Lord Loss (The Demonata 1)

“Bartholomew Garadex was an exception,” Dervish says.

Bill-E treats the study as though it's his own. Pulls books out and only half-pushes them back. Shoves Dervish out of the way to go surfing on the Web. Opens a drawer in the desk to show me the skull of a genuine witch, “burned at the stake for casting lascivious spells on the virile young men of the community,” he informs me, waving it around in front of his face, poking his fingers into its empty sockets. Dervish lets Bill-E do as he pleases. Sits back and smiles patiently.

“He's not normally this wound up,” Dervish remarks when Bill-E goes to the toilet. “Your arrival upset him. He's used to having the run of the house. I think he's worried that things are going to change now that you've moved in.”

“Why does he come here?” I ask.

“His mother and I were friends,” Dervish says. “She died in a boating accident, leaving Billy in the care of his grandparents.” He pulls a face. “All I'll say about that pair is they're aptly named — Spleen! A more cantankerous old couple you couldn't imagine. I felt sorry for Billy, so I started visiting and taking him out on my bike. Ma and Pa Spleen weren't too keen — they still do everything they can to stop his coming over here — but persistence is something I'm good at.

I tend to get my own way when I really want to. The odd persuasion spell or two helps.” He winks. I can't tell if he's serious or joking.

Bill-E returns, shaking water from his hands. “No towels, Derv,” he grumbles.

Dervish raises an eyebrow at me. “Fresh towels are your department, aren't they, Master Grubbs?”

“Sorry.” I grimace. “I forgot.”

“If I was you, Mr. Grady, sir, I'd sack 'im,” Bill-E says with relish, then laughs and asks Dervish to teach him a new spell.

“Will I make the two of you disappear?” Dervish asks innocently.

“Yeah!” Bill-E gasps, face lighting up — then curses as Dervish shoos us out of the room and slams the door shut behind us.

The hall of portraits. Bill-E knows the faces and names off by heart. Giving me a lecture, filling me in on my family background. I listen with pretend politeness, only paying attention to the occasional juicy snippet.

“Urszula Garadex — pirate,” Bill-E intones, tapping the frame of a large canvas portrait. The woman in the picture only has one eye, and three of her fingers are missing, two on her left hand, one on her right. “A cutthroat. Utterly merciless.

“Augustine Grady. Servant to some prince or other. Cause of death — he got kicked in the head by a horse.

“Justin Plunkton — a banker. Nothing interesting about him.”

And so on.

After a while I ask Bill-E about the teenagers and if he knows how they died.

“Dervish doesn't say much about them,” he replies. “I think it's some ancient family curse. You'll probably go toes-up any day now.”

“I'll try hard to take you with me,” I retort.

We come to Dad and Gret. Bill-E pauses curiously. “These are new. I don't know who —”

“My dad and sister,” I inform him quietly.

He winces. “I should have guessed. Sorry.” He looks at me questioningly, licks his lips, stares back at the photos.

“An unasked question is the most futile thing in the world,” I prod him.

“That's one of Dervish's sayings,” he notes. Licks his lips again. “Do you want to tell me how they died, or is it a secret? I asked Dervish, but he won't say, and Grandma and Grandad don't know — nobody in the village does.”

My stomach tightens. Flashes of a crocodile-headed dog, a hell-child, their eerie master. “They were murdered.”

Bill-E's eyes widen. His lazy left eyelid snaps up as though on elastic bands. “No bull?” he gasps.

My expression's dark. “No bull.”

“Do you know who did it?”

“I was there.”