot!” I bellow.

“Maybe,” Bill-E grins. “But I’ve been dancing for years and never been bothered by ghosts. Why stop now and run the risk?”

→We watch MTV on the 55 inch widescreen TV, munching popcorn, drinking coke from tall paper cups just like in the cinema.

“The TV was my idea,” Bill-E brags, the remote control balanced on his left knee. “Dervish resisted to begin with, but I kept on at him and eventually he bought one.”

“Does he always cave in to your demands?” I ask.

“No,” Bill-E sighs. “I can wrap Gran and Grandad round my little finger, but Dervish doesn’t crumple. He got the TV because I convinced him it was a good idea—his guests would get good use out of it even if he didn’t.”

“You and Dervish are close, aren’t you?” I note.

“Step aside, Sherlock Holmes—there’s a new kid in town!” Bill-E chuckles, rolling his eyes.

“I don’t want to… like… get between you… or anything,” I mumble awkwardly.

“You couldn’t if you tried,” he responds smugly.

“I could!” I bristle. “He’s my uncle.”

“So?” Bill-E laughs. “He’s my father!”

I stare at him, stunned.

Bill-E looks sheepish. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he mutters. “You won’t tell him, will you?”

“No… but… I mean…” I catch my breath. “You said you didn’t know your father!”

“I don’t,” he says. “Not officially. But it hardly takes a genius to work it out. He wouldn’t invite me over and make such a fuss of me if we weren’t related. And Gran and Grandad Spleen wouldn’t tolerate his involvement unless they had to, no matter how close a friend of Mum’s he was. Dervish has to be my dad. It’s logic.”

“Have you ever asked him?”

Bill-E shakes his head instantly. “Why spoil it? We get along great the way we are. If the truth ever came out in the open, he might decide to sue for custody.”

“Wouldn’t you like that?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t miss Gran and Grandad that much if I moved in with Dervish,” he admits. “I could still go and see them all the time. But if he lost, they might take out a court order to stop him seeing me. I reckon they struck a deal with him when Mum died—he could carry on visiting, or having me over to visit, as long as he never told me who he really was. If I go messing about, it might screw up everything.”

I scratch my head, thinking that over. It all seems a bit complicated to me—Dervish doesn’t strike me as the sort to go in for such subterfuge. But I’m new on the scene. Bill-E has spent most of his life around my uncle. I guess he knows what he’s talking about.

“This makes us cousins—if it’s true,” I note.

“Yeah,” Bill-E giggles, then pokes me in the chest. “It also makes me his son and rightful heir, so don’t go getting too attached to this place, Grady, because as soon as the old man kicks it, you’re out of here!”

“Charming!” I laugh, and dump the last of my popcorn over Bill-E’s head.

“Hey!” Bill-E shouts, shaking kernels from his head, all over the couch and floor. “Clean that up!”

“You clean it,” I grin wickedly. “It’s your house…”

Both of us laughing, he chases me up the stairs to my room, lobbing fistfuls of popcorn at my head all the way.

CARNAGE IN THE FOREST

→Routines. Daily chores. Lots of chess competitions with Dervish and Bill-E. Dervish taught Bill-E how to play. He’s much better than I am, though his concentration wanders occasionally, so I beat him more than I should. Watching TV. Hanging out with Bill-E. We play football and explore the countryside when we’re not stuck in front of the massive screen or locking horns in chess tournaments.

I’m recognised in Carcery Vale now. Bill-E introduced me to the shopkeepers and gossips. They accept me the same as any other kid. Pass the time of day with me when I come in to pick up shopping. Ask about Dervish and what I think of the mansion. Tell me tales from its gory past, trying to spook me.

Bill-E also takes me to visit Gran and Grandad Spleen. A couple of battleaxes! Narrow-eyed, sharp-tongued, drably dressed, their house in a state of perpetual gloominess. Grandad Spleen rambles on about the old days and how Carcery Vale has gone to the dogs. Grandma Spleen hovers in the background, serving tea and biscuits, eyes daring me to spill crumbs on her carpet.

Both have lots to say about Dervish, none of it good.

→Not right, living out there on his own.

→A house like that’s too big for one man.

→He should be married—but no one will have him!

→If he does anything out of order, you let us know.

Bill-E smiles apologetically when we leave. “I love my grandparents, but I know what they’re like. I won’t take you there too often.”

I shrug as if it’s no big deal, but offer up silent thanks. I don’t know how he sticks them. I’d have run away from home years ago if I was caged in with a crabby old pair like that! Although, thinking twice about it, I suppose it’s better to have grumpy grandparents as parents than no parents at all. I complained a lot about Mum and Dad when they were… still with me. They had their faults. I think everybody does. But I wouldn’t complain if they were with me… alive now.

