Deaths Shadow

by Darren Shan

  “But —” I begin.

  “No time,” he barks, staggering towards the nearest lifeboat. “Come on. Don’t stand there gaping.”

  Kirilli moans and stumbles after Dervish, picking up Sharmila without having to be told. She punches weakly at a couple of zombies, not much strength left. We’re all firing on our final cylinders. Only the promise of escape keeps us going. But I’ve thought of something Dervish hasn’t. Escape will be more complicated than he thinks.

  Dervish is working on a lifeboat when I reach him. He doesn’t have the magic to release it, so he’s having to manually lower it over the side. Kirilli is helping.

  “We had a safety drill a few days ago,” Kirilli boasts. “Leave it to me. I know what to do. If we pull this lever here . . .”

  “That’s where the oar goes,” Dervish growls, pushing Kirilli aside.

  The lifeboat slides towards the edge of the ship but comes to a sudden halt just above the rails. “It’s stuck,” Dervish grunts, pushing at it, looking for something — anything — else to pull.

  “No,” I sigh, keeping an eye on several zombies heading our way. “It’s the barrier. The ship’s still encased in a bubble of magic.”

  “Nonsense,” Dervish snorts. “That’s gone. My heart wouldn’t be hammering like a pneumatic drill if —”

  “The barrier’s still there,” I stop him. “I don’t know how, but it is.” I point at the nearest zombie, a woman a long way ahead of the others. “Kirilli, grab her and throw her overboard.”

  “With pleasure,” Kirilli says — the zombie is much smaller than he is. He runs across, picks her up, and chucks her over the rail. She bounces off an invisible wall and lands on top of Kirilli. As she chews his left forearm he squeals and wriggles free. He kicks her hard, then glares at me. “You knew that was going to happen!”

  I ignore the irate conjuror and lock gazes with Dervish. The fight has sapped his strength. He looks like an old man ready for death.

  “The barrier might crumble before the ship sinks,” Sharmila suggests, more out of wretched hope than any real conviction.

  “It’s as strong as when we arrived,” I disagree. “We could have maybe swum out through the hole in the bottom — the barrier must be breached there, since the water’s coming in — but we can’t get back to the hold to try.”

  “The zombies!” Dervish cries, coming alive again. “We can use them to punch a hole through the barrier. I did that in Slawter, exploded a demon against the wall of energy. It worked there — it can work here.”

  “I’m not sure,” I mutter, but Dervish has already set his sights on a zombie. Finding extra power from somewhere, he sends the dead person flying against the invisible barrier and holds it there with magic.

  “Sharmila,” he grunts. “Blast it!”

  The old Indian lady tries to focus, but she’s too exhausted.

  “Leave this to me,” Kirilli says, preening himself like an action movie hero. He slides a playing card out from underneath his torn, chewed sleeve, takes careful aim and fires it at the zombie. When it strikes he shouts, “Abracadabra!” and the card and zombie explode.

  “There,” Kirilli smirks. “I’m not as useless as you thought, am I?”

  “Nobody could be,” Dervish murmurs, but the humor is forced. The explosion hasn’t dented the barrier. It holds as firmly as before.

  “They’re not powerful enough,” I note sadly, felling another zombie as it attacks. “The magic they’re working off of isn’t the same as ours. They’re puppets of the Shadow, not real creatures of magic. We could butcher a thousand against the barrier, but it won’t work any better than exploding normal humans.”

  “That’s why Juni sent the demons back to their own universe,” Dervish groans. “So we couldn’t use them if we got away from the Shadow.”

  “Lord Loss isn’t a fool.” I smile sadly. “He learns from his mistakes.”

  “We’re finished,” Dervish says miserably.

  “Aye,” I sigh, unconsciously mimicking Beranabus. “All that’s left to determine is whether the zombies eat us or if we drown in the deep blue sea.”

  I stare at the ranks of living dead shuffling towards us. The Shadow’s magic is dwindling. Many of the zombies have fallen and lie twitching or still, returned to the lifeless state from which the Shadow roused them. But a lot remain active, clambering up from the lower levels, massing and advancing, hunched over against the sharp, angled incline of the deck. If the ship doesn’t sink within the next few minutes, they’ll overwhelm us.

