“You can,” Beranabus says, not giving up. “Unless you want to accept that you’re a worthless coward. Unless you’re prepared to flee like a whipped, shamed cur. Are you, Grubitsch?”
“I . . .” My voice seizes. I come within a breath of saying yes. I want to. I almost grasp the yellow mantle gratefully. But the shame . . . the guilt . . . to live the rest of my life as a branded coward . . .
“Please,” I moan. “Don’t do this to me.”
“It’s already done,” Beranabus says. “I’m not pushing you into anything. I’m just the one who has the unpleasant task of breaking the news to you.” He steps forward, grabs my shoulder, and looks hard into my eyes. “Hero or coward. There’s no in between. Choose now. The Demonata won’t wait forever.”
Wanting to scream, to run, to tell him to go stuff himself.
Knowing I can’t, that I’m gifted, that I’m damned.
“I hope they kill me,” I cry, tearing away from him, trembling wildly. “I hope I don’t last five minutes.”
“I hoped that too when I first crossed,” Kernel says softly, then walks to the monolith, puts a hand on the surface, breathes on it, and steps through as the dark face shimmers. He vanishes.
“You will fare better than you fear, Grubitsch,” Beranabus says encouragingly, following Kernel to the monolith. He puts a hand on it.
“Wait.” I stop him and he looks back questioningly. “If we’re going to do this, I want to make one thing clear. It’s Grubbs, understand? I bloody hate Grubitsch.”
Beranabus smiles crookedly and says with all the charm of Sweeney Todd, “If you can kill demons, I’ll call you anything you please. If not, I’ll leave your bones lying scattered in their universe, nameless.” He faces the monolith again and exhales. It shimmers and he moves forward. Gone.
I don’t think about this being my chance to run, to get out of here, lose myself in the desert and die on my own world. Afraid the coward within me will take control if I give it a chance. Without hesitation, I lurch forward, put both hands on the monolith, breathe on it like the others did, and step through into madness.
The Stuff that Heroes are Made Of
FIRST impression—this place is infinitely different from the webby world of Lord Loss. Light blue in color, it’s like something out of a Picasso painting, all cubes and weird angles. We’re in a sort of valley. Narrow, jagged pillars of a weird blue substance rise high around us. I edge over to the nearest pillar and sniff, expecting the stench of sulfur. But it smells more like a piece of rotten fruit—a peach or pear maybe.
“Don’t touch it,” Beranabus says. “It’s probably not dangerous, but we don’t take chances here. The less physical contact we make, the better.”
“Where is this?” I ask.
“The Demonata’s universe, idiot,” Kernel snaps.
“I mean, which part? I don’t know anything about the setup here. Are there ten worlds, twenty, a thousand? Do they have names? Which one are we on?”
“Geography doesn’t work like that here,” Beranabus says, studying the pillars, eyes sharp. “The worlds and zones are constantly changing. There are many self-contained galaxies within the general demon universe. The stronger Demonata have the power to create their own realms or take over another demon’s and reshape it. We never know what we’re going to find when we cross.”
“Then how do you hunt?” I frown.
“We target specific demons. Realms might change but demons don’t, except for the shape-shifters, and even they don’t change on the inside, where it counts. If we know a demon’s name, Kernel can locate it within minutes. If we don’t know, or if the demon doesn’t have a name, it’s more complicated. Each demon has a unique spiritual vibration.”
“Call it a demonic frequency,” Kernel chips in when I look blank. “Demons have souls, like humans, and they emit a certain type of wave that we can sense. Each demon’s soul is like a radio station, transmitting on an individual frequency. If we think a certain demon’s working on a window or tunnel, we can lock on to its signal and track it down.”
“It’s not easy,” Beranabus says, “especially if it’s a demon we’ve had no firsthand experience of, but we usually find what we’re looking for.”
Kernel points to one of the shorter pillars. “There.”
Beranabus squints. “Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“Either you’re getting sharper or my eyes are getting worse,” Beranabus mutters, then raises a hand and sends a ball of energy shooting at the pillar. There’s a gentle glowing. A sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan. Then the pillar moves and an angular demon steps out of a crack.
Fear grabs hold and magic flares within me. I bring up my hands defensively, but Beranabus stops me with a high-spirited “Rein in those horses, boy!” He faces the demon and smiles. “How do you feel about dying today?”
