The Demonata #10: Hell's Heroes (22 page)

I expect us to slow to a halt, but instead we carry on at full speed, then split as we hit the center of the Crux. There’s a blinding flash. We separate into sixty-four fragments and strike the black and white squares. They flare, and ripples run across their surface. Sparks shoot out of them.

Then everything clicks together. The sixty-four squares join in less than the blink of an eye. We become one again, only now we’re enmeshed with the squares. We explode outwards, the squares expanding with us. We’re the barriers between zones, but we also fill the infinite space inside them, everywhere at once.

The expansion lasts millions of years, but it’s also instantaneous. That doesn’t make sense, but it’s the only way I can explain it. Time has shattered. The laws we lived by—that all creatures lived by since the Big Bang—exist no longer. In the absence of time, everything happens immediately yet gradually.

As I’m trying to get my head around the new laws, there’s a sudden click and the expansion stops. Everything settles. The last traces of the universes I was familiar with disappear completely. The worlds, stars, people, creatures… gone. Erased from history. The souls of the dead are gone too. In this universe, their bodies never existed, so their souls never developed. All is undone.

Before I can go insane with guilt, I notice beings blinking back into existence. The Old Creatures and the Demonata who were alive when Bec, Kernel, and I became the Kah-Gash are revived and returned to their proper places in the universe. The dismayed Old Creatures pop up in the black squares and wail at all that has been lost. The delighted Demonata—both the original demons and those they sired—materialize in the white squares and go wild with joy.

Time has been eradicated. Humanity and their kind are no more and never were. The original order has been restored. Death can function as an unconscious force, the way it was meant to. Demons will live forever, breed, and kill without limits. The Old Creatures will drift along meaninglessly in their otherwise lifeless zones, or be tracked down and slaughtered by demons. The Shadow and the Demonata have won.

The end.

N
O
, you idiot, it’s the beginning.”

Bec laughs, and light bubbles around me. I blink and shield my eyes with a hand. Then frown. Hang on—I’m a bodiless force. I don’t
have
eyes or hands.

“You do now,” Bec giggles.

Lowering my hand, I stare with astonishment at the little girl sitting on a couch I know only too well. It’s from my old home, the mansion in Carcery Vale. I’m in the enormous living room, in my regular spot opposite the oversize TV. Bec’s sitting across from me, smirking. A confused-looking Kernel is in a seat nearby.

“What the hell…” I stop, something about my hand unnerving me. I turn it over, wondering what’s wrong. Then I realize—there are no hairs. The skin is smooth and pale. The fingers are large but not inhuman, and instead of claws I have ordinary fingernails. I’m not a werewolf.

“Of course you aren’t,” Bec snorts. “Not unless you choose to be. You can make yourself muscular and hairy if you want, but I’d rather you didn’t. You looked so silly prancing about as a man-wolf.”

She gets to her feet and walks to the window. She’s dressed in simple clothes, just a cloak or something like that wrapped around her. I’m in my favorite jeans and T-shirt. Kernel’s wearing something similar.

I follow Bec to the window. As I cross the room, I spot objects snapping into place around me—vases, books, pictures. The room is still forming.

Bec is staring out of the window at nothing. And I mean
real
nothing. It’s black out there, the pure blackness of empty space. As I watch, some of the garden from home sprouts into view and spreads, looking strange against the dark backdrop. I see Bec’s reflected smile in the glass. She turns and beams at me.

“What’s going on?” I mumble.

“I’m making a temporary base for us,” she says. “I figured it might help us adjust more smoothly.”

“And these?” I ask, nodding at our bodies. “Are they real?”

“As real as we want them to be,” she says enigmatically, returning to the couch.

“What does that mean?” Kernel snaps. “Is this a dream? Reality? How are you…” He stops, head twisting from one side to the other. “I can’t see the lights,” he whispers.

“Of course not,” Bec says. “We
are
the lights now. They were part of the Kah-Gash. Now that we’ve become it, you don’t need to see them. We’ve moved beyond that stage. We’re not physical beings. We don’t really have eyes or ears, or even brains. You have to start thinking bigger than that.”

“How about you just explain it to us nice and simply before we lose patience,” I growl, flexing my fingers.

Bec laughs. “You can’t threaten me, Grubbs. This body’s for show. You could grind it to dust and it wouldn’t make the least difference.” She clicks her fingers, and her head explodes. Blood pumps from her neck. Kernel and I yelp with shock. Then a new head grows out of the stump. Her eyes open and she winks. She waves a hand over the blood on the couch and it fades.

“I don’t get it,” I mutter. “Is this fantasy? Are we dead?”

“No, you moron,” Bec says. “We’re the Kah-Gash. The universe is us and we’re the universe. We’re the glue holding everything together, the power that drives it, the force…” She sees incomprehension in my eyes and sighs. “Are you getting any of this?” she asks Kernel.

“I think so,” he says slowly. “But…” His face drops. “We destroyed the world! The people we knew—are they all…?”

“Dead,” Bec says cheerfully. “Torn to atoms, then broken down even further. None of that universe exists any longer. Time and all its creations are lost forever. In this universe they only ever existed”—she taps her head—“up here.”

“I’m glad you’re taking it so well,” I snarl, advancing on her, trying to figure out a way to kill her, to make her pay for the awful massacre she tricked us into engineering.

“Don’t be a child,” Bec tuts. “I didn’t trick you into anything. I tricked
them
—the Demonata and Death. It was the only way. Bran figured it out. He couldn’t be certain it would work, but in the absence of any alternatives, we had to risk it.”