  “I don’t want to drown,” Kirilli says softly. “I’ve always been afraid of that. I’d rather be eaten.” He tugs at the tattered threads of his jacket, trying to make himself presentable. Facing the oncoming hordes, he takes a deep breath and starts towards them.

  “Wait,” Sharmila stops him. She’s smiling faintly. “Disciples never quit. Zahava must have taught you that. We carry on even when all seems lost. When dealing with matters magical, there is always hope.”

  “She’s right,” I tell him. “If Kernel’s alive, he might open another window and rescue us. Or I could be wrong about the barrier. Maybe it will vanish before the ship sinks and we can clamber overboard.”

  “What are the odds?” Kirilli asks.

  “Slim,” I admit. “But you don’t want to surrender to the zombies, only to spot the rest of us slipping free at the last second, do you?”

  Kirilli squints at me, struggling to decide.

  “Actually I was not planning on a miracle,” Sharmila says. “We have the power to save ourselves. We do not need to rely on divine intervention.”

  “What are you talking about?” Dervish frowns.

  “There is a way out,” Sharmila says. “We can blow a hole in the barrier.”

  “You’ve sensed a demon?” I cry, doing a quick sweep of the ship, but finding nothing except ourselves and the zombies.

  “No,” Sharmila says. “We do not need demons.” She looks peaceful, much younger than her years. “We are beings of magic.”

  Dervish’s expression goes flat. So does mine. We understand what she’s saying. As one, our heads turn, and we stare at Kirilli.

  “What?” he growls suspiciously.

  “No,” Sharmila chuckles. “I was not thinking of poor Kirilli. I doubt he would volunteer and we are not, I hope, prepared to turn on one of our own and murder him like a pack of savages.”

  “We’ll draw lots,” Dervish says quickly. “Kirilli too, whether he likes it or not.”

  “Draw lots for what?” Kirilli shouts, still clueless.

  “There will be no lottery,” Sharmila says firmly. “Bec is too young and Kirilli is not willing.”

  “Fine,” Dervish huffs. “That leaves me and you. Fifty-fifty.”

  “No,” Sharmila says. “You must be a father to Bec. She has lost Beranabus. She cannot afford to lose you too.”

  “Wait a minute . . . ” Dervish huffs.

  “Please,” Sharmila sighs. “I have no legs. I am the oldest. I have no dependants. And I am now too weak to be of any use — I do not think I could find the power to kill you even if you talked me into letting you take my place.”

  Dervish gulps and looks to me for help. He wants to persuade her not to do this, to let him be the one who goes out in a blaze of glory.

  “Everything she says makes sense,” I mumble, practical as always.

  “Quickly,” Sharmila snaps. “There is almost no magic left. It might be too late already. If you do not act now, it will fade entirely and we will all be lost.”

  “You’re a stubborn old cow, aren’t you?” Dervish scowls.

  “When I have to be.” She smiles.

  Dervish checks with me, and I nod sadly. We move side by side and link hands. Focusing, we unite our meager scraps of magic. I wave a hand at Sharmila, and she slides across the deck, coming to a stop next to the invisible barrier. She sits up and wipes blood from her cheeks. She smiles at us one last time, then serenely closes her eye
s and places her hands together. Her lips move softly in prayer.

  Dervish howls, partly to direct our magic, partly out of horror. I howl too. Blue light flashes from our fingertips and strikes Sharmila in the chest. The light drills into her head, snapping it back. For a moment her form holds and I fear our power won’t be strong enough.

  Then the light crackles and a split second later Sharmila explodes. Her bones, guts, flesh and blood splatter the barrier behind her, while the unleashed energy hammers through the shield, creating a porthole to freedom.

  We’re both shaken and crying, but we have to act swiftly or Sharmila will have died for nothing. We try nudging the lifeboat over to the hole in the barrier but the restraints won’t let it be moved in that direction. Weary beyond belief, I yell for Kirilli to join us. When we link hands, I draw on his energy — he hasn’t used as much as we have, so he has a fair supply in reserve. I snap the ropes and chains holding the lifeboat in place. Guided by us, it glides through the air, inches above the deck. We shuffle along after it.

