Chapter Twenty-Nine
The kids ran back to the bus, where all the students had returned, and awaited the arrival of enchanters. Chanelle was kind enough to keep that thought close to the surface so I wouldn’t fret, along with a snarky comment on how I should’ve given her a heads-up on which way to go.
“ Honestly, Dorian. I was at the hospital after you decided to fight off those warlocks. You really wanted to throw yourself at a demon this semester? ” Chanelle grinned. “ So dramatic. ”
“It’s a gorgon,” I warned as the lightning fizzled away from his temples, and he turned his sight back toward us. “Which means it can—”
Chanelle used the elemental whip to slash the gorgon’s eyes.
“Yeah, I paid attention during all my demonology physiology courses. Also, really loved the advanced psychology behind the nature of demons.” Chanelle moved ahead of me, confidence brimming. “Be a dear, my darling demon, and answer a few questions before we banish you.”
“You think your primal magic is enough to stop me.” The gorgon grunted, taking strike after strike of Chanelle’s swift attacks. Each time he gained more immunity to her casting frequency.
“Cute. You’re so flustered you can’t even properly sniff out my branch.
” Chanelle coiled the lightning back, holding it firmly with one hand while she wove her other along the trace sparks of electricity.
“I’m a real fan of lightning. What can I say, I enjoy the clap of the smack it makes, but with you being a big, scary demon—clearly, I need to show you exactly how versatile my arcane branch is. ”
She possessed a truly unique branch that mixed primal and cosmic magics into her trademark whip.
The gorgon’s eyes widened. Air sizzled. Flames burnt his face.
Chanelle’s elemental whip clacked against the road, freezing the street before zipping back and smacking the gorgon with ice.
Each time Chanelle reeled back her whip, it changed elements and struck the gorgon’s face, making it impossible to recover or develop an immunity long enough to lock us in place.
Water. Clack . Wind. Snap . Earth. Crack . Steel. Lightning. Fire. Ice. Flora. Lava. Shadows. Light. Repeat.
She cycled through her elements again and again until she’d stripped away every scale on the gorgon’s face, leaving nothing but tarry pus. It oozed, a demonic infection on the world that seared the ground when splattered drops fell.
“ Not to be that person ”—Chanelle side-eyed me—“ but this would be a good time to cast some banishment his way. I know I look incredibly badass and all, but even I have limits. ”
“ Right. ” I nodded.
Channeling my banishment root, I aimed my magic. Wait. If I banished him. Killed him. He’d return. I hesitated, releasing my energy because I needed to detain him. Contact Milo. Shit. These demons warped his clairvoyance, so he had no idea what was happening here and now.
“Oh, no, you don’t, big boy.” Chanelle tugged her electrical whip, which the gorgon had gripped in his sizzling hands. With a quick shake, she transformed the element into ice. He bit down on her elemental whip, so she changed it into steel.
“Lightning. Ice. Metal. I’ll eat it all.” The gorgon gorged on Chanelle’s magic, pulling her closer with each bite.
She released the whip and let him devour it, then conjured two new elemental whips in each hand. They were each earth based but created from different minerals. One had a glossy, reflective shine, whereas the other was dull and crumbling.
“Dorian, I don’t want to call you incompetent, but I’m pretty sure I requested a banishment.”
“We can’t.” I choked on the words. “If we kill him, he’ll just—”
A whirlpool opened behind the gorgon, and Jamie Novak appeared, placing a single hand on top of the gorgon’s head.
“Jamie.” Chanelle flung both whips at the gorgon only for them to be caught in a torrent of water transporting the snaps of the strikes elsewhere.
“You worry too much, Mrs. Whitehurst.” Jamie grinned, sincere and calm. Nothing like any snide smile he’d displayed all year.
I cast my telepathy forward, attempting to figure out his plan and why he’d place himself in this dangerous situation .
The gorgon was one swift move away from killing him.
Jamie’s mind remained as silent as the gorgon’s.
A soft buzz between my telepathy and his thoughts.
I linked to Chanelle; she had a hundred frantic thoughts attempting to sort how or why her student would interfere, endangering his life against a demon she’d barely held off.
It wasn’t my telepathy waning. It was Jamie blocking my branch. How?
