“Let us hope it is hell for the demons when we finish,” Sharmila says.
The helicopter stops advancing. Hovers in the air, the pilot waiting for the other two copters to join us. I stare at the ground. Hard to spot the cave entrance. Bombs are going off all around, throwing up dirt, stones, bits of flesh, and bones. I see stronger demons moving about freely, protected from the explosions by magic. They form a large circle, several demons deep. Pinpointing the center of that circle, I finally locate the mouth of the cave. Just a small hole in the ground. Doesn’t look like anything special. Not the sort of place where you expect the future of the planet to be decided.
The second helicopter moves up alongside us, then the third. The Disciples are on their feet or knees by the open sides of the copters, clinging to straps, ready to jump as soon as they’re within safe distance of the ground. The elderly woman with the cane is sitting, legs dangling over the side, stroking the blades sticking out of her mace.
Our pilot looks back at Shark for confirmation. The ex-soldier pauses and casts an unusually sad eye around, swallowing hard, looking doubtful for the first time. For a moment I think he’s lost his thirst for battle. Beranabus thinks it too and opens his mouth to yell an order at the pilot. Then Shark raises his head, grins grimly, and nods savagely. The pilot speaks rapidly into his mouthpiece, issuing urgent orders. The sky clears of planes. Helicopters packed with ground troops cluster around us. I can see the faces of some of the soldiers—underlying terror, overlaid by determination, much like the faces of those closer to me.
The rain of bombs lessens, then stops. Dust swirls below, momentarily masking the hordes of demons. Shark roars commandingly at the pilot.
We drop.
Spartans
THE demons attack before we touch the ground, screaming hatefully, hurling themselves at us viciously. More pour out of the cave entrance, all manner of foul monsters, multilimbed, fangs the size of scythes, claws galore, spitting venom, breathing fire—the works!
The soldiers bear the brunt of the assault. They spill out of the helicopters and absorb the rush of demons, firing off round after round of bullets that they know will only delay the beasts, buying precious seconds for those of us in the three central helicopters, laying down their lives to help us.
As the bloodshed begins, Beranabus claps me hard on the back. Almost before I know what’s happening, I’m out of the helicopter and running, Beranabus slightly ahead of me, Kernel to my right, Shark and Sharmila flanking us. The other ten Disciples fan out. Everyone’s focused on protecting Beranabus, Kernel, and me. Even Shark, who’d love to mindlessly lay into the demons, sticks close by, acting only when we come under direct threat.
For several seconds we glide through the ranks of Demonata as if they weren’t there. A few challenge us, but the Disciples brush them off without slowing, sending them tumbling out of our way, interested only in clearing a path to the cave. The demons are hell-bent on butchering the soldiers—easy targets for the magical monsters—delighted to have so many new victims drop in on them at once.
Then a familiar demon master rises into the air above the cave entrance. My hands clench into fists, nails breaking the flesh of my palms, and the hope that had been forming within me quickly dwindles away.
It’s Lord Loss.
“Demonata!” my old enemy cries, the word piercing my skull and those of everyone and everything around me. “Beware the Disciples! Block their path or we’ll be returned to our own universe!”
In an instant the battle changes. Every demon shrugs off the attentions of the soldiers and focuses on our small band. Impossible to tell how many there are . . . a couple hundred or more. As if breathing in unison, they all snarl at once, then converge.
A wave of demons breaks over us sickeningly fast. One moment they’re yards away. The next we’re surrounded. Claws flash, jaws snap, at least a dozen demons to each of us. Three Disciples perish immediately, wrestled to the ground, ripped to pieces. The rest are stranded, cut off from one another, reduced to fighting isolated, individual battles.
Shark disappears beneath three lumpy monsters, then reappears a second later, throwing them off with a ball of magical energy, laughing maniacally.
Sharmila is muttering spells frantically, gently touching the demons around her, setting them on fire.
The woman with the cane is using it like a gun, shooting bursts of magical bullets at the demons, crushing the heads of others with her mace.
Beranabus presses on, ignoring the carnage, intent on making it to the cave. Kernel runs behind him. So do I, legs working automatically, leaping over the struggling demons, Disciples, and soldiers, panting hard. I want to flee. The coward inside me wails and pleads with me to retreat. But I think of Dervish and Bill-E and cling to the belief that they’re alive, that I can save them. That gives me the strength to ignore the craven cries and follow Beranabus and Kernel.
A rabbit-shaped demon leaps up in front of Beranabus. I recognize it from the massacre on the plane. It’s Femur, one of Lord Loss’s familiars. It vomits acid at Beranabus’s face. But the magician is prepared and deflects the acid back at Femur. It drenches the demon and eats through its fur and skin. Femur screams and rolls away, tiny paws frantically trying to wipe the burning liquid away from its cheeks and eyes before its head melts down to the bone.
