Slawter Read Online Free PDF Page B

way to exhaustion and embarrassment. I release him, nodding slowly and repeatedly to show that everything’s OK, no damage done.
    Dervish looks around at the photos on the floor. Most are ripped, a couple beyond repair. No glass in the frames. We removed all the glass a few months ago, in case something like this happened. Didn’t want him hurting himself — or me.
    “I thought they’d come back to life,” Dervish says. “They blamed me. Claimed I was the cause of the curse. They wanted revenge.”
    “It was just a dream.”
    “I know. But still . . .” He shivers. “I could have done without Prae Athim and the Lambs. I didn’t need them now. Not in this state. Why do bad things always come at the worst time?”
    “Forget about her,” I tell him. “She’s gone. You ran her off.”
    “Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe . . .” He coughs, then stands. “No. That’s the nightmare talking. The Lambs can’t help. They mean well, but in matters like this they’re helpless.”
    “Unlike the Disciples?” I ask, broaching the mysterious subject for the first time, not sure if it’s the right moment, but curiosity getting the better of me.
    Dervish shakes his head. “I’ll tell you about them later. Not now. OK?”
    I sniff like it doesn’t matter.
    Dervish grows thoughtful. “Billy doesn’t know about the change, Lord Loss, what we did for him. It’s better this way. No point throwing his world into chaos. The Lambs are part of the human world. They’ve no direct experience of the Demonata or magic. They couldn’t learn anything from Billy.”
    “Then don’t worry about it,” I mutter. “Go back to bed, get a good night’s sleep, kick the nightmares out the window.”
    Dervish laughs. “If only it was that easy.” He checks his watch. Yawns. “But I’ll try to snooze, to keep nurse Grub-bitsch happy.” He glances at me. “If I drop off, I might go walking around again. You should lock me in.”
    “Nah,” I smile. “You’d wreck the room. Don’t worry about it. I’ll sleep with one ear open. I’ll see you don’t come to harm.”
    Dervish reaches over, squeezes my hand, then shuffles off for the stairs and bed. I watch until he turns the corner. Stay for a while, thinking about Bill-E, the Lambs, demons, the mysterious Disciples. Then I start clearing up the photos and hanging the less tattered snapshots back on their pegs, knowing I won’t be able to sleep.
    Tired. Finding it hard to stay awake. My friends want to know if there are any David A. Haym updates, but I only grunt at their questions. Studying Bill-E during lunch. Thinking about him in the hands of the Lambs, strapped to a table, hooked up to banks of electrodes. Can’t let that happen. I faced Lord Loss for my brother. If Prae Athim tries anything with Bill-E, she won’t just have to worry about Dervish and the Disciples — she’ll have to deal with me. Yeah, I know, she’s hardly trembling with terror at the thought of having to go up against a teenager. But I’m big. And I can be nasty. If I have to.
    A limousine’s parked in the driveway when I get home. A chauffeur sits behind the wheel, dozing. No prizes for guessing who the limo belongs to. I hear her as soon as I push open the front doors. She’s in the TV room. A loud voice, high-pitched, very theatrical. She’s talking about one of her earlier movies — it might be
Zombie Zest
— telling Dervish about the problems she faced trying to get the look of the monsters right. “. . . but
every
body’s using CGI these days! I don’t like it. The audience can tell. They’re not afraid. It’s psychological. You see a guy in a monster costume, or a cleverly designed puppet, and even though you
know
it’s not real, you can trick yourself into believing it is. But if you see something that’s the work of a computer, your brain can’t accept it. It doesn’t scare you. I think...”
    I walk into the room and cough softly. Davida Haym looks up from where she’s