Slawter

WAKEY WAKEY

Dervish snoring. When I hear that, I know I’m back in the real world—there’s no mimicking a dreadful, pig-choking noise like that! I open my eyes and sit up, groggy, head pounding, utterly confused but no longer ensnared by the dream reality of the laboratory.

I’m in a small, dark room, chinks of light sneaking in around the edges of a dusty old set of blinds. Propped up on a bare wooden floor. Dervish and Bill-E spread out next to me. Both asleep.

“Dervish,” I mumble, shaking him hard. No answer. I shake him again, hissing his name in his ear, not too loud in case anybody’s on the other side of the door. Still no response. I roll up his eyelids with one hand and snap my fingers in front of his eyes with the other. He carries on snoring.

You were all dreaming the same thing, the magic part of me whispers. They’re still trapped inside it. They can’t wake themselves. You’ll have to use magic to bring them back.

It tells me the words to use. I murmur them softly, feeling magic flow out of me, into my uncle and brother. They stir.

Bill-E moans. Dervish grunts something about an armadillo. Their eyelids flicker and they struggle awake.

“What’s happening?” Bill-E groans.

“Where are we?” Dervish asks. “Where’s Prae Athim? Sharmila? Shark? The—”

“That was bull,” I cut in, steadying him as he tries to stand. “Easy. Don’t make any noise. We’re probably under guard.”

“I don’t understand. What…?” He stares around, forehead creased.

“It was a dream. The kidnapping, meeting up with the Disciples, the lab. None of that was real. It was all fantasy.”

“Don’t be crazy!” Dervish snaps. “I know the difference between…” He stops. Thinks about it. His jaw drops. “Bloody hell. It had me fooled completely.”

“Me too, for a while. But bits didn’t add up. There were mistakes.”

“The lab,” Dervish says slowly. “It looked familiar. Now I know why—I got the image from Franz Kafka’s book, The Trial.”

“Kafka?” I frown. “It looked like buildings from James Bond movies. And the cells were straight out of Silence of the Lambs.”

“What are you talking about?” Bill-E says. “The cells were like something in a sci-fi flick, all those control panels and lasers.”

“We provided our own dream variations,” Dervish says wonderingly. He rises, panting, and leans against a wall until his legs support him. He staggers to the blinds and parts a few slats. Peers out. Then looks at us. “We’re still in Slawter. We never left. Grubbs is right—it was all an illusion.”

Dervish walks around the room, giving his head time to clear, flexing his legs and arms. “I forgot how cunning the Demonata are. They’re masters of deception. They found out we were leaving, or they had a barrier in place to stop anyone getting out. Blocked us with magic. Created an insane scenario which seemed logical to us. Since our minds were active and focused on the dream—thinking that was reality—we couldn’t wake up.”

“Why not simply drug us?” Bill-E asks.

“They’re demons. They don’t work that way.” Dervish chuckles. “I can’t believe I fell for it. Walking on to the planes without tickets. Breezing through customs, nobody asking to see our passports.”

“I didn’t spot that,” I wince.

“What about you, Billy?” Dervish asks. “Notice anything out of place?”

“No,” Bill-E says, scratching his head. “Although I did think it strange that some of the nurses weren’t wearing any…” He coughs and blushes.

“They wanted us out of the way,” Dervish says, “so they subdued us. They could have killed us, but I guess they want us around for the finale. If Lord Loss is masterminding this, he won’t want to slaughter us while we’re sleeping. He’ll want to make us suffer first, so he can feast on our pain and gloat.”

“We have to get out of here,” I pant, getting up, fighting off a wave of dizziness. “We have to stop them. Get everybody out. Call the Disciples.”

“What about Juni?” Bill-E asks, and Dervish and I flinch, only now realising that she isn’t with us.

“They’re probably keeping her in another room,” Dervish says.

“Why?” Bill-E frowns.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There isn’t time to think about it.”

He strides to the door and presses an ear against it. I can tell by Bill-E’s expression that he’s going to push Dervish about Juni. I slip up beside him and whisper, “Dervish didn’t say it because he didn’t want to freak you out, but Juni’s probably dead. That’s why she isn’t here.”

Bill-E stares at me, ashen-faced. “But she was in the laboratory…”

“So were a lot of people. That doesn’t mean anything.” I squeeze his arm. “Dervish cares about Juni a lot, but he can’t think about her now. We can’t either. We can hope for the best, and if we’re lucky we’ll find her, sleeping like we were. But if she’s not… if the worst has happened… we have to overlook it. We have ourselves to worry about. And all the others.”

Bill-E trembles, but nods reluctantly. I squeeze his arm again, then help him to his feet. When he’s able to walk, we edge up behind Dervish, who’s still listening intently at the door. “Anything?” I ask.

“No. But that doesn’t mean there’s no one there. Or no thing.”

“We can’t wait in here forever,” I note.

“True.” Dervish looks over his shoulder at me. “Ready to fight?”

I crack my knuckles. “Damn straight.”

“Then let’s go for it.”

He turns the handle and slams open the door. Nobody’s outside. We creep along a damp, musky corridor. We’re in one of the town’s original buildings. It hasn’t been renovated. Holes in the walls, rotting floorboards, broken windows.

“How much of that dream world was real?” I ask Dervish, trying to calm my nerves by focusing on something other than the possibility that we might run into a team of demons any second. “Sharmila and Shark—do they really exist?”

“Yes,” Dervish says. “And pretty much the way we saw them—or at least the way I saw them. From your viewpoint, was Shark wearing army fatigues? Sharmila a sari?

“Yes.”

“Then that much we shared.” Dervish pauses and looks at me. “How did you know it wasn’t real? What tipped you off?”

“Lots of little things. But it was when…” I glance at Bill-E. “What did you say to Dervish when we broke you out?”

Bill-E thinks a moment. “I’m not sure. Something like, ‘Hey, neighbour, what took you so long?’ ”

“I heard you say something else, something you shouldn’t have said. That let me draw the different pieces together.”

“What did I say?” Bill-E asks.

“It’s not important,” I lie, not wanting to tell him that in my version he knew Dervish was his uncle.

“You were clever to break the illusion,” Dervish says. “Even if I’d twigged, I’m not sure I could have woken up. A spell like that will normally divert you down another path when you start to suspect something, lead you into the middle of another dream.”

“Maybe it has,” I laugh edgily. “Maybe this isn’t real and we’re still lying on a floor somewhere, asleep.”

Dervish grunts dismissively. “I’m not that gullible. This is the real world. We’re awake. I’m sure of it.” But he looks around nervously all the same. Then his gaze settles on me again. “If we come through this, you and I need to have a talk.”

“What about?”

“Magic. You’re doing things you shouldn’t be able to. I want to know how.”

“No big mystery,” I shrug. “I’m just drawing magic out of the air, putting it to good use, like when we fought Artery and Vein.”

“Hmm,” Dervish says, unconvinced. He licks his lips and focuses. We’re almost at the back door. I can hear voices outside. But they’re human voices and they fade quickly—people walking past.

“What now?” Bill-E asks. “Do we try driving out of town again?

“No,” Dervish says. “We have to alert the others. Tell people what they’re up against. They might not believe us, so we’ll have to be firm. Get them out of here, even if we have to force them. Fight if necessary—and I expect it will be. If we’re lucky, we’ll only have to worry about Chuda and his human accomplices.”

“And if we’re unlucky?” I murmur.

“Let’s not think about that,” he says, then opens the door and walks out to face whatever hell awaits.

ASSEMBLY CALL

On the outskirts of Slawter. Proceeding slowly, Dervish slightly ahead of Bill-E and me, one hand held palm up, trying to determine whether or not there’s a barrier in place. He said we should determine the lay of the land before raising the alarm. No point trying to herd dozens of people out of town if they’re going to be knocked out by a magically enforced shield.

“Why aren’t we hungry?” Bill-E asks, checking the date on his watch. “We’ve been asleep for… hell on a Harley! Six days! We should be ravenous but I don’t even feel peckish.”

“Trust you to be thinking about your stomach at a time like this!” I snort.

Dervish laughs gently. “No, it’s a good question. The answer’s simple—magic. We were cocooned from the demands of the real world. Hunger and thirst will hit us later, if we make it out, but right now we’re still operating by the magical rules of Slawter.”

“Is there anything magic can’t do?” Bill-E asks.

“Not much,” Dervish says, then draws up short. His fingers are trembling. He moves his hand left, right, left again. “Can you feel it?”

“No,” Bill-E frowns.

“Yes.” I take a step forward, sniffing the air. It doesn’t smell different, but it feels wrong. I raise a hand like Dervish, slide it forward, sense power building against it.

“No further,” Dervish says. “We don’t want to disturb the fabric of the barrier—it might tip off our enemies.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“In non-technical terms, a bubble of magic. They’ve sealed off the town. Enclosed it within a magical sphere, like putting a giant glass bowl over everything.” He frowns. “No demon is powerful enough to create a barrier this size, not in our universe. They’re using the stone you saw in the D workshops. It must be a functioning lodestone, a reservoir of ancient power. There aren’t many left in the world. The magic drained from most of them centuries ago. Others were deliberately destroyed, to prevent them falling into the hands of demonic mages.

“This is worse than I thought. With the power of a lodestone at their disposal, they can build a tunnel. Dozens of demons can cross and run riot within the barrier. Stay as long as they like. Nobody will be able to escape.”

“We have to stop them!” Bill-E gasps. “We can, can’t we, Dervish?”

“Of course,” Dervish says wearily, lowering his hand. “If we shatter the lodestone, the bubble will burst. But now that we know about it, the Demonata will have increased security around the warehouse. They’re not stupid.”

“We have to try,” I say quietly. “We can’t stand by and let people die.”

“You’re forgetting our earlier conversation,” Dervish says with a bitter smile. “The Disciples often let people die. In a situation like this, we’d normally sit back and let the Demonata run their course. We don’t have the power to stop them. Better to conserve our strength and fight them when we have a chance of winning.”

“But this is different,” I growl. “We know these people.”

“That’s not enough of a reason to get involved. I’ve had to sacrifice friends to demons before.”

“Don’t tell me you mean to—” I start to explode.

“Easy,” Dervish calms me. “We won’t stand by idly. We can’t. Because you’re right, this is different. We’re caught up in it. If we don’t find a way out, it’s not just the cast and crew of Slawter who’ll perish—we’ll die too.”

Heading into the heart of town. Dervish says there might be another way out of this mess—burst through a small section of the bubble, creating a temporary gap through which we can flee. But we’re not powerful enough to do it ourselves. We need to pin a demon against the bubble, then explode it with magic. By focusing the energy generated, we should be able to blast a hole through the barrier, which we can keep open for a while, allowing people to slip out.

Should. No guarantees.

One of our main problems will be getting a demon in the right place, at the right time. We can’t just march into the D Workshops and ask one of them to come to the barrier with us.

But before that, we have to figure a way to convince the rest of the crew and cast that we’re not crazy, their lives are in danger, demons are real, they have to trust us if they want to live. To that end, we’re heading for Davida Haym’s offices. If she’s innocent—bloody unlikely!—Dervish hopes to recruit her and use her to issue a general alarm. If, as we suspect, she’s in league with the Demonata, he plans to make her confess in public, to persuade the others to trust us.

