Darren Shan - Slawter

Tump and Chuda head for the D workshops. The huge warehouse dominates the northern part of Slawter. I haven’t spent much time up here—no point, since access to the workshops is strictly prohibited. As Tump and Chuda show their passes to a security guard on the western door—one of four doors leading into the warehouse—I hang back and take a long look at the building.

Three storeys high, 70 or 80 metres wide, maybe 120 metres long. Large, unplastered block walls. A flat roof. No windows. Grey and featureless, apart from a big red D painted on the wall above the door. A small guard’s hut to the right of the entrance.

I’d love to have a look inside, at the monster costumes and puppets. A small part of me still believes the demon was real. If I could check out the costumes perhaps it would help convince me of the truth. But hardly anyone is allowed to enter the hallowed halls of the D workshops. Even Dervish has only seen a small section of the complex.

I wait impatiently for Tump and Chuda to come out. Then I figure, stuff them! I’m through with this crap. I decide to find Bill-E and hang out with him for the rest of the afternoon. But before departing, I wander around the warehouse on the off chance that one of the doors is open, its guard asleep in his hut. That won’t happen, of course, but I might as well give it a shot while I’m here.

The guard on the southern door studies me suspiciously as I approach. Though he doesn’t openly carry any weapons, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had a gun hidden on him somewhere. I smile politely and don’t stray any closer. Walk to the eastern end and turn left. The door on this side is shut too and although the guard’s in his hut, he isn’t asleep—I spot him through the window as I walk past, leafing through a magazine with pictures of tanks on the cover.

I reach the northern end and turn left again. The guard here is standing next to the door, leaning against the wall. He smiles as I go past. I think about stopping to chat, maybe try to blag my way inside, but his smile isn’t that inviting.

Back to the western end. Heading south, thinking about where Bill-E might be. As I come up to the guard’s hut, the door to the workshops opens. I hear Tump’s voice and stop behind the hut, where he and Chuda can’t see me, to wait until they pass.

“…not going to like it,” Tump is booming.

“They’re not meant to like it,” Chuda replies in a much softer voice.

“But the boy will be hard to keep quiet. They’re so close to each other. Maybe we should take them both.”

“One will be enough,” Chuda says. “Now all we have to…”

Their voices fade. I remain where I am, frowning, wondering who and what they were talking about.

The next day, Kik goes missing.

Kuk turns up for class by himself, looking lost. “Have any of you seen Kik?” he asks, eyes darting around the room as if his twin sister might be hiding behind a desk. “I can’t find her. I don’t know where she is. Kik? Are you here?”

Miss Jaun sits the agitated Kuk down, tries to soothe his nerves and coaxes the story out of him. It’s not complicated. He woke this morning and Kik’s bed was empty. He couldn’t find her. Their dad wasn’t too concerned—said she’d probably gone for a walk—but Kuk smelt a rat immediately.

“We don’t go anywhere without telling each other. She wouldn’t have slipped out without saying anything.”

“Maybe she just needed to be alone for a while,” Miss Jaun suggests.

“We don’t like being alone,” Kuk says, shaking his head vigorously. “Alone is bad. Alone is scary.”

When Miss Jaun fails to calm Kuk’s nerves, she calls security and asks a guard if he can put the word out to look for Kik. “It’s no big deal,” she tells him. “We’d just like to know where she is.”

Class proceeds as normal, except for Kuk, who fidgets behind his desk, eyes wide and searching, staring out the window. He unnerves the rest of us. Even Bo is discomfited by him and remains quiet, no jokes or digs.

Towards the end of class, Miss Jaun summons the guard again. He says nobody has seen Kik but they’re still looking.

I raise a hand. “Have you tried the D workshops?” I ask innocently.

The guard frowns. “She wouldn’t be there.”

“She might have snuck in.”

The guard grins. “Into the D? I don’t think so. Even I haven’t been inside—I don’t have clearance.”

“But she might be there,” I insist. I’m holding a steel ballpoint pen, gripping it tight, remembering the conversation I overheard yesterday, Tump saying “the boy will be hard to keep quiet”.

“I’ll check with the guys who were on duty this morning,” the guard says, rolling his eyes slightly. “If they’ve seen her, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks.”

The guard leaves. Class ends. Kuk hurries out to search for his sister.

“What was that about the D warehouse?” Bill-E asks, hanging back.

“Nothing. I just thought they might not have looked there.”

Bill-E squints suspiciously. “I know you too well, Grubbs Grady,” he says in a bad Bela Lugosi accent. “You wouldn’t have said something like that without a reason. What are you hiding from me?”

I consider telling him what I heard Tump Kooniart say. But I’m still smarting from my previous humiliation. I don’t want to reveal my fears, only for Kik to turn up, leaving me looking like a paranoid maniac.

“It’s nothing,” I say, unclenching my fist to lay my pen down. “Let’s…”

Grey liquid drips from my hands on to the table. Bill-E pulls a face. “What’s that?” he asks. “It looks like mercury.”

I don’t reply. I’m staring at the liquid, the last few drops dripping from my fingers, black ink bubbling on my palms. It’s the remains of the pen. The steel ballpoint which I was holding.

I melted it.

Night falls. Kik hasn’t been seen all day. Kuk’s not the only one worried about her now. Her father’s frantic. The search has intensified. The security forces have been deployed in earnest. Davida even suspended shooting so everyone could join the search parties and help.

I’m with a group exploring the eastern end of town, going through all the real buildings, checking behind the facades of the fakes. Trying to focus on the search. Trying not to think about the pen and how I melted it. But I can’t not think about it. There could be a scientific explanation. But I’m certain the melting had nothing to do with science. It was magic.

I’m not a natural magician. Dervish told me that only one or two real magicians are born every century. There are others like Dervish and Meera Flame—mages—with the potential to perform acts of magic, usually with the aid of spells. I could maybe do that. But I never have. I’m not keen on magic. Plus, there hasn’t been time. Dervish was a zombie for more than a year and he’s not been up for teaching duties since he recovered.

So how did I melt the pen?

There’s only one answer I can think of. When demons enter our universe, they affect the area where they cross. They’re creatures of magic and that magic infects the world around them. When my parents were killed, I was able to tap into the magical, demonic energy and use it to escape. I did it again later in the secret cellar, when I fought Artery and Vein.

I think that’s happening now. There’s magic in the air—the magic of demons.

We don’t find Kik. The search concludes after midnight. Everybody turns in. Most people reckon she ran away. The guards say they’ll search for her beyond Slawter tomorrow, take Kuk and his father with them.

I haven’t told anyone about my fears. No point—I’d only be laughed at. But I can’t sit back and do nothing. I have to try to help Kik, assuming she can still be helped. So I track down Dervish. He’s been searching with Juni and a few others. Him and Juni aren’t an item yet, but they’ve been spending more and more time together, and she’s with him now. He says she’s helping him cope with his nightmares, that she’s taught him how to control his dreams, to keep the monsters of his subconscious at bay. But I think he’s more lustful than grateful—he’s practically bathing in that new aftershave now!