Demon Thief (15 page)

“I want you to concentrate,” Beranabus says. “See if you can gain an insight that might let us know what’s on the other side.”

Nadia smiles coldly. “I’m not feeling very insightful,” she says, then steps through the window before Beranabus can respond.

Beranabus curses, but the slightest look of guilt flits across his face. He shrugs it off and nods sharply at Sharmila. “You next. I’ll come after you. Then the boy, Dervish and Shark. Is everybody ready?”

“Ready for what?” Dervish asks.

Beranabus chuckles. “
Hell,
most likely.”

Webs everywhere. Strand after strand, some the thickness of several trees placed together, others as fine as a length of thread. A gloomy, silvery, moonless sky, dotted with giant meteorlike demons. Nothing but blackness when I look down through the many layers of web. I wriggle my bare toes over the moist, sticky fabric of the strand. It’s like standing on cotton candy.

There’s a demon close to us, a nightmarish beast. He has the body of a child but the head of an adult. Pale green skin. No hair, but a wiglike cluster of lice scuttle around his scalp, feeding on his flesh, digging holes through to his brain. No eyes — instead, a ball of fire burns in either socket. A large mouth full of sharp teeth, no tongue. Two smaller mouths set in his palms, one in either hand.

The demon hisses when he sees us, turns and races away at a great speed, crisscrossing the network of webs, leaping from one level to another. Nobody gives chase, not even Shark. We’ve just spotted the castle that the demon is running towards.

A castle of webs, set amidst a cluster of extra thick strands. It looks like a medieval castle, except ten times bigger. Taller than any skyscraper I’ve ever seen, wider than a couple of street blocks in the city where I used to live. Towers and turrets galore. Several huge drawbridges. Everything spun out of webs. Glistening and forboding, even from this distance.

There’s a moat around the castle. The hell-child leaps across it with ease, but instead of waiting for the drawbridge to be lowered, he scales the outside wall of the castle like a spider. Disappears through a narrow window.

“This is bad,” Beranabus says.

“You know this place?” Sharmila asks.

“It’s the home of a demon master called Lord Loss.”

“I like his style,” Shark grunts, then looks around. “So, where’s the demon we’re meant to be chasing?”

“Where else?” Beranabus points to the castle.

“How do you know?” Dervish asks.

“No demon can set foot here without Lord Loss’s permission,” Beranabus says. “Only his familiars and those he chooses to shelter are welcome. Cadaver isn’t one of his slaves, so I’m guessing he asked for sanctuary and it was granted — otherwise he would have fled from here already.”

“Company’s coming,” Nadia says, smirking at us crookedly.

I spot scores of demons wriggling through the windows of the castle and over the tops of turrets. A couple of the drawbridges are lowered and more of the monsters advance over them.

Dervish glances back at the orange window, still open behind us. He looks at Beranabus questioningly.

“No,” the magician says after a moment’s hesitation. “We can’t defeat Lord Loss on his own territory. But maybe we can bargain with him.”

“Bargain with a demon?” Sharmila frowns.

“He’s not like other demons. He prefers suffering to execution — he feeds on the misery of the living rather than the bodies of the dead. He won’t kill us swiftly. If we can find some way to amuse him... give him something that Cadaver can’t ... maybe he’ll turn the thief over to us. And let us go.”

“You really believe that?” Sharmila asks.

“No,” Beranabus chuckles dryly. “But it’s the only hope we have.”

Then the demons are upon us.

FLY ON THE WALL

F
IGHTING
desperately. Swamped by demons of every mutation imaginable. Some are small, like the one we saw when we arrived. Others tower above us. Many are strange hybrids — mixtures of animals, lizards, birds, even fish. Others look like nothing I’ve ever seen, lumps and blobs, teeth and claws, shadows and blood.

We fight in a tight circle, back to back. Sharmila sets the demons on fire when they come within reach. Shark rips heads and limbs loose, using the severed arms and legs as clubs to beat back other demons — he’s loving this. Dervish uses bolts of magical energy where he can, his fists and feet when a demon closes in. Nadia has magically grown her nails and is using them as swords, ten deadly blades. Beranabus uses a mix of spells and punches to shatter the bodies of our enemies, fighting calmly, controlled.

