The Demonata 1-5

I leap to my feet, furious at what Dervish is suggesting. But before I can lay into him, he continues quickly.

“They were one-night stands or short affairs. Meaningless. Sharon never found out — or so Cal told me. My brother had many admirable qualities, but fidelity wasn’t one of them. He never wished to hurt your mother, but he couldn’t remain true to her. It wasn’t in his nature.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I hiss, fingers clenched into fists, tears in my eyes.

Dervish looks at me sideways, as though I’m a fool for asking. “Because one year he had an affair with a Valer while he was staying with me. And the woman wound up pregnant. She didn’t tell him about it until after the baby was born, and then refused all offers of his to get involved. Emily Spleen was headstrong, determined to live life her own way. She told Cal she wasn’t–”

“Stop!” I gasp, stumbling back into my chair. “Don’t,” I beg.

“I took a vow early in life never to have children,” Dervish says, ignoring my plea. “I was afraid the disease would take hold in them. I was determined not to put them — and myself — through that torment. Cal didn’t share that view — he thought life was worth the risk.

“I looked after Billy when Emily died because he was my nephew — not because he was my son. Cal was Billy’s father, Grubbs.

“Billy isn’t your cousin — he’s your brother.”

THE CURSE

→ A long silence. Wanting to roar at Dervish, call him a liar, make him take the words back. But there’s no reason for him to lie about something like this. Nothing but sad honesty in his eyes.

Feeling sick. Instantly mad at Dad for what he did. But just as instantly glad — I’m not alone! I thought I lost everything when the demons attacked. Now I discover I have a brother.

“This is crazy,” I moan, torn between rage and delight. “I don’t know what to make of it. I can’t handle it.”

“Of course you can,” Dervish snaps. “You handled the deaths of your parents and Gret — this is small fry in comparison.”

“But… I always thought…” I shake my head, not sure what I’m thinking or what I feel. “Why didn’t you tell Bill-E? You should have, especially after his Mum died. He could have come to live with us. Dad could–”

“Cal could do nothing!” Dervish barks. “Not without revealing the truth and tearing his family apart.” He runs a hand through his short grey hair. “But he tried to do it anyway. He came here to claim Billy when Emily died, despite the havoc it would cause.”

“Why didn’t he?” I ask.

“Ma and Pa Spleen threatened legal action. He would have fought them in court, except he knew he’d lose — they’d simply point out to the judge that Emily hadn’t told the boy who his father was, or allowed Cal access to him while she was alive. He hadn’t a hope.”

“Couldn’t you have cast a spell on them — made them give Bill-E to him?”

“I’m not that powerful,” Dervish chuckles humourlessly. “I ‘persuaded’ them to let me into Billy’s life when Emily died, but that was as far as my influence ran.”

I think it over some more, remembering Dad, how much he loved Mum, how happy they seemed together. I never suspected him of anything like this. I don’t think Mum did either.

“I know it’s a shock,” Dervish says quietly, “but can I ask you to put it to one side for the moment? You’ve got the rest of your life to chew it over. Billy doesn’t have the same luxury. If we don’t act soon…”

I let out a long, shuddering breath. Glance at the unconscious boy — my brother! – in the cage, his dark skin and twisted hands. Recall the photos of the creatures in Dervish’s lycanthropy books, warped and inhuman.

“OK. We’ll discuss Dad later.” I lean forward intently. “Tell me about werewolves.”

→ “I’ll keep this as short as possible,” Dervish says. Reaching under the table, he produces two cans of Coke from a drawer, hands one to me and gulps thirstily at his. I sip mine while he speaks.

“The curse is ancient. We call it the Garadex curse, since the Garadexes were the first in our family to write about it. If other families have it, we don’t know about them. Occasionally we’ll hear of a stranger who’s changed, but when we research their family tree we always find links to ourselves.

“Scientists who’ve studied the lycanthropic gene say it’s a freak — they haven’t found it anywhere else in nature. They don’t know where it came from or why it functions the way it does.”

He finishes his Coke, fishes out another, and continues. “We’ve kept the secret to ourselves. We’re a large family, wealthy and powerful. Those of us unaffected by the disease protect the secret. That’s why you and Billy aren’t under observation in some scientific institute.”

“Why would I be under observation?” I enquire. “I’m not a werewolf.” I pause as a horrible thought strikes. “Am I?”

Dervish doesn’t look at me. “I don’t know,” he answers softly. “The gene surfaces at random. Sometimes it strikes every member of a family branch, wiping them out. Other times it lies dormant for two or three generations. You’re one of three children. Gret and Billy both succumbed to the disease. I wish I could say that makes you more or less likely to turn, but there’s no way of guessing.

“The change strikes – if it strikes — anywhere between the age of ten and eighteen. There have been a handful of cases involving younger children, but nobody past their teens has ever turned.”

“That’s why there are so many young faces in the hall of portraits!” I exclaim. “Those kids all turned into werewolves!”

Dervish nods glumly. “There’s no known cure. Those who catch it are doomed to live as deranged animals for the rest of their days. They normally don’t last long — twenty years at most, if allowed to live.”

“What do you mean?”

Dervish taps the side of his can with his fingernails, a distant expression in his eyes. “It’s a terrible curse,” he says softly. “To see one you love change into an animal, to chain them up and endure their pain… Many choose not to put themselves through the anguish. A lot of parents…” He stops tapping and his expression hardens. “They put them out of their misery.”

I gulp dreadfully. “They kill them?”

He nods. “They’re beasts,” he says quickly before I can express my horror. “If they get loose, they kill. There are people in the family, a group called the Lambs, who handle the details if the parents can’t. Family executioners, to be blunt.”

“But you said there was a way to reverse it,” I remind him, trying not to dwell on all those faces from the hall of portraits, the gruesome ends they must have endured.

“I’m coming to that,” Dervish sighs. “Though be warned — when I tell you, you may wish that I hadn’t.”

A long pause. Then a groan from the cage — Bill-E stirring.

“When will he wake?” I ask, eyeing him nervously.

“Soon,” Dervish says. “Let’s go to my study — it won’t be pretty when he starts bellowing.”

“No,” I mutter, gripping the edge of the table. “I want to be here for him.”

Dervish nods understandingly, then returns to his story.

“Our scientists haven’t been able to crack the wolfen gene and find a cure. But science isn’t the only way to fight a disease. Magic works too.”

Dervish reaches across the desk, roots through the books stacked to his left and finds a thick tome. Opening it, he passes it to me, and I find myself gazing into the eyes of the family magician, Bartholomew Garadex.

“Old Bart devoted a large chunk of his life to trying to rid the family of its curse,” Dervish says. “He believed it had its origins in magic. For decades he cast spells, experimented and sought a cure in arcane volumes. But nothing worked. He could change a normal human’s shape but could do nothing with a transformed werewolf. He was powerless, like everybody else.

“And then he met a creature who wasn’t.”

Dervish’s face darkens. Taking the book from me, he closes it, then reaches for the folder where I found the drawing of Lord Loss.

“Stop!” I gasp. He looks at me questioningly. “I found that when I was here before,” I tell him, eyeing the folder fearfully. “The drawing of Lord Loss spoke to me. Its lips and eyes moved.”

“If I’d known you were so close to the truth,” Dervish murmurs, “I would have warned you about that.” He cocks a thumb at the door leading to the wine cellar. “As I told you, the house is safe. The land around is safe too. But I leave this cellar unprotected. There are times when I have to deal with entities not of this realm, and I need a base from which I can make contact.”