Slawter

  “Could you have brought him here?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the book.

  “No,” Dervish says. “But I could have summoned part of his spirit. Given him just enough strength to... hurt me.”

  “And me?”

  “Absolutely not. You were safe. The spirit couldn’t have gotten out of this room.”

  “But when I came in?”

  Dervish says nothing. A guilty silence. Then a deep sigh. “Let’s get out of here. There are things we must discuss.”

  “And the book?” I ask.

  “Leave it. It can’t do any harm. Not now.”

  Standing, I stagger away from the book, then out of the room. Dervish follows, leaving the candle burning, shutting the door on the past, trailing me back up the corridor to the safety of the normal world.

  “The Disciples fight the Demonata and do what we can to keep them out of our universe.” We’re in Dervish’s study. We both have mugs of hot chocolate. Sitting facing one another across the main desk.

  “We’re all magically inclined,” Dervish continues. “Not true magicians, but we have talents and abilities — call us mages if you like. In an area of magic — the Demonata’s universe, or a place where a demon is crossing — our powers are magnified. We can do things you wouldn’t believe. No, scratch that — of course you’d believe. You fought Lord Loss.”

  “How many Disciples are there?” I ask.

  “Twenty-five, thirty. Maybe a few more.” Dervish shrugs. “We’re loose-knit. Our founder is a guy called Beranabus. He is a true magician, but we don’t see a lot of him. He spends most of his time among the Demonata, waging wars the rest of us couldn’t dream of winning.

  “Beranabus sometimes gives orders, assigns one or more of us a specific task. But mostly we do our own thing. That’s why I’m not sure of our exact number. There’s a core group who keep in touch, track the movements of demons, and work together to deal with the threats. But there are others we only see occasionally. In an emergency I guess Berana-bus could assemble us all, but in the usual run of things we don’t have contact with every member.”

  “So that’s your real job,” I say softly. “Fighting demons.”

  He smiles crookedly. “Don’t misinterpret what I’m telling you. This isn’t an organization of crack magical heroes who battle demons every week. There are a few Disciples who’ve fought the Demonata several times, but most have never gone up against them, or maybe only once or twice.”

  “Then what do they do?” I frown.

  “Travel,” he says. “Tour the world, watch for signs of demonic activity, try to prevent crossings in advance. Demons can’t swap between universes at will. They need human assistants, wicked, power-hungry mages who work with them from this side and help them open windows between their realm and ours. Usually there are signs. If you know what to look for, you can stop it before it happens. That’s what we do — watch for evidence of a forming window, find the person working for the demon, stop them before it gets out of hand.”

  “You don’t travel around,” I note. “Is that because of me?”

  “No,” Dervish smiles. “I used to travel a lot, but I do most of my work here now, at the command of Beranabus. It’s my job to... well, let’s not get into that. It’s not relevant.”

  Dervish sips from his mug, looking at me over the rim, awaiting my reaction.

  “What happens when a demon crosses?” I ask.

  “It depends on the strength of the demon. Most of the truly powerful Demonata can’t use windows — they’re too big, magically speaking. They need a tunnel to cross — a wider, stronger form of window. They’re much more difficult to open. It’s been centuries since anyone constructed a tunnel.”

  “Lord Loss is a demon master,” I note. “He crosses.”

  “He’s an exception. We don’t know why he can cross when others like him can’t. He just can. There are rules where magic’s concerned, but those rules can be bent. Anything’s possible with magic, even the supposedly and logically impossible.

  “The other demons who cross are nowhere near as powerful as Lord Loss,” Dervish continues. We drive back the lesser specimens, but we leave the stronger demons alone and just try to limit the damage.”

  “You let them get away with it?” I cry. “You let them kill?”

  Dervish lowers the mug. It’s not as heartless as it sounds. There’s far less magic in our universe than theirs. When they cross, they’re nowhere near as powerful as they are in their own realm. And most can only stay here for a few minutes. Occasionally a window will remain open longer, for an hour or two, but that’s rare. Thankfully. Because if they could cross with all their powers intact, and stay as long as they liked, we’d have been wiped out long ago.