The demon makes a series of choking noises. The sounds don’t make sense to me but Beranabus can decipher them. “No,” he says. “We’re not going to leave you alone. You know who we are and what we want. Now, do you have something to tell us or do we make life wickedly uncomfortable for you?”
The demon glares at Beranabus through a series of triangular eyes, but it looks more miserable than angry. It’s an odd creature, not really frightening in manner or appearance. It mutters something. Beranabus and Kernel share a glance. “You’re sure?” Kernel asks, and the demon nods stiffly.
“Excellent.” Beranabus beams and cocks his head at Kernel. The bald teenager shuffles away a couple of yards, then starts moving his hands about in the air. It’s as if he’s sliding invisible blocks around.
“What’s happening?” I ask Beranabus quietly, not wanting to disturb Kernel.
“I’m opening a window,” Kernel answers before Beranabus can, an edge to his voice. “This is my specialty. I can see panels of light that are invisible to all others. When I slide certain panels together, windows form. I can get to anywhere in this universe—or ours—through them.”
“Where will this one lead?” I ask.
“You’ll find out soon,” Kernel says. “We’re going in search of prey. You want to kill demons, don’t you?”
“No. But let’s say I did. What about that one?” I point to the blue demon, which is edging back into the crack, becoming one with the landscape again.
“Not worth killing,” Beranabus says dismissively. “There are untold billions of demons. They’re all evil, but most can’t hurt us or cross to our world. That cretin doesn’t even dare leave this valley. It waits, hiding and surviving, doing precious little else.”
“What does it feed on?” I ask.
“Who knows?” Beranabus sniffs. “Maybe nothing. Most demons don’t need to eat and drink. Many do, but out of choice, not necessity.”
“Then why did we come here, if not to kill it?” I frown.
“Information,” Kernel says, looking around. “We’re like detectives with a team of snitches. We know where to find soft demons. We often come to places like this, rough up the locals, find out if anything foul is afoot—something usually is. Demons like that one might not do much, but they know things. Secrets are hard to keep in this universe. Word spreads quickly.”
“What’s the word now?” I ask, caught off guard. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t something like this.
“There’s a demon trying to possess a woman on Earth,” Beranabus says. “That happens all the time. It’s not a problem for us, though it’s bad for those involved. Some demons who can’t cross universes can establish a hold on the minds of humans. They manipulate them, drive them crazy, use them to create as much chaos as possible. We normally wouldn’t bother with small-scale melodramatics like this, but I want to break you in gently.”
Kernel grunts. “On my first mission we fought a pair of demons who had almost broken through to the center of Moscow. They were two of the toughest I’ve ever faced. It was bloody and tight. That’s when I lost the tips of my
fingers.” He stares at his left hand, the fingers flinching inward as he relives the memory.
“Why couldn’t you replace them?” I ask. “You can do that with magic, right?”
“Normally. But the loss made little difference. I decided to leave them as they were. They remind me of the dangers we face, the fact that success isn’t a guarantee, that we can and will perish in this hellhole eventually.”
“Here we go,” Beranabus says briskly. A purplish window has formed in front of Kernel. Beranabus walks up to it and steps through, not bothering to breathe on this one. Kernel curls his fingers into a fist, then relaxes his fingers and follows.
I look back in the direction of the blue demon, but I can’t see it now, even though I know the exact spot where it’s hiding. Shaking my head, I think, “This isn’t so bad. I can handle this.” But I know it’s a false start, that worse—much worse—is to come.
There’s a sound far overhead, from the meteor-sized demons in the sky. Fearful of being attacked while I’m alone, I rush to the window and push through after the others.
Fire! It’s all around me, fierce, intense, out of control. I feel the hair on my arms singe and know I have only seconds before I burst into flames. Total panic. I want to look for Beranabus and Kernel or scream for help, but my eyes and mouth shut automatically against the heat.
“Oh, for the love of . . .” Kernel tuts, taking hold of my arm and shaking it roughly. “This is ridiculous. He’s not ready for this. Send him back.”
“He’ll learn,” Beranabus says, and then his lips are by my left ear. “Use magic to guide yourself.”
