The Demonata 6-10. Darren Shan

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СКАЧАТЬ where his heart should be are writhing, hissing hatefully, spitting venom in my direction. Blood is flowing from the many cracks in his pale red skin. The holes above his upper lip – he has no nose – quiver wildly as he gleefully inhales the stench of terror from the doomed passengers. His dark red eyes are dilated with morbid pleasure. All eight arms are extended. Some of his mangled hands brush the heads and cheeks of humans as he passes, as if he is obscenely blessing them. The white-haired, pink-eyed albino traitor, Juni Swan, is behind him, smiling serenely.

      A woman clasping a baby falls to her knees in front of Lord Loss, sobbing painfully. “Please!” she cries. “Not my child. Have mercy on my baby. Don’t kill him. I beg you!”

      “Suffer unto me the little children,” Lord Loss murmurs blasphemously, taking the baby with three of his hands. He strokes the boy’s face and the baby laughs. Lord Loss passes him to Juni. “For you, my darling swan.”

      “You are generous to a fault, my lord,” she smiles, then kisses the infant.

      “No!” I scream. But it’s too late. A moment later she tosses the grey remains of the baby aside, having sucked his fragile life from him. The child’s mother chokes, eyes wide with disbelief and horror. Lord Loss bends and breathes in her sorrow, sighs contentedly, then moves on, leaving her to the lesser demons.

      Sick with fear, I back away from the approaching demon master. There are several empty rows behind me — the other passengers have fled to the tail of the plane. Lord Loss makes a small humming noise. “At last you move. I thought I might wring no sport from you today.”

      “Leave them alone,” I snarl, hands knotted into trembling fists. “It’s me you want, so let the others go.”

      “I cannot do that, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss sighs. “My familiars are hungry. I promised them food. You would not ask me to break my word, would you?”

      “My master always keeps his promises,” Juni chuckles.

      I focus on her. The fair-faced but black-hearted cuckoo in the nest. She acted like my mother. I loved her. I let her steal me away from Dervish. And all the time she was plotting against me. “Harpy!” I sob. “What the hell are you — a demon in disguise?”

      “I don’t have that honour,” she replies smoothly. “I’m merely a human like you. In fact I’m from the same family tree, believe it or not. But unlike you and your fool of an uncle, I chose to serve those greater than ourselves, rather than vainly battle with them.”

      “You sold us out!” I shout. Then confusion kicks in. “But… I don’t understand. In Slawter, when we trying to escape from the demons, you helped us.”

      “No,” she smiles. “That was all a pretence. When I first visited your house with Davida Haym, I used magic to convince Dervish to come to Slawter and bring you and Bill-E with him. On the set it was my job to win your confidence. I found out your secrets, so we could use them against you.

      “I played you like pawns,” she boasts. “I had you thinking I was one of your pathetic group, a trusted ally. I let you make escape plans and even allowed you to act on them — it would have been more delicious if you failed with freedom in sight. At the end, just before you breached the barrier, I meant to reveal my true self and turn you over to my master. And I would have, except…”

      “You were knocked unconscious,” I gasp, remembering the dying demon who clubbed her in its death throes.

      Juni nods bitterly. “By the time I recovered, it was too late. I paused to silence Chuda Sool – he knew the truth about me – then departed to join my master and plot our next approach.”

      “We had not planned to strike so soon,” Lord Loss says. He’s come to a stop three metres away, enjoying my growing understanding of how we were betrayed. “I could sense the magic within you, even though you hid it masterfully. I didn’t want to move on you until I knew precisely what I’d have to deal with. But then Juni had a vision.”

      “I catch glimpses of the future,” Juni says smugly. “I saw you change into a werewolf a few months before it happened.”

      “I could not wait any longer,” Lord Loss sighs. “I wished to punish you while you were human — there would be no satisfaction in killing a senseless animal. So I set a watch on you. I’m a fine judge of werewolves. I was confident of timing it so that I struck just prior to the final turning — I liked the idea of letting you suffer the agonies of the impending change for as long as possible.”

      “It all fell neatly into place in the end,” Juni smirks. “I was planning to come to Carcery Vale, looking for an excuse to explain my return. When your friend died, I donned my psychologist’s disguise, disposed of William Mauch and replaced him. You and Bill-E couldn’t have been more welcoming. And Dervish… Well, he was positively overjoyed to see me.”

      “You betrayed us,” I snarl, blinking away angry tears.

      “You were easy to betray,” she murmurs. I can see the wickedness in her eyes. How did I ever miss it? “Dervish fell for my pretty pink eyes and cool white skin. He never looked into my heart. I didn’t even have to use magic on him — he fell in love with me of his own accord. The sap.”

      I feel magic flare within me when she says that. Howling, I bring my fists up. Energy shoots from my knuckles, a ball of pure, invisible power. I direct it at Juni, meaning to blast her into a million fleshy pieces.

      Alarm ripples across her eyes. She starts to cast a protective spell, but it’s too late. I’m going to destroy her, rip her atoms apart and…

      Lord Loss sticks out four of his arms. He blocks Juni from the force of my blow and absorbs the energy. Flinches, staggers back a few metres, then rights himself and smiles.

      “You are powerful, Grubitsch, but untrained. Perhaps, if you had spent more time learning the ways of magic, you would be able to control that great force and defend yourself and these other unfortunate victims. But you ran from your responsibility. Therefore you – and all around you – will die.”

      I scream at him, then unleash a second blast of magic energy, more powerful than the first. It strikes him in the middle of his chest, drives him back several metres. He knocks Juni to the floor and almost loses his balance. But then he straightens and laughs. Brushes away drops of blood as if cleaning fluff from a jacket.

      “Have you finished or do you want to try again?” he asks. “Maybe you will be luckier the third time. What do you think, Miss Swan?”

      Juni’s getting back to her feet, irate at having been knocked down. “I think we should take him now and drop the games,” she snaps.

      “‘Take me’?” I repeat. “Take me where?”

      “My realm,” Lord Loss says. “You surely didn’t think I’d kill you here, along with these meaningless others, quickly and cleanly? Dear me, no. You robbed me of my great joy in life — chess. You must pay properly for that, in the universe of the Demonata, where time passes oh so slowly, where I can torture your soul for a thousand years… maybe more.”

      “A bit harsher than detention after school, wouldn’t you say?” Juni sneers.

      “Artery,” Lord Loss calls. The child-shaped demon with fire instead of eyes pulls his head out of the air hostess’s stomach cavity and looks up, guts dribbling down his chin.

      “Spine,” СКАЧАТЬ