The hell child known as Artery appears, grabs Beranabus’s left leg with his mouth-encrusted hands, and bites hard. Beranabus grunts, then kicks Artery as if he were a football, sending him flying over the heads of several other demons.
Beranabus staggers on. The cave entrance is within sight. So is Lord Loss, still hovering in the air, all eight arms extended, smiling sorrowfully.
A tiger-headed demon latches onto my waist and whirls me around, fangs snapping in search of my throat. The magic within me instinctively sends a wave of electricity through the monster. It turns black, then collapses, synapses sizzling, eyes melting in its sockets.
“Nice work!” Shark yells, appearing beside me. He’s bleeding from several cuts, and one of his ears has been bitten off. “Came to help, but it looks like you don’t need me.”
“Beranabus!” I shout at him. “You have to help Ber —”
Before I can finish, Shark’s gone, ripped away by a gaggle of demons who swarm over him, antlike. I see a hand . . . his teeth as he bites . . . I hear a laugh . . . then he’s on the ground, covered completely, and I see nothing more of him.
I take a stunned step away from where Shark fell and look around, dazed, searching for Beranabus. He’s come to a standstill. A dozen or more demons stand between the magician and the hole. He fires magical bolts at them, but they take his best shots, barely blink, then return fire. There’s no way around. Soon they’ll wear him down and move in to finish him off.
Kernel slides to his master’s side and joins the fight. But just as he fires off a few pinkish bolts of his own, the scorpion demon from the plane—Spine—leaps onto his bald brown head and aims its stinger at his right eye. With a pop the stinger goes in, then comes out wet and glistening. Shrieking with delight, the demon spits out a mouthful of eggs, filling Kernel’s pulpy socket.
Kernel screams with agony as the eggs hatch and maggoty insects gnaw at what’s left of his eye, before working their way through to his brain. He wheels away from Beranabus, losing all sense of direction. Spine strikes again and Kernel’s left eye pops too.
Something hits me hard in my upper back and I slam to the ground. Claws dig into my flesh. I’m momentarily stunned, unable to use my magic. I feel the end coming and a large part of me welcomes it—anything to break clear of this madness. But then the demon’s thrown from me by a blast of magical power. I sit up, groggy, expecting to find Sharmila or the lady with the cane. But neither woman is anywhere to be seen. I can only see demons and Beranabus struggling against them desperately, hopelessly. Then who . . . ?
“Nobody touches the boy!” Lord Loss bellows, and I realize I’ve been rescued by the
demon master. He catches my eye and his smile broadens. “I’m saving you for myself, Grubitsch. You escaped on the airplane, but you will not wriggle free again.”
The fighting clears around me, demons giving me a wide berth, turning aside to finish off the Disciples and the few remaining soldiers. The path to the hole clears—but it’s also the path to Lord Loss. For a long second I stare at the demon master, hovering, waiting. I want to run away. No point trying to push on—Lord Loss will kill me before I get anywhere near the cave. The wise thing would be to turn tail and —
“No!” I yell, deciding not to be a coward, to die with everyone else if that’s my destiny, to perish slowly and awfully at the hands of Lord Loss if that’s the cost of failure. But I’m not going to flee. I’m through running. It’s time to fight.
I lurch ahead, summoning all my reserves of energy, speaking quickly to the magic within me, saying I know I’ve let it down in the past and held it back, but promising it a free rein now. We’re in this together, and I won’t stop until I’m dead or we’ve won. Will it help me?
The magic screams back its answer—Hell, yes!—and I feel power grow in the pit of my stomach, greater than any I’ve unleashed before. I don’t know if I’ll prove a match for Lord Loss and his companions, but right now I feel like I can’t be beaten, like I’m the most powerful player here.
“Beranabus!” I shout, almost at the hole, risking a look back. He’s surrounded by demons. Cursing, I aim a hand at them and let loose the magic. White flames leap from the tips of my fingers. They hit the demons hard and fire streaks through them like lightning. The demons shriek and peel aside, covered by flames they can’t quench, some coming apart at the seams and dying instantly.
“Balor’s eye!” Beranabus grunts, limping toward me, stooping to pick up the screaming and writhing Kernel, dragging him along. “I knew you were powerful, but not that powerful!”
“Oh, yes,” Lord Loss says overhead. “Grubitsch is a most remarkable boy. That is why I chose not to fight him in the cave when I first had the opportunity to kill him. I did not care to face him alone in a place of magic.”
“You were afraid!” I holler, reaching the mouth of the cave, sneering up at Lord Loss, feeling invincible. For the first time I believe we can do this—we can win!
