Hell’s Heroes

He picks out a green dress and smiles. “This matches your eyes. Will you try it on, to please me?”

“Very well.” Bec sighs and slips out of her nightdress, not embarrassed to be naked in front of the demon master. Bec’s nudity made me uncomfortable at first, but I’m used to it now. What I find more unsettling is the fact that she seems to want to please Lord Loss. Why should she care about his wishes, or dress to impress him? This is our enemy, a vile, twisted monster. Yet she’s letting him treat her like a doll.

When Bec has dressed, Lord Loss leads her to the table and applies make-up as she sits patiently. It’s obscene, watching his mangled hands brushing across her face. I want to knock him away and slap Bec back to her senses. It wouldn’t be so bad if he was controlling her thoughts, brainwashing her to do his bidding. But I don’t get any hint of that. Bec looks nervous, but her mind appears to be her own.

When Lord Loss is finished, he drifts back a few metres and studies her. He nods with satisfaction, as he does every time, and murmurs, “What a vision.”

Bec blushes, unable to hide a timid smile. I’ve grown to loathe that smile. It’s wrong. This should be a place of tears and heartache, not shy smirks.

“Come,” Lord Loss says, offering Bec an arm. “Let me show you more of my palace.”

Bec gulps, then takes his arm and lets the demon master lead her out of the bedroom. They descend a staircase of webs. Some of Lord Loss’s familiars scurry past as the pair walk gracefully down the steps. The lesser demons scowl at Bec, but steer clear of her, afraid of angering their master. Bec knows they hate her, but she doesn’t care. She’s safe as long as she stays by her protector.

They stroll through the castle, Lord Loss polite as a prince, the perfect host, pointing out features of special interest. Bec admires the chandeliers and statues, and coos when Lord Loss modestly admits to designing them himself.

“You’re so creative,” she says.

“That is kind of you, but untrue,” he replies. “They’re modelled after objects I have seen on Earth. I have a certain workmanlike skill, but no real artistic streak. Unoriginality is the curse of my kind.”

They descend further, to a cellar deep beneath the ground. In my sleep I tense. I know what’s coming and I hate it. This is one of the worst parts of the dream. If I could skip it, I would, but it draws me on as it always does, an unwilling viewer, unable to pull back or look aside.

We enter a chamber of torture. Savage implements of torment are strapped to the webby walls. Brands glow red in burning fires. The air is pierced by the screams of the dying. Bec flinches and her fingers tighten on Lord Loss’s arm. He pats her small hand, comforting her. She gulps, then takes a trembling step forward. Lord Loss nods approvingly and leads her on.

I’ve never been able to count all the people in the cellar, since many are hidden behind walls or cabinets. There are at least thirty, probably a lot more to judge by the volume of shrieks and moans.

“Do you feel sorry for them?” Lord Loss asks as Bec shudders.

“Yes,” she whimpers.

“Good,” he says. “Pity is a virtue. I feel sorry for them too. It’s true,” he insists as she shoots him a dubious glance. “I take pleasure from their torment, but I feel pity too. That is how I differ from my fellow demons. I don’t hate humanity. I crave their torment and sorrow, but I also adore them. I torture with love, Little One. Can you understand that?”

“No,” she frowns.

He sighs. “At least you are honest. I’m glad you can reveal your true feelings to me. I don’t want there to be any deception between us. Always tell me the truth, even if you think I won’t like it. Lies belittle us all.”

Bec observes silently as Lord Loss sets to work on a few of the humans hanging from the walls or lying across hard tables. He acts like a nurse as he tortures them, every movement deceptively gentle and loving. He purrs softly, telling them how sorry he is, how he wishes he could free them, how it won’t be much longer now.

Bec doesn’t look as if she shares the demon master’s enjoyment, but she doesn’t object either. I’ve tried to read her mind every time we get to this point, but I can’t. I’d give anything to know what’s in her thoughts. I hope she’s putting on a detached face to fool Lord Loss, to stay on his good side and trick him into thinking she doesn’t hate him. I hope this is a masterful act, that she’s plotting to betray him, waiting and praying for Kernel and me to burst in and rescue her.

But her eyes are calm and emotionless, and when she licks her lips, it looks as if she’s fighting a desire to try what Lord Loss is doing.

As the demon master continues to extract fresh pain from his victims, Bec casts her gaze around and my virtual head swivels too. This is the part I hate the most. I try to look away or shut my eyes, but I’m locked in. I have to see what she sees, even though it sends a chill through my bones that will still be there when I wake.

The people chained to the walls and torture devices are a varied mix. Men and women, boys and girls, of different races. No babies — Lord Loss likes to be able to hold discussions with his victims. With a single exception, I don’t recognise any of them, though I know by his magical aura that one – a thin, blond-haired man – is a Disciple.

