“No!” I cry. “You can—”
“My people are dead,” she interrupts. “Those I owed loyalty to died many centuries ago. Bran was the last. You’re not part of my world. I’m tired of trying to do the right thing. When my soul didn’t pass on, I unleashed Death. In a weird kind of way, I’m its mother. Now I need to fully pledge myself to it.”
Bec stretches out a hand towards the Board. It flies into her fingers and glows. Lord Loss sighs happily and rises above Shark and the others. As he floats, he waves at the walls around us and they dissolve, the strands of webs unraveling and dropping, revealing the areas previously walled off.
There are humans in the rooms around us. Thousands of people, standing frozen in place, eyes blank, arms by their sides. For a few seconds I think they’re dead, but then I see their chests rising and falling as they breathe in unison.
“This looks ominous,” Timas remarks.
“The Board!” Kernel yells. “Their souls are in the Board.”
“Neatly tucked away,” Lord Loss says, moving closer to Bec, a perverse smile lifting the corners of his mouth.
“Wait,” I gasp, seeing the dark intent in Bec’s eyes. “Don’t do this. You’re still one of us. Beranabus would hate you if he saw you now. Those are real people. There are children…”
“You’re all children in my eyes,” Bec says quietly. “I’ve lived for more than fifteen hundred years. Even your eldest are babes to me.” Her face hardens. “And it’s time to put the babies to bed.”
“No!” I scream, feeling the bonds between us snap forever, seeing the last trace of humanity blink out of her eyes. I try to stop her, to jump and knock the Board from her hands. But Lord Loss waves and subdues me.
As Kernel lurches forward and Shark struggles with the snake… as Kirilli stares at Bec and a frown creases Timas’s forehead… as Moe writhes blindly on the ground and Lord Loss floats next to his protégée and nods encouragingly…
Bec places her right hand on the Board and sends waves of fire burning through the layer of crystal. I sense the flames billowing through all sixty-four zones. It’s almost infinite inside, each zone the size of a galaxy, but the fire scorches through faster than the speed of light, destroying all in its path, demons, worlds, skies… and the souls of the people around us.
They fall in lines, bodies slumping and twitching, butchered by the sad-faced girl from the past. Thousands of innocent, defenseless humans—all murdered without mercy by pale, warped Bec.
AN UNHOLY QUARTET
I roar wordlessly, filled with horror and hate. Bec’s face is lit by the glow of thousands of burning souls. She looks awestruck and damned.
“My beloved,” Lord Loss gurgles, running a sticky hand down the side of Bec’s face. She doesn’t respond. She’s staring into the flickering glow of the Board, transfixed. She does nothing to stop the massacre, even as the bodies topple and writhe around us. I’ve never seen someone consciously turn to the path of evil. If it wasn’t so sickening, I’d be fascinated.
“What the hell’s going on?” Shark yells. He’s torn off the snake’s tail and sucked out its entrails. It’s dead, but most of its body remains stuck in his arm.
“She killed them!” I scream, trying to climb up the wall after Bec. It’s the only stretch of wall left, standing like a pillar in a huge, corpse-strewn room.
Shark looks at the falling humans. “No,” he moans, struck hard by the appalling tragedy of it, even though he’s seen so much in his time.
“We have to stop her,” Kirilli says, stepping forward and flexing his fingers.
“I think it’s passed beyond that,” Timas says, squinting up at the Board. “A most remarkable device. I’d love to know how it works.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I vow, pointing a trembling finger at Bec. “You can’t stay up there forever. As soon as you come down, you’re dead.”
Lord Loss laughs. “You’re such a brute, Grubitsch. You think mindless violence is the answer to all the universe’s troubles.”
Bec blinks, then stares into the Board again. I don’t know if she’s heard anything we’ve said, if she’s even aware of us. She watches the souls burn but takes no pleasure from the slaughter. This is destroying her. Her human emotions are burning away with the spirits of the dying.
“Why?” Kernel mutters. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“She wants to prove herself to her new master,” I snarl.