The murders are never far from my thoughts. The memories of Vein, Artery and Lord Loss haunt me. Many nights I wake screaming, arms thrashing, eyes wild, imagining demons in the room with me, under the bed, in the wardrobe, scratching at the door.

Dervish is always there when I wake from my nightmares. Sitting by the bottom of my bed. Passing me a mug of hot chocolate or a towel to wipe the sweat from my face. He never says much, or asks what I was dreaming about. Leaves as soon as I’ve settled down.

We haven’t discussed the demons. I think Dervish wants to, but I’m reluctant to step back into that world of darkness. He leaves books in my room, or open on the tables downstairs, about monsters, demons, magic. I avoid them at first. Later I read certain passages and study pictures, attracted to the mystery of this other realm despite my fear of it.

No pictures of my demons in the books. I glance through some of the many encyclopaedias in the mansion, but there’s no mention of a Lord Loss or his familiars in any of them.

→Friday. Listening to CDs I bought in the Vale. A roaring outside, of a motorbike approaching. But it isn’t Dervish—he’s up in his study. I creep to the window and secretly watch the cyclist dismounting. A woman dressed in black leather. Long blonde hair tumbles down over her shoulders when she removes her helmet. She stretches, hands going high above her head. Ay carumba!

I’m down the stairs in a flash, but not as fast as Dervish. He’s already opening the front doors. I catch a glimpse of a big smile. Then he’s shouting, “Meera! I wasn’t expecting you for another few days. Why didn’t you phone?”

“You never answer,” the woman says, meeting Dervish in the doorway, hugging him hard. She pushes him away and studies his face. “How’s it going, hon?”

“Not bad,” Dervish chuckles.

“How’s the lodger?” She spots me over Dervish’s shoulder. “Oh, never mind, I’ll ask him myself.” She strides over and offers her hand. I shake it politely. “Meera Flame,” she introduces herself. She smiles—dazzling. “And if I know Dervish, he hasn’t told you a thing about me, right?”

I nod dumbly. I think I’m in love!

“Grubbs Grady—Meera Flame,” Dervish says. “Meera’s a close friend of mine. She comes to stay quite regularly. I meant to tell you she was on her way, but I forgot.”

“He’s useless, isn’t he?” Meera laughs.

“At some things,” I mutter, finding my voice at last.

Meera unzips the front of her leather jacket, revealing a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan. She slides out of the coat, then sits on the stairs and peels off her boots and trousers. She’s wearing shorts underneath.

“Make yourself at home,” Dervish says wryly.

“Don’t I always?” Meera replies. She catches me ogling her, and winks. “Got a girlfriend, Grubbs? If not, watch out! I like younger men!”

I blush like a fire engine. Meera slips through to the kitchen for a drink.

Dervish laughs. “You look like a kettle.”

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“There’s steam coming out your ears!”

Before I can think of a comeback, Meera calls from the kitchen. “Whoops! I’ve spilt milk all over my T-shirt. Can you come and help me out of it, Grubbsy?”

I think life’s about to get very interesting!

→”Ah,” says Bill-E with a cheetah’s smile. “The mysterious Meera Flame. She’s hot, isn’t she?”

“And doesn’t she know it!” I huff. “She hasn’t stopped flirting with me since she arrived. My cheeks feel like they’ve been slapped a dozen times today!”

We’re in the kitchen, guzzling milk shakes. Dervish and Meera have gone out for dinner.

“Don’t worry about that,” Bill-E says. “She does it with me too. She likes making men – and boys! – blush.”

“She’s doing a good job of it,” I mutter, then cough. “Her and Dervish… are they…?”

“Nah,” Bill-E says. “Just friends. She travels around a lot. Always off somewhere exotic. Comes to stay every now and then. They go on biking holidays together sometimes, but Dervish says they aren’t an item, and I don’t think he’d lie. Who could keep quiet if they had a girlfriend like that!”

→Saturday. Meera woke me up this morning for breakfast in bed. Walked right in, wearing a dressing gown and (as far as my imagination’s concerned!) nothing underneath. Sat chatting with me while I ate, asking about life with Dervish and what I thought of Carcery Vale – “Boring as hell, isn’t it?” – and just being all-round beautiful. I had a hard time keeping my eyes on my toast and fried eggs.

Bill-E came early to see Meera. She fussed over him like a mother hen. “You’ve grown! You’re filling out! Becoming a man! When are you going to sweep me off my feet and take me away from all this?”

