by Darren Shan
“You think Juni can open me up,” I say stiffly. “Stick me on a couch, get into my brain, worm out the truth.”
“Maybe,” Dervish mutters.
“We only have your best interests at heart,” Juni says. “This is a troubled time for you. Dervish wants to help. I do too. If you have problems with your uncle—or with me—you should lay them out in the open. Or, if it’s something you don’t want to discuss with Dervish, perhaps you can tell me in private.”
“Patient to counsellor?” I sneer.
“If you like,” she says calmly. “I’d rather talk informally as a friend, but if you prefer we can do it professionally, with the guarantee of confidentiality.”
“I don’t mind,” Dervish says. “I just want to help you survive the next week. If I’ve upset you and you don’t want to tell me about it, fine. But you don’t have to cut Juni out. Surely you can talk with her if not with me.”
“What if there’s no problem?” I mumble. “What if I’m just scared to death that I’m going to turn into a werewolf and don’t feel like talking about it?”
“That would be entirely understandable,” Juni says. “But unless you’re sure that’s the case, you should discuss it with someone. Talking about your fears can be a highly positive experience. You know that, Grubbs. You’re not an innocent child. Going through this alone is a bad call.”
“Especially as you might not even be going through it,” Dervish says. I look at him with a raised eyebrow. “You mightn’t be turning. Juni thinks…” He stops and looks at her.
“Just because people in your family are victims of a disease which alters their bodies—I refuse to refer to them as werewolves, since that’s a hysterical term—it doesn’t mean you are going to change,” Juni says. “From what you’ve described, it sounds as if you’re in trouble, but it’s by no means certain. This might be a mental problem, not a physical one.”
“You think I’m imagining things?” I growl.
“Perhaps,” Juni says. “The mind can play tricks on the most ordinary people—and you’re far from ordinary! To come through what you have… to see so much of the world—and other worlds—at such a young age… to lose your loved ones in a grisly fashion, then fight for your brother’s life… what happened to us in Slawter… Your resilience amazes me. You’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever met and I’m not saying that to stroke your ego. You’re incredible, Grubbs.”
I smile crookedly, blushing, tears coming to my eyes. Part of me wants to leap up and hug her. Another part wants me to wave her compliment away and act cool. In the end I just carry on smiling, blushing and crying lightly.
“But even the strongest of us has a breaking point,” Juni says. “Maybe Loch was yours. Or perhaps there’s something else, a small upset you’re not even aware of. It’s possible you’re turning—but it’s also possible you’re not. I want to try and find out. In a week we’ll know for definite. But we can cover a lot of ground in a week. It could make a real difference if you’re wrong about the change.”
“And if I’m right?” I ask tightly.
Juni beams. “We’ll just have to fire a silver bullet through the middle of your forehead.”
I laugh loudly. Dervish does too.
“My sense of humour’s rubbing off on her,” Dervish chuckles proudly.
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“Boys, boys,” Juni tuts. “Let’s not get sidetracked. Grubbs, will you accept my offer of help? Talk with me privately if you have something you don’t want to say to both of us? Accept me as a counsellor if not a friend?”
I almost blurt it out and tell them I know about the Lambs, which is why I’ve been so surly. But that would mean a confrontation with Dervish, admitting to his face that I feel he betrayed me. I can’t do that, not after all the good things he’s done for me. If I’m wrong, it would hurt him to hear me speak that way.
So I take Juni up on her offer, lower my head to hide my thoughts, and mutter, “Yeah, talking with you sounds good.”
“Thank you,” Juni says.
“Nice one,” Dervish adds.
And we pretend for a while that everything’s fine and all our problems have been solved.
Long talks with Juni at school in the day and at home in the evenings. Not just about Loch. We cover all kinds of ground—my past, parents, Gret, Lord Loss, the institute, life with Dervish, Bill-E changing into a werewolf, Slawter. All the things we didn’t discuss before, when she was only interested in helping me deal with Loch’s death.
