“YOU’RE lying!” I scream.
Lord Loss shakes his head slowly. “I do not lie.”
“You have to be the thief! You gave the order for Art to be stolen! If Cadaver isn’t the thief, it can only be you!”
“But it isn’t,” he says calmly. “Doubt my word if you wish, but Beranabus knows it is sacred. He is watching this now. If I lied to you, he would have cause to seek revenge. And while I do not fear Beranabus, I would rather not promote him, especially when there is no need.
“Search again, Cornelius Fleck. Look for the real demon thief. You will find him if your heart is true and your eyes are clear. Then you will understand. And be set free.” He raises a hand warningly. “But you have only once chance left. If you make a third wrong call, your souls are mine, as we agreed.”
I feel angry tears in my eyes. Blink them away. I’m still not sure if he’s telling the truth, but I have no choice other than to believe him. I have to focus. Think. If it’s not Cadaver or Lord Loss, then who? Trying to make sense of it. Crazy thoughts flickering through my head —
Maybe Beranabus struck a bargain with Lord Loss to steal Art. He might have sensed my power and wanted to draw me into this universe.
Mrs. Egin? The witch opened the passageway for Cadaver. Perhaps she was the true thief. But she’s dead. Unless, like Nadia, her soul has been preserved here.
Mom and Dad? Maybe they got into trouble or craved power, sold Art to Lord Loss, arranged for him to be kidnapped when they were away.
Madness. But the way my mind is whirring, I can almost believe it. I could believe the worst of just about anyone right now. Dervish, Shark, Sharmila — they’re all suspects. Maybe the thief doesn’t have to be a demon. It might be one of my closest allies.
Dervish steps up beside me and speaks in my right ear. “Don’t like to rush you, Kernel, but we have company.”
I look around and spy the demons from Lord Loss’s castle. He’s brought them into the Board with him. They’re creeping up on us, sliding over and around the chains and hills of guts. I spot the alligator-headed demon — Vein — off to my left, flanked by the fire-eyed hell-child. Advancing steadily along with the others.
My gaze passes on, then stops and returns to the hellish baby. I keep seeing him since I came to Lord Loss’s kingdom. First when we arrived, then in the castle, the maze and volcanic zone, now here. Why does this demon cross my path more than any other? He’s a fearsome little beast, with his fiery eyes, lice-ridden head and mouths in the palms of his hands. But no more frightening or vicious than a hundred of his kin. What draws me to him time and time again?
“We need to move,” Shark says, nudging me hard in the ribs. “We can get out if we act fast, but in another minute they’ll have blocked the path to the panels, and we’ll have to fight.”
“It’s one of them,” I mutter, glancing at the hordes of demons, then at the hell-child again. “The thief’s here. I’m certain.”
But you were certain it was Lord Loss, the voice inside my head says, the first time for ages that it’s spoken.
“It has to be one of them!” I cry.
Unless it’s Beranabus, or Dervish, or your father, the voice says, and I don’t know whether it’s mocking my earlier hysteria or hinting I was on the right track.
“Kernel!” Dervish hisses. “We have to decide now!”
“Do not rush him,” Lord Loss murmurs. “It is a hard, momentous decision. You should give it more thought, Cornelius. Escape. Rest. Ponder. You have more time than you could possibly imagine. Wait a hundred years, then try again. You don’t want to act on a hunch, do you? Risk all on a blind gamble?”
“He’s right,” Shark shouts, grabbing my arm and turning me in the direction of the panels. “Survival first — strategy second. Let’s get the hell out while we —”
I pull free of Shark. “No! We’ll never be free if we don’t find him now! It’s the hell-child! It must be! I keep seeing him!”
“You can’t know that, Kernel,” Dervish says. “Not for sure. Why him?”
“I don’t know! I just...”
Cursing, I race after the hellish child, ignoring the threat of the demons and the possibility of escape. I’m gambling, a bigger gamble than any I’ve ever taken, but I have to. This is the moment when everything will be decided. That’s why Lord Loss is here. He wants to see me fail, be here in person to gloat. But I can’t worry about failing. I have to believe this is my chance, my time. And pray to all the gods that I don’t waste it.
