Wolf Island (book)

Wolf Island is the eight book in The Demonata series. It comes 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.

Amazon Summary
The Amazon summary of the book is given as:

"Grubbs Grady treads new ground in this, the eighth dramatic title in the Demonata. But beware - Trespassers will be eaten! "We spot the werewolves as we skim the treetops. Mutated, vicious, hairy monstrosities, all fangs, claws and muscles. The beast within me tries to force its way to the surface, howling silently at its warped brethren. I've never rid myself of the wolf!" As the mysterious Shadow builds an army of demons, Grubbs and his team search desperately for answers. But when they follow up a new lead, it leads them to an old, unexpected foe - the Lambs. The curse of the Gradys has returned with a vengeance. Werewolves are on the loose. And they're hungry!"

Plot
This book starts when Grubbs is in the demon universe fighting a demon alongside Beranabus and Kernel. After subduing and torturing the demon they are fighting, Beranabus learns nothing new about The Shadow. A few demons later, Beranabus, Kernel, and Grubbs are chasing demonic sheep; hoping that they might have overheard something from a member of The Shadow's army. While they are chasing the demons a window appears and Shark and Meera appear. Shark and Meera Flame explain that Dervish had a heart attack and is in poor shape. Kernel quickly opens a window to Earth and they step through to find Bec battling two demons. After Beranabus scares off the demons, Grubbs goes to find Dervish fighting a beetle demon; they defeat it and rejoin Beranabus and the others.

After mopping up the demons, the Disciples head to the roof of the hospital. Bec then fills Beranabus, Grubbs and Kernel in on what happened. Having discovered that the Lambs created the ambush in Death's Shadow on the Grady's home in Carcery Vale it is decided that Meera, Shark and Grubbs go after the Lambs to find out some answers whilst the others tackle the mysterious shadow.

Meera, Grubbs, and Shark check into a nearby hotel for the night. Shark assembles a team of soldiers whom he names the Dirty Dozen. One of the Dozen is Timas Brauss, a computers expert, he finds the location of the Lambs HQ and the group set off in a helicopter. Upon their arrival they find that a man named Antoine Horwitzer is running the organization in the place of the missing Prae Athim. Antoine gives them a tour of the underground labs where they breed werewolves in order to increase their "stock". Antoine explains that Prae formed a team of people to capture and steal around six to seven hundred werewolves and that she wiped the computer mainframe of files. Using his incredible computer skills Timas recovers data and learns that Prae took all the werewolves she had captured to a remote island. Antoine then says that he had bred a superior race of werewolves. It is decided that they will travel to "Wolf Island" and Antoine accompanies them.

After arriving at the island they spot a compound and force their way through the compound, the Dirty Dozen and Antoine arrive at the office that Timas says is Prae's. Upon entering, they find that Prae is bound and gagged to a chair. Antoine then finishes his spell to open a window that he'd been masking as a prayer. Juni Swan emerges from the window and guards file into the room. The guards open fire but Grubbs shields himself, the Dirty Dozen and Prae within a magicial bubble, however Juni uses her magic to close her the window and, with a dwindling supply of magic, Grubbs can only hold the barrier up for a short while longer.

Antoine reveals that he made a deal with Lord Loss, if he could get Grubbs to him, he would be awarded the cure to lycanthropy. Shark decides that they have heard enough and orders one of the Dozen - Pip LeMatt - to blow open an exit point for them to flee through. Juni orders her soldiers to follow and they take chase. On the outside, the soldiers catch up with them and a battle commences leaving some of the Dirty Dozen dead. The soldiers retreat leaving the surviving members of the Dirty Dozen confused. Then the walls of the compound slide open to release hordes of werewolves.

The team try to escape the werewolves and in the process some of tem are lost, their attack also leads t the destuction of their helicopter. Some of the werewolves' attention is captured by the bodies of Juni's wounded and dead men, this distraction allows the remaining of the Dirty Dozen to formulate a plan, where they force their way to a cave and blow up the entrance so they are safe inside while Grubb's builds a window to the Demonata universe. After fleeing through the forests of Wolf Island, they come across a cave and Timas detonates grenades so the entrance falls in on them. After doing a head-count (Shark, Grubbs, Meera, Prae, and Stephen are left alive) Grubbs begins to work on a window.

As Grubbs is trying to open the window, the voice of the Kah-Gash speaks internally to Grubbs. It tells him that the werewolves will break in before the window is opened. Grubbs informs the remaining survivors of this and decides that they will flee to the cliffs and leap over the edge to try to swim to safety, safe from the werewolves as they can't swim. Timas sets more explosives at an alternate entrance to the cave and they wait in silence. When the werewolves start to burrow into the cave, Timas sets off the bombs, killing a few werewolves, and making the entrance they made larger. As they exit the cave the last of Shark's soldiers is killed and Shark himself is set upon by two werewolves, he shouts at Prae, Grubbs, Meera and Timas to run to the cliffs and leave him to fight.

