Blood Beast

DAMN THE SANDMAN

My hands are red with blood. I’m running through a forest. Naked, but I don’t care. I’m an animal, not a human. Animals don’t need clothes.

Blood on my tongue too. Must have fed recently. Can’t remember if it was a wild creature or a person. Not bothered much either way. Still hungry—that’s all that matters. Need to find something new to chew. And soon.

I leap a fallen log. As I land, my bare feet hit twigs. They snap and I sink into a pool of mud. I collapse, howling. The twigs bite into me. I catch a glimpse of fiery red eyes peering up out of the mud. They aren’t twigs—they’re teeth! I lash out with my feet, screaming wordlessly…

…and mud and bits of bark fly everywhere. I stare at the mess suspiciously, my heart rate returning to normal. I was wrong. I haven’t fallen victim to a monstrous baby with mouths in the palms of its hands and balls of fire where its eyes should be. It’s just a muddy hole, covered with the remains of branches and leaves.

Scowling, I rise and wipe my feet clean on clumps of nearby grass. As I’m using my nails to pick off some splinters, a voice calls, “Grubbs…”

The name doesn’t register immediately. Then I remember—that’s my name. Or it used to be, once upon a time. I glance up warily, sniffing the air, but all I can smell is blood.

“Grubitsch…” the voice murmurs and I growl angrily. I hate my real name. Grubbs isn’t great, but it’s better than Grubitsch. Nobody ever called me that except Mum and my sister Gret.

“You can’t find me,” the voice teases.

I roar into the darkness of the forest, then lurch at the bushes where I think the voice is coming from. I tear through them but there’s nothing on the other side.

“Wrong,” the voice laughs, coming from a spot behind me.

I whirl and squint, but I can’t see anyone.

“Over here,” the voice whispers. This time it’s coming from my right.

Still squinting, I edge closer, towards the source of the voice. This feels wrong, like it’s a trap. But I can’t back away from it. I’m drawn on by curiosity, but also something else. It’s a girl’s voice and I think I know whose it is.

Movement to my left, just as I’m about to round a tree. Eight long, pale arms wave in the light of the moon. Dozens of tiny snakes hiss and slither. I cry out with fear and slam into the tree, shielding my eyes from the horror. Seconds pass but nothing attacks. Lowering my arms, I realise the arms were just branches of a couple of neighbouring trees. The snakes were vines, blowing in the wind.

I feel sick but I force a weak chuckle, then slide around the tree in search of the person who called to me.

I’m at the edge of a pond. I frown at it. I know this forest and there should be no pond here. But there it lies regardless, the full moon reflected in its still surface. I’m thirsty. The blood has dried on my tongue, leaving a nasty copper-like taste. I crouch to drink from the pond, going down on all fours and lowering my head to the water like a wolf.

I see my face in the mirror-like water before I drink. Blood everywhere, caked into my flesh and hair. My eyes widen and fill with fear. Not because of the blood, but because I can see the shadow of somebody behind me.

I start to turn, but it’s too late. The girl pushes my head down hard and I go under. Water fills my mouth and I gag. I try to fight but the girl is strong. She holds me down and my lungs fill. The coppery taste is still there and I realise, as I blink with horrified fascination, that the pond is actually a pool of blood.

As my body goes limp, the girl pulls me up by my hair and laughs shrilly as I draw a hasty, terrified breath. “You always were a useless coward, Grubitsch,” she sneers.

“Gret?” I moan, staring up at the mocking smile of my sister. “I thought you were dead.”

“No,” she croaks, eyes narrowing and snout lengthening. “You are.”

I weep as her face transforms into that of a mutant wolf. I want to run or hit her, but I can only sit and stare. Then, as the transformation ends, she opens her mouth wide and howls. Her head shoots forward. Her fangs fasten around my throat. She bites.

I wake choking. I want to scream but in my imagination Gret’s teeth are locked around my throat. I lash out at my dead sister, still half in the dream world. When my arm fails to connect, I rub at my eyes and my bedroom swims back into sight around me.

Groaning softly, I sit up and dangle my legs over the edge of the bed. Covering my face with my hands, I recall the worst parts of the dream, then shiver and get up to go to the toilet. No point trying to sleep again tonight. I know from past experience that the nightmares will be even worse if I do.

I pause in the doorway of the bathroom, suddenly certain that demons are lurking in the shadows. If I turn on the light, they’ll attack. I know it’s ridiculous, a ripple from the nightmare, but despite that my finger trembles in the air by the switch, refusing to press.

“The hell with it,” I finally sigh, stepping forward. Letting my fear have its way on this night, as on so many others, I go about my business in the dark.

MISERY

“Of course I have nightmares—who doesn’t?”

“Every night?”

“No.”

“Most nights?”

A pause. “No.”

“But a lot?”

I shrug and look away. I’m in Mr. Mauch’s office. Misery Mauch—the school counsellor. He holds court a few times a week. Chats with students who are struggling with homework, peer pressure, pushy parents. Normal kids with normal problems. And then there’s me.

Misery loves sitting down for a warts’n’all session with me.

Why wouldn’t he? Everyone here knows the Grubbs Grady story—parents and sister slaughtered in front of him… long months locked up in a nuthouse (“incarcerated in a facility for the temporarily disturbed,” Misery puts it)… came to Carcery Vale to live in a spooky old house with his uncle Dervish… that uncle lost his marbles soon after… Grubbs played nurse for a year until he recovered… went to a movie set with Dervish and his friend Bill-E Spleen months later… witnessed the tragic deaths of hundreds of people when a disastrous fire burnt the set to the ground.

With a history like that, I’m a dinosaur-sized bone for every psychiatric dog within a hundred kilometre radius!

“Would you like to tell me about your dreams, Grubitsch?” Misery asks.

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

I feel like laughing but don’t. Misery’s harmless. It can’t be much fun, trekking around his small cache of schools, dealing with the same boring teenage problems day after day, year after year. If I was in his shoes, I’d be itching to get my hands on a juicily messed-up student like me too.

“Grubitsch?” Misery prods after a few seconds of silence.

“Hmm?”

“Telling me about your dreams might help. A problem shared is a problem halved.”

I almost respond with, “What’s a cliché shared?” but again I hold my tongue. I’d ruin Misery’s day if I cut him down like that. Might reduce him to tears.

“They’re not much of a problem, sir,” I say instead, trying to wind the session down. I’m missing physics and I quite like that subject.

“Please, Grubitsch, call me William.”

“Sorry, sir—I mean, William.”

Misery smiles big, as if he’s made a breakthrough. “The nightmares must be a problem if they’re not going away,” he presses gently. “If you told me, perhaps we could find a way to stop them.”

“I don’t think so,” I respond, a bit sharper than I meant. He’s talking about stuff which is way over his head. I don’t mind a school counsellor showing interest in me but I dislike the way he’s acting like a second-rate mind-sleuth, clumsily trying to draw out my secrets.

“I didn’t mean to offend you, Grubitsch,” Misery says quickly, realising he’s overstepped the mark.

“To be honest, sir,” I say stiffly, “I don’t think you’re qualified to discuss matters like this.”

“No, no, of course not,” Misery agrees, his features sorrowing up. “I don’t want to pretend to be something I’m not. I apologise if I gave that impression. I only thought, if you were in the mood to talk, it might help. It might be a beginning. Of course it’s not my… I’m under no illusion… as you say, I’m not qualified to…” He mutters to a halt.

“Don’t have a breakdown,” I laugh, feeling guilty. “It’s no biggie. I just don’t want to talk about my dreams to anyone. Not right now.”

Misery gulps, nods briskly, then says I can go. Tells me he’ll be back next week but won’t ask to see me. He’ll give me some breathing space. Maybe in a month or two he’ll call me in again, to “shoot the breeze”.

I hesitate at the door, not wanting to leave him on such a down note—his head’s bowed over his notes and he looks like he’s fighting back sniffles.

“Mr. Mau—William.” He looks up curiously. “Next time, if you want, you can call me Grubbs.”

“Grubbs?” he repeats uncertainly.

“It’s what my friends call me.”

“Oh,” he says and his face lights up like he’s won the jackpot.

I slip out, masking a smile. School counsellors—child’s play!

Lunch. Loch wants to know what I was talking with Misery about.

“The size of your brain,” I tell him. “We wondered how small it was.”

“Don’t worry about the size of my brain,” Loch snorts. “My brain’s fine. A lot healthier than your pea of a think-tank.”

“How big is a brain?” Charlie asks. Everyone stares at him. “I mean, does it fill the whole of the head?” He starts poking his skull, searching for soft spots.

“In your case, I doubt it,” Loch says. “You’ve probably got enough empty space in there to hold a football.”

Laughter all round. Even Charlie laughs. He’s used to being the butt of our jokes. He doesn’t mind. They’re always light-hearted. Everyone likes Charlie Rail. He’s too nice to get vicious on.

Six of us, sheltering from rain in a doorway overlooking the football quad. The usual pack of barbarians are kicking the life out of a tired old ball—and each other—on the quad, oblivious to the rain.

My group—me, Loch, Charlie, Frank, Leon and Mary. Loch and I stand a head or more above any of the others. We’re the biggest pair of lunks in our school, which is what drew us to each other in the first place. Loch’s a wrestler. He wanted me to be his partner, so he became my friend. I held out for a long time—real wrestling’s nothing like the stuff on TV, very calculated and unspectacular—but he eventually persuaded me to give it a go. I’m not much good, and don’t get a real kick out of it, but to keep Loch happy I travel to a few meets every month and get down’n’sweaty on the mats.

“I think Misery’s sexy in an older-man kind of way,” Mary says to a chorus of astonished jeers and catcalls.

“You’ve got the hots for Mauch?” Leon gasps, faking a heart attack.

“No,” Mary says coolly. “I just think he’s sexy. I bet women are all over him outside school hours.”

The laughter dies away and the five testosteronetastic guys in the group look at each other uncertainly. It’s not something we’d admit to, but girls our age know a hell of a lot more about the adult world than we do. Adults operate differently. It’s easy to tell the winners and losers in school, the cools and geeks. But the world beyond is puzzlesome. Professional sportsmen are obviously cool, as are actors, pop stars, etc. But what about normal guys? What makes an ordinary man attractive to a woman? I don’t know. But if Misery Mauch has it, we could all be in trouble later on. By their frowns, I know the others are thinking exactly the same.

While we’re trying to come to terms with a world where Misery Mauch is a sex god, Reni and Shannon stroll up, arms linked, laughing at some private joke.

“I was just telling the boys,” Mary says, “how sexy Mr. Mauch is.”

“William?” Reni says, nodding thoughtfully. “He’s a dish.”

“William?” Loch barks at his sister.

“That’s what he told me to call him.”

“I didn’t know you’d been going for counselling,” Loch growls.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Reni says sultrily, then raises an eyebrow at Shannon. “William Mauch—dull or dishy?”

“Deep-pan dishy,” Shannon says seriously—then laughs. “I’m sorry! Your faces!”

“Swine,” Leon snarls as the other girls squeal along with Shannon. “That wasn’t funny.”

“It was hilarious,” Reni counters, crying with laughter. “You lot are so easy to wind up. Imagine Misery Mauch as eye-candy!” She laughs even harder.

“Here,” I say, pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to Reni.

Reni smiles sweetly and dabs at her cheeks with the hankie. Four sets of lips immediately purse—wolf whistles galore.

“Grubbs and Reni sitting in a tree…” sings Frank.

“Get stuffed,” I grunt and coolly retrieve my handkerchief from Reni—cue more whistles.

Lunch flies by as it usually does. So much to talk about—friends, teachers, homework, TV, movies, computer games, music, wrestling, the size of brains. Robbie McCarthy joins us midway through. He’s not a regular member of the gang but he’s been cuddling up to Mary recently so he’s had to spend time with the rest of us.

I joke around with Reni a lot. The handkerchief was especially for her. One of Dervish’s. I use tissues, like everybody else who isn’t living in the Middle Ages. I’ve been carrying it around for a week, waiting for a chance to present it to her. Corny, and done as a joke—but half serious too. A chance to share a smile and a sweet look.

Reni knows I fancy her. And I think she’s hot for the Grubbster. But I’ve not had much experience in things like this. There’s every chance I’ve read the signals wrong. I won’t know for sure until I find the guts to put an arm around her and try for a kiss, but I think the odds are in my favour.

Loch’s cool with it. I’ve seen how he is with other guys who put the moves on Reni—he puffs himself out to look even bigger than he already is and growls like a bear, scaring them away. If Reni was keen on any of them, she’d tell him to back off. But most of the time she lets him play the protective big brother and even encourages it.

It’s important to have Loch’s approval. He’s my best friend. You don’t try to date your best friend’s sister without his permission. It just isn’t done.

Towards the end of lunch, a small, chubby boy with a lazy left eye shuffles over and I feel a stab of guilt, much stronger than the pang I felt in Misery Mauch’s office.

“Hi Grubbs,” Bill-E says, smiling hopefully.

“Hi,” I grunt.

“Hey, Bill-E! How’s my man?” Loch exclaims and sticks his hand out. Bill-E extends his own hand automatically, but Loch whips his away, puts his thumb on his nose, sticks his tongue out and wiggles his fingers. “Sucker!”

Bill-E flushes but manages a sick grin and lowers his hand sheepishly.

“Very mature,” Reni says drily, rolling her eyes at her brother.

“The shrimp doesn’t mind, do you, Spleen?” Loch chortles, grabbing Bill-E’s head in a wrestling lock.

“No,” Bill-E says, voice muffled. Loch releases Bill-E and ruffles his hair. Bill-E’s still smiling but the smile’s very strained and his face is fire engine red. “How you doing, Grubbs?”

“Not bad. You?”

“OK.”

We smile awkwardly at each other. The rest of the group stare at us for a second. Then normal conversation resumes, only we’re cut out of it.

“Doing anything this weekend?” Bill-E asks.

“Not a lot. Maybe practising some wrestling moves with Loch.”

“Oh. I was thinking of coming over to watch some movies… if that’s OK…”

“Hell, you don’t have to ask.” I laugh uneasily. “You can drop in any time you want. It’s your house as much as mine.”

“Coolio!” Bill-E’s smile resumes its normal shape. “You want to watch a movie with me?”

“Maybe. But I might have to go over to Loch’s and practise. You know.”

“Yeah,” Bill-E says quietly. “I know.”

The bell rings and everyone files back to class. Hundreds of kids groaning, shouting, laughing. Bill-E heads off in his own direction. He doesn’t say goodbye. I watch him walk alone and lonely in the crowd and I feel twisted and vile, like something a maggot would crawl out of its way to avoid.

Bill-E Spleen was my best friend before Loch Gossel hit the scene. When I moved here after my parents’ death and my spell in the nuthouse, he made me feel like I wasn’t all by myself in the world. He helped me establish a life again. Settled me in at school, kept me company during lunch when everybody else was wary of me. Fought by my side on the Slawter film set—and it wasn’t fire we had to contend with. Tried to help when my nightmares kicked back in hard not long afterwards, even though his own mind was in turmoil.

How do I repay him? By abandoning him for the friendship of Loch, Reni and our little group. Cutting him loose. Being a Judas.

It’s wrong but it’s the way things go. When an old friend doesn’t fit in with your new pals, you cut him loose. It’s the law of school. I’ve dumped other friends in the past, and several have done it to me. The difference here is that Bill-E’s my half-brother. Even though he doesn’t know it.