It’s hair-raising stuff, sneaking through town, ducking down side-alleys, keeping out of sight. We don’t know who our enemies are. Dervish doesn’t think many humans will be working for the demons, that most of the people here are innocent. But we can’t be sure who to trust. We know a few of the traitors—Chuda Sool and Tump Kooniart, the guards who were with Kuk and his father when they disappeared, probably Davida. But there will be more. We can’t expose ourselves and risk raising the alarm.

I suggest making ourselves invisible. Dervish vetoes the idea. “Powerful demons can sense magic being used. We’ve been lucky so far, but every time one of us draws on the power in the air, we risk pinpointing our position.”

So we steal through town unassisted by magic. Luckily, although it’s afternoon, Slawter is quiet, not many people about. We make it to Davida’s offices unnoticed and let ourselves in. One of her secretaries is usually stationed at the front desk, but our luck holds—the chair is vacant. We slip past and into the main office, the hub of operations, from which all orders flow.

Davida isn’t here. The office is empty. Lots of papers, small demon models, a miniature set of the town, maps on the walls with scores of dates, names, times, schedules. But no Davida Haym.

“Go through the drawers,” Dervish says, hurrying to one of the many file cabinets in the room. “Look for anything that might give us an advantage—plans, a list of demons, spells, whatever.”

“You think she’ll keep details like that in unlocked cabinets?” Bill-E asks.

“No,” Dervish sighs. “But it’ll keep us busy. And you never know—we might strike lucky.”

Rooting through drawers, pulling out folders, glancing through the pages, then discarding them, scattering them across the floor, not caring about the mess we’re making.

I’m halfway through a drawer when Bill-E makes a shushing sound and hurries to the door. He listens for a second, then nods—people are coming. Dervish and I move up next to him, taking cover behind the door, crouching low so as not to be visible through the upper panels of glass in the office wall.

Footsteps. Two people talking. The door opens.

“…have to get it right,” Davida Haym says, stepping into the office. “This is a one-time deal. If we blow it, we won’t—” She spots the mess and stops.

“What the hell?” Chuda Sool says, stepping up beside her.

Dervish springs to his feet. His right hand comes flying up, fingers curled into a fist. He punches Chuda’s jaw like a professional boxer. Chuda grunts and spins aside, smacking hard into the glass of the upper wall, cracking it. Bill-E and I leap on Davida as she screams. We pull her down and cover her mouth with our hands. She tries to bite but we jam our hands down more firmly.

Dervish closes in on Chuda, who’s dazed but still on his feet. Chuda tries to block Dervish’s next punch, but it penetrates, grazing the side of his head, not connecting as firmly as the first blow, but knocking Chuda back a few more centimetres. I always knew Dervish was stronger than he looked but I’ve never seen him in this sort of kick-ass mode before. It’s cool!

Chuda grabs a paperweight from Davida’s desk and swings it round, but Dervish blocks his arm and knocks it aside. Chuda roars and gets the fingers of one hand on Dervish’s throat. Dervish lets him squeeze, cool as ice, sizing him up.

Then he pummels a fist into Chuda’s stomach. Chuda grunts. His fingers loosen. Dervish takes a step back, judges the angle, then takes one final crack at his opponent’s jaw. Chuda’s head snaps back, his eyes flutter shut and he slumps to the floor.

Dervish turns away from Chuda, panting lightly. His eyes fall on Davida, still struggling beneath Bill-E and me. He jerks his head at us. We slide off. Davida starts to sit up, spluttering furiously. Before she completes the move, Dervish puts a foot on her chest and pushes her back down. Stands over her like a triumphant gladiator, fixing her with a glare which is evil in its intensity.

“Now, lady,” he snarls, “it’s time for you to talk. And you’re going to tell me exactly what I want to hear.” He moves his foot up to her throat. “Or I’ll do things to you that would make a demon blanch.”

“You have no right to do this,” Davida says sourly. Dervish has allowed her to rise. She’s sitting in her plush leather chair, glaring at us. “When I tell security what you’ve done, you’ll be in so much—”

“We know about the Demonata,” Dervish snaps. “Lord Loss and his familiars. The barrier and the lodestone in the D workshops. You can’t fool us any longer. So talk.”

Davida pinches her lips shut. We think she’s working with the demons, but we’re not sure. I guess Dervish figures it’s best to assume the worst and treat her harshly. He can apologise later if she’s innocent.

“Don’t think I won’t do terrible things to you,” Dervish says softly. “I obey human laws when it suits, but break them without hesitation when I must. The only reason I haven’t gone to work on you is the boys. But I’m five seconds away from sending them out to the next room and doing whatever I have to to get answers.”

“You don’t know what you’re interfering with,” Davida snarls, betraying herself, confirming our worst suspicions. “This is way beyond anything you can imagine.”

“You underestimate my imagination,” Dervish smiles icily.

“These are real demons, you fool! They can do things you wouldn’t believe. If you mess with them, you’ll wind up—”

“I’ve been messing with the Demonata for decades,” Dervish interrupts. “Now tell me your story. How deep are you in this? What did they promise? Power? Magic? Eternal life?”

“They promised nothing except what I asked for—a great movie.”

Dervish frowns. “We’re past that stage. Your lousy movie cover is blown. I want to know the real reason why—”

“Cover?” Davida laughs contemptuously. “It was never a cover. I’m making the greatest horror film ever. A movie with real demons, doing what real demons do, captured on film—what better reason could there be than that?”

Dervish’s frown deepens. “You’re telling me that was the trade-off? You helped the demons cross to our world, provided them with all the victims you could and they agreed to be filmed? It was as shallow as that?”

“You know nothing about movie-making,” Davida sneers. “Life is shallow. It’s meaningless. Life passes and is forgotten within minutes. But movies endure. A film outlives everyone involved. If it’s good enough. If it’s magical.”

She leans forward intently. “You think I’m evil and you’re probably right. I brought all these people here, knowing they’d die. But we all die in the end. Pointless, forgettable deaths. We fade and it’s like we never existed. We come, we live, we die, and that’s that. Not much of a story, huh?

“But that’s about to change for you, me, everybody here. We’ll become part of history. I’m making a movie which will survive as long as the human race itself. Demons will attack… kill hundreds of people in unimaginable ways… and I’ll capture it all on camera. Splice it in with the other scenes I shot. Make the most shocking horror film ever. I’ll be notorious, yes, feared and despised. I’ll be imprisoned, maybe executed. But I’ll be remembered. And so will the others. And that’s the most any of us can hope for.”

She stops, breathing heavily, face flushed.

“She’s loco,” Bill-E says. “How come she wasn’t locked up years ago?”

Dervish shakes his head in wonderment. “You planned to let these people be butchered in the name of art, so you could film the massacre and turn it into entertainment. That’s a new one. I’ve seen crazy mages bring the Demonata into our world for all sorts of reasons—but never to break box-office records.”

“You don’t get it,” Davida laughs. “This is immortality. It will put us up with the ranks of the great. We’ll mingle with the giants of history—Caesar, Alexander, Napoleon. The world will always want to see this film, to experience true terror, to get as close as they can to the reality of the demonic.”

“You’re deluding yourself,” Dervish says. “There won’t be a film. Even if you capture the footage, you won’t live to edit it. The Demonata will kill you along with the rest of us. You’ll be a brief news item—nothing more.”

“No,” Davida insists. “We have a deal. I give them you, they let me make my film.”

“Do you have that in writing?” Dervish chuckles, then stops. “What do you mean, you give them us?”

“I’ve spent the last several years recruiting demons,” Davida says. “I got a few lesser demons involved once I laid my hands on the lodestone and they saw that I was serious, but I needed a demon master. By myself, I could only use the stone to create a brief window between universes. I knew a demon master could help me use it to build a tunnel, letting many more demons cross and giving them plenty of time to cavort.

“The trouble is, demon masters are hard to contact. I managed to find one—Lord Loss—but he wasn’t interested. I pushed ahead anyway, determined to make the best of what I had. Then, a few months ago, Lord Loss sent one of his most trusted servants to me and offered his services—if I could lure you and the two boys to the set. Lord Loss hates you. He wanted you to be here, to suffer horribly before he personally ripped you to pieces.”

“So you came to Carcery Vale to ensnare me,” Dervish says bitterly. “Did you cast a spell? Mess with my mind?”

“Of course,” Davida smirks. “It wasn’t that difficult, or so I’ve been told—I didn’t do it myself. Your brain was all over the place. Quite easy to manipulate. You fell into our trap without any complications. I’m just surprised you recovered your senses now. You weren’t supposed to wake until tomorrow, when the bloodshed was in full flow. Still, it doesn’t really matter. Your timing’s slightly ahead of schedule, but only just. It’s far too late for you to make a nuisance of yourself.”

“What do you mean?” Dervish growls.

“You don’t know?” Davida giggles with delight. “I did think it strange that you were here, grilling me instead of… I thought you hoped to use me as a shield, to bargain your way out. But you really don’t know, do you?”

“What the hell are you—” Dervish starts to shout, but is cut short by a voice outside, amplified by a loudspeaker.

“Ten minutes,” the voice says. “Will everyone please assemble immediately outside the D workshops. Ten minutes to showtime, folks!”

Dervish stares at Davida, face whitening. She giggles again. “It’s the final scene, Grady. When the demons break through and hell erupts. We brought it forward once you found out the truth—we couldn’t keep you comatose indefinitely. The actors and crew think the heroes in the movie will save the day. But that’s not how it’s going to work. I’ve a surprise up my sleeve. Dozens of demons who aren’t playing by the rules of monster movies, who don’t have weak spots, who aren’t going to be thwarted by a clean-cut movie brat with a cool haircut and a dazzling smile.”

Davida looks at her watch and smiles serenely. “Nine more minutes. Then Lord Loss and his familiars burst out of the D warehouse and kill just about every living soul in town.” She brings her hands up and claps slowly, to emphasise each word. “Lights! Camera! Slawter!”

THE REAL STARS OF THE SHOW

Dervish rushes out of the office, leaving a laughing Davida and unconscious Chuda Sool behind. Bill-E and I hurry after him. “Shouldn’t we have tied Davida up or knocked her out?” I pant, running fast to catch up with Dervish.

“No time,” he barks.

We race through the mostly deserted streets of Slawter. Dervish spots a group of people making their way to the assembly point. He roars, “Get out! Go back!” They stop and stare at him oddly.

“There’s been an explosion!” Bill-E yells, lurching up behind us. “They think it’s a gas leak. The entire gas system’s been compromised. There could be further detonations anywhere within town. We have to get out. Now!”

“Good one,” I compliment him as the panicked group turns and heads west.

“We need to think about this logically,” he gasps, face red from running. “If we tell people that demons are going to kill them, they’ll think we’re mad.”

“So we make it a gas leak instead,” I nod. “Get them moving away from the danger zone. You hear that, Dervish?”

“Whatever,” he grunts. “But in another few minutes we won’t have to tell them anything— they’ll see the demons themselves.”

We round a corner and approach the gigantic D warehouse. A huge crowd has gathered outside. Most of the people are at the southern end, but some spill around the east and west wings of the building. There are cameras everywhere, on tripods and cranes, in the hands of cameramen mingling with the crowd, a couple on top of the warehouse roof. I guess the cameramen are part of Davida’s inner circle, wise to the Demonata, otherwise she couldn’t trust them to man their posts when the chaos erupts.

Several of the crew have megaphones and are directing the crowd. Dervish storms over to the nearest one—a young man with a ponytail—grabs the megaphone and shouts into it, “Gas leak! There have been explosions! Everybody out! We have to evacuate now!”

