“Something wrong?” Juni asks, eyeing me nervously as I float in the air.
“The wall’s protected,” I tell her, smoothly descending. “It’s been charged with magic, or there’s magic pushing out from within. I can’t melt it.”
“We could try somewhere else,” Bill-E says. “There might be another door or a part of the wall that isn’t…”
I shake my head. “It’s going to be like this all the way round. I can sense it—literally. There’s an inner structure, a building within the warehouse. If there are other doors, they’ll be like this. The wall will be the same everywhere too. And the roof.”
“Then we can’t go on,” Juni notes with relief. “Let’s get out, plug up the hole we made, and discuss a new—”
“No,” I cut her short. “I’m not stopping. Not until I’ve convinced you.”
“But if we can’t get through…” she protests gently.
“I didn’t say that. We just have to be a bit smarter.”
I move back to the screen and study the outline of the hand. My magic’s not strong enough to combat the magic of the wall, but maybe I can outfox the technology of the door.
I place my right hand on the screen, tensing in case alarms sound. But there’s no klaxon squeal. Lights don’t flash. Breathing softly, thinking hard, trying to direct magic into the screen. It’s set up to recognise certain fingerprints. I want to tell it that my prints are among those it accepts. But how do you talk to a computer which only understands binary code?
I ignore the complications. Send a simple message, over and over, letting magic flow all the time. “You know me. My prints are in your database. Open.”
Nothing happens. Bill-E and Juni keep quiet, but I sense their lack of belief. Ignoring them, I keep talking to the computer, trying to trick it. I don’t acknowledge the possibility of failure. Change tack. Start telling it I’m Chuda Sool. “You will open—I’m Chuda Sool. You must open— I’m Chuda Sool.” Picturing his long, thin face, his browless eyes and cold gaze.
There’s a click. Another. A whole series of clickings and whirrings.
The door opens inwards, silent as you please.
I remove my hand and glance back smugly at the astonished faces of Juni and Bill-E. “Oh ye of little faith,” I murmur.
We enter.
Darkness. The other rooms were dark too, but I was able to light them with my torch. This room’s too big. The beam is like a pin, showing us almost nothing of the space around us. We can tell that it’s huge, but no more than that.
“This feels wrong,” Juni says as we stand a few metres from the open doorway, reluctant to press ahead any further.
“It’s like we’re surrounded,” Bill-E agrees, squinting into the darkness.
I flash the torch left, then right. We can’t see anyone. But that doesn’t mean that people—or other creatures—aren’t there. Or that they can’t see us.
“Maybe we should come back with stronger torches,” Juni says.
“If we quit now, we’ll never return,” I mutter.
“But we can’t see anything.”
“Give me a minute. Let me think.”
I can’t make objects appear out of nothing. But magic is a form of energy. Maybe I can convert that energy into a different form.
Concentrating. Speaking to the magic within me. In a weird way it feels like I’m two people, the one I’ve always been, and Grubbs Grady—magician.
“I want to make light,” I tell my magical half. “I’d like a big ball of light to appear just above my head. Is that possible?”
In response, I feel energy stream from my hands. It gathers overhead, pulses a couple of times, then transforms into a ball of blinding white light. I gasp with pain, covering my eyes with an arm. “Not so bright!” I hiss, then squint with one eye over the top of my arm. The light has dulled slightly, but is still painful to look at. “Keep dimming. More… more… Stop.”
I remove my arm. Bill-E and Juni have both covered their eyes. “It’s OK,” I tell them. “You can look now.”
Their eyes are watering when they lower their hands. Juni looks like she’s going to be sick. “How did you do that?” she whispers.
“Easy-peasy,” I grin.
“You’re a freak,” Bill-E says. “But a useful one to have around.”
“Thanks. Now let’s see what we’ve walked into…”
I send the ball of light forward, letting it brighten the further away from us it moves, until it lights up the entire room. Only it’s not really a room. It’s a huge, single, cavernous chamber. A bare earth floor. Brick walls which rise up the full height of the building, all three storeys of it. No props, furniture, nothing… except a tall stone in the centre… and lots of shapes around it.