  “We stop maybe half of all potential crossings,” Dervish goes on. “Which is pretty good when you consider how few of us there are. Although we’re only talking six or seven attempts to cross in any given year.”

  “So three or four get through?” I ask.

  “More or less. We aren’t always there when one crosses. When we are . . .” He sighs. “If it’s a weaker demon, we try to drive it back. Usually a single Disciple will engage it, occasionally a pair. We don’t like to risk too many in any single venture.”

  “And when you don’t think you can stop it?” I ask quietly.

  Dervish looks away. “A demon will normally kill no more than ten or twenty people when it crosses.”

  “Still!” I protest. “Ten people, Dervish! Ten lives!”

  “What do you want us to do?” he snaps. “There are battles we can’t win. We do what we can — we can’t do any more. We’re not bloody superheroes!”

  “Sure,” I say quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound critical. I just...”

  “I know,” he mutters. “When I first heard about the Disciples, I was like you. I didn’t want to admit the possibility of defeat, or make concessions. But when you see enough people die, you realize life’s not like the movies or comics. You can’t save everyone. It’s not an option.”

  Dervish falls silent. We never talked much about his past. To be honest, with all the problems I’ve faced over the last couple of years, I haven’t had time to think about anybody else’s troubles. But now that I consider it, I realize my uncle must have seen a lot of bad stuff in his time. We got lucky against Lord Loss. We beat him at his own game and walked away relatively unharmed. But Dervish told me there are more failures than successes when humans battle demons. And if he’s been around for even a few failures... seen people die like I saw my parents and sister die... had to stand by and let it happen because he didn’t have the power to stop it...

  “I’m telling you this because of Davida Haym,” Dervish says, interrupting my thoughts. “I went through her DVD earlier. From the outline it sounds like fun — demons run wild and take over a town — but I don’t like it. The few demons she described are very realistic. She mentions rituals you can use to summon them. She’s gathered information cleverly but I don’t think she knows how dangerous that information is.

  “I’m going to accept her offer to work on set as an adviser. I want to make sure she doesn’t accidentally summon a demon or supply others with the means to. The chances of that happening are slim, and in the normal run of things I wouldn’t bother with her.

  “But I need to get away from here for a while.” His eyes are dark, haunted. “I haven’t been the same since I came back. The nightmares... fear... confusion. Maybe my brain will never properly recover, and I’m doomed to live like this until I die. But I’m hoping I can shrug it off. I’ve been living the quiet life — too quiet. I need something to focus my attention. A challenge. Something to sweep away the cobwebs inside my head.”

  “But you’re protected by spells here,” I note. “You might not be safe outside Carcery Vale. Lord Loss...”

  “Remember the book in the cellar?” Dervish says. “Unless I dig myself out of this hole, I don’t think I’m safe anywhere.”


  I nod slowly. “How long will you be gone?”

  “However long the shoot lasts,” Dervish says. “I’ll ask Meera to keep an eye on things while I’m away.”

  “Meera’s going to be staying with me?” I ask, not minding the sound of that one little bit — Meera Flame’s hot stuff!

  “No,” Dervish says. “You won’t be here either. Unless you object, I want to take you with me. Billy too.”

  “You want to take us on set?” I yelp.

  “Davida said I could,” he reminds me. “Well, she didn’t mention Billy, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”

  “Brilliant!” I gasp, face lighting up. Then doubt crosses my mind. “But why?”

  “Two reasons,” Dervish says. “One — I need you to look out for me at night, to help me if the nightmares continue.” He stops.

  “And the second reason?”

  “I don’t trust Prae Athim and the Lambs. They might pull a fast one if I’m not around.”

  “You think they’d kidnap Bill-E?”

  “It’s possible. Right now I want Billy where I can protect him, twenty-four seven. I’ll rest easier that way.”

  “So we’re going into the movie business,” I laugh.

  “Yep.” Dervish laughs too. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He checks his watch. “Three-thirty in the morning. Ma and Pa Spleen would hit the roof if we called Billy at such an ungodly hour.” He cocks a wicked eyebrow at me. “Do you want to ring or shall I?”

