Demon Apocalypse

Lights flicker across the distorted sky. Clouds burst into flame. The tip of the fu

“This will not save you!” Lord Loss shouts none too convincingly. “Stay, you scum!” he roars at the fleeing demons. “Fight! We can break through this barrier and kill them. You must not…”

I tune him out. My lips are my own again during a brief pause in the spell. “What’s happening?” I wheeze, directing the question at Beranabus. But he can only shake his head and stare at Bec and me. Then the spell starts again and I can’t ask any more questions. My lips are Bec’s. My magic and her magic—one. Our minds join. I get flashes of her life—a simple farming society, demons, a quest, warriors, a magician, closing the tu

Then I’m inside somebody else’s head. I see a small, modern village, thousands of patches of light in the sky around me, a baby that looks oddly familiar, a young punk who… no, surely that’s not Dervish! Yes, it is, a young and spiky-haired Dervish Grady, fighting alongside Shark, Sharmila, Beranabus, a dark-ski

Kernel sits up and groans. He shakes his head groggily. His empty sockets turn left and right as if he’s looking for something. They fix sightlessly on Bec and me. Trembling, moaning with pain, he reaches over and lays his hands on top of mine. My magic shoots out to him, then blasts back stronger than ever, drawing power from the blind teenager. His lips move along with mine and Bec’s, his magic mingling with ours.

Our voices rise. The sky turns black, red, white. Rocks are ripping out of the ground, shooting upwards, burning, turning into birds, cows, cars, people, then back into rocks. Now everything’s rising, the ruins of trees and buildings, corpses, the demons. Gravity loses its grip. Lord Loss tries clinging to the invisible barrier around us, but is ripped away and up. He hurls vile curses at us as he shoots off.

The world is coming apart. Everything’s being destroyed. I’m afraid now, even more than when I thought the demons had us. Bec must be insane. Sixteen hundred years of captivity have driven her mad. She only wants to ruin, make everybody else suffer as she has suffered, tear the world apart. And she can do it. With my magic and Kernel’s, she has the power to wreak a terrible, misdirected revenge.

I try stopping it. I focus on breaking contact, making my lips stop, getting out of here before all is lost. But the magic holds me tight. There’s no escaping. Everything in sight shoots skyward, while the sky itself drops ever further, the tip of the fu

Beranabus is frightened too. He was exhilarated when he saw the demons get swept away, but this has exploded out of control. He sees what I see—the literal end of the world. He sits on the ground—the only patch left is the bit contained by our bubble of energy—and gawps at the three of us, eyes wide, twin pools of confusion and fear. Maybe he thinks about killing one of us to stop it. But I don’t think he could. He doesn’t have the power.

The tip of the fu

A flash of light which is every colour. My body explodes, or seems to. I have the feeling of being everywhere and nowhere at once, both an entire universe and an insignificant speck. The fu

We stop bouncing, but move quicker than ever. A cluster of purple lights flash, then bolt together and become a small window. We shoot through it. Yellow lights flash and join—we fly through. A series of flashing lights and windows, one after the other, faster and faster. Curious, I focus on the magic and realise Kernel’s the one creating the windows and directing us through them. I’ve no idea how or why. I don’t think Kernel knows either.

No sense of time or space. Just one window after another, the colours whirring and blurring, a fearsome noise building in the background. Then the lights fade. Unable to see anything now. Total blackness. As blind as Kernel.

The noise continues to build, so loud it could crush a continent. My ears burst. My skull cracks. My brain bubbles away to nothing. But that makes no difference. I still exist. I still hear, think and feel. The noise squeezes my soul. Pain that’s indescribable. No way to scream or release the pressure. A universe of agony.

Then, suddenly, the noise stops. I come to rest. The pain disappears. Delicious, soothing silence. Broken abruptly by a girl’s delighted laugh.

A SECOND CHANCE

At first I think the world and universe have been utterly destroyed and I’m just imagining the laughter. But then the blackness clears slightly. I realise I have eyes again. Blinking, I look around, but can’t make out much. It’s night and I’m in the middle of a cluster of trees. It’s not especially dark—the gleam of a full moon seeps through the branches of the trees—but it’s hard to adjust or focus. My mind’s spi

“What happened?” Beranabus croaks, rising from a spot nearby. Kernel lies at the magician’s feet, groaning, cradling his head in his hands. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” I whisper. My ears are searching for something. I’m not sure what it is, until after a few seconds it sinks in—the girl’s voice has gone.

Kernel mutters something, then bolts upright, screaming. “My eyes!” he howls. “The maggots! My eyes! I can’t—”

Beranabus covers his assistant’s mouth and whispers words of magic, a spell to ease the pain. Kernel thrashes wildly, then regains control and stops struggling, though his chest continues to rise and fall rapidly.

Beranabus removes his hand. “Are you going to be all right?”

“My eyes…” Kernel moans.

“Gone,” Beranabus says bluntly.

“But… we must… there has to be some way…”

“No. They’re ruined. But don’t worry—magic will compensate. You won’t be entirely helpless.” Beranabus squeezes the back of Kernel’s neck. “We might even be able to knock together a pair of replacements when we return to the demon universe. If the gods are truly with us, you’ll still be able to see the patches of light and create windows.”

“Like I give a damn about that!” Kernel snaps sourly, but Beranabus ignores the hostility.

“Peace for a few minutes,” the magician says. “I need to determine where we are.”

He turns in a slow circle, eyes closed, breathing softly, trying to pinpoint our position. I know I should keep silent and wait for him to finish, but I can’t. “What did she do to us? The ground breaking apart and rising… the sky and fu

“How should I know?” Beranabus growls. “Maybe she was trying to destroy the demons and the spell got out of hand.”

“But the sky! Did you see it? How did she do that? What—”

“Quiet!” Beranabus barks, opening an eye to glare at me. “How can I concentrate with you throwing stupid questions at me?”