Chemistry. I usually find it interesting but this afternoon I can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about Bill-E. I didn’t mean to give him the big brush-off. When I first met Loch, I had time for Bill-E. I’d only see Loch occasionally after school. I still hung out with Bill-E a lot.

That gradually changed. Loch began inviting me around to his house and coming over to mine. Through Loch I became friends with Frank Martin, Charlie Rail and Leon Penn. And through them I got to know Shannon Campbell and Mary Hayes—and, of course, Reni.

Reni makes me forget about Bill-E for a few minutes. Daydreaming about her shoulder-length auburn hair, long eyelashes, light brown eyes, her curves… She’s not perfect by any means—big and sturdy like her brother, with a ski-slope of a nose—but everybody thinks she’s one of the hottest girls in our school.

I shake my head to stop thinking about Reni and my thoughts drift back to Bill-E. All those new friends made demands. It was exciting to be accepted by them, included in their conversation, treated as an equal. It had been a long time since I was part of a crowd. I hadn’t realised how much that mattered to me or how much I’d missed it.

I wanted Bill-E to hang out with us but he just didn’t fit in. I’m not sure why. He’s younger than most of us—he started school a year early—but Leon isn’t a lot older than him. He’s small, but Frank’s no giant either. He uses corny words like “Coolio!” but Robbie’s favourite exclamation is the seriously uncool “Radical!” He has a lazy left eye, but Charlie has buck teeth, Shannon has an ugly facial mole, I’m built like the Hulk… We’re all a bit odd, one way or another.

Bill-E is clever, funny, a much better talker than me. But he never found a niche at school. I didn’t realise it when I first started. Bill-E seemed like the most normal kid around. I knew he didn’t have a lot of friends but I was certain he fit in more than I did.

After a while I began to notice things. Like how Bill-E never went to anybody’s house after school. How people made jokes about him and aped him when he said things like “Coolio!” How he was bullied by boys like Loch Gossel.

I’m not blind to how Loch treats Bill-E. He teases him all the time, like with the fake hand-shake and head-lock today. It’s different to the way he treats Charlie. Nastier. He embarrasses Bill-E in front of others, makes him feel small and unwanted.

I often thought of challenging Loch and the others who pick on Bill-E. If any of them hurt him, I’d have definitely taken them on. But teasing is harder to deal with. You can’t punch a guy for being sarcastic to somebody… can you?

I’d have worsened the situation if I’d interfered, made Bill-E look like a weakling who couldn’t stand up for himself. Besides, it wasn’t so bad. His life wasn’t a walking misery. And he always had me to cheer him up.

Class ends. English next. I walk to it by myself, quiet, thoughtful.

I feel ashamed. I should go up to Bill-E this afternoon. Invite him back to my place. Free up the weekend to be with him. Watch movies, eat popcorn, go searching for Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure. Like we used to.

But I won’t. Instead I’ll just suffer the guilt, wait for it to pass, then let things go on as they have been.

Lousy, yeah, but that’s the way it is. Misery Mauch wouldn’t understand if I tried to explain, but I’m sure anyone else in the school—or any school in the world—would.

NIGHTMARES

“Of course I have nightmares—who doesn’t?”

I brushed Misery off with that line, but it followed me home from school like a stray dog. I live a couple of miles outside Carcery Vale, in a massive old house three floors high, filled with antiques and mystical knick-knacks. It was once the property of a tyrant called Lord Sheftree, a charming chap who enjoyed chopping up babies into little pieces and feeding them to his pet piranha. But these days it belongs to my uncle, Dervish Grady—as rich as Lord Sheftree, much more powerful, but without any of the nasty habits.

Dervish is munching a sandwich in the kitchen when I get home. “Good day at school?” he asks, handing me half of the sandwich.

“So-so,” I reply, taking a bite. Chicken and bacon. Yum!

Dervish looks much the same as when I first met him. Thin, tall, bald on top, grey around the sides. A tight grey beard which he shaved off a year or so ago but has grown back. Piercing blue eyes. Dressed all in denim. The only real difference is his expression. His face is more lined than it used to be, and he has the look of a man still recovering from a haunting. Which he is.

“Bill-E said he might come over this weekend,” I tell him.

Dervish nods and goes on munching. He knows things aren’t the same between Bill-E and me but he’s never said anything. I guess he doesn’t think there’s any point—nothing he says could fix the situation. It’s best for adults to keep out of things like this. It’s widely accepted that we can’t solve their problems, so I’ll never understand why so many of them think they can solve ours.

I tell Dervish about my session with Misery. He’s only mildly interested. “Mauch is a nice guy,” he says, “but not much up top. If he gets too inquisitive, let me know and I’ll have a word.”

“It’ll be a cold day in hell when I can’t handle the likes of Misery Mauch myself,” I snort.

“Oh Grubbs, you’re so manly!” Dervish gushes, fluttering his eyelids.

“Get stuffed!” I grunt.

We laugh and finish our sandwich.

“Of course I have nightmares—who doesn’t?”

I can’t get the damn line out of my head! All the way through homework, while watching TV, then listening to CDs and flicking through a wrestling magazine of Loch’s.

Everyone has nightmares, sure, but I doubt if many have nightmares like mine. Delirious dreams of demons, wholesale slaughter, a universe of webs and comet-sized monsters. All based on firsthand experience.

I get to bed about 11:30, fairly normal for me, but sleep doesn’t come easily. And when it does…

I’m in my bedroom at home—my first home. Blood seeps from the eyes of the football players in the posters on my walls, but that doesn’t bother me. Gret walks in. She’s been split in two down the back. Guts trail behind her. A demon with a dog’s body but a crocodile’s head is chewing on the entrails.

“Dad wants you,” Gret says.

“Am I in trouble?” I ask.

“Not as much as me,” she sighs.

Down the corridor to Mum and Dad’s room. I’ve walked this a thousand times in my nightmares, always feeling the heat and fear. A few tears trickle down my cheeks as my hand rests on the doorknob, the way they always do. I know what I’m going to find inside—my parents, dead, and a wickedly smug Lord Loss. I don’t want to open the door, but of course I do, and everything happens the way it did that night when my world first collapsed.

The scene shifts and I’m in the insane asylum. Arms bound, howling at the walls, seeing imaginary demons everywhere I look. Then one of the walls fades. It turns into a barrier of webs. Dervish picks his way through them. “I know demons are real,” he says. “I can help you.”

“Help me escape?” I sob.

“No.” He holds up a mirror and I see that I’ve turned into a werewolf. “Help you die,” he snarls and swings at my neck with an axe.

I kick the covers off and roll out of bed. I hit the floor hard and scramble a few metres across it, fleeing my axe-wielding uncle. Then my vision clears and I realise I’m awake. Groaning, I push myself to my feet and check my bedside clock. Nearly one in the morning. Looks like I won’t be getting any decent sleep tonight either.

My T-shirt and boxers are soaked through with sweat. I change, pop to the bathroom, splash cold water over my face, then go on a wander of the mansion. I often stroll when I can’t sleep, exploring the warren of corridors and rooms, safe here, knowing no harm can befall me. This house is protected by powerful spells.

Creeping through the old restored part of the mansion, feet cold from the stone floors, too lazy to go back and get my slippers. I find myself in the newer section, an eyesore which was tacked on to the original shell when it was uninhabitable. Dervish keeps talking about demolishing the extension but he hasn’t got round to it yet.

I return to the ornate, overblown majesty of the older building and wind up in the hall of portraits, as I usually do on sleepless nights like this. Dozens of paintings and photographs, all of dead family members. Many are of young people, cut down long before their natural time—like my sister, Gret.

I study Gret’s photo for ages, a lump in my throat, wishing for the millionth time that I could tell her how sorry I am that I wasn’t there for her in her hour of need—her hour of lycanthropy.

It’s the family curse. Lots of us turn into werewolves. It’s been in the bloodline for more generations than anyone can remember. It strikes in adolescence. Loads of us hit twelve, thirteen… maybe even seventeen or eighteen… and change. Our bodies alter. We lose our minds. Become savage beasts who live to kill.

We’re not werewolves like in the movies, who change when the moon is round then resume our normal forms. When the change hits, it’s forever. The victim has a few months before the final fall, when he or she goes a bit nutso each full moon. But then the night of total change sweeps in and there’s no way back after that. Except one. The way of Lord Loss and demons.

Dervish’s study. Playing chess against myself on the computer. The study’s an enormous room, even by the mansion’s grand standards. Unlike the other rooms in the old quarters it’s carpeted, the walls covered with leather panels. There are two huge desks, several bookcases, a PC, laptop, typewriter. Swords, axes and other weapons hang from the walls. Dervish removed them when he was prone to sleep-walking and attacking me in his sleep, but he’s safe as a baby now so the weapons are back. But he never replaced the five chess boards he once kept here, which is why I’m playing on the computer.

Gret was infected with the family curse. In an attempt to save her, Mum and Dad locked horns with a demon master called Lord Loss. Yeah, this isn’t just a world of werewolves—demons also prowl the shadowy corridors of the night. The Demonata, to give them their full title.

Lord Loss is a horrible creature with lumpy, pale red flesh and a snake-filled hole where his heart should be. He’s always bleeding from thousands of small cuts and cracks in his skin, and floats around instead of walking. He thrives on pain. Haunts sad, tortured humans, feeding on their misery. Nothing appeals to him more than a person in severe agony—except maybe a cracking game of chess.

My hand moves slowly on the mouse, directing black and white pieces on the screen. A powerful family magician discovered Lord Loss’s passion for chess many decades ago. He established a contest wherein two relatives of an affected child could challenge the demon master to a chess match. If Lord Loss was defeated, he’d restore the child’s natural form and lift the curse forever. But if he won…

My parents lost. Under Lord Loss’s rules, both were killed, along with Gret. I would have died too, but I was able to call upon hidden magical powers and escape.

Months later, under Dervish’s care, I learnt the truth about what happened, and that Bill-E was my secret half-brother. I also found out that Bill-E had fallen prey to the lycanthropic curse.

Dervish and I faced Lord Loss. It was the bravest, most terrifying thing I’ve ever done or hope to do. I managed to out-fox Lord Loss and turn his love of misery against him. He didn’t take it lightly. Swore revenge on all three of us.

He almost exacted that revenge months later on the set of a movie called Slawter. A horror maestro was making a film about demons. Dervish, Bill-E and I were lured into a trap. Lord Loss set an army of demons loose on the cast and crew. Hundreds of people died horribly, but we managed to escape.

Bill-E was badly shaken by his run-in with demons. With Dervish’s help he recovered and is back to his old self, pretty much. But there’s a nervousness in his look these days—he’s always watching the shadows for flickers of demons.

And me? Apart from the nightmares and sleepless nights, have I got over it? Am I living the good life, getting on with things, making my way in the world? Well, yes, I’m trying. But there are a couple of flies in the ointment of my life, threatening to mess everything up.

First, it’ll be a few more years before I know for sure whether or not I carry the lycanthropic gene. There’s a strong possibility I could turn into a werewolf.

If I do start to turn, I’m damned. Lord Loss won’t intervene. He hates us with an inhuman passion. Nothing in either universe would tempt him to offer me the chance of salvation. Dervish hasn’t said as much but we both know the score—if I fall under the spell of the moon and my body changes, an axe to the neck will be the only cure.

As for the second fly… Well, in a way that’s even worse than the first.

Back in my bathroom, I splash more water over my face. Letting myself drip-dry, I study the water flowing down the drain. It spirals out of the sink in an anticlockwise direction, under the control of gravity. I focus and stare hard at the water. An inner force grows at my prompting. The stream of water splutters, then starts to spiral downwards smoothly again—but in a clockwise direction.

I watch for a few seconds, then shake my head and break the spell. The flow of water returns to normal. I head back to bed, dejected and scared, to spend the rest of the night awake and miserable beneath the covers.

Magicians are rare. Only one or two are born every century, humans with the magical potential of demons, who can change the world with the flick of a wrist.

There are others called mages. They can perform magic when there’s demonic energy in the air, but under everyday conditions they can only manage minor spells. Most mages are part of a group known as the Disciples—they fight demons and try to stop them crossing to our world.

As far as anyone knows, I’m neither a magician nor a mage. I have more magical ability than most people, and tapped into it when I faced Lord Loss and his familiars. But I’m not a true part of the world of magic.

That suits me fine. I don’t want to become a demon-battling Disciple. I want to lead an ordinary life. The thought of brushing shoulders with Lord Loss or his kind again terrifies me. And as somebody who isn’t naturally magical, there’s no reason why I should get involved in any more demonic battles. I can sit on the sidelines with the rest of humanity, ignorant of the wars being fought between the forces of good and evil, free of the curse of magic and the responsibilities it brings.

At least that’s what Dervish believes. That’s how I’d like it to be.

But something changed in Slawter. I discovered a power within myself, and although I masked it from Dervish, it hasn’t gone away. The magic is working its way out, keen to break free. It allows me to reverse the flow of water, lift great weights, move objects without touching them. I’ve awoken several times to find myself levitating above my bed.

I’ve fought the magic with desperate determination. And for the most part I’ve been successful. I hope that by focusing and fighting it every step of the way, I can work it out of my system and return to normal.

I’d like to talk with Dervish about it and seek his advice. But I’m afraid. Magic is his life. He’s a Disciple first and foremost, dedicated to the task of keeping the world safe from demons. Dervish loves me, but I have no doubt that if he knew about my power he’d press me into learning more spells. He’d say the world needed me. He’d nag, lecture and plead. I’d resist, but my uncle can be extremely persuasive when he puts his mind to it. I’m certain he’d nudge me back into the world of magic… back into the world of demons.

So here I am. I want to be an average teenager whose only worries are puberty, acne, scoring with girls, impressing my friends and getting through school in one piece. But I’m forced to spend the better part of every day brooding about turning into a werewolf or becoming a whizz-kid wizard who has to fight evil, heartless demons.

“Of course I have nightmares…”

PREPARATIONS

Dervish has to go away for a couple of days. “Meera’s heading off for pastures distant, might not be back this way for several months, wants to say goodbye in style.”

“‘In style’?” I smirk. Meera Flame is one of Dervish’s closest friends. Definitely his sexiest. She’s hotter than a hot dog that’s been cooked extra HOT! “Are you and Meera finally going to get it on?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Dervish snorts. “We’re just friends. You know that.”

“That’s what you always tell me…” I tease.

“Well,” Dervish huffs, “it’s true. I’ve never made a pass at her and I don’t intend to start now.”

“Why not?” I ask, genuinely interested.

Dervish pulls a saintly expression. “Grubbs,” he says softly. “Remember when I told you that your dad was Bill-E’s dad too?”

“Yes…” Warily.

“What I didn’t tell you was that your mother… well, the woman you thought of as your mum only met your dad after you were born. Meera…” He stops.

I gawp at him, head pounding, limbs trembling. My world starts to explode.

Then I catch his grin.

“You son of a jackal!” I roar, swatting him around his balding head. “That wasn’t funny.”

“Oh, it so was,” he laughs, wiping away tears.

Most of the time I get a kick out of Dervish’s warped sense of humour. But there are other times when it really gets up my nose.

“Keep it up,” I growl. “Maybe I’ll tell Misery Mauch about you. I doubt if he’d see the funny side of a sick joke like that. Wouldn’t surprise me if he took me out of your custody and put me some place where the people are halfway normal.”

