Page 19 of Midnight Witch

What the hell?!

An angry sound from Brimstone distracted her. Four hellhounds had latched onto his flank and were trying their best to tear open his flesh.

She gritted her teeth. “Hellreaver!”

The weapon returned to her hand with a loud clap. Mae raised him to the sky and drew on their combined strength. Fire bubbled through her veins as the power of three surged inside her.

“DECIMATE!”

A black and crimson orb detonated into existence around Hellreaver. The light flickered violently. Tremors shook the foundation of the building.

Dark lightning streaked with vermilion threads crackled ominously within the sphere and danced wildly on the weapon’s blades. Mae felt Hellreaver swell in her grip a second before he released a veritable storm of deadly electrical arcs.

The currents zapped across the ballroom with explosive thumps that made Mae’s ears throb and caused the very air to vibrate. They pierced the hellbeasts attacking Brimstone and arrowed toward the remaining creatures in the hall, their movements defying physics as they multiplied.

The monsters were wiped out in a matter of seconds.

Deafening silence fell when the last one vanished in a cloud of black ash. The stench of sulfur started to fade as the remains of the hellbeasts settled in a thick layer of soot.

Mae endedDecimate, her chest heaving with her breaths.

The magnitude of the spell she had just unleashed had drained her.

Hellreaver wriggled out of her hand and shot into her arms.My witch!

Mae landed on the ground and hugged him, relief tightening her chest. The floor trembled as Brimstone approached. He lowered his head and pressed his brow against Mae’s, his magic warming her flesh even as his wounds healed.

“I’m glad you’re both safe,” the fox rumbled.

Hellreaver whined and nudged him with a blade. They shifted back into their smaller forms.

Mae stared past the awestruck faces of the witches and sorcerers watching her from across the ballroom and met Bryony’s strained gaze. The older witch’s expression and Abraham’s fraught look told her they would not be able to sweep this incident under the carpet and keep it from the eyes and ears of the city’s officials. Not with so many human witnesses around.

“Jared is gonna go bananas,” she mumbled.

Brimstone huffed.

Someone called her name. She turned.

Nikolai and Vlad were hurrying across the floor toward her, Cortes trailing in their steps. The tension humming through Mae drained out of her, rendering her weak.

Though the sorcerer and the incubus looked annoyed enough to tear someone’s head off, they were both uninjured.

Vlad clasped her shoulders tightly and raked her figure with a worried stare. “Are you alright?!”

“I’m fine.”

Tarang and Brimstone brushed against each other with comforting rumbles.

Nikolai scowled at Vlad. “How about you let go of her, asshole? You look like you’re gonna break her bones.”

The incubus loosened his hold on Mae guiltily. He glared at the sorcerer. “Back off, Moon Boy.”

Mae swallowed a sigh.

Cortes arched an eyebrow. “Want me to take care of them for you?”

She grimaced. “Somehow, I get the feeling that sentence involves burying bodies.”

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