“What do you get in return?” Kernel asks. “What did Bec promise?”

“My life,” Lord Loss replies. “And a promotion.” He looks at the stars twinkling far above us. “I was never as powerful as you believed. You realize that now, having seen and exterminated much stronger masters than me. I was a young, humble demon. That’s why I focused on Earth. I knew I could impress there, that if I made it my personal playpen, I could dominate the human realm of fear.”

“You chose to be a big fish in a small pond,” I snort.

Lord Loss tilts his head. “Stronger masters terrorized galaxies, inspiring horror across a multitude of worlds. I lacked that power, so I concentrated on a single planet. I tested several before I chose Earth. Your people appealed to me, for reasons I cannot put any of my fingers on. Perhaps I was guided by the Kah-Gash. Maybe even then it had selected your world to serve as its dramatic stage.”

“You’re pathetic,” I sneer, seeing my old foe in his true colors, astonished that I lived so long in fear of him, considering him the worst of any imaginable enemy.

“I was,” Lord Loss says calmly. “No longer. I am the last demon master, the final sentinel of sorrow. All of this universe’s demonic familiars must bow to my power now. I’ll also cast a dark shadow across the hearts and minds of the creatures in your universe, weaving my web of misery across more worlds than any master ever came close to before. I’ll be the source of every nightmare, the face behind each malicious mask of myth. I’ll sow fear everywhere my eye alights, and reap the rich rewards for all eternity.”

“What makes you think we’ll let you?” I challenge him.

“Bec promised,” he smiles.

I cock an eyebrow at the girl.

“We need him,” she says quietly. “Every developed world had its boogey men, evil spirits, devils. The universe requires a force of evil for the wicked to gravitate towards, a malevolent being that the dark-hearted can worship. If they can’t turn to Lord Loss, we’ll have to play that hideous role. I don’t want to be a monster to the twisted and the vicious of our own worlds. Do you?” she asks me. “Or you?” she throws the question at Kernel.

Kernel and I look at each other uneasily.

“Why him?” I grumble. “We can bring back one of the others that we killed, or use a familiar. It doesn’t have to be Lord Loss. I want to destroy him. After all he did to us…”

“They do say, ‘Better the devil you know,’” Lord Loss murmurs slyly.

“I gave him my word that we’d let him rule the white zones,” Bec says. “Plus, he vowed never to overstep the mark, to leave the Old Creatures alone, to cross only when authorized and always return to his own realm when his work is done. He won’t establish toeholds in the human universe, or allow his familiars to settle there either.”

“But the familiars won’t be able to cross universes this time,” Kernel frowns. “We’ll stop them.”

“We can’t,” Bec says. “History demands their presence. If we’re to let time unravel as it did before, every demon crossing will have to be recreated. I’ll work in tandem with Lord Loss, letting him know when and where his familiars should cross. When we reach the present—the time when we ended the universe—we’ll set him free to operate by himself as long as he respects the rules, and at that point we can put a stop to the crossings of lesser demons. Our people can be free of the monsters after that, but not before.”

“How can we trust him?” I growl.

“I gave my word,” Lord Loss says stiffly. “I have always honored a promise.”

I shake my head. “We’re better off without him. We can control and direct the familiars by ourselves. Lord Loss would be a threat. We’d have to watch him like a hawk.”

“No,” the demon master says. “That’s merely an excuse, Grubitsch. You wish to kill me to exact revenge. You cannot justify my execution any other way.”

“Then I won’t,” I shrug. “I’ll kill you and take your place. I’d rather that than let you carry on. You’re the reason I’m here, the cause of everything bad that ever happened to me. If it wasn’t for you, my parents would be alive, Dervish and Bill-E, all the others. I won’t spare you, not after the hell you’ve put me through. I’d rather burn.”

I raise a hand to wipe out the demon master. I’d meant to torment him before I finished him off, but now I’ll settle for a quick kill.

“Your words hold the key to my reprieve,” Lord Loss says calmly as I point a finger at him. His self-satisfied smirk infuriates me, but for some reason I can’t bring myself to strike. “If not for my interference, you wouldn’t have joined with Kernel and Bec. The Kah-Gash could never have been utilized as it was. All has been shattered to be rebuilt, but if not for my actions, it would have simply been destroyed.

“I put you through hell, yes, but it was a hell you needed to experience. The pain, suffering, death… all were necessary. I served the purpose of the universe, just as you did. If not for my dark presence, you would never have found the path you were required to travel.

“People need devils and dark gods, if only to give them a foe to rally against, an obstacle to overcome. Your people understood that there can be no light without darkness, no good without evil, no triumph without setbacks. You can’t kill me because I’m part of all that you are, all you’ve done and plan to do. You don’t have to like me. You can even loathe me. But you must accept me.”

I tremble with frustration. Part of me wants to whip him down, wipe that smirk from his face, kill him no matter what. But everything he says rings true. I owe it all to him, the good as well as the bad. As despicable as he is, he set this in motion. It wasn’t intentional, and he acted selfishly at every turn, but if Beranabus was right and some godly force in our universe chose heroes and molded them, maybe Lord Loss was part of the über plan, as vital a player as Bec, Kernel, or me.

“I’ll be watching you,” I snarl. “If you take just one wrong step…”

“Why should I?” he smiles. “I never yearned to conquer your world, Grubitsch, merely to revel in the torment of its many desperate souls. Now I will become the pit of darkness at the center of the entire universe, a web into which all the weak, helpess, and vindictive must fall. What more could I wish for?”

“I hope you choke on it,” I sneer, then let my body unravel and return to my ethereal state. The last thing I see through my human eyes is Lord Loss rubbing his eight stumpy hands together, leering eagerly, awaiting the dawn of time and the birth of the first of the billions whose misery he’ll wallow in like the ugly, heartless, flaccid, but essential leech that he is.