Page 81 of The Malevolent Eight

‘I join my. . .’ Shame hesitated, then smiled distantly as if this were a private joke. ‘I join my sister in this oath. Having only recently begun to appreciate humanity’s foibles, I am loath for my education to end so soon.’

‘Oh, shit. We’re supposed to get all sentimental again?’ Corrigan grumbled, but he was smiling when he punched me in the arm, hard enough to numb my shoulder, as usual. ‘Tell me who to blow up and those fuckers will be most certainly obliterated.’

‘And I—’ began Aradeus, then Shame clamped her hand over his mouth and whispered in his ear. After she pulled away, he looked at her and asked quietly, ‘Really?That’show I sound? I was merely trying to be—’

‘Go on,’ I told him. Calamity was unfolding less than a hundred yards away and time was growing short, but some things are worth the risk, you know? ‘Give us the speech, Aradeus.’

He did. It was pompous, poncey and way too fucking long, and I didn’t tear up even once and you can’t prove otherwise.

‘We’re ready, Cade,’ Galass said. Shewascrying her eyes out, but, you know, teenagers. Everything’s either the greatest loveeveror thetotalend of the world. ‘Tell us what to do.’

I swear to whatever gods never existed, not to mention the ones I was so desperate to ensure never arose, it was Temper who broke me. He placed his paw on my shoulder, lifted it to my cheek, and said, ‘Motherfucker’ with such understanding for what I was about to attempt, such fondness, such. . .love.

Damn it.

‘Okay,’ I said, pulling myself together. ‘Let’s go and be heroes.’

Chapter 45

Making Friends and Enemies

I raced towards the ruins of the fortress beneath the raging Pandoral, beset by spells both Infernal and Auroral being hurled at him. Blazing globes of golden light enveloped the giant man-shaped swarm, exploding in a shower of sparks even as inky-black tendrils of Infernal magic burrowed between the myriad insects making up his gargantuan form and tore at him from the inside. In return, he smashed his right fist down upon troops of Demoniac Hellions, while with his left palm he crushed a cavalry of Glorian Parevals, their gleaming armour cracking open like the shells of crabs. All the while, cheers of imagined imminent victory rose up from both sides. I didn’t need the Pandoral spell I was using to warp the distance between me and the Lords Celestine to see the sheen of almost erotic ecstasy on their faces. Rationality shot me a grin, as if the two of us were in on this wonderful joke and that later on we’d be rekindling our relationship.

Not fucking likely, sister. If I’m going to get murdered by a beautiful woman, I’m sticking with the one who at least has a decent excuse for killing me.

I stopped before we reached the rear lines, already short of breath. In my defence, that was mostly on account of being terrified.

Now, how does one attract the attention of a hundred-foot-tall extra-dimensional being without having him crush you underfoot?

I conjured up one of the few Pandoral spells I’d learned, the same one I’d used to accidentally bring Temper here. This time my target was far closer and much, much smaller.

Come on, you buzzing little bastard, I thought, feeling the resistance from my target.Come to Uncle Cade and let me transform you into something uncomfortable and gross.

‘Deceiver!’ shouted a golden-armoured figure atop an impressively large white horse. He was carrying a spear and riding in my direction. ‘Now shall the foulness of thine deeds return to thy breast, carried by the sharp edge of my steel!’

Ah, crap. It was Propriety. Guess he’d finally got wise to my lunatic conspiracy theories.

‘Wait!’ I shouted back, struggling to hold onto my spell before the insect escaped my feeble tether. ‘It’s not what you think– I’m secretly working on behalf of the Auroral Sovereign! You must join me in this noble—’

I like to think that there was a look of hesitation on the Ardentor’s face and that I might’ve managed to fool him one last time. Alas, I’ll never know, because a bolt of Tempestoral thunder obliterated him into tiny bits of golden shrapnel. Charred Glorian viscera rained down on me.

‘Wipe that shit off the coat!’ Corrigan called out. ‘Those were expensive!’

I ignored his injunction, focusing all my efforts on that one tiny beetle-like insect. He had come from another realm in hopes of conquering this one, and now, once the Aurorals and Infernals got their shit together, he was minutes from being wiped out, he and all his buzzing brothers and sisters. Finally, the bug separated from the others, its flight path staggering as if he were being tugged out of sticky oil by the sheer force of my will. As he flittered angrily towards me, resisting every inch, his body began to change, bloating on whatever bits of matter and energy my Pandoral spell could draw from the surrounding landscape, until tiny insect limbs swelled to the size of a man’s arms and legs, the head reshaping itself into jaws which could form words. The head stayed bug-like, which I’d expected. I’ve no idea why the spell determined that he should have a substantial penis as he stood three feet from me, glaring at me with murderous intent, but the universe is perverse that way.

‘Yyyoouuu. . .’ he began, his voice eerily like that of the Pandoral itself.

‘Quit with the fucking bug voice,’ I told him, holding up a hand. ‘I specifically altered your physical form so that you and I could have a conversation that wouldn’t take longer than either my world or yours. . . well, I guess yours is fucked either way. So, are you ready to listen to reason, or do you want to keep screwing around while the rest of, well,yougets obliterated?’

Hesitation. The spell had left him his insect wings and he tried to fly away, but I’d intentionally made them just a little too small to hold him aloft, so he just floated a few inches off the ground before losing his balance and falling on his face. I don’t know why I find winged creatures being unable to actually fly so funny. Maybe I once had a bad experience with a chicken as a kid.

‘Well?’ I asked again. I gestured to the onslaught the rest of his swarm was suffering under all those gold and crimson spells.

The bug-being rose to his feet and crossed his stick-like insect arms. ‘Fine, you prick,’ he said in a perfectly reasonable-sounding human voice. ‘What the fuck do you want?’

I’d fashioned the spell to transform the target into something capable of proper conversation without it being able to sting me to death or suck my eyeballs out in the middle of our negotiations. Once again, I was grateful for Hazidan Rosh’s incessant demands that I make aproperstudy of the elements of wonderism, rather than just get excited about blowing things up likesomepeople I could name.

Another bolt of Tempestoral fury, this one more fire than lightning, erupted about fifteen feet to my left, where a couple of Demoniac Hellions had decided to break ranks to stab me with their tridents.

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