Bodies.
“This isn’t good,” Bill-E says nervously.
“Those look like…” Juni croaks, then starts forward.
“Wait!” I cry.
Juni shakes her head. “I have to be sure. They could be old bags or mannequins. I must check.”
“We don’t know what’s in here with us,” I say, losing my nerve slightly.
Juni pauses, looks around, then shrugs. “There’s nothing. We’re alone. Except for them.”
She carries on. Bill-E and I glance at each other. We can’t be outdone by a woman. The shame would be too much to bear. So we set off after her, away from the door and the possibility of a quick retreat.
Juni sinks to her knees a few metres from the bodies, staring hopelessly, jaw slack, disbelief in her pinkish eyes. There are twenty or twenty-five of them encircling the stone, the head of one body lying on or under the feet of the next. Emmet’s one of the dead. His mother. Kik and Kuk Kane. Their father. Others I don’t recognise.
Some of the bodies have chunks ripped out of them or limbs torn loose. Others have cut throats. A few look like they’re asleep, but I’m sure if we turned them over we’d discover fatal wounds.
Bill-E reels away and vomits, groaning over the mess, shaking his head, trying to deny the reality of this dreadful scene. This is the first time my brother’s seen anything like this. It’s hard. Not like what you see in the movies. On the silver screen, corpses mean nothing. You know they’re not real, just models or actors faking death. You can admire the staging, the special effects, the pools of blood. The grosser it is, the cooler.
But in real life it’s sickening. The most distressing sight in the world. Death’s always hard to take, but murder… slaughter… people killed in the name of some disgusting demonic cause… spread out like sacks of meat and bone…
Juni’s taking deep breaths. I’m sure she wants to vomit too, but she’s keeping the bile down. Just.
Me, I’m a veteran of atrocity. As bad as this is, as much as it hurts seeing Emmet lying there with his throat and stomach slit open, it’s nowhere near as bad as when I walked in on my parents and sister and found them torn to shreds. I’m not saying I’m cool with this, or it’s water off a duck’s back. I’m just better prepared to deal with it than Bill-E or Juni.
I turn my attention away from the bodies, not wanting to dwell on the pain they must have suffered, the tragedy of dying in this callous manner. I study the stone, the focal point of the room. It looks like a Stonehenge monolith. A big chunk of rock jutting out of the ground, mostly smooth, but with a few jagged knobs poking out of it in various places. No writing, at least not on this side. But several gouges run across the middle and near the top, different lengths and depths.
“Some of the bodies have been here a long time,” Juni says. She points to a couple of corpses in an especially bad state. Flesh rotting, inner organs dried up, bones jutting through the dry and brittle skin. “This hasn’t all happened in the last few weeks.”
“No,” I agree. “I think this goes back months, maybe longer.
Juni looks around at me. “What the hell’s happening?” she sobs. “Why?”
Before I can think of an answer, there’s a scratching noise behind the rock. Then a sniffing sound, followed by raspy chuckling. Something sticks its head out. Studies us. Then steps into view.
It’s a demon. Five long, spindly legs. The body of a giant ant. A long neck and the head of some sort of rabid monkey. No arms, but several small mouths in addition to its main one, sticking out of its body, set on mushroom-like stalks. The mouths are filled with blood-red, dagger-sharp teeth.
The demon gurgles at us. I can read its thoughts—“Fresh meat!”
Juni and Bill-E scream. I scream too, but there’s magic in my cry. It hits the demon like a cannon ball, knocks it backwards, clear of the stone and bodies. Sends it tumbling across the floor.
“Run!” I roar.
Bill-E and Juni don’t need to be told twice. They race for the door, howling, terror overriding their other senses. I want to run too. I try to. But the magic stops me. Not yet, a voice within me whispers. You can’t let it attack from behind. You’ll die if you turn your back on it.
The demon finds its feet and snarls. It has several bright green eyes, set above and under its main mouth. Some look at the light overhead. The others stay pinned on me. The demon’s lips move fast. Inhuman mutterings. I sense magic and prepare myself for an assault, teeth chattering, inching away from the monster, keeping it in sight the whole time.