by Darren Shan
I back away from the doors, focusing my power. This is the first time I’ve tried this spell and the effort involved is greater than I thought. By tapping into the magic in the air, I can hold the shield in place, but I won’t be able to maintain it for long, especially not with demons snapping and clawing at it. But I don’t need much time, just a minute. It should be enough.
I’m halfway to the landing pad when I hear the whirring sound of helicopter blades and spot the craft humming towards us. I feel a sense of triumph like a hard ball in my gut. In their own universe, some demons are able to fly. But flight is difficult here. Strong demons might manage short bursts, but the beasts who crossed aren’t especially powerful. Once we’re in the air, we’ll be safe.
I don’t let thoughts of escape make me careless. I stay focused on the shield. I’m tiring fast— there’s so little magic in this world. I can hold it for another couple of minutes maybe, but that should be all the time we…
Something powerful slips through the window on the first floor. Not a demon, but not human either. A beast far more dangerous than any of the others. It snaps questions at the mage who’s been holding the window open, then howls at the top of its voice. The cry echoes up the stairs and corridors. The demons struggling with the shield pause to screech in response.
The new, mysterious monster throws itself through the shattered glass window of the room, digs its claws into the wall and scurries upwards, scaling the building like a jet-propelled spider. I start to yell a warning to Sharmila, but before the words have left my lips the creature hauls itself over the edge of the roof and leers at us maliciously.
The beast has the shape of a woman, but her skin is a mass of blisters and sores. Pus oozes from dozens of cracks and holes in her jellyish flesh. Her mouth is a ragged red slit, her eyes two green thimbles in a putrid, yellow mockery of a face. A few scraps of hair jut out of her head. She wears no clothes—the touch of any material would be agony on flesh so pustulent and tender.
The creature points at the helicopter, which has almost completed its descent, and barks a phrase of magic. The blades stutter, then stop. The helicopter shakes wildly, spins around a few times, then plummets several metres shy of the building. It makes a sharp, screaming sound as it drops. Then it hits the ground and there’s an explosion, louder and more brutal than any movie bang ever prepared me for. Glass explodes in all the nearby windows. A giant ball of flame belches up into the sky, turning the evening red. Meera and Kealan are thrown to the floor and the unconscious Dervish slides off his trolley.
Only the woman and I remain standing, using magic to shelter ourselves from the force of the explosion. I sense the shield give way behind me and demons spill on to the roof. But I don’t care about them now. I have a more dangerous foe to contend with.
The most frightening, bewildering thing is, I know her. It’s impossible—I saw her die—but I’m sure I’m right. Her voice when she cast the spell was familiar and, misshapen as she is, if I squint hard, I can make out the lines of her original face. I saw and heard her in the cave the night when I returned to life. Even if I hadn’t, I’d know her from Beranabus’s memories. She was his assistant once—Nadia Moore. But now she serves a different master, our old foe Lord Loss. And she calls herself…
“Juni Swan,” the semi-human monster gurgles, bowing with cynical politeness. Her lips move into a jagged line as she straightens—I think it’s meant to be a smile. “Delighted to kill you.”
She flicks a hand at me and the ground at my feet bellows upwards in a pillar of molten, burning tar.
UP ON THE ROOF
Instead of trying to fight the black, scorching geyser, I ride it upwards, using the force of the blast to propel myself high off the roof and clear of the sizzling liquid. My lower legs are spattered and the tar burns through my flesh, but those are minor wounds. I can heal them easily once I’ve dealt with the more pressing dangers.
I land in a crouch, using magic to soften the blow. I don’t take my eyes off the mutated Juni Swan. She’s watching me with a wicked, twisted smirk. Her eyes blaze with a mad hatred. I don’t know how she returned to life—it shouldn’t be possible—but she hasn’t come back cleanly. She’s been reduced to a staggering, seeping carcass of cancerous cells. Her body looks like it’s been eating away at itself for the past six months. The pain of holding it together and clinging to her frail grasp on life must be unendurable. I’m not surprised she’s lost her grip on sanity.
