by Darren Shan
DEATH WATCH
We find ourselves on the deck of a massive ship, close to a swimming pool. Deck chairs are strewn about the place. Bodies everywhere, ripped to pieces, stomachs carved open, heads and limbs torn loose. Puddles of blood merge and spread slowly, seeping into the cracks between the planks. The water of the swimming pool is a deep, dead red.
Beranabus ignores the corpses. He’s seen worse in his time. I have too. But it still hits me hard whenever I walk into a nightmarish scene like this. It only takes me a few seconds to recover but Beranabus doesn’t even need that. He’s instantly alert, looking for threats, sizing up the situation. I see him relax slightly and, once I overcome my initial shock, I realize why. The area is charged with magic. We’re on Earth but it feels like the Demonata’s universe. We can operate at full capacity here.
“We’re encased,” Beranabus says. “The ship’s been sealed off by a bubble of magic. They must have a lodestone.”
Lodestones are rocks which were filled with magic by beings known as the Old Creatures. They ruled our world in the distant past, holding the demons at bay. They fled many generations ago, but left the charged stones behind. Many have drained of power over the centuries, and Beranabus destroyed most of the others, to stop the Demonata’s power-hungry mages from making use of them. But some remain, secreted away, either unknown to him, inaccessible, or indestructible. Demons or evil mages sometimes find them and use them to open limited tunnels between universes, allowing the Demonata to spend more time here and wreak maximum havoc.
“Where’s Juni?” Beranabus asks.
“Lower down. I thought it would be wiser not to face her until we’d assessed the risk. I don’t know if anyone’s with her, but there’s an open window. It’s not very sturdy. Only weak demons could cross through it.”
Beranabus thinks about that, then says, “I’m going back for the others.”
He steps through the window, leaving me with the dead. The silence is disturbing. I play out crazy scenarios inside my head, imagining the corpses coming back to life and attacking. I’ve never seen a zombie film. I heard about Night of the Living Dead when I was a child, but my parents wouldn’t let me watch it.
I don’t have any hair—I’ve always been bald—but if I did, it would be standing on end. I’ve got a bad case of what my mother used to call the heebie-jeebies. I want to duck through the window after Beranabus. This ship is bad news. We’ll wind up dead if we stay, bleeding sacks of flesh and bone.
Before I can bolt, Beranabus returns and the others cross after him. My nerves settle and I laugh away my fears. Zombies—ridiculous! I’ve seen enough of the universe to know we need never fear the dead, only the living.
The Disciples are nervous. Bec scans the lower decks and says there’s only one demon onboard with Juni. I tell the others about the open window.
“We should go back,” Sharmila says. “Juni has set this up to ensnare us.”
“Why would she be expecting us?” Dervish asks.
“Lord Loss may have reasoned that we would target Juni. Perhaps everything—the attacks on Dervish, Juni revealing herself on the roof of the hospital—was designed to lure Beranabus here. The demon master might be poised to cross and finish us off personally.”
“Not through that window,” I tell Sharmila, certain no demon master could make use of the opening close to Juni.
“Then through another,” she says. “We have never been able to explain why Lord Loss can cross when other masters cannot, or how he goes about it.”
Beranabus sighs. “You could be right, but we might never get a better shot at Juni. If she’s not expecting us, it’s the perfect time to strike. If she is and this is a trap, at least we can anticipate the worst. The magic in the air means she’ll be dangerous, but it serves us as much as her. If Lord Loss doesn’t turn up, we can match her. If he does cross, we’ll make a swift getaway.”
“Are you sure of that?” Sharmila frowns. “If we have to open a new window…”
“We won’t,” Beranabus says. “Kernel will stay here and guard our escape route. You’ll know if any other windows open, won’t you?”
“Yes,” I say confidently.
“Then keep this one alive and watch for signs of further activity. If you sense anything, summon us and we’ll withdraw. Is everyone satisfied with that?”
