Chapter 81: I Can Explain

The demon that stepped out of the ritual circle looked like some entity had tried to recreate a human from fragmented memories. The limbs were too long, and the face was devoid of features other than big, solid red eyes and a far-too-wide slit of a mouth. Its skin was almost porcelain-white and covered in shifting gray spots, and its long limbs ended at many-fingered hands and feet, each tipped with small claws.

With the ritual completed, Erik turned to us. His eyes were focused, intense, and slightly glowing. He wore the simple clothes his parents had described, with the addition of an ornate bracelet around his right wrist.

“No! You won’t take this chance from me!” Erik shouted, showing enlarged canines and slightly sharper-than-normal teeth.

“Shit!” Fira shouted. “Form up! We’ll save the kid if we can, but focus on the demon and the ritual!”

Drin stepped up, shield held ready. I turned my aura sight on, and stepped quickly up alongside Drin as the thrum of magic visibly filled the air. Both Erik and the demon lit up, but the former was like a candle next to a bonfire.

Fira sent a wash forward across the floor, scattering the remnants of the ritual circle, and pushing away the corpses of the sacrifices. Tren and I threw fire at the demon, which recoiled momentarily. Salvador didn’t shoot—he was well aware how little a mundane arrow would do to a demon.

“What a poor welcome!” the demon hissed out. Their unnatural voice echoed around the chamber ominously. “You should respect your betters!”

I felt no real anger from the demon, but Erik was an inferno of fury. I threw another, much bigger ball of fire at the demon, striking it in the chest. It screamed this time, burning as it stumbled back. I wanted to do more, but I didn’t want to risk hurting Erik.

“Erik, snap out of it!” I shouted, pulling on his anger slowly.

“Snap out of it?” Erik replied, smiling wickedly. “This is everything I’ve ever wanted. Power, and a chance to be more than a fucking farmer!”

“Something’s messing with your head!” I drained more anger, and ignored the satisfying feeling of the act.

Erik laughed harshly. “Not my head!”

What?

I risked a quick glance at Drin while the demon was still recovering. She was staring off into space. Shit!

Erik took another step forward. “I don’t know how you’re resisting both of us, but it really doesn’t matter.”

“You’re certainly more tenacious than your friends,” the demon said, staggering upright. I felt magic press into me ineffectually and realized my mistake. Immediately, I thought of Astrodach back in Navanaea. This demon must be the same type!

“I think you should get the honors,” the demon told Erik. “Take from them what they have taken from you.”

Erik took a step forward and held out a blood-covered ritual knife. Several howls echoed from the front of the cave.

I took a step forward and dropped my transformation without hesitation. I wasn’t going to add anyone to my too-long list of dead friends. Carefully, I worked my magic on my companions, granting them fury to hopefully break through their entrancement.

The demon’s grin fell. Erik’s smile turned to confusion. Behind me, I heard my companions stirring out of their trance. Behind them, more howls and rapid footfalls announced the arrival of more wolves.

The demon looked at my companions, and then at me, focusing on my sternal symbol. “You can have the others, Sovereign, but this one is mine.” They gestured at Erik using an arm with one too many joints.

“What have you done to him?” I growled, letting motes of fire spill out between my razor-sharp teeth. Behind me, Fira shouted an order to the others, and I heard the sounds of a fight starting. I pulled a little of the anger I’d given them back—I’d have to explain a lot of things very quickly soon, and I didn’t want to do that when they were pissed off and focused on me.

“Nothing,” the demon replied with a smile. “He’s under no compulsion of mine.”

“What are you doing? Kill her!” Erik shouted at the demon.

The demon chuckled mirthlessly in response. Erik threw himself at me, pouring meager demonic-tainted magic into his knife. I caught his arm with one lower hand and lifted him up with the upper arm. I held him, arms trapped at his sides, out of reach. He kicked and screamed uselessly. Behind me, I heard two lupine yips get brutally cut off. I drained just a bit more anger.

“That one’s mine,” the demon said with unnatural calm, distressingly tall head inclining toward Erik.

“Then tell him to stand down,” I replied, carefully keeping my voice calm while coiling my anger like an immense spring.

The demon turned to Erik, and in that moment, I let my coiled anger loose: I dropped Erik and struck at the demon, claws wreathed in the hottest fire I could conjure. The gangly demon didn’t react in time, and two of my flaming clawed hands punched into and shredded their way through my enemy’s torso.

“Let me go!” the demon’s voice rattled around my skull like nails scattering across a floor.

I stumbled, my resistance just barely shielding me from obeying their command. I shook my head, clearing out the last echoes of the other demon’s awful screeching voice. They tried to pull themselves off my claws, and I barely stopped them, curling my hands and digging my claws into bone.

