Darren Shan Slawter
PART ONE VISITORS
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
I shoot awake. Start to struggle up from my bed. An arm hits the side of my head. Knocks me down. A man screams, My eyes! Who took my eyes?
Dervish! I roar, rolling off the bed, landing beside the feet of my frantic uncle. Its only a dream! Wake up!
My eyes! Dervish yells again. I can see his face now, illuminated by a three-quarters full moon. Eyes wide open, but seeing nothing. Fear scribbled into every line of his features. He lifts his right foot. Brings it down towards my headhard. I make like a turtle and only just avoid having my nose smashed.
You took them! he hisses, sensing my presence, fear turning to hate. He bends and grabs my throat. His fingers tighten. Dervish is thin, doesnt look like much, but his appearance is deceptive. He could crush my throat, easy.
I swipe at his hand, yanking my neck away at the same time. Break free. Scrabble backwards. Halted by the bed. Dervish lunges after me. I kick at his head, both feet. No time to worry about hurting him. Connect firmly. Drive him back. He grunts, shakes his head, loses focus.
Dervish! I shout. Its me, Grubbs! Wake up! Its only a nightmare! You have to stop before you
The master, Dervish cuts in, fear filling his face again. Hes staring at the ceilingrather, thats where his eyes are fixed. Lord Loss. He starts to cry. Dont please not again. My eyes. Leave them alone. Please
Dervish, I say, softly this time, rising, rubbing the side of my head where he hit me, approaching him cautiously. Dervish. Derv the pervwheres your nerve? Knowing from past nights that rhymes draw his attention. Derv on the floorwheres the door? Derv without eyes whats the surprise?
He blinks. His head lowers a fraction. Sight returns gradually. His pupils were black holes. Now they look quasi-normal.
Its OK, I tell him, moving closer, wary in case the nightmare suddenly fires up again. Youre home. With me. Lord Loss cant get you here. Your eyes are fine. It was just a nightmare.
Grubbs? Dervish wheezes.
Yes, boss.
Thats really you? Youre not an illusion? He hasnt created an image of you, to torment me?
Dont be stupid. Not even Michelangelo could sculpt a face this perfect.
Dervish smiles. The last of the nightmare passes. He sits on the floor and looks at me through watery globes. How you doing, big guy?
Coolio.
Did I hurt you? he asks quietly.
You couldnt if you tried, I smirk, not telling him about the hit to the head, the hand on my throat, the foot at my face.
I sit beside him. Drape an arm around his shoulders. He hugs me tight. Murmurs, It was so real. I thought I was back there. I
And then he weeps, sobbing like a child. And I hold him, talking softly as the moon descends, telling him its OK, hes home, hes safehes no longer in the universe of demons.
Never trust fairy tales. Any story that ends with They all lived happily ever after is a crock. There are no happy endings. No endings, full stop. Life goes on. Theres always something new around the corner. You can overcome major obstacles, face great danger, look evil in the eye and live to tell the talebut thats not the end. Life sweeps you forward, swings you round, bruises and batters you, drops some new drama or tragedy in your lap, never lets go until you get to the one true enddeath. As long as youre breathing, your storys still going.
If the rules of fairy-tales did work, my story would have ended on a high four months ago. Thats when Dervish regained his senses and everything seemed set to return to normal. But that was a false ending. A misleading happy pause.
I had to write a short autobiography for an English assignment recently. A snappy, zappy summing-up of my life. I had to discard my first effortit was too close to the bone, and would have only led to trouble if Id handed it in. I wrote an edited, watered-down version and submitted that instead. (I got a B minus.) But I kept the original. Its hidden under a pile of clothes in my wardrobe. I dig it out now to read, to pass some time. Ive read through it a lot these past few weeks, usually early in the morning, after an interrupted night, when I cant sleep.
I was born Grubitsch Grady. One sister, Gretelda. Grubbs and Gret for short. Normal, boring lives for a long time. Then Gret turned into a werewolf.
Theres a genetic flaw in my family. Lots of my ancestors have turned into werewolves. It hits in your teens, if youre one of the unlucky ones. You lose your mind. Your body alters. You become a blood-crazed beast. And spend the rest of your life locked up in a cageunless your relatives kill you. Theres no cure. Except one. But that can be even worse than the curse.
See, demons are real. Gross, misshapen, magical beings, with a hatred of humans matched only by their taste for human flesh. They live in their own universe, but some can cross into our world.
One of the Demonatathats the proper termis called Lord Loss. A real charmer. No nose or hearta hole in his chest full of snakes. Eight arms. Horrible pale red flesh. Loads of cuts on his body from which blood flows in a never-ending stream. Hes big on misery. Feeds off the unhappiness, terror and grief of humans. Moves among us silently when he crosses into our universe, invisible to normal eyes, dropping in on funerals the way you or I would pop into a cafe, dining on our despair, savouring our sorrow.