“You looked like an idiot with your eyes shut,” Beranabus grunts.
“You’re a bully,” I pout, then laugh with relief and hug him. He’s laughing too, but Grubbs isn’t. The teenager glares at us. He’s lost his brother and abandoned his uncle and home. He’s in no mood to give a stuff about my well-being. But that’s fine. Right now I can’t sympathise with him either. All I care about is that I can see. I relish my new eyes, drinking in the sights of the demon world.
I’m so happy, it’s several hours before I realise I can see more than before, that my new eyes have opened up a wonder of the universe previously hidden from me.
→ I’ve always been able to see patches of light which are invisible to everybody else. For years I thought they were products of my imagination, that I was slightly (lightly) crazy. Then I learnt they were part of the realm of magic. I have a unique talent. I can manually slot the patches together and create windows between universes, far faster than anyone else.
I use my talent to help Beranabus save the world from demons. The magician has been around for thousands of years and has spent much of that time patrolling the demon universe, protecting humanity from its savage, nightmarish hordes. Although demons have limitless galaxies of their own, they long to cross over — they love killing humans.
Beranabus stops them. He ensures no tunnels are built between universes, holds the demon armies in check, prevents mass crossings. I assist him. My gift allows us to zip from one part of the demon universe to another and track down just about any demon we want.
I thought I might not be able to see the lights with my new eyes, but they work the same way as my original pair. I can still see the multicoloured patches, and when I think of a specific place, person or thing, some of the lights flash and I can slot them together to create a window. In fact I can do it quicker than before and my powers on Earth are greater than they were. Where I used to struggle to open windows on my own world, now I can do it swiftly and easily.
But now there are other lights. At first I thought they were illusionary specks, that my new eyes weren’t working properly. But I soon realised the lights were real and fundamentally different to those I was familiar with. They’re smaller, they change shape and their colours mutate. The regular lights never alter in size or shade, but these new patches grow and subside, bleed from one colour to another. A square pink panel can lengthen into a triangular blue patch, then gradually twist into an orange octagon, and so on.
They shimmer too. Their edges flicker like faulty fluorescent tubes. Sometimes creases run through them, like ripples spreading across the face of a pond.
I can’t control the new lights. They ignore me when I try to manipulate them. In fact, if I start to get close, they glide away from me.
There aren’t many of them, no more than twenty or thirty anywhere I go. But they worry me. There’s something deeply unsettling about them. I initially thought that I was nervous of them just because they were new. But several weeks later, as I was trying to coax them nearer and link them up, they whispered to me.
I know it’s ridiculous. Lights can’t whisper. But I swear I heard a voice calling to me. It sounded like static to begin with, but then it came into focus, a single word repeated over and over. It’s the same word the lights have been whispering to me ever since, softly, slyly, seductively.
Come…”
A WORD IN YOUR EAR
→ Beranabus unleashes a burst of magic and the gazelle-shaped demon we’ve been chasing stops in its tracks. The beast turns and snarls at us. It has the head of a human baby. Opening its mouth, it wails. The noise increases sharply and blood trickles from my ears and nose. I use magic to mute the demon’s cry. Beranabus and Grubbs do the same and the three of us close in on the mewling monster.
When the demon realises it can’t harm us with its harpy-like wailing, it falls silent and its look of hatred changes to one of fear. It knows who we are and what we want.
I hang back while Beranabus tortures the creature. I have a problem with demons that model themselves after babies or young children. I can’t bring myself to hurt them, even though I know they’ve only stolen their human attributes.
I was a lonely child. Driven by unhappiness, I unintentionally tapped into my powers, kidnapped a demon and used magic to make it look like a baby. I convinced myself the changeling was my brother and I maintained the lie for ages. I was shattered when I learnt the truth. Demons like this one make me think of my “brother” Art and I go cold at the thought of harming them. Beranabus understands. He doesn’t try to push me.
Grubbs rips off the demon’s head. The baby-faced monster squeals with pain and terror, but doesn’t die. In this universe of magic almost anything is possible. Physical dismemberment won’t necessarily kill a demon. You need to use magic to finish it off.
Grubbs hates this life even more than I do. When I agreed to join Beranabus and devote myself to battling demons, I didn’t have a better choice. My parents knew I wasn’t normal, and though they loved me, they feared what I might do. I didn’t have any friends. It was Beranabus or a life of isolation and loneliness.
Grubbs has an uncle who he loves like a father. He has lots of friends. He could have rejected his destiny. I’m not really sure why he didn’t. Maybe it was the call of the Kah-Gash. Perhaps the weapon persuaded him to leave the human world and ride the demonic waves of this universe with Beranabus and me.
“The Shadow,” Beranabus snarls, grabbing the baby’s head from Grubbs and gouging out one of its snake-shaped eyes. “Tell us all you know and we’ll let you go. Otherwise…” He moves his thumb over the creature’s other eye.
The Shadow is our latest foe in a long line of monstrous opponents. Beranabus thinks it’s our most dangerous enemy yet, but I’m not worried. I’ve seen all manner of unimaginable demons. In the early days I thought each was invincible. Every time we went up against one, I was sure we were doomed. But we always got the better of the beasts, pinpointed their weak spots, defeated them with cunning if brute force failed.
I know it’s dangerous to assume we’ll overcome every demon we go up against, but I can’t help thinking that way. I’m sure the Shadow will fall to us when we face it, just like all the others. It’s simply a matter of time, patience and violence.
Beranabus and Grubbs believe the Shadow is the herald of universal doom. They saw it in the cave when I was blind, a huge beast that seemed to be made from strips of shadow. They say it was deadlier than anything else we’ve fought. Maybe they’re right. If I’d seen it, I might be trembling with fear too. But I don’t think so. It’s just another demon. We’ve fought and killed thousands of them since I joined Beranabus. How can this one be any different?
→ We’re hunting a flock of sheep-like demons. Each boasts dozens of woolly heads dotted around its body, no eyes or ears, just large mouths full of sharp teeth. Beranabus hopes they know something about the Shadow, but I think he’s scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The Shadow is as elusive as the name we’ve given it suggests. We’ve learnt almost nothing of the creature in all the time we’ve been trying to track it. We know it’s gathering an army of demons, that it’s promised to wipe out mankind and restore the universe to its original condition (whatever that means), but everything else about it is a mystery.
These minor demons – easy pickings for stronger members of the Demonata – won’t provide us with any clues. We’re wasting our time, as we’ve wasted it on so many worlds. We’ll torture them, kill a few, then move on, no wiser than when we stepped through the window and set off in chase of the howling beasts.
As we close in on the flock, I sense a throbbing in the air nearby and draw to a halt.
“Come on!” Beranabus shouts. “Don’t stop now. We–”