“Hmm,” mused Qwan. “That could be a touch more serious.”
“How bad can they be?” asked Artemis. “We’ve faced trolls together.”
“It’s fine,” said Holly, powering up her handgun. “They’re not so big. We’re going to be fine. Really.”
Artemis frowned. Holly only bothered reassuring him when they were in deep trouble.
“That bad?” he said.
Holly whistled, shaking her head. “You have no idea.”
CHAPTER 14
LEADER OF THE PACK
The Island of Hybras
While Artemis and company had been zooming around the time tunnel, Leon Abbot had been in council with the pride elders. Council was where all the big decisions got made, or more accurately, where Abbot made all the big decisions. The others thought they were participating, but Leon Abbot had a way of bringing them around to his way of thinking.
If only they knew, he thought, biting the inside of his cheek to prevent a smug grin spreading across his face. They would eat me alive. But they can never know, because there is nobody left alive to tell them. That dolt No1 was the last, and he’s gone. What a pity.
Abbot had something big planned for today. A big departure for the pride, the dawn of a new era. The Leon Abbot era.
He looked down the table at his fellow demons sucking the bones from a bucket of recently live rabbits that he had laid on for the meeting. He despised the other council members. Every one. They were weak, stupid creatures, ruled by their baser appetites. What they needed was leadership. No arguments, no debates, just his word as law, and that was that.
Of course, under normal circumstances, the other demons might not share his vision of the future. In fact, if he suggested it, then they would most likely do to him what they were currently doing to the rabbits. But these were not normal circumstances. He had certain advantages when it came to negotiating with the council.
At the far end of the table, Hadley Shrivelington Basset, a recent addition to the council, stood and growled loudly. The signal that he wished to speak. In truth, Basset worried Abbot slightly. He was proving a little resistant to Abbot’s regular powers of persuasion, and some of the others were beginning to listen to him. Basset would have to be handled soon.
Basset growled again, cupping both hands around his mouth to ensure that his words traveled to the head of the table.
“I would speak, Leon Abbot. I would have you listen.”
Abbot sighed wearily, waving at the demon to go ahead. The young ones certainly loved their formality.
“Things are happening that worry me, Abbot. Things are not as they should be with the pride.”
There were murmurs of assent from around the table. Not to worry. The others would soon change their tune.
“We are known by human names. We worship a human book. I find this sickening. Are we to become human altogether?”
“I have explained this, Basset. Perhaps a million times. Are you so dull-witted that my words do not penetrate your skull?”
Basset growled low in his throat. These were fighting words. And pride leader or not, Abbot would soon find those words rammed down his throat.
“Let me try one more time,” continued Abbot, plonking his boots on the table, a further insult to Basset. “We learn the human ways so we can better understand them, and so more easily defeat them. We read the book, we practice with the crossbow, we bear the names.”
Basset would not be cowed. “I have heard these words a million times, and each time they seem ridiculous to me. We do not give each other rabbit names when we hunt rabbit. We do not live in foxholes to hunt the fox. We can learn from the book and the bow, but we are demon, not human. My family name was Gristle. Now that’s a real demon name! Not this stupid Hadley Shrivelington Basset.”
It was a good argument, and well presented. Maybe in different circumstances Abbot would have applauded and recruited the young demon as a lieutenant, but lieutenants grew up to be challengers, and that was one thing Abbot did not want.
Abbot stood and walked slowly down the length of the table, gazing into the eyes of each council member in turn. At first their eyes blazed with defiance, but as Abbot began to speak, this fire faded, to be replaced by a dull sheen of obedience.
“You are right, of course,” said Abbot, running a talon along one curved horn. An arc of sparks followed the path of his nail. “Everything you say is exactly right. The names, that ridiculous book, the crossbow. Learning the language of English. It’s all a joke.”
Basset’s lips curled back over pointed white teeth, and his tawny eyes narrowed. “You admit this, Abbot?” He addressed the council, “You hear him admit it?”
Before, the others had grunted their approval of the young buck’s challenge, but now it was as if the fight had gone out of them. All they could do was stare at the table, as if the answers to life’s questions were etched into the wood grain.
“The truth is, Basset,” continued Abbot, drawing ever nearer. “That we’re never going back home. This is our home now.”
“But you said . . .”
“I know. I said that the spell would end, and we would be sucked back to where we came from. And who knows, it may even be true. But I have no idea what will actually happen. All I know is that for as long as we are here, I intend to be in charge.”
Basset was stunned. “There will be no great battle? But we’ve been training for so long.”
“Distraction,” said Abbot, waving his fingers like a magician. “Smoke and spells. It gave the troops something to concentrate on.”
“To what on?” asked Basset, puzzled.
“Concentrate, you moron. Think about. As long as there’s a war to be planned, demons are happy. I provided the war, and I showed them how to win. So, naturally, I am a savior.”
“You gave us the crossbow.”
Abbot had to stop and laugh. This Basset really was a prize fool. He could almost pass for a gnome.
“The crossbow,” he panted at last, when his mirth had petered away.“The crossbow! The Mud Men have weapons that shoot death. They have iron birds that fly, dropping exploding eggs. And there are millions of them. Millions! All they would have to do is drop one egg on our little island and we would disappear. And this time, there would be no coming back.”
Basset did not know whether to attack or flee. All these revelations were hurting his brain, and all the other council members could do was sit there drooling. It was almost as if they were under a spell. . . .
“Come on,” said Abbot mockingly. “You’re getting there. Wring out that sponge of a brain.”
“You have bewitched the council.”
“Full marks!” crowed Abbot. “Give that demon a raw rabbit!”
“B . . . But that can’t be,” stammered Basset. “Demons are not magical creatures, except the warlocks. And warlocks do not warp.”
Abbot spread his arms wide. “And I am so obviously a magnificently warped creature. Does your brain hurt? Is this all too much for you, Basset?”
Basset pulled a long sword from its scabbard. “My name is Gristle!” he roared, lunging at the pride leader.
Abbot batted the blade aside with his forearm, then pounced on his opponent. Abbot may have been a liar and a manipulator, but he was also a fearsome warrior. Basset may as well have been a dove attacking an eagle.
Abbot drove the smaller demon to the stone floor, then squatted on his chest, ignoring the blows Basset drove into his armored plates.
“Is that the best you can do, little one? I have had better tumbles with my dog.”
He grabbed Basset’s head between his hands and squeezed until the younger demon’s eyes bulged.
“Now, I could kill you,” said Abbot, the thought giving him obvious pleasure, “but you are a popular buck among the imps, and they would pester me with questions. So I will let you live. After a fashion. Your free will shall belong to me.”
Basset shouldn’t have been able to speak, but he managed to moan one word. “Never.”
Abbot squeezed harder.
“Never? Never, you say? But don’t you know that never comes quickly here in Hybras.”
Then Abbot did what no warped demon should be able to do: he summoned magic from inside himself and let it shine through his eyes.
“You are mine,” he said to Basset, his voice irresistible, layered with magic.
The others were so conditioned to the mesmer that they succumbed to just a tinge of it in his voice, but for Basset’s fresh young mind, Abbot was calling forth every spark of magic in his system. Magic that he had stolen. Magic that, by fairy law, was never to be used to mesmerize another fairy.
Basset’s face turned red and his forehead plate cracked.
“You are mine!” repeated Abbot, staring straight into Basset’s captive eyes. “You will never question me again.”