Page 4 of The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil

For two solid weeks, that damn bulb had blinked erratically, slowly dying…like myself. Only when it died, I’d have a reprieve from the glare of brightly colored incantation symbols warding every lackluster artifact in this sterile white room.

What I wouldn’t give to rip apart everything in here, feel it all crumble to dust in my grasp. Ah, to feel again. To taste. Even smell. It was hard to know if my smell was intact or if I’d simply grown numb to this sterilized environment. I still possessed sight and hearing—two senses I’d gladly surrender because of that incessant goddamn lightbulb.

I sighed, perhaps. Not like I could feel, let alone fathom any reactions my own body gave as a discombobulated fraction of my former self. I couldn’t do anything trapped inside this orb, placed above the artifacts high on a mantle inside this repository.Unable to cover my ears or close my eyes, I suffered alone, observing everything, always aware yet with nothing to do.

The door beeped, and Worthless Walter, my daily companion, returned from his lunch. Shockingly, his bleach-marked blue polo didn’t have any new condiment stains. His clumsiness was truly tragic. Oh, how I enjoyed his presence this time of year. It was one of the few times his misery became so deeply entrenched in his being that every little thing filled him with trepidation. Such truly entertaining meltdowns.

But he whistled some offkey tune, and a cheery pep in his step made his curly blond hair bounce. The fuck?

No, no, no.

Walter had a practitioner exam coming up. I was sure of it. He’d complained ceaselessly since his form was approved. It was practically a sign of the changing of seasons. Summer had very much ended, and with fall settling in, Walter should be in full-blown dismay.

Every three months, he’d attempt that practitioner exam like clockwork, and every three months, he’d be defeated by it, unable to master any of the five Pentacles of Power all mages possessed. It left him devastated. Utterly destroyed. Emotionally eviscerated.

It became one of my few delights to look forward to in this hellscape. Perhaps it stemmed from the whole misery loves company mantra, but I took solace in Walter’s pointless plight. How had he gone and found a way to ruin what little happiness I cherished?

“Okay,” he said loudly, craning his neck to ensure no one else was in the repository. Few archivist practitioners lingered here if they could avoid it. “I’ve got exactly four hours and fifty-six minutes to finish today’s agenda.”

Ugh. Walter and his auditory whatever. He’d explained it before—as with every single thing he did day-to-day—because it allowed him to process learning better. Of course, it annoyed the actual archivists who worked in the repository, so when they were around, he settled for mumbles. But he found himself alone this afternoon. Perhaps that was where this hollow joy came from.

“I have to restock the basilisk eyes and harpy feathers, check to make sure the vanguards returned those brooms on loan. Oh, there were some sigils that needed double-checking. Then I need to finish filing Chancellor Alden’s finding on the Fae rift. She’ll be pissed if I push that back another day.” Walter tilted his head, his glasses slipping down the bridge of his nose and his hazel eyes trained on me. “But believe it or not, Bez, I plan on getting this all done in a timely fashion. That’s right, I won’t be spending my entire Friday night with you.”

Thank the gods for tiny mercies. The only thing worse than his need to verbalize all his work was this insufferable desire to make conversation with me during his twelve-hour days like I actually fucking heard a word he said. I mean, I did, but he had no reason to believe that. Plus, he rarely shut up, so I never kept up with his terrible discussions. Or lessons. Fuck, he loved to teach me things I either already understood or had no desire to learn.

Another beep at the door, and Walter quieted.

“And who are you talking to, Wally?” My jailer, Magus Remington, hobbled into the repository. The wrinkles on his face deepened and spread like webbed crevices. He looked nothing like the mage nearly fifty years ago who helped bind me within this orb. I took small pleasure in knowing I’d outlive him. I’d outlive everything, eternally bound to this horrid orb. However, given the time Remington recently dedicated to cataloging and moving so many artifacts in and out and elsewhere, I might luck out and get to watch the old bastard keel over and die in here.

“Huh?” Walter’s thick brows raised, adding to the worry lines on his crinkling forehead. “Was I talking? Probably just thinking out loud.”

The tips of his ears reddened, accentuated by the black rims of his glasses. He gained such satisfaction by sharing his findings in complete detail, step-by-step. Like me, he had no one to share his thoughts with. No one who cared. Unlike me, he could change that loneliness. Pathetic.

“You were talking to that devil again.”

“It’s mostly an auditory learning thing, which is for my benefit.” Walter shrugged, an aloof gesture he saved for whenever someone expressed displeasure for something he enjoyed. A weakness his body revealed to show he didn’t care much about it either, but he did. “Making conversation with Bez doesn’t hurt anyone, and it helps me work faster. Plus, I think he likes it.”

I hated it.

“Don’t nickname Beelzebub. It is a devil, contained for a reason.”

“I-I know.”

“I don’t keep this in the repository as a trinket for idle gossip or chitchat.”

No. The old prick kept me here, high out of reach and on full display, so the many mages and Mythics permitted in this dwelling could observe how he grew to power. His little climb from a pathetic chancellor of the archivist to Magus came from his victory over me. A battlefield of carnage and corpses and the skittish practitioner I’d overlooked contained me in a damn artifact.

I’d replayed that day too many times, only my thoughts and failures to keep me company. There had been so much blood and fire and magic in the air that day. I should’ve double-checked the bodies. It was a brutal battle of countless mages, and I got sloppy.

Now, I remained here as a trophy of Magus Remington’s success. He was the sole survivor against the devil Beelzebub, preventing me from summoning an army of demons to invade their world. I scoffed. As if I’d ever open a doorway to bring more demons to this shithole of a world. But the tale grew with popularity, it seemed, and Magus Remington rode that wave.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, Magus.” Walter’s tremble was a familiar one. “Talking to Bez…to the devil. Sort of just a habit, I guess.”

“It’s fine, Wally.” Magus Remington smiled, which stretched his face. “But it can’t hear you in there. Once contained inside a devil’s orb, they’re stripped of all tangible and intangible forms. It’s simply raw energy.”

Screw you, old man.

“Well, we can’t know for sure,” Walter said because so many of his little side projects involved researching all he knew about the Diabolic realms. My realms. A pathetic attempt to research something no one else ever had. Something about leaving his mark on history. He’d barely scratched the surface since his studies were limited to this repository, and no one else cared about Diabolics aside from noting the various dangers of demons and their superior devils.

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