With my two free upper arms, I grabbed the sides of their head. They twisted their neck unnaturally, but I held firm. With a grimace, I grabbed what was probably their spine with my lower hands, and holding firmly onto their head, I twisted and pulled with all my strength.

Their spine cracked under the pressure, and their head tore off in a spray of black blood. I spit and looked away, dropping their body and turning back to the others. The thought of what I must look like scared me.

***

Fira came out of the trance just in time to see Zarenna walk towards the demon, and they were furious at having been put under so easily. As they looked at Zarenna, ready to shout an order to retreat, they froze. The absurdly tall woman had turned red and grown some limbs and bits that humans didn’t have.

She’s a demon!? Oh, fuck, Fira thought. They’d have noticed an illusory glamour. A demon with a full human transformation, who was able to be kept up for a long time, and who looked decidedly unlike a lust demon, was bad news. Zarenna had been suspicious enough that Fira wanted to watch her, but they’d imagined someone from the University of Ardath come to annoy them, not a godsforsaken demon. Fira may have been furious, but they weren’t suicidal. They needed to get the others out, question Salvador, and file one hell of a report with the company.

Still coming around, they heard rapid movement on the rock floor of the cave coming from behind them. “Drin!” they shouted. “Cover the rear while Tren and I blast us a path out of here!” Dimly, they heard conversation behind them. Zarenna was talking with the other demon.

The others, still coming out of their dazed state, turned on their order and practically leapt at the wolves. The fight was brutal, and quick. Salvador and Drin took down one with arrow and steel, while Tren and Fira took the other down under a torrent of superheated water and a burst of flames.

Does Salvador know Zarenna’s a demon? Fira thought during the fight. He can’t be under magic compulsion—I’d have seen it the signs. Right? Right!?

When the wolves died, Fira regained a bit of clarity, some of their fear and anger turning into determination. “We need to go, now!” they said, sternly but without shouting—no need to draw attention.

After a glance that showed the two demons still conversing, Fira made sure the others got out first. They didn’t want to leave a rescue target behind, and they might be able to sneak Erik out. Hopefully whatever compulsion had led to him committing murder for a summoning ritual—a ritual the knowledge of which was so rare as to be nearly priceless, mind—no longer held sway over his mind.

They surveyed the scene, backing toward the exit. Demon Zarenna held Erik with her two left arms casually like the young man weighed nothing at all.

“Then tell him to stand down,” Zarenna said to other demon, her voice like plush velvet rubbed the wrong way.

Fira blinked and Erik was midair, having been dropped. Demon Zarenna’s claws were lit up with white hot fire tinged in crimson, and she’d run her two right hands clean through the other demon’s torso. The other demon—a gangly, nightmarish mockery of a humanoid—did something magical. Fira felt it wash over them, the demonically-tainted mana making them shiver.

Zarenna stumbled, and Fira took that chance to make a run for Erik. They grabbed the man roughly by an arm and started to drag him away. He lashed at them with a bloody ritual knife, but Fira knocked it out of his hand with a jet of water hot enough to scald his skin. “Do you want to die?” they whispered angrily.

“Help me, damnit!” Erik shouted. Not at Fira, but at the pair of demons.

Fira noticed his teeth were too sharp and his eyes held a faint glow. He wrenched and pulled himself out of their grip. A demonic pact? This was a huge problem. Now, Fira needed to get this guy out of here to interrogate him. And this was supposed to be an easy job. Did Zarenna set this up?

Fira knocked Erik toward the door with a jet of water, remembering just in time not to let their magic heat it, and looked back up at the two demons. Zarenna shook her head and caught the other demon as they tried to pull themselves off her claws. With a roar, she grabbed the other demon’s head with two hands, twisted, and ripped it clean off.

Momentarily stunned, Fira realized too late they were too far from the exit. Their blood ran cold as the demon Zarenna turned to face them. Her eyes were, surprisingly, the same blue as when she pretended to be human, but the slitted pupils and black sclera made it impossible to mistake what she was.

Somewhere behind them, Erik struggled to his feet, cursed, and started to stagger away.

Fira stood, frozen. This was it; they were going to die.

Zarenna the demon, with forked tongue behind twin rows of razor-sharp teeth, spoke. “L-look, I know this looks really, really bad, but I can explain, okay? Wait—shit—sorry, I showed teeth.”

What?

***

I resisted the urge to smile reassuringly at Fira after I already showed too much of my teeth. They stared at me, wide-eyed. The feeling of seeing someone who was always so calm and collected, and whom I knew to be a highly competent mage staring at me, frozen in fear, hurt. All around us, the few still-burning candles dotted the cave with flickering light.