  PART TWO

  LIGHTS... CAMERA... DEMONS!

  Film Folk

  “I’VE always wanted to eat human flesh. I mean, it’s not an obsession or anything. I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill, skin, and cook somebody. But I’ve always been curious, wondered what it would taste like. So, when the opportunity dropped into my lap, yeah, I took it. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. At least, not much badder than —”

  “Worse than,” Bill-E interrupts.

  “Worse!” Emmet winces. “I keep tripping on that. ‘Not much worse than, not much worse than, not much worse than...’”

  I feel sorry for Emmet, watching him struggle to learn his lines. It’s not easy to keep a load of words that aren’t yours straight inside your head, then trot them out in a seemingly normal fashion. I used to think actors had a great life. Not anymore. Not after a week on the set of Slawter.

  Slawter, as Davida told us when she visited Carcery Vale, is the title of the movie and the name of the fictional town that features in it. It’s also what they’ve called the huge set that Davida’s crew has constructed. It’s an amazing place. They found a deserted town in the middle of nowhere. Rented the entire area and set to work restoring the buildings, clearing the streets of rubble, putting in fake street lamps, telephone wires, signs for restaurants, hotels, bars, and so on. They also erected a lot of fake buildings that look real from the front but are entirely empty on the other side. Walking down the streets, it’s hard to tell the real buildings from the fake ones — until you open a door.

  There are trailers on the outskirts of Slawter — the movie veterans refer to them as the circus — where many of the cast and crew sleep, but a lot of us are staying in the old, real buildings. Since we’re so far from any other town, Davida decided to turn some of the buildings into makeshift hotels, so everyone could stay in one place, in comfort. The “hotel” where Dervish, Bill-E, and I are staying looks like a butcher’s shop out front, but it’s cozy inside.

  I’ve been told this isn’t the way films are normally made. Usually the crew does a bit of location work, then heads back to the studio to shoot the interior scenes. But Slawter is the studio. There are huge warehouses, built beyond one end of town, where the interiors can be shot. And since all the outdoor action in the film is set in the town, everything can be done on-site. They even do the editing here, and the special effects. Often, on a big-budget film, there might be several teams around the world working on effects at the same time. But Davida wants to keep total control over this project. She refuses to farm out any of the work, even though it makes life much harder for her. This is her baby, the jewel in her movie crown, and she’s doing it exactly the way she wants — damn the inconvenience!

  She even insists on keeping the cast together for the duration of the shoot. Emmet’s worked on a couple of films before, and explained how, if you have a small part in the movie, you only turn up for a few days, shoot your scenes, then head off. Even the big stars don’t hang around the set the whole time.

  Well, here they do. All the actors, cameramen, artists, carpenters, caterers — everyone — had to agree to stay here until filming is finished. Davida kept everything secret in the buildup to shooting. Now that we’re all on set and the cameras are rolling, most of the secrets have been revealed. Copies of the full script have been circulated, and we’ve seen some of the demon costumes. To make sure none of the secrets leak to the outside world, Davida arranged for everyone to remain in Slawter until the entire film has been shot.

  It costs a fortune to keep us here — food and drinks are free, games have to be organized to keep people amused in their spare time, two swimming pools have been built, tennis courts, a football field and so on — but Davida doesn’t care. Her other movies made a ton of money, and she’s managed to convince her backers that this one is going to be a mega-blockbuster, so she’s free to spend whatever she likes.

  Not having any jobs to do, Bill-E and I have been enjoying the filming. We wander through Slawter, watch scenes being shot, check out the old buildings and fakes, hang out with some of the other kids, and generally just have fun. It’s great. Reminds me of when I first moved to Carcery Vale, when Bill-E and I spent pretty much all our free time together. We’re best buddies again, breezing along in a little world of our own, no Loch Gossel or other friends of mine to complicate the situation.

  You can divide the children of Slawter into three groups. There are the actors, twenty or so. Most don’t have much experience, or have only been in a few films, like Emmet Eijit, who’s our best friend here.

