Darren Shan - Demon Apocalypse

“Listen to him,” Kernel jeers. “He sounds like a five-year-old. I wouldn’t have thought someone his age and size could be so gutless. Maybe he—”

“Enough!” Beranabus barks. Sighing, he heads to his table and motions me to follow. He sits on an old wooden chair, stretches his legs out, cracks his knuckles above his head and yawns. Lowering his hands, he fiddles with some of the flowers, shuffles papers around, then takes a drawing out of one of the drawers and stares at it.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly.

“No,” he sighs. “It was my fault. I thought you were made of stronger stuff. I could see the fear in you and your reluctance to get involved. But given your background, I thought you’d shrug it off once faced with a demon, that you’d rise to the occasion like you did before.”

“It was different then,” I tell him. “I didn’t know what I was getting into the first time, and in Slawter I was trapped. I had no choice but to fight. I’ve had so many horrible nights since then, so many nightmares. I’m not just scared of demons now—I’m bloody terrified.”

“I understand,” Beranabus says. “I didn’t before, but I do now.” He studies the drawing again, then lays it aside. “I’m a poor judge of character. I’ve made mistakes before, taken children into the universe of the Demonata when they weren’t ready, lost them cheaply. But they’ve always been fighters. This is the first time I’ve taken someone who lacked the stomach for battle. It was a grave error on my part. I should have known better.”

“You’re not mad at me?”

“No. I’m sad. You have such ability, it’s a shame to see it go to waste. But if the fighting instinct isn’t there, there’s no point moping. I thought you were a warrior. I was wrong. You don’t criticise a pony for not being a horse.”

He falls silent and looks around at the flowers on the table. I’m not sure I like his comparison. Never thought of myself as Grubbs Grady—pony! But I guess it’s appropriate. I might lack the guts to be a hero, but at least I’ve pride enough not to whinge when the truth is pointed out.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

“I can’t fight. So what happens? Will you take me back? Set me loose in the desert? What?”

Beranabus frowns. “I can’t spare much time. You wouldn’t survive outside and it would be cruel to make you wait here indefinitely. I’ll take you to the nearest human outpost. You’ll have to make your own way from there. Once you get home, tell Dervish what happened. Ask him to help you work on your magic. Even if you can’t fight, you can watch for demons. Become a Disciple. I know you’d rather keep out of this completely, but you might make a difference. Do you think you could do that?”

“Sure,” I gush, delighted to be told I’m not entirely worthless. “I avoided magic because I thought if I learnt it, I’d have to fight demons. But if I just have to be a watchdog…”

“Good choice of words,” Kernel snorts.

“Now, now,” Beranabus tuts. “Let’s not be ungracious.”

Kernel spits into the fire. His spit sizzles, revealing more about his opinion of me than he could ever say with words.

“When do we leave?” I ask, eager to be out of here, free of this confining cave and Kernel’s scorn.

“Soon,” Beranabus promises. “I need to get some sleep, and eat when I wake, but after that we’ll depart.”

“Great,” I grin, turning away to let the elderly magician go to bed. Then I remember the noises and turn to tell him. “I forgot, somebody’s been…”

I come to a halt. Beranabus is leaning over, stroking the leaves of one of the flowers, smiling fondly at it. I can see the drawing he was looking at earlier. It’s a pencil sketch of a girl’s face. And though the paper is yellow and wrinkled with age, the face is shockingly familiar.

“Who’s that?” I croak. Beranabus looks up questioningly. I point a trembling finger at the drawing. “The girl—who is she?”

“Someone who died a very long time ago,” Beranabus says, touching the paper. “She sacrificed her life fighting the Demonata, to keep the world safe. An example to us all. Not that I’m trying to make you feel small. I didn’t mean—”

“There was a voice,” I interrupt, eyes fixed on the drawing. “At the cave in Carcery Vale. I didn’t mention it before—it didn’t seem to matter and there was so much else to tell you. But when I went to the cave, I heard a voice and saw a face in the rocks. It was alive. Even though it was in the rock, it could open its eyes and move its lips. It spoke to me.”

I pick up the drawing and study the girl’s face, the curve of her jaw, the eyes and mouth. “This is the girl from the cave. She called to me… warned me, I think, but I don’t know what of. She spoke in a different lan—”

“It can’t be!” Beranabus snaps, snatching the drawing back. “This girl has been dead for almost sixteen hundred years. You’re mistaken.”

“No,” I say certainly. “It was her. I’m sure of it. Who the hell was she and why did she try so hard to contact me?”

In answer to that, Beranabus only sits and stares at me, shocked—and afraid.

“Impossible!” Beranabus keeps croaking. “Impossible!” He’s striding around the cave, hair and eyes even wilder than normal, clutching the drawing of the girl to his chest, muttering away to himself, occasionally bursting out with another round of, “Impossible! Impossible!”

Kernel and I have drawn together by the fire, temporarily united by our uncertainty. “Has he ever gone off like this before?” I whisper.

“No,” Kernel replies quietly. “He often talks to himself, but I’ve never seen him so agitated.”

“Do you know who the girl is?”

Kernel shakes his head. “Just some old drawing that he gets out every now and then and moons over.”

“Beranabus said she died sixteen hundred years ago.”

“I heard.”

“Do you think he knew her? Was he alive then?”

“No.” Kernel frowns. “He can’t have been. We can live a long time, battling the Demonata in their universe, even a few hundred years. But no human can live that long. At least that’s what Beranabus taught me…

Beranabus stops pacing, whirls and fixes his stare on me. “You!” he shouts. “Come here!” I glance at Kernel for support. “Don’t dither! Get over here now!”

Since I don’t want to enrage him any further, I edge across but keep out of immediate reach. Beranabus holds the drawing up. His hands are shaking. “How sure are you?” he growls.

“It’s her,” I tell him. “The girl in the cave. I’m certain.”

“Would you stake your life on it?” he snarls.

“No,” I say hesitantly. “But it is her. You don’t forget a face like that. It’s not every day a person speaks to you from within the heart of a rock.”

Beranabus lowers the drawing. Turns it around so he can study the face again. “You say she’s alive?” he asks, voice low.

I shrug. “She spoke to me. But it wasn’t a real face. It was a cross between flesh and stone. She could have been some sort of ghost, I guess.”

“Of course,” Beranabus says. “But a ghost imprisoned there… trapped all this time…” His eyes shoot up. “Tell me what she said.”

“I can’t. I didn’t understand her. She spoke a different language.”

“Don’t be stupid! You can…” He stops and gets his breathing under control. “First things first. Tell me the whole story. Everything this time. About the cave, what you saw and heard. Leave nothing out.”

I don’t want to go through it again, but he’s not going to tell me anything until I do, so I quickly trot out the story, filling in all the details I skipped the first time. Seeing the face in the rock. The eyes opening. Later, when the girl spoke to me. In the cave, the night of my turning, when she screamed at me and seemed to be trying to warn me.