Chapter Fifteen
Milo kept distant, tracking with his sensory root, which the demon couldn’t obscure her presence from, while he had Ellie maintain distance on the rooftops.
The danger with demons—aside from their insatiable appetites and need to constantly feed to keep a foothold in the human plain—was, like wisps and fiends, they could sense and sniff out all magic nearby.
Unlike their lesser forms, they could ignore magical energy in the atmosphere, not snapping jaws at any and every whiff in the air, and they were quite keen at making note of magic directed toward them.
As such, Milo kept his clairvoyance off her and his sensory subtle and soft.
When they’d reached a less populated part of the city, the plan was ready.
Milo waited for Lena to spring to realization, which came down to Ellie’s branch.
I clamped my jaw so tightly it roused me into a groggy half-sleep state, nearly awakening.
But I couldn’t. I had to stay completely focused on Milo’s mind, his plan, and the danger he threw himself in to protect the city.
He kept a close eye on each of the young acolytes’ potentials during this mission.
Whether because I slept, the evolution of my branch, or the closeness Milo and I had achieved, I saw his clairvoyance in action.
My heart hitched, stunned by how our magics synced so seamlessly.
The futures themselves still alluded me, cloaked and shielded, but I glimpsed Milo’s branch as he utilized it.
A white map filled with thousands of colorful lines weaved alongside and through each other like an overlapping maze or roadmap or both.
Each color, an infinite spectrum of shades and brightness, represented a different life, different future, different potential.
Their crossed paths meant opportunity or fateful chance or things I couldn’t comprehend.
Some lines snapped off and ended shorter than others, but different paths for that same potential lifeline glowed with the possibility for a different outcome.
Milo fixated on the pale yellow, representing Ellie, perhaps.
He was currently less concerned for that one’s outcome, though still watchful on the ways it’d interwoven with an indigo line.
A line he prioritized with each step he took.
That was Lena’s potential futures. It had to be.
There were so many directions each of their lines went, Ellie and Lena.
How Milo sorted them out among the tens of thousands also here at the moment while also glimpsing the futures and keeping ever present in the now, I had no clue.
His thoughts, his consciousness, seemed to trail alongside the potential paths where Ellie and Lena’s futures intersected more than those where their fates divided.
He’d picked each of them knowing full well they didn’t know the other, not really, not truly.
Two very different acolytes who hung in different circles and worked different cases.
Still, Milo wanted to make sure he hadn’t jumped the gun when requesting them for this case, make certain those interactions, whenever and however, would remain viable.
It was hard for him to predict because the indigo lines became fainter the longer Lena spent with the demon woman on her arm.
The demon’s presence veiled all of Lena’s potential either from demonic energy interference or because she’d cut Lena’s futures off here and now.
“Now,” Milo shouted, turning the corner.
The demon shifted, eyes glimmering with golden flecks under the moonlight. Light which a shadow loomed above as Ellie leapt from the building rooftop. She waved a hand, key in her grip, and Lena’s eyes widened as a fog lifted.
“Acolyte Novak, fallback.”
Obeying Enchanter Evergreen’s order, her bubbles fizzled, popping in the air between her and the demon that’d compelled her. Ellie landed on the opposite side of the demon, which was now in an alleyway between two towering buildings and three guild witches.
“Lock her down, Acolyte Reed.”
“On it.” Ellie swung her arm. Moonlight shone against the large metal key used to support her branch magic. “Lock, lock, lock.”
Bones cracked. Muscles stiffened. The demon paused.
Acolyte Reed possessed a powerful warding magic that allowed her to seal things when directing her casting at them.
From doors to body parts, there wasn’t a thing she couldn’t lock in place, which was exactly why Milo chose her.
A branch that wouldn’t intrigue the demon hunting for prey yet could contain it with ease.
“You think your pathetic branch can hold me?” The demon twitched, her aura glowing black and demonic energy devouring the magic trapping her in place.
In an instant, she raised both her arms. Outstretched fingers grew long and far—slender talons elongated and deadly—ready to pierce Milo, Lena, and Ellie.