Uncertain mutterings among the crowd. People stop talking and stare at Dervish. He’s running up and down, repeating his message, gesturing in all directions, telling people they have to make for the outskirts of town immediately.

Before anyone can move, a large man steps forward with a megaphone of his own. It’s Tump Kooniart. “Ignore that lunatic!” Tump roars. “It’s Dervish Grady. We fired him last week. He’s trying to disrupt proceedings to get his own back. Guards—seize him! The boys too!”

Security guards move forward. Dervish curses and tosses his megaphone aside. “Enough of this gas-leak crap,” he mutters. “Time to open their eyes.”

Dervish says something magical and points at the guards closing in on him. They float up several metres into the air with yells of alarm and fear. All around us, jaws drop. Eyes fix on the floating guards, then on Dervish, who looks like a man charged full of electricity.

Dervish touches a couple of fingers to his throat and addresses the crowd, his voice far louder than it was with the aid of the megaphone. “You’re all going to die. Davida Haym has struck a deal with demons. Real demons. They’re going to break out of the warehouse in a couple of minutes and kill everyone. Unless you flee now, you’re doomed.”

“Ignore him!” Tump Kooniart screams. “He’s lost his mind!”

I see Bo and Abe close behind their father. They look worried, scared, incredulous, like most of the people around us.

“Real demons?” Tump snorts. “Madness! He’s trying to wreck the shoot. He—”

Tump Kooniart chokes, drops the megaphone, falls to his knees, face purple, hands clawing at his throat and mouth.

“Don’t kill him,” I whisper in Dervish’s ear.

“He deserves to die,” Dervish snarls, looking completely unlike the gentle man I’ve lived with all these months.

“Maybe,” I say, voice trembling. “But we don’t have the right to kill people. We’re trying to save them, even those who don’t deserve it.”

Dervish snorts, but breaks the spell. Tump Kooniart breathes again.

“Listen to us,” I shout, using magic to amplify my voice. “I know it’s hard to believe, but you can see the guards floating overhead. You can hear our voices, even though we’re not using any equipment. Your lives are in danger. You have to run now or else—”

“Enough!” Davida Haym screams, her voice even louder than mine or Dervish’s. The guards fall back to earth, some injuring themselves badly. Davida’s standing behind us, a groggy Chuda Sool by her side. Her eyes are blazing. “You’re not going to ruin my movie! Cameramen—are you ready?” Dozens nod and shout that they are. “Sound?” Davida cries.

Dervish raises a hand to stop her. Before he can, he’s spun aside by a magical force. It’s not Davida’s work. Doesn’t look like Chuda’s doing it either. There must be a powerful, hidden mage somewhere in the crowd.

“Sound?” Davida shouts again and this time there’s an answering bellow. “All right. Let’s dispense with the countdown and cut to the chase. You lot inside the warehouse—it’s time to make your grand entrance.

“Action!” she roars, and the hounds of hell are unleashed.

The giant door in the middle of the southern wall of the warehouse explodes outwards. Those nearest it are caught by flying splinters, some as long as my arm. Most go down screaming, though a few are torn apart and killed instantly by the shrapnel.

Stunned silence from those not struck by the debris of the blast. Everybody’s staring at the wounded and dead. Wondering if this is real or part of the movie. They live in a make-believe world where anything can happen and nobody is ever really hurt. Their senses tell them this is different, it’s not part of a script, they should run. But the movie-making part of their brain is trying to figure out how the explosion was arranged and how the scattering of the splinters was timed so as not to harm anybody—struggling to convince themselves that those on the ground are acting, the blood isn’t real, it can’t be.

Dervish is back up on his feet. Staring at the hole in the wall like the rest of us. The explosion created clouds of dust around the doorway. As they clear, a figure glides forward from within the warehouse. Pale red skin, lumpen, no heart, eight arms—who else but the ringmaster himself, Lord Loss?

“Alas,” he sighs, looking around sadly. “Here we all are. Bound by chains of blood and death. No way out. Doomed. Dervish tried to warn you, to save you, but he failed. Here you are trapped. Here you will die.”

One of the cameramen moves in for a close-up. “Yes,” I hear Davida murmur. I glance back. She’s speaking into a microphone, directing the cameraman. “His face first, then pan down to the hole in his chest. I want to see those snakes slithering.”

Lord Loss gazes without much interest into the camera. He smiles slightly, then runs his eyes over the crowd, judging their mood, taking in their expressions, most more confused than terrified. “Ah,” he notes. “You do not believe. You think this is part of the film. That I am a movie prop.” He chuckles. “It is time to burst that bubble of misperception.”

He moves to one side. I glimpse other shapes behind him. Eyes. Tendrils. Teeth. Claws. Fangs. “Now, my darlings,” Lord Loss whispers.

The demons spill out in their dozens, each one more misshapen and nightmarish than the last. A variety of vile monsters, spitting bile, oozing pus and blood, screeching and howling with malicious glee. They collide with the shocked members of the cast and crew closest to the building. Cut into and through them, severing limbs and heads, disembowelling, biting and clawing.

Realisation hits the masses swift and hard. A single scream rings out. Then a volley of them. Panic sweeps the crowd. A stampede develops, everyone wanting to get away from the demons, trampling over one another, the weak going down in the crush, dying beneath the feet of their workmates. Anarchy at its most destructive and terrifying.

Lord Loss laughs and his laughter carries over the sounds of the screams. I’m rooted to the spot, unable to react, heart jackhammering, not wanting this to be happening, wishing I could be anywhere in the world but here.

I see the cameraman who moved forward turning away to capture the scenes of mayhem. “Not yet!” Davida snaps. “Stay on the hole. Give me a close up.”

The cameraman steps right up to Lord Loss’ chest, manoeuvring his camera to within a few centimetres of the writhing, hissing snakes. He moves his head from behind the camera to check something—and one of the snakes strikes. It lashes out from within the hole where Lord Loss’ heart should be. Sinks its tiny fangs into the cameraman’s left cheek. He yelps, drops his camera and tries to pull away. But the snake has a firm hold. It yanks him closer so his face plunges into the hole. And now all the snakes are biting. The cameraman’s arms and legs thrash wildly, then go still. He falls away a few seconds later, his face a blood-red map of bites and rips, skin flailed, bone cracked, brains dribbling down his chin.

“No!” Davida gasps. “He hadn’t finished the shot! They shouldn’t have…”

She stops and studies the demons tearing into the humans. They’re drawing no distinction between the intended victims and the collaborators, dragging down cameramen and other technicians as well as the unsuspecting members of the cast and crew.

“No!” Davida screeches. “We had a deal!”

Lord Loss looks at her sneeringly. “I do not make deals with fools. I promised you chaos, which you and your underlings could film, but I never said I would spare any of you. You simply assumed—and assumed wrong.” He smiles at me. “Greetings, Grubitsch. Such a pleasure to see you again. I will take much satisfaction from your long, slow, painful death.”

“Not today!” Dervish bellows and suddenly he’s by my side, right hand raised. He fires off a bolt of energy at Lord Loss. The demon master deflects it, but is knocked sideways. “Come on!” Dervish snaps at me and Bill-E. “We have to get out of here.”

“But what about…?” I gesture at the fleeing people.

“We’ll summon them when—if—we blast a way out,” Dervish says. “The best thing they can do for now is flee. That will delay the demons and buy us some time.”

“But—” Bill-E begins.

“No arguments!” Dervish barks. “Follow me now or, so help me, I’ll leave you for the bloody Demonata!”

With that he turns and flees south, sidestepping the stunned, frozen Davida Haym. There’s no sign of Chuda, who must have deserted her when he realised they were going to perish along with those they’d planned to sacrifice. I’m not sure where he thinks he can run to or hide, but he fled anyway.

Davida can’t move. She’s weeping, seeing all her dreams of immortality go up in flames. I’d like to say I feel sorry for her, but I don’t. All I can think right now is, “Serves you right, you mad old cow!”

Then Bill-E and I are past the desolate producer, following Dervish through the warren of streets and alleys of Slawter, the screams of the dying and yowls of the demons rising all the time.

Twisting and turning, Dervish in the lead, no apparent route in mind. He stops in the middle of a street. There are doors on either side of us. Handy for a getaway if we’re attacked. “Are you OK?” he asks us.

“Any reason we should be?” I reply calmly, hiding my terror as best I can.

Bill-E says nothing. He looks like a shell-shocked soldier. As awful as I feel, I think Bill-E feels a hell of a lot worse.

“Billy?” Dervish says softly. “Are you with us? Are all the lights on in there?” He taps the side of Bill-E’s head.

“They killed them,” Bill-E wheezes, his lazy left eyelid snapping open and shut at great speed. “I saw a thing with… it looked like a tiger… but bits and pieces sticking out… it killed Salit. He tried to stop it. He didn’t know it was real. He was acting his movie part, where he was a big hero. But it cut him down the middle and—”

“We don’t have time for hysterics,” Dervish growls. “Be a man and help us fight, or go and babble somewhere until the demons find and kill you.”

I hate him for saying that, but I know he’s only doing it for Bill-E’s sake. Cruel to be kind and all that guff.

Bill-E glares at Dervish, anger driving the fear away. “I’m not hysterical,” he says stiffly.

“Glad to hear it,” Dervish says. “Now listen and listen good. Lord Loss is the only demon master. The rest are his familiars or others Davida roped in. Some are stronger than us but most aren’t. We need to capture one of the weaker demons and use it to get out.”

“And the other people?” I ask quietly.

“We’ll take as many as we can,” Dervish promises. “If we’re successful, I’ll send a telepathic signal and let all the survivors know where we are.”

“Why not do that now?” I ask. “Arrange a meeting place and tell them to go there. It would give them more time, a better chance.”

Dervish shakes his head. “Those who were working for the Demonata would receive the message too. They’d go running to Lord Loss—try to save their own foul lives by selling out the rest of us.”

“OK,” I mutter. “So how do we catch a demon?”

Dervish scratches his left cheek nervously. “Bait,” he says softly. And his gaze settles on Bill-E.

I don’t like it. Hell, I hate it! But it’s the quickest, easiest way. We’re up to our eyeballs in trouble. We have to take risks.

We leave Bill-E standing in the middle of the street, twisting his hands, face crumpled with fear. He trusts us but he’s terrified. I would be too in his shoes.

“If anything happens to him…” I whisper to Dervish.

“It won’t,” Dervish says solidly. “Now don’t talk—watch.”

A minute passes. Two. Screams fill the air, a chorus of agony and anguish. Every hair on my body is standing upright. I have to keep my teeth parted, afraid I’ll grind down to the gums if I don’t take care. Part of me wants to run, make for the barrier, force a way through, forget everybody else.

Save your own skin, it whispers. Dervish and Bill-E are the only ones who matter. Convince them to leave with you. Let the others look after themselves.

I ignore the treasonous, selfish voice—but only with an effort.

Movement at the end of the street. Several figures come racing around a corner. Dervish and I tense, ready to unleash a burst of magic, then hold it back when we see that the figures are children. Bo Kooniart, Vanalee Metcalf, three others.

“Run!” Bo screams at Bill-E. “We’re being chased! Get the hell out of here, you moron, before—”

“Bo!” I yell. “Over here.” She stops, panting, eyes wide with terror. “Quick!”

“But there’s—”

“I know. Trust us. We can stop it. But you have to—”

“Here it comes,” Dervish interrupts.