Sharmila is still dubious, but she shrugs. I’m not happy either. I don’t want to stay by myself, surrounded by corpses. But we need to protect our only way out. Besides, I’ll be safer up here than down there. Beranabus is doing me a favor, though I’m sure he’s thinking only of his own well-being, not mine.
As they make their way across the deck, I move closer to the window and pat a couple of patches back into place. Windows never remain stable for more than a few minutes, but I have the power to keep them open indefinitely. If demons were able to manipulate the lights like I can, mankind would have been wiped out long ago.
The minutes pass with agonizing slowness. The sun is relentless and my mouth is dry. I could easily find something to drink but I don’t want to abandon my post. I’m sure I could open another window if this one blinks out of existence but I don’t want to take any chances. I’m not sure how lodestones work. Maybe Juni could use its power to slow me down.
As I’m concentrating, trying not to obsess about the mounds of corpses around me, the smaller, unpredictable patches of light begin to pulse. “Not now,” I groan, but the patches ignore me. Moments later come the whispers. Faster, more urgently than before. I tense, expecting to find myself acting against my wishes. Maybe they’ll make me close the window or head after the others, to die with them in the ship’s hold.
But nothing happens. If the lights are trying to influence me, they’re failing. Ignoring them, I focus on the window, holding it in place, keeping the shape.
Something flickers to my left. I turn and see a group of the small patches click together. They swirl over and around one another, a mini vortex of various hues and shades of light.
More patches are attracted to the cluster. It grows and spins faster, changing shape, pulsing rapidly. The whispers grow louder, become shouts. I don’t know what’s happening, but it can only be bad news. I wish the others were here, so we could abandon this place immediately.
When almost all of the small lights have joined and are whirling around, they suddenly zip towards me. Yelping, I throw myself aside. I expect them to chase me, but then I see that I was never their target. They were aiming for the window. They slap into it and shimmer across the face of the white panel. As I sit up and stare, the window becomes a multi-colored rip in the air.
The whispers die away. Silence falls. I stand but don’t approach the window. I study it cautiously, fearfully. The lights pulse rapidly, then slide towards the center, all the colors angling to the focal point, drawn to it as if by gravity.
Then—an explosion. A ball of light bursts from the heart of the window and shoots across the ship’s swimming pool, circling it in a spiral pattern, like a punctured balloon careening across a room. The window resumes its white color.
The ball circles the pool a few more times, then drifts towards the deck and comes to a halt three or four feet above it. The ball is rainbow-colored, about the size of a large dog, though its shape changes constantly. It reminds me of the jellyish substance in a lava lamp, the way it oozes from one form into another, altering all the time.
“What the hell are you?” I gasp, not expecting an answer. But to my astonishment I receive one.
“I have no name.”
I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff over the last few years that would leave most people’s jaws hanging. I thought I was immune to surprise. But this blows me away. All I can do is gape at the ball of light like a five-year-old who’s walked in on Santa Claus.
“You must come with me,” the voice says. I don’t know where the words are coming from. They seem to be forming inside my head.
“Come…” the voice insists.
“Come where?” I croak. “Who are you? What are you?”
“There will be time for explanations later. We must depart this world before…” The voice stops and there’s a sighing sound. “Too late.”
“What do you mean?”
Before the ball of light can answer, my crazy fantasy of a few minutes ago becomes a reality. All around me, the corpses on the deck shudder, twitch, then clamber to their feet. As impossible as it is, the dead have come back to life, and they’re focusing their glinting, hungry eyes on me.
COME…
The rising dead terrify me more than any demon ever did. Demons are natural. They obey certain laws. You know what to expect when you face one of them.
But the dead aren’t supposed to return. When a body perishes, the soul moves on. That’s the way it’s always been. But someone must have forgotten to mention that to these walking, snarling, slavering corpses.
