by Darren Shan
“For when the tax collector calls,” Dervish says solemnly, lifting down one of the larger swords. He swings it over his head and laughs.
“Can I try it?” I ask. He hands it to me. “Bloody hell!” It’s H-E-A-V-Y. I can lift it to thigh level but no higher. A quick reappraisal of Uncle Dervish—he looks wiry as a rat, but he must have hidden muscles under all the denim.
We meander through the downstairs rooms, Dervish explaining what each was used for in the past, pointing out items of special interest, such as a stuffed bear’s head which is more than two hundred years old, a cage where a live vulture was kept, rusty nails which were used by the Romans to crucify people.
There’s a large, empty fish tank in one of the main living rooms, set against a wall. Dervish pauses at it and taps the frame with his fingernails. “The last owner of this place—before it fell into ruin—was a tyrant called Lord Sheftree. He kept live piranhas in this tank. One day, a woman turned up with a baby—she claimed it was his, and she wanted money to pay for its upkeep.”
Dervish crouches down and stares into the abandoned aquarium, as though it’s still full of circling, multicoloured fish.
“Lord Sheftree invited her to stay for the night,” he says calmly. “While she was sleeping, he crept into her room and removed her baby. Brought it down here and fed it to the piranhas. Took the bones away and buried them. The woman raised almighty hell, but search parties couldn’t find a corpse, and nobody had seen her arrive with a child—so there was no proof she ever had one. She ranted and raved and was eventually locked away in a mental asylum. She hanged herself there.
“Years later, when Lord Sheftree was an old man and his mind was wandering, he boasted about the murder to one of his servants, and told her where the bones were buried. She dug them up and informed the police. They came to arrest him, but the local villagers got here first. He was discovered chopped up into tiny pieces—all of which had been dropped into the piranha tank.”
Dervish stops and I gaze at him in silent awe.
He stands and faces me. “I’m not saying this to scare you,” he smiles, “but this house has a long and bloody history. There are dozens of horror stories, none quite as gruesome as that one, but all of them pretty gut-churning. I think it’s best you hear about its past now, from me.”
“Is… is the house haunted?” I wheeze.
“No,” he answers seriously. “It’s safe. I wouldn’t have brought you here if it wasn’t. If the nightmares of the past prove too oppressive, you’re free to leave. But you’ve nothing to fear in the present.”
I nod slowly, thinking about Lord Sheftree and his piranha, wondering if I have the courage to spend the night in a house like this.
“Are you OK?” Dervish asks. “Would you like to step outside for fresh air?”
“I’m fine,” I mutter, turning my back on the fish tank, acting like I hear this sort of stuff all the time. “What’s upstairs?”
Mostly bedrooms on the first floor. All are fully fitted, the beds freshly made, though Dervish says only four or five of the rooms have been used since he renovated the mansion.
“Why bother with all the beds then?” I ask.
“If something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right,” he laughs.
Some of the beds are four-posters, imported from foreign countries, with histories as old and macabre as the house. It’s only when Dervish is telling me about one particular bed, in which a French aristocrat hid for four months during the Revolution, that I think about how much they must have cost.
“What do you do?” I ask my uncle. It sounds ridiculous, but I don’t recall Mum or Dad ever mentioning Dervish’s line of work.
“I dabble in antiques,” he says. “Rare books are my speciality—particularly books regarding the occult.”
Dervish looks at me questioningly—we haven’t mentioned demons since he picked me up at the institute. He’s offering me the chance to quiz him about them now. But I’m not ready to discuss Lord Loss or his minions yet.
“You must be good at it, to afford a place like this,” I say, sliding away from the larger questions and issues.
“It’s a hobby,” he demurs, leading me down a long corridor full of framed portraits and photographs. “The money’s good, but I don’t worry too much about it.”
“Then how do you pay for all this?” I ask nosily.
Dervish quickens his pace. I think he’s avoiding the question, but then he stops at one of the older portraits and points at it. “Recognise him?”
