Page 98 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires

“Dwelling on the world—any world—of the living will only make your time spent here painful,” a feminine silhouette of lavender light stepped from the shadows. “Seek solace from Oblivion’s embrace, and this world can offer you clarity, peace, and even happiness.”

Great. Was this demon about to give me a tour? I’d protest, but I couldn’t recall the fundamentals of stitching together my being to speak through the shadows.

I floated silently, studying every curve of lavender light, the sculpted face created, the talons, tails, and soon the details formed a memory.

I recognized this demon. Agares.

“That’s what they used to call me, yes,” they replied to my thoughts because the filter between thinking and speaking didn’t exist here in Oblivion. Even without a mouth or a voice, I still expressed myself.

“You’re an ancient demon.” Eligos had told me harrowing legends of Agares and the way they bucked Beelzebub’s authority, escaped his world, carved out a name for themself a thousand dimensions away.

Perhaps it was what motivated the fallen knight in his venture for glory, his dream to give voice to the demons. Perhaps it also encouraged me in some small way to run and hide and build a new name for myself.

But seeing the truth of things, seeing how this ancient demon of legend hadn’t lived so happily, hadn’t escaped Beelzebub and exchanged his Hell for freedom. No. They ended up bested by Eligos, locked in an orb by that Fae Novus, and now they lay dead and forgotten in Oblivion like me and trillions of others.

“To hear my eons of life surmised in such a swift and sullen manner frames quite the picture,” Agares said, shifting around the darkness, offering the gentlest of lavender light.

“Apologies.”

“No need. You know of me, in part,” they said. “And I know you, favorite child of Beelzebub.”

I tsked. “Favorite to slaughter, to cast down here again and again and again. To drag through dimensions, paraded for my shame.”

“A project he never gave up on,” Agares said. “Unlike so many of us.”

Shadows slithered all around me, and whispers echoed everywhere.

“When Beelzebub found himself bound to his singular Hell, bested in a coup against a weaker foe, he slaughtered every demon in his dimension.” Agares extended their arms, casting lavender light on the moving darkness.

“And they’re here for their revenge.” I sank into the darkness. “I abandoned them, fled, left every demon locked behind a doorway.”

“There is no resentment,” Agares said. “Winning a war against Beelzebub was never in their future. Many see that now. Understand they were always meant for Oblivion. We are here to embrace you.”

What?

“We’re honored to meet you…” Agares paused at my name, a name I felt on the tip of every tongue. A thousand souls. A billion. More. Each calling out a name that didn’t belong to me anymore. Each biting back a name that shouldn’t have been given to me. A name that wasn’t me. A name I’d heard in a thousand lives, lives I didn’t recognize. Not anymore.

“I expected my next trip to Oblivion to be met with malice.”

“This is not Hell,” Agares said.

“There could be worse ways to spend my eternity.”

“And there could be better ways still.” Agares lifted their head, face locked on a moving glimmer in the distance. “Something tells me it’ll be a much longer wait before we’re reunited—”

“Bez!” Wally’s voice sliced through the shadows, a beacon calling to me and silencing the millions of nearby souls.

“Not you, too.” I sank into myself, watching Wally descend into the dark nothingness with me.

Beelzebub had taken everything from me, even Wally’s life, his future, his happiness. I could only hope to hold onto myself long enough here to shield him from the somber existence of no longer existing.

“I’m so glad I found you,” Wally said, his bright smile lighting up the darkness.

In fact, everything about him illuminated this place. Wally’s entire form held tangibility, physical shape, a breath of life. His devilish features shimmered, providing power and precision as he navigated this nothingness.

Wally hadn’t died. Wally had leapt in here the same way a devil would.

“How? How did you get here?” I swam around Wally, incorporeal and fragmented energy with no body to speak of, to speak with, but I had the sheer will to ask.

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