Page 71 of Unleashing Mayhem
The human mates had only just escaped when the back door of the bar burst open to reveal a demon only slightly largerthan Chaos, with glowing red eyes and elongated arms almost reaching the floor. He was bald but for two red horns jutting from his scalp, and his skin was a mottled, stony color.
And he was alone, no Dominico in sight.
There was no more time to mourn Matteo’s absence. Nightmare, Kaisyir, and Chaos reverted to their demon forms instantly. Discretion was no longer their main concern, and only Dominico’s doomed group of humans remained, anyway. Nightmare distantly registered their murmuring at the shift, but his focus was on the pain demon in front of him.
“Where is your summoner, demon?” Nightmare asked.
The creature’s only answer was a snarling screech, loud enough to shatter glasses at the bar.
“Oooh, I like him,” Chaos whispered, his skin smoldering with banked flames.
Kaisyir was already off, dispatching the screaming men with guns with practiced ease, even as bullets began sinking into his skin. It would take him only a few minutes to complete his task. Nightmare noted with particular satisfaction when a certain blond human man had his throat sliced by one of Kaisyir’s knives. It wasn’t quite the same as Nightmare ripping the man’s heart out himself, but it would have to do.
The pain demon screeched again. Chaos, eager for violence as ever, leaped into the air with his talons outstretched, his small wings giving him the momentum to land at their visitor’s feet.
But Chaos didn’t get a chance to land.
He was immediately thrown back by a burst of energy from the enemy demon, engulfed in red light that crackled with electricity. The bar filled with a pungent scent, like burned rubber, as Chaos cried out.
The red light dissipated, and the little demon sat slumped on the floor for a moment, a hand to his chest. “Ouch,” he said clearly, though he didn’t sound too put out by it.
The pain demon let out another horrendous screech.
Nightmare sent his shadows toward it, letting them writhe through the available crevices into the creature’s mind. But there was nothing to twist or manipulate there, no desires or fears or regrets. The creature was a void inside, its only imperatives the distribution of agony and the aims of its contract: capturing Matteo for its master.
Nightmare didn’t know if that emptiness was in his nature or a twisted side effect of his particular contract, but the result was unsettling, even to Nightmare’s shadows.
They swarmed out of the demon’s mind and returned to Nightmare’s side, chittering with unease.
Then Chaos was up in the air once more. His flames erupted in front of him, clearing a path, and he was able to get close to the pain demon this time. Close enough to slice deeply through the pain demon’s arm, but also close enough for Chaos to be wounded in return. The pain demon got his talons into Chaos’s side, and he used his bloody hold to toss the little demon away from him.
Chaos landed on the ground again, his wings crumpled underneath him.
This time, Chaos didn’t rise. He didn’t cackle in delight at his unexpected defeat. He only slumped onto the floor, twitching and moaning weakly.
The pain demon must have had venom in his talons, as Nightmare did.
The creature screeched and stalked over to Chaos.
Nightmare let out a warning growl, allowing his limbs to lengthen and his skull mask to appear from the ether to protect his face.
Whatever poison he’d been given, Bracchus would recover or he wouldn’t. But either way, this pain demon wasn’t going to live long enough to deliver a killing blow.
Nightmare approached the two of them. The pain demon sent a burst of its electrical energy his way, and Nightmare’s shadows swarmed to take the hit.
They shrieked with pain, their cries operating at a frequency higher than a human could register, and Nightmare mourned their suffering. His devoted companions, his weapons and his friends.
But it was for Matteo, this pain. Nightmare and his shadows would take any amount of suffering for that.
Nightmare could feel it now, his mate’s fear and anxiety, brought to a boil by the wretch who had summoned this new monster. They would pay for making Matteo go through such anguish again, this demon and its master.
Nightmare stretched out a spidery limb, and the pain demon swiped at him with its talons. Nightmare didn’t attempt to dodge them. They caught in Nightmare’s skin, and fire licked up Nightmare’s veins—the poison trying to achieve its aims—but he kept going, straight into those mad red eyes, locking his talons in and letting his own venom flow.
The pain demon screeched and flailed, clawing at Nightmare’s arms with all the fervor of a caged animal.
More venom. More poison. That fire spread through Nightmare, and his muscles twitched and jolted with agony. His shadows roamed inward, racing through his veins, trying to combat the venom as best they could.
It didn’t matter if they were successful. Nightmare would not falter.
