Wolf Island | |
---|---|
Author | Darren Shan |
Series | The Demonata |
Publisher | HarperCollins |
Previous Book | "Death's Shadow" |
Succeeding Book | "Dark Calling" |
Wolf Island is the eight book in The Demonata series. It came out in Ireland and England in October 2008.
It's title was revealed by Darren Shan on his blog on April 24th, 2008. According to him, "it does exactly what it says on the tin". Grubbs Grady is the narrator of this novel.
Plot[]
Grubbs is in the demon universe with Beranabus and Kernel and they are fighting a giant earwig demon, who they question about the shadow.They have been doing this for a long while, they rest on an asteroid sized demon before moving on to the next universe, where they chase sheep demons but are interrupted by the arrival of Shark and Meera. They learn what has happened and they arrive back in the real world just in time to rescue Dervish and Bec from demons, inside the maternity ward of a hospital. After everyone is settled at the hospital, Grubbs, Meera, and Shark decide to go and find out why the werewolves attacked, while Kernel, Bec, Dervish, Sharmilla and Beranabus return to the demon world to find the Shadow.
The three of them check in to a nearby hotel and both start making calls to disciples and acquaintances that can help them track down Prae Athim. None of the disciples are coming and Meera’s contacts are bunk. Shark however comes through and assemble a dirty dozen, including himself, Meera and Grubbs. Joining him are computer expert Timas Brauss who immediately starts working on trying to find Prae and the Lambs. Pip LeMat a female explosive expert, James Farrier a military helicopter pilot and two more soldiers Leo DeSalle and Spenser Holm. And four other soldiers who are only introduced by their first names, they are Marian, Stephen, Liam and Terry. Timas find the headquarters of the Lambs, they head there in a helicopter that has exactly twelve seats. The land on the roof and plan to take out the guards and storm the place. Meera however tells them to try the diplomatic approach first. They reluctantly agree. They surrender to the guards and tell them they have a meeting with Prae. Eventually a man Antoine Hortwitzer allows them access to the building and tells them Prae isn’t there. He then takes them to a sub level laboratory where he explains how they have been using werewolves as guinea pigs and worse they have been forcing them to mate and breeding them to better study them. Worse Prae has taken all of the werewolves from all their research labs around the world simultaneously, killing seventeen people at the headquarters and taking the six or seven hundred werewolves they had created. Timas is then given access to their system and he traces down where Prae has taken them. A special island base called Werewolf Island, whose compensation can be changed, due to sliding walls and rooms. They prepare to go there and Antoine Hortwitzer tells them he is coming to.
They make it to the island and start fighting the guards there and the bloodshed of fighting fellow humans upsets Grubbs. The push their way through the building after the initial killing the overpower all other until a barrier of furniture forces them to use a special explosive that kills some more guards. They make it to Prae office and found her bound and gagged to a chair and Antoine opens a window to the Demonata Universe from which Juni Swan comes who tells Grubbs she just left Bec, Dervish and the others to die at the hands of the Shadow. Pip then sets of an explosion, they free Prae and they escape, but Juni isn’t worried saying she has more men and few surprises waiting for them. They make it to the landing pad but as the helicopter is fired up, Juni’s troops come at them guns blazing and Pip is short in the initial onslaught. Terry is next to die and Prae takes his gun. A claxon blares and Juni’s troops retreat as the werewolves come in. They try to make it to the helicopter but the werewolves get their first and kill James Farrier as it crashes and Marian comes out of the wreckage, they kill her too. Timas takes Pip’s rucksack with him as they head for the other helicopter, but they find its electronics behind the control panel have been gutted. They wonder what to do and then small werewolves attack and kill Leo. Grubbs tells them he might be able to open a window to the Demonate Universe if they make to the cave. The nine of them take a crab formation, as Timas is about to tell them about their plan one of the largest werewolves jumps and drags Spenser away to be killed. They make it to a wall and as they are surrounded Timas uses Pip’s explosions to devastate the oncoming werewolves. And he reveals this is his first time using explosives. They race away from the carnage towards the nearest cave. Timas spots the nearest cave but before they can get there Shark fight a werewolf and gets wounded, the cave he found is only big enough for one to enter at a time and after Grubbs throws Meera into the cave the werewolves have caught up, Stephen allows Grubbs to go first, Liam is the final one, about to enter the cave but he is grabbed and dragged off by the werewolves. Timas then blocks the entrance with an explosive. Inside the cave, Grubbs learns from the Kah-Gash it will take him several hours to open a window and he has one at most. He listen to Prae explanation of how she was ousted from power and tells the others he doesn’t have enough time, before they can really argue, a vibrating howl stops them. The werewolves are digging into the blocked cave, they all wait in the darkness for them to get near while Grubbs is actively suppressing the wolf within. They wolves come and the fighting starts, Stephen is picked off first, then Shark tells the others to go and leaving Shark behind to die they all make it outside of the cave. While running to the shore to jump into the water Timas and Prae decide to make a final stand together so that Meera and Grubbs can escape, but it is to late they are surrounded by werewolves. They however don’t attack for their pack leader has told them to halt. The four of them are about to face them when the Kah-Gash tells Grubbs speaks and tells him he must use the wolf inside of him, to survive this ordeal. He turns partially into a werewolf and Meera stops Timas from firing on him while Prae just gasps. Werewolfed Grubb then starts fighting the pack leader, he kills it and two more challengers then fights the female werewolf and lets her life, he then issues a challenge to the entire pack and none stir making him the new pack leader.
