Lord Loss (The Demonata #1)(36)

Dervish lays Bill-E's head down, then shoots to Meera's side. "Meera?" he mutters, checking her pulse, putting his ear to her lips, rolling her eyelids up. No response. He straightens her legs and arms, checks on Bill-E, looks around to see if anybody's noticed the scuffle - but the road is deserted except for us. He turns to face me.

"You bloody fool," he snarls.

I stare blankly at my uncle, then slide to the ground and give myself over to bewildered tears.

Dervish lets me cry myself dry, then hands me a handkerchief and says gruffly, "Clean yourself up, then help me with Billy and Meera."

I wipe my face with the handkerchief. Stand, still sniffling.

"You thought I was a werewolf?" Dervish asks.

"Yes," I answer hollowly.

"You ass," he says, and manages a ghost of a smile. "There's nothing more dangerous than someone half-close to a terrible truth. What would you have done if I was? Taken that axe to me? Chopped me up into little bits? Buried me in the forest and told the police I'd gone out walking and never returned?"

"I don't know," I moan. "We didn't think that far ahead. We thought you'd lock yourself up in the cage in the cellar. When you started for the Vale, we - "

"You know about the cellar?" he interrupts. "You've been there?"

"Yes. Not Bill-E - just me. I saw the cage, the deer, the books..."

Dervish snorts, disgusted. "I knew you'd sniff it out eventually, but not this quick. I underestimated you - Sherlock Grady."

He bends, ties Bill-E's legs together, then his hands. He slips a gag between the unconscious boy's jaws, then picks Bill-E up and drapes him over his shoulders, much as he carried the captured deer.

"What are you going to do with him?" I whimper, flashing on images of Dervish cutting Bill-E's throat, or caging him up for life.

Dervish grunts. "We'll discuss that later. First we have to get him home. He'll be safe once we lock him in the cage - there's water, and he can feed on the deer. We're exposed here."

"But - " I begin.

"Save it," Dervish snaps. "We need to move - now! I don't want to be the one to try explaining to Ma Spleen that her grandson's a werewolf!"

I smile fleetingly, then put the questions on hold. Dervish carries Bill-E to the van which Meera had been hiding behind. He pulls the rear door open and bundles Bill-E inside, then returns for Meera. I'm too terrified and ashamed to ask if she's alive or dead. Instead I pick up my axe, Bill-E's dropped sword and the syringe - my right arm tingles fiercely where Dervish hit me, but I can use my hand now - and put them in the back of the van beside the bodies. Dervish closes the door on the beast and the woman. Then we climb in up front and drive back to the mansion.

For a full minute I say nothing, as if this is an ordinary drive home on a normal night. Dervish concentrates on the road, driving slowly for once in his life. His hands are shaking on the steering wheel. I watch him change gears. Then, unable to hold the questions back any longer, I spit it out.

"You knew Bill-E was a werewolf."

"Obviously."

"How long have you known?"

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

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

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

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

"Why didn't you tell me?" I ask softly.

"That your best friend's a werewolf?" Dervish snorts.

"I'd have believed you if you'd shown me proof. I was ready to believe it about you - I could have believed it about Bill-E too."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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