“Are you coming down for breakfast?” Dervish yells from the bottom of the giant staircase which links the floors of the mansion where we live.
“In a minute!” I yell back. “I’ve just come to the bit when you zombied out on me.”
“Stop messing about!” he roars. “I’m scrambling eggs and if you’re not down in sixty seconds, too bad!”
Damn. He knows all my weaknesses.
“Coming!” I shout, getting up and reaching for my clothes, tossing the bio aside for later.
Dervish does a mean scrambled egg. Best I’ve ever tasted. I finish off a plateful without stopping for breath, then eagerly go for seconds. I’m built on the big side—a mammoth compared to most of my schoolmates—with an appetite to match.
Dervish is wearing a pair of tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. No shoes or socks. His grey hair is frizzled, except on top, where he’s bald as a snooker ball. Hasn’t shaved (he used to have a beard, but got rid of it recently). Doesn’t smell good—sweaty and stale. He’s this way most days. Has been ever since he came back.
“You eating that or not?” I ask. He looks over blankly from where he’s standing, close to the hob. He’s been staring out the window at the grey autumn sky, not touching his food.
“Huh?” he says.
“Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
He looks down at his plate. Smiles weakly. Sticks his fork into the eggs, stirs them, then gazes out of the window again. “I remember the nightmare,” he says. “They cut my eyes out. They were circling me, tormenting me, using my empty sockets as—”
“Hey,” I stop him, “I’m a kid. I shouldn’t be hearing this. You’ll scar me for life with stories like that.”
Dervish grins, warmth in it this time. “Take more than a scary story to scar you,” he grunts, then starts to eat. I help myself to thirds, then return to the autobiography, not needing the sheet of paper to finish, able to recall it perfectly.
Except, of course, it wasn’t. Life isn’t a fairy tale. Stories don’t end. Before she left, Meera took me aside and warned me to be careful. She said there was no way to predict Dervish’s state of mind. According to the recorded accounts of the few who’d gone through the same ordeal as him, it often took a person a long time to settle after a one-on-one encounter with Lord Loss. Sometimes they never properly recovered.
“We don’t know what’s going on inside his head,” she whispered. “He looks fine, but that could change. Watch him, Grubbs. Be prepared for mood-swings. Try and help. Do what you can. But don’t be afraid to call me for help.”
I did call when the nightmares started, when Dervish first attacked me in his sleep, mistook me for a demon and tried to cut my heart out. (Luckily, in his delirium, he picked up a spoon instead of a knife.) But there was nothing Meera could do, short of cast a few calming spells and recommend he visit a psychiatrist. Dervish rejected that idea, but she threatened to take me away from him if he didn’t. So he went to see one, a guy who knew about demons, who Dervish could be honest with. After the second session, the psychiatrist rang Meera and said he never wanted to see Dervish again—he found their sessions too upsetting.
Meera discussed the possibility of having Dervish committed, or hiring bodyguards to look after him, but I rejected both suggestions. So, against her wishes, we carried on living by ourselves in this spooky old mansion. It hasn’t been too bad. Dervish rarely gets the nightmares more than two or three times a week. I’ve grown used to them. Waking up in the middle of the night to screams is no worse than being disturbed by a baby’s cries. Really it isn’t.
And he’s not that much of a threat. We keep the knives locked away and have bolted the other weapons in the mansion—it’s dotted with axes, maces, spears, swords, all sorts of cool stuff—to the walls. I usually keep my door locked too, to be safe. The only reason it was open last night was that Dervish had thrown a fit both nights before and it’s rare for him to fall prey to the nightmares three times in a row. I thought I was safe. That’s why I didn’t bother with the lock. It was my fault, not Dervish’s.
“I will kill him for you, master,” Dervish says softly.
I lower my fork. “What?”
He turns, blank-faced, looking like he did when his soul was fighting Lord Loss. My heart rate quickens. Then he grins.
“Asshole!” I snap. Dervish has a sick sense of humour.
I get back to wolfing down my breakfast and Dervish tucks into his, not caring that the scrambled eggs are cold. We’re an odd couple, a big lump of a teenager like me playing nursemaid to a balding, mentally disturbed adult like Dervish. And yeah, there are nights when he really frightens me, when I feel like I can’t take it any more, when I cry. It’s not fair. Dervish fought the good fight and won. That should have been the end of it. Happily ever after.
But stories don’t end. They continue as long as you’re alive. You just have to get on with things. Turn the page, start a new chapter, find out what’s in store for you next, and keep your fingers crossed that it’s not
PRAY AT HIM