Dervish and Meera made for his study after a while, so Bill-E and I headed out to explore the nearby forest. Searching for Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure.

“If we find it, we don’t tell anyone,” Bill-E says, poking through the roots of an old dead oak. “We wait until we’re older and know more about these things. Then we sell it on the quiet and split the profits fifty-fifty. Agreed?”

“Maybe I’ll bump you off and take it all for myself,” I smirk.

“Won’t work,” he says seriously. “I keep a diary. If I die, Gran and Grandad Spleen will find it, read about us digging for the treasure, and put two and two together.”

“You think of everything, don’t you?” I laugh.

“I try to,” he says immodestly. “I get it from Dervish and our chess games. He’s always nagging me to maximise my potential and use my brain more.”

“What is it with him and chess?” I ask. “My mum and dad were the same, like it was the most important thing in the world.”

“I don’t know about your mum,” Bill-E says, “but it’s a family tradition on your dad’s side. Seven or eight of the clan have been grandmasters. When Dervish talks about his ancestors, he often makes mention of the great chess players. He even judges people by their ability on the board. I asked him about one of his relatives once, a girl who died about thirty years ago—she looked interesting in her photo and I wanted to know what she was like. He just grunted and said she wasn’t very good at chess. That’s all he had to say about her.”

Bill-E decides the treasure isn’t buried under the tree. Picking up our tools – an axe and a spade – we go in search of other likely spots.

“How often do you come searching for this treasure?” I ask.

“It depends on the weather,” he answers. “In summer, when it’s hot and the evenings are long, I maybe come out three or four times a month. Perhaps only once a month in winter.”

“Don’t you have any friends?” I enquire bluntly—I’ve noticed he doesn’t talk much about other kids, unless he’s chatting about school. And he always has plenty of time for visiting Dervish and me. He never says he can’t come or has to dash off early to see another friend.

“Not many,” he says honestly. “I’ve mates in class, but I don’t see much of them outside of school. Gran and Grandad Spleen like to keep me tucked up safe and snug indoors, which is part of the problem. I like hanging out with Dervish, which is another part. I guess mostly I’m just odd, not very good at making friends.”

“You made friends with me pretty easily,” I remind him.

“But you’re like me,” he says. “An outsider. Different. A freak. We’re both weird, which is why we get along.”

I’m not sure I like the sound of that—I’ve never thought of myself as a freak—but it’d be childish to stamp my foot and shout something like, “I’m not weird!” So I let it ride and follow Bill-E deeper into the woods.

→In the middle of a thicket. Picking a spot to clear, where we can excavate. I find a patch of soft earth between two stones. I start to dig and earth crumbles away. It looks like there’s a hole here. Probably an animal’s den, but maybe, just maybe…

“I think this might –” I begin.

“Ssshh!” I’m cut short.

Bill-E presses his fingers to his lips—silence. He crouches low. I follow suit. I can tell by his intent expression that this isn’t a game. My heart beats faster. I grip my axe tightly. Flashback to that room, that night. Terror starts to dig its claws in deep.

“I smell him,” Bill-E whispers. “If he spots us, laugh and act as if we were trying to surprise him. If he doesn’t, keep down until I tell you.”

“Who is it?” I hiss. Bill-E waves the question away and concentrates on the trees beyond the thicket.

Ten seconds pass. Twenty. Thirty. I’m counting inside my head, the way I do when I’m swimming and trying to hold my breath underwater. Thinking—if it’s them, should I run or try to fight?

Sixty-nine, seventy, seventy-one… a pair of feet. Trainers. Lime green sports socks. I stifle a laugh. It’s only Dervish! The terror passes and my heartbeat slows. I make a note to myself to give Bill-E a thumping later for scaring me like that.

Bill-E stays low as Dervish pads past the thicket and moves on through the trees beyond. Then he wriggles out as quietly as possible and gets to his feet, gazing after the departed Dervish.

“What was that about?” I ask, standing, wiping myself down.

“Let’s follow him,” Bill-E says.

“Why?” I get a thought. “You don’t think he’s going to meet Meera out here, do you?” I grin slyly and nudge his ribs with an elbow.

Bill-E glares. “Don’t be stupid!” he snaps. “Just trust me, OK?” Before I can respond, he slips away in pursuit of Dervish, like an Indian tracker. I lag along a few paces behind, bemused, wondering what this silly game’s in aid of and where it’s leading.

→Several minutes later. Hot on Dervish’s trail. Bill-E keeps his prey in sight, but is careful not to give himself away. He moves with surprising stealth. I feel like a clumsy bull behind him.