We spend a lot of time on magic, the buzz of energy I sometimes feel in my gut, what I’ve done with it, my mind-set when the magic was flowing through me. With Dervish’s permission, Juni runs some tests, trying to tap into my magical core, to find out what’s going on inside, what I might be capable of doing. But she comes up blank. If the magic’s still there, it’s buried too deep for her to find.
She also spends a lot of time researching the Demonata, pumping Dervish for information, finding out all she can about them. She’s especially hot on Lord Loss—if he’s able to cure our lycanthropic curse, she doesn’t see why we shouldn’t be able to do it too.
“We’re not powerful enough,” Dervish tells her.
“Maybe it’s just a matter of knowing the right spells,” Juni suggests.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “If that was the case, Bartholomew Garadex would have discovered them. He was dogged in his determination to end the curse but he got nowhere by himself. It takes a demon master to overturn the spell.”
“But—”
“No,” Dervish insists. “Bartholomew was the world’s most powerful magician of the last couple of centuries. If he wasn’t able to do it, none of us can. We’d be wasting our time if we went down that avenue.”
“What if we tried Lord Loss?” she asks. “Maybe you’re wrong about him not accepting the chess challenge again.”
“No,” Dervish laughs shortly. “That isn’t an option.”
“But if he’s the only one who can turn Grubbs back…” Juni persists.
“It’s not an option,” Dervish says again. Firmly. End of discussion.
I’m enjoying my time alone with Juni. She’s different than when she was merely counselling me. Magic is her thing, what really interests her. She’s more open when we’re talking about spells and demons. She lets her guard down and stops treating me like a patient. Sometimes it seems we talk more about her and magic than we do about me and my problems, but that’s fine. She still sees Bill-E and some of my friends in her professional capacity, but not as much as before. She’s due to finish at our school at the end of the week. Misery’s not returning but he’s being replaced by another counsellor. Juni’s done what she set out to. Time to move on to another job, another challenge. But she’s not thinking about that until after the weekend. First she wants to see what happens to me when the full moon rises.
Thursday. Testing for magical potential again. In the TV room. Dervish is in the kitchen, keeping out of the way. Juni’s trying something new. Up to this point she’s probed carefully, gently, just scratching the surface. Tonight she wants to go deeper.
“Relax,” she says, standing behind me as I squat on a stool. “Clear your mind.” She puts her hands on my head. “I’m going to provoke you.” Her fingers slide to my neck and her nails scratch the flesh there, lightly. “I’m going to pick and poke at your flesh while I jab magically at you. It will be more irritating that way. I’m hoping something will stir within you in response, drive me out and stop me hurting you.”
“ ‘Hurting’?” I repeat uneasily.
“Don’t worry.” I sense her smile. “I won’t really hurt you. Trust me.”
She massages my shoulders. At first it’s nice but then she digs her thumbs in. Works her way down my arms, pinching, scratching. Nothing too severe. Just irritating, like she said.
She mutters spells while she works. I feel magic seep into me, a weird sensation beneath my skin. It’s like
having a dead leg, only I’m itchy all over.
Minutes pass. Juni works. Down my back, my chest, my legs. Very prickly now, twitching and jerking, wishing she’d stop, wondering if I should say something or just grit my teeth and bear it. Finally, when I’m on the point of calling it quits, she releases me.
“Nothing,” she says, sounding disappointed. She puts a couple of fingers on my left cheek. “You can open your eyes.”
As I blink my eyes open, I catch her looking at me. A strange look. As if she thinks I’m lying and disapproves of me. There’s even a shade of hostility in it.
“It was definitely there before,” I tell her as she takes her fingers away.
“I’m sure it was,” she says, the suspicious look disappearing.
“Maybe it’ll come back tomorrow or the next night. When the moon…” I nod towards the window, where the curtains keep out the light of the almost full globe.
“Perhaps,” she says. “Magic is certainly affected by lunar movements. Most mages experience a surge of extra energy around the time of a full moon. But it’s strange for you not to be showing any signs.”
