“Many hours,” Beranabus says, handing me the bread.
“Eight? Ten? Twelve?”
He shrugs.
I look for my watch, but the strap must have snapped during the night of my turning. Standing, I rub the sides of my back, stretch and groan. “Haven’t you heard of beds?” I complain.
“You’ll grow accustomed to the floor after a few months.”
I squint at him. Months? I’ve no intention of being here that long. But before I can challenge him, he walks over to the fire where the sour-faced boy is still perched close to the flames. I follow, tearing a chunk out of the loaf, gobbling it. The bread’s chewy and I haven’t any butter, but I’m so hungry I could happily eat cardboard.
Beranabus sits close to the boy. I stay on my feet, studying the curious couple. Ancient Beranabus and the teenager, not much older than me. The shabby, bearded, hairy, suited magician and the boy – his apprentice or servant? – in drab but clean clothes, completely bald. The boy’s dark flesh is laced with small scars and fading bruises. The tips of the two smallest fingers on his left hand are missing. His eyes have a faraway, miserable look. He wears no shoes. Beranabus is barefoot too, his boots discarded.
“Grubitsch Grady meet Kernel Fleck,” Beranabus introduces us.
“Grubbs,” I correct him, sticking out a hand. The boy only grunts. “What about your name?” I ask, trying to be friendly despite his cold welcome. “Is it Colonel, like in the army?”
“No. Kernel, like in popcorn,” Beranabus answers after a few seconds of stony silence. “It’s short for something longer, but neither of us can remember what.”
Kernel sniffs and faces the fire. There are sausages speared to a stick close by. He picks up the stick and jams the sausages into the flames. Mutters a spell. The heat of the fire increases and the sausages cook in seconds. He takes one off, blows on it and eats it, then takes off another and gives it to Beranabus. After a pause, he removes a third sausage and offers it to me.
“Thanks,” I say, biting into it. Too hot, but delicious. I ravenously munch my way through it, then gratefully accept another.
“Kernel does most of the cooking,” Beranabus says, holding a sausage in one hand, picking at dirt beneath the nails of his right foot with the other.
“I have to,” Kernel says. “He’d eat the food raw if I didn’t.”
“It’s all the same once your stomach processes it,” Beranabus snorts. “Hot, cold, cooked, raw… it doesn’t make any difference when you’re squatting over a hole.”
“A hole?” I frown.
“No toilets,” Kernel says, looking at Beranabus sourly.
Kernel cooks some chicken legs, again using his spell. (I wonder where they get the food from, but don’t ask.) He piles them on a dusty, cracked plate, then cooks some ribs and potatoes. That done, he takes what he wants from the plate and passes it across.
Bernabus bites into his chicken leg, then looks over at me. “Tell me everything about the last few months. I know a lot already, but I want the complete story. When you realised your body was changing, how the magic developed, the way you dealt with it.”
“I thought you were the one meant to provide answers.”
“I will,” he promises. “But you first. It will make my job easier.”
While we eat, I fill him in on all that happened, discovering my magical ability after Slawter, fighting it, the sickness, using magic to counter the threat of the werewolf.
“Why did you fight the magic in the first place?” he interrupts. “Most people would be thrilled if they found themselves in your position.”
“I know what magic entails,” I say quietly. “It’s linked to the Demonata. I’ve been part of that crazy universe before. I didn’t want to get sucked into it again.”
Beranabus and Kernel share a look. Then Beranabus tells me to continue.
I explain about the cave we unearthed in Carcery Vale, going there under the influence of the beast, digging through the rubble blocking the entrance, Loch’s accident, Dervish covering up, Juni entering our lives.
“Who’s Juni Swan?” Kernel asks Beranabus.
“One of Lord Loss’s assistants,” Beranabus says, squinting. “Actually she…” He stops and clears his throat. “We can discuss Miss Swan and her background later. Finish, please, Grubitsch.”
“It’s Grubbs,” I correct him again, then cover the last couple of days and nights, the werewolf taking over, killing Bill-E’s grandparents, Juni whipping me out of town and betraying me on the plane. I tell the story as quickly as I can, eager to get it out of the way. I don’t go into all the details, like the voice and the face in the rock, figuring they’re not important. I can tell Beranabus about them later.
Beranabus listens silently, then spends a couple of minutes thinking about what I’ve said. “The boy who fell,” he finally says, echoing Dervish’s concerns when he first came to the cave. “Was it definitely an accident? Nobody else was–”
“No,” I cut in. “We were alone, just the three of us. He slipped, fell, died. An accident. No demons or evil mages were involved.”
“Good,” Beranabus grunts. “When I heard the entrance had been excavated and someone had died in the cave, I feared the worst — especially since my spells of warning hadn’t worked. I should have been alerted the moment the first rock was lifted out. I assumed a powerful mage had spun a counterspell and was preparing the way for a demon invasion. I’ve never moved so quickly in my life.”
“He ran like his feet were on fire,” Kernel says, smiling for the first time — but it’s a brief, thin smile.
“Dervish told me about the cave,” I say softly. “How it was used as a crossing point for demons. He said the tunnel between universes could be reopened, that the Demonata could come through in their thousands and take over our world. You don’t think Juni and Lord Loss…?”
“No.” Beranabus smiles wryly, showing his crooked, discoloured teeth. “Lord Loss has no interest in opening tunnels between universes. Most demons want to destroy humanity, but Lord Loss thrives on human misery. He’s as keen to keep that tunnel closed as we are.”
Beranabus picks at his teeth with a thin chicken bone. His breath stinks. In fact most of him stinks. He obviously isn’t concerned about personal hygiene. Finally, laying the bone aside, he speaks again. “The cave brought me to Carcery Vale, but you’re why I stayed. I could feel the power in you, bursting to be released. I wanted to be there when it exploded — or when you imploded.”
“Imploded?”
“You could have burnt up. If the magic hadn’t found an outlet, it would have destroyed you from within. There was no way of telling until the full moon, when I knew you’d be pushed to the point where you and the beast had to settle the matter once and for all.
“The werewolf is the key,” he continues. “The curse of the Gradys. Many centuries ago, your ancestors bred with demons.”
“Bred?” I yelp. “No way!”
“It doesn’t happen often,” Beranabus says. “Most demons are physically incompatible with humans. But it’s not unheard of. When such unions occur, the offspring are never natural. Humans and demons weren’t meant to mix. When they do, their children are freaks of the highest order, neither human nor demon, caught painfully between. Most die at birth. But some survive.”
His face is dark, shadows flickering across it from the flames of the fire. “A few grow and thrive, either in the demon’s universe or ours. Your ancestor’s child was one of those. The magical strand of the Demonata stayed hidden, at least