Page 80 of The Misfit Mage and His Dashing Devil

I leapt into the void. Shadows flung me across the city faster than I could follow. I’d bolted past the Regiment Headquarters before taking my first breath. How the hell did Diabolics navigate this whirlwind maze?

Steering myself back, I took a wide turn skirting over the brightly colored night ocean. Even here, the waters shimmered through the shadows, casting rainbows because of the powerful magics raging beneath the waves.

That was it.

I closed my eyes and sensed the surge of mana. Each weave and jerk whipped me into sticky threads which dragged against my body like skidding across a road. It stung, burning my skin. I ground my teeth, ignoring it, focusing on the most concentrated area of magic in the city. I could do this. I just needed to pinpoint and jump out at the right second.

I sprang out of the shadows and flew through a blaze of flames. Pushing ahead, I balled a fist.

Ian’s smug face was the first thing I locked onto once I burst through the smoke and black fire scorching bodies. My body heated. A burning sensation warmed every cell before making its way to my chest and transforming into a powerful pit pumping alongside my heart. This wasn’t the fire. It was rage. Fury. A frenzy of resentment I wanted to unleash.

“Ian!” Propelling toward him, I reeled back my fist. Saturation wasn’t the most effective way to augment physical strength, but for the life of me, my mind blanked on the thousands of incantations I’d memorized. Any one of them would enhance my muscles and make for a staggering blow—assuming I could manage it.

I seethed with too much anger to weave a spell, so I circulated all the mana into my left fist, sending that pit of rage there, too, hoping it’d break Ian’s fucking jaw.

Bez appeared in a blink at Ian’s side. I gasped, almost crashing instead of punching. No time to be a fucking failure. I struck Ian, wincing at the loud crack of my knuckles and the jolting pain in the nerves of my broken finger. I should’ve used my right; no broken fingers. But I’d never really fought. Nothing outside of academy training and a futile scuffle against Bez. I needed to use my dominant hand.

Bez’s cheek swelled momentarily to match the hit I’d successfully delivered. Ian fell back, tumbling over himself a few feet and cutting his face on debris. The light cuts on Bez’s face indicated that much, though he healed instantly. Bez didn’t budge; Diabolic strength kept him planted where he appeared. I trembled at his expression, devoid of his minxy smirk, eyes blank save for the menacing stare. Black veins covered his face and body, unlike anything I’d seen since he first possessed this body.I worried there wasn’t enough of the Bez I came to know, to care for, to… How much of him remained intact beneath Ian’s control?

Ian had hollowed Bez out, scooped away his personality, which made this all the more devastating. His joy. His wicked charm. All that remained was a dangerous and mightily powerful Diabolic who had conquered Hell and built a legend for himself in our world.

So much of Bez’s Diabolic form cracked through the flesh of his host body. His horns, all four, had sprouted. They curled around like a ram, two large and twisting in four loops, and the second set identical in spirals but much smaller. His wings were fully unveiled, gray feathers falling away like stray hairs only to sizzle and create small explosive bursts when landing on the flames. I kept close attention on his drawn claws, ready to strike. The flick of his tails smashed and cracked earth into rubble.

I fell back into the shadows before Bez followed a command to attack. In an instant, I leapt behind Ian. Grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, I tried to yank him back into Mora’s void world. He broke away, hurling a fireball at me. Drifting between the shadows, I spun around and tried to grab him again.

Ian swatted my hand away. “You really think you can take me? Not sure what artifact you snatched to pull off the disappearing act, but it doesn’t compare.”

Good. Ian had no understanding of the Diabolic temporal fold Mora had created. Bez still had access and could’ve easily jumped in after me, but hopefully wouldn’t unless Ian explicitly commanded him to.

“Doesn’t compare to what?” I asked, pulling Agatha’s Heart from the shadows where I’d stored it.

Ian’s eyes widened, raddled and fuming. The more I kept him off balance, the longer Bez would linger without commands until I dealt with Ian.

“How’d you...?”

“You should use better locks for important things,” I gloated. “Thought you’d realize I’d taken it once that intense surge of mana faded. Too high on overconfidence, I suppose. This is why I always assume the worst. If you prepare for failure, you don’t look like such a fool standing there wide-eyed and slack-jawed.”

Honestly, he was so erratic, casting and attacking everyone indiscriminately, I could’ve slit his throat unseen. I settled for slipping the skeleton key enchantment into his pocket portal and stole back the artifacts.

“Give it back!”

“It’s not really yours, though, is it?” I dropped it back into the void. “Not mine either.”

And I had no intention of using it since I didn’t want to end up as deranged as Ian. Taking Agatha’s Heart had slowed his casting assault on Regiment Headquarters. The problem was, Ian still held a lot more proficiency in the Pentacles of Power than I did. I needed to end this quickly. I wouldn’t stand a chance in a dragged-out face-to-face fight.

Sweeping in and out of Mora’s network, I sprang from every direction faster than Ian registered. A few light punches and kicks helped disorient him. It wasn’t enough to land a solid grip, though. Ian was a weaselly prick, slipping away whenever I tried to snatch him into the shadows.

“Hey.” I swung a fist, dipping into the shadows before hitting Ian, then swept behind him.

As expected, he braced for the punch, and I grabbed his wrist from the opposite direction.

“Gotcha, bastard.” I’d done it. I yanked him toward me, preparing to barrel through the void as far from Bez as the shadows would carry us.

“Stop him!”

Bez snatched my other arm by the wrist. The tight grip nearly broke the bone. He pulled me out of the shadows. I squeezed Ian’s wrist hard, hoping to match the throbbing ache in my own arm.

“Get off me.” Ian broke free, clutching his pained arm. “Release him.”

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