Page 79 of The Misfit Mage and His Darling Demon

I whipped around, saturating the railing walkway, desperately hoping I’d be able to conjure a strong enough barrier to withstand a blitz attack.

“I thought you said the demon was over there.”

“He was.” Kell shifted her stance. “He’s fast. Faster than the other one.”

“Heh-heh-heh.”

The Diabolic shroud vanished, revealing a behemoth of a demon perched at the end of the railing with his spikelike feet wedged into the metal grates. My stomach churned, not at his features, but at the mess of blood and literal guts he adorned across his sunshine yellow skin. All he was missing was the cheery smile to add to his sadistic appearance. This demon didn’t possess a Fae—not really. It was more like he wore the body as an accessory. Limp, bloody arms dangled around his trunk-sized neck like a scarf. Glittery flesh stretched in long meaty strands across the broad, muscular torso of the demon, and the legs swung in front of the demon’s waist like an apron. He reached on either side of the railing, gripping the bars with each of his six flexed arms, slowly approaching Kell and me.

The way he treated his host body, the fact he didn’t need to coil deep within the core to restore discombobulated essence like Bez required after his near fifty-year stint trapped inside a Diabolic orb meant the six demons Eligos released probably hadn’t spent as much time locked away. He wasn’t the only demon to carelessly wreck a host body either. The first demon I’d encountered literally chomped away at the flesh as opposed to using it to restore herself. This proved they didn’t require host bodies and added to the question of why Eligos didn’t reserve those Fae bodies for other demons like those locked on the lower platforms positioned on the pillars. Did he think the six lockedaway were in worse condition? Did he believe he could challenge a devil, even a weakened one, with only six demons? I eyed the other orbs below. Was there something wrong with those demons? Were they too weak? Or were they uncontrollable in some way?

“Would rather be eating that cowardly demon king,” the demon said with his voice carrying two tones: one deep and breathy, the other had a lighter lilt like my own. The rattling combination made every muscle in my body tense, too anxious to saturate my terrain.

“What did you say?” Kell perked up.

His words came from the gaping Fae’s mouth, whose face was stretched across the demon’s bulbous head like a warped, bloody beanie that covered the Diabolic’s eyes. I shivered at how he’d ripped through the Mythic he possessed. This was because he rushed to create a composite. Bez had explained composites took time and required organic shifts, constrained by the confines of the host; instead, this demon forced and pushed the limits of the body well beyond measure until he’d snapped nearly all the elasticity of the flesh.

“Heh-heh-heh.” The laughter came from his actual mouth, a twisted swirl of jagged teeth. “Was supposed to catch the mage with devil essence. Beat him. Contain the devil.” He snarled, mouth widening as he sucked in a vortex of air. “No devil essence here. No essence in the mage at all.”

He sniffed out my lack of essence as quickly as the demon possessing the pink Fae. Not sure if that put a bigger or smaller target on my head. On the one hand, without Bez’s essence, they had no use for me, so the demons wouldn’t prioritize abducting me. On the other hand, without Bez’s essence, they had no reason to keep me around and would probably just—

“Guess I get to eat the little misfit mage now.” He released another breathy chuckle.

Yep. That answered my question. I was fucked. We both were.

“Be a dear, Wally.” Kell took off her witch’s hat, handing it to me.

I did as she asked, watching her run her fingers along her shaved hair, amplifying the glow of green veins on her hands but lessening their potency around the burns on her scalp. Kell redirected the flow of essence, ushering it from prioritizing healing to what I assumed was preparation for an assault on this demon. Would she add it to her spells or simply reveal some Diabolic level strength and speed? It was mesmerizing to witness how much control Kell had over the essence Mora shared with her.

“One of these days, I’m going to have to sit down and actually clean this thing out.” She rummaged through her hat, ignoring the demon slowly encroaching on us, and tossing items out from cosmetics, a decorative pillow, all the way to a collection of scrolls possibly containing ancient spells. None of it caught her eye. “Oh, hey, little guy. I forgot you were in there. Sorry, Trix.”

Kell pulled out a fluffy white rabbit and kissed his scrunched nose, then dropped him back into the hat, continuing her search.

“Did you just pull a rabbit out of your hat?” I asked, eyeing the demon who took deceptively deliberate steps.

“Magicians aren’t the only ones with fun stuff up their sleeves.” Kell winked, unphased by the frightening presence, while I wanted to collapse in a puddle of dread as the demon’s shadow loomed over us.

He was toying with us, given he could’ve been on top of us in a second flat. He wanted to savor this. Or had orders to stall—not sure how that’d benefit Eligos other than keeping us as half-dead hostages to use against Bez and Mora. I hoped whatever Kell wanted to retrieve would shield us from his attack.

“There it is.” Kell dug her arms in deep and fished out a large gun.

I think that’s a gun.

Military-grade based on the size, but the Collective never made it much of a priority to learn about human weaponry, aside from neutralizing barrels, clips, triggers, and ammunition through single casted low-level incantations.

This one had a huge sawed-off short barrel with a rounded clip and a hot pink grip that Kell playfully slapped against her palm, carelessly waving the gun back and forth.

“Is that some type of modified super shotgun?” I asked, searching for the faintest traces of magic tucked within the weapon but finding nothing.

“Goddess, no.” She bit her thumb. Blood pooled, quickly replaced by black essence holding a green glint. “It’s a grenade launcher.”

“Why?” I asked, baffled.

“It’s for the modern girl with modern problems.” Kell posed. “Remember what I said about magicians and their sleeves?”

“Heh-heh-heh.” The demon clutched his bloody stomach with two of his arms, his body shaking as he stifled a laugh.

It didn’t matter that Kell wielded military-grade artillery, I highly doubted she’d get a clear shot on a demon moving at blurring speeds.

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