“Your presence is no longer required.” Jamie twisted the gorgon’s head around to meet his gaze. “Thank you for your nauseating assistance.”
The gorgon’s eyes grew wide. Shock and terror in them, yet no attempt to petrify Jamie where he stood.
Jamie smiled as he squeezed the reformed scales on the gorgon’s head, cracking them until caustic tar burst. It splashed his skin but didn’t sizzle.
In an instant, the gorgon exploded into nothingness.
The wisps shimmered, then dimmed, and finally did something I’d never seen before from any demonic energy.
Their white light curdled inward, fading black and crumpling into ashes.
“Sorry for bringing him back, Dorian,” Jamie said. His voice held a dark echo. “It was cruel, perhaps needlessly; however, I craved to see your reaction when reunited with the demon that caused such brutality on the young, beautiful Finn Summers. You, most certainly, did not disappoint.”
The darkness in his echo rattled the broken ground, whispering things too softly to hear or in languages I didn’t recognize.
“What are you?”
“Jamie?” Chanelle stepped forward.
“I am what some would call a devil.”
The sincerity in Jamie’s voice, the terror wrapped in the echo, and the hollowness in his eyes sent a shudder up my spine, which reverberated through my body, channeling every magic at my disposal, frightened a single second left off guard would end in death.
“Relax.” In a flash, Jamie stood next to me, eyeing my magical frequency like he could see every fiber of my channeled magic. “There’s so much you’ve yet to uncover. I look forward to helping you grow and learn, Dorian.”
“What are you?” I asked again, baffled and lost in the terror consuming me and Chanelle.
Jamie tilted his head, perplexed or mocking. I couldn’t decide. “I told you. Some call me a devil.”
“Impossible,” Chanelle said—every thought she had amplified, adding to the horror of each second that passed in the presence of a literal devil.
Demons rarely succeeded in achieving such a heightened state of power.
Devils were the embodiment of perfected power.
A collection of wisps that gathered in our reality, forming into a fiend which collected magic until it became a suitable host for a demon; then that demon stole a witch’s body, making them its host. If accomplished, they became a devil with a true foothold in our reality, possessing a proper host that contained their unnatural magic, keeping it from spilling over and depleting.
“How long have you been possessing him?” Chanelle snapped, her mind furious and somber simultaneously as she reacted to the fact that she didn’t recognize a demon surging within one of her students.
How could she, though? I’d been inside Jamie’s head. I’d heard his thoughts. Nothing indicated this.
Did it? I quivered.
“You heard what I wished you to hear, Dorian.” Jamie patted my shoulder like he knew my every thought, then he eyed Chanelle.
“To answer your question, Mrs. Whitehurst, it was the start of the new semester. January. I considered arriving in Jamie’s flesh with a fresh attitude, joining my little classmates with a nicer, plucky personality.
But unfortunately, he’d left quite the impact on his peers, so I played his role to the best of my ability. ”
“No, no, no.” Chanelle trembled behind me, her thoughts shaky.
“I do think I portrayed him convincingly.”
“We need to leave.” I backed away, turning to Chanelle.
The succubus Milo’s team had beheaded stood beside Chanelle, appearing out of literal thin air, a hand on Chanelle’s wrist. NO!
“Get away from her.” I unleashed a telekinetic burst, simultaneously tugging Chanelle from the demon’s grip.
Nothing happened.
“As I’m certain you know—because you’re so brilliant, Dorian—all demons, even those who ascend to a devil possession, lack an immunity to root magics,” Jamie said. “However, I’ve acquired skills to divert, displace, and diffuse those dangers.”
Demonic energy began to radiate off him, no longer cloaked by his devil possession. It oozed magic tenfold, no, one-hundredfold stronger than any demon I’d ever felt.
“Get those darling children back to the safety of your academy,” the succubus whispered, caressing Chanelle’s face. “Everything is okay. Dorian is fine. You are fantastic. Make sure the tiny teens are properly and thoroughly accounted for before you wake.”
She released Chanelle, whose eyes teared before she calmly turned on her heel and walked away. Her thoughts were fuzzy, her magic faded.
“My way of showing compassion,” Jamie—no, this demon housed in him as a devil—said.
