Demon Apocalypse

THE SNATCH

A demon shaped like a giant scorpion digs its stinger into a woman’s eyes. As they pop, it spits eggs into the bloody sockets, then watches with its almost human face as the eggs hatch and wriggling maggots feast on her flesh.

Another demonic beast—it looks like a cute rabbit, though it has an ugly bulge on its back—vomits over a man and his two children. The acidic liquid sizzles and dissolves them down to the bone.

A third footman of the Demonata runs after an air hostess. He has the body of a young boy, but his head is larger than an adult’s, he has a wig of living lice instead of hair and fire burns in the holes where his eyes should be. He also has two extra mouths in the palms of his hands. The teeth of both are eagerly snapping open and shut as he chases the screaming air hostess.

All the people on the plane are screaming—except those who’ve already been killed—and it’s music to the ears of the demon master, Lord Loss. He hovers in the aisle, mouth twisted into a sad smile, red eyes distant. A few of his eight arms twitch in rhythm with the screams, like a conductor’s at an orchestra. Then his eyes snap back into focus and he turns his gaze on me.

“You should not have humiliated me, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss says, still furious about the time I beat him at chess. “You should have fought fairly, faithful to the spirit of the contest, and won or lost on merit alone. You ruined chess for me. For many centuries it was my only other source of joy. Now I have just the agony and torture of humans to keep me amused.”

He slowly drifts down the aisle towards me, the strands of flesh that pass for his legs floating a few centimetres above the floor. The tiny snakes in the hole where his heart should be are writhing, hissing hatefully, spitting venom in my direction. Blood is flowing from the many cracks in his pale red skin. The holes above his upper lip—he has no nose—quiver wildly as he gleefully inhales the stench of terror from the doomed passengers. His dark red eyes are dilated with morbid pleasure. All eight arms are extended. Some of his mangled hands brush the heads and cheeks of humans as he passes, as if he is obscenely blessing them. The white-haired, pink-eyed albino traitor, Juni Swan, is behind him, smiling serenely.

A woman clasping a baby falls to her knees in front of Lord Loss, sobbing painfully. “Please!” she cries. “Not my child. Have mercy on my baby. Don’t kill him. I beg you!”

“Suffer unto me the little children,” Lord Loss murmurs blasphemously, taking the baby with three of his hands. He strokes the boy’s face and the baby laughs. Lord Loss passes him to Juni. “For you, my darling swan.”

“You are generous to a fault, my lord,” she smiles, then kisses the infant.

“No!” I scream. But it’s too late. A moment later she tosses the grey remains of the baby aside, having sucked his fragile life from him. The child’s mother chokes, eyes wide with disbelief and horror. Lord Loss bends and breathes in her sorrow, sighs contentedly, then moves on, leaving her to the lesser demons.

Sick with fear, I back away from the approaching demon master. There are several empty rows behind me—the other passengers have fled to the tail of the plane. Lord Loss makes a small humming noise. “At last you move. I thought I might wring no sport from you today.”

“Leave them alone,” I snarl, hands knotted into trembling fists. “It’s me you want, so let the others go.”

“I cannot do that, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss sighs. “My familiars are hungry. I promised them food. You would not ask me to break my word, would you?”

“My master always keeps his promises,” Juni chuckles.

I focus on her. The fair-faced but black-hearted cuckoo in the nest. She acted like my mother. I loved her. I let her steal me away from Dervish. And all the time she was plotting against me. “Harpy!” I sob. “What the hell are you—a demon in disguise?”

“I don’t have that honour,” she replies smoothly. “I’m merely a human like you. In fact I’m from the same family tree, believe it or not. But unlike you and your fool of an uncle, I chose to serve those greater than ourselves, rather than vainly battle with them.”

“You sold us out!” I shout. Then confusion kicks in. “But… I don’t understand. In Slawter, when we trying to escape from the demons, you helped us.”

“No,” she smiles. “That was all a pretence. When I first visited your house with Davida Haym, I used magic to convince Dervish to come to Slawter and bring you and Bill-E with him. On the set it was my job to win your confidence. I found out your secrets, so we could use them against you.

“I played you like pawns,” she boasts. “I had you thinking I was one of your pathetic group, a trusted ally. I let you make escape plans and even allowed you to act on them—it would have been more delicious if you failed with freedom in sight. At the end, just before you breached the barrier, I meant to reveal my true self and turn you over to my master. And I would have, except…”

“You were knocked unconscious,” I gasp, remembering the dying demon who clubbed her in its death throes.

Juni nods bitterly. “By the time I recovered, it was too late. I paused to silence Chuda Sool—he knew the truth about me—then departed to join my master and plot our next approach.”

“We had not planned to strike so soon,” Lord Loss says. He’s come to a stop three metres away, enjoying my growing understanding of how we were betrayed. “I could sense the magic within you, even though you hid it masterfully. I didn’t want to move on you until I knew precisely what I’d have to deal with. But then Juni had a vision.”

“I catch glimpses of the future,” Juni says smugly. “I saw you change into a werewolf a few months before it happened.”

“I could not wait any longer,” Lord Loss sighs. “I wished to punish you while you were human—there would be no satisfaction in killing a senseless animal. So I set a watch on you. I’m a fine judge of werewolves. I was confident of timing it so that I struck just prior to the final turning—I liked the idea of letting you suffer the agonies of the impending change for as long as possible.”

“It all fell neatly into place in the end,” Juni smirks. “I was planning to come to Carcery Vale, looking for an excuse to explain my return. When your friend died, I donned my psychologist’s disguise, disposed of William Mauch and replaced him. You and Bill-E couldn’t have been more welcoming. And Dervish… Well, he was positively overjoyed to see me.”

“You betrayed us,” I snarl, blinking away angry tears.

“You were easy to betray,” she murmurs. I can see the wickedness in her eyes. How did I ever miss it? “Dervish fell for my pretty pink eyes and cool white skin. He never looked into my heart. I didn’t even have to use magic on him—he fell in love with me of his own accord. The sap.”

I feel magic flare within me when she says that. Howling, I bring my fists up. Energy shoots from my knuckles, a ball of pure, invisible power. I direct it at Juni, meaning to blast her into a million fleshy pieces.

Alarm ripples across her eyes. She starts to cast a protective spell, but it’s too late. I’m going to destroy her, rip her atoms apart and…

Lord Loss sticks out four of his arms. He blocks Juni from the force of my blow and absorbs the energy. Flinches, staggers back a few metres, then rights himself and smiles.

“You are powerful, Grubitsch, but untrained. Perhaps, if you had spent more time learning the ways of magic, you would be able to control that great force and defend yourself and these other unfortunate victims. But you ran from your responsibility. Therefore you—and all around you—will die.”

I scream at him, then unleash a second blast of magic energy, more powerful than the first. It strikes him in the middle of his chest, drives him back several metres. He knocks Juni to the floor and almost loses his balance. But then he straightens and laughs. Brushes away drops of blood as if cleaning fluff from a jacket.

“Have you finished or do you want to try again?” he asks. “Maybe you will be luckier the third time. What do you think, Miss Swan?”

Juni’s getting back to her feet, irate at having been knocked down. “I think we should take him now and drop the games,” she snaps.

“‘Take me’?” I repeat. “Take me where?”

“My realm,” Lord Loss says. “You surely didn’t think I’d kill you here, along with these meaningless others, quickly and cleanly? Dear me, no. You robbed me of my great joy in life— chess. You must pay properly for that, in the universe of the Demonata, where time passes oh so slowly, where I can torture your soul for a thousand years… maybe more.”

“A bit harsher than detention after school, wouldn’t you say?” Juni sneers.

“Artery,” Lord Loss calls. The child-shaped demon with fire instead of eyes pulls his head out of the air hostess’s stomach cavity and looks up, guts dribbling down his chin.

“Spine,” Lord Loss says. The giant scorpion sheathes its stinger and regards its master from the ceiling, where it’s hanging upside-down.

“Femur,” Lord Loss finishes, and the rabbit dike demon hops on to the head of a corpse, acid frothing from its lips.

Lord Loss points beyond me to where the majority of the survivors are huddled, terrified and weeping. “Make quick work of them. We must leave soon, before our window home closes.”

The familiars laugh horrifically, then race towards me. I flinch as the monstrous creatures draw level, but they veer around and leave me untouched. Screams behind—then awful ripping, munching, stabbing, sizzling sounds.

I don’t look back. Part of me wants to. Maybe my magic would work against the familiars. Perhaps I could kill them. But I dare not turn my back on Lord Loss. The demon master is the greatest threat. If I let him attack me from behind, I’m definitely doomed.

Hell, who am I trying to kid? I’m doomed anyway. He’s shown he can take my worst and shrug it off. I might as well surrender and get it over and done with. And if he promised me a quick death, maybe I’d take that way out. But I don’t like the sound of a millennium of torture in his webbed, wicked world. I’m not going to willingly sacrifice myself to such a miserable fate. If he wants to turn me into one of his long-term playthings, he’ll have to fight for me.

“Come on then, you lumpy, ugly amateur!” I yell, backing away from him. “You think you can take me? You’re wrong. You’ll fail, just like you failed to beat me at chess and kill me in Slawter. You’re pathetic!”

Lord Loss’s face twists. His arms extend towards me. Power crackles in the air as fierce magic gathers in his misshapen fingertips. I bid farewell to life and steel myself to die.

Then his expression mellows and his arms drop. “No, Grubitsch,” he chuckles. “I won’t be provoked. You hope to goad me into killing you swiftly. A clever ploy, but I shall not fall for your trick. I came to take you and take you I will. I’ll kill you later, when we are…”

A burst of heat to my left makes him pause. It’s coming from the wall of the cabin. I glance at it, expecting another of Lord Loss’s familiars to appear. The wall’s glowing with a white, hot, magical light.

“Master?” Juni says uncertainly as Lord Loss draws to a halt.

“Quiet,” he snaps.

They don’t know what it is!

I move closer to the light, ignoring the heat, figuring if this is something Lord Loss isn’t controlling, it can only be good news. Maybe the plane is coming apart and this is the start of a giant explosion. If so, I want to be caught square in the blast. That would wipe the smirk from the demon master’s wretched mush.

An oval hole appears in the side of the plane. About two metres from bottom to top and a metre wide. I see a man through the hole, outside, clinging to the wing of the plane. It’s the tramp! He’s been following me for the last few weeks, waiting to see if I turned into a werewolf. He was lurking near my house last night when I burst free of the cellar where Dervish had me caged. I thought he was one of the Lambs—werewolf executioners par excellence—but now I’m starting to have doubts.

The tramp half leans into the cabin and stretches out a hand to me, holding on to the wing of the plane with his other hand as a fierce, unearthly wind whips at his hair and clothes. “Boy!” he shouts. “Come with me. Now!”

“No!” Lord Loss and Juni scream at the same moment.

Lord Loss’s arms snap up and he unleashes a magical shot of energy at the tramp. But the white light around the edges of the hole absorbs the power and disperses it in a shower of crackling sparks.

I’m staring stupidly at the tramp, jaw slack, mind in a spin.

“Boy!” the tramp shouts again. “I can’t take another blast like that. Come now or die.”

I look from the tramp to Lord Loss and Juni. Their faces are filled with hate. Juni’s muttering a spell, lips moving incredibly fast. Lord Loss is readying himself for a second shot at the tramp.

A quick look in the other direction. Artery, Spine and Femur are rushing up the aisle, desperate to pin me down.

I face Lord Loss again, grin and flip him the finger. Then I dive towards the tramp, sticking out my right hand. The tramp grabs it and hurls me through the hole. He shouts a word of magic and the hull of the plane starts to close. I hear Lord Loss bellow with fury. Then the hole seals itself and there’s only the roaring howl of the wind.

I realise I’m clinging to a tramp on the wing of an aeroplane, thousands of metres above the face of the earth. I have a split second to marvel at the craziness of that. Then the wind grabs us. We’re ripped loose. The plane soars onwards.

We fall.

FLIGHT

Dropping at a stomach-punching speed towards the earth. Freefall. Surrounded by blue sky, clouds far below but getting closer every second. I glance desperately at the tramp, praying to spot the hump of a parachute pack. But there’s nothing. He’s falling the same way I am, with only one way of stopping—the hard way.

I scream and flap frantically with my arms. Crazily I wish I was back in the plane. At least I stood a glimmer of a chance with the demons. This is death for certain.

“Boy!” the tramp shouts cheerfully. “Are you having fun?”

“We’re going to die!” I roar, clothes rippling madly on my limbs, the scream of the wind ice-cold in my ears.