“If only,” Dervish sighs, then squints at me. “I don’t want to lay it on heavy, but I’ve something to say and I want you to pay attention.”

“What now?” I ask with a sulky sneer. “Ma and Pa Spleen are my grandparents? Misery Mauch is your long-lost brother?”

“This house has been wrecked once already,” Dervish says. “I don’t want it destroyed again. Keep your freakish little friends under as much control as you can. A certain amount of wear-and-tear is unavoidable, I accept that, but they’ll only run wild if you let them. Lay down the law and they won’t cause too much damage. And for heaven’s sake, don’t let any of them into my study. Remember that it’s guarded by spells, so if anyone wanders in there uninvited…”

“What are you babbling about?” I snap. I hate when he starts on a spiel without making it clear what the subject is.

Dervish frowns. “A bit slow today, aren’t you?”

“What?” I roar impatiently.

“I’m going away.” He raps my head with his knuckles. “You’ll have the house to yourself.” He raps it again. “It’s the weekend.”

He goes to rap my head a third time. I catch his hand in mid-air, my face lighting up with a smile as I finally get it. At the exact same moment we exclaim, me excitedly, Dervish sarcastically—

“Paaarteeeeeee!”

“Strip poker,” Frank says earnestly. “It’s a must.”

“Hey!” Loch barks. “My sister will be there.”

“So we’ll wait till she sneaks off with Grubbs, then… ba-bumba!”

Everybody laughs, even Loch.

“Have you told the girls yet?” Charlie asks.

“No. I wanted to discuss it with you lot first, get some ideas, like how many people to invite, should I have a theme, if—”

“Theme?” Loch snorts. “This isn’t a fancy dress party, fool!”

“I wouldn’t invite too many,” Leon says, a worried look on his face. “I made that mistake once. Had just about the whole school back to my place while my parents were away skiing. I did what I could to clean up the next day but it was impossible.”

“Yeah,” Frank nods. “This is your first party. You don’t want to blow it by taking on more than you can handle.”

“Especially since there’s so much opportunity for the future,” Loch agrees. “That mansion could be highly valuable over the next few years. Loads of rooms—loads of bedrooms—and an uncle who knows the score… It’s a goldmine. But we’ve got to tread carefully. If we trash the house now, Dervish might never leave you alone again.”

The discussion continues. Everyone—Loch, Frank, Charlie, Leon and Robbie—chips in with their own ideas. Music, food, drink, the guest list… each is debated at great length. But the guest list is the one we keep coming back to, the topic that creates the most divisions.

“Two girls to each guy,” Frank insists. “If not three.”

“Nah,” Robbie grunts. “Equal numbers or else they’ll gang up on us.”

“What do you care?” Leon challenges him. “You only have eyes for Mary.”

Robbie winks. “A lot can happen at a party.”

Out of the blue, Charlie shouts, “Jelly beans. You’ve got to have jelly beans. Plates of them everywhere.”

“You’re a bloody jelly bean!” Loch roars as we fall apart in tears of laughter.

“What are you hyenas splitting your sides about now?” Reni asks, appearing on the scene without warning, Shannon by her side.

“We’re—” Charlie starts.

Loch elbows him and nods sharply at me—my party, my news.

“Dervish is away this weekend,” I tell Reni, wishing my heart wouldn’t throb so loudly—I’m sure she can hear it. “I’m having a party.”

“Great,” Reni smiles. “I hope we’re invited?”

“Of course,” I say miles too quickly. Then, aiming for cool, “But don’t tell anyone. I want to keep it exclusive—just a select handful of my more discerning acquaintances.”

“Nice,” Reni says and strides away, sharing a giggle with Shannon.

“ ‘More discerning acquaintances’,” Leon mimics as the others poke me in the ribs and make cat-calls. “You’re full of it sometimes, Grady.”

Word spreads quickly about the party. I’ve never been so popular, surrounded at the start and end of classes, pumped for details, besieged with requests for an invite. I think the location of the party is as much a draw as anything else. Everyone in the Vale knows about the spooky old mansion where I live but most have never been inside.

At lunch I’m faced with a steady stream of party-hungry teens, all in search of a golden ticket. I feel like a king, hearing petitions, flanked by my royal advisors (Loch and co). I play it icy at Loch’s advice, saying numbers are limited, I can only invite a select few. I don’t say an absolute no to anyone and promise to take all requests into consideration.

So I’m a poser. So sue me.

Just before the bell rings for class, my last petitioner approaches. Bill-E. He’s smiling awkwardly, even more so than usual. “Hi Grubbs.”

“Hi.”

“How’s tricks, Spleenio?” Loch says, putting out his hand. I groan as Bill-E falls for the trick again, makes to shake and is humiliated when Loch whips his hand away. “Sucker!”

I don’t wait for Bill-E or Loch to say anything else. “Have you heard about the party?” I ask quickly.

“Yeah,” Bill-E says. “I know I was supposed to come over this weekend, but—”

“You’re not going to back out, are you?” I cut him short. “C’mon, Bill-E, this is my first party. I need you there for moral support.”

A rosy glow of happiness spreads outwards from the centre of the chubby boy’s cheeks. “You want me to come?” he asks quietly, half-suspecting a cruel joke.

“Of course,” I say firmly. “In fact, if you don’t, the party’s off.”

“Now hold on a minute…” Loch begins, startled.

“I mean it,” I silence him, eyes on Bill-E, trying to put right at least some of the wrong things between us.

“Well… I mean… I guess… OK,” Bill-E grins. “Sure. Why not?”

“Great.” I raise a warning finger. “But don’t tell Ma and Pa Spleen it’s a party or they’ll never let you come.”

“No sheet, Sherlock!” Bill-E laughs and heads off, much happier than I’ve seen him in a long while.

Dervish is getting ready to leave. In his leathers, pulling the straps out of his helmet. His motorcycle’s outside the front door, primed to go. “Is the party tonight or tomorrow?” he asks.

“Tomorrow. Too awkward for people to come tonight. Plus it gives me time to go shopping in the Vale in the morning.”

“You know I’ll be back early Sunday afternoon,” he reminds me.

“I know.”

“If I walk in and find pools of puke and mountains of rubbish…”

“You won’t,” I assure him. “There aren’t many coming, and a few are sleeping over to help clean up in the morning. The only thing is, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to do all the laundry before you return.”

“That’s fine,” Dervish says, then raises an eyebrow. “Those staying over are all boys, I presume?”

“Of course.”

“They’d better be. Because if I find out otherwise…”

“You won’t.”

“Good.”

The pair of massive front doors are already open. Dervish walks out, breathing in fresh spring air. “It’s supposed to be cold over the weekend,” he says. “Don’t leave the windows open or the house will be freezing.”

“I have everything in hand,” I tell him.

“I doubt it.” He climbs on to his bike.

“Say hi to Meera from me.”

“Sure.”

“Give her a kiss from me too.”

“Funny guy.” Then without a goodbye he’s off, tearing down the driveway, already approaching the speed limit—and he’s only warming up. If everyone drove like my maniac of an uncle, the roads would be awash with blood.

This isn’t the first time Dervish has left me alone in the house, but it’s the first time he’s left me in total control. Before, the understanding was always that I was simply holding the fort. No parties. This time he’s as good as said the house is mine for the next forty-odd hours, to do with as I wish.

It feels strange. I find myself thinking of everything that could go wrong—broken windows, smashed vases, someone stumbling into Dervish’s study and turning into a frog. I half wish I could cancel. I’ve been to a couple of wild parties with Loch over the last few months and never worried about what we were doing, the mess we were making, what would happen to the kids who lived there when their parents returned. Now the shoe’s on my foot, I realise what a risky undertaking it is. Maybe I should pull a sickie and call the whole thing off.

The phone rings. Loch. It’s as if he’s sensed my wavering mood and is intervening to sway me back into party mode. “Has Dervish gone?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Good. I didn’t want to discuss it at school—too many ears—but what about booze? Yay or nay?”

“That might be a bit much,” I mutter. “Things will probably be wild enough if everyone’s sober.”

“Yeah, it’ll be wilder if everyone’s drunk,” Loch laughs, “but a lot more fun! I was thinking about all those bottles of wine in the cellar…”

“No way,” I snap. “Most are expensive. Very expensive. Nobody goes near the wine. That’s a golden rule. If anyone breaks it, I’ll kick you all out.”

“Spoilsport,” Loch grumbles. “Well, what about beer? I could ask one of my older cousins to get us a crate or two.”

“I’d rather you didn’t.”

“You’re not wimping out, are you?” he asks suspiciously.

“Well…” I start.

“Good,” Loch says quickly. “Let’s forget about the booze then. If anybody brings some, great. If not, we’ll just muddle by sober. Fair enough?”

“Yeah,” I say unhappily. “I guess.”

“Great. See you in the morning. Oh, and I’ll be bringing Reni, to help carry the bags. Is that OK?”

“Sure,” I say, spirits lifting, instantly forgetting about my reservations. “That’ll be… fine. Yeah. Whatever.”

A short laugh, then Loch hangs up, leaving me to get on with the planning of the party.

Loch, Reni and I make three runs to the village. Frank and Leon join us on the last run, when we realise we need more hands. It’s brilliant spending so much time with Reni, walking beside her in and out of Carcery Vale, discussing the party, bands, politics… whatever she feels like talking about.

Loch offers to chip in with some money for the drinks and food, but I tell him it’s OK. Dervish is rich—there’s a family fortune knocking about which will one day be mine and Bill-E’s—and he never begrudges me anything. He left a wad of cash for me in his study and told me to make good use of it.

Reni does a lot of the organising. I spent a couple of hours last night drawing up a list of everything we might need and was more than a little pleased with myself. She took one look at the list this morning, laughed and tore it up. “Is Jesus coming?” she asked.

“Uh… no,” I replied, astonished.

“Then forget about the loaves and fishes miracle. What you had on that list wouldn’t have got us through to nine o’clock. Now, fetch me a fresh pad and pen—this needs a woman’s considered touch.”

Much as I hate to admit it, she was right. Carrying the supplies back from Carcery Vale, it feels like we’ve bought far too much—we could feed the starving millions with this lot. But by the time we’ve divided it out into plates and bowls, and distributed them around the three main party rooms—two big living rooms and the kitchen—there doesn’t look to be a whole load.

“Maybe we need to make another run,” Frank muses, opening a bag of crisps.

“Maybe you need to stop snacking before anyone arrives,” Reni retorts, grabbing the bag from him. “No,” she says, casting a professional eye around. “This will do. Any more would be a waste.” She checks her watch. “I’m going home to get ready. And you boys…” She wrinkles her nose and pulls a face. “Ever heard of showers?”

She leaves. I look around at Loch, Frank and Leon. They stare back. Then we all raise an arm and sniff.

PARTY ANIMAL

The party’s not set to start until seven, but the first guests begin arriving soon after six. I’m nervous and twitchy, worrying about where their coats should go, if there’s enough food and drink, if anyone’s smuggled in anything they shouldn’t have. But as more arrive and the laughter and buzz of voices increase, I begin to relax as I realise people are having fun.

Not everyone who comes was on the invitation list, but there’s nothing I can do about that. If I turned them away, I’d sour the atmosphere. A few blow-ins have to be expected at any party.

Loch and Frank help (Leon can’t make it until nine), opening the front doors and greeting newcomers while I’m showing others around the mansion. It’s cool to be a guide to so many fascinated guests. I love leading them through the corridors, pointing out weapons on the walls, explaining the house’s bloody history, showing them the hall of portraits and the faces of the dead.

“How come there are so many young people?” Mary asks, studying the paintings and photos.

“We’re an adventuresome lot,” I lie. “We don’t sit around quietly, waiting to grow old. We embrace life and danger, and as a result a lot of us die young.”

“They leave good looking corpses though,” Reni says and giggles sweetly when I blush.

Bill-E arrives at a quarter to eight. I’m coming down the stairs when he enters, admitted by Loch.

“Hey, Bill-E, great to see you, glad you could come,” Loch enthuses, offering his hand, which Bill-E predictably—and, I must admit, amusingly—tries to shake. “Sucker!”

But even Loch’s teasing can’t spoil the mood. Bill-E breezes past him, feathers only mildly ruffled, and makes for the nearest pile of food. Ten minutes of solid munching later, he’s by my side, marching after me as I lead the latest group on a tour. By midway he’s taken over—he knows much more about the house and its legends than I do and is better at telling the stories. I don’t mind. It’s nice to see him come out of his shell. I wish he was like this all the time.

As the night lengthens I start to feel strange. Nauseous, dizzy, the rooms and people around me appearing oddly out of focus. My breath is heavy in my ears and my stomach and chest ache if I move quickly. It’s not alcohol—nobody brought booze—but maybe somebody spiked the soft drinks with a spoon of nasty powder or a pill.

“Are you OK?” Reni asks, spotting me staggering towards the kitchen.

“A bit… weird…” I gasp, having to sit on the floor a couple of metres shy of the kitchen door.

Reni squats beside me. “You don’t look good,” she says and feels my forehead. “You haven’t been drinking, have you?” I shake my head. “Drugs?” Her voice is hard.

“Not… that I know… about,” I wheeze. “I was going… to the kitchen… to check. Think somebody… might have spiked… the drinks.”

“They’d better bloody not,” Reni growls, surging to her feet. “I’ll have them arrested if they have! You wait here.” She storms off to investigate. Five or ten minutes later—hard to keep track of time, my head’s throbbing so much—she returns, calmer. “Everyone else is fine. I don’t think the drinks have been tampered with.”

“Maybe I’m just sick,” I mutter.

“That’s what it looks like,” she says, then grabs my arms and hauls me to my feet. “Let’s get you outside. Fresh air will do you a world of good.”

She steers me through the kitchen and out the back door, then props me against the wall and stands watch beside me as I take deep breaths and try to focus. After a few minutes my head clears a little and my stomach settles.

“Better?” Reni asks, tilting my chin up, examining my eyes.

“Good as new,” I smile.

Reni leans towards me, a serious look in her eyes. I tense. Will this be our first kiss? I hope I don’t mess up. How do they do it in the movies—tongue or just lips? But at the last moment her expression crinkles and she kisses me quickly on the nose instead of the mouth.

“Come on, Romeo,” she laughs, taking my hands. “It’s too cold out here for monkey business.”

“What about inside?” I murmur, smiling at myself for getting the line out without stammering.

“Maybe later,” Reni grins and heads back in. I follow in high spirits, feeling much better than I did a few minutes ago. It’s only when we reach the kitchen door that I stop and feel a stab of real panic.

The light’s been switched off inside the kitchen. I can see the reflection of the sky in the dark glass of the door. Letting go of Reni’s hand, turning slowly, I look up at the cloudless heavens and fix my sight on the moon—which is round and fat, dangerously near to full.

Locked inside Dervish’s study. Breath coming quickly, raggedly. Trembling wildly. Remembering the night Bill-E changed, the beast he became. Dervish had to cage him up to protect people from him. He would have killed otherwise.

Am I turning into a werewolf?

I don’t know. The sickness and dizziness are still there, but they might be more a product of fear than anything else. Maybe it’s just worry that’s turned me white as a ghost and left me ready to throw up, shaking like a human maraca.

I focus on my hands, willing them steady. After a while they obey me. Then I force myself to breathe normally, evenly. When I feel like I’m in control, I study my reflection in a small hand mirror, looking for telltale signs around the eyes and lips—that’s where the marks show first.