Dervish stops and stoops. Bill-E catches his breath, reaches back and drags me up beside him. “Can you see?” he whispers.

“I can see his head and shoulders,” I grunt in return, squinting. No sign of Meera, worse luck!

“Watch his hands when he rises.”

I do as Bill-E commands. Moments later my uncle stands, holding something stiff and red. I get a clearer view of it as he turns to the left—a dead fox, its body ripped apart.

Dervish produces a plastic bag. Drops the fox into it. Studies the ground around him. Moves on.

Bill-E waits a couple of minutes before advancing to the spot where Dervish found the fox. The ground is stained with blood and a few scraps of fur and guts.

“The blood hasn’t thickened,” Bill-E notes, poking a red pool with a twig, holding it up as though judging the quality of the blood. “The fox must have been killed last night or early this morning.”

“So what?” I ask, bewildered. “A dead fox—big deal!”

“I’ve seen Dervish collect others like that,” Bill-E says quietly. “There’s an incinerator on the far side of the Vale. Dervish has a key to it. He takes the corpses there and burns them when nobody’s about.”

“The most hygienic disposal method,” I note.

“Dervish doesn’t believe in interfering with nature,” Bill-E disagrees. “He says corpses are an important part of the food chain, that we should leave dead creatures where we find them—unless they’re likely to cause a public nuisance.”

“What’s all this about?” I ask edgily.

Bill-E doesn’t answer. He stares at the forest floor, thinking, then turns sharply and beckons. “Follow me,” he snaps, breaking into a jog, and I’ve no option other than to run after him.

→A clearing by a stream. Beautiful afternoon sun. I lie down and soak it up while Bill-E drags a large black plastic bag out from under a bush.

“I’ve collected these over the last three months,” he says, untying a knot in the bag’s top. “I saw Dervish removing a couple of bodies during the months before that, and thought I’d keep an eye out for corpses and grab hold of them before he did.”

He finishes with the knot, clutches the bottom of the bag and spills the contents out. A swarm of flies rises in the air. The stench is disgusting.

“What the…!” I cough, covering my mouth and nose with my hands, eyes watering.

Lots of bones and scraps of flesh at Bill-E’s feet. He separates them carefully with a large stick. “A badger,” he says, pointing to one of the rotting carcasses. “A hedgehog. A swan. A–”

“What the hell is this crap?” I interrupt angrily. “That stench is enough to knock–”

“I didn’t know why I felt I had to hold on to them,” Bill-E says softly, eyes on the putrid corpses. He looks up at me. “Now I know—to show them to you.”

I stare back uncertainly. This feels very wrong. If Bill-E was trying to gross me out, I could understand – even appreciate – the joke. But there’s no laughter in his eyes. No grisly delight in his expression.

“Not you personally,” he continues, looking back to the animals. “But part of me must have wanted to show them to some body. It was just a matter of time until the right person came along.”

“Bill-E,” I mutter, “you’re freaking me out big-time.”

“Come closer,” he says.

I study his expression. Then the spade lying close to him on the ground. I take a firm grip on my axe. Walk a few steps towards him. Stop short of easy reach.

“Look at them,” he says, pointing to the animals.

Like the fox Dervish found, their bodies have been ripped open. Heads and limbs are missing or chewed to pieces. I flash back to images of Dad hanging from the ceiling.

“I’m going to be sick,” I moan, turning aside.

“These haven’t been killed by animals,” Bill-E says. I pause. “Look at the way their stomachs have been ripped apart—jaggedly, but up the middle. And the bite marks don’t correspond to any predators I know of. If this was the work of a wolf or bear, the marks would be wider spaced, and larger, because of the size of their jaws.”

“There aren’t any wolves or bears around here,” I frown.

“I know. But I had to assume that it could have been a bear or wolf – or a wild dog – until I was able to examine the corpses in closer detail. I didn’t leap to any conclusions.”

“But you’ve come to some since,” I note wryly. “So hit me with it. What do you think did this?”

“I’m not sure,” Bill-E says evenly. “But I’ve checked out the teeth marks in the best biology books and web sites that I could find. As near as I could match them, they seem to belong to an ape–”

“You’re not telling me it’s King Kong!” I whoop.

“–or a human,” Bill-E finishes.

Cold, eerie silence.

→Dervish’s study. Bill-E leads me in. I’m not sure where Dervish is, but his bike isn’t outside, so he’s not home. Meera’s bike is gone too.

“We shouldn’t be here,” I whisper anxiously. “Dervish said this room is magically protected.”

“I know,” Bill-E replies. He steps in front of me, spreads his arms and chants. I don’t know what language he’s using, but the words are long and lyrical. He turns as he chants, eyes closed, concentrating.