I study the face of an old man—lined, quite a large nose, but otherwise unspectacular. “Is he famous?” I ask.
“Only to us,” Dervish says. “He was your great-great-great-grandfather. Bartholomew Garadex. That’s our original family name, on our paternal side—it got shortened to Grady around your great-grandfather’s time.” He points to a nearby portrait. “That’s him.” Waving a hand at the hall in general, he adds, “They’re all part of our family. Garadexes, Gradys, Bells, Moores—if one of our relations has been photographed or painted, you’ll most probably find them here.”
Returning to the portrait of my great-great-great-grandfather, he says, “Bartholomew was a sublimely clever man. He started with nothing but had amassed a fortune by the time of his death. We’re still living off of it—at least, I am. Cal preferred to make his own way in the world, and only dipped into the family coffers in emergencies.”
“How much is left?” I enquire.
“Quite a lot,” Dervish says vaguely. “Your great-great-grandfather—one of old Bart’s boys—wasted most of it. Then his son—the one who changed the family name—restored it. It’s been fairly constant since, much of it tied up in bonds and properties which yield steady profits.”
“Who does it go to when…” I stop and blush. “I mean, who’s your heir?”
Dervish doesn’t answer immediately. He gazes at the face in the portrait, as though seeing it for the first time. Then he looks away and says quietly, “I have no children. I’ve willed portions of the estate to various friends and causes. I always meant for the majority of my assets to go to Cal and his kids. Since you’re the only survivor…”
My stomach tightens—Dervish sounds as if he’s accusing me of caring more about money than my family. “I’d swap any amount of a fortune if I could bring Mum and Dad and Gret back,” I snarl.
“Of course you would.” Dervish frowns, glancing at me oddly, and I realise I was only imagining the accusation.
“Let’s go,” Dervish says. “There’s another floor to explore—and a cellar.”
“A cellar?” I ask nervously.
“Yes,” he says. “That’s where I bury the bodies.”
I freeze, and he has to stop and wink broadly before I catch the joke.
Lots of storage space on the second floor—rooms packed with crates, statues and boxes of books. There are a couple of small bedrooms, including Dervish’s, and the centrepiece—his study.
Unlike every other room in the mansion, Dervish’s study is carpeted and the walls are covered with leather panels. It’s a colossal room, the size of seven or eight of the bedrooms, with two desks larger than most of the beds I’ve seen. There are bookcases, on which small numbers of books are carefully arranged. He has a PC, a laptop, a typewriter, several writing pads and a multitude of pens. There are five chess sets in the room, each different; one made entirely of crystal, another with solid gold pieces. A sword and axe hangs from each wall, their handles encrusted with precious jewels, their blades gleaming brightly.
“This is wild,” I grin, circling the study, checking out some of the book titles—all to do with ghosts, werewolves, magic and other occult-related items.
“Some of my rarer finds,” Dervish says, picking up a book and smiling as he flicks through it. “The great thing about having loads of money is not having to sell to survive.”
“Aren’t you afraid of burglars?” I ask. “Wouldn’t this stuff be safer in a museum?”<
br />
“The contents of this room are protected,” he says. “Anyone breaking in is free to plunder the rest of the house as they please—but they won’t take anything from here.”
“What sort of security system do you use?” I ask. “Lasers? Heat sensors?”
“Magic.”
I start to smirk, thinking this is another of his jokes, but his grim expression unnerves me.
“I’ve cast some of my strongest spells on this room,” he says. “Anybody who enters without my permission will run into serious obstacles. And I don’t use that phrase lightly.”
Dervish sits in the large leather chair behind one of the desks and rocks lightly to the left and right as he addresses me. “I know there’s nothing as tempting as forbidden fruit, Grubitsch, but I’ve got to ask you not to come into this room when I’m not here. There are spells I can cast to protect you—and spells I can teach you when you’re ready to learn—but it’s safest not to tempt fate.”