“But Lord Loss didn’t ask her to kill them,” Kernel presses. “He asked her to kill one of us. There must be another reason why she targeted them instead of you or me.”
“You were always smarter than your burly companion,” Lord Loss says. “Not as clever as sly young Bec, but definitely several rungs higher up the IQ ladder than the somewhat dense Master Grady.”
The last of the humans hits the ground, but the Board is still glowing. It’s a dark glow and it pulses steadily, a gloomy, grey, shadowy throb.
“It’s Death!” I shout, realization coming too late to be of any use.
Wispy tendrils rise from the Board and snake into the air around Bec. From a distance you might mistake them for smoke, but this close I can see that there’s nothing natural about the sinewy strands. They have the same consistency Death had when we faced it before. It looks like our shadowy foe has found its way back. The humans were slaughtered so that Death could stitch together a new body from the fabric of their souls.
With a scream of failure, I unleash all of my power in a ball of magic. It roars towards Bec like a missile. Nothing should be able to halt or divert it. Bec should be smashed to pieces.
But Lord Loss intervenes, slides between Bec and me, and absorbs the blast. It slams him into Bec, who falls to the floor. But it doesn’t destroy him. This is his realm. He can take all that I throw at him here and still bounce back.
Shark and Kirilli hurl themselves at Bec as she falls, murder in their eyes. But she’s on her feet before they strike. With a lazy gesture, she sends them flying. She’s still clutching the Board. More shadowy tendrils rise from the sixty-four squares and wrap themselves around her, caressing her, sliding up her throat, brushing across her lips. Her mouth opens and she inhales. The shadows slip down her throat, and her eyes take on a darker, more menacing color.
“Grubbs,” she says, and the word rolls flatly from her mouth. “Come to me.”
There’s something commanding and seductive in her tone. I know she plans to kill me, but that doesn’t seem like such a bad thing. If I give myself to her, it will all be over in an instant. No more pain, guilt, or suffering. One hug from the girl encased in shadows and I can join with her, become part of that gloomy subworld, seek refuge in oblivion.
“Grubbs!” Kernel shrieks. I frown at him and start to tell him not to disturb me. But then I spot a window of red light. He’s opened a way out.
“I don’t think so,” Lord Loss snarls. He tries to intercede, but although I didn’t seriously injure him when I unleashed the ball of energy, I stung him. He’s slower than normal. Shark and Kirilli flee ahead of the demon master and stumble through the window. Timas takes his time, watching the Board and the way the shadows stream from it and dance across Bec’s flesh. A cloud of shadows is forming around and behind her. Timas looks like he’d be happy to dive into the heart of that cloud and lose himself in it.
“Come on!” Kernel roars. “I won’t wait any longer. Come now or stay and die.”
Timas sighs, his shoulders slumping. He shoots Kernel a scowl, then slips through the window instead of into the cloud of shadows, choosing life over death. It’s a choice I haven’t made yet.
“Come to me, Grubbs,” Bec whispers, and staggers forward, raising a dark hand. She tries to smile, but it’s as if she’s forgotten how.
“Don’t kill him,” Lord Loss pleads, real longing in his voice. “You said you’d let me murder this one. You gave your word. It was all I asked for.”
“Grubbs!” Kernel yells warningly.
&nbs
p; We can keep him, the voice of the Kah-Gash says. We can block his retreat and hold him here. Take him into the cloud with us. All three pieces reunited by Death, a union of the most powerful forces in the universes, a quartet instead of a trinity. It would mean power beyond all measure. You’re the trigger. You can make it happen.
“Power…,” I murmur, eyes wide, torn in ways I don’t fully understand.
“To hell with you,” Kernel sobs, then steps up to the window of red light.
I extend a hand to hold him back… then pause and let him go.
“No,” I croak, my mind clearing. “I don’t want this.”
Bec hisses, her semi-smile crumbling. “Come to me,” she growls. Not a plea this time. An order.
