Dark Calling

I’ve seen a lot of crazy stuff over the last few years that would leave most people’s jaws hanging. I thought I was immune to surprise. But this blows me away. All I can do is gawp at the ball of light like a five-year-old who’s walked in on Santa Claus.

“You must come with me,” the voice says. I don’t know where the words are coming from. They seem to be forming inside my head.

“Come…” the voice insists.

“Come where?” I croak. “Who are you? What are you?”

“There will be time for explanations later. We must depart this world before…” The voice stops and there’s a sighing sound. “Too late.”

“What do you mean?”

Before the ball of light can answer, my crazy fantasy of a few minutes ago becomes a reality. All around me, the corpses on the deck shudder, twitch, then clamber to their feet. As impossible as it is, the dead have come back to life, and they’re focusing their glinting, hungry eyes on me.

COME…

→ The rising dead terrify me more than any demon ever did. Demons are natural. They obey certain laws. You know what to expect when you face one of them. But the dead aren’t supposed to return. When a body perishes, the soul moves on. That’s the way it’s always been. But someone must have forgotten to mention that to these walking, snarling, slavering corpses.

I stand like a simpleton, watching them advance. I’d heard that zombies in movies walk slowly, stiffly, mechanically. Not these. They don’t have the look of living people, but they move like them, fluidly and firmly.

As the dead close in on me, teeth exposed, hands outstretched, the ball of light flits over their heads and flares, causing them to cover their eyes and stumble to a halt. They mewl like newborn calves and lash out at the light.

“Come…” the voice repeats. “Cross while they are distracted.”

“Where?” I howl, gaze fixed on the zombies.

“Come…” is the only response. The ball of light skims over the heads of the walking dead and hovers by the window.

“I can’t,” I whisper, studying the ranks of animated corpses. “The others…”

“Doomed,” the voice says. “You cannot worry about them. They are no longer your concern. Come…” It sounds impatient.

A man without a chest – it’s been ripped away, exposing the bones of his spine and shoulders – lowers his arms and blinks. Realising he can see again, he sets his sights on me and rushes forward, howling wildly.

My hands, which have been trembling by my sides, shoot up and I unleash a ball of energy. The dead man flies backwards, knocking down those behind him. As others converge, I blast them with magic and back up close to the window.

“Yes,” the voice murmurs approvingly.

But I’ve no intention of going anywhere with this freakish ball of talking light. I ran out on Beranabus once, long ago. Never again.

Taking a firm stand, I construct an invisible barrier, a circle of magic six or seven feet in diameter, through which the dead can’t pass. I’m not good at this type of magic. I doubt I could put a barrier in place strong enough to stop a demon. But if these revived corpses are only as strong as they were in life, it should repel them.

My stomach rumbles with fear as the zombies cluster around the barrier. They scrape, punch, kick and spit at it. I hear – imagine – a creaking noise. I reinforce the barrier, sweating desperately, and turn 360 degrees, trying to cover every angle at once, ensuring there are no weak points.

There aren’t. The barrier holds. As long as the magic in the air remains, I can keep these wretched zombies at bay.

I’ve been holding my breath. Letting it out, I bend over and smile raggedly. I even manage a weak laugh. That would have been an awful death. To stand up to one powerful demon after another, only to fall to a pack of alarming but relatively weak zombies… It would have been a shameful way to go.

“You have done well,” the voice says, pulsing eagerly by the window. “Now come with me. We must leave this world. We have far to go.”

I straighten and study the ball of light. I’m glad of the excuse not to look at the writhing zombies, especially the children, every bit as ravenous as the adults.

“I’m going nowhere without the others,” I tell it.

“They do not matter. You are the one we need.

Come…”

“Who are ‘we’?” I challenge the voice. “What do you want? Where–”

The ship lurches. I’m thrown sideways, towards the ranks of living dead. I yell with shock, but the barrier deflects me away from the gnashing, grabbing zombies.

I get to my feet slowly, rubbing my arm where I collided with the barrier. The ship has tilted. The water in the swimming pool is starting to spill out over the lowest edge, and some of the deckchairs are sliding backwards. A few of the zombies slip away from the barrier, but they’re back again moments later.

“What’s happening?” I ask the ball of light.

“The ship is sinking,” it answers. “Beranabus has been killed. Come now, before it is too late.”

It takes a few seconds for that to hit. At first I’m just panicked that the ship’s going down. Then the full impact of the statement rams home. “Beranabus?” I gasp.

“The Shadow killed him.”

“No!” I shake my head wildly. Beranabus can’t be dead. The world doesn’t make sense without him. He’s single-handedly held back the hordes of demons for more than a thousand years. I knew he was old and tired, and he often spoke half-heartedly of retiring. But secretly I believed he was invincible, that he’d live forever, reborn like a phoenix when he grew tired of the confines of his old bones.

“There will be no rebirth,” the voice says calmly as everything collapses into chaos. “Beranabus is dead. This world will have to struggle on without him. You must come with me. You must.”

I expect tears, but there aren’t any. I’m devastated by the loss of Beranabus, and maybe I’ll weep for him later, but for now I’m dry-eyed. When I’m sure I’m not going to cry, I look at the light again. This time I regard it with a hint of loathing.

“You set this up,” I snarl. “You led us here. You’re in league with Juni Swan.”

“No,” the voice says. “We do not serve the Demonata.”

“You split us from Grubbs,” I accuse it. “You forced me to advise Beranabus to focus on Juni. This is your work as much as it’s hers.”

The ball is silent for a moment. “You were aware of our guiding hand,” it says. “Interesting. You see and hear more than we thought.”

“Yes.” I laugh roughly. “And I see through you now. Beranabus would be alive if we hadn’t come here. You manipulated us.”

“To an extent,” the voice agrees. “We needed a lodestone. I could not make the final push to your world without one. So we influenced you and your foes, and tempted you to this place. It is unfortunate that it resulted in Beranabus’s death, but that is an acceptable loss. All that matters is that you come with me. Everything else is immaterial.”

“Bull!” I snort.

The ball of light flickers. “I do not understand.”

“I’m going nowhere. My friends are here — Bec, Dervish, Sharmila. I’m staying to help them. I promised I’d keep this window open and I will.”

“No,” the voice says. “We cannot wait. If you fall, all is lost. I do not have the power to reclaim your fragment of the Kah-Gash. It would go to–”

“So that’s it!” I yell. “You want the weapon.”