“How many Disciples are there?” I ask.
“Twenty-five, thirty. Maybe a few more.” Dervish shrugs. “We’re loose-knit. Our founder is a guy called Beranabus. He is a true magician, but we don’t see a lot of him. He spends most of his time among the Demonata, waging wars the rest of us couldn’t dream of winning.
“Beranabus sometimes gives orders, sets one or more of us a specific task. But mostly we do our own thing. That’s why I’m not sure of our exact number. There’s a core group who keep in touch, track the movements of demons and work together to deal with the threats. But there are others we only see occasionally. In an emergency I guess Beranabus could assemble us all, but in the usual run of things we don’t have contact with every member.”
“So that’s your real job,” I say softly. “Fighting demons.”
He smiles crookedly. “Don’t misinterpret what I’m telling you. This isn’t an organisation of crack magical heroes who battle demons every week. There are a few Disciples who’ve fought the Demonata several times, but most have never gone up against them, or maybe only once or twice.”
“Then what do they do?” I frown.
“Travel,” he says. “Tour the world, watch for signs of demonic activity, try to prevent crossings. Demons can’t swap between universes at will. They need human assistants. Wicked, power-hungry mages who work with them from this side and help them open windows between their realm and ours. Usually there are signs. If you know what to look for, you can stop it before it happens. That’s what we do—watch for evidence of a forming window, find the person working for the demon, stop them before it gets out of hand.”
“You don’t travel around,” I note. “Is that because of me?”
“No,” Dervish smiles. “I used to travel a lot, but I do most of my work here now, at the command of Beranabus. It s my job to… well, let’s not get into that. It’s not relevant.”
Dervish sips from his mug, looking at me over the rim, awaiting my reaction.
“What happens when a demon crosses?” I ask.
“It depends on the strength of the demon. Most of the truly powerful Demonata can’t use windows—they’re too big, magically speaking. They need a tunnel to cross—a wider, stronger form of window. They’re much more difficult to open. It’s been centuries since anyone constructed a tunnel.”
“Lord Loss is a demon master,” I note. “He crosses.”
“He’s an exception. We don’t know why he can cross when others like him can’t. He just can. There are rules where magic’s concerned, but those rules can be bent. Anything’s possible with magic, even the supposedly and logically impossible.
“The other demons who cross are nowhere near as powerful as Lord Loss,” Dervish continues, “We drive back the lesser specimens, but we leave the stronger demons alone and try to limit the damage.”
“You let them get away with it?” I cry. “You let them kill?”
Dervish lowers the mug. “It’s not as heartless as it sounds. There’s far less magic in our universe than theirs. When they cross, they’re nowhere near as powerful as they are in their own realm. And most can only stay here for a few minutes. Occasionally a window will remain open longer, for an hour or two, but that’s rare. Thankfully. Because if they could cross with all their powers intact, and stay as long as they liked, we’d have been wiped out long ago.
“We stop maybe half of all potential crossings,” Dervish goes on. “Which is pretty good when you consider how few of us there are. Although we’re only talking six or seven attempts to cross in any given year.”
“So three or four get through?” I ask.
“Approximately. We aren’t always there when one crosses. When we are…” He sighs. “If it’s a weaker demon, we try to drive it back. A single Disciple will engage it, occasionally a pair. We don’t like to risk too many in any single venture.”
“And when you don’t think you can stop it?” I ask quietly.
Dervish looks away. “A demon will normally kill no more then ten or twenty people when it crosses.”
“Still!” I protest. “Ten people, Dervish! Ten lives!”
“What do you want us to do?” he snaps. “There are battles we can’t win. We do what we can— we can’t do any more. We’re not bloody superheroes!”
“Sure,” I say quickly. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound critical. I just…”
“I know,” he mutters. “When I first heard about the Disciples, I was like you. I didn’t want to admit the possibility of defeat or make concessions. But when you see enough people die, you realise life’s not like the movies or comics. You can’t save everyone. It’s not an option.”
