living in hotels since then. Says she has bits and bobs in storage, which she can fetch later, but there’s no urgency.
Dervish is like a child at Christmas. When Juni left to check out of her hotel this morning, he spent the time polishing and cleaning, making sure everything would be shiny and perfect when she returned. He’s been dancing around the house like a pantomime fairy, whistling, sometimes singing out loud.
Give me strength!
They’re in bed now. It’s nearly two in the morning. They’ve probably been asleep for hours, but I can’t nod off. Worrying about lycanthropy. Magic. Juni moving in and how that’s going to change things. Loch. Reni. The tramp. (I forgot to tell Dervish about him.)
I get up and dress. Pad downstairs and let myself out. Start walking, then jogging. Soon I’m running, breathing hard, breath turning to mist on the cool night air. I develop a stitch. Ignoring it, I run until it feels as if my stomach is on fire. Finally I stop and bend over, panting like a thirsty dog. When I can breathe normally I set off again, but only jogging this time, pacing myself.
It’s hard to jog at night. The forest is dark around me. Have to be careful where I put my feet. But I’m not afraid. The sounds and smells of the night don’t scare me. I’m safe here, on home turf.
I jog without direction, simply enjoying the exercise. Letting my feet guide me. Not keeping track of my route, confident I can find my way back.
Then I round a patch of briars and spot scatterings of rocks and earth—I’m at the entrance to the cave. I stop and squint suspiciously. Dervish hasn’t had time to fill in the hole. He stuck a crate down it and covered it with soil and small stones so nobody would fall down into the cave, but that’s as far as he got.
I approach the hole cautiously, wondering if I’ve been drawn here by some external force or if it’s just coincidence. I listen closely for whispers but I can’t hear anything. Can’t sense anything either—no magical warmth within, or feeling that I’m being summoned.
I stop at the edge of the hole and stare down into darkness, thinking about Loch. It seems so long ago that we were messing about here, dreaming of Lord Sheftree’s buried treasure. Everything was simple then. You don’t recognise the good times in life until it all goes bad and you look back and see how lucky you were, how easy you had things.
I wonder where Loch is now, if there’s an afterlife, what it’s like if there is. Is he sitting on a cloud, plucking at the strings of a harp? Wrestling with angels? Being waited upon by beautiful women? Does he know the answers to all the questions in the universe? Has he come back as somebody else or as an animal? Or is there nothing when you die? I know people have souls, but do they vanish into oblivion when the body shuts down? Is life the start and finish of all that we are? Is Loch—
“You’re out late.”
A voice behind me. I whirl and spot the tramp, half-hidden by shadows, watching me with a little smile that’s hard to distinguish behind the tangled bush of his beard.
“Who are you?” I shout. “Why are you following me?
The tramp steps forward and I get my first good look at him. Dark skin, but I think the colour’s more to do with dirt than flesh pigment. Black hair streaked with patches of grey and white. Small build. Cracked fingernails, but not caked with dirt as you’d expect—clean as a surgeon’s. Small eyes, blue or grey.
“You should be asleep,” the tramp says. A deep voice. Hard to place the accent.
“Who are you?” I growl again, looking for something to defend myself with.
The tramp walks past me to the edge of the hole. Stares down, the same way I was staring moments before. “A grave fit for a king,” he murmurs, then looks at me and smiles crookedly. “Have anyone in mind for it?”
“Who are you?” I ask for the third time but my voice is trembling now. This is no ordinary tramp. There’s something powerful and dangerous about him.
The tramp doesn’t answer my question. Instead he looks up at the sky—at the
I stay where I am for a minute, shivering. Then bolt for home, to wake Dervish—the hell with his beauty sleep—and tell him about the mysterious, ominous stranger.
Almost back at the mansion, ready to scream myself hoarse about the tramp, when I slow, frown and pause.
Maybe Dervish already knows.
The tramp knew who I was. I’m pretty sure he knew about the cave too and what happened there. And he definitely knew about the moon and what it’s doing to me—that was clear by his mocking tone. If he was a servant of Lord Loss, that would have been the perfect place to ambush me. I was alone. I didn’t know he was there until he spoke. He could have clubbed me over the head or injected me with a sleeping drug. But he didn’t. So I doubt he’s in league with the demon master. If that’s the case, he could only have known all those things if he’d been told. And Dervish is the only one who could have told him.
Flashback. Dervish’s study… him on the phone… checking afterwards… finding the black folder with the numbers and names.
Figuring—the tramp must be one of the Lambs. A scout, sent to keep an eye on me. Dervish promised to summon a magician to help, but instead he called in the Lambs, to be safe, in case I turn and he can’t handle me alone. The tramp has been shadowing me ever since, ready to move quickly if needs dictate.
I enter the house and creep up the stairs. I don’t wake Dervish or ask him about the tramp. Just undress and crawl into bed. Cold. Stiff. Terrified.
A SECRET SHARED
Everything’s a blur. School, chatting with my friends, playing happy families with Dervish and Juni. Life goes on as normal around me, and I take part, the way I always have. But I’m not fully there. Always thinking about the moon, the cave, the tramp, Dervish
I discuss some of it with Dervish but I’m reluctant to share everything. The more I think about it, the more positive I am—he called in the Lambs. I resent him for that. There’s no real reason to. It’s not like he’s washing his hands of me. I’m sure he’ll be extra careful, that he won’t let them act unless I’m beyond saving. But why summon them so soon? He didn’t with Bill-E. He kept them in the dark. Dealt with it himself while there was still hope. I was sure he’d act the same way with me.
Of course, I’m different. We can’t work the Lord Loss angle anymore. Dervish didn’t call the Lambs in last time because he planned to fight for Bill-E’s humanity. If he won, Lord Loss would have cured Bill-E. If he lost, they’d have both been slaughtered by the demon master. Either way, no need for the Lambs. I’m not that lucky. There’s no get-out clause in my case.
Also there’s the magic. Dervish can deal with a werewolf, but perhaps not one with magical powers. Maybe he’s scared, isn’t sure what I’ll be capable of when I turn, doesn’t feel he can handle me solo, wants the security of back-up. Perfectly logical if he does. I can’t blame him for that.
But even so, I feel betrayed and the feeling won’t go away. I should talk with him, tell him I know he called in the Lambs, discuss my disappointment, give him the chance to explain.
But I don’t. Afraid to bring the subject out into the open, like when I first became aware of the magic inside me and kept it secret. Ludicrously hoping that I’m wrong about the tramp, that things aren’t at such an advanced stage, that I can still be saved. Figuring if I don’t talk about it, maybe it will go away. Grubbs Grady—human ostrich!
A week to go.
Today, at lunch, when we’re alone, Reni asks if anything is wrong. I haven’t been paying her the kind of attention she expects. She wants to know if I’ve lost interest, if I’m seeing or thinking about somebody else. She