I lash out with my fists, punching wildly, trying to be as much of a nuisance as possible. I’m not terrified. Scared, but in control. Panting hard, but not roaring. Maybe it’s because I know this is a fight which can’t be avoided. Even if I ran away, I’d have to come back and face these demons again. Unless I abandon Art. Which isn’t going to happen.

The demons should have overwhelmed us by now. There are so many, of different sizes, shapes and powers. We shouldn’t be able to stand up to them. But they don’t take advantage of their strength and numbers. They snap and bite at us, inflicting minor wounds, but don’t pile upon us all at once.

“What’s going on?” Dervish yells, wiping a demon’s yellow blood from his face and kicking an otterlike beast away. “Why are we still alive?”

“Like I said,” Beranabus grunts, “Lord Loss wants to play. He must have given orders not to kill us.”

“Then why don’t we stop fighting?” Dervish asks.

“When demons catch the scent of blood, they don’t always obey their master’s orders,” Beranabus chuckles.

“So are we just going to stay here?” Sharmila shouts, face bright, lit by the flames of the burning demons around her.

“No,” Beranabus says. “Let’s move towards the castle. But keep up our defenses. I think they’ll let us through, but they won’t make it easy for us. If one of us stumbles and falls behind...”

He doesn’t finish. Doesn’t need to. It’s clear that anyone who stumbles will be left for the demons.

Battling our way through the ranks of demons, edging across the strands of web, feet sticky, coated with a gluelike substance. The stench is unbelievable — not just the demons, but all the blood and guts. The webs around us are slick with the entrails and life juices of the demons we’ve wounded or killed. Lord Loss must be a strange master to let so many of his servants perish at our hands.

Some of the wounded fall between the layers of webs and disappear into the darkness, howling and screaming. But their cries never last more than a few seconds. As we draw close to the moat, and pass over a patch where the webby strands are thin and sparse, I see what happens to those who fall.

There are sharklike demons floating in the darkness beneath the layers of webs, constantly circling. Whenever a demon falls, the sharks move in for the kill, ripping the unfortunate monster to shreds, sometimes swallowing it whole.

In this universe, just when you think things can’t get any worse, they usually do!

We come to a halt at the edge of the moat. This close, I see that it’s actually just open space — a circular gap between the layers of web, with nothing to stop us from falling straight down to where the shark demons are waiting. The bridges have been drawn closed, leaving us with no simple way of getting across.

As I’m staring at the webby castle walls with one eye, keeping the other on the demons, I get the strangest sense of déjà vu, like I’ve seen this place before. But I couldn’t have. I’m probably just thinking about castles I’ve seen in books and movies.

A demon with powerful hind legs bounces high into the air and throws itself at Dervish while he’s grappling with another one of the beasts. Acting on instinct, the punk lowers his head and the spikes of his hair turn to steel. The demon is impaled and dies screaming. Dervish flicks his head left, then right, dislodging the dead demon. He bellows at Beranabus, “What now?”

“We have to jump across and scale the wall,” Beranabus shouts.

“I don’t think I can jump that far,” I roar.

“Then we’ll leave you behind for the Demonata,” Beranabus retorts. Before I can think of a reply, the magician grabs the back of my neck and leaps. A second of stomach-dropping terror as I gaze down into the abyss and the circling shark demons. Then we hit the wall and stick. “Come on!” Beranabus yells at the others.

Shark jumps with ease. So does Nadia. Dervish is nervous, and flails with his arms when jumping, but he makes it. Just as Sharmila leaps, a demon snags her sari. She rips free, but the attack robs her of her momentum, and instead of sailing across the moat, she falls towards the sharks.

“No!” Dervish shouts, reaching for her — but he’s too late. He misses. She falls. I open my mouth to scream.

Then Beranabus is beside her. He wraps an arm around her. Angles her upwards. Soars back to the wall with her, holding on until she gets a grip on the webs. She’s sobbing weakly — she thought she was finished.

“You never told us you could fly,” Shark grunts.

“It varies from world to world,” Beranabus says. “In some I can. In others I can’t.”

“Did you know you could fly here?” Dervish asks.

Beranabus shrugs. “I had a pretty good idea.”