She sits beside me. Brings a hand up and ruffles my hair. Smiles fondly, then whispers, “Tell me your secret. The thing you won’t talk to Dervish about. I haven’t asked before and I won’t ask again if you don’t answer. But I think you want to reveal it.”
Mouth dry. Heart beating hard. I wasn’t going to tell her. I meant to keep it secret. But now that she’s asked, I realise she’s right. I want to share it with her. Hell, I’m suddenly longing to spill the beans.
“He called the Lambs,” I croak.
“Lambs?” she frown. “What have sheep to do with this?”
“No. Family executioners. The Lambs. When one of us turns… if the parents can’t bear to keep them alive, but can’t kill them by themselves, the Lambs do it.”
“Ah. I remember. The dream in Slawter. Their laboratory.” Her frown deepens. “You think Dervish summoned them? That he’s plotting against you?”
“Not plotting,” I mutter. “But if I turn and he can’t control me, I think he wants them to kill me. He said he was going to ask a magician for help, but he didn’t. He called in the Lambs instead. And that’s… y’know… not fine, but I know why he did it. I just wish he’d waited. Or told me he was summoning them.”
“He hasn’t told you?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
I explain about his conversation on the phone, the black folder, the tramp. She asks me to describe the tramp but I can only give her a very general description.
“You’re certain he’s a lamb?” she asks dubiously.
“Pretty sure.”
“He never said?”
“No. But he’s been hounding me. I’ve seen him outside this house. And at the cave.” We’ve told her about the cave, how Loch really died. Dervish took her there to get a sense of it. One magical whiff of the place and she agreed he’d done the right thing, that it needed to be hidden from the world. “Why would he be following me if he wasn’t one of the Lambs?” I ask.
“There are all sorts of people in the world,” Juni says. “Some follow boys for dark—but very human—reasons.”
“I know.” I shift uncomfortably. “But it’d be an awful coincidence, this tramp taking an interest in me at this precise time.”
“I sometimes think the world runs on coincidences.” Juni pats my hand. “Don’t worry about the tramp. I’ll keep an eye out for him. And I’ll do a bit of work on Dervish and find out if he really contacted the Lambs.”
“You won’t tell him what I said, will you?” I ask, alarmed, not wanting him to think I’ve been bad-mouthing him behind his back.
“I’ll be discreet,” Juni vows and gets up to leave.
“Juni,” I stop her. “When you find out… if he did call them in… will you tell me the truth?”
A long pause. Then, “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“You can handle it if he did?”
“Yes.”
She smiles and touches my cheek again. “You’re so brave,” she whispers, then draws the fingers away. “I’ll tell you what I find out. I promise. No lies. You can trust me always, Grubbs, about everything—even if you can’t trust Dervish.”
SHAKE DOG SHAKE
The shakes. Bad. Dervish and Juni keep me pressed down on the bed, talking constantly, wiping sweat from my face with a series of fresh towels, Juni muttering calming spells which don’t make the slightest difference.
Friday. The night before the full moon. The sickness struck at school, in the middle of physics. I had to rush for the toilet. Didn’t make it. Was violently sick against the classroom door. Lots of cheers from the boys, gasps of disgust from the girls. Didn’t stop to catch an earful from Mr. Clifford. Bolted for the toilet and spent the next ten minutes hugging a hard plastic seat.
Juni drove me home. I threw up twice into a bag along the way. I’ve had the dry heaves since then, though Juni makes me drink lots of water, so sometimes I vomit clear, acidic liquid.
“You’re going to be OK,” Dervish lies, grasping my shoulders as I cry out in pain. It feels as if there’s a second body growing within mine, forcing its way out.
“I could try a sleeping spell,” Juni says.
“Don’t be stupid,” Dervish barks. “The only reason he hasn’t turned is because he’s fighting so damn hard. He can’t fight if he’s asleep.”
“Sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I just hate to see him in so much agony.”