“Little Bec,” she sneers, her words coming thick and syrupy through the wasted vocal cords of her throat. “My master killed you once, but you cheated death, like me. I wonder if you’ll come back again?”
“Who is she?” Sharmila screams, back on her feet, helping Kealan up.
“Juni Swan!” I shout.
“Juni…? You mean Nadia?” Sharmila gasps, staring with horror at this mockery of a human form.
“Not anymore.” Juni gives a sick chuckle, taking a few tottering steps towards us. Fleshy smears from her feet stick to the rooftop. She winces every time she moves. Her body is fragile, but her power is great. She’s stronger than she was in the cave.
Kealan fires three times at Juni. The bullets stop midair, centimetres from her scarred, glutinous face. “Pretty little butterflies,” she murmurs, turning two of the bullets into silvery, swollen insects—but these butterflies have oversized mouths and sharp teeth. She flicks a finger at them and they fly back to their source. I try to deflect them, but I’m too slow. They latch on to Kealan’s eyes and dig in. He screams and collapses, blind within seconds. The butterflies continue chewing through to his brain.
I want to help Kealan, but I dare not turn my gaze away from Juni, even for an instant. She makes the third bullet rotate a few times, then sends it shooting at the middle of Sharmila’s forehead. The old Indian lady redirects it with a short flick of her wrist and the bullet buries itself in the roof.
The demons from the staircase have split to surround Sharmila and me. There are six around me, five around Sharmila. The twelfth—the square-headed demon—bounds over to Kealan and finishes off the unfortunate guard.
“You should have stayed dead,” Juni says, closing on me. The demons are keen to attack, but they’re holding back, wary of Juni Swan. They must be under orders not to strike before she does.
“How’s my broken-hearted boyfriend?” Juni asks, turning her head to study Dervish. She gasps with pain, a chunk of her neck ripping loose. Grimacing, she pushes the fleshy fillet back into place and uses magic to seal it. Part of me feels sorry for her. This is a terrible way for anyone to exist.
“Leave Dervish alone,” Sharmila growls.
“Or what?” Juni jeers.
Sharmila tenses her legs, then leaps over the demons around her. She lands between Juni and Dervish, grabs the trolley, jerks off a side bar and hurls it at Juni, jagged end first. The tip strikes Juni’s gooey face and drives through the rotting flesh and bone. She shrieks, her head snapping back.
Sharmila rips another bar loose to use against the demons who are scurrying after her. She thinks she killed Juni but she’s wrong. As Sharmila turns, Juni yanks out the bar. Bits of yellowy-pink flesh trickle from the hole it leaves behind.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Juni giggles, launching the bar at Sharmila. It hits her right shoulder, lifts her off her feet and sends her sailing across the roof. She smashes into one of the staircase doors. The bar thrusts through her flesh and deep into the wood, pinning her to the door. She screams in agony, blood pouring from her shoulder and mouth. She tries to wriggle free, but can’t, pinned in place like a captured moth.
I’m truly scared now. It took a lot of power to throw a steel bar that hard. I don’t have anywhere near that kind of strength, not in this world. In a one-on-one battle with Juni Swan, I won’t stand a chance.
Juni fixes her insane, bloodshot eyes on me again. There’s a tiny insect in the corner of one socket, chewing at the rotting flesh of her lower eyelid. “
It’s a pity,” she mutters. “I hoped Grubbs would be here. I wanted to kill him at the same time as Dervish.”
“He’ll be here soon,” I lie, trying to keep the tremble out of my voice. “Kernel too. And Beranabus.” Her expression twitches when I mention the name of her old master. “You’d better get out of here before—”
“Billy Spleen was a bad liar,” she cuts me off, “but you’re worse. I wonder if you’ll squeal like he did when I kill you?”
“Bill-E didn’t squeal. I know. I was there.”
“So you were. I forgot.”
A crab-shaped demon with a cat’s face jabbers something and shuffles towards me.
“Not yet,” Juni snarls. “I want to torture her first.”
