He pressed his hands over his ears, squeezing his head as if to hold it together. Somewhere in the back of his thoughts he saw the KillSims at the Black and Blue Club. They’d done this to him. They’d damaged his brain. The antiprograms had to have done something both inside and outside the Sleep.
The pain pounded and pounded, and the world around him grew stranger and stranger. Arms stretching through solid walls, beating hearts hovering in the air, a fountain of blood pooling up from the floor, a little girl in a rocking chair, a limp animal in her lap. And the agonized lament of the unseen tormented—
And then it all stopped.
The room fell silent and all returned to how it had been before the attack. And though only moments earlier it would have seemed impossible, the pain in his head had disappeared.
Michael crashed back onto the couch, his clothes damp with sweat. Sarah was next to him in an instant, reaching out to grab his hand, her face creased in concern.
“Again?” she asked him.
Michael felt as if he had run ten miles. “I think I’m dying.”
4
Skale didn’t wake up. At least, if he did, he never came and checked to see if his guests were okay. Sarah sat with Michael on the couch, arms around him. They didn’t say a word, and he was thankful she didn’t press him to explain what he’d just been through. He thought how lucky he was to have such an amazing friend.
Eventually, they both fell asleep, and Michael didn’t dream. He slept a deep, solid sleep free of panic or fear. He slept like he was dead.
5
Gunner Skale shook them awake. The man had put his red cloak back on, and he was bent over Michael and Sarah, his face hidden in shadow.
“Is it morning already?” Michael asked.
“Morning never comes to Mendenstone Sanctuary,” Skale replied. “It’s our curse and our blessing, but there’s no time to explain. Your demons are here.”
6
Gunner Skale’s words brought Michael and Sarah straight to their feet.
“What does that mean?” Michael asked the old man.
“Where are the demons?” Sarah added.
“Your demons are always with you,” Skale answered. His voice seemed even raspier than the day before. “Don’t you understand that by now? Always with you, impossible to escape. But you never can guess how they might manifest themselves. Be wary, my children. Now come. Quickly.”
“Where are we going?” Sarah asked insistently.
Skale didn’t answer, just crossed the room and opened the door, slipping into the hallway. Michael grabbed Sarah’s hand, and they followed him into the dark. Michael could barely see Skale making his way toward the stairs, and he rushed, pulling Sarah along, to catch up to him.
The group climbed down the steps and Skale led them to the dining area where they’d eaten the night before.
“Please have a seat,” Skale said, gesturing to the wooden chairs. “I’ll go and ask our friends to join us.”
Michael was having trouble putting everything together. He was foggy from sleep, and though his pain had disappeared, he still felt weak from the episode—the pain and the hallucinations were at the front of his mind. And now he was supposed to be readying for a battle with demons? What did Skale mean, that they were always here? Shaking his head, Michael sat in a chair, wincing at the sound of the legs scraping across the floor. Maybe somehow they could hack their way out of trouble this time before it began.
Sarah sat beside him. “We have to think. He said that we’d already been given all the information we need. Can you remember everything else he said? I think it probably has something to do with the prayer before dinner.”
“Yeah,” Michael agreed, yet for the life of him he couldn’t remember a single word. “But all I can remember is the stuff about Kaine.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Michael leaned on the table and put his head in his hands, closed his eyes. Probed the surrounding code. “I don’t see anything that can get us past this yet.”
“I’ve tried a few times, too.” Sarah tapped her fingers on the wood. “He said something in his prayer about kneeling at the feet of our ancestors. I’m sure that’s a clue.”
Michael nodded slowly as she spoke. “Maybe. It’s so weird how closed off the code seems in this place. On the Path.” He wanted to pound the table in frustration.
Gunner Skale came though the doorway, ending their conversation abruptly. And he wasn’t alone. One by one the animal creatures they’d met earlier made their way in after him. They flew and crawled, slithered and walked. The bear, the goose, the tiger, the dog, the squirrel. A dozen others. And with them were the smells of the forest—of earth and mold and rot.
The creatures filled the room and gradually arranged themselves around its perimeter, each with its back to the wall, each with its eyes glued on the two visitors in their chairs. An uncomfortable silence filled the air, broken only by an occasional snort or growl. And to Michael, every single creature looked like it wanted nothing more than to eat him for breakfast.
“What’s going on?” Michael asked Skale, surprised to find that he was whispering. He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be sacrificed to the great animal god in the sky?”
Skale took his time crossing the room and stopped beside Michael’s chair. Michael craned his neck to see the man’s face, buried deep in the red cloak.
“Because,” the man said, “that’s exactly what’s about to happen.”
Michael shot to his feet, sending the chair crashing to the floor behind him. But before he could do anything, the old man said two words that made Michael’s blood turn cold.
“Demons, arise.”
7
Gunner Skale had been right that the demons were with them from the beginning. They were the animals.
The first one Michael noticed was the bear. It opened its enormous jaws and let out a deep, rumbling bellow toward the sky. Then its fur and skin began to peel backward, like wood shavings curling in the heat of a flame. Beneath its skin was a hideous, scar-covered face, and its eyes had changed color into an impossibly bright yellow, just like the eyes he’d seen out in the forest.
Gradually the rest of the creature’s body emerged from its furry disguise. Bulging muscles, hunched back, protruding shoulder blades, clawed paws—it looked nothing like the bear that had served him dinner only hours before. A guttural snarl escaped its lips, which were pulled back from enormous teeth. But it had yet to move. It remained standing, back to the wall.