“Did you gain access this way or through the wine cellar?” he asks while I'm pulling the doors open.
“The wine cellar,” I pant — the doors are heavy.
“Clever monkey,” he chuckles. “You'll have to tell me about it — some other time. We have more pressing matters to deal with first.” He picks Bill-E up and nods me forward.
Down the steps. Steep. Dark. Have to tread carefully, feeling for each stair.
“Do you need any help with Bill-E?” I ask over my shoulder.
“No,” Dervish replies, coming down, blocking out the light of the moon. “I'll be fine. Dart ahead and light some extra candles.”
I proceed to the bottom of the stairs, where I find a door. Pushing it open, I enter the cellar. Studying the entrance I've just come through, I note that the material on this side of the door is disguised to look like part of the wall, which is why I didn't spot it during my previous visit.
As I'm lighting candles on the main table — keeping as
far clear of the Lord Loss folder as I can — Dervish stumbles in, goes to the cage, opens it with his left foot, and sets Bill-E down beside the deer. He makes sure Bill-E's comfortable, then locks the door and removes the key.
“Don't go anywhere near the cage when he wakes,” Dervish says. “He'll howl like the devil, throw himself wildly at the bars — possibly injuring himself in the process — but steer clear, regardless. All he needs is a sliver of a chance to rip you open.”
“I'll bear that in mind,” I comment drily.
Dervish goes back up the steps and returns a minute later with Meera. He lays her down, smooths her hair back, stares at her bruised, motionless features.
“How is she?” I ask, dreading the answer.
“OK, I think,” Dervish says, and my fear lessens. “But she'll be out for a while. He cracked her head hard on the pavement. We should get her to a doctor, have her checked over — but there isn't time. I'll take her to the house, out of harm's way, before … before we see to Billy. We'll just have to hope for the best after that.”
Dervish stands, walks around behind the desk, and collapses into his chair, sighing deeply. He tells me to pull up one of the other chairs, but I prefer to stand — too nervous to sit.
“I want to know about werewolves,” I tell him bluntly. “I want to know what Lord Loss has to do with them, and how you know Gret had it, and how we reverse it in Bill-E.”
Dervish nods. “Reasonable questions. But I'm surprised you haven't asked the most obvious one — since this is a family disease, passed on from one generation to the next, how come Billy has it?”
“I know all about Bill-E's connection to our family,” I huff.
Dervish stares at me, slack-jawed. “Care to tell me how?”
“Bill-E figured it out years ago. Like he said, it didn't take a genius to guess that you were his father. Now tell me about —”
“What?” Dervish yelps, jerking forward. “He thinks I'm his dad?”
“Of course.” I frown. “Aren't you?”
Dervish sits back. Groans and shuts his eyes. “I'm a horse's ass,” he snarls. “I should have seen that coming. How can I have gone all these years …”
He clears his throat and levels his gaze on me. “Pull up a chair,” he commands. “It sounds like a bad movie cliche, but you're going to want to sit down for this.”
I start to come back with a sarcastic reply. Spot the steel in his eyes. Drag over a chair and sit opposite Dervish, like a student before a teacher.
“There's probably some diplomatic, sensitive, compassionate way to put this,” Dervish says, “but one doesn't spring readily to mind, and I don't have time to go searching. So I'll put it plainly, no matter how upsetting it might be.
“I'm not Billy's father — I'm his uncle.”
I stare at Dervish uncertainly. “I don't understand.”
“People aren't perfect, Grubbs,” he mutters. “Even the best of us make mistakes. Life's complicated. We all …” He clears his throat. “Your mother never liked me, and made no secret of the fact.”
“What's that got to do with —” I start, but he silences me with a gesture.