Bec MacConn

Bec (meaning Little One) MacConn is a fictional character in Darren Shan's Demonata series and title narrator of Bec (which takes place over a thousand years before Demon Thief). She was a member of the MacGrigor clan (though she is raised by the McConn clan) and is distantly related to Grubbs Grady. Prior to the upheval caused by the Demonata's arrival in Ireland, she was training to be priestess under a woman named Banba. Bec posssesses an eidetic memory.

Ancestry
Bec was born into the MacGrigor clan, who live as outcasts on a remote plain. When the Demonata and Fomorii invaded Ireland several centuries prior to the events of Bec, the MacGrigor allied themselves with the  demons, several even going so far as to mate with them. Most (if not all) of the resultant children appeared to be human and without deformities, and so went on to live normal lives. However, as they later discovered, their demonic ancestry had afflicted them with a terrible curse: Just when they had almost reached adulthood, some of the children transformed into werewolves (see also lycanthropy). This continued down the centuries, with at least one child transforming in every generation. The MacGrigor asked druids and priestesses to free them of the curse, but to no avail (though, as is later revealed,  Lord Loss possesses the ability to remove the affliction). When Bec learns of her heritage, she fears that she may fall victim to the curse as well.

Bec's mother, Aednat gave birth to six other children before Bec, all of whom succumbed to lycanthropy. When Aednat fell pregnant with Bec, her husband Struan decided to kill the child in the womb. Aednat defended herself, and stabbed Struan to death (possibly accidentally), then fled from the rath to escape retribution.

Original Life
Bec was found at the gate of the MacConn clan's ráth, after her mother died in childbirth while on the run. The priestess of the rath, a woman named Banba, tested Bec and discovered that she had magical potential. At Banba's insistence, Bec was accepted as a member of the clan, and spent much of her early life learning the ways of magic. When Bec is in her teens, a tunnel is opened which grants the Demonata access to the human world, and Ireland is overrun by hoards of monstrous demons. The people of the rath must defend themselves from these creatures, but many die in the battles, including Banba, thus leaving Bec without a teacher or a guardian. Several months after these attacks begin, a mysterious, scatterbrained and superhumanly fast boy named Bran arrives at the gates of the rath. He implies that he requires help, and Bec is compelled by a vision to join the group of warriors who volunteer to assist the boy. This ultimately leads her to encounter the druid Drust, who offers herself and the warriors the opportunity to help him close the tunnel which is admitting the demons. It is later revealed that closing the tunnel requires the sacrifice of a magician, and that Drust had intended to use Bec for that purpose. Bec accepts this as the price of saving her people, and continues despite the fact that she will die whether or not the quest succeeds. Drust tries to teach Bec how to harness the power of stars for spells, as druids do, but she is unable to achieve results with this magic. One night, the demon master known as Lord Loss, attacks in the night, and during the encounter uses magic to dramatically increase Bec's power (though this is only discovered much later in the novel). Shortly thereafter, the group encounter the MacGrigor clan, to whom Bec's mother, Aednat, belonged. The MacGrigor reveal Bec's origins and the truth about her birth, both of which are deeply disturbing to Bec.

When they arrive at the tunnel, all of the group are killed apart from Bec, Drust and (as is later revealed) Bran. Drust is mortally wounded by Bran (who was trying to save Bec's life) and, too weak to perform the ritual, offers himself for the sacrifice instead. With Drust dead and the Demonata in the process of being pulled back to their own Universe, Bec and Bran try to flee before the cave's entrance seals itself. They come close to escape, until Vein, who came back from the Demonata's realm through a window constructed by Lord Loss, grabs hold of Bec's leg. Bran charms Vein into releasing Bec, but by that time the hole to escape is so small they would not be able to make it. Bec uses what is left of her magic to forcibly propel Bran through the hole. Just before it closes he shouts "Bec!", the first time he says anyone's name. She can not reply as the hole closes, leaving her sealed inside the cave. There she is killed by Lord Loss' familiars, after he explains why he helped the group by increasing Bec's power: Lord Loss feeds off misery, not death; were the world destroyed then his food source would similarly vanish. He also tells her her death was for nothing, as he had been crossing between the demon world and the human world for centuries before the tunnel was created. He claims that he liked Bec, and would have enjoyed feeding off the misery which she was destined to experience. However, when Drust had humiliated him earlier in the book, he placed a geis (the demon curse of death) upon the entire group, and therefore has no choice but to kill her. In the last sentences of the book she is seen being literally ripped apart by the demons dying a painful and gruesome death.