“Are you…” I have to wet my lips to continue. “Are you a magician?”
“No,” he chuckles. “But I know many of the ways of magic. Bartholomew Garadex was a magician—among other things—but there hasn’t been one in the family since. Real magicians are rare. You can’t become one—you have to be born to it. Ordinary people like you and me can study magic and make it work to an extent, but true magicians have the natural power to change the shape of the world with a click of their fingers. It wouldn’t do to have too many people with that kind of power walking around. Nature limits us to one or two per century.”
“Is…” I hate to say his name out loud, but I must. “Is Lord Loss a magician?”
Dervish’s eyes are dark. “No. He’s a demon master. He’s as far advanced of magicians as magicians are of the rest of us.”
“When I… was escaping… I used magic.”
“To fit through the dog flap.” He nods. “Many of us have magical potential. It usually lies dormant, but the presence of the demons enabled you to tap into yours. The magic within you reacted to theirs. Without it, you would have died, along with the others.”
I stare wordlessly at Uncle Dervish. He speaks so honestly, so matter of factly, that he could be explaining a math problem. There’s so much I want to ask, so many questions. But this isn’t the time. I’m not ready.
I scratch my head and pluck a long ginger hair from behind my left ear. I rub it between my fingers until it falls, then face Dervish and grin shakily. “I’ll agree to stay out of your study if you’ll do something for me in return.”
“What?” he asks, and I can tell he’s expecting an overbearing request.
“Will you call me ‘Grubbs’? I can’t stand ‘Grubitsch’.”
The cellar’s full of wine racks and dusty bottles.
“My other great love, apart from books,” Dervish purrs, wiping clean the label of a large green bottle. He advances, lights flicking on ahead of him as he walks. I wonder if it’s magic, until I spot motion-detection sensors overhead.
“Do you drink wine?” he asks, leading me down one of the many rack-lined aisles of the cellar.
“Mum and Dad let us have a glass with dinner sometimes, but I don’t really like it,” I answer.
“Shocking!” he tuts. “I’ll have to educate your palate. Wine is as varied and unpredictable as people. There are some vintages you just won’t get on with, no matter how famous or popular they are, but you’ll always find something you like—if you search hard enough.”
He stops, picks out another bottle, appraises and replaces it. “I roam around for hours down here some days,” he sighs. “Half the pleasure of having such a fine collection is forgetting what’s here and rediscovering it by accident years later. The choosing of a bottle can be almost as much fun as the drinking of it.” He snorts. “Almost!”
We return to the steps leading up to the kitchen and he pauses. “I have to ask you not to come down here either,” he says. “But this has nothing to do with spells or magic. The temperature and humidity have to be maintained just so.” He pinches his left thumb and index finger together. “I’m fairly easy-going when it comes to material possessions, but where my wine’s concerned I’m unbelievably cranky. If you caused an accident…” He shook his head glumly. “I wouldn’t say much, but I’d silently despise you forever.”
“I’ll steer clear,” I laugh. “The off-licence will do for me if I want to go boozing.”
Dervish smiles and leads the way up. The lights switch off automatically behind us, plunging the cellar into cool, precision gloom.
* * * * *
“And that’s it.”
Back where we started, the main hall, beneath the giant chandelier. Dervish checks his watch. “I usually have dinner anywhere between five and seven. You can eat with me—I’m a nifty little chef, if I do say so myself—or do your own cooking and feed whenever you like. The freezer’s stocked with pizzas and microwave dinners.”
“I’ll eat with you,” I tell him.
“Then I’ll shout when it’s ready. In the meantime, feel free to explore, either inside or out. And remember—you can’t come to any harm here.”
He heads for the wide set of marble stairs leading to the first and second floors.
“Wait!” I stop him. “You never showed me my room.”
Dervish slaps his forehead playfully. “You’ll get used to that,” he chuckles. “I’m forever overlooking the obvious. Well, there are fourteen bedrooms to choose from—any except mine is yours for the taking.”
