by Darren Shan
Except it wasn’t Bill-E who made the rats materialise. It was Bec. And I realise, as I watch him looking down at himself, curiously touching his chest and face, that Bill-E’s as dead as ever. The girl from the far distant past has taken control of his body and is transforming it into her own.
A couple of hours later. Home. Sitting in the TV room with Dervish and Kernel. Kernel is asleep, moaning as he dreams, pain coming at last. Beranabus and Bill-E… no, Beranabus and Bec are in another room, having a lengthy heart-to-heart. The magician was ecstatic when he understood what was happening. He practically burst with excitement. Hugged her hard, weeping happily, kissing her face. And she stood there, hugging him back, crying too, repeating one word over and over—“Bran!”
Dervish and I haven’t said anything to each other. He’s staring off into space, his face a mess of dried tears. Every so often he shakes his head or makes a soft grunting noise. That’s as close as we’ve come to communication.
I don’t know what to feel. I’ve saved the world from the Demonata, but at what cost? To kill your own brother… Nobody should ever have to suffer such a cruel fate. I’m already wishing I could go back and change it. Maybe Bill-E would be better off alive and suffering than dead and gone. Did I have the right to make that choice for him? I don’t know.
And maybe I can go back. I haven’t discussed it with Beranabus yet, but I will, as soon as he’s through talking with Bec. Find a way to travel back in time like we did before. Stop any of it from happening. Snatch Bill-E from Juni’s clutches. Never open the entrance to the cave. I don’t see why we can’t. We did it once. I don’t care what Beranabus said about waves and trains reaching the end of the line—there must be a way to do it again.
Eventually, as the sun rises on a normal day, lighting up a world unaware of how close it came to toppling into an abyss of demonic damnation, Beranabus and Bec return. There’s almost nothing of Bill-E left. The girl has taken over completely, remoulding his body in her own image. Even his hair has turned a dark red colour. One or two small traces of my brother remain—she walks like he did, and her left eyelid hangs a fraction lower than her right—but I’m sure those traits will vanish too.
“Sorry we were such an age,” Beranabus says, sitting opposite Dervish. “Loads to talk about. We’ve cut it short as it is, only covered the more important issues.”
Bec stares at the couch, then sits on the floor close to the magician’s legs. She looks at me with worried eyes. “I hope you do not mind that I took this body.”
I blink. “You can speak our language now?”
“A spell,” she replies. “Beranabus taught me. I’m speaking in my own tongue, but it allows me to be understood by others.” She sighs. “If I could have worked such a spell when we first made contact, things would have been much simpler.”
“I’d normally say there was no point worrying about the past…” I begin, but Dervish cuts me off.
“Who are you?” he shouts. “What the hell have you done with Billy?”
“Billy’s dead,” Beranabus says. “This is Bec, an old friend of mine.”
“No!” Dervish yells, lurching to his feet. “That’s Billy’s body. She stole it. I saw her. I want it back.” His hands bunch into fists.
“I apologise, but I cannot give it back,” Bec says quietly.
“Even if she could, what would be the point?” Beranabus chips in, roughly but typically. “The boy’s dead. Bec took his lifeless flesh and filled it with her spirit. If she vacated it again, you’d only have a dead child on your hands.”
“I want him back,” Dervish snarls, eyes wild.
“I understand,” Bec says solemnly. “You wish to bury him.”
“No!” Dervish howls. “I want to hold him and tell him how much I love him. I want to…” He breaks down and slumps sideways, sobbing into the cushions. I long to go to my uncle, hold him, help him. But there are too many questions which must be answered. As cruel as it sounds, Dervish will have to wait.
“How did you do it?” I ask quietly.
“Which part?” Bec replies.
“The last bit—taking over Bill-E’s body.”
She shrugs. “I could see everything that was happening. I came back inside you—when we worked together to bend time, I joined with your flesh and mind. I could have stayed there within you, hidden away, and I meant to. But when I saw what Lord Loss was going to do, and realised you wouldn’t defend yourself, I had to act. I wasn’t sure if I could use the dead boy’s flesh. Even if I could, I only planned to inhabit it temporarily—I thought I could possess it, drive Lord Loss away, then leave it again.
