Darren Shan

Slawter

PART ONE — VISITORS

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

“My eyes! They stabbed out my eyes!”

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. “It’s 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 head—hard. 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, doesn’t 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. “It’s me, Grubbs! Wake up! It’s only a nightmare! You have to stop before you—”

“The master,” Dervish cuts in, fear filling his face again. He’s staring at the ceiling—rather, that’s where his eyes are fixed. “Lord Loss.” He starts to cry. “Don’t… 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 perv—where’s your nerve?” Knowing from past nights that rhymes draw his attention. “Derv on the floor—where’s the door? Derv without eyes— what’s the surprise?”

He blinks. His head lowers a fraction. Sight returns gradually. His pupils were black holes. Now they look quasi-normal.

“It’s OK,” I tell him, moving closer, wary in case the nightmare suddenly fires up again. “You’re home. With me. Lord Loss can’t get you here. Your eyes are fine. It was just a nightmare.”

“Grubbs?” Dervish wheezes.

“Yes, boss.”

“That’s really you? You’re not an illusion? He hasn’t created an image of you, to torment me?”

“Don’t 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 couldn’t 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 it’s OK, he’s home, he’s safe—he’s 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. There’s always something new around the corner. You can overcome major obstacles, face great danger, look evil in the eye and live to tell the tale—but that’s 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 end—death. As long as you’re breathing, your story’s still going.

If the rules of fairy-tales did work, my story would have ended on a high four months ago. That’s 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 effort—it was too close to the bone, and would have only led to trouble if I’d handed it in. I wrote an edited, watered-down version and submitted that instead. (I got a B minus.) But I kept the original. It’s hidden under a pile of clothes in my wardrobe. I dig it out now to read, to pass some time. I’ve read through it a lot these past few weeks, usually early in the morning, after an interrupted night, when I can’t 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.

There’s a genetic flaw in my family. Lots of my ancestors have turned into werewolves. It hits in your teens, if you’re 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 cage—unless your relatives kill you. There’s 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 Demonata—that’s the proper term—is called Lord Loss. A real charmer. No nose or heart—a 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. He’s 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.

Lord Loss is a powerful demon master. Most masters can’t cross from their universe to ours, but he’s an exception. He has the power to cure Lycanthropy. He can lift the curse from infected Grady teenagers, rid them of their werewolf genes, return them to humanity.

Except, y’know, he’s a demon, so why the hell should he?

“What are you reading?”

It’s Dervish, standing in the doorway of my room, mug of coffee in one hand, eyes still wide and freaky from his nightmare.

“My autobiography,” I tell him.

He frowns. “What?”

“I’m going to publish my memoirs. I’m thinking of Life with Demons as a title. Or maybe Hairy Boys and Girls of the Grady Clan. What do you think?”

Dervish stares at me uneasily. “You’re weird,” he mutters, then trudges away.

“Wonder where I get that from?” I retort, then shake my head and return to the autobiography.

Luckily for us, Lord Loss is a chess addict. Chess is the one thing he enjoys almost as much as a weeping human. But he doesn’t get to play very often. None of his demonic buddies know the rules, and humans aren’t inclined to test their skills against him.

One of my more cunning ancestors was Bartholomew Garadex, a magician. (Not a guy who pulls rabbits out of a hat—a full-on, Merlin- and Gandalf-class master of magic.) He figured out a way to cash in on Lord Loss’ love of chess. He challenged the demon master to a series of games.

For every match Bartholomew won, Lord Loss would cure a member of the family. If old Bart lost, Lord Loss would get to torture and kill him.

Bartholomew won all their matches, but future members of the family—those with a flair for magic who made contact with Lord Loss—weren’t so fortunate. Some triumphed, but most lost. The rules altered over the years. Now, if a parent wants to challenge Lord Loss, they need a partner. The pair face not only the master, but two of his familiars as well. One plays chess with the big guy, while the other battles his servants. If either loses, both are slaughtered, along with the affected teen. If they win, one travels to Lord Loss’ realm and fights him there. The other returns home with the cured kid.