“Not today,” the tramp chortles, then angles his body and glides closer towards me. “We can fly.”

“You’re a lunatic!” I shriek.

“Perhaps,” he grins, then arcs his body up, pulls away from me, swoops over and beneath me and draws up on the other side. “Or maybe not.”

“Let me hold on to you!” I yell, grabbing for him.

He pulls away. “No. It’s time you learnt to fend for yourself. You’re a creature of magic. Use your power.”

“I can’t,” I howl.

“Of course you can,” he tuts as if he was a teacher and we were debating an argument in class, safe on the ground, instead of hurtling towards it at a speed I don’t even want to think about.

“We’re going to die,” I shout again.

“I’m not,” he says. “You won’t either if you focus. But you’d better be quick,” he adds as we enter a thick bank of cloud, then burst through it a second or two later. “You haven’t much time.” He points at the earth, which I can see clearly now we’ve broken through the cloud.

I start to scream senselessly, thoughts wild, gravity pulling me to my high-impact doom. Then the tramp asks casually, “Are you cold?”

The craziness of the question draws a furious response. “What sort of a nut are you? I’m falling to my death and you’re discussing the temperature!”

“Answer me,” he says calmly. “Are you cold?”

“No. But what the—”

“At this height, don’t you think you should be? It was in the region of minus forty Celsius on the wing of the aeroplane. Any normal person would have felt the icy bite immediately. You didn’t because magic kept you warm. It can also keep you aloft—if you direct it.”

“What must I do?” I moan, the landscape filling my vision, surely no more than half a minute away from a bone-crunching collision.

“Visualise a bird,” the tramp says. “Think of the way it flies, how it soars out of a dive with the slightest tilt of its wings. Don’t picture your arms as wings or anything like that. Just imagine a bird and fix it in your thoughts.”

I do as he says. Close my eyes and think of a swallow swooping and soaring. I’ve seen them fly many times, when walking home from school or looking out of my bedroom window, glimpsed through the uppermost branches of the forest. They make it look simple—nudge out a wing, duck or pull up their head, catch the wind currents, sail them as if it was the most natural thing in the world. My head rises. The roar of the wind lessens. A new sensation. Not one of falling, but of… I open my eyes. I’m moving away from the earth, arms by my side, legs straight, head facing the clouds, the tramp by my side. Flying.

“There,” the tramp says with a wicked little grin. “Simple, aye?”

Flying high. A creature of the sky. Laughing and hollering with delight. Flying on my front, back, sides—however I please. Somersaulting mid-air, a far greater rush than any roller coaster.

“This is amazing!” I yell at the tramp, who flies nearby. “How am I doing it?”

“Magic,” he says.

“But I’m not trying. I’m not casting spells.”

“True magicians don’t need spells most of the time.”

I stare at him, stunned. “But I’m not a magician.”

“No?” He nods at the earth far below. “Then how do you explain this?”

“But Dervish said… I’ve never… Bartholomew Garadex!” I throw the name out desperately.

“You’re different to Bartholomew,” the tramp says. “Different to every magician I’ve ever known or heard about. But you’re a magician none the less. You draw your power directly from the universe, like the Demonata.”

Mention of the demons reminds me of the plane and its doomed passengers. “We have to go back!” I shout, cursing myself for flying around happy and carefree while Lord Loss and his familiars wreak havoc. “We have to save the people on the plane.”

The tramp sighs. “Dead, all of them.”

“No! They can’t be! We have to—”

“They’re dead,” the tramp says stiffly. “And even if they aren’t, what could we do?”

“Fight!” I roar.

“Against Lord Loss?” He shakes his head. “I’m powerful, boy, and so are you, but Lord Loss is a demon master. We wouldn’t last long in a battle with him.”

“We have to try,” I whisper, thinking of all those men, women and children. Picturing the Demonata and Juni Swan at savage work. “If we abandon them…”

“We’ve already abandoned them,” the tramp grunts. “The choice was taken when I pulled you out. Everyone on that aeroplane is dead and it has crashed—or will shortly—destroying the evidence.”

“You let them die,” I gasp.

The tramp shrugs. “I would have saved them if I could. I’ve devoted my life to protecting humanity from the Demonata. But some battles you can’t win. Some you can’t even fight.”

Flying in silence. Thinking about what happened and what the tramp said. Cold inside and scared. Unable to get the faces of the people—the dead—out of my mind. Yet a big part of me is secretly glad we didn’t go back, that the tramp spared me another run-in with the demons.

“This is insane,” I mutter, looking at the world beneath. “Who are you? What were you doing on the plane? Why have you been following me? I thought you were one of the Lambs. I know nothing about you. I need—”

“Soon,” the tramp hushes me. “I’ll answer all your questions once we’re safe on the ground. For now, just fly.”

And since there’s no point arguing, I tuck my arms in tighter, pick up speed, trail the tramp through the air and try—unsuccessfully—to push the faces of the dead from my thoughts.

We fly for hours, mostly above the clouds where people on the ground can’t see us. I spot the occasional plane, but the tramp always steers us clear. A shame—I love the thought of gliding up to one and tapping on the windows, scaring the living daylights out of the passengers and crew.

I’ve no idea where we are. I didn’t ask Juni where we were going when we set off and I don’t know how long I was asleep, so I can’t judge how far from home we might have been when the demons attacked.

Juni…

Rage seethes up inside me every time I think about her. I trusted her. I thought she was on my side, that she loved me like a mother. And all the time she was playing me for a fool, setting me up for Lord Loss, cutting me off from Dervish.

I want to quiz the tramp about her. Find out where she comes from, how she operates, where I can find her—so I can track her down and burn her for the evil witch she is. But this isn’t the right time. I have loads of questions for the tramp. So much I want to know, that I need to find out. Hell, I haven’t even asked his name yet!

Finally, five or six hours after I bailed out of the plane, the tramp guides me down. The land is barren desert, more rocky than sandy. No signs of human life—it’s been the better part of an hour since I saw any kind of house.

“This is the complicated part,” the tramp says as we come in to land. “The easiest way is to hover a bit above the ground, then stop thinking about birds. After a few seconds you’ll fall.”

“Can’t we touch down?” I ask.

“I can, but I’ve had a lot of practice. If you try it, you’ll probably hit hard and break a leg or arm.”

He spreads his arms and drifts down, landing lightly on his feet. I’m tempted to copy him, to prove I’m nimbler than he gives me credit for. But it’s been a long day and the last thing I want is to break any bones. So I float to within a metre of the rocky floor, then empty my head of images of birds. For a couple of seconds nothing happens. Then I drop suddenly, stomach lurching.

I hit the ground awkwardly, landing face first in the dust. Sitting up, I splutter and wipe dirt and grit from my cheeks, then get to my feet and look around. We’re in the middle of nowhere. Some rocky outcrops and hills, a few rustling cacti, nothing else. “Where are we?”

“Home,” the tramp says and starts walking towards one of the hills.

“Whose home?” I ask, hurrying after him.

“Mine.”

“And you are…?”

He stops and looks back, surprised. “You don’t know?”

“Should I?”

“Surely Dervish told…” He trails off into silence, then laughs. “All that time in the air, you didn’t know who you were with?”

“I was going to ask, but it didn’t seem like the right moment,” I huff.

The tramp shakes his head. “I’m Beranabus.” The name sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

“Beranabus what?” I ask.

“Just Beranabus,” he says, then starts walking again. “Come. We have much to discuss, but it will hold. I never feel safe in the open.”

With a nervous glance around, I hasten after the shabbily dressed man. Several minutes later we come to the mouth of a cave. Not having had the best experience of caves recently, I pause and peer suspiciously into the shadows.

“It’s fine,” Beranabus assures me. “This is a safe place, protected by its natural position and the strongest spells I could muster. You have nothing to fear.”

“That’s easily said,” I grunt, unconvinced.

Beranabus smiles. He has crooked, stained teeth. This close I can see that his small eyes are grey and his skin is pale beneath a covering of grime and dirt. He’s wearing an old, dusty suit. The only fresh thing about him is a small posy of flowers jutting out of one of his buttonholes.

“If I wanted to harm you,” he says, “I could have done so already, with far less effort than it would take on the ground. That should be self-evident.”

“I know,” I mutter. “It’s just… I don’t like caves.”

“With good reason,” he says understandingly. “But this isn’t like the cave in Carcery Vale. You’ll be safe here. I promise.”

I hesitate a moment longer, then shrug. “What the hell,” I grunt and push ahead of Beranabus, acting like I couldn’t care less.

The cave only runs back four or five metres, then stops. I look for a way out, studying the walls and floor, but I can’t see any. “Are you like a monk who doesn’t believe in material possessions?” I ask.

“No,” Beranabus says, squeezing past me. He touches the ground and mutters a few words of magic. A hole appears. There’s a rope ladder attached to the wall at one side, leading down into the dark.

I move to the edge of the hole and look down nervously. There are torches set in the walls, so it’s not as dark as it seemed at first. But it runs a long way down and I can only vaguely see the bottom.

“I thought you said a magician didn’t need to cast spells,” I say, delaying the moment when I have to descend.

“Most of the time,” Beranabus reminds me. “There are occasions when even the strongest of us must focus our magical energy with words.” He sits and swings his legs into the hole. Turns, grabs the ladder and starts down. Looks up at me before his head bobs beneath my feet. “This will close in a few minutes. If you’re coming, get a move on.”

“Just waiting for you to get out of my way,” I retort. Then, when his head’s clear, I ignore the butterflies in my stomach, sit, turn and climb down the swaying ladder after him.

The hole closes with a small grinding noise before I hit the ground. I try not to think about the fact that I’m shut off from the world. At the base I step clear of the ladder and find myself in a large, bright cave. There are chairs, a sofa, a long table at one end with a vase of flowers on it, a few statues, books, chests of drawers, other bits and pieces. There’s also a fire in the middle of the cave, by which a bald, dark-skinned boy sits warming his hands.

“I’m back,” Beranabus calls.

“I noticed,” the boy replies without looking around.

“I’ve brought a guest.”

The boy’s head turns a fraction. He has bright blue eyes and a sour expression. “I thought you were going to kill him.”

I stiffen as Beranabus scowls. “I said I might have to kill him.”

“What do you—” I start to ask angrily.

“Later,” Beranabus soothes me, then points to a blanket spread out on the ground close to the wall. “Get some sleep. I will too. Later we can have a long discussion over a hot meal.”

“You think I can sleep after all that’s happened?” I snort.

“I know you can,” Beranabus says. “Magic. All you have to do is imagine it and you’ll sleep like a baby.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

“You’re exhausted. You need rest, so you can focus on our conversation and ask all the questions I’m sure are welling up inside you. You wouldn’t be able to process my answers in your current state.”

I don’t want to sleep—I want to tear straight into the explanations—but what he says makes sense. Just keeping my eyelids open is a major effort at the moment.

“One thing first,” I mutter. “Dervish and Bill-E—are they OK?”

Beranabus shrugs. “I think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“No. But Lord Loss and Juni—” For some reason he sneers as he says her name. “—don’t know where we went once we left the plane. I doubt Juni would risk going back in case we got there before her.”

“You’ll warn Dervish?” I ask. “About Juni working with Lord Loss?”

“I can’t contact him immediately,” Beranabus says, “but I’ll get word to him as soon as I can. He’ll have to fend for himself until then.”

That’s not satisfactory, but it’s the best he’s going to offer. So, since I’m worn out, and there’s nothing I could do even if I was on top form, I stumble to the blanket and lie down fully clothed. I doubt I can fall asleep as easily as Beranabus expects, but as soon as I close my eyes and think about it, I find myself going under. Seconds later I’m comatose.

POWER OF THE BEAST

A loaf of fresh bread is waved underneath my nose. I come out of sleep smiling, the scent of warm goodness filling my nostrils. For a few groggy moments I think I’m at home with Dervish, it’s a Sunday morning, no school, no worries, a long, lazy day stretching deliriously ahead of me.

Then my eyes focus. I see the lined fingers clutching the bread and the bearded face beyond. I remember. And all the good thoughts disappear in an instant.

“How long was I asleep?” I yawn, sitting up, wincing from the pain in my back—I’m not used to sleeping on a stone floor.

“Many hours,” Beranabus says, handing me the bread.

“Eight? Ten? Twelve?”

He shrugs.

I look for my watch, but the strap must have snapped during the night of my turning. Standing, I rub the sides of my back, stretch and groan. “Haven’t you heard of beds?” I complain.

“You’ll grow accustomed to the floor after a few months.”

