Page 90 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

“I know necromancy spells, it’d be easy to reanimate his corpse, but I need magic now,” Kell said, pleadingly. “The longer we wait, every second he lays there dead, memories are fading, falling away to the afterlife. It’ll be impossible to restore them all if we wait.”

“No.” The word burned my throat, cascading sinking guilt through every fiber of my being.

Every second that ticked took away a memory. I’d witnessed a few zombie and revenant resurrections, they took hours under the best circumstances, most took days to enact. If we brought Wally back, he’d only be a shell of his former self, spending his eternity inside a rotting body and unable to remember half the things that brought him joy, mind lost in a fog. I couldn’t do that to Wally. I couldn’t punish him because I feared living without him.

“But I can’t live without him, either.” I caressed his damp blond curls.

Now that all the tension of pain had released from his body, Wally looked at peace.

With a telekinetic pull, I dragged the Demon’s Desire dagger into my grip.

“Let’s not get hasty, Bezzy.” Mora approached, careful in her steps and words. “I could, perhaps, parlay with Bael. It’s been centuries, but we parted on mostly good terms.”

“That’s right.” I held the tip of the blade close to my chest. “A devil can do or undo anything at their whim.”

“He never did quite comprehend the fragility of morality,” Mora continued. “But he’s a sentimental old fool.”

“No.” I swallowed hard, definitive. “Wally’s body wouldn’t survive the trip to Hell.”

“He might,” Kell chimed in. “I can figure out how to travel, maybe circumvent some stuff to account for the massive loss ofDiabolic essence fueling transport. Give me some time and I’ll have this villa front and center in Bael’s Court.”

“I’d advise against that, love,” Mora said.

“If the only thing that can fully restore the dead is a devil, then a devil will bring Wally back.” I plunged the dagger into my chest, grinding my teeth as demon essence raged against me—instinctively protective when I carved upward and through my sternum. “I may be a fake, a fraud, but I have devil essence.”

“Bez, ripping it out could kill you. For all you know that essence will fade the second its untangled from your body.”

“It won’t.” I struggled, slicing tendrils of demon essence interwoven with threads of devil essence. Power that’d protected me for centuries. Power that’d guided my path. Power that’d kept me alive through difficult battles. “Devils are undying, refusing to accept defeat.”

“You don’t even know if throwing away those pieces will result in bringing back Wally.” Mora stood in front of the pooling blood and essence pouring from me.

Scarlet and black whirled together, crimson sparks of light revealing how much of my essence spilled out during this endeavor.

“The piece of the devil I took lacks sentience, but it still has a will to live.” I paused, ignoring the needled tar stabbing me from inside, attempting and failing to stitch together the large gash I’d crudely carved across my torso. “If I give Wally this essence, it’ll restore him.”

I hoped. I had to hope because otherwise he was gone forever.

“You don’t exactly have a lot of your own essence to work with,” Mora said.

“Got a whole slab of ‘abandoned me’ pieces over there.” I nodded to the headless corpse Eligos kept propped as a trophy, a lure, something to bait me back to the engine room to steal theonly part of me he wanted—the devil. “I’ll regather it, collect my strength… After.”

“Fine.” Mora knelt beside me, further ruining her outfit as it soaked in the pool of carnage. “Let me at least help.”

“Maurice is going to be pissed when he sees what you did to his clothes.”

“He can eat me.” Mora took the dagger, and delicately cut between the threads of my essence; her touch held artistry, reminiscent of how she would handle a former lover.

As tendrils lunged from my chest cavity, whipping about and striking indiscriminately, Mora unleashed her own creating a black shield with an emerald hue.

“Thank you, Mora,” I said as warm blood spilled from my lips.

27

Walter

I floated through darkness, empty and silent. Bez’s voice had been the last thing I’d heard before…nothing. Nothingness stretched long and infinitely no matter which direction my consciousness carried me. It must’ve been my thoughts alone in these shadows. I couldn’t see my body, couldn’t feel my limbs. I couldn’t feel anything, not even my voice which I tried desperately to use and cry out for someone, something.

Would I float adrift in this emptiness forever? Was this where death led? I’d always heard…

---