Imprisonment and rebirth
Bec reappears in Blood Beast. When Grubbs is dealing with the family curse, he goes to the tunnel where Bec died. Her soul has somehow become trapped in the cave, keeping her on Earth. Grubbs sees her face and hears her whisper a warning, but she is speaking Celtic so Grubbs doesn't understand. Later when Juni helps Grubbs escape, he returns there. The whispers are more warning. Grubbs yells at her "I don't understand you" and using his magic shakes the cave violently. She then disappears.

In the latter part of Demon Apocalypse, Beranabus realises that Bec was warning Grubbs about Lord Loss's plan to reopen the tunnel which they closed centuries before. However, by the time he arrives with Grubbs and Kernel, it is too late, and the demons have already emerged. Bec's trapped soul reaches out from the rock to Grubbs and Kernel, and the boys combine their powers with hers to travel back in time (along with Beranabus) to the night the tunnel was reopened. This feat prompts Beranabus' realisation that Bec is the third piece of the Kah-Gash. They prevent the tunnel's opening, but are forced to kill Bill-E Spleen to do so. Seeing that Lord Loss intends to kill them all, Bec enters, takes over and reanimates the body of the deceased Bill-E, and fights off the demon master. She transforms the body to recreate her original appearance, and finds herself faced with a second chance at life, albeit in a time many centuries after that in which she was born.

Death's Shadow reveals that Bec has moved in with Dervish Grady, and is posing as his niece under the alias, of "Rebecca Kinga". Her assumption of Bill-E's body has caused her to absorb some of his memories, as well as certain of his behavioural and linguistic habits (eg. his handwriting style, the use of terms such as "coolio" etc.). This softens the blow of her transition to the 21st century, though she still finds some aspects of modernity intimidating. However, the memories also present a problem: Dervish costantly pesters her to share her insight into Bill-E's mind, leaving Bec to feel that she herself is nothing more than a means for Dervish to avoid his grief. In addition to this, since her reanimation, any physical contact with others causes her to absorb some of their memories, and she is too worried about this power to confide in anyone. She forms a friendship with Meera, who convinces her to confront Dervish about his behaviour. The two sort out the issue, but moments later, the house is attacked by werewolves, and in the ensuing battle, Dervish has a heart attack. After several developments, including a battle with the resurrected Juni and the healing Dervish's heart, Bec joins the Disciples as they pursue Juni to a cruise liner. There, Lord Loss, speaking through the mouth of a restrained demon named Cadaver, states that Bec's being a piece of the Kah-Gash is a mistake, an unintended side-effect of his enhancing her powers. After this, Juni sacrifices Cadaver to summon the Shadow creature seen leading the Demonata in Demon Apocalypse. The Shadow attacks Bec in an attempt to absorb her piece of the Kah-Gash, and the contact allows Bec to gain vital information about the creature: it is in fact not a demon, but the personification of Death, as she tells Beranabus. Beranabus sacrifices himself to send the Shadow back to the Demonata Universe, and Bec, Killri and Dervish escape on a life-boat. This book concludes as Bec tells her other companions of the Shadow's true significance.

Powers and Abilities
Bec is very powerful and it is stated in the book Demon Apocalypse that she is more powerful than both Beranabus and Grubbs (but only after Lord Loss powered her up). Her trainer when she was younger was Banba, but she was struck and killed by a demon. Thus Bec's training ended and her skills grew rusty. After Bran appears, Bec meets Drust, who teaches her druid spells and helps her to reconnect with her magic. However, her powers become truly phenomenal when Lord Loss uses his own powers to both spark her innate magical skill and then enhance it to the point that she essentially by-passes all the normal turning points of the mystic arts in one bound. In Book 7, she seems unable to use magic like Grubbs and Beranabus, who are able to conjure powerful magic and spells without demon presence or "magic in the air".

One talent which remains constant throughout both her training with Banba and her supercharged state following her encounter with Lord Loss is her memory: it is so perfect she can even remember her own birth. This talent also comes in useful in allowing her to remember all the spells she is ever taught. In Death's Shadow, Bec gains the ability to soak up the memories of those that she touches; the longer the contact is sustained, the more memories she gets. She speculates that this new gift is a side-effect of her imprisonment in the cave, and as of yet, she has not demonstrated the ability to regulate the absorption of memory. Because she dislikes the inherent intrusiveness of seeing into the minds of others, she avoids physical contact with others whenever possible.

Bec is a piece of the Kah-Gash. It is possible that Lord Loss was the one who created the piece of the Kah-Gash inside her (unknowingly), meaning that he could be the one that brings about his own destruction (the Kah-Gash can be used to destroy universes).

Appearances

 * Bec
 * Blood Beast
 * Demon Apocalypse
 * Death's Shadow