I squint at him. Months? I’ve no intention of being here that long. But before I can challenge him, he walks over to the fire where the sour-faced boy is still perched close to the flames. I follow, tearing a chunk out of the loaf, gobbling it. The bread’s chewy and I haven’t any butter, but I’m so hungry I could happily eat cardboard.

Beranabus sits close to the boy. I stay on my feet, studying the curious couple. Ancient Beranabus and the teenager, not much older than me. The shabby, bearded, hairy, suited magician and the boy—his apprentice or servant?—in drab but clean clothes, completely bald. The boy’s dark flesh is laced with small scars and fading bruises. The tips of the two smallest fingers on his left hand are missing. His eyes have a faraway, miserable look. He wears no shoes. Beranabus is barefoot too, his boots discarded.

“Grubitsch Grady meet Kernel Fleck,” Beranabus introduces us.

“Grubbs,” I correct him, sticking out a hand. The boy only grunts. “What about your name?” I ask, trying to be friendly despite his cold welcome. “Is it Colonel, like in the army?”

“No. Kernel, like in popcorn,” Beranabus answers after a few seconds of stony silence. “It’s short for something longer, but neither of us can remember what.”

Kernel sniffs and faces the fire. There are sausages speared to a stick close by. He picks up the stick and jams the sausages into the flames. Mutters a spell. The heat of the fire increases and the sausages cook in seconds. He takes one off, blows on it and eats it, then takes off another and gives it to Beranabus. After a pause, he removes a third sausage and offers it to me.

“Thanks,” I say, biting into it. Too hot, but delicious. I ravenously munch my way through it, then gratefully accept another.

“Kernel does most of the cooking,” Beranabus says, holding a sausage in one hand, picking at dirt beneath the nails of his right foot with the other.

“I have to,” Kernel says. “He’d eat the food raw if I didn’t.”

“It’s all the same once your stomach processes it,” Beranabus snorts. “Hot, cold, cooked, raw… it doesn’t make any difference when you’re squatting over a hole.”

“A hole?” I frown.

“No toilets,” Kernel says, looking at Beranabus sourly.

Kernel cooks some chicken legs, again using his spell. (I wonder where they get the food from, but don’t ask.) He piles them on a dusty, cracked plate, then cooks some ribs and potatoes. That done, he takes what he wants from the plate and passes it across.

Beranabus bites into his chicken leg, then looks over at me. “Tell me everything about the last few months. I know a lot already, but I want the complete story. When you realised your body was changing, how the magic developed, the way you dealt with it.”

“I thought you were the one meant to provide answers.”

“I will,” he promises. “But you first. It will make my job easier.”

While we eat, I fill him in on all that happened, discovering my magical ability after Slawter, fighting it, the sickness, using magic to counter the threat of the werewolf.

“Why did you fight the magic in the first place?” he interrupts. “Most people would be thrilled if they found themselves in your position.”

“I know what magic entails,” I say quietly. “It’s linked to the Demonata. I’ve been part of that crazy universe before. I didn’t want to get sucked into it again.”

Beranabus and Kernel share a look. Then Beranabus tells me to continue.

I explain about the cave we unearthed in Carcery Vale, going there under the influence of the beast, digging through the rubble blocking the entrance, Loch’s accident, Dervish covering up, Juni entering our lives.

“Who’s Juni Swan?” Kernel asks Beranabus.

“One of Lord Loss’s assistants,” Beranabus says, squinting. “Actually she…” He stops and clears his throat. “We can discuss Miss Swan and her background later. Finish, please, Grubitsch.”

“It’s Grubbs,” I correct him again, then cover the last couple of days and nights, the werewolf taking over, killing Bill-E’s grandparents, Juni whipping me out of town and betraying me on the plane. I tell the story as quickly as I can, eager to get it out of the way. I don’t go into all the details, like the voice and the face in the rock, figuring they’re not important. I can tell Beranabus about them later.

Beranabus listens silently, then spends a couple of minutes thinking about what I’ve said. “The boy who fell,” he finally says, echoing Dervish’s concerns when he first came to the cave. “Was it definitely an accident? Nobody else was—”

“No,” I cut in. “We were alone, just the three of us. He slipped, fell, died. An accident. No demons or evil mages were involved.”

“Good,” Beranabus grunts. “When I heard the entrance had been excavated and someone had died in the cave, I feared the worst—especially since my spells of warning hadn’t worked. I should have been alerted the moment the first rock was lifted out. I assumed a powerful mage had spun a counterspell and was preparing the way for a demon invasion. I’ve never moved so quickly in my life.”

“He ran like his feet were on fire,” Kernel says, smiling for the first time—but it’s a brief, thin smile.

“Dervish told me about the cave,” I say softly. “How it was used as a crossing point for demons. He said the tunnel between universes could be reopened, that the Demonata could come through in their thousands and take over our world. You don’t think Juni and Lord Loss…”

“No.” Beranabus smiles wryly, showing his crooked, discoloured teeth. “Lord Loss has no interest in opening tunnels between universes. Most demons want to destroy humanity, but Lord Loss thrives on human misery. He’s as keen to keep that tunnel closed as we are.”

Beranabus picks at his teeth with a thin chicken bone. His breath stinks. In fact most of him stinks. He obviously isn’t concerned about personal hygiene. Finally, laying the bone aside, he speaks again. “The cave brought me to Carcery Vale, but you’re why I stayed. I could feel the power in you, bursting to be released. I wanted to be there when it exploded—or when you imploded.”

“Imploded?”

“You could have burnt up. If the magic hadn’t found an outlet, it would have destroyed you from within. There was no way of telling until the full moon, when I knew you’d be pushed to the point where you and the beast had to settle the matter once and for all.

“The werewolf is the key,” he continues. “The curse of the Gradys. Many centuries ago, your ancestors bred with demons.”

“Bred?” I yelp. “No way!”

“It doesn’t happen often,” Beranabus says. “Most demons are physically incompatible with humans. But it’s not unheard of. When such unions occur, the offspring are never natural. Humans and demons weren’t meant to mix. When they do, their children are freaks of the highest order, neither human nor demon, caught painfully between. Most die at birth. But some survive.”

His face is dark, shadows flickering across it from the flames of the fire. “A few grow and thrive, either in the demon’s universe or ours. Your ancestor’s child was one of those. The magical strand of the Demonata stayed hidden, at least long enough for the child to mature and bear children of its own. When its demonic legacy finally surfaced, the victim turned into a wolflike creature.”

“So the Demonata are to blame,” I growl, hating them afresh. “I gathered as much from Dervish, but I was never sure.”

“I don’t know about blame,” Beranabus says. “Such couplings are often set in motion by humans. Your ancestor quite possibly made the first approach, and…” He twirls his fingers suggestively.

“Here comes the bride,” mutters Kernel.

Beranabus looks into the flames, considering his next words. “You’re a unique specimen, even for a Grady. I’ve never seen or heard of anyone like you. Magic is unpredictable, chaotic. It works differently in each person. But there are general rules which have always applied—until now. You shattered all of them.”

“Is that a good or a bad thing?” I ask.

“I don’t know. It’s the reason I didn’t approach you immediately. I wasn’t sure how you’d change, what the magic would do when it surfaced. Of course there was Juni to consider too. I didn’t know how close you and Dervish were to her, if you knew who she served.”

“Of course we didn’t!” I bellow. “Lord Loss killed my parents and sister. Do you think—”

“Peace,” Beranabus says. “I trust you now, but I couldn’t before. For all I knew, you and Dervish were in league with Juni Swan and I was being lured into a trap. Dervish himself might have opened the entrance to the cave to entice me to Carcery Vale.”

“Have you been paranoid for long?” I ask cynically.

“I learnt a long time ago not to trust anybody,” he replies tightly. “Not until they’ve proved themselves worthy. And even then I keep a close watch on them.”

“I’ve been with Beranabus for thirty years or more,” Kernel says, “and I still wake up sometimes to find him giving me the evil eye.”

“Thirty years?” I study the boy again. “You can’t be that old.”

“We’ll come to that soon,” Beranabus says before Kernel can respond. “Let’s finish with your magic first. Where was I?”

“You were waxing lyrical about how unique he was,” Kernel reminds him.

“Aye.” Beranabus’s face lights up. “In every other magician, the gift of magic is evident from birth. Even if they’re unaware of their potential, other magicians can sense it. Dervish should have seen the magic within you, but he didn’t. Because you hid it from him. From yourself too.”

“No. I knew it was there.”

“You knew after Slawter,” Beranabus corrects me, “but it didn’t start then. This power has been with you since you were born. Some secret part of you knew what you were from the day you came into this world—but it was afraid. It didn’t want the power and responsibility. So it pushed the magic down deep where it couldn’t work or even be noticed.

“No other magician can do that. They can deny their calling and refuse to hone their talent, but they can’t bury it completely. But you were so powerful that even as a child you were instinctively able to hide your magic from the world. If not for the Grady curse, it would have lain hidden for the rest of your life, a great power wasted.”

“I wish it had,” I mutter angrily.

“You shouldn’t,” scolds Beranabus. “If not for the magic, you’d be a wild, raging animal now. The barriers you erected between yourself and your magical potential began to crumble when you first faced demons. You had to draw on your inner power when you fought Lord Loss and his familiars. You drove your magic back down afterwards, but cracks had appeared in your armour.

“The magic has been buzzing around inside you ever since, trying to break free. You kept a lid on it for a long time, but then the curse kicked in. The werewolf came to the fore. That should have been the end of Grubitsch Grady. But the magician within you opposed the beast. You said you used magic to fight the change, but you’re wrong—magic used you. It stopped you becoming a monster.”

“No it didn’t,” I say guiltily. “I turned for a while. I killed Ma and Pa Spleen. Next time, when the moon’s full and the werewolf takes over, I’ll kill again.”

“Do you really believe that?” Beranabus asks.

“Of course.” I stare at him, confused.

He shakes his head. “The moon has exerted as powerful an influence over you as it ever will. The beast dominated for a short time, but you drove it back. It will rise again, but you’ll beat it then too. It will be easier next time. The beast will always be within you, snarling and spitting, battling to break free when the moon sings to it. But you’re in control. You won.”

“I didn’t win!” I snap. “I killed Bill-E’s grandparents. That’s not winning. Even if I never again lose control, I’ve already killed. How can you say everything’s OK? Maybe you don’t count the murder of your half-brother’s grandparents as a big deal, but I do. So don’t—”

“Show him how to remember,” Kernel interrupts. “I’m not going to listen to him rant and rage for hours. Teach him the spell—let him see how it really played out. That will shut him up.”

“What are you talking about?” I growl.

“A spell to help you recall everything that happened while you were transformed,” Beranabus says.

“Why would I want to do that?”

“To learn the truth.”

“But I already—”

“Just let him teach you the damn spell,” Kernel snaps.

I feel uneasy—I don’t want to relive the murders—but they’ve aroused my curiosity, so I play along. Beranabus tells me to close my eyes and focus on my breathing. I breathe in… hold it for five seconds… then breathe out. When I have the right rhythm, he tells me the words to use. Breaks them down into simple syllables so I can repeat them, even though I don’t know what they mean.

As I draw towards the end of the spell, a screen forms within my thoughts. It’s the huge TV screen from home. Blank, grey, like it’s on standby. I’m about to tell Beranabus there’s no signal, but then the screen flickers. Bursts of light. Static. Then…

The cave. Just after I froze the waterfall into ice. I see everything through the eyes of the beast. I’m crouched low, howling, squinting into the light of Juni’s torch as she pads hesitantly towards me. It’s crazy, but as I’m watching, in spite of all I know about her now, I feel concern for Juni. I want her to flee before the wolf attacks. I almost call a warning to her, but then I remember this is a screened replay, it’s not happening live.

In the cave, Juni comes within touching distance and regards me coolly. “The great Grubbs Grady changes at last,” she sneers, then spits at me. “You pathetic creature! If you knew how much I’ve loathed these past weeks, having to be nice to you and your mongrel of an uncle.”

The beast roars at her and raises its fists to beat her to a pulp. This time I root for the werewolf, wanting it to kill the deceitful witch. But before it can strike, Juni utters a quick spell and it falls to the ground and rolls around with muffled grunts and yelps, before coming to a quivering halt.

“There,” Juni smiles, falsely sweet. “That should hold you.”

She puts her torch down and walks around me, checking from all angles, then produces a large knife—one from our kitchen!—and lays it by my head. The beast tries to howl but can’t. Juni strolls to the wall of the cave, where the crack I created runs up near the icy waterfall. She stares at the ice, then at me, troubled. Shakes her head and chants a spell. I listen for a few minutes.

