Slawter

worry about. And all the others.”

Bill-E trembles, but nods reluctantly. I squeeze his arm again, then help him to his feet. When he’s able to walk, we edge up behind Dervish, who’s still listening intently at the door. “Anything?” I ask.

“No. But that doesn’t mean there’s no one there. Or no thing.”

“We can’t wait in here forever,” I note.

“True.” Dervish looks over his shoulder at me. “Ready to fight?”

I crack my knuckles. “Damn straight.”

“Then let’s go for it.”

He turns the handle and slams open the door. Nobody’s outside. We creep along a damp, musky corridor. We’re in one of the town’s original buildings. It hasn’t been renovated. Holes in the walls, rotting floorboards, broken windows.

“How much of that dream world was real?” I ask Dervish, trying to calm my nerves by focusing on something other than the possibility that we might run into a team of demons any second. “Sharmila and Shark— do they really exist?”

“Yes,” Dervish says. “And pretty much the way we saw them—or at least the way I saw them. From your viewpoint, was Shark wearing army fatigues? Sharmila a sari?

“Yes.”

“Then that much we shared.” Dervish pauses and looks at me. “How did you know it wasn’t real? What tipped you off?”

“Lots of little things. But it was when…” I glance at Bill-E. “What did you say to Dervish when we broke you out?”

Bill-E thinks a moment. “I’m not sure. Something like, ‘Hey, neighbour, what took you so long?’ ”

“I heard you say something else, something you shouldn’t have said. That let me draw the different pieces together.”

“What did I say?” Bill-E asks.

“It’s not important,” I lie, not wanting to tell him that in my version he knew Dervish was his uncle.

“You were clever to break the illusion,” Dervish says. “Even if I’d twigged, I’m not sure I could have woken up. A spell like that will normally divert you down another path when you start to suspect something, lead you into the middle of another dream.”

“Maybe it has,” I laugh edgily. “Maybe this isn’t real and we’re still lying on a floor somewhere, asleep.”

Dervish grunts dismissively. “I’m not that gullible. This is the real world. We’re awake. I’m sure of it.” But he looks around nervously all the same. Then his gaze settles on me again. “If we come through this, you and I need to have a talk.”

“What about?”

“Magic. You’re doing things you shouldn’t be able to. I want to know how.”

“No big mystery,” I shrug. “I’m just drawing magic out of the air, putting it to good use, like when we fought Artery and Vein.”

“Hmm,” Dervish says, unconvinced. He licks his lips and focuses. We’re almost at the back door. I can hear voices outside. But they’re human voices and they fade quickly—people walking past.

“What now?” Bill-E asks. “Do we try driving out of town again?

“No,” Dervish says. “We have to alert the others. Tell people what they’re up against. They might not believe us, so we’ll have to be firm. Get them out of here, even if we have to force them. Fight if necessary—and I expect it will be. If we’re lucky, we’ll only have to worry about Chuda and his human accomplices.”

“And if we’re unlucky?” I murmur.

“Let’s not think about that,” he says, then opens the door and walks out to face whatever hell awaits.

ASSEMBLY CALL

On the outskirts of Slawter. Proceeding slowly, Dervish slightly ahead of Bill-E and me, one hand held palm up, trying to determine whether or not there’s a barrier in place. He said we should determine the lay of the land before raising the alarm. No point trying to herd dozens of people out of town if they’re going to be knocked out by a magically enforced shield.

“Why aren’t we hungry?” Bill-E asks, checking the date on his watch. “We’ve been asleep for… hell on a Harley! Six days! We should be ravenous but I don’t even feel peckish.”

“Trust you to be thinking about your stomach at a time like this!” I snort.

Dervish laughs gently. “No, it’s a good question. The answer’s simple—magic. We were cocooned from the demands of the real world. Hunger and thirst will hit us later, if we make it out, but right now we’re still operating by the magical rules of Slawter.”

“Is there anything magic can’t do?” Bill-E asks.

“Not much,” Dervish says, then draws up short. His fingers are trembling. He moves his hand left, right, left again. “Can you feel it?”

“No,” Bill-E frowns.

“Yes.” I take a step forward, sniffing the air. It doesn’t smell different, but it feels wrong. I raise a hand like Dervish, slide it forward, sense power building against it.

“No further,” Dervish says. “We don’t want to disturb the fabric of the barrier—it might tip off our enemies.”

“What is it?” I ask.

“In non-technical terms, a bubble of magic. They’ve sealed off the town. Enclosed it within a magical sphere, like putting a giant glass bowl over everything.” He frowns. “No demon is powerful enough to create a barrier this size, not in our universe. They’re using the stone you saw in the D workshops. It must be a functioning lodestone, a reservoir of ancient power. There aren’t many left in the world. The magic drained from most of them centuries ago. Others were deliberately destroyed, to prevent them falling into the hands of demonic mages.

“This is worse than I thought. With the power of a lodestone at their disposal, they can build a tunnel. Dozens of demons can cross and run riot within the barrier. Stay as long as they like. Nobody will be able to escape.”

“We have to stop them!” Bill-E gasps. “We can, can’t we, Dervish?”

“Of course,” Dervish says wearily, lowering his hand. “If we shatter the lodestone, the bubble will burst. But now that we know about it, the Demonata will have increased security around the warehouse. They’re not stupid.”

“We have to try,” I say quietly. “We can’t stand by and let people die.”

“You’re forgetting our earlier conversation,” Dervish says with a bitter smile. “The Disciples often let people die. In a situation like this, we’d normally sit back and let the Demonata run their course. We don’t have the power to stop them. Better to conserve our strength and fight them when we have a chance of winning.”

“But this is different,” I growl. “We know these people.”

“That’s not enough of a reason to get involved. I’ve had to sacrifice friends to demons before.”

“Don’t tell me you mean to—” I start to explode.

“Easy,” Dervish calms me. “We won’t stand by idly. We can’t. Because you’re right, this is different. We’re caught up in it. If we don’t find a way out, it’s not just the cast and crew of Slawter who’ll perish—we’ll die too.”

Heading into the heart of town. Dervish says there might be another way out of this mess—burst through a small section of the bubble, creating a temporary gap through which we can flee. But we’re not powerful enough to do it ourselves. We need to pin a demon against the bubble, then explode it with magic. By focusing the energy generated, we should be able to blast a hole through the barrier, which we can keep open for a while, allowing people to slip out.