Milo slammed his palms together, banishing the talons aimed at him and Lena, while Ellie weaved around those targeting her—barely evading—which Milo believed she’d only pulled off by redirecting a lock on the attack to slow the pursuit.
“Fine. Demon doesn’t want to stay in place. Plan B, then.” Milo flew ahead. “Off with her head, Acolyte Reed.”
“Unlock.” Ellie sliced the air with her key.
A thin, red line trailed across the demon’s neck. Her golden eyes sprang wide. She retracted her clawed hands but not fast enough to catch her head which toppled off her shoulders, hitting the ground.
“I know you wanted to contain it,” Ellie said. “Sorry, Enchanter Evergreen.”
“What’re you talking about?” He approached the demon’s body that fell to its knees, unable to maintain posture with no head to guide it.
“I didn’t banish her, but I did—”
“How fucking dare you!” the demon screamed, almost as loudly as the shocked Ellie shouted.
Ellie’s key flew out of her hand, and she fumbled to catch it, shakily aiming it at the still-talking head.
“You filthy trash witch! You think that disgusting branch will stop me! I’ll rip your insides out!”
“Unless you have something nice to say”—Milo pressed his foot against the demon’s lopped-off head—“shut your mouth.”
“You seriously thought you’d killed the demon?” Lena rolled her eyes at Ellie. “Such a rookie.”
“At least I didn’t get mind controlled by the demon.” Ellie made a face at Lena.
“I didn’t.” Lena held herself properly—stiff, in fact. Her expression was completely different from the wild fighter earlier this evening. “Obviously, I allowed myself to fall prey to the compulsion to lure the succubus out and assist in Enchanter Evergreen’s case.”
“Sure, you did,” Ellie huffed.
“In other words, you disobeyed my direct orders when I sent you here because you had a hunch?” Milo smiled at Lena, genuinely proud of her despite his words meant to invoke hesitation.
Lena’s expression was apprehensive as her jaw dropped, lacking any words.
Ellie snorted until Milo’s gaze fell on her.
Her posture straightened, and her grin disappeared.
Milo’s smile didn’t falter. He was sincerely honored by how the two held themselves on this mission.
Though he knew the anxiety a well-timed smile with eyes not matching the joy could do to induce a bit of fear.
Luck and skill had favored them tonight—all three of them—and he didn’t want either of his acolytes to convince themselves their talent could let them drop their guard for a second.
He was also impressed by Acolyte Novak confirming the demon was actually a succubus, something he’d suspected based on compulsion.
Her taloned augmented fingers were another tell-tale sign.
What he was most thrilled about in this moment was the converging paths of yellow and indigo and how many lit up with possibility when he stared at the acolytes.
“Now, succubus, do you have a name?” Milo pressed his foot against the demon’s skull harder. “Or should I just continue calling you by your demonic type? Or do you prefer I simply address you as demon? I’d hate to be rude before banishing you.”
“I thought you—”
Milo glared at Ellie, who immediately slapped a hand over her mouth, remembering not to give away their hand.
“You’re hurting me!” the succubus cried, blubbering loudly as her head cracked under Milo’s foot. “Please, stop! ”
“You almost sound sincere.” Milo added a telekinetic pulse, which created a crunch beneath his heel. “Did you learn to mimic that from one of your victims?”
The tears stopped, and the frightened headless succubus’s expression turned sour.
Her eyes carried hate, and the twinge in her expression held malice and resentment.
This was an individual who wanted desperately to eviscerate the witch who had her head pinned to the ground.
It was also an expression I’d become used to observing over the years.
Teens who wanted to attack someone or something held only in check by morals or rules or confused hormones.
“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” the succubus sighed, releasing her rage in a single breath. Now, she stared at Milo, unamused by the situation and mostly bored. “Go ahead and banish me.”
“You’re ready to die just like that?” Milo quirked an eyebrow, continuing to keep his foot pushed firmly against the demon’s head as he attempted to sync his clairvoyance to the succubus.
Banishment didn’t destroy demonic energy; it merely pushed the energy out of our plain and back to the demon realms outside our own. However, the consciousness of the demon wasn’t banished. It was obliterated. Destroyed. Dead and gone.