  Then there are the actors’ relatives. It’s a big deal being a child actor. There are all sorts of rules and regulations. They can only work so many hours a day. They have to be tutored on-set. At least one of their guardians — normally a parent — has to be with them all the time. And there have to be other children for them to play with. Juni’s in charge of that side of things. She makes sure the kids are being looked after, having fun, not feeling the stress of being part of such a costly, risky venture.

  Finally there’s the likes of Bill-E and me, children of people working on the film. Because everyone involved had to move to Slawter for the duration of the shoot — at least three months — they were allowed to bring their families. Davida likes the relaxed family atmosphere.

  We don’t have much personal contact with Davida Haym. Or with Dervish. He’s been working closely with Davida since we arrived, advising, censoring, subtly guiding her away from the workings of real demons wherever possible. He’s one of the few people to have seen inside the D workshops. That’s where the demon costumes are being created. The demons are to be a mix of actors in costumes and mechanized puppets. There will be some CGI effects, but Davida’s trying to keep the computer trickery to a minimum.

  The costumes and puppets are housed in a giant warehouse, the biggest in Slawter, and access is granted only to a chosen few. Some of the costumes have been given a public airing, but most are still locked up within the D. Dervish said it’s a maze of corridors and subsections in there. He’s only been allowed into to a couple of rooms so far, but he’s trying hard to gain access to the rest, to check out all the demonic details.

  “I’ve always wanted to eat human flesh,” Emmet says again, running through his big lines for the fiftieth time today. He plays a minor villain in the film, a kid who becomes a cannibal and works for the demons. He dies about a third of the way through, having been discovered by one of the heroes while eat
ing the corpse of their headmaster.

  Davida is shooting the film in sequence as much as possible, although, as on any movie, certain scenes from later in the script have to be shot early. Which means Emmet is getting to “die” a couple of weeks earlier than he should have. He’s super-excited about it.

  “This is my first death scene!” he raved yesterday. “Most kids don’t get to die on-screen — how many films have you seen where a child bites the big one? And it’s the first visible killing of the movie!”

  Later, excitement gave way to nerves. He’s been fussing ever since, worried he’ll blow his lines or not be able to scream convincingly when the demon turns on him and rips him to pieces.

  “ ‘At least, not much badder than’ — Dammit! I did it again, didn’t I?”

  “Afraid so,” I laugh.

  “Play it cool,” Bill-E advises, mimicking Davida’s on-set mannerisms. He’s been even more impressed by the whole movie-shooting experience than me. Now he wants to be a director when he grows up.

  “Cool!” Emmet snorts. “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one up there on display.”

  “You know the lines,” Bill-E murmurs, then laughs like Davida when she’s trying to calm a nervous actor. “You probably know your lines better than anyone on the set, even Davida. You’re a professional. They’ll come when you’re filming. And if not, who cares? Nobody gets it right the first time. And even if they do, Davida reshoots it anyway. You’ll nail it the fifth or sixth time.”

  Bill-E’s not exaggerating about the reshoots. Every scene is played out at least six or seven times, from various angles, the actors trying out different expressions and tones. Apparently this is common. Repetition is part and parcel of the filmmaker’s life. I don’t know how they stand it. I’d go crazy if I had to do the same thing over and over, day after day.

  “He’s quite the expert, isn’t he?” Emmet remarks cuttingly.

  “Hey, man, I’m just trying to help,” Bill-E says, unruffled.

  “For someone with no real experience, you certainly know a lot about it.”

  Bill-E laughs Emmet’s criticism away. “I’m just calling it like I see it. If you’d rather I left, no problem. Come on, Grubbs, let’s go and —”

  “No!” Emmet pleads. “I’m sorry. I’m just all wound up. One last time, please. If I don’t get it right, we’ll quit and all go play foosball. OK?”

  “OK,” Bill-E says. “But don’t forget — coooooolllllllll.”

  Emmet shoots him an exasperated glance, then shares a grin with me. Focusing, he repeats his lines silently to himself, then tries them out loud and all too predictably blows them again. As soon as he breaks down, we drag him off to the foosball table and keep him there, though we can’t stop him muttering the lines as he plays.