When the spell shows no sign of ending, I say without opening my eyes, “Is there a fast-forward button on this thing?”

“What’s happening?” Beranabus asks.

“I’m in the cave. I’ve turned. Juni’s crafting some long-winded spell.”

“Probably calling Lord Loss,” Beranabus notes. “Very well. Try this.”

He teaches me some new words. Once I’ve repeated them, the picture fades out, then, after some static and crackling, tunes back in. Juni’s still chanting, but she’s standing over me now. No sign of Lord Loss, but the wall is red and yellow around the crack and the ice is melting, becoming a normal waterfall again. The heat in the cave is vicious. The beast I’ve become is sweating.

Juni’s holding up the knife. She bends, presses it to the left side of my throat, makes a quick swipe. Blood spurts, drenching the blade. I go stiff, both as the werewolf in the past and me in the present. But then Juni puts her face to the cut, breathes on it and the wound closes. She moves the blade to the other side of my throat and does the same thing. Then she takes the red blade to the crack in the wall.

“What’s happening?” Beranabus asks, and I describe the scene to him. “Strange. I never heard of a demon being summoned that way. But Lord Loss is unique. Nobody knows why he’s the only demon master who can cross to our world, or how he does it. This must be a method he taught her.”

Juni smears my blood down one side of the rock within the crack, then the other. She steps back and chants more spells, louder, arms thrown wide. Finishes with a triumphant yowl, then leaps away from the crack, covering her eyes.

Nothing happens.

Juni lowers her arm and stares at the crack for a long time, then at the blade, then me. She walks across slowly and looks down, confused.

“Juni…” The word comes from deep within the rock. I place the voice straight away—Lord Loss. “Juni…” he calls again, distant, hungry, anxious.

Juni returns to the crack and talks quickly, softly. I can’t hear what she says. But then Lord Loss hisses a name that chills me to the bone. “Billy Spleen…”

Juni bows, sets the knife down, looks at me and grins nastily. “Stay where you are, beastie. I’ll be back for you soon.”

She leaves, not bothering to take the torch.

On the floor the werewolf struggles to tear free of its magical constraints. After a while the beast goes still. Its hands start to glow. The glow spreads and sweeps up its arms, hits its face and chest, then radiates down its body and legs.

The werewolf stands and cocks its head as if listening to someone speak. Then, with a noise that sounds like a growl of agreement, it races for the exit and heads for the surface.

As the beast lurches through the forest, I fill Beranabus and Kernel in on what’s happening. Beranabus is unsure what to make of Juni’s behaviour. “She seems to have been trying to summon Lord Loss. For some reason the spell didn’t work. But I don’t see what difference the other boy’s blood would make.”

“I don’t think she wanted Bill-E for the spell,” I murmur. “And I don’t think it failed. Lord Loss stopped her. He wanted Bill-E to be there when he crossed, so he could kill us both.”

“Perhaps,” Beranabus says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

The chase concludes. The beast arrives at Bill-E’s house. The back door is open. The wolf bolts inside and finds Juni picking up the unconscious Bill-E Spleen. Ma and Pa Spleen are both dead. The werewolf howls at Juni. She drops Bill-E as the beast leaps. They fight, my transformed self ripping at the albino with its teeth and claws, Juni fighting back physically, no time for spells. She screams my name and the beast roars. Juni screams my name again and again, each time adding more distress to the cry.

Finally, after a minute of Juni screaming, the werewolf releases her. She staggers back, bloody and stunned. The beast growls angrily, standing firmly between Juni and Bill-E, protecting the otherwise defenceless boy Then the view goes blurry. I sense the creature changing. Juni sighs with relief, then spreads her hands and talks quickly, faking concern. “Grubbs?” she gasps. “Is that you?”

I open my eyes and the screen disappears inside my head. I stare at Beranabus, open mouthed. “I didn’t kill them,” I whisper. “I tried to save them. I protected Bill-E. I didn’t kill them.” The last sentence comes out as a sob. I bend over and weep with relief, all else forgotten, eternally grateful to be innocent Grubbs Grady again—not the loathsome killer that I mistakenly believed I was.

THE VETERAN

My first impulse, when I stop crying, is to rush back to Carcery Vale and warn Dervish and Bill-E of the danger they’re in.

“We already had this conversation,” Beranabus sighs.

“I don’t care,” I snap. “Juni didn’t just target me—she went after Bill-E too. She might not return to the Vale straightaway, but she can easily phone Dervish and ask about me. If she discovers he doesn’t know where I am or what really happened, she can return and…” I shake my head viciously, trying not to think of all the terrible things she could do. “We have to go back and warn them.”

“No,” Beranabus says softly. “Their welfare isn’t my concern.”

“How can you say that?” I shriek. “Dervish is your friend.”

“No—if anything, he’s my employee.”

“What do you…” I stop, finally realising where I had heard Beranabus’s name before. Dervish mentioned it when he was explaining about his work. I should have put two and two together when he was talking about the warning spells at the cave, but my head’s still in a whirl. “You’re the boss of the Disciples,” I mutter.

“I wouldn’t describe myself that way,” Beranabus sniffs. “I don’t have much to do with them. I use the Disciples where appropriate, but I fight most of my battles in the Demonata’s universe, alone.”

“Not quite alone,” Kernel huffs.

Beranabus grunts offhandedly at Kernel, then addresses me again. “I didn’t form the Disciples. They came to me looking for leadership and training. I occasionally demand their help, but I’ve no vested interest in the group.”

“But Dervish is one of your people,” I argue. “He told me you sent him to Carcery Vale to protect the cave. You’re responsible for him.”

“No!” Beranabus barks. He brushes his long hair back from his face, glowering at me. “I sent Dervish to Carcery Vale, as I sent others before him, to watch for demons and their human servants, to report to me if any came sniffing in search of the cave. Everything else in his life was secondary to that task. He should have respected my instructions, kept a low profile, not got entangled with a demon master like Lord Loss. He brought this trouble on himself. I don’t have time to get involved in personal conflicts. Lord Loss has nothing to do with the cave, so I don’t care what he does to Dervish.”

“You’re a monster,” I sneer. “You’re no better than the Demonata.”

“Perhaps not,” Beranabus concedes. “But the Disciples understand that there are forces at work in the universe far more important than anything in their own lives. They accept the need to put human concerns behind them and focus on the nobler cause to which they’ve been called.”

“I don’t do noble causes,” I retort. “I care about Dervish and Bill-E. That’s all. They’re more important to me than anything else, even the safety of the bloody world.”

“He’s arrogant and stupid,” Kernel says, staring at me coldly. “He can’t see the bigger picture. You made a mistake bringing him here. Send him back. Let him perish at the hands of Lord Loss.”

“That isn’t your decision to make,” Beranabus says, eyes flashing. “Don’t forget your place. You’re here to serve.”

“Well, it’s true,” Kernel pouts.

Beranabus takes a steadying breath, then faces me again. “What I’m trying to explain,” he says, only barely restraining his anger, “is that Dervish wouldn’t want us to rush back. He understands the importance of my work and knows I don’t get involved in minor skirmishes—which is all this is. He doesn’t expect me to ride to his rescue. This quarrel with Lord Loss and Juni Swan is of his own making and he must deal with them himself.

“Having said that,” Beranabus continues, raising his voice to stop me interrupting, “I will get word to him, as I promised. I can’t get in touch with him now—there are no easy means of making contact with the outside world from here—but as soon as I can, I’ll warn him of Juni’s treachery and the threat he faces. That’s the best I can offer. And it’s all Dervish would expect.”

“Fine,” I grunt, getting to my feet. “But I’m not one of your Disciples, so I don’t have to obey your rules. I’ll go and warn him right now if you’ll just point me in the right direction…” I look at him challengingly, expecting an argument.

Beranabus smiles flatly. “Once you leave the cave, the fastest route is east. It’s a long, hard walk. The sun is merciless, waterholes are few and far between, and there’s little food to be found. An experienced trekker or a magician might make it out alive. But you’re not a worldly traveller and you don’t know how to make the most of your magical potential. You’ll be dead within a week. But if you want to make the attempt regardless, go ahead. I won’t detain you.”

“Right,” I nod sharply. “I will.”

I start towards the rope ladder, but Kernel stops me. “Grubitsch… Grubbs. He’s telling the truth. You can’t make it. You’ll die if you try.”

“I’d rather die trying than live and let Dervish and Bill-E be butchered.”

“It would be pointless,” Kernel argues. “Even if you got out alive, it would take weeks to reach civilisation. Dervish will find out quicker through us. Disciples visit here regularly. One might come tomorrow or the next day. You won’t achieve anything by sacrificing yourself. Do you want us to tell your uncle you wasted your life on a pointless mission? How do you think that would make him feel?”

I stare at Kernel coldly, then turn slowly to Beranabus. “You swear you’ll let him know as soon as you can?”

The magician nods. “As Kernel said, we receive several visitors a year. When the next Disciple comes, I’ll give him or her a message to pass on to Dervish.”

“What if it’s months before anyone visits?”

Beranabus doesn’t reply.

I think it over. Weigh up the pros and cons. Try to decide what Dervish would tell me to do. I finally figure it makes no sense to leave.

“OK,” I sigh, taking my place by the fire. “I don’t like it, and I’ll hold you to account if anything happens to Dervish or Bill-E. But I’m going to trust you. I don’t know for sure that I should, but to hell with it. Now I assume you brought me here for a purpose. What is it?”

Beranabus laughs. “Damn it all, I like you! You’re blunt and to the point. I’m sure you’ll cause me all sorts of aggravation, but I’m looking forward to having you around.”

“Never mind the compliments,” I growl. “Just tell me why I’m here.”

“Very well. As I explained, I don’t have much to do with the Disciples. They deal with largely unimportant matters. They stop some demons from crossing and limit the damage caused by those who get through. That doesn’t mean much in the universal scheme of things. Hundreds of casualties… a few thousand… even a few million… what of them?”

I gawp at the elderly tramp, then at Kernel. “Is he for real?”

“You’d better believe it,” Kernel says in a low voice, looking at Beranabus darkly.

“I can’t waste time worrying about a few dead humans,” Beranabus defends himself. “I have more important work to tend to.”

“What’s more important than saving lives?” I challenge him.

“Saving the world,” he answers without the least hint of irony. “Most of the demons who hit our universe are weak. It’s relatively easy for a sly demon—with human assistance—to create a window between their universe and ours, but the masters can’t squeeze through. Occasionally a tunnel can be opened—like at the cave in Carcery Vale—which more powerful demons can access. But most of the time only the lesser Demonata can cross and they can’t stay more than a few minutes. A nuisance, aye, but they don’t threaten the existence of the human race.

“I focus on combating the threat of the stronger monsters, those who could wipe out mankind. They’re always looking for ways to cross. The Disciples act when they uncover evidence on this world of a potential crossing, but I can’t allow that to happen with the masters. I have to prevent such threats in their infancy.

“To do that, Kernel and I work in the universe of the Demonata. Unlike the Disciples, we spend little time on this world. We walk among demons, spying on them, uncovering their plans in the formative stages, wrecking them. We divide demons who are working together. Locate and destroy places where tunnels could be built. It’s difficult. We have to fight constantly and the battles are savage.”

“Savage,” Kernel echoes, his voice a whisper.

“It’s a horrible undertaking,” Beranabus says. “One might even call it a curse. But it has to be done. The Demonata are a constant threat. Those of us with the power to limit them to their own realm don’t have the freedom of choice. Kernel and I know that if we don’t fight the monsters on their worlds, the demon masters will cross and fight us on ours—and everyone will perish.

“We went to Carcery Vale as soon as I heard the entrance to the cave had been opened. My warning spells should have been activated instantly, but for whatever reason they didn’t work. When Dervish sent word, we rushed to the scene. I feared the handiwork of the Demonata and thought I might be too late to stop them. To my relief I found no evidence of their presence.”

“What about Lord Loss?” I cry “And Juni?”

“They didn’t bother me. Lord Loss doesn’t want to open a tunnel. He prefers things the way they are. I considered talking with Dervish about Juni, but I didn’t know if I could trust him. For all I knew, he’d pledged himself to her dark cause and was working with her to trap me.”

“Dervish would never do that,” I growl.

“Probably not,” Beranabus agrees. “But he might have fallen under her spell. She could have been using him to strike at me. I decided not to reveal my presence. I sent Kernel back here and remained hidden, to ensure no demons came to make use of the cave. I planned to close the entrance again and let Dervish know about Juni before I left. But then I spotted you…”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I’m no fool. I can see where this is heading. But I say nothing. I act ignorant, hoping I’m wrong, not wanting to put ideas in his head if they aren’t already there—though I’m certain they are.