The hell-child sees that I’ve set my sights on him. He squeals with surprise, turns and flees. Vein snarls and sets herself between us, blocking my path to the demonic baby. Other demons pile in around her, increasing my belief that the hell-child is the thief.
“Shark!” I roar. “Dervish! Help me get through!”
They answer my call without question, placing their faith and future in my hands. They drive ahead, savaging the demons, Shark pounding them with his fists, Dervish scattering them with bolts of magic. I try not to dwell on the trust these men have shown in me, the awful fate which awaits them if I let them down.
A demon made entirely of bones throws itself at my legs. I kick out at it, smash its jaw, leap over the pieces of skeleton as they clatter to the ground. I’ve passed Dervish. Shark is wrestling with demons just ahead of me, to my right. “Leg up!” I shout, and Shark crouches, cups his hands together, holds them out for me to step into. Then hurls me up, forward and over the heads of the demons in front of us.
I hit the floor running. Almost skid on the guts and go flying into a pool of gore, but flail with my arms and keep my balance. The hell-child is directly ahead of me, looking back, snarling with a mix of hate and fear. My speed propels me past him. I snatch wildly as I race past, unable to slow down. Grab one of the demon’s bony arms. Haul him forward with me, the hell-child shrieking like a real baby.
My feet go and this time I don’t try to stay upright, con-centrating instead on holding onto the demon. I tumble over and slide several feet, smack up against a towering pile of organs. The guts shake, then topple, smothering me and the hell-child. My field of air shatters. The foul stench causes me to vomit again, but I don’t let go of the wriggling, furious demon.
A brief pause to restore the field around my head. I spit vomit from my lips. Shrug off the larger shreds of guts, revealing the distraught hell-child. Most of the lice have been knocked from his head. The fire in his eyes has dimmed and he’s whimpering softly. I sit up and drag him closer, so he can’t escape. I prepare myself to announce him as the true demon thief.
Wait! the voice within me bellows. This is your final chance. Don’t blow it.
I hesitate, eager to finish this business, but cautious. I wait for the voice to speak again, to give me a clue. But there’s only silence. Which is broken by Lord Loss.
“My, my. What now?” he purrs. He’s hanging just a few feet overhead. Dervish and Shark are still battling the demons. It’s down to us three — me, Lord Loss and the hell-child.
“I keep seeing him everywhere!” I scream, shaking the demon at its master.
“Really?” Lord Loss says, acting surprised. “Then maybe he is the thief. Or he might be a red herring, placed by me to throw you off the scent of the real culprit. Or perhaps it’s just coincidence and he has nothing to do with anything.”
I stare from Lord Loss to the hell-child to Lord Loss again. “Please,” I croak. “Help me. Don’t make me...”
“What?” Lord Loss asks, not unkindly. “Don’t make you choose? But I am not. The choice — whether you make it or not — is entirely yours. There is no time limit. Use your final chance now, if you believe you have caught the one you seek. Otherwise retreat and try again later. Perhaps you can train the marbles to unmask the thief. Or maybe I’ll drop clues for you over the centuries. Or Beranabus might find a way to rescue you.”
“All I want is my brother back!” I wail. “Why are you tormenting me like this? What did I ever
do to you?”
Lord Loss only smiles in answer, then strokes the hell-child’s head, calming him. “You hold one of my favorite familiars against his will and mine. It is time to call him a thief or set him free. Gamble or wait. But do it now, before I lose my temper and deny you any real choice.” He grins viciously. “Remember how I gave Cadaver a mouth with which to speak? I could just as easily remove yours, robbing you of your chance to name the thief.”
I’m crying helplessly. I want to let the hell-child go, delay the moment of naming, give myself time to think. But I know I can’t wait. I know. Delay it...run... and the chance will never come again. The hell-child will go into hiding, skip ahead of me through the zones of the board, stay out of my reach no matter how hard I search.
But what if he’s not the thief? If he’s a decoy, like Lord Loss said, or completely unconnected?
I study the demon through my tears, desperately hoping for some sort of a clue. But there’s nothing I haven’t seen before, no evidence that he had anything to do with the theft of Art. One last scan, to be on the safe side. His tiny feet, bony legs, skinny body, oversized head. Green skin. The small mouths in his palms, snapping open and closed. The few remaining lice on his head. The orange flames in his otherwise empty sockets.