Bill-E stops and opens his eyes. “Safe,” he grunts.

“You’re sure?”

“Dervish taught me that spell years ago. He updates it every so often, when he alters the protective spells of the house. It’ll probably be one of the first spells he teaches you when he decides you’re ready to learn.”

I feel uncomfortable, especially since I promised Dervish that I wouldn’t come in here without him. But there’s no stopping Bill-E, and I’m too curious to back out now.

“What are we looking for?” I ask, following him to one of the bookshelves. He came here directly from the clearing, without saying anything more about the dead animals he’d collected.

“This,” Bill-E says, lifting a large, untitled book down from one of the shelves over Dervish’s PC. He lays it on the desk but doesn’t open it.

“Demons killed your parents and sister,” he murmurs. My insides freeze. He looks up. “We inhabit a world of magic. My proposal would make an ordinary person laugh scornfully. But we’re not ordinary. We’re Gradys, descendants of the magician Bartholomew Garadex. Remember that.”

He opens the book. Creamy, crinkled pages. Handwriting. I try reading a few paragraphs but the letters are indecipherable—squiggles and swirls.

“Is that Latin, Greek, one of those old languages?” I ask.

“It’s English,” Bill-E says.

“Coded?”

He half-smiles. “Kind of. Dervish cast a reading spell on it. The words are written clearly, but we can’t interpret them without unravelling the spell.”

Bill-E turns to the first page and runs a finger over the title at the top. “Lycanthropy through the ages,” he intones.

“How do you know that if you can’t break the spell?” I challenge him.

“Dervish read it out to me once.” He looks at me archly. “Do you know what ‘lycanthropy’ means?”

“Of course!” I huff. “I’ve seen werewolf movies!”

Bill-E nods. “Dervish read bits of it to me. They were all to do with werewolf legends and rules. He’s fascinated by werewolves—lots of his books focus on shape-changers.”

Bill-E flicks to near the end of the book, scans the pages, flicks over a few more. Finds what he’s searching for and lays a finger on a photograph. “I discovered this a year or so ago,” he says softly. “Didn’t think anything of it then. But when I saw Dervish removing the bodies of the animals a few months ago, and found others ripped to pieces… always close to a full moon…”

“I don’t believe where you’re going with this,” I grumble.

“Remember the demons,” he says, and turns the book around so that I can see the face in the photo.

A young man, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Troubled-looking. Thin. His face is distorted—lots of hair, a blunt jaw, sharp teeth, yellow eyes. There’s something familiar about the face, but it takes me a few seconds to place it. Then it clicks—it reminds me of one of the faces from the hall of portraits. One that hangs close to Dad and Gret’s photos.

“Steven Groarke,” Bill-E says. “A cousin. Died seven or eight years ago.”

“I met him once,” I whisper. “But I was very young. I don’t remember much about him. Except he didn’t have hair or teeth like that.”

Bill-E flicks the pages backwards. Comes to rest on a page with another photo from the hall of portraits, this time a young girl. “Kim Reynolds. Ten years old when she died—supposedly in a fire.”

He flicks back further, almost to the start of the book. Stops at a rough hand-drawing of a naked, excessively hairy man, hunched over on all fours like a dog—or a wolf. Razor-sharp teeth. Claws. An elongated head. Yellow, savage eyes.

“That’s not a human,” I mumble, my mouth dry.

“I think it is—or was,” Bill-E contradicts me. “I can’t be sure, but I’ve compared it to a drawing of Abraham Garadex – one of old Bartholomew’s sons – and I’d swear they’re one and the same.”

I reach out with trembling fingers and gently close the book. “Say it,” I croak. “Say what you brought me here to tell me.”

“I’m not saying this to shock you,” Bill-E begins. “I wouldn’t say it to anyone else. But you were honest enough to tell me about the demons, so I think–”

“Just say it!” I snap.

“OK.” Bill-E takes a deep, relaxing breath. “I think those people in the book were shape-changers. I think lycanthropy runs in our family, and has done for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years. I think your uncle – my father – has it.

“I think Dervish is a werewolf.”

A THEORY

→“You’re crazy.”

Storming down the stairs to the main hall. Bill-E hurrying to catch up.

“It makes sense,” he insists, darting ahead of me, blocking my path. “The bite marks. The way the animals were ripped up the middle. Why he collects the carcasses and incinerates them—getting rid of evidence.”

“Crazy!” I snort again, and shove past him. “A while ago you told me Dervish was your father—now you reckon he’s a werewolf!”