“You’d hidden your magic masterfully,” Beranabus says, “but it had started to spill out by the time I arrived. I could see it shining through.”

“Dervish and Juni didn’t,” I mumble. “Juni tested me, searching for magic. She couldn’t find any.”

“Of course she could,” he barks. “You still haven’t seen through all of her deceptions. I don’t blame you. It’s hard, when you’ve trusted someone, to see them as they really are. You know Juni was working against you all this time, but you still think of her as a friend.

“Juni’s far more powerful than Dervish. She knew the magic was there. Those tests were to check how strong you were, how much of a threat you posed, so she and Lord Loss could plan their assault. I don’t think she was able to find out as much about you as she hoped. That’s why they decided to confront you in the cave. They chose a place of magic, where Lord Loss would be more powerful. When you escaped, they switched to the aeroplane, figuring that up in the air you couldn’t escape—at worst, they could crash the aircraft and kill you that way.

“Juni’s been manipulating you at every step. Worming out your secrets, finding weaknesses to use against you. She’s a cunning vixen. She artfully drove a wedge between you and Dervish. Even summoned the Lambs to make you believe he’d sacrificed you to the Grady executioners.”

“You mean he didn’t?” I gawp at Beranabus, ashen-faced.

“Of course not,” Beranabus grunts. “You know your uncle. You saw how he fought to save your brother. He would have done the same for you. He’s not a man to give up on his loved ones.”

I feel cold inside. I thought Dervish had betrayed me, when in fact I did the betraying. I should have known he wouldn’t call in the Lambs without discussing it first. Dervish always played straight with me, ever since he came to visit me in the asylum and told me that he knew demons were real.

“I’ve been a fool,” I mutter.

“Aye,” Beranabus says. “But we all make fools of ourselves one time or another. It’s part of being human. But that’s beside the point. I was talking about…” He frowns and looks to Kernel for help.

“You’d just spotted the shining beacon of magic that was Grubbs Grady,” Kernel says drily, and I realise he’s jealous of me.

“Of course. Forgive me, I lose track of my thoughts so easily. Old age and more battles with the Demonata than I care to remember. Yes, I was on the verge of leaving Carcery Vale, satisfied that no demons were lurking in the wings, when you caught my eye. I saw your magic, the struggle taking place within you, the power you could wield if you survived. It’s not often that I come across such a promising find.

“I stayed to track your development. I staked you out and let you see me from time to time—I hoped your magic would respond to mine. I was trying to load the deck in my favour. I’d apologise, but that would be hypocritical of me.”

“Get on with it,” I snarl.

“There’s not much more to get on with. I spied on Dervish and Juni when I wasn’t following you. I knew that witch was up to no good, but I wasn’t sure of her exact plans. Then I saw the Lambs arrive. You burst out of the underground cellar. I trailed you to the cave, but didn’t follow you down—Juni would have sensed my presence. I waited while she came, dealt with you and left again. Then you burst out of the cave. I pursued you to your brother’s house, then the airport. When I realised Juni planned to board an aeroplane with you, I guessed what her plan was and I followed.”

“You could have stopped her,” I say icily. “You knew she was going to kill the other passengers. You could have attacked. Ripped me from her before we got on.”

“No,” he says. “I wasn’t sure. She might not have struck on the aeroplane. Or perhaps she was taking you somewhere else to meet Lord Loss. Maybe you were in league with her. I weighed up all my options and I decided to wait. It was the right call and if I had to make it again, I’d do exactly the same thing.”

He scowls at the disgusted look I give him, then waves the matter away. “And here we are,” he says. “The end of the story.”

“Not quite,” I reply. “You still haven’t said what you want me for, why you rescued me and brought me here.”

Beranabus frowns. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Yes. But I want you to say it.”

“Very well. You’re a magician. I want you to become my assistant, like Kernel, cross into the universe of the Demonata with us, and spend the rest of your life by my side, killing demons.”

THE MONOLITH

Sitting on my blanket, legs crossed, hunched over, fingers locked together. Beranabus is at his table, sorting through papers, muttering and whistling. Kernel is exercising, stretching and limbering up. They’re setting off to fight demons shortly. They expect me to go with them.

It’s crazy. I told Beranabus I wouldn’t do it. Leave my own world? Enter the Demonata’s realm? Fight monsters like Lord Loss every day? No bloody way, Jo-bloody-se!

Beranabus didn’t argue. Just shrugged and said we all have to make our own decisions in life, then went to get ready. I sat by the fire a while longer, watching him and Kernel prepare. Then came back here, where I’ve been sitting for the last half-hour, silent, numb.

Kernel finishes stretching. Bends, touches his toes, then rises in the air. Slowly turns head over heels. Lands softly on his feet and lets go of his toes. Spots me watching him and walks over. “Having fun?”

“It’s better than a circus.” I stare up at him, his scars and bruises, the marks of past battles, the fear in his eyes. “How do you do it?” I whisper. “I’ve fought demons. I know what it’s like. How do you find the courage to…”

Kernel shrugs like it’s no big deal. Licks his lips and glances at Beranabus, then sits beside me. “I never really had a choice,” he says. “I had a brother. Well, I thought… No, let’s leave it at that—it gets too complicated otherwise. He was kidnapped by a demon. I followed after him. Met Beranabus and some others—your uncle was one of them.”

“You know Dervish?” I ask, surprised.

“Yes. I haven’t seen him in thirty-odd years, but we were good friends back then. I wouldn’t have survived without him. Is he still a punk?”

“What?” I frown.

“He was a punk. Spiked hair, earrings, leather jacket, chains.”

“No,” I chuckle. “We must be talking about a different guy. Dervish was never…” I hesitate. How many demon-fighting Disciples called Dervish can there be in the world? “I’ll quiz you about that later. Finish telling me about yourself first.”

Kernel shrugs. “Things didn’t work out with my brother. I returned home, but several years had passed—time works differently in the Demonata’s universe. I couldn’t pick up the pieces of my old life. I no longer belonged to that world. So I came to work for Beranabus. He taught me how to master my powers and slay demons. I’ve been doing it ever since.”

“What’s it like? Do you have days off? Weekends? Holidays?”

Kernel laughs. “Sure—two weeks on a beach of fire in the sunny south of Hades, half-price offseason. Of course we don’t have holidays! We don’t fight all the time—we have to rest, and Beranabus occasionally has to do something on this world—but we’re at it most days of any given year.”

“What do you do when you’re not fighting?”

“Recover and relax here.”

“You don’t get out at all? Not even for a day trip?”

“Day trip to where?” Kernel snorts. “I pop up the ladder every now and then for a breath of fresh air. Maybe go for a walk for an hour or two. But it’s boiling by day, freezing by night, and there’s nothing to see or do.”

“Doesn’t Beranabus take you with him when he goes away?”

“Rarely,” Kernel says hotly. “He prefers it if one of us is here when we’re not battling demons, in case anyone tries to contact him. And even when he does take me, it’s only ever on business. We’re in and out as quickly as possible, keeping a low profile, hiding in the shadows.”

He stops. His fingers are trembling. There are hard tears in his eyes, but he’s holding them back. I try thinking of something comforting to say, but can’t. I want to change the subject, but don’t know what to talk to him about. So I ask about his age—not entirely off-topic, but hopefully less of a sore point.

“You said you’d been with Beranabus thirty years, but that can’t be right. You don’t look more than sixteen or seventeen.”

He smiles tiredly. “Like I said, time works differently in the demon universe. It varies from zone to zone. In some places it passes faster than here or at the same rate, but usually it’s slower. We’re often gone for what feels like a day or two, only to return to find six months have passed here.”

“Bloody hell!” I gasp.

Kernel nods miserably. “In real time I’ve been with Beranabus for… I don’t know… maybe four or five years. But thirty or more have slipped by on Earth while we’ve been off fighting demons.”

“That’s what Beranabus wants me to sign up for?” I gulp. “Spend my life facing demons? Live in a cave when I’m not working? And go out one day to find that decades have passed and everyone I knew is old or dead?”

“It sounds bad when you put it that way.” Kernel laughs hollowly. “It has its rewards. I’m more powerful than just about any living human. And I save the planet from unimaginable dangers on a regular basis. But that’s not much comfort when I’m rotting away here or being pummelled by a four-headed giant.”

Kernel stands and smirks, a hint of pity in his otherwise bitter, mocking smile. “Welcome to the firm.” Then he goes to get ready.

Beranabus works on opening a window to the Demonata’s universe. It was a big deal for Dervish when he summoned Lord Loss, but Beranabus is more adept. A few spells, some scrawled symbols on the walls, a silly short dance and the world starts to fade around us. Smoke pours from Beranabus’s flesh, all sorts of shapes, mostly a mix of animals and demons. The roof of the cave goes momentarily translucent. I spot a red sky full of giant demons streaking across the heavens like meteors. Then the cave firms up again. The smoke clears. And Beranabus is standing in front of a black pillar which is strangely familiar. The word “monolith” pops into my head, but I don’t know why.

“Not bad, aye?” Beranabus says. “Kernel is the master of opening windows, but he’s at his best in the universe of the Demonata. From here it’s as easy for me to do it. But once we cross he’s in a league of his own. You’ll see what I mean soon enough—if you come with us.” He takes a step back from the monolith. “Made up your mind yet?”

“I made it up ages ago,” I snap. “I’m not coming.”

“Of course you are,” Beranabus smiles. “Who could resist a challenge like this? The chance to flex your magical muscles, eliminate scores of demons, save the world. You’ll come with us in the end, so why not drop the reluctant act and—”

“I’m not acting!” I shout, flushing angrily. “I’ve had enough of demons. I don’t want to fight them. I don’t care how magical I am. I’m not your assistant and I never will be. So just—”

“There are two fields of thought about the granting of magical talent,” Beranabus interrupts smoothly. “Some claim it’s pure luck, the random lottery of the universe doling out magic without method or purpose. Others—and I’m one of them—believe there’s a force which wants humans to triumph. We think magicians are created to keep the world safe from the Demonata, that at times of great peril, heroes are generated, capable of defeating the otherwise unstoppable forces of evil.

“It doesn’t matter which is right. You have the power. Whether you gained it by design or accident is irrelevant. You have the ability to kill demons, to stop them crossing. If you don’t make the most of that talent—if you hide from your duty—it’s because you’re a coward, plain and simple.”

I tremble with rage at the insult. Part of me wants to call upon all of my newly revealed powers and hit him with the strongest magical blast I can muster, to teach him never to mess with me again. But I don’t. Because he’s speaking the truth.

Dervish loved me, so he never said it, but he must have thought it. He didn’t object when I refused to learn spells and magic. He respected my choice and never made me feel like I was chickening out. I told myself I’d done my bit and now I was entitled to a normal life.

But that was rot. Deep down I knew I didn’t want to fight because I was scared. Dervish knew it, I knew it and now Beranabus knows it. The only difference is, Beranabus has called me out.

Beranabus is leaning towards me, eyebrows raised, awaiting my comeback. When I don’t respond to the insult, he smiles sadly. “I can’t afford to wet-nurse you. This is a serious business, no room for lies or charades. When you were an average child, you could afford to be a coward—nobody suffered. Now you have to be a hero or untold billions might die.”

“That’s an exaggeration, isn’t it?” I mutter.

“No. Those are the stakes we play for. If it was hundreds, it wouldn’t matter—I let that many die on the plane. Even millions… the world can afford to lose a few million humans every now and again. You could think of it as judicious pruning. Mankind would continue whether you joined us or not.

“But we deal in billions—wholesale slaughter. If the more powerful Demonata make it through, everybody perishes. That’s why you can’t be a coward any longer. I won’t let you deny your calling just because you’re a nice boy and I feel sorry for you. We have a duty—me, Kernel, you. Fair or not, that’s the way it is. So you’re coming through that window with us. Unless the coward within you is stronger than I think…”

He looks at me harshly. Behind him, Kernel keeps his head down. I think he’s ashamed of Beranabus, but also of himself and the choices the pair of them must make. The choice I must make.

“I can’t do it,” I sob. “You don’t understand. I’ve replayed those battles with Lord Loss so many times… Vein and Artery… Slawter… the anguish. I did it the first time to save Bill-E, because he’s my brother, and in Slawter because we were trapped and it was fight or die. But there was never time to worry about it in advance or make a considered decision to pit myself against demons. This is different. I’d be choosing horror and misery. I’ve seen the nightmarish work of the Demonata in real life and in dreams. I can’t face them again. I can’t.”