Nothing. The same lines and creases. Eyes a bit wilder than normal—which is understandable—but mine. Not clouded over or animalistic.

I wish Dervish was here. I consider calling his mobile. He isn’t that far away. The speed he drives, he could be here in a couple of hours. I dig my phone out of my pocket, scroll down to his number, start to bring my thumb down over the dial button… then stop.

“I’m not turning,” I grunt, angry at myself for being so scared. “It’s after ten.” I check my watch. “Hell, nearly eleven. The moon’s at the height of its powers. If I was going to change, it would have happened by now.”

But maybe it’s the start, a voice within me whispers, a voice I last heard in Slawter many months earlier—the voice of magic. Nobody changes overnight. It’s a gradual process, spread out over a few months. This could be the beginning of the end.

“Maybe,” I agree, refusing to panic. “But I’m not going to turn savage tonight. Nobody has anything to fear from me. So there’s no point dragging Dervish back.”

But if it’s the change… If your time as a human is limited…

“All the more reason to party hard while I can,” I laugh viciously, then make myself go downstairs, smile and act like everybody else—normal.

Midnight comes and goes. So do most of the guests, walking or cycling home, a few collected by their parents. By half past, only those who are sleeping over remain—Loch, Frank, Leon, Charlie, Robbie, Bill-E, Reni, Mary and a few others who’ve begged a bed for the night. (OK, I lied to Dervish about only boys staying, but what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him, right?)

“Do you want me to show you where you’ll be sleeping?” I ask, eager to wind the party down, still feeling sick.

“The hell with sleep,” Frank laughs. “Time for spin-the-bottle!”

While there are good-natured groans, nobody objects, so five minutes later we’re all in the largest of the party rooms, sitting in a nervous circle around an empty bottle. Lots of giggles, nervous looks, licking of lips. I do a quick head count—nine boys, four girls.

“How are we going to work this?” I ask Frank.

“We each take a turn spinning,” he says, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “When it points to a member of the opposite sex—hoobah!”

“But there’s more of us than them,” I object.

“So?” he frowns.

“Well… I mean… at least two of them are going to have to kiss more than one guy.” Worried about Reni kissing anyone other than me.

Frank laughs. “That’s how it works, moron. We all get plenty of action.”

“Only simple kisses,” Mary interjects. “No groping or tongues, not unless both want to. Clear?”

“Of course, of course!” Frank says quickly, leering.

“We mean it,” Reni says. “If one of you breaks the rules, that’s it, end of game, you all miss out.”

“OK,” Frank sighs, rolling his eyes. “We get the message. Now, who first?”

“It’s Grubbs’s party,” Loch says.

“That’s OK,” I cough, getting cold feet. “I think Bill-E should have first shot.”

“I second the motion,” Bill-E laughs, more at ease than I’ve seen him in a long time. He grabs the bottle and spins it madly. It turns… turns… turns…like it’s never going to stop. But finally it does—and it’s pointing at Reni.

Bill-E grins. “Sorry, amigo, but the bottle decides.”

I feel my temper rise as Bill-E and Reni meet in the middle of the circle to a series of whistles and crude remarks. The bile that’s been threatening to bubble over all night forces its way up my throat. But then Reni pecks him on the lips and they both sit down. I relax, swallow the vomit and grin greenly.

The game continues. Great laughs when one of the boys spins and it ends up pointing to another boy. Lewd giggles when that happens to the girls. Most of the kisses are like the first, quick pecks. But a few are stronger, where the pair are attracted to each other—Robbie and Mary, Leon and Nina Duffy.

I get to kiss Mary twice, Nina three times (“This is getting serious,” she says jokingly), before Reni finally spins and the bottle ends up pointing at me.

“Whoo-hoo!” Frank chortles.

“Touchdown!” Charlie cries.

“Easy, tiger,” Loch grunts, smiling tightly.

Reni and I stand and walk towards each other. Reni nudges the bottle out of the way with her left foot. We smile shakily. Then kiss.

Her lips are drier than I thought they’d be, but nice. My hands slide around her back and I lock my fingers together, careful not to hug too hard in case I crack her ribs. The kiss continues. Her lips move and mine follow—this is easier than I imagined. I don’t know why I was so nervous before. I could get used to this very quickly!

Lots of cheers and whistles. I drown them out, eyes closed, feeling so happy I could burst. A warm fire grows within me, burning away the feeling of sickness, spreading rapidly through my body, squeezing out of my pores like steam. I lose myself in the hot, hypnotic kiss, unaware of anything else.

Then gasps of amazement wreck the moment.

“What the—?”

“How the hell—?”

“Oh my god!”

My right eye opens an angry fraction—what’s everybody getting so worked up about? Then I spot it. The bottle, spinning again, but not on the ground—about a metre above the floor, suspended in mid-air, floating upwards as it spins.

The bottle rises smoothly. Everyone (with a single exception) is on their feet, backing away, alarmed. Reni realises something’s wrong. She breaks off the kiss, takes a step back, sees the bottle. Her expression freezes.

Bill-E’s the only one not moving. He’s staring at the bottle intently. I think for a second that he’s controlling it, using one of Dervish’s spells. I huff myself up to roar at him. But then I catch the alarm in his eyes and realise he’s trying to stop it. I’m the one making it rise.

The bottle reaches a point about half a metre above my head, then levels out. It’s spinning faster than ever, making a small whirring sound.

“What’s happening?” Robbie shouts. “Grubbs, are you doing this?”

I don’t answer. My gaze is on the bottle. Although it’s spinning too quickly for the eye to follow, I find that I can slow the action down. The world seems to go into slow-motion around me. People’s mouths move infinitely slowly. Words reach me as though dragged through a pipe from a long way away.

“Grrruuuubbbssssss! Whaaaaattttt’sss… goooiiiinnngggg oooonnnn?”

The bottle explodes and the world speeds up again. Shards of glass shoot at me, Reni, everybody in the room, at our faces and eyes. Instinctively I bark a word of magic. I don’t know what the word is or where it comes from. But it freezes the shards in place. They hang in mid-air, dozens of tiny pieces of glass, pointing at us like a flight of mini arrows.

“No way!” somebody shouts, more excited than afraid. My friends start lowering the hands which they’d instinctively raised to protect themselves.

Bill-E stares at the bits of glass—then at me. His eyebrows are furrowed. He knows this is magic but he can’t understand how I’m doing it. He saw me do more than this in Slawter, but that enclosed area was crackling with magical energy. Many of us could perform amazing feats there. In the real, normal world, he thought—like Dervish—that I had all the magical ability of a duck.

“Grubbs,” Reni says uncertainly, touching my right elbow. “Are you OK?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Do you know what’s happening?” Scared, looking for reassurance, gazing at the shard nearest her face, worried it might shoot forward again.

“Yes,” I smile. Without knowing how I’m doing any of this, I wave a hand at the glass and several pieces turn into flower petals, which drop slowly, beautifully to the floor. I wave my other hand and more shards turns into butterflies. They flap away, zoning in on the light overhead. One last wave and the rest of the glass is transformed, a mixture of butterflies and flowers.

I grab one of the falling petals and present it to Reni. “For you, my lady.”

Then everybody’s cheering, clapping my back, grabbing for petals and butterflies, demanding to know how the trick was performed.

Only Bill-E knows there was no trick. Only he realises this was real magic. And only he can possibly understand and share in my sense of bewilderment and gut-stabbing fear.

Later. Everyone but Bill-E and me has gone to bed. I’m at the door of my room, still holding a petal. Bill-E’s facing me, eyes steady and serious. “How’d you do it?”

“Dervish has been teaching me.”

Bill-E shakes his head. “Bull. Dervish told me you don’t want to learn magic. He’s cool with that. But even if he was teaching you, that’s way beyond anything I’ve ever seen him do. Apart from in Slawter.” He looks around nervously. “Are demons breaking through? Did you tap into their power?”

“No. We’re safe here. Demons can’t cross in Carcery Vale.”

“Then how did you do it?” he presses. “Where did the magic come from?”

I shake my head miserably. “Forget about it. This doesn’t concern you.”

“I might be able to help if I—”

“I told you it’s none of your business!” Bill-E looks hurt and I feel sorry immediately. “It’s no big deal,” I lie. “This has been building up for a long time. I haven’t spoken with Dervish about it, but after tonight I guess I’ll have to.”

“This isn’t the first time it happened?” Bill-E asks.

“There have been signs but nothing this obvious.”

“Do you think…” He can hardly bring himself to say it. “Do you think you might be a magician?”

“No. Dervish would know if I was. But maybe I’ve got more potential than we thought. I might be a latent mage. If so, Dervish will know what to do.”

Bill-E nods, starts to leave, looks back. “You won’t be able to turn away from it anymore,” he says softly. “Magic, I mean. You’ll have to learn now, so you can control it. If you hadn’t been able to stop that glass tonight… if you hadn’t turned it into butterflies and flowers…”

“I know,” I sigh.

“You’ll really tell Dervish? You won’t try to keep it a secret?”

“I’ll tell him. I’m not a fool. I know what magic can do if it isn’t properly channelled. I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

Bill-E smiles, says goodnight and leaves.

I slip into my bedroom, lie on top of the covers fully clothed and stare at the ceiling, listening to my heart pound and my blood swoosh through my body, trying to make sense of whatever the hell is happening inside me.

Later. Slowly coming awake. Sluggishly realising I must have fallen asleep on top of the bed. Then I click to the fact I’m not on the bed anymore. I’m standing by the round stained-glass window in my bedroom, listening to howls outside. No, not outside—in here!

My head whips round in panic. Fully awake now. I can’t see anything in the room but I can hear the howls of a werewolf! Where is it? It must be close. It’s so loud. Where…?

With a jolt, I realise he’s in the glass in front of me. At least, his reflection is.

My face is darker than earlier. A wicked glint to my eyes. Lips pulled back over my teeth. Raising a hand, I see that my fingers are curling inwards, claw-like. I start to howl again, stepping into the coloured rays of the moon.

I stop. Focusing on my reflection, I feel the same warmth that I felt when I was kissing Reni, just before the bottle started to rise. I study my face, the sharp lines, the wild eyes. Directing the warmth towards it, I wish the mask away, wanting my normal face back, telling this vision of a man-wolf to go.

And it does. Even though it shouldn’t, my skin resumes its ordinary shape and colour. My lips droop back down over my teeth. My fingers unclench. The howl dies in my throat and becomes a dry cough.

Moments later I’m me again, standing by the window, bathed by the tinted light of a moon which for some reason is no longer affecting me. The warmth is still there. I hold on to it like a security blanket, take it to bed with me and sustain it, keeping it alive through the rest of the long, weary night, too terrified to close my eyes, afraid of what I might turn into if I drop my guard and give myself over to unprotected sleep.

TREASURE HUNT

I sneak a few hours of shut-eye post-dawn, when the sun’s chased the moon off and I’m safe. But it’s an uneasy sleep, filled with nightmares of werewolves and a body in revolt. I imagine myself doing awful things, causing chaos. Only it’s not entirely me. It’s a beast with my shape and form, but with a twisted face, fangs instead of teeth, claws instead of nails, blood-soaked hair.

Grubbs Grady—monster extraordinaire.

When I stumble down the stairs a little after noon, most of the cleaning has been taken care of. Loch tells me Reni had them all up at ten and working like demons. (His choice of phrase is unfortunate.) She had to leave at eleven but left him in charge to make sure nobody slacked off.

“That was some trick you pulled,” Leon says, sweeping up petals from the living room floor. “I’d love to know how you did it.”

“It was magic,” Charlie says, shooing a butterfly out through an open window.

“A magic trick,” Leon corrects him.

“No, real magic,” Charlie insists. “It was, wasn’t it, Grubbs? I’ve seen the books lying around, about wizards, witches and wotnots. It was real magic, right?”

“No.” I force a thin smile. “Just a trick. There’s no such thing as real magic.”

“But the books—” Charlie exclaims.

“—are just books,” I finish tiredly, then go see what state the kitchen’s in.

As I’m leaving, I hear Leon mutter, “Magic! You’re a real ass sometimes.”

“I don’t care what he says,” Charlie sulks. “I know what I saw. It was real magic. I’d bet a million jelly beans on it.

When everything’s as clean as we can get it, my friends say goodbye and make their way home to recover before school on Monday. Bill-E and Loch stay on—they’ve arranged to spend the day here. Bill-E waits till Loch’s in the toilet, then asks how I’m feeling.

“Fine,” I lie as my brain throbs with a splitting headache and my stomach gives a sickly rumble.

“I heard howling last night,” Bill-E says. “After we’d gone to bed. It woke me. A few others too. There was some talk of it this morning but not much—most people were still trying to figure out how you pulled off the trick with the bottle.”

I grunt, saying nothing.

“Grubbs,” Bill-E says hesitantly, “I know we’ve never discussed the family curse. You filled me in on the basics in Slawter, but you’ve never offered more information and I haven’t pushed.”

For a long time Bill-E thought Dervish was the one who’d almost changed into a werewolf. I finally told him the truth in Slawter, neglecting only the part about Dervish being his uncle, not his father. I’ve never told Bill-E that we share the same dad. I want to, but he feels a special bond with Dervish, believing him to be his real father. I’ve never had the heart to shatter his illusion.

“Well,” Bill-E continues after an uncomfortable pause, “I know I almost turned into a werewolf and that you and Dervish saved me. You faced Lord Loss and won back my humanity. But is the cure definitely permanent?”

“Yes.”

“I’m safe? For certain?”

“One hundred per cent,” I smile.

“What about…?” He hesitates again. “Your magic… the howling… Are you safe too?”

I don’t answer for a second. Then, quietly, I lie. “Yes.”

“I won’t have to lock you up in the cage in the secret cellar?”

“No,” I laugh edgily. I hate that cellar. I’ve only been there once since we defeated Lord Loss, when Dervish’s nightmares were threatening to destroy his sanity. “I’m fine. That wasn’t me howling. Probably just a big dog that got loose. Now stop worrying—you’re getting on my nerves.”

Loch returns, wiping his hands dry on his trousers, and the questions stop, though I sense Bill-E doesn’t fully believe me. He knows something’s wrong, that I’m not coming clean. But he doesn’t suspect the worst or anything near it. He trusts me. Thinks of me as his closest friend. Doesn’t believe I’d lie point-blank to him about something this serious.

How little he knows.

A long, anticlimactic Sunday. Lounging around the house, all three of us bored, flicking through TV channels in search of something decent to watch, sticking CDs on, turning them off just a few tracks in. Loch makes cutting remarks about Bill-E, winding him up. I worry about lycanthropy and magic.

“This is crap,” Loch mutters, switching the TV and CD player to stand-by. He jumps up and rubs his hands together. “Let’s wrestle.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“C’mon!”he prods, slapping my face lightly, trying to sting me into action.

“No,” I yawn.

Loch scowls, then switches his attention to Bill-E. “How about you, Spleenio?” He grabs the shorter boy by the waist and swings him round.

“Let go!” Bill-E shouts, kicking out.

“We’ve got a live one,” Loch laughs. He throws Bill-E to the ground, then falls on him and starts to tickle.

“No!” Bill-E gasps, face red, slapping at Loch like a girl, half-laughing from the tickling, half-crying.

“Leave him alone,” I mutter angrily—the noise is worsening my headache.