“Afraid?” Lord Loss murmurs. “An ugly word, Grubitsch. And not entirely accurate. I was not afraid to fight you. I merely preferred to do so when the odds were stacked in my favor. After all, why fight by yourself when you can wait for . . . ?” He smiles wickedly and gestures to the hole.
I look down and my sense of triumph fizzles out like a live match that’s been dunked in a bucket of water.
The tunnel leading down to the cave is full of demons. And I mean full. There are more of the creatures down there than up here. Thousands of evil eyes glint at me. An army of jaws open hungrily to reveal row after row of sharpened teeth. And in the claws of the beast closest to me—Dervish’s severed, lifeless, blood-rimmed head! Another demon holds the hacked-off head of Reni Gossel. Frank Martin. Charlie Rall. Meera Flame. All the people I cared about. Bill-E’s the only one missing—or maybe he’s farther back, where I can’t see him.
“I made your friends and family my first priority,” Lord Loss says proudly as my world burns at the edges and madness swooshes down upon me. “I told you I would punish you for humiliating me. A dreadful, all-encompassing punishment. This is how I respond to mockery, Grubitsch. Look upon my work and know at last the true, heartless wrath of Lord Loss.”
“Grubbs!” Beranabus shouts. “They don’t matter! Ignore them! We —”
“Do not disturb the boy,” Lord Loss interrupts gloomily. “This is a time for true grief, not false promise and meaningless heroics. Look down, Beranabus. Even an eternal dreamer like you can’t believe in hope now. It’s over. The war has been decided. Mankind has fallen.”
“Grubbs! We can still . . .”
The rest of Beranabus’s words are lost to me. Lord Loss is right. We’re finished. There’s no way through. Everyone I knew—dead. Everyone I know who hasn’t already fallen to the Demonata—soon to be dead. And everybody else, the billions of men, women, and children spread across the world, whom I never would have known, even if I’d lived a thousand lifetimes—they’ll all die too.
I sink to my knees, the enormity of the moment overwhelming me. Beranabus grabs my right shoulder with one hand—still holding the wailing, thrashing Kernel with the other—and tries jerking me back to my feet. But I stay where I am, tears flowing, dread consuming me, hoping Lord Loss doesn’t drag the torment out too long, praying for him to take pity on me and kill me quickly.
I rock back and forth, moaning, glancing around, seeing demons in the throes of celebration, corpses of soldiers and Disciples being passed around like appetizers at a party. Their howls, grunts, and chattering start to sound like music to my ears or the chanting of a long, complicated spell. Then I realize—the sound isn’t of demonic origin. It’s coming from somewhere else . . . from the rocks beneath me.
I look down, expecting some new torment of Lord Loss’s. Instead, I find the face of the girl—Bec—bulging out of the rock, eyes open, lips moving swiftly. Beranabus sees it too. His fingers go limp on my shoulder as he stares at the face, lost for words, forgetting all about the demons and our foolish quest.
“What’s this?” Lord Loss frowns. “Little Bec, present and alert after all these centuries? Impossible. How can her soul have . . . ?” He smiles. “No matter. She is powerful, Beranabus, even more than you or Grubitsch. But she cannot save you. Trapped in the rocks, she can only mourn your sad passing.”
The girl speaks faster than ever, her lips a blur. I feel the magic inside me pulse in time with her chanting. I can’t understand her, but the magic does, and it swirls around inside me, excited, trying to reach out to her. Since I’ve nothing to lose, I let it have its way. I step back mentally and let the magic and the girl communicate freely. As the pair link in some unknowable way, I feel my own lips moving, the girl’s words becoming mine, like when I was relaying her previous outburst to Beranabus in his cave.
“Come now,” Lord Loss says, descending gracefully, signaling to the demons around us. “Enough of this childishness. Surrender, Grubitsch, and I will go easy on you. Well . . . easier than I planned to.”
“We’ll never surrender!” Beranabus roars, coming alive again, releasing me and Kernel, bringing up his hands to engage the demon master in battle.
“Take him,” Lord Loss says, yawning mockingly. The nearest demons howl and hurl themselves at the magician—then strike against an invisible boundary and bounce back off it.
“Impressive,” Lord Loss murmurs. “But how long do you think you can sustain such a barrier, old man?”
“This isn’t my work,” Beranabus says, staring at me uncertainly. The girl’s hands have formed now and stick stiffly out of the ground, grey and rocky. I take them, my fingers large and chunky in comparison to hers. We continue to babble, her, me, and the magic.