“You can,” Beranabus says, not giving way. “Unless you want to accept that you’re a worthless coward. Unless you’re prepared to flee like a whipped, shamed cur. Are you, Grubitsch?”

“I…” My voice seizes. I come within a breath of saying yes. I want to. I almost grasp the yellow mantle gratefully. But the shame… the guilt… to live the rest of my life as a branded coward…

“Please,” I moan. “Don’t do this to me.”

“It’s already done,” Beranabus says. “I’m not pushing you into anything. I’m just the one who has the unpleasant task of breaking the news to you.” He steps forward, grabs my shoulder and looks hard into my eyes. “Hero or coward. There’s no in-between. Choose now. The Demonata won’t wait forever.”

Wanting to scream, to run, to tell him to go stuff himself.

Knowing I can’t, that I’m gifted, that I’m damned.

“I hope they kill me,” I cry, tearing away from him, trembling wildly. “I hope I don’t last five minutes.”

“I hoped that too when I first crossed,” Kernel says softly, then walks to the monolith, puts a hand on the surface, breathes on it and steps through as the dark face shimmers. He vanishes.

“You will fare better than you fear, Grubitsch,” Beranabus says encouragingly, following Kernel to the monolith. He puts a hand on it.

“Wait,” I stop him and he looks back questioningly. “If we’re going to do this, I want to make one thing clear. It’s Grubbs, understand? I bloody hate Grubitsch.”

Beranabus smiles crookedly and says with all the charm of Sweeney Todd, “If you can kill demons, I’ll call you anything you please. If not, I’ll leave your bones lying scattered in their universe, nameless.” He faces the monolith again and exhales. It shimmers and he moves forward. Gone.

I don’t think about this being my chance to run, to get out of here, lose myself in the desert and die on my own world. Afraid the coward within me will take control if I give it a chance. Without hesitation, I lurch forward, put both hands on the monolith, breathe on it like the others did and step through into madness.

THE STUFF THAT HEROES ARE MADE OF

First impression—this place is infinitely different to the webby world of Lord Loss. Light blue in colour, it’s like something out of a Picasso painting, all cubes and weird angles. We’re in a valley of sorts. Narrow, jagged pillars of a weird blue substance rise high around us. I edge over to the nearest pillar and sniff, expecting the stench of sulphur. But it smells more like a piece of rotten fruit—a peach or pear maybe.

“Don’t touch it,” Beranabus says. “It’s probably not dangerous, but we don’t take chances here. The less physical contact we make, the better.”

“Where is this?” I ask.

“The Demonata’s universe, idiot,” Kernel snaps.

“I meant which part? I don’t know anything about the set-up here. Are there ten worlds, twenty, a thousand?

“Do they have names? Which one are we on?”

“Geography doesn’t work like that here,” Beranabus says, studying the pillars, eyes sharp. “The worlds and zones are constantly changing. There are many self-contained galaxies within the general demon universe. The stronger Demonata have the power to create their own realms or take over another demon’s and reshape it. We never know what we’re going to find when we cross.”

“Then how do you hunt?” I frown.

“We target specific demons. Realms might change, but demons don’t, except for the shape-shifters, and even they don’t change on the inside, where it counts. If we know a demon’s name, Kernel can locate it within minutes. If we don’t know, or if the demon doesn’t have a name, it’s more complicated. Each demon has a unique spiritual vibration.”

“Call it a demonic frequency,” Kernel chips in when I look blank. “Demons have souls, like humans, and they emit a certain type of wave which we can sense. Each demon’s soul is like a radio station, transmitting on an individual frequency. If we think a certain demon’s working on a window or tunnel, we can lock on to its signal and track it down.”

“It’s not easy,” Beranabus says, “especially if it’s a demon we’ve had no first-hand experience of, but we usually find what we’re looking for.”

Kernel points to one of the shorter pillars. “There.”

Beranabus squints. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Either you’re getting sharper or my eyes are getting worse,” Beranabus mutters, then raises a hand and sends a ball of energy shooting at the pillar. There’s a gentle glowing. A sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Then the pillar moves and an angular demon steps out of a crack.

Fear grabs hold and magic flares within me. I bring up my hands defensively, but Beranabus stops me with a high-spirited, “Rein in those horses, boy!” He faces the demon and smiles. “How do you feel about dying today?”

The demon makes a series of choking noises. The sounds don’t make sense to me, but Beranabus can decipher them. “No,” he says. “We’re not going to leave you alone. You know who we are and what we want. Now, do you have something to tell us or do we make life wickedly uncomfortable for you?”

The demon glares at Beranabus through a series of triangular eyes, but it looks more miserable than angry. It’s an odd creature, not really frightening in manner or appearance. It mutters something. Beranabus and Kernel share a glance. “You’re sure?” Kernel asks and the demon nods stiffly.

“Excellent,” Beranabus beams and cocks his head at Kernel. The bald teenager shuffles away a couple of metres, then starts moving his hands about in the air. It’s as if he’s sliding invisible blocks around.

“What’s happening?” I ask Beranabus quietly, not wanting to disturb Kernel.

“I’m opening a window,” Kernel answers before Beranabus can, an edge to his voice. “This is my speciality. I can see panels of light which are invisible to all others. When I slide certain panels together, windows form. I can get to anywhere in this universe—or ours—through them.”

“Where will this one lead?” I ask.

“You’ll find out soon,” Kernel says. “We’re going in search of prey. You want to kill demons, don’t you?”

“No. But let’s say I did. What about that one?” I point to the blue demon, which is edging back into the crack, becoming one with the landscape again.

“Not worth killing,” Beranabus says dismissively. “There are untold billions of demons. They’re all evil, but most can’t hurt us or cross to our world. That cretin doesn’t even dare leave this valley. It waits, hiding and surviving, doing precious little else.”

“What does it feed on?” I ask.

“Who knows,” Beranabus sniffs. “Maybe nothing. Most demons don’t need to eat and drink. Many do, but out of choice, not necessity.”

“Then why did we come here, if not to kill it?” I frown.

“Information,” Kernel says, looking around. “We’re like detectives with a team of snitches. We know where to find soft demons. We often come to places like this, rough up the locals, find out if anything foul is afoot—something usually is. Demons like that one might not do much, but they know things. Secrets are hard to keep in this universe. Word spreads quickly.”

“What’s the word now?” I ask, caught off guard. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t something like this.

“There’s a demon trying to possess a woman on Earth,” Beranabus says. “That happens all the time. It’s not a problem for us, though it’s bad for those involved. Some demons who can’t cross universes can establish a hold on the minds of humans. They manipulate them, send them mad, use them to create as much chaos as possible. We normally wouldn’t bother with small-scale melodramatics like this, but I want to break you in gently.”

Kernel grunts. “On my first mission we fought a pair of demons who had almost broken through to the centre of Moscow. They were two of the toughest I’ve ever faced. It was bloody and tight. That’s when I lost the tips of my fingers.” He stares at his left hand, the fingers flinching inwards as he relives the memory.

“Why couldn’t you replace them?” I ask. “You can do that with magic, right?”

“Normally. But the loss made little difference. I decided to leave them as they were. They remind me of the dangers we face, the fact that success isn’t a guarantee, that we can and will perish in this hell-hole eventually.”

“Here we go,” Beranabus says briskly. A purplish window has formed in front of Kernel. Beranabus walks up to it and steps through, not bothering to breathe on this one. Kernel curls his fingers into a fist, then relaxes his fingers and follows.

I look back in the direction of the blue demon, but I can’t see it now, even though I know the exact spot where it’s hiding. Shaking my head, I think, “This isn’t so bad. I can handle this.” But I know it’s a false start, that worse—much worse—is to come.

There’s a sound far overhead, from the meteor-sized demons in the sky. Fearful of being attacked while I’m alone, I rush to the window and push through after the others.

Fire! It’s all around me, fierce, intense, out of control. I feel the hair on my arms singe and know I have only seconds before I burst into flames. Total panic. I want to look for Beranabus and Kernel or scream for help, but my eyes and mouth shut automatically against the heat. “Oh, for the love of…” Kernel tuts, taking hold of my arm and shaking it roughly. “This is ridiculous. He’s not fit for this. Send him back.”

“He’ll learn,” Beranabus says and then his lips are by my left ear. “Use magic to guide yourself.”

“It’s hell!” I moan, speaking out of the side of my mouth, keeping my eyes shut.

“One of many thousands of hells,” Beranabus grunts. “For every imaginative demon who constructs a terrifyingly original realm, there are scores who draw upon tired old human myths. Stop acting like a fool. You can already feel your magic responding to this, protecting you from the flames. You’d be burning to a crisp right now if not.”

I open one eye, then the other. Nothing to see but flames. Beranabus and Kernel are hard to spot among the flickering licks of yellow and red. Still hot, hotter than I should be able to bear. But magic’s humming away in the background, cooling me down, guarding my freckled flesh. Beranabus is right—it kicked in as soon as I set foot here, even as the hairs on my arms began to shrivel. I knew that—I could feel it—but fear made me panic.

“Where’s the demon?” I ask, trying to peer through the walls of fire. I look down and realise we’re truly in the middle of the flames—no floor. Nothing below, above or to the sides except fire.

“The flames are the demon,” Kernel says. “It’s a universal demon.”

“Am I supposed to know what that means?” I growl.

“Universal demons don’t just inhabit a galaxy of their own—they become it,” Beranabus explains. “This demon has a fascination with fire, so it became flames. Its whole zone—the demon itself—is made of fire.”

“But where does it start?” I ask. “Where does it end?”

“Nowhere,” Beranabus says. “This demon is its own self-contained and at the same time limitless realm. It’s like our universe—infinite.”

While I’m trying to make sense of that—I’ve always had problems thinking of a universe being infinite, never mind one single creature—the flames thicken around us. There’s a horrible shrieking sound, piercing and destructive. My eardrums and eyeballs should burst, but magic protects me instinctively. (Which is just as well, since I wouldn’t know where to start to control it!)

A shape forms amid the flames, gigantic and bulging, like the wizard’s fake head in The Wizard of Oz, only a hundred times bigger and more frightening, full of leaping shadows, sparks and flames.

The demon shrieks again. A huge, rough, fiery fist forms and smashes down on Beranabus. He waves an arm at the fist and slices through the flames. The edges of his beard singe, but he’s otherwise unharmed.

Another fist forms and tries to swat Kernel aside. He leaps high, somersaults over it, opens his mouth mid-leap and sucks in sharply. He inhales flames, face turning a pure, angry, painful white. The demon screams. Kernel lands, coughs, spins and leaps over another quickly formed fist.

Beranabus grabs handfuls of flames and rams them into his stomach. And I mean into—his hands pierce his own flesh. He’s stuffing his guts full of fire. The hands come out, the wall of his stomach unharmed. He grabs more flames and jams them in. Out—in. Out—in.

And what does the heroic Grubbs Grady do? I hang beside them, helpless and shivering, about as much use as a plastic toasting fork. I want to help, but I don’t know how. My magic isn’t strong enough. I don’t want to be here. This isn’t my fight.

Then, in the middle of the battle, the demon focuses on me. Two huge fists form on either side and slam towards me, to hammer me lifeless.

I throw myself to the floor. Except there isn’t a floor. Just flames. I don’t know how I’ve been hovering, but I’m not anymore. I’m falling, like when Beranabus ripped me out of the plane, dropping like a sack of stones, quickly losing sight of the magician and his assistant.

“Help!” I scream.

“Help yourself,” Beranabus roars, then curses brutally.

I come to a stop. Relief evaporates moments later when I realise I haven’t been helped by Beranabus or Kernel—I’m being held in the middle of a giant hand of fire. The fingers close upon me. The heat’s unbearable. I feel my magic struggling, protesting, pleading with me to direct it, use it, fight back. But what can I do? How can I defeat a creature made of flames? It’s impossible. At least Lord Loss and his familiars were real targets. I could hit them. This is lunacy. We’re all going to perish, burnt to death by a demon the size of a universe.

I scream at the flames. The fingers stop, shudder, then tear apart. I fall again. I’m crying, taking no satisfaction out of destroying the hand because I’m sure another will form any second now, bigger, stronger, hotter.

Then Kernel is by my side. His eyes are sharp bright blue with rage. “Bloody amateur,” he sneers. “Bloody coward.”