“You don’t have a room set aside for me?” I ask, surprised.
“I thought about it,” he replies, “but I decided to let you choose for yourself. You can test out as many as you like. If you want to stay on the upper floor, close to me, you can—though the rooms there are quite modest compared to those on the first floor.”
He tips an imaginary hat to me, then trots up the stairs to his study.
Standing alone in the vast hall. The house creaks around me. I shiver, then recall Uncle Dervish’s promise—I can’t come to any harm here. I shake off the creeps before they have a chance to take hold.
Picking up my bag, which I dropped by the front doors when we came in, I climb the ornate stairs and go searching among the beautifully kept, expansive array of rooms for one that I can dump my gear in and call my own.
PORTRAITS
I don’t expect to get much sleep the first night—new surroundings, new bed, new life—but surprisingly I drop off within minutes of climbing underneath the covers of the small first-floor bed I chose, and don’t wake until close to ten in the morning.
I feel good as I use the en suite bathroom. Refreshed. The sun’s broken through the clouds and is shining directly on to my bed when I come out of the bathroom. I lie on the covers and bask in the rays, smiling softly. For a moment I think of Gret’s en suite… the rat guts… the start of the nightmares. But I’m in too good a mood to dwell on all that. Shaking my thoughts free, I head downstairs for a late breakfast.
I’m finishing off my cornflakes and munching my third slice of toast when Dervish enters through the back door. He’s been jogging. Red-faced, sweaty, panting.
“I looked in… on you… earlier,” he gasps, rolling his neck around, jiggling his arms and legs. “Didn’t have the heart… to wake you.”
“I don’t normally sleep this late,” I grin guiltily.
“I should hope not.” He stretches, holds his hands over his head while he counts to ten, then relaxes, pulls up a chair and sits. “Any plans for today?”
“I’m not sure,” I admit nervously. “I’m used to having nurses plan my days for me.”
“I’ve been thinking about school,” Dervish says. “Ideally I’d like to get you started quickly, but they’re midway through term. You’d be playing catch-up from the second you sat down. I think it’d be easier if we waited until after the summer, when you can go in fresh with the rest of the class.”
“OK.” I’m relieved—I was
dreading the return to school.
“If you want, I can give you some lessons, or we can enroll you for private tuition,” Dervish continues. “You’ve missed a lot, and I suspect you’ll have to repeat a year, but if you work hard over the summer…”
“I’m not worried about repeating,” I mutter. “If I was at my old school, I’d want to move up with my friends. But since I’m starting fresh, it doesn’t really matter which class I go into.”
“I like the way you think,” Dervish smiles. “OK, we’ll lay off the heavy grinds, but fit the odd bit of learning in along the way—you’ll get rusty if you don’t keep your brain sharp.”
“What about today?” I ask. “What should I do?”
“Get the lay of the land,” Dervish suggests. “Explore the house. Have a look round the grounds and neighbouring fields—you won’t get done for trespassing as long as you don’t mess with the livestock. Maybe take a stroll to the village and let the gossips have a gawk—I’m sure they’re dying to check out the new boy. You can start on the household chores tomorrow.”
“Chores?”
“Sweeping, cleaning, stuff like that.”
“Oh.” I glance around. “I thought… a place this big… you’d have a maid or something.”
“No maid!” Dervish laughs. “I have a woman who comes in once a fortnight to dust the bedrooms, but that’s it as far as outside help goes. You’ll have to earn your keep here, Grubbs m’boy! But we’ll start with the slave labour tomorrow, like I said. Find your feet first. Take it easy. Enjoy.” He rises and his expression saddens. “Hell, you’re due some enjoyment after all you’ve been through.”
I do the village first. Carcery Vale is quaint, quiet, picturesque. Nice white or creamy houses, smiling people, the occasional car puttering down the main street. I walk through the village, familiarising myself with the layout. I pass the school—larger than I thought. It’s lunch and the students are in the yard, shouting, laughing, playing football. I don’t get close.