When the group come up to a hill, Timas states that they aren't moving fast enough and that the werewolves are attracted by their noise and will catch them before they make it. Timas and Prae decide that they will make a stand at the top of the hill and hold the werewolves off for as long as they can so that Grubbs and Meera can escape. The more advanced werewolves see through the plan and dash past Timas and Prae, forming a barrier between them all and the cliff's edge. Prae marvels at how advanced they have become and that they have become a true pack. As the circle of werewolves closes in on them, the Kah-Gash instructs Grubbs to unleash his wolven side, Grubbs does so and turns into a large werewolf. Grubbs issues a challenge to the dominant pack leader and after a quick battle he defeats him. Some of the other dominant members try to kill Grubbs to become the pack leader but Grubbs deals with them easily.

After taking control of the pack Grubbs considers killing and eating Meera, Timas and Prae, but the Kah-Gash stops him just in time and informs him that there are others to be dealt with. Grubbs then uses magic to transform his face and vocal chords back to his original form and tells Meera, Timas and Prae that they are going to the compound and asks if Timas can get them in. Timas replies positively; so Grubbs leads the werewolves back to the compound to kill Juni and the rest of her soldiers.

At the compound the soldiers fire savagely into the horde of werewolves, but are quickly overwhelmed. Grubbs and his werewolves break into the compound and begin to lay waste to the soldiers. After losing his blood lust, Grubbs re-groups with the others, they are all disturbed by what happened - Grubbs only laughs in response. They set off back to the office where they found Prae bound in expectance of finding Juni. Grubbs feels a tingle of magic and realizes that a window has been opened. Thinking he will lose the chance to kill Juni, Grubbs darts ahead of the others into the office and is ambushed by Juni who then establishes a barrier in the doorway so Meera and the others can't get in. Juni and Grubbs fight and they come close to killing each other. Eventually Juni gets the upper hand, she disables Grubbs and tries to kill him by sucking his life out of him via a kiss, before she finishes him off she breaks away and says she had a vision of the future where Grubbs was destroying the human universe. She escapes thrugh the window.

Meera and the others get in and Grubbs heals himself. Meera says she doesn't understand why Juni didn't kill Grubbs as the sounds from inside were muted and so Grubbs lies about what Juni said as he thought they'd kill him if they knew what she'd said. After Grubbs heals himself he hears a rustling sound coming from a hidden crawlspace, he orders one of the werewolves to bash open the crawlspace and they escape into a room that stores boats where Antoine is struggling to get a boat to the water. To prevent Grubbs from killing him, Antoine reveals that his uncle and Bec are still alive and that an attack squad was sent to kill them after surviving the zombie incident on the cruiser. Grubbs says that he will spare Antoine if he can get Dervish safely home. Antoine and Timas get some radio equipment from the boats and contact the hit squad telling them to safeguard Dervish, Bec and a third unknown man who turns out to be Kirilli Kovacs (another Disciple). After Antoine confirms that Dervish is safe, Grubbs orders one of his personal werewolf guards to kill Antoine.

Grubbs handpicks a group of them to come with him and to fight the Demonata. Before Grubbs, Meera, Timas and his group of werewolves set to leave, Grubbs spots Shark sitting in one of the few undamaged boats - although seriously hurt, Shark survived his werewolf attack. They all travel back to land, except Prae who decides to stay and look after the werewolves.

When they return to land, Meera is informed that there are three different Demonata attacks expected in the next 48 hours, one of them near Dervish, and that she will need to go fight at one of them and so she leaves on a plane. Work done, Timas also takes his leave. Grubbs, the werewolves and an injured Shark head off to where Dervish is and meet him, Bec and Kirilli in a makeshift hospital tent, Shark is quickly rushed off to be treated.

It transpires that Dervish is slowly dying from heart problems. Although unlikely to survive the battle Dervish insists on joining Grubbs in the oncoming nearby battle against the Demonata, he wants to die heroicly in battle like Sharmilla and Beranabus instead of in a hospital bed. Although Grubbs does not like the news; he accepts it.

Grubbs and Dervish exchange stories about what happened to them when suddenly Grubbs feels the power of magic in the air and they prepare to battle. Kirrili, who was entertaining some nurses with his "heroics", reluctantly accompanies them. As Grubbs spots the first of the demons he sets his werewolf pack loose, along with 50 soldiers, Bec, Dervish and Kirilli.

The book ends with Grubbs saying that if the world will end and he is to cause it, he will end the world with the screams of demons and a savage wolven howl.

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.