  When the boat is level with the gap, I edge forward, dragging the others with me, refusing to focus on the gory remains of Sharmila that decorate the rim of the hole. I glance over the rails. We’re high up in the air. The water’s a long way down. Two options. We can let the boat drop and try to scale down to it. Or . . .

  “Climb in,” I grunt.

  “Will it fit?” Kirilli asks, studying the lifeboat, then the hole, trying to make accurate measurements of both. Typical man!

  “Just get in, you fool!” I shout. “That hole could snap shut in a second.”

  Kirilli scrambles in. When the contact breaks, the lifeboat drops and lands on the deck with a clang. I push Dervish ahead of me, then crawl in after him. The zombies are almost upon us, mewling with hunger.

  I grab Kirilli’s left hand and Dervish’s right. Focusing the last vestiges of our pooled magic, I yell at the lifeboat and send it shooting ahead.

  It catches in the hole, jolts forward a few inches under pressure from me, then stalls. It’s too wide. We’re stuck. Worse — it’s plugged the hole, so we can’t try jumping to safety. What a useless, stupid way to —

  The lifeboat pops free with a sharp, creaking noise. We shoot clear of the hole, the barrier, and the ship, gathering momentum. We sail through the air like some kind of crazily designed bird. We’re whooping and cheering.

  Then, before any of us realizes the danger of our situation, we hit the sea hard. The boat flips over. I bang my head on the side. My mouth fills as I spill into the sea. I try to spit the water out, but I haven’t the energy. As I sink slowly, I raise my eyes and steal one last look at the sky through the liquid layers above me. Then the world turns black.

  ALL AT SEA

  ARMS squeeze my stomach and I vomit. My eyes flutter open and I groan. My head’s hanging over the edge of the lifeboat, bits of my last meal bobbing up and down in the water beneath me. I know from the memories flooding into me that Dervish is doing the squeezing.

  “It’s OK,” I groan as he tenses his arms to try again. “I’m alive.”

  Dervish gently tugs me back over the side. There’s water in the bottom. Kirilli is bailing it out with his hands. But we’re afloat, and the lifeboat doesn’t look like it sustained any major damage.

  “We thought we’d lost you,” Dervish says, smiling with relief. “Kirilli fished you out, but you were motionless. . . .” He clears his throat and brushes wet hair back from my eyes. The tenderness in his expression warms me more than the sun.

  “Have I been unconscious long?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “The ship . . . ?”

  “Still there.”

  Dervish helps me sit up, and we gaze at the sinking vessel. It’s listing sharply. It can’t last much longer. We’re quite far away from it, but if I squint I can make out the shapes of zombies throwing themselves through the hole in pursuit of us. They don’t last long once they hit the water.

  Kirilli stops bailing and studies the ship with us. We don’t say a word. It’s a weird sensation, watching something so huge and majestic sink out of sight. It’s as if the ship is a living creature that’s dying. I feel strangely sad for it.

  “All those people,” Dervish sighs as the last section slips beneath the waves in a froth of angry bubbles. “I wish we could have saved them.”

  “Beranabus,” I whisper, fresh tears welling in my eyes. “Sharmila. Kernel.”

  “A costly day’s work,” Dervish says bitterly. “And we didn’t even destroy the Shadow. It’ll come after us again. We’ve lost our leader and two of the strongest Disciples. If Lord Loss was telling the truth, Grubbs is probably dead too. Hardly counts as a victory, does it?”

  He doesn’t know how true that is. I start to tell him what I learned about the Shadow, but Kirilli interrupts.

  “When I left you in the hold,” he says shiftily, “I hope you didn’t think I was running off. I just wanted to make sure the stairs and corridors were clear, so we could make a quick getaway together.”

  “Of course,” Dervish murmurs. “It never crossed our thoughts that you might have lost your nerve and fled like a cowardly rat, leaving the rest of us in the lurch. You’re a hero, Kirilli.”