The crab snaps at her and she scowls. “I don’t care what he said. I…” A look of disgust crosses her face. “No. You’re right. We’ll kill them and get out of here. But not before we’ve had some sport.” She waves at Sharmila. “The Disciple is yours, along with the humans below. Leave the girl and Dervish to me.”
The demons peel away. Three of them—the fastest—converge on Sharmila and set to work on her legs, gobbling the flesh of her feet and shins, pausing only to dance diabolically to the rhythm of her tormented screams. The square-headed demon is still feasting on the remains of Kealan. The rest barrel down the stairs, back into the bowels of the hospital.
Juni smiles horribly. “Alone at last,” she wheezes.
I say nothing, backing away slowly, trying to think of a way out of this. Down the wall and through the window on the first floor? But Lord Loss is probably waiting on the other side. I’m surprised he didn’t cross with Juni. Maybe he wasn’t sure who he’d find and didn’t like the prospect of a run-in with Beranabus.
“I won’t kill you immediately,” Juni says, edging after me, leaving a trail of slime-like, bubbling flesh, blood and pus behind. “I’ll keep you alive a while, like Sharmila.” She points at the wailing woman. The monsters have stripped the flesh from her bones beneath the knees and are slowly moving up her thighs. Sharmila should have fainted by now. They must be keeping her conscious with magic.
“I’ll kill you,” I sob.
“I think not,” she chuckles. “You’re the one who’ll perish tonight. But I’ll kill Dervish first. I’ll wake him and make sure he knows what’s happening. Can’t let him sleep through his death. I’ll bring him round, no matter what shape his brain is in. Slaughter him nice and gruesomely. Then finish you off.”
The square-headed demon gets through with Kealan and heads down the stairs to find more pickings below. I set my gaze on it, bark a quick spell and send it flying at Juni’s head. She deflects it upwards. It squeals as it shoots into the air.
“You’ll have to do better than that, little—”
I yank my walkie-talkie out and toss it at the demon. When it hits, I make it explode. The demon explodes too and its blood rains down on Juni. Before it splatters, I transform it into acid. It hits with a burning hiss. Juni shrieks and tries to brush away the acidic blood. A drop splashes over her left eye and it sizzles like an egg frying in a pan, washing the insect loose. She howls with rage, hate and pain.
I race towards the staircase. I’ll grab Sharmila if I can and flee. A window between universes can’t last more than a few minutes, even with a mage working to keep it open. If I can evade capture for that long, Juni and the demons will have to return to their own—
The door next to Sharmila tears free of its hinges and smashes into me, knocking me down. I saw it coming at the last second and erected a partial shield, otherwise I’d be dead. But it cracks a few ribs and bones, and almost punctures my lungs.
As I struggle to my feet, the door rises into the air, hovers a moment, then explodes in a hail of splinters. Again I manage to construct a weak barrier around me, which stops most of the splinters penetrating. But dozens hit home and pierce me, a few just missing my eyes, a long, thick shard almost staking me through the heart like a vampire.
“Look at the pitiful hedgehog,” Juni gurgles as I writhe on the roof, trying to make the splinters pop out of my flesh. She’s cleansed herself of the acidic blood, looking no worse than she did before. “All pink, bloody and spiky. I’m going to slice your stomach open and keep you alive while I fish your guts out. How do you like the thought of feeding on your own intestines before—”
A ball of crackling energy strikes Juni hard. She shrieks with shock as she’s blown through the air, coming to a stunned stop a metre from the edge of the roof. As she staggers to her feet, she looks for her assailant. I look too and find him standing near the trolley, leaning on it for support, exhausted and the colour of death, but fired up for action—Dervish!
“Leave my girl alone, you crazy bitch,” he growls, unleashing another bolt of energy. This one hits Juni in her distorted chest, blasts her off the top of the building, and she yowls like a cat on fire as she drops.
KID’S STUFF
Dervish takes out two of the demons feasting on Sharmila, using magic to pop their brains like grapes. They’re dead before they hit the floor. The third glances up, sees that Dervish has beaten off Juni and disappears down the stairs.