“If you don’t start making sense quickly…”

Bec shakes her head. “With such a small brain, I don’t know how you made it this far.” As I open my mouth to protest, she points a finger at me. “The trigger.” She points to Kernel. “The eyes.” She taps her chest. “The memory. You gave us the power to undo time and all its trappings. Kernel guided us. And I absorbed.”

She waves a hand at the ceiling and it turns transparent. The sky above is black. Impossible to see anything. But as we watch, an object comes into focus. I’m not sure where the light that strikes it comes from, but it’s fully lit and even more recognizable than the room we’re sitting in. It’s the moon, full-size and round, a pockmarked pearl in a sea of darkness.

“I remembered everything about the original universe,” Bec says, smiling up at the lunar giant. “I couldn’t access those memories, but they had to be there. If that universe was ever to be reassembled, the Kah-Gash would need the blueprints to restore everything accurately.

“Bran knew that too. It’s what gave him the idea. He figured if the memory of the Kah-Gash could store everything from the original universe, it should be able to memorize all of the new universes too.

“I was busy while you two were incinerating galaxies,” Bec continues. “To rip the universes to shreds, we had to touch every planet, person, animal, atom. As we touched and tore, I committed everything to memory. The whole of history, from the moment of the Big Bang to the end… it’s all up here.” She taps her head.

“I know the names of every intelligent being, the spots on the wings of every butterfly that broke out of a cocoon, the genetic codes of the simplest and most complex of creatures. I know how suns functioned, how worlds formed, how life evolved. All of the secrets of the old universes are mine. They can be yours too, if you want me to share, though I suspect you aren’t bothered.”

“So you remember,” I grunt. “So what? It’s still gone, isn’t it?”

“Gone but not forgotten,” Kernel murmurs, his forehead crinkling thoughtfully. “Look at these bodies—they’re real. Perfect replicas, down to the smallest detail. That’s right, isn’t it, Bec?” She nods. “And the moon is real too?”

“Exactly the way it was before we blew it to pieces,” Bec grins.

“We can bring it all back!” Kernel shouts. “The Kah-Gash has the power to tear a universe apart, but it also has the power to rebuild it!”

“That’s what Bran counted on,” Bec chuckles.

I stare at the pair of them, still confused. “What’s the point of building a fake universe?”

“It won’t be fake,” Bec corrects me. “It will be as real as the old universe was. We can do anything. We can make all the solar systems, worlds, and creatures the same as they were before. We’ll let history unfold as it did first time around, begin with the initial sparks of life and build from there. Advanced species like humans will live and develop souls again. Everything will happen as it did from the dawn of time up to the moment of universal destruction. We’ll direct proceedings that far, then give the inhabitants of all the worlds their freedom. The future will be in their hands after that.”

“What’s the point?” I frown. “The Demonata will wreck it all. They exist too. They’ll cross and destroy, just like—”

“You weren’t listening,” Kernel interrupts. “Bec said we could do
anything.
”

“You mean we’ll protect them from the demons?” I shake my head. “They found ways to twist the laws before. That’s why the Kah-Gash shattered. We can’t be sure that we can stop them doing it again.”

Bec crosses the room and takes my hands. Her fingers are trembling. “We won’t have to protect our people if the demons aren’t there,” she says softly.

“But they are. I can sense them.”

“I can too,” Kernel says. “I know where all of them are, along with the Old Creatures. If I close my eyes, I can visualize all sixty-four zones and track the whereabouts of every living being.”

“The Kah-Gash holds everything together,” Bec says. “We
are
the universe. We bind every molecule to those around it. Nothing can hide from us. And nothing can defy us.” The mansion fades and we’re floating in space, illuminated by the light of the re-created moon. The freezing cold and lack of oxygen doesn’t affect me. Why should it? As the Kah-Gash, we
create
temperature, air, all the rest. I begin to see why Bec and Kernel are so psyched.

“The Kah-Gash never sought to control the universe,” Bec says. “It had no will of its own. It simply held things in place. It didn’t know why it kept the demons and Old Creatures apart—it just did. It wasn’t capable of making choices.”

“But
we
are,” Kernel says, a twinkle in his eyes.

“Ideally we should respect the order of the original universe,” Bec says. “Never interfere. Let things develop in their own way. Stay neutral.”

“But to hell with that,” Kernel grins. “I think this is why the Kah-Gash began to explore after it split, why it took up residence in a host of different creatures. It was learning, growing mentally, choosing.”

Bec nods. “Choice was everything. When the piece in Lord Loss chose to leap into me—that’s when the Kah-Gash gave us the means to self-govern, assuming we could work out the kinks.”

“Are you getting it yet?” Kernel smirks.

“I think so,” I sigh. “We can build it all again, the worlds and people of our own universe?”

“Yes,” Bec says.

“We can re-create time?”

“Or the semblance of it,” Kernel says.

“But before any of that…” I close my eyes and focus. Like the other two, I can sense the position of the demons, every one of them, spread across thirty-two zones, still celebrating their triumph and return to eternal life. As the Kah-Gash, we’re the force holding their bodies together, the blood gushing through their veins and arteries, the cells of their grey, lumpy brains. We bind them. But if we choose, we could just as easily…

“…
un
bind them.” I open my eyes and smile. “We can wipe them out. Kill them all. Eliminate each and every one of the beasts.”

“Yes,” Bec says, then her features crease. “But we mustn’t.”