Page 81 of Two Who Live On

“Yeah, I paid attention during all my demonology physiology courses. Also, really loved the advanced psychology behind thenature of demons.” Chanelle moved ahead of me, confidence brimming. “Be a dear, my darling demon, and answer a few questions before we banish you.”

“You think your primal magic is enough to stop me.” The gorgon grunted, taking strike after strike of Chanelle’s swift attacks. Each time he gained more immunity to her casting frequency.

“Cute. You’re so flustered you can’t even properly sniff out my branch.” Chanelle coiled the lightning back, holding it firmly with one hand while she wove her other along the trace sparks of electricity. “I’m a real fan of lightning. What can I say, I enjoy the clap of the smack it makes, but with you being a big, scary demon—clearly, I need to show you exactly how versatile my arcane branch is.”

She possessed a truly unique branch that mixed primal and cosmic magics into her trademark whip.

The gorgon’s eyes widened. Air sizzled. Flames burnt his face. Chanelle’s elemental whip clacked against the road, freezing the street before zipping back and smacking the gorgon with ice. Each time Chanelle reeled back her whip, it changed elements and struck the gorgon’s face, making it impossible to recover or develop an immunity long enough to lock us in place.

Water.Clack. Wind.Snap. Earth.Crack. Steel. Lightning. Fire. Ice. Flora. Lava. Shadows. Light. Repeat.

She cycled through her elements again and again until she’d stripped away every scale on the gorgon’s face, leaving nothing but tarry pus. It oozed, a demonic infection on the world that seared the ground when splattereddrops fell.

“Not to be that person”—Chanelle side-eyed me—“but this would be a good time to cast some banishment his way. I know I look incredibly badass and all, but even I have limits.”

“Right.” I nodded.

Channeling my banishment root, I aimed my magic. Wait. If I banished him. Killed him. He’d return. I hesitated, releasing my energy because I needed to detain him. Contact Milo. Shit. These demons warped his clairvoyance, so he had no idea what was happening here and now.

“Oh, no, you don’t, big boy.” Chanelle tugged her electrical whip, which the gorgon had gripped in his sizzling hands. With a quick shake, she transformed the element into ice. He bit down on her elemental whip, so she changed it into steel.

“Lightning. Ice. Metal. I’ll eat it all.” The gorgon gorged on Chanelle’s magic, pulling her closer with each bite.

She released the whip and let him devour it, then conjured two new elemental whips in each hand. They were each earth based but created from different minerals. One had a glossy, reflective shine, whereas the other was dull and crumbling.

“Dorian, I don’t want to call you incompetent, but I’m pretty sure I requested a banishment.”

“We can’t.” I choked on the words. “If we kill him, he’ll just—”

A whirlpool opened behind the gorgon, and Jamie Novak appeared, placing a single hand on top of the gorgon’s head.

“Jamie.” Chanelle flung both whips at the gorgon only for them to be caught in a torrent of water transporting the snaps of the strikes elsewhere.

“You worry too much, Mrs. Whitehurst.” Jamie grinned, sincere and calm. Nothing like any snide smile he’d displayed all year.

I cast my telepathy forward, attempting to figure out his plan and why he’d place himself in this dangerous situation.

The gorgon was one swift move away from killing him. Jamie’s mind remained as silent as the gorgon’s. A soft buzz between my telepathy and his thoughts. I linked to Chanelle; she had a hundred frantic thoughts attempting to sort how or why her student would interfere, endangering his life against a demon she’d barely held off.

It wasn’t my telepathy waning. It was Jamie blocking my branch. How?

“Your presence is no longer required.” Jamie twisted the gorgon’s head around to meet his gaze. “Thank you for your nauseating assistance.”

The gorgon’s eyes grew wide. Shock and terror in them, yet no attempt to petrify Jamie where he stood. Jamie smiled as he squeezed the reformed scales on the gorgon’s head, cracking them until caustic tar burst. It splashed his skin but didn’t sizzle. In an instant, the gorgon exploded into nothingness. The wisps shimmered, then dimmed, and finally did something I’d never seen before from any demonic energy. Their white light curdled inward, fading black and crumpling into ashes.

“Sorry for bringing him back, Dorian,” Jamie said. His voice held a dark echo. “It was cruel, perhaps needlessly; however, I craved to see your reaction when reunited with the demon that caused such brutality on the young, beautiful Finn Summers. You, most certainly, did not disappoint.”

The darkness in his echo rattled the broken ground, whispering things too softly to hear or in languages I didn’t recognize.

“What are you?”

“Jamie?” Chanelle stepped forward.

“I am what some would call a devil.”

The sincerity in Jamie’s voice, the terror wrapped in the echo, and the hollowness in his eyes sent a shudder up my spine, whichreverberated through my body, channeling every magic at my disposal, frightened a single second left off guard would end in death.

“Relax.” In a flash, Jamie stood next to me, eyeing my magical frequency like he could see every fiber of my channeled magic. “There’s so much you’ve yet to uncover. I look forward to helping you grow and learn, Dorian.”

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