Page 39 of The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil

I set her drink down, walked to the backdoor, and nodded to take this conversation someplace a bit more private. Mora kept her shroud veiling our presence but a hand in her pocketbook. A weapon, perhaps.

“Such distrust,” I whispered in her ear as she brushed past me.

“I’ve killed for less, and so have you.”

“I hold no grudges,” I said, slamming the metal door behind us.

Mora shuddered. I smirked at the satisfying startle it caused. Her black shroud thundered, defensive and channeling elements momentarily before quelling the instinctual defense.

This alleyway offered her three quick exits if necessary.

“Why do you care if I linger in Seattle?”

“You cause trouble,Beelzebub,” she said the name with cutting disdain. “I hoped you’d outgrown it when I invited you here, having kept quiet for the better part of a century.”

The 1800s were droll and tedious. I’d slept through most of it.

“Then I caused a mage massacre.”

“That you did,” Mora said. “I never thought you’d see this world again, but I’d hoped if you did, your time away would solidify why it’s important for Diabolics to keep a low profile.”

“Demons, perhaps.”

“There are worse things than dying. You know that.” Mora eyed the sunlight peeking into the alleyway. “Remington is dead. Everyone who’s wronged you is long since gone. With the mages in disarray, you should leave.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Who are you?” Walter asked, entranced by the veil hazed throughout the alleyway, shrouding Mora and myself.

Shit. Speak of the devil—well, the complication. Of course, he’d remained immune to its ability, given my essence squirming inside him. Mora tilted her head, widening those bland blue eyes of hers. Intensifying her illusions for privacy, she studied Walter’s expressions as he watched the sparkle of the shroud in the darkness. I ground my teeth.

“Well, well, well. Kell will be stunned when I share that our favorite devil went and formed a Diabolic binding.” Mora sauntered past me, heels clicking along the pavement and playfully curtsying to Walter. “See you around, Bezzy.”

Turning the corner, Mora’s Diabolic shroud vanished along with her presence. Clearly, teleporting before I or anyone else had the chance to pursue her. No matter, if I needed to, I’d track her instant transportation based on her faint signature that dwelled. By announcing herself, it’d made it so much easier to find my dear old friend.

“Bezzy?” Walter’s eyes practically ballooned as he stared.

“Call me that, and I’ll rip your tongue out.”

“Who was she?” he asked. “How’d you know her? She looks young, which means she’s likely very old since—well, you haven’t been around in a while. A Mythic? A contact of your former host? No. That doesn’t add up since she wouldn’t recognize him after all the changes you made to his body. A witch, maybe. So Mythic. But I’ve never seen magic used like that. Teleportation through an incantation, sure. Advanced and massively complex. The cloudy haze, though…” He adjusted his glasses, studying the air where the Diabolic haze had lingered, searching for every answer to every conceivable question his frustrating mind could come up with. “It’s like everything vibrated and froze and bam: gone. How’d she do that?”

“Shut up.” Honestly, I’d hop into Mora’s Diabolic network to get as far from Walter as possible if it weren’t for the damn tether from our connection.

“Just tell me. Who was she? What was she? What’d she want?” He stalked close, continuing his incessant prattling into a hundred various half-explored rambles before launching into a new tangent. “Well? She can’t be Mythic, right? They hate Diabolics more than mages.”

Yes, yes. Everyone hated us. Humans feared us on a biblical proportion. Mages despised us for our actions. Mythics hated us because we perverted their magic in this realm. Sure, when a mage used the magical residue in the atmosphere, they got put on a fucking pedestal. When a Diabolic did it, we were called monsters.

“Was she another Diabolic? Her eyes were so normal, though.”

“My eyes are normal, asshole.”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant hers weren’t as noticeable.” Walter’s face turned red, his hands fidgety, curiosity swelling along with his puffed chest. “Just tell me who she was.”

“She’s a purveyor of dreams, seamstress of desires, patron of carnal devotion.”

“Tell me the truth!” His voice rattled inside my skull, vibrating through my very core.

Persistence and yearning and craving to know any little detail all burst at the seams of my very being. A surge of electricity flooded my veins.

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