Which means he wasn’t sure. He risked his life when he threw himself after Sharmila. Another sign that he isn’t as cold and unfeeling as he pretends.

As we’re clinging to the wall, the drawbridge closest to us is lowered. It’s amazing how it operates — the bridge and the mechanism driving it are constructed entirely of webs. Even in the middle of my fear and madness I pause and mutter, “Cool!”

There’s no creaking sound as the drawbridge touches down on the other side of the moat. Perfect silence. The demons have stopped chattering and howling. All are focused on the drawbridge now, holding their position, waiting for... what?

We soon find out.

I spy the shadow of something small, coming out of the castle. At first I think it’s the lice-headed, fire-eyed demon we saw when we arrived, but then the figure comes into sight and my heart gives an actual, physical leap.

“Art!”
I scream as my kidnapped brother totters onto the drawbridge. He looks at me and giggles. Exactly as I remembered him. Unharmed by the demons. Not the least bit afraid. Looks as happy and at home as he did in Paskinston.

My initial urge is to rush to my brother, but Beranabus snaps, “Stay where you are!”

“But it’s —”

“I know. But wait. Let’s see what comes out after him.”

As he says it, I see two more shadows appearing. The first of the pair steps out. It’s Cadaver, the demon thief, looking as hairy and loathsome as the last time I saw him. His long ears are upright and his wide white eyes are alert. He picks up Art and glares at us with his half-human, half-canine face. Art cuddles up to the demon and a bolt of jealousy shoots through me.

Then the other figure appears and jealousy washes away to be replaced by awe and terror — and recognition.

The creature is maybe seven or eight feet tall. He has eight arms, each of which ends in stubby, misshapen fingers, with bones sticking out of the flesh. No legs or feet, just long strips of flesh beneath the waist. He doesn’t touch the floor of the drawbridge, but hovers in the air. Lumpy skin, a pale red shade, cracked in dozens of places, blood oozing from the cracks. Bald like me. Dark red eyes, no white at all. A small mouth with a grey tongue and teeth. No nose, just two holes set above his upper lip. A gaping hole in the left side of his chest, where his heart should be. Lots of small snakes inside the hole, wriggling around, hissing and spitting.

This was what I was trying to remember earlier, when Beranabus was asking me about the first window I formed, a year ago, when I went missing. Just before I stepped through, something looked out at me from the other side. It was a demon.
This
demon.

He’s one of the creepiest monsters I’ve seen, but that’s not what sets him apart. He has an air of authority. I can feel the menace, the evil, the energy and power. Easy to see why these other demons obey him, why they stand like soldiers in the presence of a general, awaiting his command, eager to please him, afraid of what he’ll do if he loses his temper.

This is a demon of an entirely different class. I can sense it. So can the others. Even Shark doesn’t look confident any longer. I know now why Beranabus doesn’t want to fight this monster. Why he said we couldn’t.

It’s Lord Loss. It must be. It couldn’t be anybody else.

After several seconds of silence, which I’m sure Lord Loss allows just so we can admire his awful beauty, the demon master reaches out with one of his eight hands and pats Art on the head. Art gurgles and tries to bite into the blood-stained flesh. Lord Loss jerks his hand away before Art brings his teeth together — even demon masters are wary of my little biter of a brother!

His head turns right, slowly. Fresh cracks open around his neck and shoulders. Blood flows from them. He levels his gaze on us, studying us one at a time. Nadia is murmuring the words of some spell — a protective spell perhaps, though I don’t think that will be much use if he decides to attack. Lord Loss observes her longer than the rest of us, frowning softly, then his eyes move on.

As he studies me, I remember how he looked at me before, the way his eyes lingered on me then, how I stood up to him. He could have crossed that night, I’m sure, and taken me. But I stared him down. Made a fist and threatened him with magic. He wasn’t sure how powerful I was. He retreated. That gives me hope and the strength to look at him directly now, without flinching.

“It is pleasing to see you again after all these years, Beranabus,” Lord Loss finally says, breaking the heavy silence. His voice is the saddest I’ve ever heard, as if everyone close to him had recently died in tragic, painful circumstances.

“I don’t know if I would call it a pleasure, exactly,” Beranabus answers.

“This is the first time you have visited me here, though I have felt you pass a few times before. You should not have waited so long, old friend.”