“I can’t do it,” I babble. “I told you I couldn’t. I didn’t want to come here. Make me stop falling. Help me get—”

“Shut up, you worm!” Kernel shouts. “I should let you burn.” He laughs cruelly. “The hell with it. Your death would serve no purpose.” He darts away from me, angling down, moving much quicker than I’m falling. He becomes a speck, then stops. As I hurtle towards him, I see his hands moving, the way they did when he created the window to this universe.

When I’m maybe a hundred metres away, a dark green window forms. Kernel slides away from it and waves at me like a policeman directing traffic. I’m rushing towards the window. The flames peel away from me. The window gets bigger and bigger as I fall upon it. I just have time to worry about what will happen when I flash through and smash into the ground on the other side. Then I hit it and everything goes green.

A FACE FROM THE PAST

I land hard on the floor of Beranabus’s cave, but no bones shatter. Groaning, I pick myself up and look around. The fire has burnt out—only cold ashes remain. But torches glow on the walls, the flames kept alive by magic. Overhead the window hangs flat, two metres or so above me. A few moments later, as I’m edging clear of it on my hands and knees, it shimmers, then breaks apart and disappears.

I crawl to my bed and lie down, panting, heart still racing from my encounter with the fire demon, bones aching from the impact of the fall. I shut my eyes and shiver, then climb beneath the blanket for warmth.

Lying in the gloom and quiet. Thinking about the universe of the Demonata. My eyes open and tears wet my lashes. I’m ashamed. I acted like a gutless coward. What’s happened to me? I was braver than this when I faced Lord Loss. Scared, but I fought bravely. Why can’t I be that way now? For long hours I lie still, pondering, before falling into a troubled, restless, shame-tinged sleep.

No sign of Beranabus and Kernel when I wake. I worry about them for a few minutes, but then recall them saying time usually passes quicker here than in the universe of the Demonata. A fight which lasts an hour or two there can equate to days, weeks or even months here.

Rising stiffly, I explore the cave in search of food and water. I find ample supplies stacked in all corners, the food imperishable, the water carefully bottled. So I won’t starve or die of thirst. Not unless they’re gone for years…

The fire next. There are logs and chunks of turf nearby, but no matches or lighters. I try one of the torches, but they’re secured tight to the wall and I don’t want to break any off. I guess Beranabus and Kernel use magic to start the fire. Reluctant to disturb my inner powers, I attempt to ape cavemen and ignite the fire by rubbing sticks together, banging a couple of stones off each other, in search of an elusive first spark. But I quickly discover that I’m nowhere near as advanced as a caveman.

Sitting back, frowning at the logs. It’s not especially cold in the cave, but I want to light a fire regardless, more for the comfort of its crackling, natural flames than anything else. So, cautiously, I reach within myself and look for magic. But it withdraws as I come near. I sense the power, but it darts out of reach. I feel like it’s punishing me, annoyed that I didn’t use it to fight the demon. You can go stuff yourself if you think I’ll help you now! Make your own fire, coward!

Giving up, I grab a tin of beans, a fork and a can-opener, and return to my bed, where I eat the beans cold. Staring at the lifeless fire as I eat. Remembering the flames in the other universe and my cowardice. Trying to justify my actions. What was I meant to do? Suck in flames like Kernel? Jam them into my gut like Beranabus? If they’d shown me how, I could have. But they dropped me into it, no warnings or advice. Maybe I wasn’t really a coward, just ignorant.

Unable to convince myself. If we’d been fighting a demon master, I could plead inexperience. But Kernel said this was a lesser demon. Beranabus was starting me off lightly, testing me out on one of the meeker monsters. There can be no excuses.

I lurch to my feet. I’m getting out of here. I don’t want to be around when they return. I’ll hide my shame in the desert. Take off, let the sun roast me or the chill night air freeze me. Die alone and lost. No more worries or cares. Better off out of this mad game of werewolves, magic and demons.

I rush to the rope ladder and haul myself up, muscles pumping. Going so fast, I smack my skull on the roof of the cave when I get to the top. Wincing, I rub my head and retreat a couple of rungs, then look for the opening. I can’t find one. The rock appears to be solid. I run my fingers over it, searching for a crack or button, but there’s nothing. It must open by magic.

Descending sourly. Hating magic all the more. Why can’t I be an ordinary teen with normal problems? I never looked for magic. Wasn’t the least bit interested in it. So why did it pick on me? What the hell have I done to deserve this?

Back to my blanket. Glaring at the cold embers of the fire. Waiting impatiently for Beranabus and Kernel’s return. Half wishing I’d stayed in the Demonata’s universe and fried.

Time passes slowly, miserably. No way of telling if it’s day or night. When I’m not sleeping, I just sit and think, eat mechanically, or walk in circles around the cave. Go to the back and dig a hole when I need the toilet, then fill it in. Disgusted the first few times, but now it’s second nature. No biggie.

I often find myself wondering what’s happening in the other universe, wishing I could find the courage to go back, rejoin the fight and redeem myself. Playing out all manner of wild scenarios inside my head, in which I’m Grubbs Grady—superhero. I find Beranabus and Kernel in dire straits, backs against a fiery wall, at the mercy of the demon. It’s laughing evilly, about to finish them off. Then I lay into it and rip it to pieces. I shout at the startled Beranabus and Kernel, “You didn’t think I’d run away, did you? I just had to pop to the toilet.” They cheer as I kill the demon, then rush to clap my back, sing my praises, hail me as a saviour.

Nice dreams. But completely unconnected to reality. Because for all the wishing and make-believe, I don’t know how to open a window to the demon’s universe. And I’m certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that even if one materialised in front of me, I wouldn’t have the guts to step through. A hero only inside my head. In the real world I remain a coward.

Snapping out of a typically disturbed sleep. There are heavy, thumping noises. I think it’s Beranabus and Kernel returning or a demon breaking through. But when I look around there’s nothing in the cave. I frown, wondering if the noises were part of the dream. Listen for ages, sitting up. Silence.

I try to sleep again, but I’m too unsettled. So I walk around the cave for the millionth time. After a while I jog. Twenty laps, followed by push-ups, squats, more jogging. Shadow-punching as I run. Knocking hordes of imaginary monsters for six.

A series of short sprints. In better physical condition than I’ve been in a long time—maybe ever. Thinking about Loch and how approving he’d be if he could see me now. He was always pushing me to exercise more. Said I was a mountain of muscles which hadn’t been honed, that I could be truly ferocious if I pushed myself to my limits. But I never bothered. There was always something better to do with my time.

Not anymore. This is how Olympians should train. Shut themselves off from the world in a musky, murky cave, with nothing else to do except exercise. Works wonders when it comes to concentration. If I ever get out of here, maybe that will be my true calling in life—coach to athletic stars. It would certainly beat the hell out of killing demons for a living!

Still exercising. I’ve been at it for hours, pausing only for periods of short rest and to eat. Sweating so much, I have to take my clothes off. Keeping only my boxers on, in case Beranabus and Kernel drop in without warning.

Suddenly—I hear the noises again. Three heavy thumps, a pause, three more. Then silence.

I come to a standstill, listening to the echoes of the thumps. They came from overhead—the closed entrance to the cave. With sudden hope in my heart, I race to the ladder and scurry to the top, where I wait a few seconds for more sounds. When there’s only silence, I roar, “Hello!” and listen again. Nothing.

Back to the bottom of the ladder. I look for something to strike the roof of the cave with, but there’s not much here. I go through the drawers of Beranabus’s table—the first time I’ve examined it—but there’s nothing except papers, pens and small knick-knacks. I note absentmindedly that the flowers are still blooming, fresh as ever.

Eventually I grab one of the longer logs from the wood pile and drag it up the ladder, then pound the roof with it, three times, a pause, then three more. I hold it by my side, trying to stifle my heavy breathing, so I can hear clearly, praying for a series of answering knocks. But there aren’t any.

I pound the roof again and again without reply. Eventually I give up and drop the log. I hang there a while longer, then climb down, dejected. Halfway to the floor I realise that if the noises were human-made, maybe the person has left. When there was no immediate answer, maybe he or she decided there was nobody home, that they’d try again later.

Back on the ground I drink half a bottle of water, go to the toilet, then return to the base of the ladder, pick up the log and climb again. At the top I settle back, get as comfortable as I can and wait, desperate to make contact with another human being.

Many hours later. My legs and arms ache from clinging to the ladder. Tired and irritated. Telling myself I’m wasting my time. The noises were probably a rockfall. I should climb down, get some sleep, then fill the hours with more exercise.

On the point of quitting when the noises come again—three resounding thumps, a pause, then three more, just like earlier. In a fit of excitement I raise the log—then drop it! Reacting swiftly, I grab for it, catch it and arc it upwards, slamming it hard into the roof of the cave, once, twice, three times. A short pause, then I hammer the roof again. Then, heart beating hard, I lower it and listen.

Nothing.

For several minutes I hang there, hopeful, awaiting an answer. But as the silence stretches I realise there’s not going to be one. Either the thuds are the result of an especially large animal or the rock overhead is too thick for the noises I make to carry to the other side. Perhaps they’re using magic to penetrate the rock sheet or maybe they have an especially large hammer.

Dejected, I descend, then make for bed and the escape of sleep. Even my nightmares are more welcome than the monotony of the cave.

More empty hours follow, the only distraction—apart from exercise—coming in the form of the thumping noises at regular intervals. I’m sure it’s a person—no animal could make the same sounds over and over—but with no way of contacting them, I lose interest and soon stop wondering who it might be. After a while I even start to ignore the thumps and barely notice them when they come.

Then, one day—or night—as I’m halfway through a four-minute sprint, a green window forms close to the remains of the fire and Kernel steps through. I come to a halt almost directly in front of him. He stares at me icily, casts a curious eye over my bare chest and legs, then goes to the fire and starts it with a single word.

As I’m pulling my clothes on, Beranabus appears. His beard is badly burnt and his hands are red, but otherwise he’s unharmed. “Been keeping the cave warm for us?” he says sneeringly.

“He didn’t even manage to get the fire going,” Kernel snorts.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“Did you… the demon… is it…” I mutter.

“All taken care of,” Beranabus says. “Quenched forever, its universe now a cold, lifeless expanse of space. Human saved, order restored, tragedy averted.”

“No thanks to you,” Kernel sniffs.

I ignore the insult. “How long were you in there?”

“No idea,” Beranabus says as the window behind him vanishes. “It felt like a day. What about here?”

“A couple of weeks. Maybe three.”

“That must have been boring.”

“Serves him right,” Kernel snaps, shooting me a disgusted look. “Running out like that… leaving us to deal with it ourselves…”

“It’s not like we had to struggle,” Beranabus murmurs, no idea that his kindness makes me feel worse than ever.

“He wasn’t to know that,” Kernel hisses. “He left us to fight alone. Didn’t stop to think if we might need him. Didn’t care.”

“That’s not true,” I say sullenly. “Yes, I ran. But I did care. I just couldn’t… it was too… I told you!” I cry. “I didn’t want to go. You made me.”

“Listen to him,” Kernel jeers. “He sounds like a five-year-old. I wouldn’t have thought someone his age and size could be so gutless. Maybe he—”

“Enough!” Beranabus barks. Sighing, he heads to his table and motions me to follow. He sits on an old wooden chair, stretches his legs out, cracks his knuckles above his head and yawns. Lowering his hands, he fiddles with some of the flowers, shuffles papers around, then takes a drawing out of one of the drawers and stares at it.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly.

“No,” he sighs. “It was my fault. I thought you were made of stronger stuff. I could see the fear in you and your reluctance to get involved. But given your background, I thought you’d shrug it off once faced with a demon, that you’d rise to the occasion like you did before.”

“It was different then,” I tell him. “I didn’t know what I was getting into the first time, and in Slawter I was trapped. I had no choice but to fight. I’ve had so many horrible nights since then, so many nightmares. I’m not just scared of demons now—I’m bloody terrified.”

“I understand,” Beranabus says. “I didn’t before, but I do now.” He studies the drawing again, then lays it aside. “I’m a poor judge of character. I’ve made mistakes before, taken children into the universe of the Demonata when they weren’t ready, lost them cheaply. But they’ve always been fighters. This is the first time I’ve taken someone who lacked the stomach for battle. It was a grave error on my part. I should have known better.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“No. I’m sad. You have such ability, it’s a shame to see it go to waste. But if the fighting instinct isn’t there, there’s no point moping. I thought you were a warrior. I was wrong. You don’t criticise a pony for not being a horse.”

He falls silent and looks around at the flowers on the table. I’m not sure I like his comparison. Never thought of myself as Grubbs Grady—pony! But I guess it’s appropriate. I might lack the guts to be a hero, but at least I’ve pride enough not to whinge when the truth is pointed out.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t fight. So what happens? Will you take me back? Set me loose in the desert? What?”