“I do not condone the mistreatment of mortals. I prefer…what is it you all say? Ah, yes, something about humane slaughter. A necessary evil when you feast upon the lesser beasts, though I will not be feasting on Mrs. Whitehurst. I rather enjoyed her company, in all her simplicity. ”
“I enjoy the taste of her branch.” The succubus licked her fingertips, the same ones that’d gripped and compelled Chanelle to leave without a word.
“Distance yourself.” The devil waved a dismissive hand at the demon. “Your presence exhausts me and offends my guest.”
The succubus’ expression shifted from jovial to a fright I didn’t believe possible from the same woman who showed no fear when losing her head while interrogated by Milo.
“Of course. Apologies.” She backed away, keeping an eye on us but less intrusive.
I channeled my telepathy toward this monster possessing Jamie Novak. Echoes. Constant echoes whispered in the darkness of his being. Then nothing. Not one word. Not one sound. A painful silence followed by a drop of water. Tears splashing.
“ Please, help. ”
Jamie’s voice was faint, lost in agony. I panicked.
“Please.” The devil holding him captive gripped my wrist and twisted. “He’s a little sadist who met a meaner monster. Don’t pity him.”
Despite the grasp, my telepathy struggled to rifle through his thoughts to search his mind.
Demonic energy truly made each push of my magic exhausting, like navigating the fray of a battle while the target moved behind an insurmountable wall.
Peaks and valleys of shifting frequencies, each just out of reach and a faded whisper by the time I’d grabbed it.
“You’re attempting to read my mind. Quite impressive.”
“I’ve heard your thoughts before.”
“You heard what I allowed. Even those were fabrications of a role I played.”
“W-why?”
“I needed to blend, so nothing about my behavior differed from Jamie’s personality. I’d contribute my talented performance to why no one suspected my presence; however, I found it difficult maintaining his constant entitled rage.” The devil chuckled. “So much to unpack there.”
That was why Jamie’s—correction, this devil’s—thoughts alternated so erratically between bursts of enraged tones.
“Why possess him? Why play the part of a student?”
“To study you, Dorian. I needed to understand who you were. There was much I did, yet mortals change over time. Twelve years had passed, and I sought to unravel your mystery before seeking your aid.”
Twelve years. That was when the gorgon grabbed… That was when Finn died. This devil sent the gorgon, stole Finn’s life, but wanted to return to Chicago to study me? To what end? I trembled, attempting to break free of his grip. I needed to escape. Find help. Call out and link my telepathy to Milo.
“ Attempting to contact Enchanter Evergreen? ” Jamie’s eyes flitted curiously, and I quaked at the presence of telepathy intercepting my thoughts, scanning them, tiptoeing the edges of my mind.
“How are you in my head?”
“ It’s not the host, if you’re wondering. This child’s arcane branch is quite impressive, but I’ve acquired many greater magics in my time here. ”
Demons didn’t acquire magics. They possessed their own.
They devoured magic, searching for unique and powerful ones, yet there shouldn’t be one—devil due to possession or not—that could simply inherit new abilities.
I searched my thoughts carefully, keeping my attention on the psychic energy and observing where my memories went.
I couldn’t think of a single demon that possessed its own form of telepathy.
But I needed to narrow this monster’s classification down if I wanted to survive an encounter against a devil.
“ Milo, ” I thought, searching for his mind and ready to share everything I knew, which wasn’t enough.
“I hate to disappoint, but I believe The Inevitable Future is busy protecting the happiness of the many over the happiness of the few. That’s been his weakness since he made the decision that is his biggest regret: choosing vengeance over finding me. A true downfall for him now.”
Jamie released my wrist and stepped away as he mused over my confusion. I cracked my neck, burying my fears and impulsive conclusions, and hoped to create a real place beneath the random words and memories I hurled outward as a distraction.
“Given my ability to resurrect fallen demons, it’s garnered me much allegiance over the years,” the devil explained.
“I have hundreds of loyal demons raining hellfire onto this city. Thanks to the guilds’ lack of cooperation, I believe the great and heroic Enchanter Evergreen will be too busy fighting, searching for, and saving every potential future dimly buzzing in his clairvoyance.
After all, the future’s so much bleaker and hard to see when we’re nearby. ”
The devil’s thoughts opened immediately, inviting me—no—dragging me into the depths of his mind’s core.