Demon Thief (21 page)

It’s hard to focus. The magic doesn’t come easily here. The stench is foul, but it isn’t fatal, so my body doesn’t automatically generate a magical force field. After a minute or two of fumbling, I construct a weak field of air around my face. It’s not as strong as the field I created in space, and some of the smell seeps through, but it blocks out the worst and allows me to breathe normally.

Shark finds it more difficult than Dervish or me. His magic isn’t designed for subtle spells. With Dervish’s help, he manages to create half a field around the front of his face, but it soon flickers out of existence. In the end he curses, rips the left sleeve off his shirt and wraps it around his mouth and nose. For Shark, that’s as good as it’s going to get.

“Let’s backtrack,” Dervish says, nodding at the black panels behind us. “Try the other panel. It can’t be any worse than —”

“Wait,” I stop him. The marbles have darted forward and are hovering above a pile of pink and brown intestines. The guts heave upwards regularly, then subside, as though the pile is breathing. There must be a demon underneath, feasting on the guts, burrowing through them like a rat.

I advance slowly, digging my toes into the soft ground so I don’t slip, only now realizing that it isn’t really ground, simply a floor of guts. Maybe we’re inside the stomach of a huge demon like the sky monster. If so, I hate to think of where we might have to pass through to get out!

I’m almost level with the base of the pile when the guts on top are thrust off. A demon sticks its head out of the mess and happily shakes it hard from side to side. A green head, a cross between a human’s and a dog’s, with long draping ears and wide white eyes.

“Cadaver!” I roar, startling the demon. When his eyes focus on me, he snarls, claws himself out of the pile of guts and scrabbles away across the floor of intestines.

“After him!” Shark yells, words muffled by his mask. He bounds over the pile of guts, slips and slides into a filthy pool of green and brown liquid. Comes up vomiting again, tearing his mask loose, wheezing for air.

Dervish darts to Shark’s aid while I jog after Cadaver, not too fast, knowing it’s better to go slow and keep my feet than speed up and slip as Shark did.

With his long legs and hairy feet — the hairs acting as grips — Cadaver soon pulls away from me, weaving around mounds of guts and leaping over murky, bubbling pools of blood and waste. I don’t worry about losing track of him — the marbles are hot on his trail, obeying my orders, dogging the demon.

Cadaver treads on one of the longer wormlike monsters. It squeals and writhes beneath him, knocking him over. He screeches with his newly created mouth, hairs on his arms lengthening. Lashes out at the worm, slicing open a long gash down its side. Coiled layers of guts ooze out, adding to the ghoulish stew around it. The worm thrashes wildly, knocks Cadaver down again, pins him beneath its fleshy carcass. Cadaver slashes at the worm with his hairy arms and chews his way through strands of guts that have ended up wrapped around his snout. He soon wriggles free — but by then I’ve caught up with him.

I grab Cadaver’s ears and slam him down on top of the dying worm demon. I’m roaring triumphantly. Cadaver yowls and tries slapping me away. The hairs of one hand graze the side of my face, slicing my right cheek open. But the blood only drives me on with more passion. I grab his throat and throttle him, forgetting what Lord Loss said about naming the thief, intent only on killing this vile beast.

The hairs of Cadaver’s hands snake around my neck and tighten, forming a lasso. We’re strangling each other, face to face, snarling. The first to weaken will be the first to die.

My fingers begin to relax. I glare at them, willing them to close again, to finish the job they started. But they don’t obey. I’m losing — perhaps I’ve already lost. Cadaver is grinning. The hairs tighten another notch, biting into the flesh of my throat, cutting off the last of my air supply. I feel my mouth gasping, eyes bulging, fingers scrabbling at the hairs instead of Cadaver’s throat, trying to undo them.

Then a dripping, stinking Shark is beside me. A tattooed fist smashes Cadaver between the eyes. The demon grunts and the hairs loosen. Shark hits him again. The hairs slip away. I topple. Dervish catches me and props me up while Shark pummels Cadaver, beating all the fight out of the demon.

I breathe again, painfully, oxygen trickling through to my lungs. It feels like my throat has been crushed to splinters. Dervish places my hands on my wounded flesh and says, “Magic.” I repair the damage. It doesn’t take long. I’m getting used to fixing up my body.

When my throat’s working normally, I check on Shark and Cadaver. The exsoldier is still hitting the demon, but with less force, just to keep him in place. Shark catches my eye and winks. “You can take him off my hands, or leave him to me for a few hours. I don’t mind either way.”

