Slawter

“The secret cellar.”

“Damn. What was I…?”

“You had a book about Lord Loss. You were chanting a spell. His face was moving. It looked like he was coming alive—coming through.”

“I’m sorry. I… Let’s get some light. I’m awake. Honest. You can get off me. I promise.”

Warily I slide aside. Dervish gets to his feet. Stumbles to the nearest wall. I hear him rooting through his pockets. Then he strikes a match, finds the nearest candle and sets it aflame. The room lights up. I see the book, lying facedown. No movement.

“Could you have brought him here?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the book.

“No,” Dervish says. “But I could have summoned part of his spirit. Given him just enough strength to… hurt me.”

“And me?”

“Absolutely not. You were safe. The spirit couldn’t have got out of this room.”

“But when I came in?”

Dervish says nothing. A guilty silence. Then a deep sigh. “Let’s get out of here. There are things we must discuss.”

“And the book?” I ask.

“Leave it. It can’t do any harm. Not now.”

Standing, I stagger out of the room. Dervish follows, leaving the candle burning, shutting the door on the past, trailing me back up the corridor to the safety of the normal world.

“The Disciples fight the Demonata and do what we can to keep them out of our universe.”

We’re in Dervish’s study. We both have mugs of hot chocolate. Sitting facing one another across the main desk.

“We’re all magically inclined,” Dervish continues. “Not true magicians, but we have talents and abilities—call us mages if you like. In an area of magic—the Demonata’s universe, or a place where a demon is crossing—our powers are magnified. We can do things you wouldn’t believe. No, scratch that—of course you’d believe. You fought Lord Loss.”

“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…”