Grubbs is torn between killing his allies or not in his new form, but the Kah-Gash tells him to send the wolves towards another target. He does this as he takes the pack to the compound while protecting Meera, Prae and Timas. At the compound Timas is trying to break in but others inside the building are trying to stop him. Grubbs hears them getting ready for a fight he also smells that Juni is still inside and he can’t wait to get at her. Timas then opens the doorway to a hail of gunfire. The werewolves pile in and disregard their many death as they fight the soldiers, Grubbs lose himself several time but once the slaughtering is done he regains himself and orders the advanced werewolves to his side after talking to Meera. He then goes off with them to find Juni, then a window gets opened and as he comes to it, Juni attacks him from behind the door and has erected a barrier on it to keep all the others out. They fight with the Kah-Gash making Grubbs aware to use magic against her as well. Juni offers him to join her, saying she knows he enjoyed killing the humans and he could become a wolf god. He refuses and Juni quickly beats and fully overpowers him, then as she is about to kiss the life out of him, she recoils. She has gotten a vision, a vision of him destroying the world and then all of the universe, a vision that is about to happen in the very near future. Gleefully she bids Grubbs goodbye as she leaves through the window. The others come in after the barrier goes down, Meera encourages Grubbs to heal himself and he lies to them telling that Juni saved him for Lord Loss. He hears somebody scurrying away to a secret tunnel, one of his werewolf finds it and they come to face with Antoine Horwitzer, he pleads for his life but after that doesn’t work, he uses his information about Dervish situation to stay alive. He tells them that they also trapped Dervish and the others to capture Bec, but that it failed, they managed to kill Beranabus, but Dervish and Bec escaped. He has send three different teams after them and the first will reach them in sixteen minutes, he tries to get them to go his office, but Timas tells him that the can communicate with the outside world from the harbour they are in. They do so and turn the assisination squad into a rescue squad, they hear later that Bec, Dervish and Kirilli have been rescued. Antoine smugly tells him that they will only release them to him, Grubbs doesn’t care and allows his wolfs to kill him. They leave and discuss what to do, Prae vows to take back control of the Lambs and stop breeding werewolves and to take care of the ones that are here. Grubbs agrees and orders his pack to leave the compound. He gathers 37 werewolves as his personal guard. They go back to the harbour where they find a very wounded but still alive Shark lying in one of the boats.
They set off towards the nearest shore where an ambulance is waiting for Shark and trucks for the werewolves. Timas leaves them to stay with Shark. Meera also decides to leave so she can help where she can and she kisses, Grubbs, part human, part werewolf and par Kah-Gash goodbye. He heads to the meeting point and gives Antoine soldiers the chance to surrender which they do. He then visits Dervish, Bec and Kirilli. Dervish tells Grubbs he is ready to die, as he learns Juni will be coming for them soo, he wants to die in a way he is sure he won’t be tortured for centuries by the Demonata. They then discuss the true identity of the shadow and he wonders how they can fight death. Bec has lost hope but he helps her regain it, saying Kernel isn’t death and might have turned into a panel of light himself. He starts telling them about all that happened but he stops as he feels a window has opened. They gather their forces for the fight, soldiers and werewolves and the rest. Grubbs then eagerly leads his werewolves into battle towards the oncoming demons and fleeing humans.
The Dirty Dozen[]
The members of the Dirty Dozen were:
- Shark - Leader of the group.
- Meera Flame - A friend of Grubbs.
- Grubbs Grady - The story's protagonist.
- Timas Brauss - A computer expert.
- Pip LeMat - The group's explosives expert.
- James Farrier - A helicopter pilot who dubs his transport of choice the "Farrier Harrier"
- Leo DeSalle - A soldier.
- Spenser Holm - A soldier.
- Terry - A soldier.
- Liam - A soldier.
- Stephen - A soldier.
- Marian - A soldier.
Trivia[]
- Darren has stated on his site that the character Antoine Horwitzer is based off the author of the also very popular Alex Rider books, Anthony Horowitz, who is also a friend of his.
- Grubbs is confirmed to be a werewolf in the book.
External Links[]
<< The Saga of Darren Shan | The Demonata (Narrator in Parentheses) | |||||||
#01 | "Lord Loss" | (Grubbs) | #05 | "Blood Beast" | (Grubbs) | #09 | "Dark Calling" | (Kernel) |
#02 | "Demon Thief" | (Kernel) | #06 | "Demon Apocalypse" | (Grubbs) | #10 | "Hell's Heroes" | (Grubbs) |
#03 | "Slawter" | (Grubbs) | #07 | "Death's Shadow" | (Bec) | #Bonus | "Shanta Clause" | (Shanta) |
#04 | "Bec" | (Bec) | #08 | "Wolf Island" | (Grubbs) | |||