Page 26 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

“Pretty much.” Bez grinned. “Letting the world burn doesn’t seem like such a bad deal now, does it?”

I scoffed. “Whatever. My essence and mortal coil are fine here, mostly, so what’s next?”

“We wait for our host.” Bez scrunched his face. “And by host, I mean some grimy demon lackey sent to escort us.”

“Why’s everything so fuzzy here?” I asked, and then the realization of a paranoid possibility dawned on me. “Wait. Did the trip use up all my essence? Is that why I can’t see anything clearly?”

“No, don’t you think I would’ve mentioned that while looking you over?”

“Right. Then what’s up with the blurs?”

“You still suck at focusing your essence for the proper sensory experience.” Bez waved a hand, creating a spark of black and crimson lightning, which conjured a pair of glasses. “These will help.”

“Fascinating.” I grabbed the glasses. It’d been so long since I’d worn a pair, I almost forgotten the feeling. After the essence adjusted my vision, enhancing all my senses, I sort of fell out of the habit. That and the prescription strength on the lenses gave my eyes a headache. “This is not the Hell I was expecting. We literally arrived through fire, but now it’s all…”

The field of sand stretched far in a perfectly symmetrical circle with gated doors evenly lined in opposing directions. Pillars were sculpted into intricate designs, etched against the stone walls surrounding the sandy arena. The walls stretched so high, it’d require flight to reach the stands, which went even further up. They angled back and towered so high it blocked out almost all light above. This place reminded me of an ancient colosseum.

“Lilith has a filter on her realm, so even I can’t see the full extent of her Hell,” Bez explained nonchalantly as if warping the way a world was perceived wasn’t a godly ability. “She’s muting her dimension for us.”

“Huh?”

“Basically, she carved off a piece of her dimension and lessened it—removing the truly exquisite aspects, then turned it into this place where we’re attending the banquet.”

“Because we can’t see things fully?”

“No, we can. I’m Diabolic, and you have devil essence. You’d be more than capable of comprehending the full ratio of five-dimensional reality.” Bez grumbled, stringing together a few quiet profanities. “This is meant to shame us. A note that we’re from a poor, weak dimension, and she’s extended this veil as a sign of pity.”

“I mean, it’s kind of nice.” I shrugged. “Just stepping through was like a sensory overload, so if every second in Hell was like that…yeah, I’ll take the filter.”

“And the pity as she parades our weakness on display for all her children.”

“Speaking of…” I bit my lower lip, looking around the empty area. “Where’s our host?”

I was sort of expecting a party when we got here. Or at least the waiting room of said party. Looking around, there was nothing nearby.

“It’s disrespectful to encroach upon a devil’s territory,” Bez explained. “This is yours. A modest gift for your arrival.”

“Modest?” This arena would easily fit three or four football fields into it. “I mean, were they expecting more people?”

“Generally, a devil would bring a horde or legion at the very least.” Bez rocked his head side-to-side. “Beelzebub dragged me to these events on occasion. Not Lilith’s Hell, but generally, there’s more on display when a devil arrives in another’s realm.”

“Like what?”

“Well, we got a continent to the last Hell I visited, a couple sacrifices, and I believe there was a feast of Fae magic before we traveled to the festival.”

“Wow.”

“But it wasn’t much of a festival. Beelzebub used the invitation as a way to invade and obliterate another Hell to expand upon the nothingness and allow his Hell domain to grow.”

“A monopoly on Hell.” I shook my head. Bez’s devil truly was the worst devil. Suppose he was my devil, too, since I held the essence of Beelzebub inside me.

Eight giant tentacles waved from behind the walls of the arena. Each one stretched high, wriggling at least twenty to thirty feet in length. It was hard to tell from the center of this arena. They gripped the edges with spiked suckers and dragged a bulbous head into view before the enormous body slithered down the stage seating. The sandy brown held a stark contrast from the white stage, but once the giant octopus-like demon plopped onto the ground, its tentacles and core blended, accentuating the sparkling gems in a variety of colors adorned across its entire body.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!” The voice bellowed from the giant eyeball itself. The squishy sclera held a lime green hue, while the iris was a deep emerald.

“Blegh.” Bez stuck out his tongue and made a yuck face. An expression he usually reserved for when I cooked something so bland it could kill. “He could’ve at least come dressed.”

I cocked my head, studying the sheen-white fabric stretched across the tiny bulge that must’ve been the center—the core—of this demon’s body because no octopus had such a part. I mean, they had a mantle, which connected their heads and arms, but the anatomy was different. I supposed, ultimately, I was drawing octopus conclusions for Diabolic anatomy, which was equivalent to comparing Bez’s humanish shape to human anatomy. Not related.

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