I didn’t know what to say, so I idly tapped a horn to think. They flinched when I moved my arm and their eyes started to glow faintly. Aura sight. Okay, that’s good they’re reacting. I kept my own off for now—no sense in looking more intimidating.

The other three were gone, and Erik had only just stumbled out of view. I could chase him down easily when I needed to, so right now I focused on Fira. “I can explain, okay? I’m not like most demons! And not just, like, in a sovereign sort of way—wait did you hear the other demon call me by my title?”

“W-what do you want from me?” Fira stammered, voice rapidly gaining confidence. “Did you set this all up?”

“Nothing! No!” I replied, waving all my hands in front of myself and then stopping when Fira flinched again. “I had no idea about any of this, I swear! A-and I don’t want anything from you. Well, I guess I’d like it if you didn’t tell the Church of Dhias about me…” I didn’t ask about joining the Gelles Company. I’d blown my chance at that for sure.

“What’s your game?” Fira asked.

I decided to tell the truth. “I’m looking for the man who killed my parents and me. I came back as a demon and I want to kill him, but I also want to stop whatever cult he’s a part of from doing this to other people.”

“You don’t ‘come back’ as a demon!” Fira shouted.

“Well, I did.” I crossed all four of my arms. “I’ll gladly answer pretty much anything, but can we talk outside this place? I need to go grab Erik before he gets away and we need to get someone out here so the bodies aren’t just left like this.” I deliberately wasn’t looking at the people Erik had murdered. I didn’t know if I could handle that right now.

Fira glared up at me and didn’t respond immediately.

I turned on my aura sight and got a good look. Their aura was deep orange ringed in equally rich blue. I didn’t try to guess at their magical strength because my perspective was skewed, but it was less than either Seyari’s or my own.

“What did you mean by sovereign?” Fira finally asked.

“It’s a demonic title. There are six of us at any given time. Right now, I’m Wrath,” I answered simply and pointed to my symbol. “This symbol is mine, and I want to see if Erik has the symbol of another on that bracelet of his.”

Fira’s eyes narrowed. “Do the sovereigns fight amongst themselves?”

I shrugged. “Do you humans fight amongst yourselves?”

“Fair point, I guess. I can’t believe I’m chatting with a demon…” Fira trailed off before their eyes went wide. “Wait! You’re just distracting me!” As fast as they could, they turned and bolted out of the cave.

“Fira!” I shouted after them.

I could have stopped them and they had to have known that much. I jogged out of the cave and met a wall of steam in the direction they’d left. My aura sight was muddled by the mist, and I didn’t even attempt to chase them. Instead, I walked quickly to the sound of someone else crunching their way through the late autumn woods.

Just in case I got seen, I turned back to my human appearance, glad that my clothes were pretty much intact. The alterations I’d made to the shirt worked, and thankfully my tail had pushed my trousers down rather than burst through them.

I really need to get clothes that work better for me.

Fira and the others would head back to camp and probably shout up and down that I was a demon, which was going to really suck. Right now, however, I had to find Erik. It was still dark outside, but I could see just fine, and he wasn’t silent in his movements.

I caught up to him easily, and grabbed him, lifting him up. He looked at me, then started screaming for help. You know what, jerk? Fine. Scream all you want.

I took his bracelet off, pocketed it for now, and started the walk back to camp, carrying the panicking demon-tainted murderer back to the town. Maybe he could be saved? Maybe something was or still is influencing his mind?

Either way, killing him was off the table for now. After a minute or so, he calmed down and stopped his hoarse screaming.

“Who gave you the bracelet?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.

“I don’t know!” Erik replied. “I didn’t see anyone—I just found it one day with a note.”

“Why are you talking now?”

“Because I can serve you or something! Just give me power!”

“Keep talking, then.” I pretended to be interested. No way in literal hell was I going to start running around making pacts with people. I was already about to be in enough trouble, and this little shit really didn’t deserve it.

“I put it on and there was the rush. Like nothing I’ve ever felt and then I was stronger and could see better.” Erik babbled, panicked and excited. “The note told me how to get more and how to do some other magic, like controlling animals. I practiced on some of ours, but it didn’t work so well. Then I started going into the woods, and I got the wolves. They got so much stronger, too! Like me!”

“What about the summoning?” I asked.

“I got another note that told me how to do it.”

I struggled to keep my voice level. “And how do you feel about murdering those innocent people?”

“It was great! A rush!”

“I see,” I hissed through gritted teeth.

“Is that enough? Can you give me more power now?” Erik was hyperventilating now.

“No,” I replied.

It took him a moment to process what I’d said and then the screaming started again.