Blood Beast

The officer in charge asks to take our statements. Dervish clears his throat and gently suggests phoning Loch’s parents first. The officer blushes—he’s young, probably hasn’t seen a corpse before, temporarily forgot his training. Dervish offers to make the phone call. The officer accepts the offer with a grateful smile.

Dervish keeps it quick and to the point. There’s been an accident. Loch’s been taken to hospital. Says it’s serious. Doesn’t say Loch’s dead. Leaves that for the doctors. Not the sort of news you should break over the phone.

Home. The police drive Bill-E and me. Dervish follows on his bike. More hot chocolate. I still can’t drink it. Biscuits which I can’t eat. Dervish turns on the heating. While the police are talking with us, Dervish rings Ma and Pa Spleen. They arrive before we’re finished, splashing out on a taxi for maybe the first time in their lives. Anxious to protect their grandson. Eager to whip him away from the police and their questions. Dervish has to drag them aside and explain that it will be easier if they let the police finish—if we don’t do it here, we’ll have to go to the police station later. He takes them into the kitchen and plies them with tea and coffee. I imagine them discussing me, Ma and Pa Spleen blaming me for Bill-E being in the quarry after dark, saying I’m responsible for him risking his life on such a dangerous climb—and for Loch’s death.

The interrogation goes softly. The police don’t suspect foul play. They just want to get the facts straight. We tell them we went for a walk. Wound up at the quarry. Went climbing. Loch fell. Bill-E tried to catch him. Couldn’t. The end.

Kids fool around at the quarry all the time. Every few years some local official vows to block it off. Nobody’s ever followed up on the promise, though I think they will after this. The police take the attitude that a fatality was bound to happen sooner or later. Just bad luck that it happened to us.

They leave not long after midnight. (How did it get so late so quick?) They say they might return to take follow-up statements, but that shouldn’t be necessary. They tell us to take a few days off school, maybe go away for a while. They warn of a possible backlash—parents sometimes overreact in situations like this. Loch’s relatives might blame Bill-E and me, hurl insults and accusations at us. The police say we shouldn’t be too upset if that happens, to try and understand their position.

Bill-E wants to stay the night, hear Dervish out, learn why we had to lie. But Ma and Pa Spleen are having none of it. They want out and fast. They’ve never liked Dervish and aren’t a lot fonder of me. Bill-E’s arguments are shot down before they’re out of his mouth. Then it’s into the back of the taxi which they’ve kept waiting and home, where they can pour poison in his ear and remind him of all the times they warned him about the grisly Gradys, how we’d lead him astray.

Then it’s just me and my uncle, alone in our old mansion. A foul smell in the air—the stench of lies and deception.

Without discussing it, we retire upstairs to Dervish’s study, where we sit on opposite sides of his huge desk, facing each other, me suspicious and wiping away tears, Dervish ashamed and tweaking the hairs of his beard.

Time for explanations.

COMING CLEAN

“You know about the Demonata,” Dervish begins. “You’ve seen them at work. You know of their powers, their magic, how destructive they are. You know that some, like Lord Loss, can cross between their universe and ours.”

“Does this have anything to do with him?” I croak.

“No. He doesn’t need the cave, and from what I know of him he isn’t interested in it.” Dervish stops for a moment, thinking about the best way to proceed. “Lord Loss is an exception. Most demons can’t cross readily between universes. If they could, this world would be awash with the Demonata and humans would be their playthings and slaves.

“Many demons hunger for that. They spend a large portion of their time trying to open windows between the two universes. They find weak points where crossing is easier and work on them, assisted by power-crazed mages on this side. The Disciples try to stop them. We look for focal points, prevent crossings where we can, deal with the aftermath when we can’t.”

“Like in Slawter,” I nod. “You explained all that to me before. But what about the cave?”

Dervish puffs his cheeks up, then blows out air. “More than a millennium and a half ago, the Demonata invaded. Normally they cross singly or in small groups. The demons hate each other almost as much as they hate humans—infighting is rife. But in this case thousands banded together to launch an all-out assault. They set out to create a large, permanent opening—a tunnel instead of a temporary window. The cave was the focus for their attempt.

“They were helped by a twisted druid. Our world was more magical then. Magic is an energy and like any form of energy it can ebb and flow over the course of time. Back then it flowed strongly through this world. There were many more magicians and mages than there are now, though they called themselves druids and priestesses. It’s a source of debate as to why there’s so little magic in the world these days. I guess—”

“You’re rambling.”

Dervish grins sheepishly. “Sorry. Keeping it simple, the Demonata tried to open a tunnel through the cave. They nearly succeeded. From what we know, many did cross over, but only lesser demons. The tunnel was shattered before the masters could cross and the cave entrance was later filled in and hidden from the world, so nobody could make an attempt there again.

“Since that time a watch has been kept on this area. There’s always been a watcher here—even before the Disciples were formed—monitoring the situation, making sure the cave isn’t reopened. I’m the latest in a long line of watchmen. That’s why I don’t wander the world like most Disciples. I get away to deal with other matters occasionally but the cave is my main priority.”

“But you said you didn’t know where it was. How could you keep people away from it if you didn’t know its location?”

“Powerful spells were cast when the cave was filled in. As watcher, I would have known instantly if anyone tried to gain access. The spells would have led me straight to the cave.”

“Then why didn’t you come as soon as we started digging?” I frown.

Dervish’s left eye tics. “The spells didn’t work.”

“But you said—”

“Something went wrong,” he snaps. “That’s why I was so worried. I thought a powerful mage must be at work, one with the ability to override the protective spells. When you told me Loch was dead, worry turned to outright panic. Before the tunnel can be reopened, a sacrifice must be made. If Loch had been murdered, the magical potential of the cave would have been reactivated, allowing the Demonata to start building a new tunnel.”

“That’s why you wanted to know if there was anybody else in the cave,” I note.

Dervish nods and licks his lips. “I’m still concerned. Those spells were cast by a magician—they should have worked. You didn’t see Loch slip, did you?”

“No.”

“So you can’t be certain there wasn’t somebody else present, that he wasn’t deliberately killed.”

“Bill-E was with him. He would have seen if there’d been anyone else up there.”

“Maybe,” Dervish says dubiously. “But if there was somebody, and they were powerful enough to mute the warning spells when the cave was reopened, they might have been invisible, or used magic to wipe their presence from Billy’s memory.”

I smile weakly. “You’re seeing phantoms where there aren’t any. We only broke through to the cave today—yesterday, I mean. We went down by ourselves as soon as we discovered the entrance. There can’t have been anybody else.”

“You’re right,” Dervish sighs. “I’m jumping at shadows. But I’m so wired! Back when the tunnel was open, only lesser demons were able to cross. But the core of the tunnel was widening all the time. It had almost got to the point where the masters could cross. The shell of that core remains intact. If the Demonata ever restored it,