Darren Shan - Hell's Heroes

Before I can go insane with guilt, I notice beings blinking back into existence. The Old Creatures and the Demonata who were alive when Bec, Kernel, and I became the Kah-Gash are revived and returned to their proper places in the universe. The dismayed Old Creatures pop up in the black squares and wail at all that has been lost. The delighted Demonata—both the original demons and those they sired—materialize in the white squares and go wild with joy.

Time has been eradicated. Humanity and their kind are no more and never were. The original order has been restored. Death can function as an unconscious force, the way it was meant to. Demons will live forever, breed, and kill without limits. The Old Creatures will drift along meaninglessly in their otherwise lifeless zones, or be tracked down and slaughtered by demons. The Shadow and the Demonata have won.

The end.

“No, you idiot, it’s the beginning.”

Bec laughs, and light bubbles around me. I blink and shield my eyes with a hand. Then frown. Hang on—I’m a bodiless force. I don’t have eyes or hands.

“You do now,” Bec giggles.

Lowering my hand, I stare with astonishment at the little girl sitting on a couch I know only too well. It’s from my old home, the mansion in Carcery Vale. I’m in the enormous living room, in my regular spot opposite the oversize TV. Bec’s sitting across from me, smirking. A confused-looking Kernel is in a seat nearby.

“What the hell…” I stop, something about my hand unnerving me. I turn it over, wondering what’s wrong. Then I realize—there are no hairs. The skin is smooth and pale. The fingers are large but not inhuman, and instead of claws I have ordinary fingernails. I’m not a werewolf.

“Of course you aren’t,” Bec snorts. “Not unless you choose to be. You can make yourself muscular and hairy if you want, but I’d rather you didn’t. You looked so silly prancing about as a man-wolf.”

She gets to her feet and walks to the window. She’s dressed in simple clothes, just a cloak or something like that wrapped around her. I’m in my favorite jeans and T-shirt. Kernel’s wearing something similar.

I follow Bec to the window. As I cross the room, I spot objects snapping into place around me—vases, books, pictures. The room is still forming.

Bec is staring out of the window at nothing. And I mean real nothing. It’s black out there, the pure blackness of empty space. As I watch, some of the garden from home sprouts into view and spreads, looking strange against the dark backdrop. I see Bec’s reflected smile in the glass. She turns and beams at me.

“What’s going on?” I mumble.

“I’m making a temporary base for us,” she says. “I figured it might help us adjust more smoothly.”

“And these?” I ask, nodding at our bodies. “Are they real?”

“As real as we want them to be,” she says enigmatically, returning to the couch.

“What does that mean?” Kernel snaps. “Is this a dream? Reality? How are you…” He stops, head twisting from one side to the other. “I can’t see the lights,” he whispers.

“Of course not,” Bec says. “We are the lights now. They were part of the Kah-Gash. Now that we’ve become it, you don’t need to see them. We’ve moved beyond that stage. We’re not physical beings. We don’t really have eyes or ears, or even brains. You have to start thinking bigger than that.”

“How about you just explain it to us nice and simply before we lose patience,” I growl, flexing my fingers.

Bec laughs. “You can’t threaten me, Grubbs. This body’s for show. You could grind it to dust and it wouldn’t make the least difference.” She clicks her fingers, and her head explodes. Blood pumps from her neck. Kernel and I yelp with shock. Then a new head grows out of the stump. Her eyes open and she winks. She waves a hand over the blood on the couch and it fades.

“I don’t get it,” I mutter. “Is this fantasy? Are we dead?”

“No, you moron,” Bec says. “We’re the Kah-Gash. The universe is us and we’re the universe. We’re the glue holding everything together, the power that drives it, the force…” She sees incomprehension in my eyes and sighs. “Are you getting any of this?” she asks Kernel.

“I think so,” he says slowly. “But…” His face drops. “We destroyed the world! The people we knew—are they all…?”

“Dead,” Bec says cheerfully. “Torn to atoms, then broken down even further. None of that universe exists any longer. Time and all its creations are lost forever. In this universe they only ever existed”—she taps her head—“up here.”

“I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” I snarl, advancing on her, trying to figure out a way to kill her, to make her pay for the awful massacre she tricked us into engineering.

“Don’t be a child,” Bec tuts. “I didn’t trick you into anything. I tricked them — the Demonata and Death. It was the only way. Bran figured it out. He couldn’t be certain it would work, but in the absence of any alternatives, we had to risk it.”

“If you don’t start making sense quickly…”

Bec shakes her head. “With such a small brain, I don’t know how you made it this far.” As I open my mouth to protest, she points a finger at me. “The trigger.” She points to Kernel. “The eyes.” She taps her chest. “The memory. You gave us the power to undo time and all its trappings. Kernel guided us. And I absorbed.”

She waves a hand at the ceiling and it turns transparent. The sky above is black. Impossible to see anything. But as we watch, an object comes into focus. I’m not sure where the light that strikes it comes from, but it’s fully lit and even more recognizable than the room we’re sitting in. It’s the moon, full-size and round, a pockmarked pearl in a sea of darkness.

“I remembered everything about the original universe,” Bec says, smiling up at the lunar giant. “I couldn’t access those memories, but they had to be there. If that universe was ever to be reassembled, the Kah-Gash would need the blueprints to restore everything accurately.

“Bran knew that too. It’s what gave him the idea. He figured if the memory of the Kah-Gash could store everything from the original universe, it should be able to memorize all of the new universes too.

“I was busy while you two were incinerating galaxies,” Bec continues. “To rip the universes to shreds, we had to touch every planet, person, animal, atom. As we touched and tore, I committed everything to memory. The whole of history, from the moment of the Big Bang to the end… it’s all up here.” She taps her head.

“I know the names of every intelligent being, the spots on the wings of every butterfly that broke out of a cocoon, the genetic codes of the simplest and most complex of creatures. I know how suns functioned, how worlds formed, how life evolved. All of the secrets of the old universes are mine. They can be yours too, if you want me to share, though I suspect you aren’t bothered.”

“So you remember,” I grunt. “So what? It’s still gone, isn’t it?”

“Gone but not forgotten,” Kernel murmurs, his forehead crinkling thoughtfully. “Look at these bodies—they’re real. Perfect replicas, down to the smallest detail. That’s right, isn’t it, Bec?” She nods. “And the moon is real too?”

“Exactly the way it was before we blew it to pieces,” Bec grins.

“We can bring it all back!” Kernel shouts. “The Kah-Gash has the power to tear a universe apart, but it also has the power to rebuild it!”

“That’s what Bran counted on,” Bec chuckles.

I stare at the pair of them, still confused. “What’s the point of building a fake universe?”