I look left. A demon with the body of a giant bee is humming through the air after Bo and the others. As it gets closer I see that it has a semi-human face, except with bee eyes and more teeth than any human I’ve ever seen. Magic flares within me. I stretch out a hand in the direction of the bee demon.

“Not yet,” Dervish says. “Let it get closer… closer… Now!”

Together we channel magic and unleash it. Twin bolts of energy strike the demon sharply, knocking it across the street, away from the children. It smashes into the wall on the opposite side. As it slumps to the ground, Dervish runs towards it. I follow, caught up in the moment, acting instinctively.

The bee shakes its head and starts to rise, buzzing angrily. Dervish grabs a wing before it gets out of reach. Yanks it down. The bee lashes out at him with a stinger the size of a large kitchen knife. He ducks. I scream and smash an elbow into the bee’s semi-human face. Its teeth bite deep into my forearm, but I jerk my arm free before it can do serious damage.

As I grab the bee with my uninjured arm, I feel Dervish’s magic burn into the demon. It makes wild buzzing sounds. Thrashes, trying to break free, snapping its teeth, stabbing at him with its stinger. He holds on tight. I do too. I head-butt the bee, letting magic shoot through my forehead, intent on sizzling the demon’s brains.

“Not too much!” Dervish pants as the demon goes slack. “We want it alive.” He stands, sliding both arms around the bee. “Let’s keep it like this and—”

“Monster!” a voice screams and suddenly there’s someone beside us. A hand shoots by my head. A fist buries itself deep in the demon’s chest, then comes ripping out, dragging guts and yellow blood with it. Stunned, I fix on the face of the assailant—and my heart leaps joyfully.

“Juni!” I yell, releasing the bee’s head, throwing my arms around her.

Juni Swan hugs me hard, then steps away, staring at the demon, then her fist. “How did I do that?” she croaks. “I felt something inside me. It was power, but I don’t know where…”

“Hi,” Dervish says quietly, letting the dead demon drop to the floor. He smiles crookedly, then slips his arms around Juni and buries his face in her neck. “We thought you were dead,” he half sobs.

“I was… dreaming, I think,” she says. “Bill-E was kidnapped. We rescued him. Then we were attacked by ninjas and had to go to a mountain in search of their lair.” She shakes her head. “I woke up in a small room. I came out and saw demons. I fled. Then I saw you. I thought the bee was going to kill you. Something exploded inside me. Before I knew it…”

She stares at her fist again, a look of astonishment on her face.

“Seems you have a talent for magic after all,” Dervish chuckles, then sighs. “But you timed it badly. We wanted this one alive.” He quickly explains his plan to her and the children, who’ve crept across. Bo seems to be less shaken than the others. She’s trembling fiercely and her face is white with fear, but she’s in control of her senses and listens intently.

I use magic to heal my wounded arm and watch Bo cautiously. Her father was one of the collaborators but that’s not her fault. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about his pact with the Demonata. Bo was never anything worse than a spoilt brat. You don’t deserve to be killed for that.

Dervish finishes outlining his plan. “So Grubbs, Juni and I will pull back, leave you kids here, wait for another demon to come along, then… kablooey!”

“Kablooey?” Juni repeats, raising an eyebrow.

“I liked comics when I was a kid,” Dervish says with a shrug.

“How are we going to get the demon to the barrier?” Bo asks, and though her teeth chatter, her voice sounds normal.

“Grubbs and I will drag it there,” Dervish says. “Juni can help.”

“But—”

“Here she goes,” Bill-E groans. “Always has to have her say!”

“Shut up, shrimp-breath!” Bo snaps, then appeals to Dervish. “I don’t want to be a troublemaker. I just want to get out of this alive. But it’s what you said about how you were going to alert everybody and tell them where to come.” She pauses.

“Go on,” Dervish says kindly, though if I was in charge, I’d tell her to put a sock in it. She’s being a drama queen, trying to grab the attention. Typical Bo.

“Well,” Bo says hesitantly, “if you’re able to use telepathy, I was wondering… can demons do the same?”

Dervish stares at Bo, then nods slowly. “Some can.”

“So,” Bo continues, “if you catch a demon and it realises you’re dragging it off to the edge of town to kill it, won’t it call for help? And bring a load of other demons down on top of us?”

Dervish scowls. “She’s right. It’ll take several minutes to get to the barrier from here. If the demon summoned help, we’d never make it.”

“Can’t we knock it unconscious?” Juni asks.

“Perhaps. But if it gets out a shout…”

He falls silent. Bo looks at me smugly, but I’m too impressed to bear her any ill feelings. She’s not entirely brainless, I’m reluctantly forced to admit.

“I have a suggestion,” Bo says. She’s stopped trembling. Confident. On a roll.

“I’m all ears,” Dervish says with a wry smile.

“Why don’t we lure a demon to the barrier before you go messing with it? Trick it into chasing after us. It wouldn’t call for help if it didn’t know its life was in danger.”

“We have a genius in our midst,” Dervish says, smile widening. Bo beams like an angel. Despite myself, I have to laugh. She’ll be more unbearable than ever after this, but right now that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing.

“There’s only one problem with your proposal,” Dervish says.

“Problem?” Bo frowns.

“Running’s dangerous. If there’s a demon hot on your heels, you can’t concentrate on what lies ahead. Very easy to run into another demon, or a pack of them. We can’t control the situation if we do what you suggest. And control is vital. Grubbs and I must reach the barrier. If we don’t, everybody dies. We can’t risk running into a trap.”

Bo mulls that over, starts to speak, goes silent, then says very quietly, “What if the rest of us did the running? What if you and Grubbs went to the barrier and we tried to lure a demon to you?”

I blink, astonished. I never thought I’d hear the spoilt Bo Kooniart make a suggestion like that. What she’s proposing is close to self-sacrifice. Without us, she and the others won’t stand much of a chance against the demons.

“You know what you’re saying?” Dervish’s voice is grave. “You know the risk you’d be taking?”

“Of course. But it doesn’t seem like we have much of an option, does it?”

“I’m not doing it!” Vanalee protests, bursting into tears. “I want to come with you, Mr. Grady! Please don’t make me go after demons!”

“I won’t make anybody do anything,” Dervish says. He looks at the other children. “Bo’s risking a great deal for us. Will anyone volunteer to help her or does she have to face the demons by herself?”

The three children look at one another. Two raise shaky hands. The third hangs his head.

“OK,” Dervish says. “Now all we have to do is arrange a meeting place, so you know where—”

“I’ll go too,” Bill-E interrupts.

“No!” I yell.

“I have to.” He smiles thinly. “I’m not magical like you and Dervish. There’s no benefit in me coming with you. I can do more good with Bo and the others.”

“But—”

“He’s right,” Dervish says. I look at my uncle, unable to believe he’d let Bill-E go like this. But his eyes are dark and firm. This isn’t easy for him but he’s going to let Bill-E go anyway. I start to protest, but then I realise why Dervish is doing this—it wouldn’t be fair to let Bo and the others volunteer and not put forward one of our own.

“I’ll go,” I whisper. “You take Bill-E.”

“No,” Dervish says. “I need you at the barrier.”

I shake my head. “You can kill a demon without me. And you have Juni to help. The others will stand a better chance if I go with them.”

Dervish hesitates.

“We can both go,” Bill-E says.

“No. You’re sticking with Dervish, no arguing.” I lower my voice so only Bill-E can hear. “I don’t want him to lose us both. And you’re his son—you’re more important to him than I am.” I hate lying to Bill-E, but if it saves his life, it will be worth it.

“OK,” Bill-E says miserably, after a moment of tormented consideration. “But I’ll kill you if you don’t come back alive.”

“All right,” Dervish says. “We’re wasting time and we don’t have much of it. Grubbs can go with the others. Now, you know the old hat store we passed when we tried to drive out of here?” I nod. “Make your way to that, then head due west. We’ll be waiting. Come as fast as you can.” He looks at Juni. “Ready?”

“Don’t you think I should go with the children?” Juni says nervously.

“No. They’re as safe with Grubbs as they would be with you. Safer.”

“Well… I don’t like it… but if you think that’s best…”

“It is.” Dervish looks at me steadily. “See you soon—and that’s an order.”

Then he, Juni, Bill-E, Vanalee and the boy head west to safety. Dervish is the only one who keeps his sights set firmly ahead. The others all look back, faces dark with doubt. They think they won’t ever see us again.

I want to call after Bill-E and tell him we’re brothers. I don’t want to die without telling him the truth. But my mouth’s dry. My throat’s tight. I can’t.

I stare at Bo and the others. One’s a boy a year or two older than me. The second’s a girl a few years younger. I don’t know either of them. I think about asking their names, then decide it’s better not to know.

“Are you ready?” Bo asks, taking control, even though I’m the one who should be in charge. We nod silently and turn towards the sounds of bloodshed and mayhem. Pause a terrified moment. Then silently jog back into the death den of the Demonata.

THE CHASE

I want so much not to be doing this. One half of me is screaming bloody murder at the other half, telling me I’m mad, I should run, protect my own neck and damn the rest. But how could I leave Bo Kooniart to save the day? I’d never be able to live it down.

We pass from one street to another. No sign of the Demonata, though the cries of the dying and the roars of demons are everywhere. I’m sweating buckets. Can’t stop shivering. I never knew I could be this scared. After all, I’ve faced Lord Loss before. But it’s even scarier this time. I’m starting to understand that fear is like cancer—you can beat it back, but if it returns it can be worse than ever.

We turn a corner and find three demons feasting on a dying man, tearing into his flesh, gulping down bloody chunks as if they were marshmallows. One of the demons is shaped like a short elephant, another a giant cockroach, the third a huge slug that’s been partially melted. Sick rises in my throat, but I force it back.

As the elephant-shaped demon moves aside to chew on a piece of gristle, I recognise the unfortunate victim. It’s Chai, the mime artist. Even in his death throes he’s remained true to his role. He isn’t screaming aloud, but is instead miming weakly. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic.

I want to help Chai, but it’s too late. Even as I take a step forward, he stiffens, makes a few last feeble gestures, then goes still.

I study the demons again as they continue to strip the corpse of flesh. They don’t look like they’re especially swift on their feet. I check with Bo and the others. They’re terrified, but each nods to show they’re ready.

“Hey!” I try to shout, but the word comes out as a squeak. I try again, but my mouth is as dry as a lizard’s arse.

“Some hero you are,” Bo mutters. Then she cups her hands over her mouth and bellows, “Hey!” The demons look up. “Come and catch us, uglies!”

She turns and runs. The rest of us follow. The demons shriek and give chase.

Running as fast as I can. With my long legs, I quickly pull ahead of the others. Start to leave them behind. Feeling good, like I’m going to survive. Even if the demons catch up, they’ll have to chew through the other three before getting to me. Maybe they’ll stop there, happy to have one human each, leaving me free to race to safety and…

But that’s not the plan. I’m supposed to be helping, not outpacing the others. I keep the speed up for a few more seconds, wrestling with my conscience. Then I curse and slow down, letting Bo and co catch up with, then slightly overtake me.

I look back. The demons are close, only ten or twelve metres behind. They can move a lot faster than I thought. If I don’t stop them, they’ll be on us long before we make it to the edge of town, never mind the barrier beyond.

I stop and force magic into my fingers. Trying to think of the best way to stall them, when they suddenly stop, stare at me hatefully, then turn and shuffle off.

“What the…?” I squint at them, thinking this must be a trick, but they keep going.

“What’s happening?” Bo asks. The three of them have stopped. They’re staring dumbly at me and the departing demons.

