Free The Demonata #10: Hell's Heroes by Darren Shan Page B

poodlelike demon with four heads at one of the giants, who grabs it like a frisbee and spins it off into the pool, where it only has time to bark twice before its tongue is fricasseed by the foaming liquid. “They’re doing our work for us.”
    “Maybe they’re on our side,” Kirilli squeals happily. “They think we’re going to win the war, so they’ve betrayed their master and are trying to prove themselves worthy of our mercy.”
    “I doubt it,” I mutter, head-butting another octopus demon, watching warily as more demons are thrown into the pool. The liquid’s glowing with different hues of demon blood. I’ve a bad feeling about this.
    As another demon is tossed into the ravenous pool, the liquid throbs. The giants kneel in front of the pool and bow their heads. Some of the demons attack them spitefully, but the giants ignore their blows and wait patiently, like monks praying at an altar.
    The liquid throbs again, then rises up in a circular sheet of dripping darkness. It looms over the kneeling giants and lesser demons. For a mad moment I think it’s going to form legs and stride towards us. But instead it crashes down over the giants and those around them, breaks like a wave, then re-forms and rises again, even larger than before.
    The sheet of lethal liquid sloshes forward several yards, by means I can’t work out, then collapses over another pack of demons, smothering and dissolving them, expanding again as it pulls itself up to its full, majestic height.
    The pool is getting closer to us. Most of the demons have realized they’re in trouble. Some try to attack the moving pool, only to be scorched and torn apart. The smarter beasts flee for their lives.
    Shark, Timas, Kirilli, and Moe have clustered around me. They’re all staring with disbelief at the aqueous, mobile tower. I call Kernel to our ranks, then prepare a ball of energy, taking power from Kernel and the others. I unleash it at the sheet of liquid. The ball punches a hole through the sheet and sizzles angrily as it shoots out the other side. But then the liquid oozes shut over the rip, and the pool sways on, undaunted.
    “Bloody Beranabus!” I howl. “He told us the master of this realm had left or been killed. He was wrong. The pool
is
the master. It’s been dormant, lacking the power to move, but now that it’s been fed enough demons…”
    I try a freezing spell, but although part of the pool half-frosts over for a couple of seconds, it doesn’t take hold and the killer sheet presses on, destroying more of the demons, which I now realize were sent here for the sole purpose of empowering the slumbering behemoth.
    “We can’t defeat it,” I huff, backpedaling.
    “Perhaps an evaporation spell?” Kernel suggests.
    “Nothing will work. It’s a demon master and this is its realm.”
    “Surely we can outrun it,” Kirilli says.
    I laugh. “You can always rely on Kovacs to opt for a hasty retreat. But this time he’s right. Let’s make like sprinters and…”
    I draw to a halt. The trees around the perimeter of the oasis are snapping together, bones and flesh linking, forming an unbroken ring. Demons screech and hurl themselves at the bony, fleshy fence, or try to scale it, but are swiftly speared by some of the longer, sharper bones.
    “So much for running away,” Shark sniffs. “What now, oh wise and noble leader?”
    “We could offer Kirilli as a sacrifice and hope it leaves the rest of us alone,” I murmur, drawing a satisfactory yelp from the terrified stage magician. “Kernel—any luck with those eyes?”
    “It’ll be a while,” he says.
    “What’s taking you so long?” I growl.
    “Bite me,” he retorts.
    The pool breaks over another group of demons. This time when it rises, it splits into two sheets, which glide apart—double trouble.
    “A multiplying demon,” Timas says. “Fascinating. Based on those it had to devour in order to divide once, and on those who remain… assuming it can split again…”