Dark Calling (6 page)

“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—”

“Enough,” the man snaps. “You are coming.
Now.
”

I reach for his head, to tear it all the way off. Before I can, the man’s eyes open wide and the ball of light gushes from
them, as well as from his mouth and the gap in his throat. The light is blinding. I squeeze my eyelids shut, but the glare
sears through them and I see almost as clearly as if they were open.

As light streams from the man, he explodes, his body ripping apart as if someone had planted a stick of dynamite inside him.
The blast sends me flying backwards, through the window, which shatters behind me, stranding the others and cutting me off
from the world of all things human.

T
HE
ball of light sails through the window with me. It completely envelops me, crackling over my creamy brown skin, tickling
my hairless scalp, buzzing in my ears. I’m warm and comfortable in its embrace. I think this is what it must be like for a
baby in its mother’s womb.

I try to fight the enveloping light, to break free of its hold, but it just buckles and bulges to match my movements. Finally
I settle back and conserve my energy, saving it for when I can focus it more usefully.

I study my surroundings. Though the multicolored ball of light holds me in its grasp like fingers clutched around a coin,
it’s translucent. There are other lights beyond, patches and panels, a dazzling variety of colors and sizes. They fill the
area around us completely. No stars, sky, or planets. A universe of lights.

We’re floating through them, sliding from one patch to another, following some sort of hidden path. I hope. Or maybe there’s
no path and we’re lost. Perhaps this is what the lights wanted all along, to strand me in this wilderness. But I don’t think
so. We seem to be moving meaningfully. Or is that just wishful thinking?

Whatever the truth, I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Whenever I’ve stepped through a window, I’ve emerged
instantly on another world. This is like traveling through an immense tunnel.

“Correct,” the voice says. The ball of light can evidently read my thoughts, which is bad news—I can’t spring any surprises.
“We are traveling farther than you have ever been, but we are still in your universe. Space is not as easily traversed here
as in the Demonata’s realm.”

“Where are we going?” I ask. Except I don’t ask out loud. My mouth won’t open. “What’s going on?” I cry silently.

“There is no oxygen,” the voice explains. “You are cocooned. It is the easiest way to travel. Don’t worry—it will not last
long and you won’t be harmed.”

I’m not sure I trust the voice, but there’s nothing I can do except lie back and accept it. “So where are we going?” I ask
again, trying to sound casual.

“You will find out soon,” the voice replies and says nothing more, leaving me to study the spectacular light show in awed,
helpless silence.

  After several minutes we zone in on a massive patch of green light. As we pass through, the cocoon around me slips away and
I tumble to a cracked stone floor. My mouth opens and I drag in a lungful of acidic but breathable air. Pinching my nose shut
to block out the stench, I look around. I’m in a domed chamber. The ball of light hangs in the air several feet away, pulsing
steadily. The stones around us are throbbing in unison.

Blanking my thoughts, desperate not to betray myself, I back away. There’s an exit behind me. As I reach it, I pause, expecting
the ball of light to shoot across and block my way. When nothing happens, I slip out of the chamber and scurry through a short,
narrow tunnel.

The tunnel opens out onto a plateau. I race away from the chamber, planning to put plenty of space between myself and the
ball of light. But the air here is foul and my body revolts. As a stitch hits me hard, I collapse, gasping for air, lungs
straining, head aching.

After a minute of painful gasping, the stitch eases and I stand. Instead of running again, I turn slowly and study my surroundings.
I’m on a ruined world. The sky is a dark purple color, full of poisonous-looking clouds. Forks of lightning split the air
every few seconds although I can hear no thunder. When the lightning hits the ground, the dark earth flashes and explodes
in short-lived funnels of dirt, mud, and pebbles.

Huge, bone-like pillars jut out of the scorched, pockmarked earth. At first I think they’re the remains of giant demons. I’ve
seen plenty of sky demons in my time, massive monsters, some the size of a world. But the longer I look, the more convinced
I become that these aren’t bones, but rather the remains of buildings.

Wandering slowly to the nearest pile of pillars, breathing shallowly, I find that they’re made of some sort of metal. That
confuses me. Demons aren’t builders. Some create houses or palaces, even towns and cities, modeled after those on Earth. But
they use bones, flesh, cobwebs, plants, and other organic substances to fashion their facsimiles. I’ve never known a demon
to utilize metal or concrete.

The voice told me we were still in the human universe. I thought we slipped out of it when we crossed through the window,
but it looks like we didn’t. I don’t know where I am, but I’m pretty sure it’s not a demon world.

As I move through the ash-ridden remains of what was once maybe a skyscraper, something moves in the filth nearby. Jumping
backwards, I try to absorb magic from the air, but there’s virtually nothing to tap into. Like Earth, this is a zone of little
or no magical energy.

The thing wriggles clear of the hard mud and debris it was nestling beneath. It looks like a giant slug, but with six small
eyes, a jagged gash for a mouth, and other human-looking bits and pieces—a few fingers, a toe, a strip of flesh that might
be an ear. The eyes stare at me for a moment, then the mouth opens and it thrusts itself at my face, making a gruesome, high-pitched
noise.

The slug creature strikes my chest and I fall. It’s on me in a flash, slithering to my face, leaving a slimy trail. Thin fingers
scratch at my chin, then a grey, cold slit clamps over my mouth and nostrils. I feel it tighten on my lips and nose, and the
slug squeals with excitement as I struggle for air.