“I don’t know,” I mutter. “Maybe they sensed my magic and decided there were easier pickings elsewhere. Or—”

Something barrels into the boy whose name I don’t know. He screams once, then is silenced. The girl and Bo leap away from him. I see a squat, long demon, like a dog, but with spikes sticking out all over and no legs. It’s munching on the boy’s head. I start towards them. Come to a halt when I hear a familiar voice high above me.

“You did not think I would leave you to the whims of my familiars, did you, Grubitsch?” I look up and spot Lord Loss, hovering above the roof of the building to my left. He descends slowly, gracefully. “I gave orders for you, your uncle and brother to be spared. I plan to finish you Grady boys off by myself.”

Lord Loss comes to within half a metre of the ground and stops, his eight arms extended, smiling viciously. “What now, poor Grubitsch?” he murmurs. “Have you the strength of character to fight a demon master or will you run like a cowardly hyena?”

“Run!” I roar, then race away from him. Bo and the other girl hurriedly join me.

Lord Loss laughs and sets off in pursuit of us, savouring our fear and flight. He doesn’t have the slightest clue that I’m running for a reason other than sheer terror, that I’m trying to lure him into a trap. He glides along after us, calling to me, the usual crap, telling me how desperate the situation is, how I’m going to let myself down, the pain I’ll suffer, the tears I’ll shed. He says I’ll betray Dervish and Bill-E, abandon my friends, beg for mercy.

I know he’s messing with my mind, trying to stoke up my fear, to wring more misery out of me. But it’s hard to ignore him. I feel myself losing hope, seeing the future through the demon’s eyes. Part of me wants to surrender and accept a swift, painless death. And perhaps I would—except I remember his look of hate when I beat him at chess, his vow to make me suffer before he killed me. There will be no quick, easy death if I fall into Lord Loss’ hands.

A strange skittering sound. I look over my shoulder. The dog demon is chasing us too. It’s almost upon us. It uses its spikes to move, a bit like a centipede crawling, only a hell of a lot quicker. It has a head like a dung beetle’s, but dog-sized.

“Go, Malice,” Lord Loss says, and the demon leaps high into the air, coming down on Bo’s head, mouth opening wider than its narrow body, fangs glinting.

I shoot a bolt of magic at the demon called Malice and knock it sideways. It squeals, hits the ground, twists sharply, launches itself at my face. Without thinking, I turn my right hand into a blade, drop to one knee and slash at the demon’s underbelly. Malice sees the threat but can’t change direction. My hand slices its stomach open from neck to tail. It’s finished by the time it hits the ground, entrails spilling out, whining feebly as it flops into the dust.

“Fool!” Lord Loss snorts at his dying familiar. “I am ashamed that one of my servants should be despatched so pitifully.” He spits on the dying demon, then looks at me and smiles. “You are stronger than the last time I saw you fight. You were unable to kill Vein or Artery then, yet here you have killed two just as powerful. You must be feeling confident, like you could even defeat me?”

“Maybe,” I growl, magic bubbling up within me, picturing the demon master dead at my feet, tasting the triumph of revenge.

Lord Loss chuckles. “Do not delude yourself, Grubitsch. You are not that strong. A demon master will always outrank and outpower a human.”

“Dervish beat you,” I sneer. “He fought you on your own turf and won.”

Lord Loss’ features darken. “That was not a fight to the death. He had only to get the better of me in battle. He could not have killed me. Just as you cannot kill me now.”

Lord Loss reaches out with all eight arms, pauses, twists slightly and beckons. The girl whose name I didn’t ask for goes flying towards him, screaming. I try to pull her back, but before I can, she’s in the demon master’s embrace.

“Poor little Karin,” Lord Loss sighs. “You had such fine dreams. A movie career, marriage, children.” The girl screams, struggling to break free. I try to pry her out of Lord Loss’ grasp, but he deflects my magic easily, then kisses her. She goes quiet. Stiff. Her skin turns grey as he sucks the life out of her. I hear bones cracking. Her feet jerk a few times, then stop.

Bo’s crying. She sinks to her knees, defeated, staring at the demon master as he drains the girl of the last vestiges of life. I want to give up too. But I know I won’t be killed as smoothly as this if I do.

“Come on!” I roar, grabbing Bo’s arms, yanking her to her feet.

“I can’t,” she sobs.

“You can!” I shout, pushing her ahead of me. “Run! Now! Or I’ll kill you myself!”

Bo curses me but does as I command, lurching forward, running blindly, wiping tears from her eyes. I look back at Lord Loss. He casts the girl’s ruined body aside and smacks his lips. “Karin was a tasty little girl,” he says with relish.

“I hope you choke on her!” I scream in retort, then wave a hand at the building above him and cause the outer wall to explode. It showers Lord Loss with bricks and chunks of cement, taking him by surprise, driving him to the ground. I know I haven’t killed him, but I’ve delayed him and that’s all I wanted. Turning, I race after Bo, screaming at her to run faster, trying to judge how much further is left and what our chances are of making it to the barrier alive.

Lord Loss is soon on our trail again, scratched and bruised but otherwise unharmed. He congratulates me on the way I brought the wall down on him, but adds that if I’d thought of it a bit earlier I could have saved poor Karin. Making me feel guilty, as though I’m to blame for her death.

I ignore the demon master. Turn corners wildly. Race through the streets of Slawter. I stumble occasionally, fall hard twice and scrape my hands and knees. But I keep ahead of our hunter and force Bo on, making her stay ahead of me so I can see when she falters and roar at her for support.

Two more of Lord Loss’ familiars join him. One is the giant cockroach I saw earlier. The other is even more familiar. A young child’s body but with an unnaturally large head. Pale green skin. Balls of fire instead of eyes. Maggots for hair (it used to be cockroaches). Small mouths set in both its palms. The hell-child, Artery.

“No need to introduce you two,” Lord Loss says.

“Although, if you are interested, this fine specimen—” he nods at the cockroach—“is called Gregor.”

“Very amusing,” Bo snorts, but I don’t get the joke so I just keep on running, saving my breath for a scream of triumph. Or a death cry. Whichever proves more appropriate.

Finally, as I’m starting to think we’ve lost our way, I spot the old hat shop. Seconds later we dash past it and are out of town, racing across soft, grassy ground. Lord Loss and his familiars pursue us casually, taking their time, confident we can’t escape. “You should have tried to hide,” Lord Loss taunts me. “You stood a better chance that way. This was a poor call, Grubitsch. It will cost you your life. Bo’s too. I will make you watch while Artery eats her from the inside out. That will be the last thing you see in this world.”

Looking for Dervish and the others, but there’s no sign of them. My heart sinks like the Titanic. I’d be able to see them if they were here. No trees or bushes for them to hide behind. It’s open ground. Maybe I got the meeting place wrong, but I doubt it. I think they’ve fallen. They didn’t make it out of town. They ran into some bad-ass demons and are dead now. Just like Bo and I soon will be.

“Where… are… they?” Bo gasps. She looks more petrified than ever.

“Keep going,” I reply. “Find the barrier.”

“But—”

“Do it!” I roar, then whirl and yell a spell at Lord Loss and his familiars, prompted by my magical half. The ground in front of the demons bursts upwards. Blades of grass thicken, lengthen and entwine. They form a net which wraps around the startled demons, tightening, choking them, holding them in place.

I look for Bo. She’s still running. I jog after her, keeping one eye on the Demonata, hardly daring to hope. And I’m right not to. The grass around them turns brown… red… burns away. Seconds later, Lord Loss is free and his familiars are soon clawing their way out. There are blades of green jammed into many of the cuts on Lord Loss’ body, but unless they turn septic and he dies of disease much later—some hope!—he’s going to be fine.

I try the same spell again, but this time Lord Loss is ready and with a wave of two hands the blades of grass bend downwards and spread out, flattening, not getting in the way of the demons.

“Fool me once, shame on you,” Lord Loss says. “Fool me twice…” He pulls a smug expression. “But nobody has ever fooled me twice, Grubitsch. And you will not be the first.”

Bo yells with pain and surprise. My gaze snaps forward. She’s come to a halt and is struggling with an unseen force, arms and legs jerking slowly, as if caught in a web. Moments later she frees herself and falls backwards.

We’ve reached the barrier. Nowhere else to run. With an empty feeling in my gut, I stop and face the approaching demons.

Showdown.

BATTLE

Artery and Gregor spread out to the left and right of their master, falling a couple of metres behind. They’re here to make sure we don’t escape and perhaps they’ll get to kill Bo as a bonus. Neither will be allowed to harm me. Lord Loss is keeping me for himself.

“Grubbs,” Bo whimpers.

“I know,” I say softly.

“What are we going to do?”

“Be brave. Fight.”

“But I don’t know any magic.”

“Just do what you can.” Eyes on Artery and the cockroach. Trying to believe it’s not hopeless. If I can pin one of them to the barrier and kill it, Bo and I can escape. Gutted that we can’t take anyone with us, but I mustn’t think of that now. I have to focus on getting us out alive.

“Did you forget about the barrier, Grubitsch?” Lord Loss sniggers. “You are slow to learn. I would have thought, after running afoul of it once, you would have had more sense than…” He stops, frowning. “But you are not stupid. A cunning boy, as I learnt to my cost the last time we clashed. Might you have had another motive for coming here?”

He’s close to the truth. I have to act now, before he makes the connection. My eyes flick from Artery to Gregor. I settle on the baby—smaller, hopefully easier to manipulate. With a magical cry, I unleash my power. Artery shoots forward, into the air, wailing with alarm, propelled towards the barrier. I step closer to the spot where he’s going to hit, readying myself to kill the hell-child.

But then he stops mid-air. I feel a force working in opposition to mine. I scream a phrase of magic and tug harder. Artery jolts forward another metre, stops again, then falls to the ground. He scuttles back to his master, hiding behind him like a child seeking shelter behind a parent.

“That was a very nice attempt, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss murmurs. “You had me foxed until almost the very end. I should have known you had an ace up your sleeve. Dervish must have told you how to create a rip in the barrier. You planned to kill my sweet Artery and skip out of the party early.” He tuts mockingly. “That was rude. I shall have to…”

I hear noises in the background and spot people running towards us from the town. Lord Loss looks around, casting his eyes over the various faces, searching—as I am—for Dervish. But my uncle isn’t part of the crowd. He’s not racing to my rescue. These are just ordinary, terrified movie folk. They won’t be any help.

“More victims,” Lord Loss laughs. “See how they run towards me? Perhaps, from a distance, I look like an angel. Should I pretend to be good? Sweep them to my breast, shower them with kisses, only to turn vile and make my true intentions known when it is too late for them to escape?”

I focus on the cockroach. I try to pitch him at Lord Loss, hoping to knock the demon master off guard, then hurl Gregor or Artery at the barrier. But the demon doesn’t even slide a centimetre off balance.

“No, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss says. “We will have no more of that. Leave my familiars alone. Your battle is with me, not them.”

“Then come on!” I scream. “Step up if you think you can take me! What are you waiting for? Do you want to reduce me to tears before you attack? Afraid to fight me on even terms?”

Lord Loss’ face goes dead. The snakes in the hole in his chest stop hissing. “So be it,” he whispers, rising a metre higher into the air, arms spreading outwards with a slow, dreadful, majestic grace.

“Grubbs,” Bo mutters.

“Not now!” I hiss, trembling all over, preparing myself for whatever Lord Loss is about to launch against me.