I stand like a simpleton, watching them advance. I’d heard that zombies in movies walk slowly, stiffly, mechanically. Not these. They don’t have the look of living people, but they move like them, fluidly and firmly.
As the dead close in on me, teeth exposed, hands outstretched, the ball of light flits over their heads and flares, causing them to cover their eyes and stumble to a halt. They mewl like newborn calves and lash out at the light.
“Come…” the voice repeats. “Cross while they are distracted.”
“Where?” I howl, gaze fixed on the zombies.
“Come…” is the only response. The ball of light skims over the heads of the walking dead and hovers by the window.
“I can’t,” I whisper, studying the ranks of animated corpses. “The others…”
“Doomed,” the voice says. “You cannot worry about them. They are no longer your concern. Come…” It sounds impatient.
A man without a chest—it’s been ripped away, exposing the bones of his spine and shoulders—lowers his arms and blinks. Realizing he can see again, he sets his sights on me and rushes forward, howling wildly.
My hands, which have been trembling by my sides, shoot up and I unleash a ball of energy. The dead man flies backwards, knocking down those behind him. As others converge, I blast them with magic and back up close to the window.
“Yes,” the voice murmurs approvingly.
But I’ve no intention of going anywhere with this freakish ball of talking light. I ran out on Beranabus once, long ago. Never again.
Taking a firm stand, I construct an invisible barrier, a circle of magic six or seven feet in diameter, through which the dead can’t pass. I’m not good at this type of magic. I doubt I could put a barrier in place strong enough to stop a demon. But if these revived corpses are only as strong as they were in life, it should repel them.
My stomach rumbles with fear as the zombies cluster around the barrier. They scrape, punch, kick, and spit at it. I hear—imagine—a creaking noise. I reinforce the barrier, sweating desperately, and turn 360 degrees, trying to cover every angle at once, ensuring there are no weak points.
There aren’t. The barrier holds. As long as the magic in the air remains, I can keep these wretched zombies at bay.
I’ve been holding my breath. Letting it out, I bend over and smile raggedly. I even manage a weak laugh. That would have been an awful death. To stand up to one powerful demon after another, only to fall to a pack of alarming but relatively weak zombies…. It would have been a shameful way to go.
“You have done well,” the voice says, pulsing eagerly by the window. “Now come with me. We must leave this world. We have far to go.”
I straighten and study the ball of light. I’m glad of the excuse not to look at the writhing zombies, especially the children, every bit as ravenous as the adults.
“I’m going nowhere without the others,” I tell it.
“They do not matter. You are the one we need. Come…”
“Who are ‘we’?” I challenge the voice. “What do you want? Where—”
The ship lurches. I’m thrown sideways, towards the ranks of living dead. I yell with shock, but the barrier deflects me away from the gnashing, grabbing zombies.
I get to my feet slowly, rubbing my arm where I collided with the barrier. The ship has tilted. The water in the swimming pool is starting to spill out over the lowest edge, and some of the deck chairs are sliding backwards. A few of the zombies slip away from the barrier, but they’re back again moments later.
“What’s happening?” I ask the ball of light.
“The ship is sinking,” it answers. “Beranabus has been killed. Come now, before it is too late.”
It takes a few seconds for that to hit. At first I’m just panicked that the ship’s going down. Then the full impact of the statement rams home. “Beranabus?” I gasp.
“The Shadow killed him.”
“No!” I shake my head wildly. Beranabus can’t be dead. The world doesn’t make sense without him. He’s single-handedly held back the hordes of demons for more than a thousand years. I knew he was old and tired, and he often spoke halfheartedly of retiring. But secretly I believed he was invincible, that he’d live forever, reborn like a phoenix when he grew tired of the confines of his old bones.
“There will be no rebirth,” the voice says calmly as everything collapses into chaos. “Beranabus is dead. This world will have to struggle on without him. You must come with me. You must.”