“But, to my shock, the body accepted me. More than that—I was able to transform it and recreate my own form. I needn’t have—I could have kept your brother’s shape—but I wouldn’t have been comfortable that way and I don’t think you would have been either.”
“So this is your body now?” I ask. “You’re alive after all that time in the cave? Free to grow and live like any other person?”
The girl shrugs again and glances at Beranabus.
“We don’t know,” the magician says softly, touching Bec’s short red hair. “This body might age and develop naturally—or it might not. We’ll have to wait and see. Only time will tell.”
“Speaking of time…” I lean forward anxiously. This was what I wanted to ask about first, but it wouldn’t have been polite to barge straight in with it. “How did you bring us back from the future?”
Bec shakes her head softly. “I didn’t. We did it—Kernel, you and I.”
“But you started it. You knew the spells. You were in control.”
Again she shakes her head. “It was the Kah-Gash. Although we are parts of the weapon, it has a mind of its own. When we joined, our magic became the magic of the Kah-Gash. It told us how to unite minds and forces. It used us. Like you, I didn’t know what it was attempting to do. The time travel came as much of a surprise to me as it did to you.”
Bec looks around, staring at the chairs, the windows, the TV. This is all new to her. Unimaginable. She comes from a time when the world was much simpler. She’s itching to explore, ask questions, make sense of all the weird shapes and objects. But I can’t let this pass.
“Do you remember the spells?” I press. “Could we do it again?”
She thinks a moment and frowns. “It’s strange. Normally I only have to hear something once—I have a perfect memory and never forget anything. But in this instance I have only the vaguest recollection of the spells. I couldn’t repeat them.”
“You could try,” I insist.
She nods. “If you prompt me, I will do my best. But I cannot start without your help. You would have to show me the way, like you did before.”
“Grubbs,” Beranabus says, “you can’t go back again.”
“Why not?” I shout. Dervish looks up, startled by the ferocity of my tone. “Why the hell can’t I?”
“The Kah-Gash reversed time because the world faced annihilation and there was no other way,” Beranabus says calmly. “But it was a massive, perilous undertaking. If it had gone awry, the result would have been chaos, timelessness, maybe the destruction of both universes. You can’t take such a risk again, just for the sake of one boy.”
“That one boy means more to me than all the others in the world put together,” I snarl.
“Maybe,” Beranabus replies, “but he means nothing to the Kah-Gash. If he did, you wouldn’t be sitting here arguing—you’d be spitting out spells, trying to find the energy to take you back. You set events in motion last time. You were the first to act. If you want to do it again, go ahead.”
“I don’t know how!” I howl.
“Ask the Kah-Gash,” Bec says. “It spoke to us before and directed us. It’s like a person. You’re able to talk to it. Ask and see how it responds.”
“I don’t think—” Beranabus begins.
“Let him,” Bec insists. “If he feels he must do this, and if he can, it�
��s not our place to stand in his way.”
I stare at her uncertainly, then close my eyes and focus. I search for the magic and quickly find it, an energy and consciousness. There are no barriers between us now. I’ll never have trouble finding it again. It’s as much a part of me as the oxygen in my lungs.
I tell the magic—the Kah-Gash—what I want. I beg it for help. But there’s no answer. I guessed there wouldn’t be. Now that we’re one, I’ve begun to understand that other, mysterious part of myself. Beranabus is right. It won’t let me smash the structures of time just to save Bill-E.
“Even if you could phrase the spells,” Beranabus says as I open my eyes, tears flooding down my cheeks, “there isn’t a source to track back to. In this time, the tunnel hasn’t been opened. There’s no river of energy to ride back on.”
“We could find another place where demons broke through,” I moan.
“No,” Beranabus says. “You’d need an open tunnel, but there aren’t any.”