Kernel screams as maggots chew their way deeper into his brain. He jerks aside wildly and the demons eagerly grab for him, but he rebounds against the barrier and is hurled to the ground, landing by my knees. Beranabus stoops and puts his fingers to the boy’s forehead. Magic flares. Maggots fall out of Kernel’s bleeding sockets and shrivel, dead before they hit the ground. Kernel moans and slumps unconscious.
Beranabus faces me, features alive with hope. “Let’s go!” He grasps my elbow. “If you can maintain this barrier, they can’t stop from us from getting into the cave. We —”
My head whips toward him and the girl barks something, using my lips. I don’t know what she says, but it brings a groan of desperation from Beranabus. “No! You can’t tell me that. Not now. Not after all this. Not when we’re so close.”
I’ve no time to ponder his words. My eyes refocus on the girl’s and lock on her peculiar stony pupils. We’re speaking faster, louder, a fierce magical energy bui
lding around us, causing all the hairs on my body to stand up, then burn down to their roots. My clothes also burn away. So do Beranabus’s and Kernel’s. Within seconds we’re naked and hairless, and still the energy builds.
Lord Loss senses danger. “Get them!” he bellows. “Destroy that barrier! Kill them all!”
The demons scurry to obey, but their efforts are wasted. The barrier repels them casually. The harder they throw themselves against it, the harder they rebound. Bolts of magic are returned magnified, tearing apart those who fired them. They try to claw it to pieces, rip it apart with their teeth, burrow underneath to attack from within the earth, all to no avail.
The energy is unbearable. It goes beyond all my notions of normal heat. I think this is what it would be like to hover within the heart of the sun. The rock is melting around the girl’s face, but she remains, more of her form becoming visible as the stone recedes.
Screams of panic. With an effort I raise my head. The demons are staring at the sky, horrified and bewildered. Looking up, I see something incomprehensible. The sky is pulsing. It’s like looking at the underside of a trampoline while somebody leaps up and down on top. In the center, a funnel has formed, as if the universe is being pulled toward one point. As I watch, it throbs low, then pulls up high . . . low-high . . . low-high. And it might be my imagination, but it seems as if the tip of the funnel hangs directly over me, Kernel, Beranabus, and the ghost girl, Bec.
Lights flicker across the distorted sky. Clouds burst into flame. The tip of the funnel pushes lower and lower, ever closer to us. The demons scatter, screeching and keening. Stuff like this happens every day in their own universe. They aren’t bothered by magical madness there. But they didn’t expect it in this universe of order and sanity. They don’t know what it means or how to respond.
“This will not save you!” Lord Loss shouts none too convincingly. “Stay, you scum!” he roars at the fleeing demons. “Fight! We can break through this barrier and kill them. You must not . . .”
I tune him out. My lips are my own again during a brief pause in the spell. “What’s happening?” I wheeze, directing the question at Beranabus. But he can only shake his head and stare at Bec and me. Then the spell starts again and I can’t ask any more questions. My lips are Bec’s. My magic and her magic—one. Our minds join. I get flashes of her life—a simple farming society, demons, a quest, warriors, a magician, closing the tunnel between worlds, sacrificing herself, trapped in a cave, her spirit somehow separating from her body, dying but not moving on, imprisoned, no way out, haunting the centuries, unable to escape the rocky confines of the cave.
Then I’m inside somebody else’s head. I see a small, modern village, thousands of patches of light in the sky around me, a baby who looks oddly familiar, a young punk who . . . no, surely that’s not Dervish! Yes, it is, a young and spiky-haired Dervish Grady, fighting alongside Shark, Sharmila, Beranabus, a dark-skinned man, and . . .
Kernel sits up and groans. He shakes his head groggily. His empty sockets turn left and right as if he’s looking for something. They fix sightlessly on Bec and me. Trembling, moaning with pain, he reaches over and lays his hands on top of mine. My magic shoots out to him, then blasts back stronger than ever, drawing power from the blind teenager. His lips move along with mine and Bec’s, his magic mingling with ours.
Our voices rise. The sky turns black, red, white. Rocks are ripping out of the ground, shooting upward, burning, turning into birds, cows, cars, people, then back into rocks. Now everything’s rising, the ruins of trees and buildings, corpses, the demons. Gravity loses its grip. Lord Loss tries clinging to the invisible barrier around us but is ripped away and up. He hurls vile curses at us as he shoots off.
The world is coming apart. Everything’s being destroyed. I’m afraid now, even more than when I thought the demons had us. Bec must be insane. Sixteen hundred years of captivity have driven her mad. She only wants to ruin, make everybody else suffer as she has suffered, tear the world apart. And she can do it. With my magic and Kernel’s, she has the power to wreak a terrible, misdirected revenge.
I try stopping it. I focus on breaking contact, making my lips stop, getting out of here before all is lost. But the magic holds me tight.