Page 36 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

“Makes perfect sense.” Wally frowned.

“It’s only one beast. He doesn’t require three names, no four names. Mortals and their obsession with titling everything in existence. So vexing.”

“I know I’ve named his personas, but it helps kind of understand his alter egos. And they all tie together to his name, Weather.” Wally’s glee became a nauseating pit in my stomach. “Did you know that while a Cerberus has three heads, three dominant personalities, and three functioning brains, they work as a singular entity?”

Sunny plopped back, spreading his legs, and began licking his testicles while the right head, Stormy, attempted to bite his own wagging tail every time it batted his side.

“I wouldn’t call his brains functioning,” I muttered.

“It has to do with some consensus in their mind and nervous system,” Wally said, ignoring me in favor of lectures and continuing to pet the Cerberus. “The personas act independently sometimes, but they are all the same little guy.”

“Little? The beast is bigger than a Great Dane!”

“Actually, his size is more comparable to the Bernese Mountain Dog, which is…” Wally rambled, continuing to fawn over the Mythic beast. “…but for a Cerberus, he’s basically only twelve to sixteen weeks old. Maybe a bit older if he’s the runt. Hard to know for sure since I’ve only read about Cerberus’ in textbooks, but the size charts seem very comparable especially given the expressive nature of his personas. Formative but still in the exploring phase. Plus, the size of his paws. You know, they’re viciously loyal creatures and make wonderful guardians.”

“You mean guards. Usually, guards to horrid underworlds filled with specters and foul spirits refusing to accept death and the beyond, lingering in an attempt to haunt the world.”

“Aw, you listened when I talked about my report onThe Hades Complex?”

“Whatever.” I huffed and turned my head away. “How’d that thing even get up here?”

“Tony and I were researching the navigation system,” he said, which was a fancy way to put ‘touching things they shouldn’t’ if you ask me. “And I think we opened his kennel in the lower levels. Being so young, chances are he sniffed out the only source of life in the villa and found me. And Tony.”

I glared at the bug, who didn’t appear all that fond of the beast sniffing and yapping at him. But good riddance since he was equally culpable for this turn of events.

“You know, a Cerberus can sniff out anything, living or dead. He might be really helpful in tracking down the source of the missing Diabolics.”

“Doubtful. Diabolic essence is unlike any other substance in this world or any other. We’re far too complex for his nose. All three of them.”

Wally returned to the beast that rolled on his back, exposing his stomach for affection.

“So, he just obeys you?”

“Not really. He’s still just a puppy, but I did learn he’s gone through some obedience training—if you can call it that.” Wally went over to the navigation screen, which had been replaced by images of all the rooms. Not images—recordings. “Turns out the pink Fae—really need a name for her—was in charge of disciplining Weather.”

Wally hit a few buttons, zooming in on one screen and rewinding it. The timestamped symbols zipped by as the screen rewound. The screen stopped on an image of the pink Fae from the performance who abducted Wally and vanished into a flurry of butterflies, holding a metallic whip in front of a cage where the Cerberus sat.

Weather’s—ugh, I hated that name—left head growled at the image as the right head whimpered. The image alone conveyed the malice in the Fae’s face, the rage in one Cerberus head, fear in another, and a desire to please through kindness in the central leading head.

“Guess she has access here, so you were absolutely right about keeping an eye out for others,” Wally said. “Not sure if she’ll show up again, but we should be ready for anything since she knows about the villa.”

Good. I’d hoped to cross paths with her again so I could gut her for taking Wally in the first place.

“How’d you learn all this?”

“After Weather greeted us, Tony and I went back to studying the cameras, then he obviously got a little rambunctious again.”

“A little?” There was nothing little about that three-headed hound except his brains.

“There’s surveillance all over the place. Other than Weather, there hasn’t been anything on the live feed recently.” Wally side-eyed me. “But it doesn’t help that half the cameras went dark aftersomeonearrived.”

“Your life was at stake, Walter. I didn’t have time to knock.”

“You didn’t exactly rush to my aid either.”

“I’m going to be the mature one here and not lower myself into a petty argument of who did or didn’t do what.”

Wally’s brow furrowed, his lips twisted, but he remained speechless, lacking a proper comeback that didn’t result in him being immature.

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