“Maybe it doesn’t have to be open,” I whisper—one final, desperate attempt. “We could try a tunnel that’s been closed. The energy might be trapped there, held in place, like in a battery or power cell.”
“Maybe,” Beranabus agrees. “But even if the energy was present, and you could unlock it, you’d have to follow the unleashed river of power back to its origin. I doubt it’s possible to set limits, to travel back just a day, a week or a month.”
“So what?” I sob. “We’ll ride it back to the start and wait. I don’t care.”
Beranabus smiles softly. “The last tunnel that was anything near to this in size was closed more than three hundred years ago.”
“Three…” I mutter, feeling the last sliver of hope die within me.
“Let it go, Grubbs,” Beranabus says. “Your brother’s dead and you can’t bring him back. There’s no way around it. You’ll drive yourself mad if you can’t accept that.”
“Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad,” I sigh, then sit there, crying, saying my silent farewells to poor, unfortunate Bill-E Spleen—R.I.-bloody-P.
ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN
Dervish’s bedroom. He’s sitting on the end of his bed, expression blank. He hasn’t washed the dirt and blood from his face and hands yet. I haven’t either. Too weary for such mundane tasks. Life will go on, I’m sure—it always does. But right now we’re a pair of zombies, capable only of the simplest movements.
“See you later,” I mumble, turning to go to my own room.
“Wait,” Dervish says. “I don’t want to be alone, not now. Stay. Please?”
With a weary nod, I start to pull at the leaves of my magical suit. It’s hanging off me in shreds and will be simple to remove. But after picking at a few leaves, I lose interest and crawl onto the bed beside Dervish. I put my arms around him and we hold each other tight. He often held me like this when I first came to live with him, whenever I awoke from a particularly brutal nightmare. But this time the nightmare is reality and there’s little comfort to be found in the embrace.
“You had to do it,” Dervish whispers.
I break into fresh tears. “He was my brother,” I moan. “What would Dad have said?”
“The same thing I’m saying,” Dervish croaks. “You did what had to be done. It should have been me. I was his guardian—yours too. The responsibility was mine. But I couldn’t find the strength. I failed. If you hadn’t been so brave, we’d have all died and Billy would have suffered terribly. You did what was best. You should feel proud, not wretched.”
I laugh bitterly. “Proud! Yeah, sure.”
Dervish sighs. “Wrong word. You should feel… I don’t know… maybe there isn’t a word for it. But you did the right thing. That has to be enough. It has to keep you going. Because if you let this destroy you—if you let the madness take you—I’ll lose two nephews, not one.”
“But it’s so tempting,” I mumble. “I want out, Dervish. I know what it’s like to be mad. It’s easier than this. Anything’s easier than this.”
Dervish is silent a minute. Then he says, “I’ll make you a deal. If you fight the temptation… stay sane, no matter how painful it is… so will I.”
“You feel it too?” I ask, surprised by his admission.
He nods. By the way he trembles, I know he’s not just saying it. “Like you said, anything would be easier than this. But we have each other. If you fight, so will I. I’ll stay sane for you if you stay sane for me. Agreed?”
I hug him tighter, loving him more than I ever did before. “Agreed.”
Dervish blinks at the ceiling. “It sounds crazy, but I’m sad about Juni too. I know she was evil and I hate her for what she did, but I loved her. I really thought we were going to be together for the rest of our lives. She had to die, and I’m glad I killed her, but…”
“I know what you mean. I miss her too. I was surprised Lord Loss took her body. I guess he plans to bury or cremate her.”
Dervish snorts. “Eat her, more probably!”
We laugh softly, painfully—the first step back towards something that might one day pass for a normal life. And then, holding one another, we close our eyes, listen to the sounds of the mansion and the world outside, and slowly drift off into a nightmare-laced but nonetheless welcome sleep.
It’s dark when I wake. Dervish is snoring lightly. I lie still for a few minutes, enjoying the nearness of my uncle, remembering Bill-E and Loch, my lost brother and friend, trying not to cry, just about managing to hold back the tears.