“It’s OK,” I tell him. “You’ve done enough. Thanks.”

Shark steps away and I take his place. Cadaver glowers at me, his face bruised and bloody. I hear Shark complaining about the stench and how he doubts he’ll ever be able to wash himself clean. I tune him out and focus. Recall Lord Loss’s words. Touch Cadaver’s forehead. Start to call him the demon thief.

Then stop.

Is this really the one who stole Art? Maybe it’s another demon in disguise, and Lord Loss is trying to trick me. I look for the marbles and find them floating a few feet above us. “Locate Cadaver,” I mutter, and they immediately strike at the demon beneath me, causing him to yelp and turn his head aside. I grab the marbles, stick them in my pocket, then — with one hand still on Cadaver’s forehead — shout, “This is the demon thief!”

Nothing happens. I was expecting a flash of lightning, a peal of thunder or an earthquake, something suitably dramatic. But there’s no difference. I start to shout it again, in case I wasn’t heard the first time. But somebody claps before I get the words out. I whirl and spot Lord Loss, floating in the air thirty feet above us, smiling sadly, applauding sarcastically.

“Such courage and imagination, Cornelius,” the demon master murmurs. “The marbles were an excellent idea. They’re only ordinary marbles, but you made them a catalyst for your magic, channeled your power through them. That spoiled my fun slightly — brought us to this juncture sooner than I anticipated — but I cannot bear a grudge. You are a true Disciple and master of magic.”

He stops clapping and sighs. “But you miscalled the name of the thief. Cadaver is not the guilty party. One chance gone — you have two more.”

“No!” I scream as Cadaver shuffles backwards, sneering at me. “He stole Art! It’s him, not a demon in disguise! It’s Cadaver!”

“Yes,” Lord Loss agrees pleasantly. “It
is
Cadaver. But he is not the true demon thief.”

“But...he must be...he...”

Inspiration strikes. Lord Loss said I had to find the
true
thief. Cadaver was a hired stooge. A puppet in the hands of his employer. He carried out the actual theft of Art, but he wasn’t the brains behind it. The real thief must be the one who planned it, gave the order and paid the bounty.

I crouch, directing magic into my legs. Fix on Lord Loss. Adjust my aim. Then launch myself at him, flying through the air, leaping like a frog or cricket, covering the thirty feet in the flash of an eyelid.

Lord Loss is taken by surprise. He brings his eight hands together to ward me off, but too late. I have hold of him before he can repel me. Digging my fingers into his lumpy flesh — doughlike in feel as well as appearance — I scream at him, sure I’m right this time. “
You’re
the true thief!”

Lord Loss throws me down. I hit a bulging sac of intestines. It explodes, showering me with blood, an acidy liquid and fragments of guts. I laugh carelessly, wallowing in the mess as though taking a bath, jeering at Lord Loss, smug at having beaten him at his own game. Dervish and Shark are staring at me uncertainly. They don’t have my insight. They’re not sure I’m right. But I am. As sure as I’ve ever been of anything. All that’s left now is for Lord Loss to...

“Very clever, Cornelius,” he says, cutting short my celebration. “But not clever enough, my poor young friend. I am
not
the true thief.

“Two chances gone — one remains.”

His smile is chilling.

THE TRUE THIEF

“Y
OU’RE
lying!” I scream.

Lord Loss shakes his head slowly. “I do not lie.”

“You have to be the thief! You gave the order for Art to be stolen! If Cadaver isn’t the thief, it can only be you!”

“But it isn’t,” he says calmly. “Doubt my word if you wish, but Beranabus knows it is sacred. He is watching this now. If I lied to you, he would have cause to seek revenge. And while I do not fear Beranabus, I would rather not promote him, especially when there is no need.

“Search again, Cornelius Fleck. Look for the
real
demon thief. You will find him if your heart is true and your eyes are clear. Then you will understand. And be set free.” He raises a hand warningly. “But you have only once chance left. If you make a third wrong call, your souls are mine, as we agreed.”

I feel angry tears in my eyes. Blink them away. I’m still not sure if he’s telling the truth, but I have no choice other than to believe him. I have to focus. Think. If it’s not Cadaver or Lord Loss, then
who?
Trying to make sense of it. Crazy thoughts flickering through my head —

Maybe Beranabus struck a bargain with Lord Loss to steal Art. He might have sensed my power and wanted to draw me into this universe.