When demons broke into our reality, the collision would shatter their physical form until all that remained were wisps of demonic energy.
Their consciousness then floated in the ether, awaiting wisps to gather, create fiends, for a single fiend to store enough magic, and for the demon consciousness to then possess a suitable host. It was bizarre this demon was so willing to cast aside her very existence.
“I’m ready for death. Anything to escape the nauseating smell of your unsavory magics.”
The nonchalance left Milo perplexed. Demons did everything to maintain their life, which was why they feasted so continuously.
Unlike witches who stored and channeled magical energy, demons oozed and leaked the magical energy of this dimension quickly, making it impossible for them to retain their life and form without constantly devouring magic.
Ignoring his concerns, Milo kept his branch fixed on his acolytes and a thousand other nearby lives but used the bulk of his magic in an attempt to weave around the succubus’s potential future, hoping to glimpse allied demon threats.
“You spend a lot of time with clairvoyants?” he asked quite politely, even lifting his foot to stop squishing her cheeks.
“Not even sure what branch that’d be,” she said.
“Fibber.”
“What’s going on?” Ellie asked.
“Demons have a natural immunity to branch magics,” Lena explained. “However, that resistance can be superseded by a skilled enchanter.”
“However, however,” Milo said playfully. “The more a demon encounters a particular branch or the type of magic from that branch, the stronger their immunity to it becomes. It also makes it less effective for them to feed on.”
In other words, this succubus might’ve had a big diet in arcane branches now like all the current victims, but perhaps in the past, she’d fed on lots of witches with a psychic branch similar to Milo’s.
It all came down to his specific frequency and the skill he had in channeling and overpowering the demon’s natural resistance.
The succubus’s body lunged forward. Lacking a good vantage point to see her target, the body missed Milo’s chest as he leaned back.
Lifting his leg, he kicked the air, pinning the demon’s body to the wall and holding it in place with telekinesis.
Redistributing the telekinesis into his arm, he kept the body bound and stomped his foot onto the demon’s head. Harder. More force. More magic .
“Melody Mauve, Jonathan Graves, Tyson Beck, Angela Mayes…” Enchanter Evergreen said name after name, recounting victims that’d died since the demons arrived in Chicago.
Returned. The word clung to his thoughts furiously.
All the lives snuffed out. Whether bright, gloomy, or mundane, he’d never know now.
I couldn’t see the colors or broken threads clearly, but there were potential futures ripped away.
He studied other threads, the ripples next to them, the alteration in pathways that’d taken root. “Who are you working with?”
Images flashed, muddling my connection. Milo’s eyes fluttered, having established a link to the demon’s energy, and he searched through her possibilities, seeking leads.
“Me,” a deep voice called out, sending a slithering shudder down my spine.
A familiar voice. A haunting voice. A voice I’d never wanted to hear again.
Wisps illuminated the alley. Milo spun around, realizing another demon had arrived.
He vanquished the succubus and now stood squarely between Acolyte Novak and Reed.
Neither young witch had noticed his demonic energy or reacted to his physical presence.
How could they? Enchanter Evergreen had been caught off guard by the sheer speed of this monstrosity.
The white lights of wisps created a sheen sparkle among the sapphire scales covering the demon.
No. No. No.
This was a gorgon. There were countless gorgons. This was not the same one. It couldn’t be. His eyes lingered on Milo, slowing his reaction time. Their gaze caused petrification, allowing them to slow the speed of anything their vision had sight of.
Gorgons were deadly. Dangerous. Even the best enchanters… No .
I took a deep breath because the fear consuming me began breaking the connection of my telepathy linked to Milo. This wasn’t like then. This wasn’t the same demon. Milo was more prepared, more powerful, than we were then.
“It’s been a long time since our paths crossed, Enchanter Evergreen.” The gorgon’s eyes shimmered, and he took an inhale, sucking up all the wisps of the fallen succubus, feeding on her magical corpse. “Last time I saw you, you killed me.”
I sprang forward in my bed, completely severing the magic connecting my mind to Milo’s.
No. No. No.
This was the same demon…the same gorgon…that…that killed… Finn.