“What’s one got to do with the other?” Bill-E says. “Werewolves are normal people except around the time of a full moon.”

“You’re barking mad!” I shout, throwing open the front doors, stepping out into welcome sunlight. “This is the twenty-first century. The police have cameras everywhere. DNA testing. All the rest. A werewolf wouldn’t last a week in today’s world.”

“It would if it had human cunning,” Bill-E disagrees. “Hear me out, will you? I’ve been working this through in my head for the last few months. I’ve got most of it figured.”

I stop reluctantly. A large part of me wants to keep on walking and not listen to another word of Bill-E’s madness. But a small part is fascinated and wants to hear more.

“Go on,” I grunt. “But if you start on about silver bullets or–”

“You think I want to kill him?” Bill-E snaps. “He’s my father!”

Bill-E strolls as he outlines his theory. I wander along beside him.

“In movies you become a werewolf if another werewolf bites you. But I don’t think dozens of people from one family would get bitten, one after another, over so many centuries. It must be passed on by genes, from parents to children. The unlucky ones are born to become werewolves. So I imagine they start to change pretty early, when they’re kids or teenagers. Dervish is in his forties. If he is a werewolf, I think he’s been living with this for decades.

“Werewolves can’t be wild killers,” he continues. “If they were, Dervish would have killed loads of people here. I’ve checked old newspapers in the library—nobody nearby has been killed by a savage beast any time recently.”

“Maybe he roams further afield to do his killing,” I insert wryly.

“I thought of that,” Bill-E says earnestly. “But I’ve kept a close eye on him these past few months, and I haven’t seen him spending nights away around full moon time. Besides, we’ve seen some of his local kills—the butchered animals. If he hunts and kills animals this close to home, there’s no reason he shouldn’t hunt and kill humans here too. But Dervish isn’t a killer. If I thought there was even a slim chance that he was, I wouldn’t be talking to you—I’d be telling the police.”

“You’d turn in your own father?” I sneer.

“I’d have to if he was killing,” Bill-E says softly. “Murderers can’t be allowed to roam freely.”

We’re getting near to the sheds. A large sheet of corrugated iron lies on the ground between the sheds and the mansion. We head for it simply because there’s nowhere better to go. This used to be a small orchard. There are several smooth tree stumps close by. Bill-E sits on one and I sit on another. I tap the corrugated iron with my foot, considering the ‘evidence’.

“So you think Dervish is a werewolf with a conscience. He kills animals but not people.”

“Is that so hard to believe?” Bill-E asks. “You accept demons are real—why not werewolves?”

“I accept demons because I’ve seen them,” I answer stiffly. “And I’m sure they’re demons twenty-four hours a day, corrupt and evil all the time. If you asked me to believe that people can turn into savage beasts – physically transform into wolf-like creatures – maybe I could. But I don’t believe an ordinary human can change into a hairy, yellow-eyed, fanged werewolf overnight, then resume his ordinary shape the next day.”

“I never said he transformed,” Bill-E notes swiftly. “I think it’s more a mental condition than a physical one.”

“What about those creatures in the book?”

“Maybe it works different ways in different people,” he suggests. “Some get it bad and change completely. Others, like Dervish, are able to control it.”

“Degrees of werewolfism,” I chortle. “This gets crazier every time you open your mouth.”

“OK,” Bill-E huffs, getting up, shoulders slumping. “Have it your own way. I thought I was doing you a favour, but if you’re going to mock me, I’ll just–”

“How do you reckon you were doing me a favour?” I interrupt.

“I don’t live here,” Bill-E says, turning to depart. “Come the next full moon, I’ll be tucked up in bed, in the Vale, safe with Gran and Grandad. You’ll be out here by yourself… alone in the house… with Dervish.”

→Hours later. Trying to laugh it off. Craziness. Utter lunacy. I shouldn’t even be considering it.

And yet…

In a world beset by demons, why shouldn’t werewolves exist too? And I can’t think why Dervish should be searching the forest for dead animals and burning them secretly. And some of the faces in the book definitely match those in the hall of portraits.

Then again, I’ve only Bill-E’s word that the book is about werewolves. Dervish has a weird sense of humour. He might have been kidding Bill-E about the book. Maybe he even stuck in the photos and drawings himself. That makes more sense than Bill-E’s werewolf theories. Much more logical.

And yet…

→Dervish arrives back just before sunset. I greet him as he enters. “Go anywhere special?”

“Just for a drive,” he replies, slicking down his grey hair at the sides of his head.

“Where’s Meera?” I ask.

“Off touring the countryside. She’s basing herself here for the next week or so, but she’ll be popping in and out a lot. Where’s Billy?”