I expect tears but there aren’t any. I’m devastated by the loss of Beranabus, and maybe I’ll weep for him later, but for now I’m dry-eyed. When I’m sure I’m not going to cry, I look at the light again. This time I regard it with a hint of loathing.
“You set this up,” I snarl. “You led us here. You’re in league with Juni Swan.”
“No,” the voice says. “We do not serve the Demonata.”
“You split us from Grubbs,” I accuse it. “You forced me to advise Beranabus to focus on Juni. This is your work as much as it’s hers.”
The ball is silent for a moment. “You were aware of our guiding hand,” it says. “Interesting. You see and hear more than we thought.”
“Yes.” I laugh roughly. “And I see through you now. Beranabus would be alive if we hadn’t come here. You manipulated us.”
“To an extent,” the voice agrees. “We needed a lodestone. I could not make the final push to your world without one. So we influenced you and your foes, and tempted you to this place. It is unfortunate that it resulted in Beranabus’s death, but that is an acceptable loss. All that matters is that you come with me. Everything else is immaterial.”
“Bull!” I snort.
The ball of light flickers. “I do not understand.”
“I’m going nowhere. My friends are here—Bec, Dervish, Sharmila. I’m staying to help them. I promised I’d keep this window open and I will.”
“No,” the voice says. “We cannot wait. If you fall, all is lost. I do not have the power to reclaim your fragment of the Kah-Gash. It would go to—”
“So that’s it,” I yell. “You want the weapon.”
“Only your part.”
“You can’t have it,” I sneer, taking a step away from the window.
The ball turns dark blue, before resuming its normal variety of colors. I think it just lost its temper.
“You cannot defy us,” the voice says. “You must come with me. It is vital.”
I shake my head and back up to within a couple of inches of the barrier. “My friends come first. Always.”
The ball pulses for a few seconds. Then the voice says, “Very well.”
The light flicks up over my head and cuts through the barrier, vanishing into the crowd of zombies. The deck is rising steadily. The pool is almost empty now. Some of the less sturdy zombies have started to slide down the deck, towards the end dipping into the sea. But most remain pinned to the barrier.
More worrying than the zombies or the disappearance of the ball of light is the fading magic. The bubble around the ship is
intact but the magical energy is dwindling. I can still maintain the barrier, but not for long.
I think about retreating, closing the window behind me, then building a new one, opening it to whatever level of the ship Bec and the others are on. It wouldn’t take more than a few minutes. But they might not have even that short time. If they make it to the upper deck, this window offers their fastest route out. If I disable it, they’ll have to wait, besieged by zombies, and that might be asking too much of them. Better to linger as long as I can, and only resort to the other plan if the barrier cracks.
As I make up my mind to stay, a man steps through the crowd. Most of his throat has been chewed away. His head’s attached to his torso by stray strands of flesh and muscle. He puts his hands on the barrier, palms flat. His calm expression is in sharp contrast to the twisted grimaces of the other zombies. As I stare at the man, wondering why he looks different, light flickers in his eyes. I realize that the ball of light has wormed its way into the zombie and possessed him. Before I can do anything, the man steps through the barrier and clutches me.
“Do not fight,” he gurgles, pushing me towards the window.
“Let go!” I roar, wrestling wildly. I manage to slip loose. I think about darting through the window, but that’s where the light wants me to go. Before I can come up with an alternate plan, the zombie grabs me again.
“We do not want to hurt you,” he says, nudging me closer to the window of white light. “You must trust us. We only want—”
I knee the man in the stomach. Even though he’s dead, he winces with pain or the memory of it.
As I prepare to break free, I spot Bec, Sharmila, Dervish, and a man I don’t recognize. They’re fighting against the tilt of the ship, forcing their way towards me, battling through zombies. Bec spots me locked in combat.
“Kernel!” she shouts. “Hold on. We’re almost with you. We—”
“The lights!” I roar back in reply. “The lights are doing this! Don’t—”