“It’s hell!” I moan, speaking out of the side of my mouth, keeping my eyes shut.
“One of many thousands of hells,” Beranabus grunts. “For every imaginative demon who constructs a terrifyingly original realm, there are scores who draw upon tired old human myths. Stop acting like a fool. You can already feel your magic responding to this, protecting you from the flames. You’d be burning to a crisp right now if not.”
I open one eye, then the other. Nothing to see but flames. Beranabus and Kernel are hard to spot among the flickering licks of yellow and red. Still hot, hotter than I should be able to bear. But magic’s humming away in the background, cooling me down, guarding my freckled flesh. Beranabus is right—it kicked in as soon as I set foot here, even as the hairs on my arms began to shrivel. I knew that—I could feel it—but fear made me panic.
“Where’s the demon?” I ask, trying to peer through the walls of fire. I look down and realize we’re truly in the middle of the flames—no floor. Nothing below, above, or to the sides except fire.
“The flames are the demon,” Kernel says. “It’s a universal demon.”
“Am I supposed to know what that means?” I growl.
“Universal demons don’t just inhabit a galaxy of their own—they become it,” Beranabus explains. “This demon has a fascination with fire, so it became flames. Its whole zone—the demon itself—is made of fire.”
“But where does it start?” I ask. “Where does it end?”
“Nowhere,” Beranabus says. “This demon is its own self-contained and at the same time limitless realm. It’s like our universe—infinite.”
While I’m trying to make sense of that—I’ve always had problems thinking of a universe being infinite, never mind one single creature—the flames thicken around us. There’s a horrible shrieking sound, piercing and destructive. My eardrums and eyeballs should burst, but magic protects me instinctively. (Which is just as well, since I wouldn’t know how to start to control it!)
A shape forms amid the flames, gigantic and bulging, like the wizard’s fake head in The Wizard of Oz, only a hundred times bigger and more frightening, full of leaping shadows, sparks, and flames.
The demon shrieks again. A huge, rough, fiery fist forms and smashes down on Beranabus. He waves an arm at the fist and slices through the flames. The edges of his beard singe but he’s otherwise unharmed.
Another fist forms and tries to swat Kernel aside. He leaps high, somersaults over it, opens his mouth midleap, and sucks in sharply. He inhales flames, face turning a pure, angry, painful white. The demon screams. Kernel lands, coughs, spins, and leaps over another quickly formed fist.
Beranabus grabs handfuls of flames and rams them into his stomach. And I mean into—his hands pierce his own flesh. He’s stuffing his guts full of fire. The hands come out, the wall of his stomach unharmed. He grabs more flames and jams them in. Out—in. Out—in.
And what does the heroic Grubbs Grady do? I hang beside them, helpless and shivering, about as much use as a plastic toasting fork. I want to help, but I don’t know how. My magic isn’t strong enough. I don’t want to be here. This isn’t my fight.
Then, in the middle of the battle, the demon focuses on me. Two huge fists form on either side and slam toward me, to hammer me lifeless.
I throw myself to the floor. Except there isn’t a floor. Just flames. I don’t know how I’ve been hovering, but I’m not anymore. I’m falling, like when Beranabus ripped me out of the plane, dropping like a sack of stones, quickly losing sight of the magician and his assistant.
“Help!” I scream.
“Help yourself,” Beranabus roars, then curses brutally.
I come to a stop. Relief evaporates moments later when I realize I haven’t been helped by Beranabus or Kernel—I’m being held in the middle of a giant hand of fire. The fingers close upon me. The heat’s unbearable. I feel my magic struggling, protesting, pleading with me to direct it, use it, fight back. But what can I do? How can I defeat a creature made of flames? It’s impossible. At least Lord Loss and his familiars were real targets. I could hit them. This is lunacy. We’re all going to perish, burned to death by a demon the size of a universe.
I scream at the flames. The fingers stop, shudder, then tear apart. I fall again. I’m crying, taking no satisfaction out of destroying the hand because I’m sure another will form any second now, bigger, stronger, hotter.
Then Kernel is by my side. His eyes are sharp and bright blue with rage. “Bloody amateur,” he sneers. “Bloody coward.”
