The Demonata 6-10. Darren Shan
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 metres 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 manically.
Sharmila’s 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 recognise 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 was 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 on to 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, popping up 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, ant-like. 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 on to 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 realise 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 aeroplane, 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 towards 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 favour. 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 further 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–”