I scream hoarsely, sure my head is about to split down the middle. Dimly aware of a heat in my stomach, the magical heat which was there last month. It’s battling the wolfen change, keeping me human, denying the demands of the beast. Unable to tell Dervish and Juni about it. Incapable of speech. Only screams.
Later. The moon starting to dip. Moments of quiet after hours of madness. The sheets of the bed are ripped in many places. Dervish is cut above his left eye and both his cheeks are bruised.
“Did… I do… that?” I groan.
“No,” he deadpans, carefully pouring water down my throat. “I walked into a wardrobe.”
“We thought we’d lost you,” Juni says, squeezing my hand. I’ve scratched her forehead but it’s not a deep cut.
“The… magic,” I gasp. Both of them pause. “Did you… feel it?”
“No,” Dervish says.
“It was… there. That’s how… I fought. Would have… turned… otherwise.”
“Juni?” Dervish asks.
“I sensed something,” she says hesitantly. “I wasn’t sure if it was magic or the energy generated by the… the alteration.”
“The werewolf,” I grin weakly. “Go on, say it, just once.”
“There’s no such creature,” Juni huffs.
I start to reply but pain strikes again, deep in my gut. I double over. The water comes up almost as quickly as it went down. Hits Dervish hot in the face. He ignores it and pins me to the bed, talking fast again, trying to comfort me, his words only a dim murmur above my endless, wretched screams.
The beast snarls and claws at my skin from the inside. It can’t speak—it’s a wild animal—but I can sense its feelings and translate them into words. Release me, it would demand if it could. End the pain. Set me free. Become what you must. We can run as one and take the night.
“No!” I howl back, clubbing it down with fists of a magic I don’t understand.
You can’t deny me.
“Get stuffed!” is my eloquent response.
The internal battle rages on but I have the sense that I’m winning. The pull of the moon is fading. The creature has lost the fight. But there’s another night to come and it will be stronger then. Perhaps too strong.
You can’t deny me, the beast hisses again from somewhere deep inside me, deeper than it should be. This is what we are. It’s our fate.
“I’ll choose my own fate,” I mutter, sta
ying on guard, ready to fight again if it launches a last-minute attack. But it doesn’t. The sun is rising. The moon’s losing its lustre. I’ve won—for now.
Wearily sitting up. Dervish and Juni regard me suspiciously. Both exhausted. Cut, bruised and scratched in many places.
“What happened to you two?” I quip.
“Now he gets cocky,” Dervish growls. “For the last eight or nine hours it’s been screams and agony, hell on Earth. But now, with the sun rising, you feel like you can joke, regardless of the agony you’ve put us through.”
We regard each other coolly—then laugh.
“We survived!” I shout.
“You beat it!” Dervish chortles, hugging me tight.
Juni just smiles tiredly, watching us.
When Dervish releases me, I collapse backwards and stare at the ceiling.
“How do you feel?” Dervish asks. “Or is that a stupid question?”
“No,” I sigh. “I don’t feel so bad. Tired, but not as beat as you or Juni look. To tell the truth, I’m hungry.”
“If you’re expecting breakfast in bed, you’re in for a nasty surprise,” Juni snaps. Dervish and I giggle.
“It was strange,” I mumble, recalling my battle, especially the end when I imagined the beast speaking to me. “Like I was wrestling with another person—a thing—inside myself. But really wrestling. Like it was there physically. My body was a ring and there were two of us inside the ropes. It was the hardest fight of my life.”
“No piece of cake for us on the outside either,” Dervish says, touching his bruised cheeks. “You put us through the wringer. I know you’re a colossus in the making, but I wouldn’t have credited you with that much strength.”
“It would have been worse if the beast had won,” I tell him quietly. “I could feel it. So strong. Without the magic, it would have walked all over me, burst loose, torn into you. Tonight… when the moon’s full…”
“Don’t think about that. We’ll take this one fight at a time. Focus on the victory now. Deal with the next bout when we’re faced with it.” He stands, stretches and groans.
“Go to bed.” Juni smiles. “You worked hard and took most of the blows. We both need to get a lot of sleep today, but you more than me.”