Bec studies the Disciple – he’s in the worse shape of anyone, kept alive only by magic – then moves on, her gaze sweeping over a girl my age. I didn’t notice her the first few times. To Bec she’s of no more interest than any of the others. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. It was only after the fourth or fifth time, when I was concentrating on details to keep boredom at bay, that I focused on the girl’s face and got a shock that echoes even now, twenty or so viewings later.

The girl is pretty, but her face is covered with blood and scrunched up with terror. Her clothes hang from her in filthy rags, but I’m sure they originally came from the finest designer boutiques. And although her hair is a tangled mess and her nails are long and cracked, once they were as carefully tended as a model’s.

Apart from the blood, the girl doesn’t seem to have been tortured, but many of Lord Loss’s victims look unmarked. He patches them up and lets them recover a little when he’s done, to make it all the more painful next time. Inside, I’m sure she’s been twisted and torn in more ways than most humans could imagine.

As Bec’s eyes dart about, I snatch the same quick glimpse of the girl that I’ve been horrified by ever since I realised who she was. Back on Earth, in a quiet hospital room, my lips move as I mutter in my sleep. “Bo Kooniart…”

EXECUTIVE BOARD

→ Bec and Lord Loss move on eventually, up another set of stairs, to a different part of the demon master’s palace. Blood drips from his doughy flesh as he floats along, but it’s not his own. Bec is silent, head bowed, brooding.

I’m thinking about Bo Kooniart. It seems like a lifetime since I last saw her, racing back into a demon-infested town in search of her horrible father and pain of a brother. Bo was one of the actresses in Slawter, a movie about demons made by a crazed director who decided to use real-life monsters in the name of art.

I despised Bo. Her father, Tump Kooniart, was a powerful agent, which was the only reason she and her brother were cast in the film. He was working in league with the director and Lord Loss. He thought the Demonata would spare him and his children. He thought wrong.

Bo was a spoilt, snobbish, sneering little brat. But when the demons ran riot and our lives hung in the balance, she acted selflessly, heroically. We might not have escaped without her help. Then, rather than follow us to freedom, she went back to try and rescue her father and brother.

I assumed Bo had been killed along with the hundreds of others who died, but Lord Loss must have spared her and taken her to his own universe, where he could torture her at his leisure.

When I realised Bo was still alive, trapped in that chamber of nightmares, I felt that I was directly to blame. Lord Loss authorised the attack on the film set in order to wreak revenge on Dervish and me. All those people died because of us. Bo is in torment because of me. I feel compelled to cross and break her out. But I don’t dare, not until I’ve decided what to do about Bec. I might get away with one sneak attack on Lord Loss’s kingdom, but never two.

The tour continues. Bec is quiet for the most part and looks gloomy, but I’m sure I’d look a lot worse in her position. How can she walk alongside that beast so calmly? Unless she’s considering joining him…

I wish they’d have a conversation about it. In movies, the villain always gives his plan away by talking too much and revealing his secrets. But Lord Loss never discusses Bec’s state of mind. There’s no mention of the war between the Demonata and mankind, or what role he wants Bec to play in it.

The pair enter a room filled with chess boards and the demon master’s face lights up. After our showdown in Slawter, he said I’d spoilt chess for him, but that’s not true. He’s still a fanatic, as evidenced by the care he takes of the boards and the way he describes them to Bec, telling her where he got them, the games he’s played, the opponents he’s faced.

“Did you carve any of these yourself?” Bec asks.

“No,” he says morosely. “I started to, several times, but chess is like a religion for me. Whenever I sat down to make a set of my own, it felt like sacrilege.”

Bec looks around at the array. She seems to be searching for one in particular. “What about the original Board?” she asks eventually.

“Why do you seek that?” Lord Loss’s eyes narrow.

“I don’t seek it,” Bec smiles. “I’d just like to see it again. I know you took it from the cave after Drust died.”

“You mean after you killed him,” Lord Loss murmurs.

Bec stiffens, then tilts her head. “Aye.”

Lord Loss clicks several fingers. A demon with five legs and a neck like a giraffe scurries away and returns with a crystal board, the first that was ever made on this world. According to Kernel, it was a tool of the Old Creatures. They used it to help mankind evolve.

Lord Loss holds the Board reverentially, then passes it to Bec. She treats it the same careful way he did, examining it closely. “It’s amazing,” she whispers. “I can feel the power, so different to ours.”

“The magic of the Old Creatures,” Lord Loss sniffs. “It’s nothing special.”

Bec hides a smirk behind the Board. I don’t see what all the fuss is about. It’s just another chess board as far as I’m concerned. I know it has magical properties, but I’ve seen a hundred more fascinating objects in my travels.

Bec hands the Board back to Lord Loss. The dream’s almost over. I’m anticipating the end. But before the conclusion, there will be one last conversation.

“I’d like to enter it,” Bec says.