“Get stuffed!” I snort, then throw myself at the window. The cheated howls of Bec and Lord Loss echo after me as shadowy tendrils shoot towards me, trying to haul me back. But Death is too slow for this fleet-footed wolfen boy. I’m gone before it can grab me, and the darkness—for the time being—is left behind.
LIGHTS OUT
KERNEL is already dismantling the window as I crash through and roll across the ground. “I thought we’d seen the last of you,” he says as the window blinks out of existence, securing our safety.
“You wish.” I grimace as I stand. I took a hammering in Lord Loss’s realm, not least to my face. That was fine when I had the magical energy of the demon universe to tap into. I could numb the pain. But back on Earth I feel like I’ve been run through a meat processor.
Shark groans as he pries the remains of the snake from his flesh. Blood gushes from the hole it leaves. Timas makes a tourniquet out of his belt and tightens it around the ex-soldier’s arm.
“I never liked snakes,” Shark wheezes. “Now I bloody hate them! I’ll have nightmares about that.”
“You don’t have enough imagination for nightmares,” Kernel laughs, slumping beside his friend. He runs an eye over me and frowns. “Are you going to be OK?”
“Yeah,” I mumble, coughing up blood.
“The left side of your head looks like it’s been caved in with an iron.”
“Thanks for pointing that out.”
“I could take you to a hospital, but I doubt they’d be able to do much for you.”
I wave away his concerns. “I’ll be fine. A short rest, then we’ll go somewhere magical and I’ll patch myself up.”
“She was a vindictive little wench, wasn’t she?” Timas says cheerfully, as if discussing a cat who’d shown her claws.
“I’d have drowned her if I’d known what she was going to turn into,” Kirilli snarls. “She saved me on the ship when we first met. I thought she was kind. But she murdered those people as if they were ants.”
“We’ve lost her,” I sigh. “She belongs to Lord Loss and Death now. We’ll have to kill her the next time we meet.”
“You think you can?” Kernel asks quietly.
“Over there, no. But here, where they’re weaker? We stand a chance.”
Silence falls as everyone thinks about Lord Loss, Bec, Death. We know we’re done for. I can see it in their eyes. We can talk the good talk all we want, but the demons are stronger than us, even on our own turf. Winning is a dream, not a real possibility.
Kirilli lets out a deep breath and chuckles wryly. “We left Moe behind. I’ll miss that dumb hairball. He might have thought of me as lunch, but I had a soft spot for him all the same.”
“There’s only one of the original werewolves left now,” I nod. “Assuming Larry hasn’t been killed.” I glance at Kernel. “How long have we been gone?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not sure. But it’s too long, no matter what.” He backs away from me, his expression changing. “You know what I’m going to say.”
“You want to leave?”
“It was madness, staying when I did. I have to go.”
“You’re our secret weapon,” I tell him, knowing it’s a waste of breath but feeling like I should go through the motions. “With your help we can make sneak attacks, dart in, strike, nip out again. If you abandon us, they’ll grind us down.”
“They’ll grind you down regardless,” Kernel sighs. “And you’re forgetting, my eyes are no good here. They’re already starting to sting. A day or two and they’ll be gooey blobs again.”
As I’m trying to think of some fresh way to argue with him, Kirilli clears his throat. “Why don’t we ask for help from the Old Creatures? If they told you the truth, they have the power to hold the demons back. If we put a strong enough case to them…”
Kernel shakes his head. “They’re looking at the bigger picture. Earth is just another world, one of untold billions. They don’t care about us. They only want my part of the Kah-Gash.”
“We could barter,” Kirilli says. “What if you promised to help them, but only if they reinforced Earth’s defenses? They used lodestones to deter demons in the past. Surely they could recharge or replace them and erect a ring of magic around the planet through which the Demonata couldn’t cross.”
Kernel looks uncertain. “I think Death has changed things. I don’t know if the old ways work anymore.”
“But we could ask,” Kirilli presses. “If they say no, we haven’t lost anything. There’s no harm putting in a request, is there?”