I ease myself off the bed, careful not to disturb Dervish. My suit of leaves has disintegrated entirely. I brush the last of the flaky patches off, then pad to my bedroom, shower and kit myself out in more regular clothes. Thinking about all that’s happened while I dress, the night when I almost became a werewolf, the plane, Beranabus, fighting the demons, travelling back through time, killing Bill-E.
Is it just me or does all that seem a bit much for a teenager to have to deal with? Most of my friends have nothing more catastrophic than acne or bad breath to overcome. Wouldn’t it have been fairer to spread the craziness around? Couldn’t Charlie have been stuck with the werewolf curse, and Frank with being a magician? Couldn’t Leon have been betrayed by Juni, and Robbie recruited by Beranabus? And let’s not leave the girls out. Reni did her bit, losing Loch, but Mary could easily have had to kill one of her brothers, and Shannon could have done the whole trip through time stuff.
I chuckle (nice to see I still can). I’m being ridiculous, but there’s a nugget of truth there. It’s been a heavy burden for a single person to bear, especially one as young, inexperienced and… hell, let’s say it… cowardly as me. It isn’t fair.
But the universe isn’t fair. Things don’t work out neatly, pain, hardship and challenges divided equally among those best equipped to deal with them. Sometimes individuals have to be Atlases and carry the weight of the world alone. It shouldn’t happen that way, but it does.
At least I have the crumb of comfort of not having fallen. I stumbled and wished all the time that I could bail out. But I kept going. I did what I had to. I came through. It would have been sweet to do it unscathed, Bill-E and Loch alive and well. But in the grand scheme of things, I don’t have too much to complain about. That’s how Beranabus would see it. And he’s right. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. The devastation of having killed Bill-E is all-consuming. I don’t think any amount of reasoning will ever ease that pain.
Dressed, I go looking for Beranabus, Kernel and Bec. Trying to focus on their needs, since it helps me not brood about Bill-E. Beranabus was badly wounded in the fight and might need help. Kernel will be in a lot of pain. He said he’d have to go to a hospital. I can arrange that. And Bec…
I’m not sure what I can do for a girl who’s been dead for sixteen hundred years, only to find herself slap-bang in the middle of the modern world. Guide her round the house for a start, I guess. Teach her how to open and close doors and windows, explain what TVs, computers and CD p
layers are. No… they can come later. First teach her how to run a bath and use the shower. Give her some clothes to keep her ticking over until she can go shopping in the Vale. Explain where everything is in the kitchen, what a fridge is, how to open a tin, that water comes from a tap and not a well.
I’m padding down the stairs when I hear her. No… not hear, exactly. I sense her. In the hall of portraits. Changing direction, I go to check that she’s OK. I find her studying the faces of dead Gradys and our various relations, slowly moving from one painting or photo to the next, eyes steady, head cocked slightly to one side.
“These are not drawings,” she says without looking around, sensing my presence the same way I sensed hers.
“They’re photographs.”
“Are they magic? Are people alive within them, their souls trapped like mine was in the cave?”
“No. It’s just their image. We use machines to take them.”
“Machines?”
“Special tools.”
She turns. “I’ve seen nothing of this new world. I was limited to the cave. I could peer into the universe of the Demonata, but this world was a blank. I don’t know what has changed and what hasn’t.”
“Most of it’s different to what you knew. Probably everything. It’ll take a while to get used to, but you’ll be OK. Look at it like an adventure—you’ll be exploring a brand new planet.”
“Yes. I’m excited. Scared but excited.” She sighs and looks at the photos again. “Your family?”
“Some of them.” I move up beside her. “They all caught the disease, or died trying to help others who were infected. You know that some of us change into wolf-like beasts, don’t you?”
“I saw them in my own time,” she answers. “I didn’t think the curse would last this long. But I’m not surprised. The blood of the Demonata is strong.” She looks at me shyly. “We are family. Separated by many generations, but family nevertheless.”