Slawter

magic in the air. There’s no magic in this laboratory, so how come I’m able to unleash great energy bursts and turn glass into water? The same goes for the Disciples. They shouldn’t have so much power here.

All the logical hiccups and flaws reveal themselves in quick succession. The Lambs turning up at just the right moment to knock us out and kidnap Bill-E. Dervish handily knowing the location of the main laboratory. Prae Athim taking Bill-E there. Shark so conveniently having seen the plans of the building.

Sharmila knew that I’d opened the fingerprint-operated door in the D workshops—but we hadn’t told her about that. In the second airport, Juni referred to Bill-E as my brother—but she doesn’t know we’re related.

And in the restroom, the first time I became aware that something was wrong. I get it now, what I saw but couldn’t make connect. My reflection was clean. It had been all the time, even before I washed my face. Clean skin, hair, clothes. No grey demon blood. But I got soaked in the D chamber. I never washed the blood off. It should have been caked on at the airport, just as it should be now. But it wasn’t and it isn’t, because…

“None of this is real!” I scream, startling everyone around me.

“Grubbs,” Juni says softly. “Calm down. You’re losing control.”

“You’re not real!” I shout. “None of you are!”

“What’s wrong with him?” Dervish snaps at Juni.

“I don’t know. Maybe he—”

The magic part of me whispers something. It’s been quiet all this time, even while I thought I was working magic. But now it breaks its silence and tells me what to say. Ignoring the chatterings of the figures around me, I bellow out loud, words of magic and power. Prae Athim’s face contorts with hatred. Demon eyes glare at me. She shrieks, as do all the scientists and guards—but it’s too late.

The walls of the cells bubble. The human Lambs turn into demons, then fade. A red haze comes down around Dervish and the others. Magic phrases trip off my tongue. Pain washes over me. I fall to my knees but keep on shouting, ripping the vision to pieces. The redness thickens. Fills the room, blocking out everything, humans, demons, all.

I utter the final words of the spell and wearily close my eyes.

Everything goes silent.

PART FOUR — DEMONS-A-GO-GO

WAKEY WAKEY

Dervish snoring. When I hear that, I know I’m back in the real world—there’s no mimicking a dreadful, pig- choking noise like that! I open my eyes and sit up, groggy, head pounding, utterly confused but no longer ensnared by the dream reality of the laboratory.

I’m in a small, dark room, chinks of light sneaking in around the edges of a dusty old set of blinds. Propped up on a bare wooden floor. Dervish and Bill-E spread out next to me. Both asleep.

“Dervish,” I mumble, shaking him hard. No answer. I shake him again, hissing his name in his ear, not too loud in case anybody’s on the other side of the door. Still no response. I roll up his eyelids with one hand and snap my fingers in front of his eyes with the other. He carries on snoring.

You were all dreaming the same thing, the magic part of me whispers. They’re still trapped inside it. They can’t wake themselves. You’ll have to use magic to bring them back.

It tells me the words to use. I murmur them softly, feeling magic flow out of me, into my uncle and brother. They stir.

Bill-E moans. Dervish grunts something about an armadillo. Their eyelids flicker and they struggle awake.

“What’s happening?” Bill-E groans.

“Where are we?” Dervish asks. “Where’s Prae Athim? Sharmila? Shark? The—”

“That was bull,” I cut in, steadying him as he tries to stand. “Easy. Don’t make any noise. We’re probably under guard.”

“I don’t understand. What…?” He stares around, forehead creased.

“It was a dream. The kidnapping, meeting up with the Disciples, the lab. None of that was real. It was all fantasy.”

“Don’t be crazy!” Dervish snaps. “I know the difference between…” He stops. Thinks about it. His jaw drops. “Bloody hell. It had me fooled completely.”

“Me too, for a while. But bits didn’t add up. There were mistakes.”

“The lab,” Dervish says slowly. “It looked familiar. Now I know why—I got the image from Franz Kafka’s book, The Trial.”

“Kafka?” I frown. “It looked like buildings from James Bond movies. And the cells were straight out of Silence of the Lambs.”

“What are you talking about?” Bill-E says. “The cells were like something in a sci-fi flick, all those control panels and lasers.”

“We provided our own dream variations,” Dervish says wonderingly. He rises, panting, and leans against a wall until his legs support him. He staggers to the blinds and parts a few slats. Peers out. Then looks at us. “We’re still in Slawter. We never left. Grubbs is right—it was all an illusion.”

Dervish walks around the room, giving his head time to clear, flexing his legs and arms. “I forgot how cunning the Demonata are. They’re masters of deception. They found out we were leaving, or they had a barrier in place to stop anyone getting out. Blocked us with magic. Created an insane scenario which seemed logical to us. Since our minds were active and focused on the dream—thinking that was reality—we couldn’t wake up.”

“Why not simply drug us?” Bill-E asks.

“They’re demons. They don’t work that way.” Dervish chuckles. “I can’t believe I fell for it. Walking on to the planes without tickets. Breezing through customs, nobody asking to see our passports.”

“I didn’t spot that,” I wince.

“What about you, Billy?” Dervish asks. “Notice anything out of place?”

“No,” Bill-E says, scratching his head. “Although I did think it strange that some of the nurses weren’t wearing any…” He coughs and blushes.

“They wanted us out of the way,” Dervish says, “so they subdued us. They could have killed us, but I guess they want us around for the finale. If Lord Loss is masterminding this, he won’t want to slaughter us while we’re sleeping. He’ll want to make us suffer first, so he can feast on our pain and gloat.”

“We have to get out of here,” I pant, getting up, fighting off a wave of dizziness. “We have to stop them. Get everybody out. Call the Disciples.”

“What about Juni?” Bill-E asks, and Dervish and I flinch, only now realising that she isn’t with us.

“They’re probably keeping her in another room,” Dervish says.

“Why?” Bill-E frowns.

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. There isn’t time to think about it.”

He strides to the door and presses an ear against it. I can tell by Bill-E’s expression that he’s going to push Dervish about Juni. I slip up beside him and whisper, “Dervish didn’t say it because he didn’t want to freak you out, but Juni’s probably dead. That’s why she isn’t here.”

Bill-E stares at me, ashen-faced. “But she was in the laboratory…”

“So were a lot of people. That doesn’t mean anything.” I squeeze his arm. “Dervish cares about Juni a lot, but he can’t think about her now. We can’t either. We can hope for the best, and if we’re lucky we’ll find her, sleeping like we were. But if she’s not… if the worst has happened… we have to overlook it. We have ourselves to