Darren Shan - The Demonata 6-10

“No!” Dervish howls. “I want to hold him and tell him how much I love him. I want to…” He breaks down and slumps sideways, sobbing into the cushions. I long to go to my uncle, hold him, help him. But there are too many questions which must be answered. As cruel as it sounds, Dervish will have to wait.

“How did you do it?” I ask quietly.

“Which part?” Bec replies.

“The last bit — taking over Bill-E’s body.”

She shrugs. “I could see everything that was happening. I came back inside you — when we worked together to bend time, I joined with your flesh and mind. I could have stayed there within you, hidden away, and I meant to. But when I saw what Lord Loss was going to do, and realised you wouldn’t defend yourself, I had to act. I wasn’t sure if I could use the dead boy’s flesh. Even if I could, I only planned to inhabit it temporarily — I thought I could possess it, drive Lord Loss away, then leave it again.

“But, to my shock, the body accepted me. More than that — I was able to transform it and recreate my own form. I needn’t have – I could have kept your brother’s shape – but I wouldn’t have been comfortable that way and I don’t think you would have been either.”

“So this is your body now?” I ask. “You’re alive after all that time in the cave? Free to grow and live like any other person?”

The girl shrugs again and glances at Beranabus.

“We don’t know,” the magician says softly, touching Bec’s short red hair. “This body might age and develop naturally — or it might not. We’ll have to wait and see. Only time will tell.”

“Speaking of time…” I lean forward anxiously. This was what I wanted to ask about first, but it wouldn’t have been polite to barge straight in with it. “How did you bring us back from the future?”

Bec shakes her head softly. “I didn’t. We did it — Kernel, you and I.”

“But you started it. You knew the spells. You were in control.”

Again she shakes her head. “It was the Kah-Gash. Although we are parts of the weapon, it has a mind of its own. When we joined, our magic became the magic of the Kah-Gash. It told us how to unite minds and forces. It used us. Like you, I didn’t know what it was attempting to do. The time travel came as much of a surprise to me as it did to you.”

Bec looks around, staring at the chairs, the windows, the TV. This is all new to her. Unimaginable. She comes from a time when the world was much simpler. She’s itching to explore, ask questions, make sense of all the weird shapes and objects. But I can’t let this pass.

“Do you remember the spells?” I press. “Could we do it again?”

She thinks a moment and frowns. “It’s strange. Normally I only have to hear something once — I have a perfect memory and never forget anything. But in this instance I have only the vaguest recollection of the spells. I couldn’t repeat them.”

“You could try,” I insist.

She nods. “If you prompt me, I will do my best. But I cannot start without your help. You would have to show me the way, like you did before.”

“Grubbs,” Beranabus says, “you can’t go back again.”

“Why not?” I shout. Dervish looks up, startled by the ferocity of my tone. “Why the hell can’t I?”

“The Kah-Gash reversed time because the world faced annihilation and there was no other way,” Beranabus says calmly. “But it was a massive, perilous undertaking. If it had gone awry, the result would have been chaos, timelessness, maybe the destruction of both universes. You can’t take such a risk again, just for the sake of one boy.”

“That one boy means more to me than all the others in the world put together,” I snarl.

“Maybe,” Beranabus replies, “but he means nothing to the Kah-Gash. If he did, you wouldn’t be sitting here arguing — you’d be spitting out spells, trying to find the energy to take you back. You set events in motion last time. You were the first to act. If you want to do it again, go ahead.”

“I don’t know how!” I howl.

“Ask the Kah-Gash,” Bec says. “It spoke to us before and directed us. It’s like a person. You’re able to talk to it. Ask and see how it responds.”

“I don’t think–” Beranabus begins.

“Let him,” Bec insists. “If he feels he must do this, and if he can, it’s not our place to stand in his way.”

I stare at her uncertainly, then close my eyes and focus. I search for the magic and quickly find it, an energy and consciousness. There are no barriers between us now. I’ll never have trouble finding it again. It’s as much a part of me as the oxygen in my lungs.

I tell the magic – the Kah-Gash – what I want. I beg it for help. But there’s no answer. I guessed there wouldn’t be. Now that we’re one, I’ve begun to understand that other, mysterious part of myself. Beranabus is right. It won’t let me smash the structures of time just to save Bill-E.

“Even if you could phrase the spells,” Beranabus says as I open my eyes, tears flooding down my cheeks, “there isn’t a source to track back to. In this time, the tunnel hasn’t been opened. There’s no river of energy to ride back on.”

“We could find another place where demons broke through,” I moan.

“No,” Beranabus says. “You’d need an open tunnel, but there aren’t any.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be open,” I whisper — one final, desperate attempt. “We could try a tunnel that’s been closed. The energy might be trapped there, held in place, like in a battery or power cell.”

“Maybe,” Beranabus agrees. “But even if the energy was present, and you could unlock it, you’d have to follow the unleashed river of power back to its origin. I doubt it’s possible to set limits, to travel back just a day, a week or a month.”

“So what?” I sob. “We’ll ride it back to the start and wait. I don’t care.”

Beranabus smiles softly. “The last tunnel that was anything near to this in size was closed more than three hundred years ago.”

“Three…” I mutter, feeling the last sliver of hope die within me.

“Let it go, Grubbs,” Beranabus says. “Your brother’s dead and you can’t bring him back. There’s no way around it. You’ll drive yourself mad if you can’t accept that.”

“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad,” I sigh, then sit there, crying, saying my silent farewells to poor, unfortunate Bill-E Spleen — R.I.-bloody-P.

→ Dervish’s bedroom. He’s sitting on the end of his bed, expression blank. He hasn’t washed the dirt and blood from his face and hands yet. I haven’t either. Too weary for such mundane tasks. Life will go on, I’m sure — it always does. But right now we’re a pair of zombies, capable only of the simplest movements.

“See you later,” I mumble, turning to go to my own room.

“Wait,” Dervish says. “I don’t want to be alone, not now. Stay. Please?”

With a weary nod, I start to pull at the leaves of my magical suit. It’s hanging off me in shreds and will be simple to remove. But after picking at a few leaves, I lose interest and crawl onto the bed beside Dervish. I put my arms around him and we hold each other tight. He often held me like this when I first came to live with him, whenever I awoke from a particularly brutal nightmare. But this time the nightmare is reality and there’s little comfort to be found in the embrace.

“You had to do it,” Dervish whispers.

I break into fresh tears. “He was my brother,” I moan. “What would Dad have said?”

“The same thing I’m saying,” Dervish croaks. “You did what had to be done. It should have been me. I was his guardian — yours too. The responsibility was mine. But I couldn’t find the strength. I failed. If you hadn’t been so brave, we’d have all died and Billy would have suffered terribly. You did what was best. You should feel proud, not wretched.”