Beranabus frowns. “I can’t spare much time. You wouldn’t survive outside and it would be cruel to make you wait here indefinitely. I’ll take you to the nearest human outpost. You’ll have to make your own way from there. Once you get home, tell Dervish what happened. Ask him to help you work on your magic. Even if you can’t fight, you can watch for demons. Become a Disciple. I know you’d rather keep out of this completely, but you might make a difference. Do you think you could do that?”

“Sure,” I gush, delighted to be told I’m not entirely worthless. “I avoided magic because I thought if I learnt it, I’d have to fight demons. But if I just have to be a watchdog…”

“Good choice of words,” Kernel snorts.

“Now, now,” Beranabus tuts. “Let’s not be ungracious.”

Kernel spits into the fire. His spit sizzles, revealing more about his opinion of me than he could ever say with words.

“When do we leave?” I ask, eager to be out of here, free of this confining cave and Kernel’s scorn.

“Soon,” Beranabus promises. “I need to get some sleep, and eat when I wake, but after that we’ll depart.”

“Great,” I grin, turning away to let the elderly magician go to bed. Then I remember the noises and turn to tell him. “I forgot, somebody’s been…”

I come to a halt. Beranabus is leaning over, stroking the leaves of one of the flowers, smiling fondly at it. I can see the drawing he was looking at earlier. It’s a pencil sketch of a girl’s face. And though the paper is yellow and wrinkled with age, the face is shockingly familiar.

“Who’s that?” I croak. Beranabus looks up questioningly. I point a trembling finger at the drawing. “The girl—who is she?”

“Someone who died a very long time ago,” Beranabus says, touching the paper. “She sacrificed her life fighting the Demonata, to keep the world safe. An example to us all. Not that I’m trying to make you feel small. I didn’t mean—”

“There was a voice,” I interrupt, eyes fixed on the drawing. “At the cave in Carcery Vale. I didn’t mention it before—it didn’t seem to matter and there was so much else to tell you. But when I went to the cave, I heard a voice and saw a face in the rocks. It was alive. Even though it was in the rock, it could open its eyes and move its lips. It spoke to me.”

I pick up the drawing and study the girl’s face, the curve of her jaw, the eyes and mouth. “This is the girl from the cave. She called to me… warned me, I think, but I don’t know what of. She spoke in a different lan—”

“It can’t be!” Beranabus snaps, snatching the drawing back. “This girl has been dead for almost sixteen hundred years. You’re mistaken.”

“No,” I say certainly. “It was her. I’m sure of it. Who the hell was she and why did she try so hard to contact me?”

In answer to that, Beranabus only sits and stares at me, shocked—and afraid.

THE WARNING

“Impossible!” Beranabus keeps croaking. “Impossible!” He’s striding around the cave, hair and eyes even wilder than normal, clutching the drawing of the girl to his chest, muttering away to himself, occasionally bursting out with another round of, “Impossible! Impossible!”

Kernel and I have drawn together by the fire, temporarily united by our uncertainty. “Has he ever gone off like this before?” I whisper.

“No,” Kernel replies quietly. “He often talks to himself, but I’ve never seen him so agitated.”

“Do you know who the girl is?”

Kernel shakes his head. “Just some old drawing that he gets out every now and then and moons over.”

“Beranabus said she died sixteen hundred years ago.”

“I heard.”

“Do you think he knew her? Was he alive then?”

“No.” Kernel frowns. “He can’t have been. We can live a long time, battling the Demonata in their universe, even a few hundred years. But no human can live that long. At least that’s what Beranabus taught me…

Beranabus stops pacing, whirls and fixes his stare on me. “You!” he shouts. “Come here!” I glance at Kernel for support. “Don’t dither! Get over here now!”

Since I don’t want to enrage him any further, I edge across but keep out of immediate reach. Beranabus holds the drawing up. His hands are shaking. “How sure are you?” he growls.

“It’s her,” I tell him. “The girl in the cave. I’m certain.”

“Would you stake your life on it?” he snarls.

“No,” I say hesitantly. “But it is her. You don’t forget a face like that. It’s not every day a person speaks to you from within the heart of a rock.”

Beranabus lowers the drawing. Turns it around so he can study the face again. “You say she’s alive?” he asks, voice low.

I shrug. “She spoke to me. But it wasn’t a real face. It was a cross between flesh and stone. She could have been some sort of ghost, I guess.”

“Of course,” Beranabus says. “But a ghost imprisoned there… trapped all this time…” His eyes shoot up. “Tell me what she said.”

“I can’t. I didn’t understand her. She spoke a different language.”

“Don’t be stupid! You can…” He stops and gets his breathing under control. “First things first. Tell me the whole story. Everything this time. About the cave, what you saw and heard. Leave nothing out.”

I don’t want to go through it again, but he’s not going to tell me anything until I do, so I quickly trot out the story, filling in all the details I skipped the first time. Seeing the face in the rock. The eyes opening. Later, when the girl spoke to me. In the cave, the night of my turning, when she screamed at me and seemed to be trying to warn me.

“Warn you of what?” Beranabus asks.

“Maybe that Juni was a traitor. Or of the danger Bill-E was in.”

“Perhaps,” Beranabus mutters. “There are blood ties between you, which might account for her interest in your predicament, but to break out of the rock and make herself heard must have required a huge amount of energy and effort. Why would she do that just to save your lives?”

He’s not expecting an answer, so I don’t try to provide one. Instead I pick up on something else he said and ask stiffly, “What blood ties?”

He waves a hand as though it’s nothing. “The girl was called Bec. A distant ancestor of yours.”

“Ancestor?”

“A distant one,” he repeats. “She was a priestess… a magician. A brave, true, selfless girl.”

“Did you know her?” Kernel asks. He’s slightly behind us, listening closely. “Were you alive then?”

“I’d be a real Methuselah if so,” Beranabus says. He looks at the drawing again and frowns. “I need to know what she said. She might have simply been trying to help you, but I think there’s more to it. We need to study her words.”

“But I told you I couldn’t understand her. I don’t speak her language.”

“I do,” Beranabus says, then gestures to the chair behind the desk. “I’m going to teach you another remembering spell, like the one we used to prove you didn’t kill your brother’s grandparents. But with this one you’ll repeat everything the girl said. I’ll be able to translate.”

I sit. Beranabus clears an area of the table, then lays the drawing down gently, so it’s facing me. “Look into her eyes,” he says softly. “Forget everything that’s happened recently. Let your mind drift back.” He gives me a minute, then says, “Repeat after me.”

I mimic Beranabus’s words carefully. As the spell develops, the lines on the paper shimmer. I’m startled, but I’ve seen a lot more incredible stuff in my time, so I don’t lose concentration. The lines begin to move. The face doesn’t bulge out of the page the way it projected from the rocks, but it comes alive. The eyes flicker and the lips part. The girl talks. No sounds come, just the motions. But as the spell concludes and Beranabus stops talking, I find my own lips moving in time with the drawing’s. Only it’s not my voice—it’s the girl’s.

I speak swiftly, anxiously, the muscles of my throat hurting from having to form such unusual words. I spot Kernel listening with a frown, unable to interpret. But Beranabus understands perfectly. And the more I say, the more his face pales and he trembles.

Before I finish, the elderly magician sinks to the floor and stares at me, appalled. I want to ask him what the girl said, but I can’t. My lips continue to move and the dead girl’s words spill out. I’m repeating myself from the beginning.

Beranabus groans and covers his ears with his hands. “No,” he wheezes. “Gods be damned. No!”

“Beranabus?” Kernel says, approaching his master cautiously. “What’s wrong?”

“His fault!” Beranabus shrieks, pointing an accusing finger at me. “If he’d told me when he first came here…” He shakes his head and curses. I carry on talking, unable to stop. I’m afraid he’s going to leave me this way, that I’ll warble on like this forever.

Finally, rising slowly, Beranabus growls something and the words cease. My mouth closes. I rub my aching jaws and throat, staring at the magician, wondering what I’ve done to incense him.

“Damn you, Grubitsch Grady,” he says bitterly, shooing me out of his chair and lowering himself into it, picking up the drawing and cradling it to his chest. There are angry, hopeless tears in his eyes. “Damn the day you came into this world. If I’d known the trouble you’d cause, I’d have killed you at birth, you meddling, cowardly, destructive brat.”

“Beranabus!” Kernel gasps as my insides clench tight.

“It’s true!” Beranabus shouts. “I stood up for the wretched fool, but I shouldn’t have. I should have just… just…” He stops, closes his eyes and moans. “No. You didn’t know what you were doing. I can’t blame you.”

“I don’t care what you think of me,” I snap, angry and ashamed. “Just tell me what she said, you horrible old buzzard.”

Beranabus opens his eyes and smiles faintly. “That’s more like it, boy. Spirit.” His smile disappears. “Bec was trying to warn you, but she wasn’t interested in saving your life. The stakes were much higher. She…”

He clears his throat, then continues lifelessly. “I don’t know how she wound up where she is, or how she managed to communicate with you, but her soul has been trapped in that cave since she died, torn between life and death, between our universe and the Demonata’s. I’ve never seen that before. Ghosts, aye, but only pale shades of those who died. This is different. She somehow defied the laws of death and her soul remains intact. It shouldn’t…” He coughs and shakes his head, then continues.

“Bec is able to peer into the demon universe from where she’s trapped. She’s been observing the Demonata for centuries. She became aware long ago of a powerful demon master trying to open a tunnel to this world. When she sensed you clearing the entrance to the cave, she was afraid the creature would learn of it and restore the ancient tunnel. That’s why she tried to warn you off. Later she learnt of a more direct threat, which is why she appeared so desperate the last time she established contact.

“I made a fatal error. I thought Lord Loss wasn’t interested in opening a tunnel between the two universes. But he’s changed his views. When Dervish told Juni about the cave, her master decided to kill two birds with one stone. His plan was to slaughter you, Dervish and your brother—or take you back to his own realm to torture—then open the tunnel, clearing the way for the ranks of demons to cross.”

Beranabus pauses. Kernel and I are staring at him, struck dumb.

“Juni must have made a sacrifice after Dervish revealed the cave to her,” he goes on. “It takes a few weeks for the blood of a sacrificed victim to prime the tunnel walls. The spells of opening can’t be cast until then. I was guarding the cave closely, but somehow she got in and killed someone without my knowledge.

“Lord Loss could have opened the tunnel at any time, but he decided to do it on a full moon, when there was more magic in the air. Tapping into the power of the moon, he could complete the spells within a few hours. That way, if I discovered him while he was at work, he’d only have to hold me at bay for that short time.

“Being a lover of neatness, he planned to kill or abduct you three and open the tunnel on the same night. Unfortunately for him, your magic burst to the surface and derailed things. He missed his chance to get even with the Grady clan at the cave. Since settling his score with you before he opened the floodgates was important to him, he pushed his plans back by a month.”

“Then we still have time!” I gasp. “It’s not too late. We know what he’s going to do. We’ll return to the cave and fight.”

“We?” Kernel says sarcastically.

“Yes! I’ll fight to save Dervish and Bill-E. I don’t care what those monsters throw at us. When it’s family, it’s different.”

“You really think you can choose not to be a coward if and when it suits you?” Kernel jeers.

Beranabus interrupts wearily before I can retort. “It doesn’t matter. You’re arguing about nothing. The time for heroics has passed.”

“What are you talking about?” I say edgily.

“It’s difficult to track time here,” Beranabus says softly, “but not impossible. I can reach out and make a quick check on the heavens when I wish. I did that while Bec was speaking. You miscalculated, Grubbs. It’s been seven weeks since I rescued you from the aeroplane.”

I start to shiver. “But… no… maybe Lord Loss delayed again. He wanted to kill me before he opened the tunnel, but I’m still alive. Maybe—”

“No,” Beranabus stops me. “Once I’d established the date, I cast my senses further afield. When there’s a rip of great magnitude between universes a magician can detect it. If the spells I’d cast at the cave worked, I’d have known earlier. I should have renewed them, but it seemed like there was no rush. I wouldn’t have made that mistake a hundred years ago. I’m getting so old…”

Beranabus sighs and his head drops. “The demons crossed as planned. They’ve had three weeks to stabilise, multiply and spread. Your town is theirs. Probably your country too. Dervish… your brother… everybody else you know in Carcery Vale…” He finishes in an awful whisper which fills me with a dread beyond any I’ve ever experienced. “The Demonata have had their way with them. They’re all dead now—and probably millions more besides.”