Loch stops and stands. “Sorry, Bill-E,” he says. “Let me help you up.” He lowers his right hand. Bill-E reaches for it and Loch whips the hand away. “You’re the sultan of suckers, Spleen,” he chortles, strolling towards the kitchen, shaking his head with amused disgust.

Bill-E glares daggers at Loch, then at me. “Gossel’s scum,” he hisses. “I don’t care if he is your new best friend. He’s the scum of the earth. Shame on you for hanging out with him.”

“Don’t take it out on me,” I snap. “You want to get Loch off your back? Then face him like a man, not a little girl. He bullies you because you let him.”

“No, he bullies me because he’s a bully,” Bill-E retorts, furious tears in his eyes.

I shrug, too exhausted and sore-headed to argue. “Whatever.”

Loch returns and Bill-E shuts up, but he glowers like an old man whose pipe’s been stolen, then storms off and returns with his coat.

“Going home?” I ask as he buttons it up.

“No,” he snarls. “I’m doing what I originally planned to do.”

“Huh?”

“You remember. My original plan. If there hadn’t been a party.” I stare at him blankly and he nods in the direction of the forest.

“Oh,” I chuckle. “Lord Sheftree.”

“What’s that?” Loch asks.

“Nothing,” Bill-E says quickly, shooting me a warning look which I ignore, still sore at him for having a go at me. (And sore at myself too, for not being the friend—the brother—he deserves.)

“You know the stories of Lord Sheftree, the guy who used to own this place?” I ask Loch.

“The baby and the piranha, yeah, sure.”

“Grubbs…” Bill-E growls, not wanting to share our secret with an outsider.

“There’s a legend about his treasure.” I take grim satisfaction from Bill-E’s enraged expression.

“Treasure?” Loch echoes, interest piqued.

“Apparently he had hoards of gold and jewels which nobody ever found. They say he buried it somewhere around here. That it’s still sitting there, underground, waiting…”

Loch squints at me, then at Bill-E. “This true, Spleenio?”

“Get stuffed.”

Loch’s face stiffens. “I asked if it was true,” he says, taking a menacing step forward.

“Yeah, maybe, so what?” Bill-E squeaks, shrinking away from Loch.

“Any idea where the treasure is?” Loch asks.

“Up your butt,” I chip in, and both Loch and Bill-E laugh, the tension vanishing in an instant.

“Nah, come on, really,” Loch says, facing me again. “Is this on the level or is Spleen-boy paying me back for all those false handshakes?”

“The legend’s real,” I tell him. “I don’t know about the treasure. We’ve been all over the forest, dug more holes than a pair of rabbits and found nothing. Right, Bill-E?”

“Yeah,” Bill-E sighs, resigning himself to sharing our secret with Loch. “But you bury treasure because you want it to be hard to find. There wouldn’t have been much point in Lord Sheftree sticking it where any passer-by could find it. It’s out there, I’m sure, and one day, if we keep trying…” He trails off into silence, eyes distant.

“I thought you were rich anyway,” Loch says to me. “Why are you bothered about a pile of buried treasure?”

“I’m not. But it would be exciting if it did exist and we found it. Bill-E and I used to spend a lot of our weekends searching for it. Even though we never found anything, the searching was fun.”

“You’ve given up?” Loch asks.

I shrug. “Bill-E goes looking every so often, but it’s been a while since I bothered.”

“He’s been too busy wrestling with lunk-heads,” Bill-E says sourly, but Loch lets the remark pass.

“I’ve never searched for treasure,” Loch says. “How do you do it—with a metal detector?”

“No,” Bill-E says. “We walk around with shovels looking for likely spots. Then we make trial holes. If nothing turns up, we fill in the holes and move on.

“Sounds amateurish,” Loch says dubiously.

Bill-E laughs. “Like Grubitsch said, the searching is fun. You’d need proper, expensive equipment to go after it seriously. For us it’s always been a game.”

“What about it?” Loch asks, casting an eye at me.

“You want to go on a treasure hunt?” I groan, wishing I could just go back to bed for a few hours.

“It’d beat sitting around here doing nothing,” Loch says.

“But it’s raining,” I protest.

“A light drizzle. It’ll clear soon. C’mon, it’s something different.”

“Not for Bill-E and me.”

“But it is for me,” Loch presses.

“Why don’t you and Bill-E go by yourselves?” I suggest.

“No way!” they both exclaim at the same time, then share a look and laugh, temporary (very temporary!) allies.

“I’ll let him tag along if you come,” Bill-E says. “Otherwise I’ll go home. I still have some homework to finish.”

“C’mon,” Loch huffs again. “Don’t be a bloody bore, Grubbs.”

“OK,” I groan, rising reluctantly. “Give me a few minutes to change. Loch, you and Bill-E go get some shovels. Bill-E knows where to find them.”

“Cool!” Loch grins, slapping Bill-E on the back. “You leave it to the Spleenster and me—we know what we’re doing.”

“Just one thing,” Bill-E says stiffly. “On the very off chance that we find any treasure, it’s ours. You don’t have any rights to it, understand? I don’t want you going all Treasure of the Sierra Madre on us.”

“Treasure of where?” Loch frowns.

“It’s a black-and-white movie,” Bill-E explains as he leads Loch away. “I’ll fill you in on the plot while we’re fetching the shovels. It’s all about treasure hunters and the destructive nature of paranoid greed…”

The fresh air clears my head a bit, but after an hour of aimless walking and digging I’d still rather be in bed. Loch’s loving it though, digging wildly, accidentally hitting Bill-E with clods of earth every so often to break the monotony. Bill-E doesn’t mind too much. He’s just glad I’m out scouring the forest with him again, even if we do have an extra (unwanted) passenger in tow.

“We’ve found a few bits and pieces over the years,” Bill-E explains as we give up on our third trial dig and refill the hole. “Old coins, scraps of clothes, half a knife.”

“Anything worth money?” Loch asks.

“Not really,” Bill-E says. “One of the coins would have been valuable if it had been in better condition, but it was very worn and part of it was missing. Dervish let me keep it.”

“Why were they buried if they were worthless?” Loch asks.

“They weren’t,” Bill-E says. “The level of the ground’s constantly changing. Things fall or are thrown away. Grass and weeds grow over them. They sink when the ground’s wet. New earth blows over them. In no time at all they’re half a metre underground… a metre… more. The world’s always burying cast-offs and stuff that’s been forgotten. Heck, even the giant Sphinx in Egypt was half-buried once and almost lost forever.”

“Nonsense,” Loch snorts.

“It’s true,” Bill-E says. “We did it in history. And there are loads of important places in Egypt today—burial chambers and the like—which are covered up. In some towns they know where they are, but people have built houses over them, so they can’t excavate.”

“I never learnt any of that in history,” Loch says suspiciously.

“Well,” Bill-E replies smugly, “maybe if you were in the upper set…”

Loch’s starting to tire of the wandering and digging. I’m glad. Apart from the fact that I’m weary and grumpy, it’s late afternoon and it won’t be much longer before the sun starts to set and an even fuller moon than last night’s rises over the earth like a plum dipped in cream. Maybe Dervish is back already. If so, I want to sit down with him and have a long talk about what’s going on in my life and what we need to do about it.

“This studying,” Loch grumbles, studying his hand where he cut it on the last dig.

“One more try,” Bill-E says. “We’ll quit after that.”

“Why not now?” Loch says. “This is stupid. We’ll never find anything.”

“It’s an old superstition of ours. When we decide we’ve had enough, we always dig one last hole. Right, Grubbs?”

“Yeah,” I mutter. “That’s the way we’ve always done it.”

“And look where it’s got you,” Loch snorts, but goes along with the plan, not wanting to be the one who quits first.

Bill-E leads us further into the wild bushes of the forest, trying to pick a good spot for the final dig of the day. Briars catch on my trousers and jacket, and one scratches deep into my neck, drawing a few drops of blood and a loud curse. I’m about to call an end to the farce and demand we go home immediately, regardless of superstitions, when something about the landscape makes me pause.

We’re in the middle of a thicket, lots of natural shrubs and bushes. It looks much the same as any other part of the forest to the untrained eye, but when you’ve spent a few years exploring a particular area, you see things differently. You get to know the various types of trees, flowers and weeds. You make mental pointers so you can find your way around easily and quickly. I’ve been here before, I’m sure of it, but I can’t remember when…

The memory clicks into place. It was shortly before Bill-E turned into a werewolf, before Dervish told me about the Demonata and Lord Loss. Bill-E and I were on one of our treasure hunts. We’d started to dig around here when Bill-E spotted Dervish and went all mysterious. He made me hide, so Dervish didn’t see us, then we followed him. That was the day Bill-E hit me with his theory about werewolves. The day my destiny fell into place and I started on a collision course with Lord Loss and his vile familiars.

“Let’s dig here.”

“I’m not sure,” Bill-E frowns, studying the ground. “The earth looks hard.”

“No,” I say, casting around. “There’s a soft patch somewhere, between a couple of stones. At least there used to be…”

I find it and give a grunt of satisfaction. I can still see faint marks from where I began to dig previously, a minute or so before Bill-E went weird on me and the world of werewolves claimed me for its own.

“How’d you know that was there?” Bill-E asks.

“Magic,” I reply with a laugh, then drive my shovel into the soil.

Half an hour later, nobody’s laughing. We’re surrounded by three fresh mounds of earth and stones, digging deeper by the minute, cutting down at an angle. There’s a large rock buried just beneath the briars and grass, under the shelter of which the earth and stones lie. There’s rock to either side too. It’s too early to tell for certain, but this looks like the entrance to a tunnel or cave.

“What’s that?” Loch says suddenly, stooping. He comes up holding something golden. My heart leaps. Bill-E and I crowd in on him, jabbering with excitement. Then he holds it up to the dim light and we see it’s just an orangey-yellow stone. “Damn!” Loch hurls it away.

Bill-E pulls a face and resumes digging. He’s working on the sides, clearing the rock faces, while Loch and I dig straight down. Bill-E pauses after a while and strokes the rock. “Hard to tell if this fissure is natural or man-made. The sides are smooth, as if they’ve been ground down. But I guess they’d feel just as smooth if nature had done the grinding.”

Loch hits a larger stone and winces. Scrapes around it to find its edges, then inserts the tip of his shovel under one corner and tells me to help him. Together we lever it out, then lift it up on to the bank around us. We’re knee-high in the hole (based on my long legs, not Bill-E’s stumpy pins) by this stage.

Loch clears the gap left by the removal of the stone, then scowls. “There’s another one. Looks even bigger than the first.”

“It’s getting rockier the further down we dig,” I note.

“That’s always the way,” Bill-E says. “The heavier stones sink deeper than the smaller ones.”

“Is it worth carrying on?” Loch asks. “I don’t think there’s any treasure here.”

“How do you figure that?” Bill-E sneers.

“Common sense,” Loch says. “This Lord Sheftree miser would have wanted easy access to his treasure so he could dig it up whenever he liked. This ground’s too rocky. Too much hard work. It would have been easier for him to do it somewhere else.”

“Hey,” Bill-E says, “this is a maniac we’re talking about—the guy fed a baby to his piranha! Who knows what he might or might not have done? Maybe he hired men to dig this hole, then killed them and left them to rot with the treasure. Maybe he had others dig it up every few years so he could put more treasure down there, then killed them too. Heck, there could be dozens of skeletons down there.”

Loch and I share an uneasy glance.

“I don’t know if I want to go digging up skeletons,” Loch mumbles.

“Afraid of a few old bones, Gosselio?” Bill-E cackles.

“No. But if there are corpses, we shouldn’t disturb their remains.”

“Not even if they’re sitting on a chest of gold coins?” Bill-E taunts him. “Five chests? Ten? Not even if we agree to cut you in on a slice of the profits?”

“A while ago you said there was nothing in it for me,” Loch snaps.

“You can’t expect an equal share,” Bill-E drawls, “but if there’s a fortune and you help us dig it up, we’ll see you right. Won’t we, Grubbs?”

“Too much talking,” I grunt, stabbing my shovel into the ground, trying to find a crack I can use to pry out the next big stone. “Dig.”

Almost sunset. Without discussing it, we come to a halt and study the fruits of our labours. The hole is thigh-deep now. It’s been hard going for the last twenty minutes—one big, awkward stone after another. At least the hole’s no wider than when we started, so we’ve only got to worry about digging down, not out to the sides as well.

“We could be at this forever,” Loch gasps, wiping sweat from his forehead. All three of us are sweating badly. “No telling how deep it goes.”

“What do you say, Bill-E?” I ask, glancing up at the setting sun, feeling the sickness and headache building within me again. “Time to stop?”

“Yeah,” Bill-E agrees. “We can’t dig in the dark. But we’ll come back, right?” He looks at me, Loch, then me again. “We could be on to the find of the millennium. Metres—maybe centimetres— away from Lord Sheftree’s treasure. We can’t walk away from that.”

“He’s right,” Loch says. “It’s probably just a big old hole, but…”

“What about next weekend?” I suggest.

“I can’t wait that long,” Bill-E says. “A whole week thinking about it, dreaming of the treasure…”

“Also, what if somebody else comes by, sees the hole and finishes what we’ve started?” Loch growls. “There aren’t any fences around your land, are there?”

“No.” I clear my throat. “Actually, this isn’t our land. We don’t own this part of the forest.”

Loch stares at me hard, then at Bill-E, who fidgets uncomfortably. “You don’t have legal rights to it,” he says softly. “You were bluffing, trying to cut me out of any find.”

Bill-E shrugs. “You wouldn’t have known about the treasure if we hadn’t told you. Anyway, it’s ours—Grubbs’s—by right of birth.”

“No it’s not,” Loch objects. “He isn’t any relation to Lord Sheftree. Dervish just bought the house, that’s all. If I wanted, I could come back here with others and dig without you.”

Bill-E gulps and looks to me for help.

“Thirds,” I say steadily. “An equal split. Assuming there’s anything down there. And assuming we get to keep it if there is—for all we know, there are laws that won’t allow us to keep any of it. But if the treasure’s there and we can make a claim, we divide it in three. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Loch says quickly.

Bill-E looks disgusted but nods angrily. “OK.”

“And we don’t tell anybody, not until we figure out what our rights are,” Loch adds. “There’s no point doing all the hard work and not being able to reap the rewards. If we find treasure, we keep our mouths shut and check the law. We might have to wait till we’re eighteen to declare our find. Or maybe we can never declare it. Maybe we’ll have to sell it on the black market.” He grins. “The gold and diamond market!”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Bill-E says. “Not revealing a find like this could land us in a lot of trouble.”

“We can buy our way out of it with the money we make from the treasure,” Loch laughs. “Either way, we don’t say anything until we know, right?” Bill-E and I share a glance, then nod. “Great. It’s settled.” He hauls himself out of the hole and lays his shovel aside. “I don’t know about you two, but I plan to be back here first thing after school tomorrow and every day this week, and the week after, and the week after that, until we get to the bottom of this damn hole. You with me?”

“I’ll come,” Bill-E agrees. “Not every day—Gran and Grandad would get suspicious if I was late home every evening—but most of the time it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Grubbs?” Loch asks.

“I’ll be here,” I promise, glad to have something to distract me from my recent fears. I look up at the darkening sky and add a proviso. “But only until dusk. I’m not staying out here nights. Not when the moon’s up.”