“But… over there… it’s… I think I can see… Dervish!”

That startles me so much, I look away from the threat of Lord Loss. Thankfully, the demon master is also caught by surprise, and instead of piercing my defence and finishing me off, he too glances to the side.

Bo is pointing off to my right. At first I don’t see what she’s gesturing at. The land looks devoid of life, just grass and weeds. But then I notice the air shimmering slightly. The shimmer intensifies, thickens, then fades to reveal… Dervish! And just behind my uncle, between him and the barrier— Bill-E, Juni, Vanalee and the boy whose name I don’t know.

“An invisibility shield,” Lord Loss groans. “I don’t believe I—”

A wind blows up out of nowhere. It smacks hard into Lord Loss, driving him backwards, bowling him and Artery over.

“Grubbs!” Dervish yells, focusing on the wind, veins stretched across his face like ridges of blue putty. I know instantly what he wants. Pointing at Gregor, who has been unaffected by the gale, I shout a word of magic. The demon flies forward, mandibles gnashing together in a mixture of hate and fear. He strikes the invisible barrier. Sticks. Dozens of tiny legs kick at thin air as he tries to tear himself free.

“Juni!” Dervish shouts. “Kill it like I showed you!” Juni steps up to the struggling cockroach. She makes a fist and takes aim at the brittle shell of its stomach. Then she pauses and half turns away, lowering her fist. She’s smiling. She starts to say something, but before she can, one of Gregor’s hairy, spindly legs strikes the back of her head. She falls with a startled cry, tries to rise, then slumps, dead or unconscious.

My first instinct is to rush to her aid, but I ignore it. Instead I look for Artery. Concentrating on the fire in the hell-child’s eye sockets, I magically rip the flames out. As Artery squeals and slaps blindly at his eyes, I transport the flames to inside Gregor’s stomach—like cutting and pasting on a computer!

I hold the flames tight for a second, letting them increase in strength but keeping them compact. Gregor is frothing at the mouth, glowing from the inside out. I flash the cockroach a wicked grin. Then, clicking my fingers for emphasis, I release the flames and they erupt in a ball of destructive red and yellow fury.

The demon explodes with a cry of delicious agony. There’s a crackling, throbbing sound. Then a jagged line appears in the air around the demon’s remains, a rough semicircle of discoloured light— a hole in the barrier!

“Get out!” Dervish barks at Bill-E and the others. The wind is still blowing, but Lord Loss and Artery have stopped tumbling backwards and are facing into it now, the demon master furious, Artery confused, waving his childish hands at his empty sockets, trying to ignite fresh flames.

As Vanalee and the boy race to safety, Bill-E hurries to Juni’s side. He turns her over, checks quickly, then shouts, “She’s alive!”

“Then take her with you!” Dervish roars, struggling to maintain the wind.

Bill-E hesitates—I can see he wants to stay and help—then grits his teeth. Propping Juni up, he slides his hands under her armpits and drags her through the hole. As they exit, the quality of light changes and it’s as though I’m looking at them through a thin, semi-translucent veil.

Bo scrambles to the opening but stops and looks back at the crowd racing towards us. She’s panting hard, squinting. “My father and brother. I can’t see them.”

“Forget them,” I growl. “I can’t.”

“You must. They’re—”

“I’m going back for them!” Bo cries.

“No!” I shout, but she sets off regardless. My left hand rises. Magic flows. Bo comes to a forced stop. She turns her head and looks at me pleadingly. “Grubbs,” she whimpers. “Let me go. I have to do this.”

“But you’ll die if—”

“Probably,” she interrupts, “but not necessarily. Maybe I’ll find and rescue them.” She shrugs helplessly. “I have to try.”

“But your father was working with the demons. He helped bring this upon us.”

“He’s still my dad. And Abe did nothing wrong. Apart from get on your nerves, like I did,” she grins.

I grin back and reluctantly release her, knowing I don’t have the right to deny her, figuring I’d probably do the same in her place. “Don’t spend too long looking for them,” I warn her.

“I won’t,” she lies. And then she’s gone, racing past the people fleeing the town, leaving me to marvel at how poorly I judged her.

I wish Bo silent luck, then blank her from my thoughts and step up beside Dervish. I want to bolt through the hole in the barrier after Bill-E and the others, but my uncle needs me. My magical half shows me how to link up with my uncle. As I add my power to his, the force of the wind increases. Lord Loss slides backwards again, straining against the wind, but—momentarily at least—losing ground.

“You could have let me know you were here,” I growl.

“Couldn’t risk tipping Lord Loss off,” Dervish disagrees. “We were lucky. You normally can’t fool a demon master with an invisibility spell, but he was so focused on you he didn’t see through it.”

People from the town spill past us, then through the hole, called to safety by Bill-E, who’s laid Juni to one side and is now directing the survivors.

“You sent the message to everyone?” I ask.

“Yes. As soon as I saw you coming.”

“How come Bo and I didn’t get it?”

“I excluded you. I—”

“—didn’t want to tip Lord Loss off,” I finish for him.

“Sorry,” Dervish says.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The wind suddenly dies away. Lord Loss straightens himself.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“We should get the hell out of here.”

There are still people running and limping towards us from the town, chased by demons, some missing limbs, many bleeding and screaming, all terrified but hopeful. Because Dervish told them to come. He said this was their way out. He promised.

“You’re staying,” I note.

“Until the hole starts to close,” Dervish nods.

“You’ll know when that’s about to happen? You’ll escape in time?”

“I’ll know. As for whether or not I’ll be able to escape…” He jerks his head at Lord Loss, who’s started to glide back towards us.

“OK,” I decide, proud of my courage but at the same time dismayed. “I’ll stay too. We’ll buy the survivors as much time as possible.”

Dervish smiles. “Did I ever tell you I loved you, Grubbs?”

“No.”

“Good. I hate sentimental crap like that.”

Then Lord Loss shrieks and fire engulfs us.

Dervish spits out words of magic and the flames evaporate before they have time to burn through our skin. But Lord Loss uses those few seconds to sweep across. With a cry of hate, he propels himself at Dervish, whips him off the ground and drags him high up into the air, all eight hands lashing and ripping at him.

No time to worry about my uncle. Artery is only seconds behind his master. Races at me on his tiny feet, flames in his eyes bright and vicious again, the teeth in his three mouths gnashing menacingly.

I wait until Artery’s upon me, then drop to one knee and shoot a hand out. I grab his throat. Squeeze the cartilage hard. Crush it. Toss him aside. Choked gurgling sounds. Artery brings up his hands to repair the damage. I step towards him, set on finishing him off. Before I can, another demon bursts on to the scene. It’s shaped like a monkey with several heads and has been chasing humans out from town. When it sees the hole in the barrier and spots me battling with Artery, it comes barrelling at me.

I glimpse claws and fangs. Whirl away. A blast of magic hits my left shoulder. My arm goes numb. When I look down, I realise it’s been cut clean off. It lies on the ground nearby, singed and twisted.

“Grubbs!” Bill-E screams as the monkey demon closes in for the kill.

“Stay where you are!” I yell, kicking the demon away, magically stopping the blood pumping from the gash where my arm should be. I bark a command and the earth at the demon’s feet explodes, throwing it backwards. While it’s recovering, I grab my arm and stick it back in place, blasting magic at it. Severe pain as flesh, muscles and bone knot together, but I use more magic to dull it.

I’m able to do so much more than when I first fought Lord Loss’ familiars. It’s frightening. I’m not in control of myself, just reacting, doing things without knowing how. The magic part of me isn’t even giving me instructions now. It’s bypassing the conscious part of my brain, working by itself.

More of the cast and crew stumble through the hole. Several of the demons in pursuit try to tear through after them. I scatter the monsters, then quickly establish a second barrier around the hole, which allows humans through but not demons.

A heavy thudding sound. Dervish and Lord Loss have crashed to earth. Still struggling with each other, both wounded and bruised, roaring spells and curses.

The familiars make a coordinated attack, ganging up on me. They close from all angles, encircling me. I try backing up to the wall of the barrier, to guard myself from sneak attacks, but a few have already got in behind me. Artery—neck fixed and hot for revenge—snickers. I sense the confidence of the demons. They have me trapped. My situation should be hopeless. But the magic part of me only sees this as a way to deal with them all at the same time.

I find myself rising into the air, then turning, slowly at first, then at great speed, 360 degree spins, around and around, creating a vortex. The demons are sucked towards me, collide and are thrown clear. I’m not injured by the collisions—my skin has automatically toughened.

A couple of demons try to fight the bite of the wind and drag me down, but all are repelled. Eventually they quit and return to harassing and killing other humans. I drift back to the ground. Slightly dizzy but otherwise fine, I do what I can to protect the fleeing crowd, trying to shepherd through as many as I can.

There aren’t many coming now. The stream has died away to a trickle. No sign of Bo returning. I wonder how long we have left, if she’ll have time to make it back. As if in answer, Dervish bellows, “We have to get out! It’s going to close!”

“You’ll never leave!” Lord Loss screams, digging a couple of hands deep into Dervish’s flesh. The snakes in the demon master’s chest are spitting at Dervish’s face, trying to bite him.

“Go!” Dervish shouts. “Save yourself!”

“As if!” I snort, eyeing up Lord Loss. I focus on his lumpy, writhing arms. With a cruel smile, I gnash my teeth together—and all eight of his limbs are abruptly severed. Stunned, he topples backwards, yelping with pain and shock, his disconnected limbs flopping to the ground.

Dervish crumples up into a weary ball. I hurry to my uncle, grab him and toss him through the hole in the barrier as if he was a frisbee, using magic to soften his fall. A quick glance at Lord Loss. I can’t resist the opportunity to toss a final movie-style quip his way. “Some people say you’re a bad-ass—but I think you’re pretty ’armless!” Then I skip out before he recovers and rips me to pieces.

BITTER SWEET

I feel the difference as soon as I step through the hole. Magic drains away from me instantly. Tiredness sets in. My left arm and shoulder ache like no pain I’ve experienced before. But I’m not completely powerless, not yet. I face the gap in the barrier, summon the final dregs of my magic and prepare myself to fight any demon that tries to follow us through.

Dervish groans and forces himself up, helped by a trembling Bill-E. One of Lord Loss’ hands is embedded in the flesh of his stomach. He prises it out and tosses it away. It twitches for a few seconds, then disintegrates into an ash-like substance.

I see humans running towards the barrier. “Faster!” I scream. “You don’t have much longer! You’ve got to—”

Lord Loss glides across the face of the hole, blocking my view. His face is a mask of hatred and fury. Snarling, he starts to come through… then pauses, looks around and drifts backwards.

“He doesn’t dare cross,” Dervish mutters. “His magic would fail him out here. He’d have to fight on our terms.”

“You will suffer for this,” the demon master snarls. “Your deaths would have been horrible, but now they’ll be far worse. I will find new ways to—”

“Yeah, yeah,” Bill-E says, stepping up beside us. “Go blow it out your rear, you pathetic waste of space.”

Lord Loss hisses and starts to spit out a spell. Before he completes it, there’s a sharp cracking sound and the hole in the barrier seals itself. Lord Loss looks up and down, in case there’s any crack remaining, but it’s been completely repaired.

“I will answer your insults later,” he vows, new arms forming from all eight stumps. “You will die at these hands eventually. Only now it will be much slower and far more excruciating than I had originally planned.”