I seize on Kernel’s hesitation. “Why not try? Even if they turn you down, they won’t punish you for asking, will they?”
“Probably not,” Kernel says. “But…”
“What?” I snort. “Afraid of upsetting them? Will you condemn the rest of us just to make a good impression on your new friends?”
Kernel’s face stiffens. “That’s a cheap shot.”
“Maybe. But it’s not an unreasonable request. Take us to the Old Creature who came back with you. Let us discuss it with him. If he turns us down, at least we’ll have tried. You can go; the rest of us will stay. Where’s the harm in that?”
Kernel shrugs. “I’m sure he’ll reject you, but I guess we might as well try. Let me open a window to the demon universe, then I’ll—”
“Why do we have to go there?” I snap suspiciously.
“It will take several hours to open a window to Atlantis,” Kernel says. “My eyes might not last that long here. Plus it’s easier for me over there.”
“OK,” I growl, but edge to within striking distance in case he’s trying to con us.
Kernel takes us to a few different worlds, trying to find a spot where our enemies can’t track us. Eventually, on an asteroid in the depths of space, he sets to work on building a window to Atlantis, the world where the Old Creature is waiting. Far from being a mythical country that sank beneath the waves, Atlantis is the nearest inhabitable world to Earth. It was once populated by advanced beings. They mastered space travel and visited our planet, influencing mankind’s early progress. Then there was some kind of meltdown, like a nuclear war but worse. The Atlanteans perished.
I’m not looking forward to meeting the creature from the original universe, older than time itself. They’re obviously a superior species, and Kernel thinks they’re much wiser than us, that we’d be crazy not to follow their plans. But by their own admission they’ve messed up before. I don’t have the same faith in them that Kernel has.
Even if the ark they’ve built is the only hope for survival in the future, how can they turn away from the needs of the present? The Old Creatures told Kernel they believe every species has to follow its own path. They protect us in our formative years, hold back the Demonata so that we can develop. But then they withdraw, leaving us to fend for ourselves or perish at the claws of the demons.
What the hell kind of thinking is that! If I had their power, I’d never abandon a world. The Old Creatures won’t live forever. They say they can only hold back the demons for a few billion years. Like that’s nothing! A billion years is an eternity for most civilizations. If they spared us the agonies of the Demonata that long, by the time their power waned, Earth would be a shell of a planet anywa
y. They could save us all this suffering.
I know they have other worlds to think about. The universe is teeming with intelligent beings, and Earth’s just one small rock among billions. But if we were worth helping in the first place, they should have seen the job through. To me it’s the same as if a parent teaches its child to walk, then drops it into a pit of snakes and says, “You must prove yourself worthy of survival. Good luck!”
I’ve all sorts of bones to pick with the Old Creatures. But I’ll have to hide my feelings, smile big, and play it humble. Because these guys are our only hope. If we can convince them to help, maybe the Demonata can be driven back. I might even avoid the future that Juni prophesied and not destroy the universe. It will stick in my throat, but I have to play up to these cold, ancient life-givers. If I don’t, we’re on our own, and that will truly be the end.
Temper, Grubbs, temper!
It’s taking Kernel ages to open the window to Atlantis. He works hard, sweating with the effort, but apparently there’s no quick way because of the distance involved. When I asked him how far away it was, all he said was far. We can’t get closer to it in this universe either—space doesn’t work the same way here. Kernel has to construct a window that links back to Earth, then on to Atlantis. I’m glad I’m not the eyes of the Kah-Gash. Having to deal with technical issues like this would drive me mad. I’m much happier gutting demons.
The rest of us patch up our wounds while we’re waiting. Shark and I are the worst, battered all over. The brace around his stomach has cracked in several places. He glues it together with magic, but I get a glimpse of the flesh beneath. It’s ugly—purple flesh speckled with a moldy green fungus. There’s blood soaking into his trousers, and bits of his guts are poking out of ragged holes.
“How much longer do you think you can keep going?” I ask.