Nothing about him helps. Guess I’ll just have to name him as the thief and hope for...
No. Wait. His eyes.
I stare at the flames. Something about the way they flicker... the color... but what is it? They remind me of something. Someone. I’ve seen eyes like this before. Not exactly the same, but similar. And only once. But where?
“Come on, Cornelius,” Lord Loss encourages me. “Say it quick, before I —”
“Wait!” I roar, clutching the hell-child tighter, shielding him from the demon master. “I’m trying to remember! The eyes! I’ve seen —”
The hell-child yelps — I must have hurt him when I tightened my grip. With a snarl, he opens his mouth, latches onto my left arm and bites, grey teeth breaking my flesh with ease. I scream and try jerking my arm free, but he has too firm a grip. I reach over with my right hand to pry his jaw loose...
... then stop as though struck by a bolt of red energy.
The biting... the eyes...I remember... the strange hair...the marbles...the large head...orange...I remember... playing with the marbles, holding them up to the light... orange light... finding the hell-child here when we stepped through, when I was searching for my brother . . . Dad tucking Art and me down beneath the blanket...I remember!
And, weak with disbelief, not sure how it can be true, but sickeningly certain that it is, I mutter over the rotten head of the hell-child, “I know who the demon thief is — it’s me!”
THE THEFT
SOFT pink light swallows me, engulfs the world of guts, blocks everything out. A few seconds of coolness and pinkness, all alone, confusion, uncertainty. Then the light fades and I’m back in Lord Loss’s throne room, on my hands and knees in front of the spider-shaped throne, gasping and shivering.
“Kernel!” a woman shouts — Sharmila. She hurries towards me, but Beranabus reaches out and holds her back. The magician’s smiling, but a faint frown wrinkles the dirty flesh of his forehead. Shark and Dervish are on their knees close by, sniffing the air and their hands. The stink is gone. That puzzles me, until I remember that only our souls entered the Board. The bodies we inhabited there were fakes. Our real bodies remained in the castle.
Lord Loss is on his throne, the hell-child on his lap, Vein sitting to attention at the base of the throne. No other demons are in the room.
“Say it again, Cornelius,” Lord Loss murmurs. “So there can be no doubt.”
“I’m the thief,” I mutter, still not sure how that can be true. “I stole...I don’t know how, but...it was when I was lonely, a year ago. I came here... when I stepped through the window of lights in my bedroom...”
Lord Loss chuckles and bounces the hell-child up and down. “This is Artery,” he says, “brother of Vein. They are two of my current favorites. Loyal servants, and most amusing when I set them loose on a human. Some time ago, an intruder opened a window into my kingdom. When I peered through it, I found you, Cornelius. I was inclined to take you, to punish you for your impudence. But there was something about the way you faced me, and a crackle of unusual magic in the air. I thought it better to wait and observe.
“You came through the window after me. It was outside the castle. Artery was playing nearby, torturing a lesser demon. You grabbed and subdued him, magically transformed him, supplied him with human features, took him to your universe, created a new identity for him, and shortened his name to...”
“Art!” I croak, more of the memories clicking into place, understanding coming slowly but certainly.
The air around the hell-child shimmers. When it clears, my brother is sitting on the demon master’s lap. He gurgles at me, but with Artery’s screechy voice. Dim flashes of orange light in his eyes. His messy hair. Head that’s slightly too large for his body. His sharp teeth.
“It was when he bit me,” I whisper. “That’s when I knew. Art loved to bite. And the marbles, when he held them over his eyes — they looked like the demon’s.”
Lord Loss nods slowly. “You stole him, Cornelius. You were lonely, desperate for a friend, somebody who would be true to you and with you always. You found a way into my kingdom. Snatched Artery. Gave him human shape. Convinced yourself that he was your natural brother.”
“But Mom and Dad must have known the truth!” I cry.
“They knew he was not theirs,” Lord Loss agrees. “But they did not know he was a demon, where he came from, or why you believed that he was your brother. He reminded your mother of the baby daughter she lost. She saw him as a second chance, a gift from the gods. Your father wanted to give the baby to the police, to be returned to its rightful parents. He tried to sway Melena, without success. She used you to swing him around to her way of thinking. You thought the baby was your brother. If they took him away, she said you’d suffer dreadfully. Out of love for you, he agreed to lie.
