Volumes 9 and 10 - Dark Calling/Hell’s Heroes
The king of horror’s demonic symphony in ten volumes, now available in omnibus editions – each containing two titles in the spine-chilling Demonata series.Dark Calling:The Disciples are being manipulated. Only Kernel Fleck knows that something is wrong. But he is in the grip of a creature who cares nothing for the fate of humanity. Voices are calling to him from the darkness and he's powerless to resist.Kernel has already been to hell and back. Now he's about to go further…Hell’s Heroes:Beranabus and Dervish are gone. Bec has formed an unholy alliance with Lord Loss. Kernel is blind, held on Earth against his will. Grubbs is mad with grief and spinning out of control.* The demons are crossing.* The Disciples are falling.* The Shadow is waiting.Welcome to the end…
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DARREN SHAN THE DEMONATAVOL. 9&10
Dark Calling & HELLâS HEROES
CONTENTS
For:
Basâyou love it when I call!
OBEs (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to: Sam âthe snapperâ White Rachel Wasdykeâdemon mistress of New Orleans Tom Woodhead â in a word â Sligstatic!!!
Hallowed hollerer: Stella Paskins
Greek chorus: the Christopher Little choir
âA small, wiry, scorpion-shaped demon with a semi-human face drives its stinger into my right eye. My eyeball pops and gooey streaks flood down my cheek. In complete agony, I scream helplessly, but worse is to come. The demon spits into the empty socket. At first I think itâs just phlegm, but then dozens of tiny things start to wriggle in the space where my eye once swam. As I fill with confused horror, teeth or claws dig into the bone around my ruined eye. Whatever the mini-monsters are, theyâre trying to tunnel through to my brain.
Beranabus roars, âKernel!â and tries to grab me, but I wheel away from him as insanity and pain claim me. I whip around, flailing, shrieking, wild. The demon strikes again and punctures my left eye. Darkness consumes me. Iâm in hell.
âA lifetime later, someone picks me up from where Iâve fallen and drags me forward. It might be Beranabus or Grubbs, or maybe itâs Lord Loss. I donât know or care. All I can focus on is the blind, hellish pain.
I pull away from the person or demon and run from the madness, but crash into something hard. I fall, moaning and screaming, but not cryingâI no longer have eyes to weep with. The creatures which were spat into my eyes are munching on my brain now. I try to scrape them out with my fingers, but that just adds to the torment.
Then magic sears through my ruined sockets. The things in my head burn and drop away. The pain lessens. I sigh blissfully and slump unconscious.
âI dream of the end of the world. Everything comes apart and everyone perishes. The universe warps and twists upon itself. In my dream, I float as a spirit through panels of light. I donât know how I see the lights without eyes, but I do. There are othersâGrubbs, Beranabus, a girl. I slot the patches of light together and we sail from one window to another. Peaceful. No pain. Iâm at ease. In my element. Master of the lights.
Maybe this is heaven. Constructing and passing through an endless series of windows. An eternal, beautiful, cosmic light show. Iâll settle for that. Anythingâs better than torture, blindness and micro-demons feasting on my brain.
âHeaven doesnât last. I wasnât dreaming. The destruction was real. The lights fade and I find myself back on Earth. Blind as ever. Pain muted by magic, but hovering, waiting for its chance to kick back in. Turns out the creatures in my eyes were maggots.
No time for panic or self-pity. Beranabus drops a bombshellâweâve travelled through time. Iâm part of a magical weapon, the Kah-Gash. Grubbs is another part. By linking with the third component, the ghost of a dead girl, we took our doomed world into the past to avert demonic conquest. Now we have to fight again or it will all have been for nothing.
âIn a cave. Blindly battling Spine, the scorpion demon. I have the horrible beast pinned to a stalagmite. Iâm pounding him with my fists, over and over. Without warning he melts away and Iâm left standing in a puddle of sticky blood, frowning sightlessly.
I later learn that Iâve been cheated out of my revenge by a girl called Bec whoâs returned to life after sixteen hundred years. She drives Lord Loss back to his own foul realm. Job done.
âWe return to the universe of the Demonata. Grubbs comes with us, but Bec stays behind. Iâm surprised Beranabus leaves her. Sheâs part of the Kah-Gash. By uniting us, he could wield the power of the ancient weapon and destroy the Demonata. But heâs afraid. The Kah-Gash made an independent decision to reverse time. Beranabus isnât sure whether that was a conscious act of mercy or a random reaction. He doesnât want to press ahead, worried the weapon might side with the demons next time and wipe out mankind.
Iâm stronger in the universe of magic. I numb my pain and set to work on building a new set of eyes. Iâm not sure that I can. Magic varies from person to person. We all have different capabilities. Some can restore a missing limb or organ. Others canât. You never know until you try.