Glancing backwards, the demon master flexes his fresh fingers and points at the people still fleeing Slawter, those trapped within the bubble of magic. “Your day of reckoning will arrive sooner than you imagine, Grady scum. For now, watch as I content myself with this sorry lot and consider it a taste of the horrors to come.”

Having delivered his threat in a manner any movie demon would be proud of, the eight-armed, heartless monster floats towards the doomed humans, warding off his familiars, saving these last few victims for his own warped pleasure.

“Look away,” Dervish says wearily to those of us on the safe side of the barrier. “This is going to be ugly. You don’t want to watch.”

“We have to get them out!” a woman wails. “My son’s still in there. You have to go—”

Dervish looks at her darkly. Puts a finger to his lips. She falls silent. Then my uncle turns his back on the town, sits on the ground, and very slowly and deliberately closes his eyes and places both hands over his ears—blocking out the sights and sounds of the inhuman, bloody slawter.

Dervish is right. It’s not something that should be seen. Yet I have to watch, at least for a while, as Lord Loss savages and slaughters one person after another, dragging them kicking and screaming up close to the barrier so we can see and hear more clearly. It’s dreadful, the ways he finds to torture and kill them. I want to reach through and stop him, but my powers are swiftly fading. Even if there was some way of breaking through the barrier, I no longer have the strength to harm him. I’d have to go back in, but that would be suicide.

Juni regains consciousness while Lord Loss is hard at work. Groans, sits up, looks around groggily, then leaps to her feet, eyes wide. “It’s OK,” I tell her. “We made it. They can’t—”

“What happened?” she shouts, striding up to the barrier, stopping just short of it, studying the bloody scenes within, astonished, on the verge of tears.

“You were knocked out,” Bill-E tells her. “We pulled you through.”

“But… the barrier…” She touches it. Pulls her hand back quickly when she feels the power.

“The hole’s gone,” I explain. “It was only temporary. We got out as many as we could. The rest…” I shake my head sadly.

Juni stares at Lord Loss and his victims, her pale skin flushed, dried blood caking the back of her head where she was struck. She’s trembling with confusion and fear, like the rest of us. I think about giving her a hug but I’m too tired. So I just stand and stare with her.

Gradually we all turn away from the horrific scenes, sickened, weeping and shaking, grasping each other for support and comfort. I’m one of the last to look away, watching for Bo, hoping against hope that she’ll show, that another hole in the barrier can be opened, that I’ll be able to get her out.

But she doesn’t appear. She’s either still looking for Tump and Abe or—more likely—has been killed by a demon. If the latter, I hope it was quick and painless, though I don’t suppose it was. Who’d have thought that of all the deaths today, Bo Kooniart’s would hit me hardest.

Eventually, I look around and do a quick head count. Thirty-four. Of all those working on the film… hundreds of people… only thirty-four remain.

I’m about to sit, when one of the faces catches my attention. Slowly, incredulously, I march across and glare with contempt and hatred at a bruised, dazed but very much alive Chuda Sool.

“You!” I snarl. He looks up timidly. “How dare you? So many dead because of your treachery, but you sit here among the living, meek as an innocent child. You should have stayed behind with your masters!”

“Please,” Chuda croaks. “I didn’t know… they said… I thought…”

“You knew!” I scream. “They said they’d spare you—that’s the only thing you got wrong. That’s your only complaint.” I grab his head and force him to look at the destruction on the other side of the barrier. “You made this happen! They’re dying—dead—because of you!”

Chuda starts to cry—but with fear, not regret. “Don’t hurt me. Please… I can help you… I know spells. They promised me a long life, hundreds, maybe thousands of years. How could I say no? Davida convinced me. She set this up. She’s the one you should blame.”

“Davida’s dead,” I growl. “She got her comeuppance. Now you will too.”

I reach deep within myself for the dwindling flames of magic, intent on destroying this traitor.

“No, Grubbs,” Bill-E says quietly, laying a hand on my right arm.

“He deserves it!” I yell.

“He probably deserves a whole lot worse,” Bill-E agrees. “But it’s not for you or me to pass judgement. We don’t have the right to take his life. You’ll become a killer, no better than any of those demons, if you murder him.”

“It’s execution, not murder,” I growl.

“Different word, same thing,” Bill-E says. “It’s wrong. You’d hate yourself.”

“He’s right,” Juni says, leaving the barrier and stepping up on my other side. “You’re a child, Grubbs. No child should ever kill.” Chuda smiles at her pitifully, but her eyes are hard. “Especially when there are plenty of capable adults around,” Juni whispers, then grabs Chuda’s head with both hands. His eyes fly wide open—then fill with a white light. He gibbers madly, trying to knock her hands away, but Juni holds firm, pumping magic into Chuda’s brain, frying the circuits, her mouth twisted into a wicked leer.

Chuda falls back when she releases him, jerks a few times, then dies, face contorted, skin black at the sides of his head. Bill-E and I gawp at Juni, shocked. Dervish is staring at her too, along with most of the people around us.

“I did what I had to,” Juni mutters, looking away to hide her shame. “We couldn’t let him walk away, not after…” She gestures at Slawter.

“B-b-b-but…” Bill-E stutters.

“Don’t,” Juni stops him. “The last thing I want right now is a child lecturing me about ethics.” She walks off, rubbing her hands up and down her arms.

“Leave her,” Dervish says sadly. He looks over his shoulder and spots Lord Loss finishing off another of his playthings. Sighs and stands. “Let’s gather everybody together and get out of here. I’ve had enough of bloody demons.”

How do you explain away a massive demonic killing spree? Easy—by covering it up and pretending it was an accident.

Dervish spends the rest of the evening making calls, to the Disciples, police, politicians, journalists, firemen, doctors and nurses. The Disciples have a network of contacts, ready and waiting to smooth over the cracks when something like this happens. It’s how they’ve managed to keep previous crossings quiet in the past. They come in their droves, the first arriving late at night, setting up camp close to the barrier around Slawter, so they can move in swiftly and mop up when the time is right.

They keep the survivors together for four days, in vans and tents brought to the site by more of Dervish’s contacts. Nobody’s allowed to leave or make a call. Counsellors work hard, making the most of the time, trying to help people stave off nightmares and come to terms with the deaths of relatives and friends.

Waiting for the demons to finish off the last few victims and return to their own universe. I often feel like going back to the barrier, to view the devastation, to curse Lord Loss or just stand there and let him curse me. But I don’t.

The barrier finally dissolves when the last of the Demonata take their leave. Dervish and a team of volunteers enter the town and demolish the magical lodestone in the D warehouse, closing the tunnel between universes. When the threat of a follow-up invasion has been averted, they retrieve the bodies and body parts, stack them in buildings around the town, then set the place alight. It’s a gruesome end for the unfortunate victims, but necessary to mask the demonic marks and trick the outside world into believing they died in a ferocious fire.

That’s the official story, built on the bones of Bill-E’s gas leak rumour—there was a massive explosion and a wave of fire swept through the town with brutal speed, killing most of the cast and crew. I doubt if all the survivors will stick to it. I’m sure a few will protest in the months and years to come, tell their friends, go to the media, try to spread the truth. But who’ll believe them? If anyone goes on a TV show prattling about demons, the audience will think they’re a crank.

The teams destroy the film reels too. Davida’s notes. The models, props, costumes. A thorough job, leaving nothing behind, removing every last trace of the Demonata, planting fake evidence in its place. The only people who knew what the film was about were all in Slawter. As far as the rest of the world will ever know, Davida Haym’s last film was going to be a departure from her earlier movies—a love story with a touch of science fiction.

I think, if Davida’s watching in some phantom form, that will hurt the most. Not the deaths, the betrayal by the demons, her own grisly slaughter. But that her film was destroyed and all traces of her masterpiece removed.

Good! I hope her ghost chokes on it.

Standing beside Dervish as the fires rage, the night sky red and yellow, thick with smoke. Watching Slawter disappear forever. Most of the survivors and emergency crew are with us. Silence reigns.

“It’s over,” Dervish says as the roof of a large building—maybe the D warehouse—caves in with a raucous crash, sending splinters of flames flickering high up into the sky. “In the morning we can leave. Everyone can go.”

The sweetest words I’ve ever heard.

Juni is gone before we wake. She leaves a note for Dervish. She’s been quiet and withdrawn these past few days, not saying much, refusing to discuss the mayhem or her killing of Chuda Sool.

In the note she says she’s confused. She knows Chuda was guilty, deserving of punishment, but she can’t believe she acted so callously. Her whole world has changed. She knows about demons now and she’s seen a side of herself that she doesn’t like. She needs time alone, to reflect, consider, explore. She says she has strong feelings for Dervish, but doesn’t know if she ever wants to see him again. Tells him not to look for her. Promises to visit him in Carcery Vale one day—if. That’s the last word—if. I think she meant to write more, but couldn’t.

Dervish doesn’t say anything when he reads the note. Just hands it to me and Bill-E once he’s done, then goes for a long, lonely walk. I’d help him if I could, say something to make him feel better. But I don’t know what to say. Bill-E doesn’t either. So we don’t say anything when he returns, only stay close in case he needs us.

The evacuation proceeds smoothly, people leaving without a fuss, driven home or to train stations, airports, wherever. Some of the counsellors travel with the worst affected, not only to comfort them, but to make sure they don’t harm themselves or wind up in trouble.

I think some of the survivors won’t be able to live with what they’ve witnessed. This will haunt all of us, but it will hit some harder than others. I think there will be a few more deaths in the years to come.

I’d like to do something to help the worst afflicted, but I can’t. It’s not possible to save everybody. Even heroes have their all-too-human limits.

By four in the afternoon the last cars are leaving. The press has been told of the supposed fire and news teams begin to arrive, eager to scour the ashes of Slawter—renamed Haymsville for the benefit of the rest of the world. They’re angry to find none of the survivors here, and they hit the roof when they learn that the emergency crews were on the scene so long before them. But there’s nothing they can do about it except moan.

I watch with little interest as the reporters circle the skeletal remains of the town. I’ve had enough of the place.

I just want to forget about it. Put it behind me and move on.

Bill-E is beside me, silent as a corpse. He’s kept himself busy in the aftermath, spending a lot of time with the other children who made it out alive, talking about what happened, trying to help. That’s been his way of dealing with the tragedy. He doesn’t want time alone to think about it, to remember, to fear. At night he wakes screaming, but in the day he fights the memories. What will he do when we’re home and he has nothing but ordinary life to occupy his time? What will I do?

“They didn’t find all the bodies,” Bill-E says. “I heard Dervish talking about it with another Disciple. The demons took some people back to their universe. Maybe Bo was one of them. Maybe she’ll escape and return. I’m sure it’s possible. I mean, Dervish did it, right?”

I grunt negatively in reply, knowing in my heart that Dervish would have told us if there was even the slightest glimmer of hope.

I turn to face Bill-E. I instinctively know that this is the right moment, the one I’ve been waiting so many months for. Time to tell him we’re brothers.

“Bill-E…” I begin, but before I get any further, Dervish appears.

“Hey,” he says with forced good humour. “You want to stay here all night or are you coming with me?”

“Coming where?” Bill-E asks, turning, and the moment is lost. I won’t make the great revelation, not now. Later. When another good time comes around.

“Yes—where?” I ask, turning like Bill-E, so we’re both looking at our uncle.

“Home,” Dervish croaks. And as soon as he says that, for reasons I don’t quite understand, all three of us smile shakily and then start to cry.