“They watched the news closely — furtively — over the coming days. If a baby had been reported missing, perhaps decency would have won out and your father would have handed Art over. Or perhaps not. Your sister’s death had hurt him terribly too. Maybe he would have let your mother talk him into holding on to the child, no matter what.
“In any event, when there was no mention of a missing baby, they decided to keep him and rear him as their own, as the brother you believed he was. But they couldn’t stay in the city, where people knew they only had one child. So they abandoned their jobs and fled. Took you and the baby away. Started a new life in Paskinston, where nobody had cause to be suspicious, where things were simpler, where they could rear their new son in peace.”
He strokes Art’s head, never taking his eyes off me. I’m trembling uncontrollably, my world falling to pieces, the last year of my life exposed as a lie, me revealed as a villain, Mom and Dad as devious accomplices.
“How did he transform the demon?” Beranabus asks. “Transfiguration’s a complicated spell. He couldn’t have managed it alone.”
“Yet he did,” Lord Loss says. “I assumed he was the pawn of a powerful magician, maybe even a fellow demon. That is why I did not retrieve Artery immediately. I hoped the manipulator of the boy would reveal himself. Eventually I decided to steal Artery back, hoping to tempt Cornelius’s master out of hiding. It was only when Cornelius came into this universe and tested his powers that I realized he’d acted alone. I still do not know how he did it — only that he did.”
Everyone’s staring at me. I feel like an exhibit at a freak show. Roll up! Roll up! Come and marvel at Kernel Fleck, thief of demons, master of disguise! He can hide a demon from everybody — even himself!
“So I never had a brother,” I whisper. “It was all a lie.”
“A dream,” Lord Loss corrects me. “And now you have awoken, thanks to my genero
us help.”
“Some help!” Dervish snorts. “You could have just told him.”
“That would have been cheating,” Lord Loss says. “He had to discover the truth himself — or search for it in vain for the rest of his life. I would have been happy either way. The misery of his ignorance would have been sweet. But the misery of his understanding is just as welcome.”
“What misery?” Shark asks. “He beat you. He found out the truth.”
“And lost a brother in the process,” Sharmila says softly, as I weep quietly.
“But he never had a brother,” Shark says. “It was a sham, a cuckoo’s child.”
“But Kernel thought it was real.” Sharmila frees herself from Beranabus’s grip, walks over and lays a hand on my right shoulder. Squeezes gently.
“What now?” Beranabus asks, businesslike, no longer interested in the mystery of the theft or the illusion. “Are we free to leave?”
“Of course,” Lord Loss says. “Cornelius fulfilled the terms of our agreement. He discovered the true thief and named him. You can depart whenever you like.” He looks around absentmindedly. “Cadaver seems to have slipped away while we were otherwise involved, but I am sure you can track him down again.”
“Then let’s go,” Beranabus says. “We’ve wasted enough time on this farce.”
“Shut up, you stupid, thoughtless man!” Sharmila shouts, surprising us all. She glowers at Beranabus, then strokes the back of my neck. “There is the matter of Kernel’s brother to settle.”
“Brother?” Beranabus huffs. Sharmila points at the child on Lord Loss’s knee. “But that’s just a demon made up to look like a boy.”
“Yes. But he has been Kernel’s brother for the past year. And I suspect, by the smile of his master, he can be again. If Kernel so wishes.”
Lord Loss laughs hollowly. “You have a sharp eye, Miss Mukherji.” He holds Art — Artery — up with four of his hands. The baby giggles and tries to bite off one of the demon master’s fingers. “Artery is precious to me, but he has been equally precious to Cornelius. I am not evil-hearted — I have no heart, neither evil nor good — so I am willing to let my familiar go. If Kernel wishes to take him, I will not stand in his way.”
I slowly look up. “I can have Art back? He can be my brother again?”
“If you want,” Lord Loss smiles.
I stare at the demon master, then at Art, grinning at me over the lumpy fingers. He looks no different than he did the day Cadaver took him. Why shouldn’t I take him home as my brother, carry on with life and try to forget that this crazy period of time ever happened?
“What would he be like when he grew up?” Dervish asks.
“Can one ever judge how a child will grow up?” Lord Loss says slyly.