The ball of light sails through the window with me. It completely envelops me, crackling over my creamy brown skin, tickling my hairless scalp, buzzing in my ears. I'm warm and comfortable in its embrace. I think this is what it must be like for a baby in its mother's womb.
I try to fight the enveloping light, to break free of its hold, but it just buckles and bulges to match my movements. Finally I settle back and conserve my energy, saving it for when I can focus it more usefully.
I study my surroundings. Though the multicolored ball of light holds me in its grasp like fingers clutched around a coin, it's translucent. There are other lights beyond, patches and panels, a dazzling variety of colors and sizes. They fill the area around us completely. No stars, sky, or planets. A universe of lights.
We're floating through them, sliding from one patch to another, following some sort of hidden path. I hope. Or maybe there's no path and we're lost. Perhaps this is what the lights wanted all along, to strand me in this wilderness. But I don't think so. We seem to be moving meaningfully. Or is that just wishful thinking?
Whatever the truth, I've never experienced anything like this before. Whenever I've stepped through a window, I've emerged instantly on another world. This is like traveling through an immense tunnel.
"Correct," the voice says. The ball of light can evidently read my thoughts, which is bad news-I can't spring any surprises. "We are traveling farther than you have ever been, but we are still in your universe. Space is not as easily traversed here as in the Demonata's realm."
"Where are we going?" I ask. Except I don't ask out loud. My mouth won't open. "What's going on?" I cry silently.
"There is no oxygen," the voice explains. "You are cocooned. It is the easiest way to travel. Don't worry-it will not last long and you won't be harmed."
I'm not sure I trust the voice, but there's nothing I can do except lie back and accept it. "So where are we going?" I ask again, trying to sound casual.
"You will find out soon," the voice replies and says nothing more, leaving me to study the spectacular light show in awed, helpless silence.
After several minutes we zone in on a massive patch of green light. As we pass through, the cocoon around me slips away and I tumble to a cracked stone floor. My mouth opens and I drag in a lungful of acidic but breathable air. Pinching my nose shut to block out the stench, I look around. I'm in a domed chamber. The ball of light hangs in the air several feet away, pulsing steadily. The stones around us are throbbing in unison.
Blanking my thoughts, desperate not to betray myself, I back away. There's an exit behind me. As I reach it, I pause, expecting the ball of light to shoot across and block my way. When nothing happens, I slip out of the chamber and scurry through a short, narrow tunnel.
The tunnel opens out onto a plateau. I race away from the chamber, planning to put plenty of space between myself and the ball of light. But the air here is foul and my body revolts. As a stitch hits me hard, I collapse, gasping for air, lungs straining, head aching.
After a minute of painful gasping, the stitch eases and I stand. Instead of running again, I turn slowly and study my surroundings. I'm on a ruined world. The sky is a dark purple color, full of poisonous-looking clouds. Forks of lightning split the air every few seconds although I can hear no thunder. When the lightning hits the ground, the dark earth flashes and explodes in short-lived funnels of dirt, mud, and pebbles.
Huge, bone-like pillars jut out of the scorched, pockmarked earth. At first I think they're the remains of giant demons. I've seen plenty of sky demons in my time, massive monsters, some the size of a world. But the longer I look, the more convinced I become that these aren't bones, but rather the remains of buildings.
Wandering slowly to the nearest pile of pillars, breathing shallowly, I find that they're made of some sort of metal. That confuses me. Demons aren't builders. Some create houses or palaces, even towns and cities, modeled after those on Earth. But they use bones, flesh, cobwebs, plants, and other organic substances to fashion their facsimiles. I've never known a demon to utilize metal or concrete.
The voice told me we were still in the human universe. I thought we slipped out of it when we crossed through the window, but it looks like we didn't. I don't know where I am, but I'm pretty sure it's not a demon world.
As I move through the ash-ridden remains of what was once maybe a skyscraper, something moves in the filth nearby. Jumping backwards, I try to absorb magic from the air, but there's virtually nothing to tap into. Like Earth, this is a zone of little or no magical energy.
The thing wriggles clear of the hard mud and debris it was nestling beneath. It looks like a giant slug, but with six small eyes, a jagged gash for a mouth, and other human-looking bits and pieces-a few fingers, a toe, a strip of flesh that might be an ear. The eyes stare at me for a moment, then the mouth opens and it thrusts itself at my face, making a gruesome, high-pitched noise.
The slug creature strikes my chest and I fall. It's on me in a flash, slithering to my face, leaving a slimy trail. Thin fingers scratch at my chin, then a grey, cold slit clamps over my mouth and nostrils. I feel it tighten on my lips and nose, and the slug squeals with excitement as I struggle for air.
I punch the slug but my fists make little impact, merely sink into the gooey, sticky layers of its body. Disgusting slime oozes from the slit, filling my mouth. I collapse, my lungs straining, still pushing and punching the slug, but feebly now. My strength is fading. Soon I'll be slug fodder and the beast will be able to feast on my flesh at its leisure.
As the world starts to darken around me, the slug is abruptly ripped away. I catch a glimpse of it flying through the air, squealing frantically. It lands hard, rolls a few times, then straightens and propels itself at me again.
Somebody steps in front of me and meets the charge of the slug. It looks like a boy, but with pale green skin. He's small but strong-he catches the slug and slams it down in a neatly executed wrestling move. While the slug writhes beneath him, the boy grabs one of the creature's fingers and bites it off with... a small mouth set in the palm of his hand!
The slug stunned me when it attacked, but when I realize who the boy is I'm shocked to the core. I stare with mounting horror and bewilderment as the slug shrieks, then quickly slips away when the boy releases it. He makes sure it isn't going to attack again, then turns to face me.
He has the body of a young child-maybe three years old-but a head that's bigger than an adult's. Mouths in both palms, full of small, sharp teeth. No eyes-instead, balls of fire burn deeply in his empty sockets. And no hair-in its place, small slugs, much like the one he just saved me from, slide slowly around his skull.
"Artery!" I moan. I have no idea how Lord Loss's familiar came to be here-he was killed a year ago-but I'm certain he only saved me from the slug in order to kill me himself.
The hell child cocks his head and frowns. "No," he growls, and it's the first time I've ever heard him speak. His green flesh ripples and the color fades. His head shrinks and the slugs burrow into his scalp, then turn into hair. The fire in his empty sockets dies away and eyes sprout to fill them. His large mouth tightens a couple of notches and his sharp teeth soften into a more human-like shape. The mouths in his palms disappear, flesh closing over them.
"No," he says again, and this time his voice is softer. "Not Artery." He glances at his skin-pale, like Mom's-and smiles. Almost no trace of the monster remains. I'm gazing at what looks like an ordinary boy. And he's every bit as familiar as the green-skinned demon.
"I'm Art," he says, then steps forward and stick out a small, delicate hand.