A LITTLE CHAT

It’s strange, trying to settle back into everyday life, not telling anyone about Slawter, acting like normal people who’ve merely survived a very human tragedy. Bill-E and I lie to our friends, make up stories about the filming, describe the fire and how we were lucky to escape. Not a word about demons.

Bill-E stays with us the first few nights, despite the objections of Ma and Pa Spleen. Nightmares galore, both of us. Remembering. Screaming. Crying. Talking with each other and Dervish, trying to cope. Ironically—considering how this all started—Dervish sleeps like a baby. The confrontation with evil was a tonic for him. It blew the cobwebs from his head, helped him out of the bad patch he’d been stuck in. The fighting, the cover-up, getting in touch with the other Disciples, discussing ways to keep the truth secret… All of that was nectar to my uncle. It fired up his engines. He was in his element dealing with the demonic fallout. I’m not saying he enjoyed it, but he needed it. That’s his real work.

I wish it was so easy for me, that I could go off, find a demon, have a scrap, purge myself of the bad memories and fears. But I took nothing positive out of what happened in Slawter. I’m just disgusted, tired and afraid. I’m sure it will be years before I can sleep properly. If ever.

But the show must go on. The charade has to be maintained. So Bill-E returns to Ma and Pa Spleen. We go back to school. We force ourselves to focus on homework, friends, sports, TV, music, day-to-day life. We pretend that’s all there is to the world, that there’s nothing more frightening in life than a surprise test or saying something stupid in front of your friends and having them laugh at you.

And sometimes—just sometimes—I almost believe it, and for a little while I forget about Lord Loss, Davida Haym, Bo Kooniart, Emmet, the demons, the dead. And life is the way it should be, like it is for most people. But the sensation never lasts. It can’t. Because I know the truth. I’ve seen behind the curtain of reality. I know that monsters are hiding underneath a billion beds across the world. And I know that sometimes… more often than we imagine… they come out.

“Time for that talk.”

We’ve been home for nearly three weeks. I’m in the TV room, some comedy show playing on the big screen, not really concentrating. When Dervish sits beside me and speaks, I’m not sure what he’s talking about. Then, as he switches off the TV, I remember. In the middle of the madness he said that if we got out alive, we’d have to have a chat about my magical prowess.

“You were amazing in Slawter,” Dervish says. “Magic was pumping through you and you had complete control over it.”

“I just tapped into the power in the air,” I shrug uneasily. “No biggie.”

Dervish smiles. “Modesty’s becoming, but let’s not bull ourselves—you were on fire. You did things I can’t even comprehend. When I was fighting Lord Loss, I noticed some of the demons trying to get through the hole in the barrier. You kept them back. How?”

“I established a second barrier around the hole. Demons couldn’t get through it but humans could.”

Dervish chuckles. “Do you realise how difficult that is? I couldn’t do it. Even when I was in Lord Loss’ realm, at my most powerful, I couldn’t have pulled off something like that. I don’t know many who could.”

“It wasn’t like I planned it,” I say, for some reason feeling edgier the more he praises me. “I reacted to what was going on around me. The magic told me what to do. I wasn’t in control. I couldn’t do any of it again. I don’t even remember most of what I did.”

Dervish studies me closely, his expression serious. I sense his reluctance to continue—and with a jolt, I guess the reason why and instantly understand why I’ve been so nervous.

“The Disciples are few in number,” Dervish says quietly. “We’re always on the lookout for new recruits, but most mages never realise their magical potential. It lies dormant unless they have an encounter with the Demonata. Even then there’s no guarantee that it will develop, that we’ll be able to make use of them.”

“No,” I say softly.

Dervish frowns. “I haven’t asked you anything.”

“I know what’s coming. And the answer’s no. Please don’t ask me.” I look away, trembling, fighting hard not to cry. “I hate it, Dervish—the demons, the battles, the madness. I don’t want to face Lord Loss or anything like him again. I don’t want to become a Disciple.”

A lengthy silence. Finally Dervish sighs. “I’d spare you if I could. But there are so few of us and we’re so limited. From what I saw in Slawter, you could be one of the most powerful Disciples ever. You might even…” He clears his throat. “You might even be a true magician. Like Bartholomew Garadex.”

“No way!” I cry. “You told me I wasn’t. You said magicians are born that way, that their powers are obvious from birth.”

“I know. But the way you handled yourself… Maybe I was wrong. Maybe there are late-developing magicians. But even if you’re not a magician,” he says quickly as I start to protest, “you are part of the world of magic. No normal person could have done what you did. You have a very powerful, important talent and it would be a crime to deny it. I know you don’t want to involve yourself with the Disciples, but you have to. Some of us believe that the universe creates champions, that a few humans in each generation are given the gift of magic in order to protect this world from the Demonata. If you’ve been chosen by the universe…” He smiles shakily. “You can’t say no to a calling like that, can you?”

“Just watch me,” I snap.

Dervish’s expression darkens. “You’re acting like a child.”

“Well, duh! Haven’t you noticed? I am a child! Big for my age, but don’t let size fool you. Try me again when I’m old enough to vote.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Dervish says. “Magic must be nurtured. Every day we hesitate is a day wasted. When you face your next demon, you might—”

“There won’t be a next!” I shout. “Weren’t you listening? I don’t want to join your band of do-gooding Disciples! I said NO!”

“Unacceptable,” Dervish replies flatly. “You have a responsibility. I know it’s hard—I’ve gone through it myself—but you have to be who you are.”

“You don’t know anything!” I hiss. “You didn’t lose your family to demons. You didn’t have to fight Lord Loss when you were my age. You haven’t felt the terror of… of…” I’m breathing hard, hands clenched, tears in my eyes.

“You can’t let fear rule your life,” Dervish says. “Everyone’s afraid when they face a demon. We learn to mask our fear, but it’s always there, chewing away at us. Fear… doubt… wishes that we weren’t magical, that we didn’t have this cross to bear. I can help you overcome that fear. I can show you the way.”

I stare at him heavily. There’s no point arguing. He really doesn’t understand. I’m not just afraid—I’m horrified. In Slawter I did what I had to. It was an unreal situation and I had no choice but to let the magic wash through me and use it to fight my way out. But I hated the whole experience and I’ve no desire to repeat it. I’m through with the universe of demons. I’ve done more than my fair share. Got the better of them—and saved lives—twice. That’s enough.

I start to tell Dervish this, to try to make him see it from my point of view. But all that comes out is a sigh, then a sullen, “Anyway, it’s irrelevant. I’m not a magician or a mage. It was just a Slawter thing.”

“You’re wrong. The power is there. We have to develop it. You can’t—”

“What if it isn’t?” I interrupt. “What if I’m just an ordinary kid who did something weird and wild, but is back to normal now? Would you leave me alone then?”

He frowns. “Yes, of course. If the talent isn’t there, obviously we can’t fan it into life. But it is. It must be.”

“Look for it,” I challenge him. “Can you find out if a person has magic in them or not?”

Dervish nods. “We can’t in people who haven’t tapped into it, but once someone unleashes their power, it’s always there. I can search for it, find it, prove it to you. I should have done it before, after you fought Vein and Artery, but I wasn’t thinking straight when I returned from my battle with Lord Loss.”

“Go on then.” I face him directly. “You won’t find anything, but if you want to look, feel free.”

Dervish puts his hands on my shoulders. My left arm’s still sore from when it was cut off. I wince, but steel myself and grunt for him to continue. I’m not sure why I’m so confident that he won’t find anything. But I am.

Dervish’s eyes close. “Relax,” he says. “You’ll feel a force… an intrusion. Try not to fight it. I’ll get out as quickly as possible.”

I let my eyelids flutter shut. Seconds later I sense a presence, a soft probing, like fingers creeping through the corridors of my brain. I tense against it.

“Relax,” Dervish murmurs. “It’s OK. I won’t hurt you. Trust me.”

It’s hard, but I do as Dervish says, opening myself up to him, letting him probe deep… deeper. I feel him closing in on a part of myself which I wasn’t aware of a few months ago. I know that if he finds it, he’ll continue pestering me to become a Disciple. He won’t give up. He’ll keep on and on, and eventually I’ll cave in and let him train me. And that will mean facing the Demonata again. More pain, craziness, terror.

Something moves within me. A pulse. A shiver. Hard to define. Like when you think you catch a movement out of the corner of your eye, but you’re not sure, and when you look closely, nothing’s there.

My eyes open. Dervish’s forehead is creased, his lips moving. I close my eyes again. Smile faintly and let him continue. Warm now, safe, at ease.

Finally Dervish releases me. When I look at him, he’s shaking his head, confused. “I don’t understand. I was certain. You shouldn’t have been able to… if there was nothing there… if you’re not a mage… It doesn’t make sense!”

“I assume that means no magic,” I grin.

“Not even a trace. I thought I was zooming in on it, but then… nothing. I carried on looking, went deeper than necessary, because I was so sure…”

“You can try again if you want,” I tell him.

“No point.” He manages a brief smile. “It’s either there or it isn’t. I’d have found it if it was. You can’t hide magic, not from those who know what to look for. I was wrong. You were right. You’re clean.”

“So I don’t have to sign up? The Disciples can struggle on without me?”

Dervish pulls a face. “I don’t know. The magic isn’t there now, but I suspect, if we placed you in an area of magic again or took you into the universe of the Demonata… Our leader, Beranabus, is more powerful than any of us. He spends a lot of time among demons. Perhaps…”

I feel fear creeping back, but then Dervish scowls. “No. I’m not going to sign away your life to him. Maybe you’ll choose to go down that path when you’re older. But I haven’t the right to pass that sort of a sentence on you. Beranabus plays rougher than the rest of us. I’ve seen how he treats those closest to him, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“Then I’m free?” I say hopefully. “I don’t have to…?”

“No.” Dervish smiles, warmly this time, pleased for me, even though he’s disappointed not to have found a powerful new recruit. “Congratulations, Grubbs. You’re ordinary. I hope you enjoy a long, happy, boring life.”

“Coolio!” I laugh. Then the pair of us settle back, turn the TV on and spend a few hours surfing channels, chatting about things deliriously unimportant.

In my room. Dark. I haven’t turned the light on. Sitting on the end of my bed. Thinking about what happened earlier, Dervish’s probe, what it would have meant if he’d found magic, how awful my life might have been. I should be celebrating the fact that I’m not one of the magical breed. Rejoicing. But I can’t. Because I know that’s a crock.

I rise, walk into the bathroom and stand in front of the basin, facing the mirror above it, even though I can’t see it in the darkness. I don’t want to do this. But I have to be sure.

I think I outfoxed Dervish. I think there is magic inside me, but it responded to my wishes and hid itself or deflected my uncle’s probe. He said that wasn’t possible, but if you’re powerful enough, maybe it is. I could be wrong—I’m praying that I am—but I’m not sure. And I have to be. Even if nobody else ever knows, I need to.

I focus on the light bulb overhead. For a long second nothing happens. The darkness holds. I begin to hope.

Then the light comes on. A warm, steady, unnatural light. And the hope dies away as quickly as it was born.

I look at my scared reflection in the mirror. Make it disappear, so only the wall behind me is reflected in the glass. Then I let my reflection reappear and the light fade. I stumble back to bed. Lie down on top of the covers. Silent. Shaking. Terrified. Unable to sleep. Certain now—I’m not normal. I tricked Dervish, but I’m part of the world of magic. I can’t escape. The universe of the Demonata will call to the magic within me and suck me back in. I know it will. This isn’t over, not by a long shot.

There are no happy endings.