Home. Waiting for Dervish. He should have returned by now. I ring his mobile, to check that everything’s OK, but only get his answering message. Sitting in the TV room, TV switched off, no lights on. In my guts and bones I can feel the moon rising. Concentrating on my breathing, willing myself not to change, trying to stay human.

Without any sound of a motorbike, the doors open about 10 o’clock and Dervish stumbles in. “My head,” he groans, slumping on the couch next to me, a hand thrown over his eyes.

“What’s wrong?” I ask, thinking he’s been in a crash. Then I catch the stench of alcohol. “You’re drunk!”

“I forgot how much Meera can drink when she sets her mind to it,” he mumbles. “And unlike normal people, she doesn’t have a hangover the next morning. She was at it again first thing when she woke and she made me join in.” He puts his hands over his ears and moans. “The bells, the bells!”

“Tell me you didn’t drive home in this state,” I snap.

“You think I’m mad?” Dervish huffs. “I cast a sobering spell.”

“You’re full of it!”

“No, really, it works perfectly. Except it’s very short term. It ran out when I was almost to Carcery Vale. I had to stop and walk the rest of the way. And the worst thing is, when it wears off, the hangover kicks in with twice as much venom as before.” Dervish doubles over, head cradled between his hands, whining like a kicked dog.

“Serves you right,” I sniff. “You should have more sense at your age.”

“Please, Grubbs, don’t play mother,” Dervish groans. He staggers to his feet and heads for the kitchen. “I’m going to make an absolutely huge cup of hot chocolate, then retire to my room for the night. I don’t want to be disturbed unless the house is burning.” He pauses. “Strike that. I don’t want to be disturbed even then. Let me burn—I’d be better off.”

I think about calling him back, making him sit down and listen to me. But it wouldn’t be fair. Better to let him get a good night’s sleep, then tell him about it tomorrow. Besides, I don’t feel too rough at the moment, not as bad as I felt last night. I don’t want to jinx myself, but I think I might be over the worst.

Dervish’s snores rock the house to its foundations. I don’t want to sleep. I want to keep a vigil, stay focused on my breathing, alert to any hint of a change. But I’m exhausted. All the energy that went into the party… lack of sleep last night… walking and digging this afternoon. My eyelids refuse to stay open. Even coffee—which I hardly ever drink—doesn’t work.

I undress and slip into a T-shirt and boxers. Slide beneath the covers. Lying there, I think that maybe I should get a rope, tie it round my ankles and the bedposts, maybe tie up one of my hands too. That should hold me in the event that I change during the night. A good plan, but it comes too late. Even as I’m gearing myself up to get out of bed and fetch a rope, my eyelids slam down and I’m out for the count.

Harsh breathing. Thumping sounds. Cold night air.

I come to my senses slowly, the same as last night. I see a pair of hands lifting a large rock out of the ground. They throw it overhead casually as if it was a pebble. They stoop, start clearing more earth away… then stop as I realise they’re my hands. I exert my will and look around.

I’m standing in a hole, dressed only in my T-shirt and boxers. Bare feet. Dirt-encrusted fingers. It takes me a few seconds to realise I’m in the hole where we were digging earlier. The reason I didn’t recognise it instantly—it’s about four times deeper than when we left it.

I look up. I’m a couple of metres below ground level, surrounded by rock. In a sudden panic, afraid the rocks are going to grind together and crush me, I grab a handhold and haul myself up. A couple of quick thrusts later, I’m standing by the edge of the hole, shivering from cold and fear, staring around with wonder.

There are rocks and dirt everywhere. I don’t know how long I was down there but I must have been digging like a madman. The weird thing is, I don’t feel the least bit tired. My muscles aren’t aching. Apart from some scared gasping, my breath comes normally and my heart beats as regularly as if I’d been out for a gentle stroll.

I walk over to one of the larger stones. Study it silently, warily. I bend, grab it by the sides, give an exploratory lift. I can shift it a few centimetres and that’s it, I have to drop it. It weighs a bloody tonne. Under any normal circumstances I doubt I could lift it higher than knee level, not without throwing my back out completely. Yet I must have. And not only picked it up, but lobbed it out of the hole too.

Back to the rim of the mini abyss. Staring down into darkness. What brought me here? I’d like to think I was just sleepwalking, that I came here because I’d been thinking about the hole all evening. But there’s more to it than that. My senses are on high alert, animal-sharp (wolf-sharp), and I don’t think it’s any accident that I wound up here, digging as if my life depended on it.

As much as I don’t want to, I sit, turn and lower myself into the hole. When I’m on the floor, I allow a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, then take a really good look. The hole isn’t any wider than it was earlier—the rocks on the sides run down smoothly, like a mine shaft. The angle which we were following has continued, so although it’s a steep slope, it’s easy to climb up and down.

I bend and touch the next rock in line for removal. It’s jammed firmly in the earth. I tug hard and it barely moves. Yet I’m sure, if I’d tried a few minutes ago, while asleep, I could have ripped it out and…

Whispers.

I frown and cock my head. The sound has been there for a while, maybe since I regained my senses, but I thought it was the wind in the trees. Now that I focus, I realise it’s not coming from the trees. It seems to be coming from the rocks.

A jolt of excitement cuts through my confusion and apprehension. Maybe I’m close to a cave and the noise is the wind whistling between earth and rock. I flash on an image of Lord Sheftree’s treasure and the glory of being the first to discover it. With renewed enthusiasm I grasp the rock again and pull as hard as I can. I might not be able to toss it out of the hole, but if I can budge it slightly, maybe I can…

A flicker on the rock. A slight bulging. A shadow grows out of it, just for a second, then disappears.

I fall backwards, stifling a scream, heart racing.

Eyes fixed to the rock, waiting for it to change again. A minute passes. Two.

I get to my feet, legs very shaky, and climb out of the hole, not looking back. I make for home quickly, head down, striding through the forest, ignoring the twigs, stones and thorns that jab at my bare feet.

Trying hard not to think about what I saw (or thought I saw). But I can’t block it out. It keeps coming back, rattling round the inside of my skull like a rabid rat in a cage.

The flicker… the bulging… the shadow…

It might have been a trick of the light or my skittish mind, but it looked to me like a face was trying to force its way up through the rock from the other side. A human face. A girl’s.

HARD WORK

No sign of Dervish in the morning. He’s normally an early riser so I guess he’s still suffering from his binge-drinking on the weekend. I want to wake him, tell him about my inner turmoil, the magic, the howling, what happened at the hole. But instead I decide to let him sleep in and get his head together. We’ll discuss it when I come home after school, when he can think and focus clearly.

Scrubbing hard in the bathroom. The dirt doesn’t want to come off. Especially bad under my nails. Without wanting to, I think about gravediggers—their hands must be stained like this all the time.

Looking up when I’ve scraped them as clean as I can. My reflection in the mirror. Remembering the face I saw/imagined in the rock. Something about it niggles at me. It’s not just the fact that there shouldn’t have been a face in the rock at all. There’s something more… something else…

I’m on my way out the front doors when it strikes me. The face looked ever so slightly like my dead sister Gret.

The day passes slowly, as if I’m experiencing it second-hand, watching somebody else’s body going through the motions of a normal school day. Chatting with Charlie, Leon and Shannon. Greeting Reni with a big smile when she arrives with Loch. Making light of my friends’ compliments about the party. Shrugging off the incident with the bottle—“A good magician never reveals his secrets.”

Bill-E turns up. I know he’s itching to discuss the cave with Loch and me, but we can’t speak of it in front of the others, so he slides past silently. Loch yells an insult after him, cruder than usual, perhaps to cover up the fact that he’s become Bill-E’s secret ally.

Lessons don’t interest me. The teachers could be ghosts for all the impression they make. Fading in and out of conversations during break and lunch. The major part of my mind fixed on the twists of the last few nights, the hole I’ve dug, the face in the rock, the beast I’m apparently becoming.

Heading back for class after the lunch bell. Loch and me are by ourselves. Bill-E hurries up to us and says quietly, “Still on for this evening?”

“Sure,” Loch says.

“No.” Both stare at me. “Dervish wants me home,” I lie. “Not sure what it’s about. Maybe something valuable got smashed at the party.”

Loch winces. “Bad luck. Guess it’s just me and Spleenio then.” He pinches Bill-E’s cheek.

“Get off!” Bill-E yelps, pulling away, rubbing his cheek. “That hurt.”

“Sue me,” Loch laughs.

Bill-E turns his back on him. “Maybe you can come later?” he asks me.

“I doubt it,” I sigh.

Bill-E looks worried. “Perhaps I’ll cancel too, leave it till tomorrow.”

“No you don’t,” Loch grunts. “If you back out now, you stay out. This is a joint venture. If you don’t pull your weight—and I know that’s a heavy load to pull, you chubby little freak—get lost. We don’t need hangers-on.”

Bill-E’s fists ball up. The rage inside him froths to the surface. I think he’s finally going to go for Loch and I silently will him on. If he fights back, maybe that will be the end of the teasing and Loch will start treating Bill-E as an equal.

But then Bill-E looks Loch over, sizes up his height and muscles, and chickens out. His hands go limp and he turns away with a weak, “See you later then.”

Loch leans over and mock-whispers to me, just loud enough for Bill-E to hear, “Do you think anyone would notice if I took Spleeny out to that hole and made him disappear?”

“Shut up, you jerk,” I snap and march ahead of him, paying no attention to his theatrical gasp.

Home. No Dervish. A note on the kitchen table. “Gone to fetch my bike. Don’t worry about fixing me dinner—still not in the mood for solids.”

Hellfire! Of all the times in my life, why does Dervish pick these few days to be Mr. Impossible To Pin Down! I wish now I’d hit him with the news as soon as he got home—would have served the old sozzle-head right.

Too itchy-footed to wait for him. Better to be active than hang around here, struggling to kill time with homework and TV. So a quick change of clothes, a hasty sandwich, then it’s off to the hole to find out what Loch and Bill-E make of my late-night digging marathon.

They’re gob-smacked. Standing around the pit when I arrive, jaws slack, staring from the rocks and mounds of earth down into the hole, then back again. Both are holding shovels limply and look like you could knock them over with a fart.

“Bloody hell!” I gasp playfully. “You’ve been working hard.”

“We didn’t do it,” Loch says numbly.

“It was like this when we arrived,” Bill-E mutters.

I force a frown. “What are you talking about?”

“We haven’t been digging,” Loch says, becoming animated. “We only got here a few minutes ago. We found it like this.”

“But who… how… what the heck?” Bill-E mumbles.

We spend ten minutes debating the mystery. The simplest solution, which I offer shamelessly, is that somebody discovered the hole after we’d left and did some more digging themselves. Bill-E and Loch dismiss it instantly—there are no shovel marks in the newly excavated sections, and no footprints except our own. (I didn’t leave any barefooted prints in the night. I must have been extra light on my feet. Padded softly… like a wolf.) Besides, they argue, who the hell would go digging in the middle of the night?

“An earthquake?” I suggest as an alternative.

Snorts of derision. We don’t get earthquakes here. Besides, even if we did, that wouldn’t explain the earth and rocks piled up around the hole.

Loch wonders if a wild animal is responsible.

“What sort of animal do you think that might be?” Bill-E sneers. “A troll or an ogre? Or maybe it was elves, like in the fairy tale with the shoemaker.”

Eventually Bill-E comes up with a theory which satisfies all three of us, at least in the absence of anything more believable. “Lord Sheftree,” he says. “If this is where his treasure’s buried, maybe he booby-trapped the entrance with explosives. When we were digging, we set them off, but because they’d been buried so long, they didn’t ignite straightaway. It took them a few hours to explode, by which time we were safely home, clear of the blast radius.”

“I dunno,” Loch mutters, examining the rocks around us. “These look like they were pulled out cleanly, not blasted.”

“Maybe it was a catapult-type mechanism,” Bill-E says, warming to his theory. “He had all these rocks loaded on a platform, which was set to shoot them upwards when the trap was sprung. They’d crush anyone nearby.”

We discuss it further, trying to pin down the exact workings of the trap, wondering if there might be more than just one. I advise caution and propose retreat—we should report this and leave it to professionals to mine the dangerous hole. Bill-E and Loch shout me down.

“We’ll go slowly,” Bill-E says.

“Carefully,” Loch agrees.

“If there are other traps, they’re probably slow-burners too,” Bill-E argues.

“But I doubt if there are more,” Loch says. “What would be the point? One’s enough. If it was set off, old Sheftree could have simply cleaned up the remains of the bodies, then set the trap again.”

In the end, despite the dangers, they decide to proceed. Since they can’t be swayed and there’s no profit in cutting myself off from them, I reluctantly grab a shovel and all three of us climb down into the hole.

For an hour we work doggedly and fearfully—me fearful of faces appearing in the rocks, Bill-E and Loch fearful of running afoul of the dead Lord Sheftree.

We pause every time there’s a rustling in the trees overhead, or when a heavy stream of earth trickles down into the hole, me anticipating whispers, Bill-E and Loch thinking it might be the grinding gears of Lord Sheftree’s next weapon of mass destruction. But gradually we adjust to the natural sounds of the forest and stop flinching at every minor disturbance.

Bill-E and Loch are more convinced than ever that we’ve unearthed the final resting place of Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure. Not me. There’s something magical about this hole. It drew me to it last night, sang out to the moon-affected beast I’d become and lured it here, turning me into a conspirator, using me to clear the way for… what?

I don’t know. I haven’t the slightest idea what we might be digging our way down to. But I’m pretty certain it’s not a rich miser’s hidden treasure.

Loch and I work paired, chipping away at the hard-packed earth around the large rocks, prising them out slowly, often painfully, rolling and dragging them up the slope. Bill-E cleans up after us, removing the smaller rocks, pebbles and dirt. We’re an effective team, although as Loch tires from the hard work, he starts cursing and teasing Bill-E, taking out his irritation on him. At first I ignore it, but he keeps on and on, Spleenio this, fat boy that, dodgy eye the other, and eventually I snap.

“Why don’t you lay off him?” I snarl after an especially brutal remark about Bill-E’s dead mother.

“Make me,” Loch retorts.

I square up to him. “Maybe I will.”

Loch holds his shovel in both hands and raises it warningly. I grab the handle and we glare at each other. Then Bill-E slips behind me and whispers, “Do him, Grubbs!” It’s so flat, so vicious, so un-Bill-E, that I turn around, startled, releasing the shovel.

“What did you say?”

Bill-E looks confused, but angry too. “I meant… I just…”

“I heard him,” Loch growls. “He told you to bump me off.”

“What if I did?” Bill-E bristles, and now he tries to get round me, so that he can go toe-to-toe with Loch.

“Stop,” I say firmly. I lay my left palm against the nearest rock wall and concentrate. After a few seconds I feel or sense the vibrations of a very faint throbbing. A non-human throbbing. “We all need to chill.”

“Who made you the leader?” Loch barks.

“We’re being manipulated.” His forehead creases and I start to tell him there’s magic at work, affecting our tempers. But then I realise how crazy that would sound. “The soil,” I say instead, inventing quickly. “There must be some sort of chemical in it. Put there by Lord Sheftree. It’s making us feel and say things we shouldn’t. If we don’t stop, we’ll be at each other’s throats soon.”

Loch’s frown deepens, then clears. “I’ll be damned,” he sighs.

“The sly old buzzard,” Bill-E hoots. “Chemicals to alter our dispositions and turn us against one another. Coolio!”

