“More victims,” Lord Loss laughs. “See how they run towards me? Perhaps, from a distance, I look like an angel. Should I pretend to be good? Sweep them to my breast, shower them with kisses, only to turn vile and make my true intentions known when it is too late for them to escape?”

I focus on the cockroach. I try to pitch him at Lord Loss, hoping to knock the demon master off guard, then hurl Gregor or Artery at the barrier. But the demon doesn’t even slide a centimetre off balance.

“No, Grubitsch,” Lord Loss says. “We will have no more of that. Leave my familiars alone. Your battle is with me, not them.”

“Then come on!” I scream. “Step up if you think you can take me! What are you waiting for? Do you want to reduce me to tears before you attack? Afraid to fight me on even terms?”

Lord Loss’ face goes dead. The snakes in the hole in his chest stop hissing. “So be it,” he whispers, rising a metre higher into the air, arms spreading outwards with a slow, dreadful, majestic grace.

“Grubbs,” Bo mutters.

“Not now!” I hiss, trembling all over, preparing myself for whatever Lord Loss is about to launch against me.

“But… over there… it’s… I think I can see… Dervish!”

That startles me so much, I look away from the threat of Lord Loss. Thankfully, the demon master is also caught by surprise, and instead of piercing my defence and finishing me off, he too glances to the side.

Bo is pointing off to my right. At first I don’t see what she’s gesturing at. The land looks devoid of life, just grass and weeds. But then I notice the air shimmering slightly. The shimmer intensifies, thickens, then fades to reveal… Dervish! And just behind my uncle, between him and the barrier— Bill-E, Juni, Vanalee and the boy whose name I don’t know.

“An invisibility shield,” Lord Loss groans. “I don’t believe I—”

A wind blows up out of nowhere. It smacks hard into Lord Loss, driving him backwards, bowling him and Artery over.

“Grubbs!” Dervish yells, focusing on the wind, veins stretched across his face like ridges of blue putty. I know instantly what he wants. Pointing at Gregor, who has been unaffected by the gale, I shout a word of magic. The demon flies forward, mandibles gnashing together in a mixture of hate and fear. He strikes the invisible barrier. Sticks. Dozens of tiny legs kick at thin air as he tries to tear himself free.

“Juni!” Dervish shouts. “Kill it like I showed you!” Juni steps up to the struggling cockroach. She makes a fist and takes aim at the brittle shell of its stomach. Then she pauses and half turns away, lowering her fist. She’s smiling. She starts to say something, but before she can, one of Gregor’s hairy, spindly legs strikes the back of her head. She falls with a startled cry, tries to rise, then slumps, dead or unconscious.

My first instinct is to rush to her aid, but I ignore it. Instead I look for Artery. Concentrating on the fire in the hell-child’s eye sockets, I magically rip the flames out. As Artery squeals and slaps blindly at his eyes, I transport the flames to inside Gregor’s stomach—like cutting and pasting on a computer!

I hold the flames tight for a second, letting them increase in strength but keeping them compact. Gregor is frothing at the mouth, glowing from the inside out. I flash the cockroach a wicked grin. Then, clicking my fingers for emphasis, I release the flames and they erupt in a ball of destructive red and yellow fury.

The demon explodes with a cry of delicious agony. There’s a crackling, throbbing sound. Then a jagged line appears in the air around the demon’s remains, a rough semicircle of discoloured light— a hole in the barrier!

“Get out!” Dervish barks at Bill-E and the others. The wind is still blowing, but Lord Loss and Artery have stopped tumbling backwards and are facing into it now, the demon master furious, Artery confused, waving his childish hands at his empty sockets, trying to ignite fresh flames.

As Vanalee and the boy race to safety, Bill-E hurries to Juni’s side. He turns her over, checks quickly, then shouts, “She’s alive!”

“Then take her with you!” Dervish roars, struggling to maintain the wind.

Bill-E hesitates—I can see he wants to stay and help—then grits his teeth. Propping Juni up, he slides his hands under her armpits and drags her through the hole. As they exit, the quality of light changes and it’s as though I’m looking at them through a thin, semi-translucent veil.

Bo scrambles to the opening but stops and looks back at the crowd racing towards us. She’s panting hard, squinting. “My father and brother. I can’t see them.”

“Forget them,” I growl. “I can’t.”

“You must. They’re—”

“I’m going back for them!” Bo cries.

“No!” I shout, but she sets off regardless. My left hand rises. Magic flows. Bo comes to a forced stop. She turns her head and looks at me pleadingly. “Grubbs,” she whimpers. “Let me go. I have to do this.”

“But you’ll die if—”

“Probably,” she interrupts, “but not necessarily. Maybe I’ll find and rescue them.” She shrugs helplessly. “I have to try.”

“But your father was working with the demons. He helped bring this upon us.”

“He’s still my dad. And Abe did nothing wrong. Apart from get on your nerves, like I did,” she grins.

I grin back and reluctantly release her, knowing I don’t have the right to deny her, figuring I’d probably do the same in her place. “Don’t spend too long looking for them,” I warn her.

“I won’t,” she lies. And then she’s gone, racing past the people fleeing the town, leaving me to marvel at how poorly I judged her.

I wish Bo silent luck, then blank her from my thoughts and step up beside Dervish. I want to bolt through the hole in the barrier after Bill-E and the others, but my uncle needs me. My magical half shows me how to link up with my uncle. As I add my power to his, the force of the wind increases. Lord Loss slides backwards again, straining against the wind, but—momentarily at least—losing ground.

“You could have let me know you were here,” I growl.

“Couldn’t risk tipping Lord Loss off,” Dervish disagrees. “We were lucky. You normally can’t fool a demon master with an invisibility spell, but he was so focused on you he didn’t see through it.”

People from the town spill past us, then through the hole, called to safety by Bill-E, who’s laid Juni to one side and is now directing the survivors.

“You sent the message to everyone?” I ask.

“Yes. As soon as I saw you coming.”

“How come Bo and I didn’t get it?”

“I excluded you. I—”

“—didn’t want to tip Lord Loss off,” I finish for him.

“Sorry,” Dervish says.

“Don’t worry about it.”

The wind suddenly dies away. Lord Loss straightens himself.

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“We should get the hell out of here.”

There are still people running and limping towards us from the town, chased by demons, some missing limbs, many bleeding and screaming, all terrified but hopeful. Because Dervish told them to come. He said this was their way out. He promised.

“You’re staying,” I note.

“Until the hole starts to close,” Dervish nods.

“You’ll know when that’s about to happen? You’ll escape in time?”

“I’ll know. As for whether or not I’ll be able to escape…” He jerks his head at Lord Loss, who’s started to glide back towards us.

“OK,” I decide, proud of my courage but at the same time dismayed. “I’ll stay too. We’ll buy the survivors as much time as possible.”

Dervish smiles. “Did I ever tell you I loved you, Grubbs?”

“No.”

“Good. I hate sentimental crap like that.”

Then Lord Loss shrieks and fire engulfs us.

Dervish spits out words of magic and the flames evaporate before they have time to burn through our skin. But Lord Loss uses those few seconds to sweep across. With a cry of hate, he propels himself at Dervish, whips him off the ground and drags him high up into the air, all eight hands lashing and ripping at him.