Slawter

  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 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. “You can be sure of it.”

  “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. I know Dervish thinks she’s working with the demons, but he’s not sure. I guess he figures it’s best to assume the worst and treat her harshly. He can apologize 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 moviemaking,” 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. “So 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 through 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 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 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 got 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 emphasize 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. “S
houldn’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 nuts.”

  “So we make it a gas leak instead,” I say nodding. “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 ware-house. 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 ware-house 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 head 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 back at us. 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 ten feet 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. All of you 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 aren’t able to, torn apart 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 moviemaking 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, lumpy, 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, disemboweling, biting, and clawing.

  Realization 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’s chest, maneuvering his camera to within an inch or two 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’s 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, bones 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 side-ways. “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 is split and 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. Chuda deserted her when he realized 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 crazy old cow!”

  Then Bill-E and I are past the desolate producer, following Dervish through the maze 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