Dervish limps across the roof. I’m closer and faster, so I get to Sharmila before he does. She’s slumped unconscious. I leave her that way and pour magic into her legs to stop the worst of the pain and cauterise the open wounds. The demons have stripped her to scraps below her thighs. Most of the bones are intact, but I can’t restore the flesh around them.
“Will she live?” Dervish barks, hobbling close to inspect the damage.
“Maybe. But I can’t do much with the legs. She’ll lose them.”
He sighs, eyes drifting, then snaps back into focus. “Where are we? What’s happening? Be quick.”
“You had a heart attack. We’re on the roof of a hospital. You’ve been in a coma for four days. Demons are attacking. Juni Swan was leading them.”
“I thought I killed her in the cave,” he growls.
“You did. She came back.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” I gulp. “You didn’t finish her off this time either. I can sense her. She’s wounded but alive.”
“Is she returning for more?” he asks eagerly, fingers twitching, for a moment looking half as crazy as Juni did.
“No,” I answer, tracking her mentally as she slips through the window on the first floor. “You must have hurt her. She’s gone back to the demon universe.”
“Damn.” He stares around, eyes going vague. He looks like he’s about to collapse. I step forward to support him but he comes alert again and waves me away. “We’re exposed. We have to get out of here.”
“There are at least nine demons downstairs,” I tell him. “We could create a barrier, block their route to the roof…”
“What if more cross and climb the walls?” he grunts. “No, we have to move.” He takes hold of the bar pinning Sharmila to the door. “Can you make sure she doesn’t feel this?”
“I’ll do my best.” Once I’m focused, I nod and he pulls sharply. The bar rips out of the wood and Sharmila’s flesh. She moans softly, but I use magic to numb the pain and she falls silent again. Dervish slides around and takes Sharmila on his back, holding her arms crossed around his neck.
“Will you be able to carry her?” I ask. He’s sweating and trembling.
“Only one way to find out,” he mutters and staggers down the first of the stairs, back into the demon-infested building.
We make our way down through the levels of the hospital. The air throbs with the screams and moans of people who were struck by glass shards when the windows shattered. We spot some of them as we descend. They’re milling around helplessly, while nurses and doctors try to calm and help them.
I spy a demon on the fifth floor, chasing a man with a cast on his right leg. I look at Dervish, silently asking if we should help. He shakes his head. “We can’t do anything,” he wheezes. “I’m running out of strength
. We need to save our energy—we might have to use it to break free.”
“We weren’t sure you were going to recover,” I tell him as we stumble down the next set of steps.
“Maybe I wouldn’t have. But they made the mistake of opening a window too close to me. The magic flooding through hit me like a wave and revived me.”
“Magic brought you back to life?”
He nods. “And it’s keeping me going. Which is fine. But when the window closes, I’m toast. That’s why we have to get out of here. The demons will have to return to their own universe or perish when the window shuts, but there might be soldiers or werewolves waiting to move in.”
We trudge on in silence, Dervish panting, struggling to support Sharmila. His legs are shaking badly. Even with all the magic in the air, he can’t last very long. He might drop before we make the ground. If he does, I’ll have to leave him. Sharmila too. I’m not a coward but it would be foolish to stay. In desperate times you have to act clinically. Dervish and Sharmila understand that and would only curse me if I let myself be slain for no good reason.
As we come to the second floor I spot a lizard-like demon slithering through the door from the stairs. I motion for Dervish to stop and we wait until the creature has passed. As we come abreast of the door, I glance through the circular window. There are two more demons with the lizard. One looks like an anteater, only it’s bulkier and has several long snouts. The other is some sort of demonic insect with a heavy golden shell, the size of a large dog.
As I watch, they kill an elderly woman and a nurse, then claw open a door and slip into a ward out of sight. Dervish has moved on, but I remain where I am, a wretched feeling in my gut.
“Hurry,” Dervish huffs. “We’re nearly there.”
“Dervish…” I say hesitantly.
“What?” he snaps.
“There are three demons.”
“So?”
“They’ve gone into the maternity ward.”
