Bec (td-4) by Darren Shan

Author:Darren Shan [Shan, Darren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sf_horror

THE SOURCE

I spend a few tortured hours thinking about my parents, Aednat and Struan, and the tragedy which separated them and brought me into the world. Torin called me a cursed child and he was right. I’m doubly cursed. The curse of my clan and the curse of being a killer’s daughter. Surely, of all the current MacGrigor crop, I must be the most likely to turn into a monster.

I worry about it for hours, imagining what it would be like to lose control of my mind, feel my body change, become a beast like the one I saw earlier. I thought death was the worst thing I had to fear but now I know better. With worries like these, I doubt I’ll ever be able to sleep again. But eventually tiredness overcomes even my gravest fears and I drift off into a fitful sleep, one filled with dreams of wolf-girls and dead children.

I awake late in the morning. The others are already up but most have only risen within the last hour so I don’t feel too guilty for sleeping in.

I expect them to treat me differently now they know the truth of my background and the threat of what I might become. But it quickly becomes clear that they think of me no differently than they did yesterday. I suppose there’s too much else to worry about. After all, what’s one potential half-demon when judged against the hordes of genuine, fully-formed Demonata we might yet have to face?

Ronan and Lorcan have caught another hare, which Fiachna roasts on a spit. Along with the leftovers from the night before it provides us with a filling meal to start the day. Again we offer to share it with the MacGrigor, but again they refuse. They have too much pride to eat from another’s fire.

When we’re finished, they point us in the easiest direction to the coast, then wave us off. Aideen looks like she wants to wish me well but she dare not speak kindly to me in front of the glowering Torin. I wish I could stay here and work on Torin, earn his respect and love. But even if he wasn’t so hostile to me, I’m part of a quest, and although it’s shrouded in secrecy and I’m deeply suspicious of Drust’s reasons for helping us, it would be wrong to quit now. Perhaps, if I survive, I can return and seek a place here in my true home—even if it’s only so that they can chain me up with others of my kind if my body starts to change.

One of the wretched wolf-humans is howling madly as we leave, as if it senses a kindred spirit and is singing to the beast I might one day become.

I think about the MacGrigor—my family—as we set off, wondering what will happen if we fail and the Demonata overrun the land. Will these poor excuses for humans be all that remain of our people? Will they alone be spared, kept

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