Dervish falls silent. We never talked much about his past. To be honest, with all the problems I’ve faced over the last couple of years, I haven’t had time to think about anybody else’s troubles. But now that I consider it, I realise my uncle must have seen a lot of bad stuff in his time. We got lucky against Lord Loss. We beat him at his own game and walked away relatively unharmed. But Dervish told me there are more failures than successes when humans battle demons. And if he’s been around for even a few failures… seen people die like I saw my parents and sister die… had to stand by and let it happen because he didn’t have the power to stop it…
“I’m telling you this because of Davida Haym,” Dervish says, interrupting my thoughts. “I went through her disc earlier. From the outline it sounds like fun—demons run wild and take over a town—but I don’t like it. The few demons she described are very realistic. She mentions rituals you can use to summon them. She’s gathered information cleverly but I don’t think she knows how dangerous that information is.
“I’m going to accept her offer to work on set as an advisor. I want to make sure she doesn’t accidentally summon a demon or supply others with the means to. The chances of that happening are slim, and in the normal run of things I wouldn’t bother with her.
“But I need to get away from here for a while.” His eyes are dark, haunted. “I haven’t been the same since I came back. The nightmares… fear… confusion. Maybe my brain will never properly recover and I’m doomed to live like this until I die. But I’m hoping I can shrug it off. I’ve been living the quiet life—too quiet. I need something to focus my attention. A challenge. Something to sweep away the cobwebs inside my head.”
“But you’re protected by spells here,” I note. “You might not be safe outside Carcery Vale. Lord Loss…”
“Remember the book in the cellar?” Dervish says. “Unless I dig myself out of this hole, I don’t think I’m safe anywhere.”
I nod slowly. “How long will you be gone?”
“However long the shoot lasts,” Dervish says. “I’ll ask Meera to keep an eye on things while I’m away.”
“Meera’s going to be staying with me?” I ask, not minding the sound of that one little bit—Meera Flame’s hot stuff!
“No,” Dervish says. “You won’t be here either. Unless you object, I want to take you with me. Billy too.”
“You want to take us on set?” I yelp.
“Davida said I could,” he reminds me. “Well, she didn’t mention Billy, but I’m sure that won’t be a problem.”
“Brilliant!” I gasp, face lighting up. Then doubt crosses my mind. “But why?”
“Two reasons,” Dervish says. “One—I need you to look out for me at night, to help me if the nightmares continue.” He stops.
“And the second reason?”
“I don’t trust Prae Athim and the Lambs. They might pull a fast one if I’m not around.”
“You think they’d kidnap Bill-E?”
“It’s possible. Right now I want Billy where I can protect him, twenty-four seven. I’ll rest easier that way.”
“So we’re going into the movie business,” I laugh.
“Yep.” Dervish laughs too. “Crazy, isn’t it?” He checks his watch. “Three-thirty in the morning. Ma and Pa Spleen would hit the roof if we phoned Billy at such an ungodly hour.” He cocks a wicked eyebrow at me. “Do you want to ring or shall I?”
PART TWO — LIGHTS… CAMERA… DEMONS!
FILM FOLK
“I’ve always wanted to eat human flesh. I mean, it’s not an obsession or anything. I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill, skin and cook somebody. But I’ve always been curious, wondered what it would taste like. So, when the opportunity dropped into my lap, yeah, I took it. Does that make me a bad person? I don’t think so. At least, not much badder than—”
“Worse than,” Bill-E interrupts.
“Worse!” Emmet winces. “I keep tripping on that. ‘Not much worse than, not much worse than, not much worse than…’ ”
I feel sorry for Emmet, watching him struggle to learn his lines. It’s not easy to keep a load of words that aren’t yours straight inside your head, then trot them out in a seemingly natural fashion. I used to think actors had a great life. Not any more. Not after a week on the set of Slawter.