Demon Apocalypse

“No!” Kernel grunts. “It can’t be.”

“That’s what I thought at first,” Beranabus chuckles.

“But you said we couldn’t!” Kernel protests.

“And I was right. Nobody ever had, and I didn’t think anyone could. But now we have. You, Bec and Grubbs did it. You broke the final barrier. I never thought it could happen. I gave up on the notion long, long ago. When you’ve seen as much of—”

“What is it?” I cut in sharply, furious with ignorance. “What’s the big secret? What question did Kernel ask?”

“The one they all ask eventually,” Beranabus smiles. “The one you would have put to me if you’d been with me a little longer, when you looked back on all the times you went wrong, wondered how things would have turned out if you’d done this or that differently, gone down one path instead of another.”

Beranabus stops, glances up at the trees and the moon beyond, as if to reconfirm it before saying it out loud. When he looks at me again, the smile’s still there, but shaky, as if he’s not sure whether he should be smiling or not. And he says, very softly, “Kernel asked me if it was possible to travel back in time.”

A shocked moment of incredulous silence. Then I laugh. “Good one. You almost had me going. Now quit with the jokes and—”

“This isn’t a joke,” Beranabus says.

“You’re trying to tell me we’ve returned to the past, like in some bad science-fiction film?”

“No,” Kernel giggles, then hits me with the punchline. “Like in some very good science-fiction film.”

“Don’t,” I mutter. “Things are mad enough without you two veering off at some ludicrous angle. We need to think about this logically, go through what happened step by step, so we can understand. Wild speculation won’t get us anywhere.”

“It’s not wild,” Beranabus says. “And it’s not speculation. It’s fact.”

“I don’t accept that. You’re wrong.”

“How else can you explain this?” He points to the hole, the rocks, the trees.

“It’s an illusion. Our minds have conjured it up or Bec fed the image to us to spare us the real, grisly truth. It happened to me before, in Slawter. Maybe we’re lying by the cave entrance, unconscious, demons ravaging our bodies, and this is our only way out of the pain. Or we’ve gone into the universe of the Demonata and created this scene ourselves. Hell, maybe we’re dead and this is what we’ve chosen for the afterlife.”

“We’re not dead,” Kernel says. “And we’re not imagining this. I’d have given myself eyes if we were.”

“Time travel’s impossible,” I say slowly, as if explaining something obvious to a young child.

“So is flying,” Beranabus says, “but you’ve soared like a bird.”

“That’s different,” I snap. “What you’re talking about…” I shake my head.

“How did it happen?” Kernel asks. “I believe you, Beranabus—at least I think I do but how? You always said the past was the one thing we could never change.”

“It is. I mean, it was. Demons can’t do it. Magicians certainly can’t. But the Kah-Gash…”

Kernel draws his breath in sharply. “Are you sure?”

“It has to be,” Beranabus insists. “The ultimate power… the ability to destroy an entire universe… Why not the potential to reverse time too?”

“But if you’re right, that means…”

“Grubbs and Bec were the missing pieces. And there must have only been three. It couldn’t have worked unless all the pieces were assembled. At least I don’t think it could…” He frowns.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I hiss. “What’s a Car Gash?”

“Kah-Gash,” Kernel corrects me. He’s trembling, but not from the pain or cold. “It’s a mythical weapon. You’re meant to be able to destroy a universe with it, ours or the Demonata’s. It was split into an unknown number of pieces millions or billions of years ago. Various demons and magicians have searched for it since then, without success. Thirty years ago we discovered one of the pieces. In me.”

“You’d been implanted with something?”

“No. I am a piece of the Kah-Gash.”

“I don’t understand. How can you be part of a weapon? You’re human.”

“I’m magical,” he disagrees. “The Kah-Gash is a weapon of magic, not physics. It can take the form of anything it chooses.”

I think that through, putting it together with what they were saying a few minutes ago. “You believe Bec and I are part of this weapon too?”

“You have to be,” Beranabus says. “The stars don’t lie—we’ve gone back in time, to the night the tu

“How?” Kernel whispers. “And why? If this is the work of the Kah-Gash, where did it find the energy to alter the flow of time? And why bring us back to this specific moment? Why stop here, not a hundred years ago or a million? Why not shatter the laws of time entirely?”

Beranabus scratches the back of his neck. “What did you feel when it was happening?” he asks.

Kernel shrugs. “Great power flowing into me.”

“From where?”

“All around.”

“Grubbs? Can you be any more specific?”

“The ground,” I mutter. “The power came from the rocks, from beneath.”

“And did it flow into you or through you?”

“What’s the difference?”

“You’d have exploded if you drew in that much energy and didn’t let it out,” Beranabus says. “You had to cha

“The cave,” Kernel answers after several seconds of thoughtful silence. “The power came from the ground, then went through us, back down into the rock, to the cave… the tu

“Yes,” I agree, thinking back.

Beranabus smiles. “The Kah-Gash—you, Kernel and Bec—acted as a kind of magnifying lens. You drew energy from the tu

“Opening a window between the Demonata’s universe and ours is like making a hole in a dam— matter flows from their universe to ours, generating energy. Space, time, gravity, the forces which hold our universes together… they seep across every time a demon or one of us makes a rip.

“Windows are small, temporary. The energy generated is minimal. But in this case a tu

“Rode it back to its source?” Kernel echoes. “You mean back to the universe of the Demonata?”

“No,” Beranabus says. “You followed the wave back in time, transforming it and eradicating it, back to when the tu

He seizes my hands and squeezes tight. “Don’t you see? We’ve been given a second chance. Not just to heal the damage done by the demons, but to stop it happening at all.”

“But… no… it can’t…” I mutter, head spi

“Grubbs,” Beranabus says softly. “At this time, Dervish and your brother are still alive. We can help them, but only if we accept this and act fast. Now, are you going to stand there denying what your senses tell you, or are you going to help me save the world and all the people you love?”

And when he puts it like that…