“I thought you were my enemy,” Loch says wonderingly, staring at me. “It came so suddenly, without warning. I believed you were out to kill me. The shovel…” He looks down at the sharp, grey head, then drops it and clambers out of the pit. Bill-E and I follow. We find Loch sitting by the edge of the hole, shivering.

“Are you OK?” I ask.

“I don’t think we should carry on,” Loch whispers. “You were right. We should turn this over to someone who knows what they’re doing. Chemicals… That’s out of our league.”

“No way!” Bill-E protests. “We’re close, I know it. You can’t back out now. That would be real madness.”

“But—” Loch begins.

“There might be no chemicals,” Bill-E interrupts. “Maybe we’re just tired and edgy. It’s been a long day, we’re hungry, we’ve been working hard, it’s late… Combine all those and you get three sore-headed bears.”

“It was more than grumpiness,” Loch says.

“Probably,” Bill-E agrees. “But let’s say there are chemicals down there. It’s been so long since they were planted, their strength must have dwindled by now. I bet, if we’d dug fifty years ago, they would have blinded or killed us. Now all they can do is make our hackles rise. We should take a short break, clear our heads, then get back to work. If we find ourselves getting short-tempered again, we come up for another rest.”

“I’m not sure,” I mutter. If we were alone, I’d tell Bill-E about my fears—that this place is part of the world of magic. I’m sure he’d take more notice of my warnings then. But I can’t speak about such matters in front of Loch. “Why don’t we leave it for today. It’s getting late. Let’s go home and sleep on it.”

“Not yet,” Bill-E pleads. “Give it until dusk, like we planned. Since we’re here, we might as well make the most of the daylight.”

“Spleenio’s right,” Loch says. Now that the influence of the hole has passed, he’s his old self again, intent on getting his hands on the treasure, quickly forgetting his fears. “Let’s do what we came to, then go home and relax. It might be weeks before we dig all the way to the bottom. We can’t get cold feet every time we run into an obstacle.”

I don’t like it but their minds are set, so after a brief rest, we pick up tools and edge down the hole again.

We remove one of the biggest rocks yet and haul it to the top. Standing by the edge of the hole. Sweating, shaking, flexing our fingers. “This is torture,” Loch groans.

“Think the treasure will be worth it?” I ask.

“It better be.”

“What if there’s nothing there, if it’s just a hole?”

Loch smiles. “It isn’t. We’re on to something big. I can feel it in my bones.”

“You’re just feeling what you want to feel.”

Loch scowls. “Stop being such a—”

Bill-E screams. Loch and I bolt down the hole. We find Bill-E submerged in earth to his waist, clinging to the rocks around him, face bright with terror. “There’s nothing underneath!” he shouts. “My legs are dangling! I’m going to fall! I’m going to fall! I’m going to—”

I grab his right hand. Loch grabs his left.

“We won’t drop you!” I yell.

“Not unless you give us reason to,” Loch jokes.

“I was digging,” Bill-E gasps, fingernails gouging my flesh. “Rooting up stones. The floor gave way. My shovel fell. I heard it clanging all the way down—a long way. I thought… I dropped this far… I managed to grab the edge. If I hadn’t…” He starts to cry.

“Look at the chubster,” Loch howls with delight. “Booing like a baba!”

“Can’t you shut up just once in your stupid bloody life!” I roar—then catch myself. “The chemicals,” I hiss. “Loch… Bill-E… take it easy. No outbursts. No insults. Relax. Think nice thoughts. Tell me when you feel normal.”

“How can I be normal when I’m stuck down a—” Bill-E shrieks.

“Nice thoughts,” I interrupt sternly, sensing the throbbing again, coming from the rocks around us. “Loch—you thinking nice things?”

“Yeah,” Loch grins. “I’m imagining the baby’s howls if we let him drop.”

“Loch!”

“OK,” he grouches and shuts his eyes. After a few seconds his expression clears, he opens his eyes and nods to show he’s in control. Bill-E’s less composed, but that’s understandable given the situation he’s in.

“You need to talk to us,” I tell him. “We’re going to pull you out but we don’t want to hurt you. Are there any stones jabbing you, sticks, wire… anything that might cut into you if we pull you up quickly?”

“I don’t think so,” Bill-E sobs. “But it’s hard to tell. I don’t know.”

“Relax,” I soothe. “You’re safe. We have you. Now concentrate and let us know how we can help you out of this mess with the least amount of discomfort.”

Bill-E focuses and moves slightly, exploring the unseen territory around his legs. Finally he gulps and says, “I think it’s safe to pull.”

“Great.” I smile falsely. “Loch—you ready?” He grunts. “We’ll take it easy to begin with. Act on my command. Pull softly when I say. Stop if I give the order. Understand?”

“Whatever,” he shrugs.

I’d like to wipe my palms dry but I don’t think Bill-E would hang there patiently if I released him. So, gripping tighter, glad of the dirt on my skin which counteracts the sweat, I give Loch the nod and we tug. Resistance, but not for very long. Soon Bill-E’s sliding out of the hole-within-the-hole, trembling wildly but otherwise unharmed. When his feet are clear, we give one last yank and he sprawls on top of us, knocking us to the earth, where we lie panting and laughing weakly.

After about a minute, without discussing it, we get up and crawl forward, eager to check out the hole that Bill-E has uncovered. It’s a black chasm. Impossible to see very far down it. The light’s too poor.

“Wait here,” Bill-E says, scrabbling up to the surface. He returns swiftly, a baseball cap on his head, two small torches strapped to either side. “Spent half an hour last night fixing this up,” he says proudly, then holds up a bigger, stronger torch. “I brought this too. Been lugging it around all day. Just in case.”

“Spleen, you’re a genius,” Loch says and Bill-E smiles. “A fat, deformed simpleton, but also a genius,” he adds and Bill-E’s smile turns to a scowl.

“Why don’t you take one of the lights off the hat?” I suggest. “Then we can all have one.”

“No,” Bill-E says. “They’re not powerful enough by themselves. You need the two together for them to be worth anything.” He brushes by us, justifiably smug, taking temporary leadership. He crouches by the edge of the hole he made and flicks on the strong torch. Loch and I crouch by him and stare. The hole continues down as far as we can see, at a slight angle, lots of little stones jutting out of the main rock face, plenty of niches for hands and feet.

“Bloody hell!” Loch gasps. “It’s massive.”

“There’s no way Lord Sheftree could have dug this,” Bill-E notes. “He might have widened the entrance to make it easier to get to this point, but the rest of it’s natural.”

“How far down do you think it runs?” I ask.

“Only one way to find out,” Bill-E grins.

“You’ve got to be joking!” Loch snorts.

“What?” Bill-E frowns. “You’re not coming with me?”

“We can’t go down there,” I mutter, taking Loch’s side. “Not without proper climbing boots, ropes, those metal pegs with the loops that climbers use… all that sort of gear.”

“It doesn’t look so difficult,” Bill-E argues. “I say we try it and go as far as we can. If we run into difficulties, we’ll come back later with climbing equipment.”

“Why risk it?” I press. “Let’s wait until the weekend, stock up, then—”

“You ever used any of that stuff before?” Loch asks. “Boots, ropes and so on?”

“Well, no, but—”

“Me neither,” he interrupts. “Spleenio?” Bill-E shakes his head. “If we’re going to do that, we need to practise,” Loch says slowly.

“So we practise. It means a delay, but—”

“What if someone comes along in the meanwhile, finds this and claims it for their own?” Loch cuts in.

I glare at him. “I hate the way you set out on one side of an argument, then talk your way completely round to the other side.”

Loch laughs. “You’re too conservative, Grubbs. I share your concerns for our safety, but the Spleenster’s right. If we take it easy, advance cautiously, stop if we feel it would be dangerous to go on…”

“What if the batteries in the torches die while we’re down there?” I ask stiffly, fighting a losing battle but determined not to give in gracefully.

“I replaced them last night,” Bill-E says. “They’re all fresh.”

“Genius,” Loch murmurs, then grins at me. “It can’t be that deep—old Sheftree needed to be able to get up and down with his cases of treasure. The angle’s not too steep. And there are loads of toe- and finger-holds.”

“Let’s try, Grubbs,” Bill-E whispers. “We won’t do anything foolish. You can call it off if you think things look dicey. We’ll follow your lead. Promise.”

I hesitate and check the time. Glance up to where the moon will soon be appearing. I place my right hand on the rocky floor, feeling for vibrations, but there aren’t any. I think of all the dangers— then of the treasure, if it’s there, if I’m wrong, if this isn’t a place of magic, if I’ve been imagining hidden perils.

A deep breath. A snap decision. I grab the big torch from Bill-E. “Let’s go.”

THE CAVE

Descending slowly, testing each foothold firmly before settling my weight on it. Coming down three abreast, me in the middle, Loch on the left, Bill-E on the right. Loch complains several times about not having a light of his own, but Bill-E refuses to relinquish either of his torches. I’ve been to his house. I know that Ma and Pa Spleen keep several torches around the place, ever fearful of power cuts, determined never to be left stranded in the dark. He could have easily brought another torch for Loch. A mistake or intentional oversight? I don’t enquire.

It’s stuffy down here, warmer than I imagined. The air’s not so bad though. I thought it would be stale and thin, but there’s a good supply of it. Easy to breathe.

Part of me knows this is madness. It screams from the back of my head, reminding me of what happened last night, the face, the whispers, the throbbing today. It wants me to assert myself, demand we make for the surface, tell Dervish, leave all this for experienced potholers to explore.

But a larger part thinks it’s thrilling. We’re the first humans to come down here in decades. In fact, if the others are wrong and this wasn’t used by Lord Sheftree, maybe we’re the first people to ever find it. Maybe it will turn out to be an amazing geographical feature and we’ll get to name it and be on the news. Reni would really dig being a celebrity’s girlfriend.

You’re an idiot, the cautious part of me huffs with disgust.

“Put a sock in it,” I grunt back.

I lose track of time pretty quickly. Have we been down here ten minutes? Twenty? The hands of my watch are luminous, so I could check. But I’m not going to start fiddling around in the dark, rolling up my sleeves, leaning forward to squint. I’m keeping both hands on the rock face and all my senses focused on the climb.

I go carefully, one hold at a time. Foot-hand-foot-hand-foot-hand-foot. Bill-E and Loch are the same. We don’t speak. My torch hangs from my right wrist by a strap. The light bounces off the rocks. I’d have to stop, turn around, lean back and point the light down to get a clear view of what lies beneath. But I’m not going to do that. I’m taking no chances. The thought of slipping… sliding… tumbling into the unknown…

Foot-hand-foot-hand-foot-hand-foot-ha—

I touch ground. Or a very large overhanging rock. Can’t tell yet. “Wait,” I call softly to the others, who are slightly higher than me. “Let me feel around a bit. I think…” I extend my foot outwards. More rock. I tap it—solid. Gently lower my other foot, still holding tight to the wall. Gradually letting my full weight shift to my feet, I release my grip and stand unsupported. The ground holds and my stomach settles.

Bringing up my torch, I shine it around and gasp.

A cave. Not the largest I’ve ever been in, but a reasonable size. Lots of stalactites and stalagmites. A waterfall to my right. I should have heard the noise before now, except my breath and heartbeat were heavy, muffling my hearing.

“Grubbs,” Loch hisses. “Are you OK? What is it?”

“I’m fine,” I whisper, then raise my voice. “It’s a cave.” I shine the light on the floor around my feet, making sure I’ve truly struck bottom. I spot the shovel which Bill-E dropped. “It’s OK,” I tell my friends. “You can come down.”

They detach themselves from the wall and stand beside me. The light from Bill-E’s torches mingles and crosses with mine and we gaze around in awed wonder.

The formations are beautiful, some of the most incredible I’ve ever seen. Water drips slowly from the tips of many stalactites, so this is an active cave, still growing. I recall lectures from a couple of class trips to caves. It can take thousands of years for spikes to form. Thousands more for them to alter. If I lived to be a hundred and came back here just before my death, this cave would probably look no different than it does right now.

“It’s amazing,” I sigh, taking a step forward, head tilted back, looking up to where the roof stretches ahead high above us. “How can this have been here all this time… hidden away… nobody knowing?”

“The world’s full of places like this,” Bill-E answers even though I wasn’t really asking him. “We only see a fraction of what’s on offer. People find new caves, mountains, rivers, all the time.”

“OK,” Loch says loudly, shattering the mood. “It’s a lovely cave, beautiful, glorious, la-dee-da-dee-dum. But I don’t see any treasure.”

“Peasant!” Bill-E snarls. “This is the treasure. You couldn’t buy a cave like this, not with all the gold and diamonds in the world.”

“I don’t want to,” Loch says sourly. “What good’s a damp, dirty cave? I’ll settle for the gold and jewels.” He looks around and spits. “If there are any.”

Bill-E turns, temper fraying. I speak up quickly. “He’s right, Bill-E. Not about the cave not being worth anything—it’s amazing, beyond any price. But we came looking for a different sort of treasure. We should check to see if it’s here. If it isn’t, that doesn’t matter—we’ll still have found the cave. But if there’s treasure too, all the better.”

Bill-E relaxes. “Yeah, let’s look. The cave isn’t that big. If there’s treasure, it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

We move forward, three explorers in wonderland. Even Loch looks impressed, although he isn’t blown away by the cave’s beauty in the same way as Bill-E and me. We stroke the rising pillars, fingers coming away damp. In certain places the stalactites and stalagmites have grown together to form giant, solid structures which join the floor and ceiling. One is wider than the three of us put together, a monster resembling a couple of massive chimneys.

“I’ve never been down a cave without a guide, or in such a small group,” Bill-E says after a while. “It’s strange. Quiet. Peaceful.”

“Hey,” Loch grins. “You know my favourite bit when I’m down a cave? It’s when they turn the lights out so you can see what it looks like pitch black.”

“No way!” I say quickly.

“Uh-uh!” Bill-E chimes in.

“What’s the matter, ladies?” Loch laughs. “Scared of the dark?”

Bill-E and I share a look. Neither of us wants to switch the torches off. But Loch’s smirking goadingly.

If we don’t meet his challenge, we’ll never hear the end of it.

“Go on,” I mutter to Bill-E. “You first.”

He gulps and turns one light out, then the other.

The cave feels much smaller now, more threatening. It’s probably my imagination but I believe I can sense shapes in the shadows, waiting to form fully in the darkness so they can leap forward and pounce on us unseen. My finger hovers over the switch on my torch. I’m torn between not wanting to look like a coward and not wanting to fall prey to forces of magical malevolence.

Before I can make a decision, Loch does it for me. “What a sissy,” he crows, then reaches over, jams my finger down hard and jerks it backwards, quenching the light.

My heart races. My breath stops. The walls seem to grind shut around me. In a panic I try to turn the torch on, but my finger’s numb from where Loch pressed down on it. I can’t find the switch! I can’t turn the light on! The shapes are coming! In a second or two they’ll be upon us, all claws, sharp teeth and…

Bill-E switches one of his torches on. He’s chuckling weakly. “That was cool.”

I look around—nothing. The cave looks exactly the same as it did before. I was imagining the danger. I force a short laugh and switch my torch on, then press ahead with Bill-E and Loch. We continue exploring.

