Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
MAL
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that? Tommy got paint in my ear earlier, and the bath must not have gotten it all off.”
“You heard me.”
“It… it might not have anything to do with me.”
“You and I both know it has everything to do with you, Red. Check your shields. Call your overpowered boss at her stupid chapter house and find out what’s happening so I can get back to my job.
” And his dinner. If Mal didn’t eat soon, he was going to end up doing something drastic that could get him killed.
Like getting caught eating someone who would be noticed if they went missing.
Could Mal take on the Guard if he caught their attention? Maybe. Did he want to? Definitely not. He’d be so hungry afterward that it wouldn’t be worth it even if he ate everyone at the scene. Used-up magic folk were pointless to eat. It was like feeding celery to a starving man.
Disgusting and useless.
Clayton, however, would be delicious. Mal imagined that the redhead would be spicy like cinnamon with a hint of sweetness. Chaos magic was always a wild flavor experience. Every wielder had their own unique brand.
The kidnappers from last month had both held traces of chaos magic and tasted like pepper and fine steak. Clayton would have been the perfect dessert to pair with them.
At first glance, Clayton seemed as blank and tasteless as a tranquil norm, but after being knocked unconscious by a falling ceiling, Mal had changed his mind.
It took magic to damage Mal. A handful of normal rocks would do little more than tickle him.
It would have taken a direct magical attack to take Mal out like it had.
After the fight with the kidnappers, Mal knew firsthand that Clayton was the furthest thing from a norm. Even through Mal’s magic-drained haze, he could sense the raw power suddenly coursing through the man.
Clayton was fortunate Mal had countless years of experience restraining his extreme hunger, otherwise the fussy man would have been the first thing on Mal’s menu when he’d come back online during that fight.
Clayton had been incandescent with power and almost irresistible.
Every fiber of Mal’s being demanded that he consume Clayton down to his last wisp of essence, and the fact that he’d resisted the call was astonishing.
Mal lost many hours over the past few weeks lamenting his excellent control. He had bounced between deciding to make a quick hop across the pond to Boston to eat Clayton and firmly resolving to never go anywhere near North America for the next century.
It looked like the universe had decided for Mal. Either it wanted to help him take his control to the next level, or it wanted to reward him for being a good little nightmare and offer him the best cookie ever.
“Oh dear,” Clayton said.
“Hmm?” Mal hadn’t said that last part out loud, had he? He’d gotten lost there for a moment and had stopped paying attention to Clayton. Had Mal just subjected him to an entire monologue of how delicious Clayton probably was?
“Well, I just went to contact Samantha and… Holy fucking shit!”
Mal wrenched the phone away from his ear to avoid the horrible, soul-violating static that assaulted him. He gaped at his hand in astonishment as he watched his favorite possession bubble and melt away into smoke.
“My new phone…”
Well, now Mal was definitely going to Boston, and he was going to eat anyone he fucking felt like eating.
He’d spent an eternity experimenting and a ridiculous amount of personal essence to create his phone, and it hadn’t survived first contact with Clayton for more than a handful of minutes.
Clayton had better be alive when Mal got to Boston, because he either owed Mal a new phone or a meal. Preferably both.
The flight was over far quicker than it had any right to be, owing to a favorable tailwind, an empty queue for the landing strip, and the fact that somehow a plane that only had a three-hour trip planned managed to have enough fuel to last the fifteen hours it took to get to Boston.
And don’t even get him started on how the entire plane was treating the massive detour like an extended holiday instead of a horrible inconvenience.
Fucking chaos mages.
If Clayton had any idea how to control himself, he’d be unstoppable. But chaos magic didn’t come from the Real, so finding a tutor would be all but impossible.
The goddess of the fae realm didn’t share her precious creations easily, after all.
Which begged the question of how Mal had stumbled across four chaos mages in a single day after going without seeing one in over a century.
Most members of the Other could spend their entire lives without meeting a member of the fae realm, but Mal had the dubious honor of meeting more than his fair share due to his job.
He worked exclusively for the Benighted, taking care of issues the Guard allowed to fall through the cracks.
It was mutually beneficial for both sides.
The Benighted got cheap labor, and Mal got an easy supply of food.
From his perspective, it was like paying a lion to sit by a watering hole to eat gazelles.
Only the gazelles he tended to nab were usually loaded, so Mal almost always pocketed far more than the fee he charged to take the job.
That meant Mal got all the food he could eat, got paid for the honor, and got to meet all the creepy crawlies most folk thought only belonged to myth and legend, including the fae.
In the fae realm, only starry-eyed adventurers and the lawless were willing to break the goddess’s ban on inter-dimensional travel. Mal avoided the adventurers like the plague, but the lawless were fair game. And delicious.
So what did that make Clayton?
Likely oblivious, definitely stupid, and hopefully not already dead, otherwise Mal was out one phone and one meal. Clayton was probably still alive, though, and Mal’s swift arrival in Boston supported that theory.
Clayton must be in serious trouble for his magic to draw in something like Mal, though.
He’d be touched if he wasn’t so godsdamned hungry. However, he didn’t give a shit what Clayton’s problem was. Once Mal found him, if Clayton was alive, Mal was going to eat him.
Now that that was decided, Mal nodded in satisfaction.
After deplaning, he ducked into an empty corner of the airport to do some magic. Since he was about to have an excellent meal, he could afford to replace his phone.
Two birds. One stone. All thanks to Clayton.
Halfway through crafting a new phone, Mal realized he didn’t have enough essence to power a full version of the spell he’d created.
He’d likely decorporealize himself if he tried.
It had been ages since it had happened, and he wasn’t eager to experience it again, so he only crafted a stripped-down version of his phone.
It would suck, but it would still be better than not having it.
Once he was done and had the phone in his hand, Mal’s body shimmered faintly, causing him to swear.
He’d taken more than he should have from his reserves, and it had been a dumbass thing to do.
He could have found Clayton without the damn thing, but it would have taken longer, and Mal wanted to eat immediately instead of in a few days.
As he was now, Mal could sustain his form on the low-level fear his presence generated from the norms around him until he found and ate Clayton, but it would be a near thing.
Mal didn’t like near things.
He frowned his way through the airport as his mind worked the problem.
Unless he got lucky and there was a hijacking or a bomb threat, Mal wouldn’t be able to fuel up enough to be safe.
He’d have to do something drastic, like draw an unhealthy amount of attention to himself, to get a safe reserve of essence to tide him over.
As he pondered the problem, a group of nuns passed him, and he perked up. Members of the clergy always spooked easily, and Mal was a huge fan of netting a huge payoff with minimal effort.
Time to go scare some nuns.