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

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

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

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

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

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

"Why didn't he?" I ask.

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

"Couldn't you have cast a spell on them - made them give Bill-E to him?"

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

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

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

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

"OK. We'll discuss Dad later." I lean forward intently. "Tell me about werewolves."

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

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

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

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

"Why would I be under observation?" I enquire. "I'm not a werewolf." I pause as a horrible thought strikes. "Am I?"

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

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

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

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

"What do you mean?"

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

I gulp dreadfully. "They kill them?"

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

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

"I'm coming to that," Dervish sighs. "Though be warned - when I tell you, you may wish that I hadn't."

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

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

"Soon," Dervish says. "Let's go to my study - it won't be pretty when he starts bellowing."

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

Dervish nods understandingly, then returns to his story.

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

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

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

"And then he met a creature who wasn't."

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

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

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

Dervish runs a couple of fingers over the leather cover, contemplating it with an expression of equal parts respect, sadness and fear. "Lord Loss can't cross the divide between his realm and ours uninvited," he says. "An ordinary person could look at that picture for decades without seeing anything untoward.

"But you aren't ordinary. You've faced demons and tapped into your magic potential - when you escaped through the dog flap. He was able to use your power to speak to you. He couldn't have harmed you through the book, but he might have been able to trick you into summoning him."

"But who - what!  -  is he?" I cry.

"Lord Loss is a demon master," Dervish says. "One of many supernatural beings who exist on the edges of our reality, in magical realms of their own. We call them the Demonata. Some meddle in the ways of humans, most have nothing to do with us, while a few - like Lord Loss - feed upon us."

My hands are trembling. I grip them tightly between my knees.

"Lord Loss is a sentinel of sorrow," Dervish says. "He feeds on human pain and suffering. A funeral is a three-course meal to him. A lonely, suicidal person's a tasty snack. He delights in our fear and grief, encourages it when possible, then drains it and grows strong on humanity's weakness."

"How does he do it?" I croak. "How does he feed?"

"I'd have to get deep into metaphysics to explain that," Dervish snorts. "Let's just say he has a psychic straw through which he can suck a person's pain.

"Now, old Bart knew about Lord Loss - he'd seen him feeding on grieving members of the family - but he didn't care. Bartholomew was interested only in lifting the curse, not warding off demons. But later in life, he spent time studying the Demonata. They can live for thousands of years. I believe Bartholomew hoped to learn their secret. He never did, but at some point he found out that Lord Loss had the power to reverse the lycanthropic change."

"You mean Lord Loss can cure Bill-E?" I cry.

"If he chooses to."

"Then let's summon him!" I shout, leaping out of my chair. "What are we waiting for? Let's call him here now and - "

"The Demonata are evil and selfish," Dervish interrupts. "It's possible to strike deals with some of them, but they'll do nothing out of the goodness of their hearts - as you know, some don't even have a heart!"

"Then how...?"

Dervish gestures for me to sit. I'm exasperated, but I obey.

"Bartholomew tried everything to get Lord Loss to help. He begged, he threatened, he even offered his soul."

"Souls are real?" I blurt out.

"Absolutely," Dervish nods fiercely. "And prized by demons above all other possessions. A soul can be tormented far worse than a body. If I was to lose my soul, my body would continue to function - but on auto-pilot. I'd be like a zombie, an empty shell, feeding, breathing, walking - but not thinking or feeling. Meanwhile, in the universe of the Demonata, my soul would be put through every kind of hell imaginable - and many that aren't!

"If Bartholomew had been a younger man, he might have been able to tempt Lord Loss. Trouble is, a soul's only good to a demon as long as the human lives. Old Bart was close to death. Lord Loss judged it an inadequate trade-off.

"But Bartholomew was stubborn. He pursued Lord Loss and braved the attacks of his familiars, suffering many wounds which hastened the hour of his death. But eventually old Bart discovered Lord Loss's great obsession, which he - "

Guttural roars drown Dervish out. Bill-E's on his feet, clutching the bars of the cage, shaking them, screaming, his face a dark mask of furious lines, teeth bared, tongue lashing wildly from side to side, his yellow eyes gleaming through the narrow slits of his eyelids.

"Bill-E!" I yell, jumping to my feet, stepping towards the cage.

"Easy," Dervish says, grabbing my arm. "Remember what I told you - he'll kill you if you get too close."

I stare numbly at Bill-E as he screams, pulls at the bars, kicks and head-butts them, his eyes all the time on Dervish and me.

"Does he recognise us?" I ask sickly.

"No," Dervish replies.

Bill-E quits wrestling with the bars and turns away, disgusted. He stumbles over the deer, which shakes fearfully. Bill-E stops and grins savagely. Circles the defenceless beast, sniffing, growling. Then he falls on its neck. Claws - teeth - ripping - blood.

My cheeks are wet. I'm crying again.

"Let's go," Dervish whispers. "We can finish this in my study."

"I don't want to leave him alone," I sob.

"Werewolves don't get lonely," Dervish says. "They feel only hunger and hate."

He picks up Meera and nudges me towards the door leading to the wine cellar. I pause at the exit. One last horrified study of Bill-E Spleen - my brother. Then I follow my uncle to sanity.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***