After half an hour I don’t feel too hot. It’s nothing to do with the temperature of the cave—it’s warmer down here than it was on the surface—but with the time. I check my watch to confirm what I already know—it’s night. High above, hidden from sight by the layers of rock and earth, the moon’s rising, and tonight it’s as full as it’s ever going to be.

I get the same sick feeling as last night and the night before, only stronger, relentless. In horror movies, people sometimes don’t change into werewolves unless they sight the moon—if it’s hidden by clouds, or they’re locked away, it doesn’t affect them. But that’s rot. The moon’s a powerful mistress. She can reach through any wall or covering and work her wicked charms.

Bill-E and Loch are bickering about the treasure and whether or not it’s here. Loch doesn’t think it is—we’ve been around the cave a few times and found nothing—but Bill-E still insists it could be.

“You don’t think Lord Sheftree would have left it lying on the floor for anyone to stumble across and walk off with, do you?” he argues. “He’d have thought about somebody finding the cave, either by digging down like we have, or maybe through some other entrance he didn’t know about. He’d have hidden the treasure, stuck it out of sight, so that even if a stranger wandered in by accident, they wouldn’t find it, not unless they actively searched for it.”

“So where do you think it is, geniass?” Loch sneers. “We’ve looked everywhere. Unless it’s invisible treasure, I don’t think—”

“We’ve looked nowhere,” Bill-E shouts, and his voice echoes tinnily back at us. “Some of the larger stalagmites might be hollow,” he says, quieter this time. “The treasure might be buried in one of them.”

“There’s an awful lot of stalagmites,” Loch says dubiously.

“We have time,” Bill-E smiles. “And maybe it’s not down here at all.” He points up at the walls. “There are ledges, holes and tunnels, maybe smaller caves—or, for all we know, bigger caves. This could be nothing more than the entrance to a system of huge, interlinked caverns. We’ve lots of exploring still to do. We’ve only scratched the surface.”

“Let’s do it another time,” I mutter, head pounding, feeling as though I’m surrounded by a layer of fire. “It’s night. Time to go home.”

“Not yet,” Loch snaps. “I don’t have to be home for a few more hours.”

“Bill-E…” I groan.

“Well, Gran and Grandad will be expecting me back soon,” he says. “But it’s not like I’ve never been late before. I’ll tell them I was with you, that we lost track of time—which isn’t a total lie.”

I want to scream at them. The fools! Can’t they feel it? Even through my sickness, with a brain that’s being hammered to a pulp by a searing headache, I can sense danger. The throbbing’s back, stronger than ever. We need to get out now, quick, before…

Or am I imagining the danger, like I imagined the monsters in the dark? Maybe it’s just my sickness that we have to fear and this is only a beautiful, eerie cave.

Even so, if I turn into a werewolf here, that’s more than enough for any pair of humans to worry about. Trapped underground with a supernaturally strong wolfen beast, Bill-E and Loch wouldn’t last five minutes.

“Look,” I snap, “we have to go. We’ll come back tomorrow and explore fully. But it’s dark up top—it’s night. We said we’d go when the moon rose.” I stop, gather my thoughts and try a different approach. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves. If we come home late, caked in mud and dirt, what will everyone think? If they start asking questions…”

“He’s got a point,” Bill-E concedes. “Gran and Grandad put Sherlock Holmes and Watson to shame. We should play it safe, act normally, especially if we’re going to be coming here a lot.”

“OK,” Loch sighs. “But one more search before we leave.” He points to the top of the waterfall, where it comes gushing out of the sheer rock wall fifteen metres above the cave floor. “Up there, those large holes. We can climb up pretty easily. I want to have a peek at them. Then we can go.”

“I dunno,” Bill-E says. “They’re fairly high and that wall’s steeper than the one we climbed down.”

“What’s a wall to three hardy explorers like us?” Loch laughs. “It won’t take long. And if the treasure’s there, we can go home on a total, triumphant high.”

“Grubbs?” Bill-E asks.

I shake my head violently. I think I’m going to throw up. I’m trembling helplessly. Climbing’s the last thing on my mind.

“Are you all right?” Bill-E asks, training his twin lights on me.

“Some kind of bug,” I gasp. “I’ve had it for the last few days.”

“Maybe we should get him home,” Bill-E says.

“Sure,” Loch grunts. “Right after we’ve explored above the waterfall.” He slaps Bill-E hard on the back. “Come on, Spleenario—last one up’s an asswipe!”

The ploy works. Bill-E forgets about me. They race to the wall and climb. Loch’s laughing, teasing Bill-E, roughly urging him on. I turn my back on the pair, leaving my torch pointing in their direction, to provide some extra light for them. I stumble away and sink to my knees. Lean my head against one of the smaller stalagmites and groan softly. I feel like a corpse that’s been stuck in a microwave to defrost—half frozen, half on fire. I try to control my breathing, to think calm thoughts, but my head’s full of wild, animalistic images—running, chasing, ripping, fangs, blood.

I stare at my fingers—they’re curling inwards. I can’t straighten them, no matter how hard I try. I search within for magical warmth, the energy I’ve drawn upon over the last forty-eight hours, but it doesn’t seem to be there for me now. Maybe the cave’s got something to do with that. Or maybe I’m just out of fighting spirit. Out of resistance. Plumb out of luck.

“Not… going… to… turn,” I snarl. Thinking of Loch and Bill-E, what I could do to them. Cursing myself for being so slack, not going to Dervish when I had the chance, allowing this to happen. I see now that it was fear, plain and simple. It didn’t matter what state Dervish was in—I should have told him the minute he got back. I kept the news to myself because I was scared of what he’d do. I was hoping the charms of the moon would pass, that I was just ill, imagining the inner struggle. The same fear which kept me from learning the ways of magic stopped me telling my secret to Dervish. Grubbs Grady—coward of the county. And now Bill-E and Loch are set to pay the price for my cowardice.

I try yelling a warning, telling them to stay up high where I can’t reach them. But my throat won’t work. The vocal cords are constricting, thickening, cutting off my air supply. I guess since wolves can’t talk they don’t need all the throat muscles that humans do.

I pull my head back from the stalagmite, meaning to run, get to the surface if I can, before I change. Put space between myself and my friends. Lots of space.

But then I see the face again. It’s in front of me. Bulging out of the stalagmite, as though carved out of rock. A girl’s face. Similar to Gret’s, as I noticed before, but not hers. Different. Younger. Darker hair. Smaller. Eyes and lips closed. Like a death mask.

The whispering, stronger than last night, more insistent. Certain words break through, but they’re not words I know. A foreign language. Harsh and fast.

I’m staring at the face, listening to the whispers, held firm to the spot, feeling myself change, when suddenly—

A scream. Behind me. At the waterfall.

As I turn towards it, there’s another scream. Then a very loud thud.

Then nothing.

I race across the cave, grabbing the torch on the way, lycanthropic fears momentarily forgotten, blocking out thoughts of the face and sounds of the whispers. There’s a figure on the ground and it’s not moving. That’s where all my concerns focus now.

I reach the figure and gently turn it over. It’s Loch. Face ashen. Eyelids flickering. Mouth opening and closing softly.

“Loch?” I murmur, holding his head up, trying to see how bad the damage is. I feel something wet and sticky smeared around the back of his head. I don’t have to check to know that it’s blood.

Scrabbling sounds. Bill-E hits the ground hard, feet first, having jumped from a spot two or three metres above. “Is he OK?” he shouts, panting hard.

“I don’t know. What happened?”

Bill-E gulps, kneels, stares at Loch’s head and my bloody hands. “He fell,” Bill-E croaks. I almost can’t hear him—the whispering’s louder than ever, the words coming fast and furious. “We were climbing. He slipped. I… I reached for him. He wasn’t far away. I grabbed. But he fell. I couldn’t catch him. I tried but I couldn’t…”

“Just as well you didn’t,” I comfort him. “He’d have dragged you down with him. Take off your coat.” Bill-E gawps at me. “For under his head.”

Bill-E shrugs off his jacket and balls it up. While I hold Loch’s head, he lays it underneath, then I softly lower Loch down. His eyes haven’t opened. He’s breathing raggedly. This isn’t good.

“I told him not to go up there,” Bill-E says hollowly. He’s crying. “I warned him. But he wouldn’t listen. He thought he knew it all.”

“Hush.” I’m calmer than my brother. I’ve seen worse things than this. Blood doesn’t alarm me. “One of us has to go for help. The other needs to stay here, sit with Loch, look after him.”

“I’ll go,” Bill-E says quickly. “Please, Grubbs, I don’t want to stay. Not in this cave. It’s too dark. Please don’t make me—”

“OK,” I shush him. “You can go. Find Dervish. Tell him what happened. He’ll know what to do. But run, Bill-E. Run!”

Bill-E nods, stumbles to his feet, stares at Loch’s face, opens his mouth to say something, then races for the exit. I hear him scrambling upwards—but only barely, over the sound of the whispers—then turn my attention on Loch and the dark pool spreading out from beneath his head and Bill-E’s blood-soaked jacket.

Talking to Loch. All sorts of nonsense—school, the treasure, holidays, girls, wrestling. I’ve put my coat and jumper over him. Have to keep him warm.

His breathing comes jaggedly. His eyelids have stopped twitching. His heartbeat’s irregular. I keep on talking, rubbing his arms and chest, but I don’t know if I’m doing much good.

The sickness is still in me. My head feels ripe to burst. Sometimes my words come out as growls, and my fingers clench while I’m rubbing Loch, digging into his cold, clammy flesh.

I fight it. Search within for warmth, energy, magic—anything. I can’t change, not until Dervish comes, not until Loch’s in an ambulance on his way to hospital, safe.

“Won’t turn,” I snarl, slapping my cheeks one after the other. “I’m not a wolf. I can control myself. Won’t let the moon…”

Loch shudders. His breath stops. I thump his chest hard—then remember first aid classes at school. Opening his mouth, I press firmly down on his chest, then release him and count. One, two, three, four. Press and count again. A third time. I place my lips over Loch’s. Breathe out, so that his cheeks puff up. Withdraw. Press—two, three, four. Press—two, three, four. Press—two, three, four. Mouth-to-mouth.

Trying to remember if I’m doing it right. Was it three presses on the chest, or four, or five? Should I blow air firmly down Loch’s throat or—

Loch coughs and breathes again.

I sink back, whining with relief and fear. That was too close. This can’t be happening. We were looking for treasure. Messing about. Loch was teasing Bill-E. Everything was normal. You can’t suddenly go from that to a life-or-death situation like this.

Except I know from past experience that you most certainly can.

Besides, things weren’t normal—the face, the whispers, the throbbing, the sense that we were in danger. I should have been more forceful. Made them leave. Insisted they go home.

The sickness within me grows.

The noise of the whispers increases.

Loch’s blood continues to flow.

Still talking. Telling Loch he’s got to stay alive for Reni’s sake. “She’ll be a mess for years if you die,” I sob. “Trust me, I know what losing a sister does to your head. You can’t leave her, Loch. She needs you.

It feels like hours since Bill-E left. Loch stopped breathing again a few minutes ago. I resuscitated him, but it took longer than the first time. I was in floods of tears by the end of it—sure I’d lost him.

What’s keeping them? Damn it, they should be here by now. Don’t they know how perilous this is, how much danger Loch’s in? I can’t keep him alive forever, not by myself. If they don’t—

Loch’s breath stops again. Cursing, I start with the chest pressing and mouth-to-mouth. The beast within me wants to suck in air, not breathe it out. It wants to draw the life from Loch, feed on all that blood around his head and shoulders, sip from that terrible pool, dark in the dim light of the torch. If I dropped my guard, just for a few seconds, there’s no telling what it—I—would do.

The whispers increase. It’s like I’m being shouted at now. I want to roar back at them but I need all my breath for Loch.

Press—two, three, four. Press—two, three, four. Mouth-to-mouth.

Nothing’s happening. I don’t panic. It was like this last time. I just have to keep going, stay calm, stick with it. He’ll revive eventually.

Press—two, three, four. Press—two, three, four. Press…

It doesn’t work. No matter how much I press and breathe, Loch doesn’t respond. His face has shut down. His lungs don’t move. His heart is still.

Third time unlucky.

“No,” I whisper. “I don’t accept this. He can’t be… “No!”

I bring my hands up, meaning to press again, harder than before, wildly. But something about Loch’s expression stops me. It’s peaceful, calmer than it ever was in life. Staring at him, I know with total, awful certainty—he’s lost. I could press and breathe from here till doomsday and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference.

Loch Gossel is dead.

Stumbling around the cave. The whispers deafening. Tears streaming down my cheeks. The wolf within me howling to be set free. Loch dead. Muttering, “This can’t be so. This can’t be so. This…”

My right foot hits either a large stone or small stalagmite. I fall flat. As I’m picking myself up, the face of the girl forms in the floor in front of me. Her expression is the same as Loch’s. I gaze at her in horror. This is what Loch will be like for all eternity, or at least until his body rots. Blank, lifeless, ever still, ever serene, ever—

The girl’s eyes snap open. Her lips part. She shouts at me, words I can’t understand.

I scream and propel myself backwards. Scream again. Halfway through, it turns into a howl. With an effort, I force the howl down, then fix my eyes on the face in the floor. “No,” I snarl, pressing my hands hard against the sides of my head. “NO!” I roar.

Something shoots out of me. A force I haven’t felt in all its power since I fought Lord Loss and his familiars in Slawter. I shut my eyes, feeling energy zap out of me. The scream rises and rises. I feel as if I’m floating above the ground. I think if I opened my eyes I’d find that I am floating. I hold the scream, the cords in my throat feeling like they’re going to burst, until…

A sound like cannon fire. Then sudden silence. The scream dies away. My head flops. I collapse. My hands come away from my head, to protect my face from the fall.

When I sit up, I’m breathing hard and crying. But the whispering has stopped. I glance at the spot in the floor. The girl’s face has disappeared. And I don’t feel sick anymore—only small, lonely and scared.

Standing, I shine the torch around, trying to pin down the source of the cannon fire. It only takes a few seconds to spot it—a large crack in one of the walls, close to the waterfall, which wasn’t there before. Did I divide the rock with my magical scream, or is the crack coincidence, the result of air flowing into the cave or a change of temperature? I don’t know. At this particular moment, I don’t really care.

I stagger over to Loch and slump beside his lifeless form. Impossible to believe he’ll never move again, or laugh, or wrestle. You think your friends are never going to die, that all the people you know and care for will be with you forever. Then the world makes a fool of you, so quickly, so simply, that you wonder whether any of your family or friends will see out another day intact.

I want to bring him back. I want to shake him, kick him, pump magic into him, make him breathe, make him live. It should be easy, like starting a stalled car or a crashed PC. There should be rules, instructions, things you can do. But there aren’t. When it comes to humans, death’s death, that’s that, and you’re a fool if you think any different.

Crying, I lean over Loch to hug his empty shell and tell him how unfair this is, how good a friend he was, how he shouldn’t be dead, how much I want him to live, how scared I am. And it’s only when I grab his shoulders and haul him up, pulling his head in towards my chest, that I realise—his head, the coat and the area around his shoulders… they’re all dry.

At first, I’m so distraught I don’t understand why that should be so strange, why it strikes me as being out of place. I’m about to dismiss it, to banish it from my thoughts, when the significance hits and I do a confused, incredulous double-take. Then, because I still can’t make sense of it, I cry the question out loud, in case giving it a voice will help me find an answer.

“Where the hell has all the blood gone?”