“I can’t do it,” I babble. “I told you I couldn’t. I didn’t want to come here. Make me stop falling. Help me get —”
“Shut up, you worm!” Kernel shouts. “I should let you burn.” He laughs cruelly. “The hell with it. Your death would serve no purpose.” He darts away from me, angling down, moving much quicker than I’m falling. He becomes a speck, then stops. As I hurtle toward him, I see his hands moving, the way they did when he created the window to this universe.
When I’m maybe a few hundred feet away, a dark green window forms. Kernel slides away from it and waves at me like a policeman directing traffic. I’m rushing toward the window. The flames peel away from me. The window gets bigger and bigger as I fall upon it. I have just enough time to worry about what will happen when I flash through and smash into the ground on the other side. Then I hit it and everything turns green.
A Face from the Past
I LAND hard on the floor of Beranabus’s cave, but no bones shatter. Groaning, I pick myself up and look around. The fire has burned out—only cold ashes remain. But flashlights glow on the walls, the flames kept alive by magic. Overhead the window hangs flat, six feet or so above me. A few moments later, as I’m edging clear of it on my hands and knees, it shimmers, then breaks apart and disappears.
I crawl to my blanket and lie down, panting, heart still racing from my encounter with the fire demon, bones aching from the impact of the fall. I shut my eyes and shiver, then climb beneath the blanket for warmth.
Lying in the gloom and quiet. Thinking about the universe of the Demonata. My eyes open and tears wet my lashes. I’m ashamed. I acted like a gutless coward. What’s happened to me? I was braver than this when I faced Lord Loss. Scared, but I fought bravely. Why can’t I be that way now? For long hours I lie still, pondering, before falling into a troubled, restless, shame-tinge
d sleep.
No sign of Beranabus and Kernel when I wake. I worry about them for a few minutes but then recall them saying time usually passes faster here than in the universe of the Demonata. A fight that lasts an hour or two there can equate to days, weeks, or even months here.
Rising stiffly, I explore the cave in search of food and water. I find ample supplies stacked in all corners, the food imperishable, the water carefully bottled. So I won’t starve or die of thirst. Not unless they’re gone for years . . .
The fire next. There are logs and chunks of turf nearby but no matches or lighters. I try one of the flashlights, but they’re secured tight to the wall and I don’t want to break any off. I guess Beranabus and Kernel use magic to start the fire. Reluctant to disturb my inner powers, I attempt to play caveman and ignite the fire by rubbing sticks together, banging a couple of stones off each other in search of an elusive first spark. But I quickly discover that I’m nowhere near as advanced as a caveman.
Sitting back, frowning at the logs. It’s not especially cold in the cave, but I want to light a fire regardless, more for the comfort of its crackling, natural flames than anything else. So, cautiously, I reach within myself and look for magic. But it withdraws as I come near. I sense the power, but it darts out of reach. I feel like it’s punishing me, annoyed that I didn’t use it to fight the demon. You can go stuff yourself if you think I’ll help you now! Make your own fire, coward!
Giving up, I grab a can of beans, a fork, and a can opener and return to my blanket, where I eat the beans cold. Staring at the lifeless fire as I eat. Remembering the flames in the other universe and my cowardice. Trying to justify my actions. What was I meant to do? Suck in flames like Kernel? Jam them into my gut like Beranabus? If they’d shown me how, I could have. But they dropped me into it, no warnings or advice. Maybe I wasn’t really a coward, just ignorant.
Unable to convince myself. If we’d been fighting a demon master, I could plead inexperience. But Kernel said this was a lesser demon. Beranabus was starting me off lightly, testing me out on one of the meeker monsters. There can be no excuses.
I lurch to my feet. I’m getting out of here. I don’t want to be around when they return. I’ll hide my shame in the desert. Take off, let the sun roast me or the chill night air freeze me. Die alone and lost. No more worries or cares. Better off out of this insane game of werewolves, magic, and demons.
I rush to the rope ladder and haul myself up, muscles pumping. Going so fast, I smack my skull on the roof of the cave when I get to the top. Wincing, I rub my head and retreat a couple of rungs, then look for the opening. I can’t find one. The rock appears to be solid. I run my fingers over it, searching for a crack or button, but there’s nothing. It must open by magic.
Descending sourly. Hating magic all the more. Why can’t I be an