“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 tell someone.”
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 realize 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 frowns. “What do sheep have 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 bum. She asks me to describe the bum 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 bum 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 homeless man. 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 always trust me, Grubbs, about everything — even if you can’t trust Dervish.”
T
HE 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 that 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 bathroom. 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 boys’ room 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 that 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 door.”
“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. Maybe 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, staying 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 luster. 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 past 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 backward 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.”
“I’ll be fine,” Dervish says, then wobbles on his feet and almost falls. Juni steadies him, then says firmly, “Bed!”
“Yes, miss,” Dervish sighs. “You coming?”
“Soon. I want to sit with Grubbs a little bit longer.”
Dervish leaves, rubbing the small of his back and groaning. Juni watches him go, then examines her wounds. Murmuring spells, she brushes her fingers over the light cuts on her arms. They heal swiftly, the flesh closing neatly, only the slightest lines of red giving away the fact that she’d been scratched at all.
“Neat trick.”
“A useful spell.” She works on her neck and face. “It’s no good on deep gashes but it’s perfect for little rips like these. Better than Band-Aids. I’ll fix Dervish up later.”
Finishing, she turns her attention to me. Wipes my hair back from my eyes. Heals the scratch on my forehead. Rubs the flesh to make sure it’s OK, then says softly, “He was terrified. I was too, but not as much as Dervish. He really loves you.”
“I know.”
“He’d give his life for you if it would change anything.”
I stare at her silently. There are tears in her eyes. I instinctively know why she’s saying this, defending him when there’s no apparent need. “He called the Lambs,” I whisper.
She nods miserably. “I got him to admit it. He didn’t want to involve them. But if you turn, you have to be killed. He can’t do that, not kill his own nephew. So, as much as he hates them. . . ”
“It’s OK,” I tell her, forcing a weak smile. “He didn’t have a choice.”
“I suppose.” She sighs, lowering her gaze. “I had a son once.” I blink, not sure how to respond to this startling, un-expected confession. “A darling boy. He was my world. Died in his sleep a few months before his second birthday. A brain defect. There were no warning signs. Nothing anybody could have done about it.”
She breaks down in tears. I pat her back clumsily, wishing I could wash her hurt away with words, feeling as useless as I’ve ever felt. Finally she regains control and wipes her cheeks dry.
“It almost destroyed me,” she croaks. “I survived, but just barely. Became a child psychologist so I could be close to other children, ease my pain by helping them with theirs.” She laughs hoarsely. “I once said you were psychologically plain. Well, I’m an open book too. Whenever anything goes wrong in my life, I hide behind my work, use it to haul myself out of whatever dark hole I’ve fallen into.”
She takes hold of both my hands and squeezes, stronger than I imagined. “When Dervish asked me to move in, I was delighted, not just because I love him, but because it meant I could become a mother to
you.
” She lets go of my left hand and strokes my cheeks, smiling warmly. “I’ve always wanted another son to mother but it never quite worked out until now.”
The smile fades. She lets go of my other hand and stands. “I won’t abandon you,” she says, her voice throbbing with surprising menace. “I won’t give you over to the Lambs, not unless there’s no hope at all. I’ll stand by you until the very,
very
end. Even if Dervish doesn’t.”
Then she’s gone, leaving me to stare after her, jaw slack, senses whirring, not quite sure what to make of her fiercely supportive vow.
A day of rest. We all sleep until early afternoon and lounge around after that. Juni’s oddly distant, withdrawn and quiet. Doesn’t look at me straight. Or Dervish. Almost as if she’s ashamed of what she said. Or is planning something and doesn’t want us to know.
Evening. The shakes again. Throwing up everything I’ve eaten. I fight my vomitous body, sitting on the grass out back, taking the warm evening sun, determined to enjoy what might be my final sunset. Dervish and Juni are nearby. Dervish asks if I want to go in. I shake my head. Don’t want to abandon the outside world. Afraid that once I do, that’s it — game on. . . game over. . . doomed.
Bill-E called earlier. Wanted to come over and hang out.
Dervish made my excuses. Said I’d caught something nasty. Told Bill-E to stay away in case it was contagious. Bill-E wasn’t suspicious. Why should he be?
Thinking about my brother. Wishing I’d told him about us. Dervish was right — I waited too long. I wanted to spare him the emotional roller-coaster ride of the truth but I was wrong to stall. If I change tonight and the Lambs exterminate me, he’ll only think he lost a friend. He’ll never know how close we really were.
I consider calling him, telling him the truth while I’m still capable of speech. But that would be lunacy. If I survive, beat this thing, or at least delay my transformation for a month, I can tell him then. Calling now would be pointless. Worse — dangerous. He might come over. Get in the way. Fall victim to the blood-crazed beast I might by that stage have become.