“He went home.”

“Oh?” Dervish pauses on his way to the bathroom. “I thought he was going to watch TV.”

“He had other things to do,” I lie.

Dervish continues on to the bathroom. My eyes follow him automatically, studying his face, the set of his jaw, the crown of his head, searching for abnormalities.

→Night. Heavy clouds. Only brief glimpses of the three-quarters full moon.

Watching TV with Dervish—a documentary about some Indian woman that he knows. All about using people’s natural body energies to cure diseases. Y-A-W-N!

A game of chess afterwards. Dervish appears distracted (or am I imagining it?). Plays loosely, less aggressive than usual. He beats me, but I take a couple of his major pieces and make him work hard for his victory.

Dervish stretches. Groans. Checks his watch. “I’m exhausted. Going to tuck in early. You staying up late tonight?”

I keep my head down. “No. I’m pretty tired too. I’ll follow you up soon.”

Slyly watching him trot up the stairs—not the pace of a sleepy man heading for bed.

Lining up the chess pieces on the board. Idly playing against myself. Quiet, the house creaking around me, a wind blowing lightly outside.

I abandon the game halfway through. Go up to my room. Pause at the door. This is stupid. If I leave it like this, I’ll be imagining danger everywhere I look. I’ve got to share this house – my life – with Dervish. I can’t let something this ridiculous come between us.

Retreating, I carry on up the staircase to the top floor. Dervish’s room. I stand outside a moment, getting my story straight, deciding to tell him everything Bill-E said. I grin as I picture his incredulous response. Then I rap twice with my knuckles and enter.

“Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got to…”

I grind to a halt.

The room is empty.

→I’ve explored the entire house. His study. The bathrooms and toilets. The other bedrooms. Downstairs. Even the cellar, in case he’s scouring the racks, admiring his wine collection.

He isn’t here.

→Sitting up in bed. Listening to the wind. Thinking about dead animals and old werewolf films. Afraid to sleep.

→My eyes snap open. Early morning. Must have dozed off despite my fear. I roll out of bed. Grey day, sky obscured by clouds.

I pad downstairs to the kitchen. Scent of fried bacon and sausages. I push the door open slowly. Dervish inside, at the frying pan, humming. It takes him a moment to spot me. He smiles. “You’re up early.”

“I didn’t sleep very well.”

“Hungry?” Dervish asks. “Want some bacon? Eggs?”

“I’ll just do toast for myself.” I stick two slices of bread in. Pause over the toaster, my back to him. “I called up to see you last night,” I say innocently. “Couldn’t find you. Were you out?”

The shortest of pauses. Then, “Yeah. I went to a pub in the Vale. Met Meera there. She went on somewhere else afterwards. Sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“That’s OK.” I reach for the butter. “Did you take the bike?” If he says he did, I’ll know he’s lying—I would have heard it.

“No,” he says. “I walked. I don’t hold with drinking and driving.”

I turn from the toaster, smiling. Dervish is concentrating on his bacon. I can’t believe I spent so much time worrying last night. I open my mouth to tell him about yesterday’s scene with Bill-E.

Then close it.

Dervish is reaching for an egg with his right hand. My eyes are attracted to his nails. Not long—but jagged. Dirty. Red stains under the tips.

It could be paint or rust or something he ate in the pub the night before.

Or it could be blood.

Staring. Staring. Staring.

The toaster pops behind me.

I almost scream.

→Dragging clothes out of the washing machine. If Dervish walks in on me, I’ll say I left money in one of my pockets.

Underpants. Socks. Shirts. Trousers. Finally—a blue denim shirt with a small eagle insignia on the left breast pocket. The shirt Dervish was wearing last night.

I run my nose over it. Unpleasant and sweaty, but not smoky. Not beery. Not like it would smell if he’d spent a few hours in a pub.

→Sitting by the phone. I want to call Bill-E, tell him about Dervish disappearing, the blood, the scentless shirt. Except—

→He might have gone to the pub like he said.

→Maybe he changed shirts before he went out, after I last saw him.

→The stains under his nails could have been anything.

If Bill-E hadn’t filled my head with rubbish, I’d have thought nothing of Dervish slipping out without telling me. It’s not the first time he’s done it. He gives me plenty of space and freedom, and expects the same in return. Nothing suspicious about that.

But what does he do when he’s out by himself? Where does he go? Did he really meet Meera in the Vale? If so, why didn’t she come back here with him? And if he changed shirts before he went out, why isn’t the one he wore to the pub in the machine with the rest of his dirty laundry?

→Carcery Vale. Outside the Lion & Lamb. There are several pubs in the Vale. I want to go in to them all to check if Dervish was in town last night.