  Dervish claps sarcastically, and Kirilli looks aside miserably. I put my hands over Dervish’s and stop him. “Don’t,” I croak. “He helped us in the end. We couldn’t have escaped without him.”

  “I suppose,” Dervish mutters.

  Kirilli looks up hopefully. “You mean that?”

  “We’d never have shifted this boat ourselves,” I assure him. “We needed your magic. If you’d fought in the hold and used up your power, we’d have all died.”

  “Then it worked out for the best.” Kirilli beams. “I did the right thing running. I thought so. When I was down there, sizing up the situation, I —”

  “Don’t push your luck,” Dervish growls. Then he narrows his eyes and studies Kirilli closely. “Are those bite marks?”

  “Yes,” Kirilli says pitifully. He stares at the stumps where his fingers were bitten off. He must have unwittingly used magic to stop the bleeding, scab over the flesh and numb the pain. He’ll be screeching like a banshee once the spell fades.

  “Those beasts bit and clawed me all over,” Kirilli says sulkily, ripping a strip off a sleeve to wrap around the stumps. “I’m lucky they didn’t puncture any vital veins or arteries. If I hadn’t fought so valiantly, they’d have eaten me alive.”

  “Such a shame,” Dervish purrs, shaking his head.

  “What?” Kirilli frowns.

  “You’ve seen a few zombie films in your time, haven’t you?”

  “One or two,” Kirilli sniffs. “I don’t like horror films. Why?”

  “You must know, then, that their saliva is infectious. When a zombie bites one of the living, that person succumbs to the disease and turns —”

  “No!” Kirilli cries, dropping the strip of shirt and lurching to his feet. “You’re joking! You must be!”

  Dervish shrugs. “I’m only telling you what I’ve seen in the movies. It might all be nonsense, but when you think about it logically . . .”

  As Kirilli’s face crumples, Dervish winks at me. I stifle a smile. This isn’t nice, but Kirilli deserves it. Not for being a coward, but for trying to lie. A good scare will do him no harm at all.

  We drift for hours. The sun descends. Night claims the sky. After letting Kirilli fret for an hour, Dervish finally told him it was a joke. Kirilli cursed us foully and imaginatively. But he calmed down after a while, and we’ve been silent since, bobbing about, absorbing the refreshing rays of the sun, thinking about the dead.

  It all seems hopeless without Beranabus, especially knowing what I do about the Shadow. Mankind has reached breaking point, and I can’t see any way forward. I doubt if even Beranabus could have made a difference. There are some things you can’t fight. Certain outcomes are inevitable.

  Kirilli has spent the last few min
utes examining the lifeboat, scouring it from bow to stern. He returns to his seat with a bottle of water and a small medical box. “Good news and bad,” he says, opening the box and looking for ointment to use on his wounds. The healing spell must have passed because he’s grimacing. “The good news — both oars are on-board, and there are six bottles of water and this medical box. The bad news — there’s no radio equipment or food, and once we drink the water we can’t replace it.”

  “Do you know if the crew of the ship sent a distress signal?” Dervish asks.

  “No idea. Even if they did, would it have penetrated the magical barrier?”

  “Probably not,” Dervish sighs. “Can I have some water?”

  Kirilli takes a swig, then passes it across. “Not too much,” he warns. “That has to last.”

  Dervish chuckles drily. “It’ll probably last longer than me. My heart could pop any minute.”

  “Let me check.” I place my hand on his chest and concentrate. I can sense the erratic beat of his heart. He’s in very poor condition. He needs hospitalization or magic. If we could cross to the universe of the Demonata, we’d be fine.

  I try absorbing power from the air, to open a window, but there’s virtually nothing to tap into, and I’m in a sorry state. The moon will lend me strength when it rises, but it won’t be enough.

  “Were you trying to open a window?” Dervish asks softly.

  “Yes.”

  “No joy?”

  “I’ll be able to later, when I’m stronger,” I lie. But Dervish sees through me.

  “No tears,” he croaks as I start to cry. “Don’t waste the moisture.”