Page 66 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

The skin on her face cracked, tearing open from the infuriated scream she released. So much angry power that it tore her host body apart. In one swift, blurred motion, she knocked the dagger out of my grip, snatched a fistful of hair, and slammed my head into a stone wall. My glasses cracked, snapping in half, and blood ran down my face.

Black flames funneled forward, and the demon extended her hands, holding her own conjured element at bay. Kell and this demon remained in a locked stance, each using essence to try and burn the other one alive.

I tensed, flashes of Kell’s charred body playing over in my mind again. The horrid screams she let out. My cowardly inability to do anything to help her. All I’d done was run. I couldn’t let this happen again.

Not happening. I refused to remain idle during another demon attack. I wouldn’t fail Kell a second time.

Ignoring the throbbing of my head and the pain in my muscles, I crawled to my discarded dagger and swiped the Achilles tendon, dropping the demon to her knees as her essence struggled to repair the damage. Bleeding her wouldn’t work; I needed precise strikes to slow her recovery and prevent mobility.

“I should thank you.” I swung the dagger. “After all, it was you aiming for my vitals that inspired the tactic.”

I sliced the supraspinatus and infraspinatus tendons in her right shoulder. Her arm dropped, essence whipped about erratically, incapable of healing the injury but slashing at me when I moved in close. I couldn’t stop. Not yet.

Black flames barreled closer to us, halted only by the demon’s left arm casting the willpower to control them.

I ground my teeth and fought through the searing cuts caused by the defensive tendrils. I stabbed her left shoulder, missing vital spots. It didn’t matter; I’d make it work. I buried the blade deep and twisted it until her left arm drooped.

Fire engulfed her, swirling close to me, but a gush of wind knocked me back.

Kell stepped in closer, brow furrowed and hands trembling as she controlled the demon’s fire to burn the demon herself. “We have to eradicate every ounce of essence or she’ll kill us.”

I nodded. If I used my own fire, it’d only feed her essence, and without a connection to Bez’s Diabolic abilities, I lacked telekinesis, so I summoned wind and circled it around the black flames, fueling them and turning their blaze into an infernothat Kell kept condensed through sigils, fixated on burning the demon to cinders.

She screamed so loudly it echoed through the entire hallway, shattering stone and cracking the walls apart.

I created incantations, settling the crumbling corridor.

Finally, it stopped. She stopped. Kell wobbled, planting her hands on her shaky knees, allowing the black fire to fizzle out as only charred remnants remained. Then, after a few deep breaths, Kell waltzed over, a strut in her step, and kicked the embers, scattering ashes of the dead demon.

“I’ll be damned if I get set on fire a fourth time.”

“Fourth?” I quirked a brow.

“Yeah.” Kell forced a smile. “Witch hunters back in the day, then my angry coven over a slight miscommunication about the use of dark magic—still peeved about that one, but I always say let bygones be bygones, which is probably easiest when you’re bi and they’re gone—and now that asshat of a demon. I’d like to think this is all just some unfortunate circumstances, but I’m starting to think it’s a me thing, and that’s not cool. It’s hot. Literally. Flames. Alicia Keys playing in the background of my life soundtrack.”

“Wait,” I interjected because Kell rambled more than anyone I’d ever met. “Witch hunters?”

The last known recording of active witch hunters was around eighteen sixty-four, which would make Kell very old. Subjectively. Bez was old, old by human standards. Still, Kell must’ve been a century at least, older than most witches, especially for someone who looked thirty at best. Then again, there were unaccounted cases past the Collectives documents of witch hunter movements. The unofficial, totally unsanctioned witch hunters that came from the infiltration regiment of the Collective, which I’d found links going as far up to the nineteen eighties, but nothing concrete. It wasn’t like I had access tothose confidential files working as an acolyte in the repository. Still, I did pretty good piecing together rumors and theories and suspicions with only—

Kell stared wide-eyed at me.

“What?”

“Processing what you’re saying.” She waved her hand up and down. “The muttering’s like listening to a bad ham radio.”

“Oh. Was I talking aloud? Sorry. Bez says I sometimes do that a bit. A lot. Too much. Probably.”

“No, no. I get it. We creatives need to share our wisdom with the masses somehow, right? How else would they learn?” Kell winked. “But we gotta fix your glasses. I don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

I smiled, heart racing and face burning. Kell was actually pretty amazing company. “I’m… I’m so sorry I didn’t stop him, Eligos, I mean. What he did was awful, and I should’ve tried harder.”

“It’s nothing.” She pushed herself back and lay against the wall. “Though you’d think by the third round, with essence added this time around, it’d get easier.”

“What are you even doing here?” I asked between heavy breaths, my entire body puddy on the floor.

“Saving your ass, obvi.” Kell snickered.

“No, I mean…” I swallowed hard. What did I mean?

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