My story—Dervish lost his watch, and sent me to ask if it had been found. He can’t remember which pub he’d been in, so I’m doing the rounds of them all.

Holding me back—somebody might mention my queries to Dervish.

In the end I turn away from the Lion & Lamb and make for home. Not reckless or scared enough to check on Dervish’s alibi. Not yet.

→Night. Alone in the house. Meera called in this afternoon. I wanted to ask if she’d enjoyed the pub last night, but Dervish was there and I didn’t want to be so obvious. They left a few hours ago. Dervish told me they were going into the Vale and not to wait up for them. Asked if I’d like them to bring back anything. I said some crisps would be nice.

A truly crazy thought—what if Dervish and Meera are both werewolves? I cast that from my thoughts even before it’s fully formed.

In one of the spare bedrooms, close to the lower end of the house, where the brick extension is. A clear view of the road from here. The room across the hall has an equally good view of the rear yard and sheds. I’ve left the window open, so if there are any noises, I should hear them.

Glued to the front window. Hoping to see Dervish and Meera staggering back from the village, singing drunkenly. Planning cutting comments for Bill-E. Wondering if this is all a big gag designed to scare me. I’ll be mad as hell if it is—but relieved at the same time.

→ After midnight. Eyelids drooping. A clanging noise out back jolts me out of my half-daze.

I bolt through to the back room. Edge up to the open window. Peer out. The clouds aren’t as thick as they were earlier. An almost full moon lights most of the yard, though drifting clouds create random stretched shadows.

Dervish and Meera are by the sheet of corrugated iron where the tree stumps are. They’re sliding it over to one side. Behind them, on the ground, half-hidden by shadows, something large wriggles. I train my sights on it. Moments later, the clouds drift on and moonlight falls directly on the creature.

A deer, its four hooves bound together with rope, its snout muzzled.

Dervish and Meera finish with the sheet of corrugated iron. I spot two large wooden doors set in concrete in the middle of the ring of tree stumps. A thick chain and lock. Dervish bends to it, takes a key from his pocket, fiddles with the lock, throws the chain to one side and hauls the doors open.

Steps leading down beneath the ground. Dervish picks up the deer and drapes it over his shoulders. It struggles. He ignores it and starts down the steps. Meera follows, pausing to swing the doors shut behind her.

Clouds scud across the face of the moon. I stare at the doors in the ground. Silent. White-faced. Petrified.

→Waiting for Dervish and Meera to come out. Chewing my fingernails. Going back to my earlier crazy thought—what if they’re both werewolves? I try to cheer myself up by remembering his oath when I moved in—“You’ll be safe here.” Wondering if that still holds true.

Minutes pass. Ten. Fifteen. Half an hour.

Thinking—they didn’t look different when they took the deer down. No extra hair. No sharp canines. Wearing their normal clothes. They weren’t howling at the moon. Dervish was able to insert the key into the lock, so his hands couldn’t be twisted into animal-like claws. Not the appearance or actions of werewolves.

Forty-five minutes. Fifty. Coming up to an hour when… they reappear.

But not through the doors in the ground—instead, from the kitchen!

They walk out of the house, over to the wooden doors. Dervish takes the length of chain, runs it through the two large handles, then locks it. Both of them carefully slide the sheet of corrugated iron back over the doors, hiding them. They drag their feet over the marks in the dirt left by the corrugated iron, masking the tracks. Wipe their hands clean. Dervish spares the surrounding area one final glance, then they return to the house.

As soon as they enter, I close the window and race for my room—I don’t want them to find me here.

Under the covers, fully dressed, shaking.

Footsteps on the stairs.

I shut my eyes and feign sleep, expecting Dervish to look in on me. But the footsteps continue up to the top floor—his study.

I wait several minutes. When there are no further sounds, I slip out of bed, undress and put on my pyjamas, then sneak back to the rear bedroom. (I can pretend I’m sleep-walking if they discover me now.)

Studying the sheet of corrugated iron. Picking at the puzzle. Dervish and Meera went down the steps in the rear yard, but came up through the house. There must be a secret passage to somewhere inside the mansion.

Quick calculating. Flash upon the obvious answer—the cellar. The wine just a ruse. Dervish doesn’t want to keep me away from the cellar to protect his prize vintages, but to safeguard whatever lies beneath.

→Bed. Impossible to sleep. Knees drawn up to my chest. Trembling. Clutching a silver axe which I took from one of the walls. Praying I don’t have to use it.

→Shortly after dawn. Eyes drooping. Fingers loose on the axe handle.

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