“—but I wasn’t afraid of a few stinking zombies,” the man—it must be Kirilli Kovacs—is saying dismissively. “I laid into them with magic and fried them where they stood. If there hadn’t been so many, I’d have waltzed through unscathed, but there were thousands. They overwhelmed me, and the others too. It looked as if we were doomed but I didn’t panic. I gathered Dervish and the girls and ploughed a way through.”
“You saved their lives,” a nurse gasps.
“Pretty much,” the man says with a falsely modest smile.
I clear my throat. Dervish looks over and beams at me. Bec’s head bobs up and she studies my twisted body with a frown. Kirilli Kovacs scowls at me for interrupting, casts a sheepish glance at Dervish, then lowers his voice and continues his story.
“Sorry I didn’t bring any chocolates,” I tell Dervish, walking over to the bed and taking my uncle’s hands. He squeezes tight. I squeeze back gently, not wanting to hurt him. He squints as he studies me.
“There’s something different about you,” he says.
“I’ve started styling my hair differently,” I laugh.
“Oh. I thought it was that you were a metre taller, a hell of a lot broader, look like a werewolf and are naked except for that bit of cloth around your waist. But you’re right—it’s the hair.”
“There’s something strange about yours too,” I murmur, staring at the six punk-like, purple-tipped, silver spikes that have appeared on his head since I last saw him. “The tips are a nice touch. Very anarchic.”
We grin at each other. Dervish looks like death and I guess I don’t look much better. We must make some pair.
“How’s the heart?” I ask, letting go and taking a step back.
“Fine,” he says.
“It’s not,” Bec disagrees. She stands, taking care not to dislodge the drip. “We heard about your transformation. Meera said you’d be bringing others with you.”
“They’re waiting outside. What about his heart?”
“I need a transplant,” Dervish says. “Care to volunteer?”
“He needs to return to the demon universe,” Bec says, ignoring Dervish’s quip. “The doctors have done what they can, but if he stays here…” She shakes her head.
“Can you open a window?” I ask.
“Not right now. I’m not operating at full strength.” I formulate a quick plan. “Juni knows you’re here. A window’s being opened somewhere in the city. Demons will pour through. The air will fill with magic. I want you to tap into it, open a window of your own and get him out of here.”
“Don’t I have any say in this?” Dervish asks.
“No.”
My uncle chuckles, then lays back and smiles. “I won’t go,” he says.
“Take him somewhere safe,” I tell Bec. “If I survive, I’ll come—”
“You didn’t hear me,” Dervish interrupts. “I won’t go.”
“Of course you’ll go,” I snap. “You can’t stay here. You’ll die.”
“So?”
“Don’t,” I snarl. “We haven’t time for this self-sacrifice crap. You’re hauling your rotten carcass out of here and that’s that.”
Dervish’s smile doesn’t dim. “I’ve been thinking about it since we were rescued. Do you know that Beranabus and Sharmila were killed?”
“Yeah,” I mutter.
“We’re not sure about Kernel,” Dervish continues. “He disappeared. There was a lot of blood and scraps of flesh, but they mightn’t have been his. Maybe he’s dead, maybe not.” Dervish shrugs, grimaces with pain, then relaxes again. “I want to choose my place and manner of death. Beranabus and Sharmila were lucky—they died quickly, on our own world. But they could just have easily suffered for centuries at the hands of the Demonata and been butchered in that other universe, far from home and all they loved.”
“Those are the risks we take,” I say stiffly.
“Not me,” Dervish replies. “I’m through. I served as best I could, and if this body had a bit more life in it, I’d carry on. But I’m not good for anything now. I’m tired. Ready for death. I’ll fight when the demons attack, but if we repel them, I want to find a peaceful spot and give up the ghost in my own, natural time.”
“Don’t be—” I start to yell.
“Grubbs,” he interrupts gently. “I think I’ve earned the right to choose how I die. Don’t you?”
I stare at him, close to breaking. Dervish is all I have left in the world. I think of him as a father. The thought of losing him…
“I reckon I’ll last a few months if fate looks on me kindly,” Dervish says. “But that’s as much as I dare hope for. My body’s had enough. Time’s up. The way I’ve pushed myself, the demons I’ve faced, the battles I’ve endured… I was lucky to last this long.”
“But I need you,” I half sob.
“No,” he smiles. “The thought that you might was the one thing that could have tempted me to return to the universe of magic and struggle on. But you don’t need anyone anymore. I saw it as soon as I looked at you. You’ve found your path, and it’s a path you have to travel alone. Beranabus was the same. Kernel. Bec too.”
He looks at Bec and winks. “Grubbs isn’t the only one I’ll be sorry to leave,” he says, and the pale-faced, weary girl smiles at him warmly.
I think of things I could say to make him change his mind, but the horrible truth is, he’s right. I can see death in his eyes. Every breath is an effort. He’s not meant to continue. The afterlife is calling. It will be a relief for him when he goes.
Sighing, I sit on the bed and glare at the dying man. “If you think I’m going to start crying, and say things like ‘I love you’—forget it!”
“Perish the thought,” Dervish murmurs. “In your current state, I’ll be pleased if you don’t start eating me before I’m dead.”
“I’d never eat you. I have better taste.”
We laugh. Bec stares at us uncertainly, then joins in. She sounds a bit like Bill-E when she laughs, and for a few happy moments it’s as if me, my brother and uncle are together again, relaxing in Dervish’s study, sharing a joke, not a care in the world.
We spend the rest of the time chatting. Dervish and Bec bring me up to date on all that’s happened since I left them at the hospital, locating Juni on a ship full of corpses, finding a lodestone in the hold, the Shadow using it to cross, Beranabus destroying the stone and expelling the Shadow but losing his life in the battle.
“He went heroically, in the best way,” Bec says with a mournful smile. “He wouldn’t have wanted to go quietly.”
Then Bec tells me the Shadow’s true identity. It’s death. Not a chess-playing, suave, sophisticated Death like in an old, subtitled movie Dervish made me watch once. Or the sexy, compassionate, humorous Death in Bill-E’s
“How do we fight Death?” I ask. “Can we kill it?”
“I don’t think so,” Bec says.
“But it has a physical shape. If we destroy its body of shadows, maybe its mind will unravel. You said it didn’t always have a brain?”
“From what I absorbed, its consciousness is relatively new,” Bec nods.
“So if we rip it to pieces, maybe it’ll go back to being whatever it was before?”
“Maybe.” She doesn’t sound convinced.
“I can be the inside man,” Dervish says, only half joking. “Once Death claims me, I can work behind the lines and try to pass info back to you.”
“Perhaps you could,” I mutter. “Do you think it preserves everyone’s soul, that the spiritual remains of all the dead are contained within that cloud of shadows?”
“No,” Bec answers. “It’s using souls now, but from what I understand, it wasn’t always that way. It was simply a force before, like the blade of a guillotine—it ended life. Finito.”
I scratch my bulging, distorted head. “This is too deep for me. I don’t think I’ll ask any more questions. I’ll