Mrs. Egin? The witch opened the passageway for Cadaver. Perhaps she was the true thief. But she’s dead. Unless, like Nadia, her soul has been preserved here.

Mom and Dad? Maybe they got into trouble or craved power, sold Art to Lord Loss, arranged for him to be kidnapped when they were away.

Madness. But the way my mind is whirring, I can almost believe it. I could believe the worst of just about anyone right now. Dervish, Shark, Sharmila — they’re all suspects. Maybe the thief doesn’t have to be a demon. It might be one of my closest allies.

Dervish steps up beside me and speaks in my right ear. “Don’t like to rush you, Kernel, but we have company.”

I look around and spy the demons from Lord Loss’s castle. He’s brought them into the Board with him. They’re creeping up on us, sliding over and around the chains and hills of guts. I spot the alligator-headed demon — Vein — off to my left, flanked by the fire-eyed hell-child. Advancing steadily along with the others.

My gaze passes on, then stops and returns to the hellish baby. I keep seeing him since I came to Lord Loss’s kingdom. First when we arrived, then in the castle, the maze and volcanic zone, now here. Why does this demon cross my path more than any other? He’s a fearsome little beast, with his fiery eyes, lice-ridden head and mouths in the palms of his hands. But no more frightening or vicious than a hundred of his kin. What draws me to him time and time again?

“We need to move,” Shark says, nudging me hard in the ribs. “We can get out if we act fast, but in another minute they’ll have blocked the path to the panels, and we’ll have to fight.”

“It’s one of them,” I mutter, glancing at the hordes of demons, then at the hell-child again. “The thief’s here. I’m certain.”

But you were
certain
it was Lord Loss,
the voice inside my head says, the first time for ages that it’s spoken.

“It has to be one of them!” I cry.

Unless it’s Beranabus, or Dervish, or your father,
the voice says, and I don’t know whether it’s mocking my earlier hysteria or hinting I was on the right track.

“Kernel!” Dervish hisses. “We have to decide
now!”

“Do not rush him,” Lord Loss murmurs. “It is a hard, momentous decision. You should give it more thought, Cornelius. Escape. Rest. Ponder. You have more time than you could possibly imagine. Wait a hundred years, then try again. You don’t want to act on a hunch, do you? Risk all on a blind gamble?”

“He’s right,” Shark shouts, grabbing my arm and turning me in the direction of the panels. “Survival first — strategy second. Let’s get the hell out while we —”

I pull free of Shark. “No! We’ll never be free if we don’t find him now! It’s the hell-child! It must be! I keep seeing him!”

“You can’t know that, Kernel,” Dervish says. “Not for sure. Why him?”

“I don’t know! I just...”

Cursing, I race after the hellish child, ignoring the threat of the demons and the possibility of escape. I’m gambling, a bigger gamble than any I’ve ever taken, but I have to. This is the moment when everything will be decided. That’s why Lord Loss is here. He wants to see me fail, be here in person to gloat. But I can’t worry about failing. I have to believe this is my chance, my time. And pray to all the gods that I don’t waste it.

The hell-child sees that I’ve set my sights on him. He squeals with surprise, turns and flees. Vein snarls and sets herself between us, blocking my path to the demonic baby. Other demons pile in around her, increasing my belief that the hell-child is the thief.

“Shark!” I roar. “Dervish! Help me get through!”

They answer my call without question, placing their faith and future in my hands. They drive ahead, savaging the demons, Shark pounding them with his fists, Dervish scattering them with bolts of magic. I try not to dwell on the trust these men have shown in me, the awful fate which awaits them if I let them down.

A demon made entirely of bones throws itself at my legs. I kick out at it, smash its jaw, leap over the pieces of skeleton as they clatter to the ground. I’ve passed Dervish. Shark is wrestling with demons just ahead of me, to my right. “Leg up!” I shout, and Shark crouches, cups his hands together, holds them out for me to step into. Then hurls me up, forward and over the heads of the demons in front of us.

I hit the floor running. Almost skid on the guts and go flying into a pool of gore, but flail with my arms and keep my balance. The hell-child is directly ahead of me, looking back, snarling with a mix of hate and fear. My speed propels me past him. I snatch wildly as I race past, unable to slow down. Grab one of the demon’s bony arms. Haul him forward with me, the hell-child shrieking like a real baby.