Chapter Thirty
Scalding tar flowed everywhere. A sea of demonic energy served as the representation of the devil’s inner thoughts.
I choked, struggling to breathe, to swim, to see through the heavy sludge that seemed endless.
Faint whispers and cries called from beneath.
Ignoring them, I swam up. Up. Faster. Harder.
Searching desperately for a way out of this thick toxic horror.
Was this why demons’ minds were so difficult to read?
Did they all have such deathly inner cores?
A hand cut through the tar, pulling me into quiet darkness.
I gasped for air. My hands and knees pressed against the rippling sea of tar below, but I didn’t sink back into it.
I searched for something in this place. A memory.
A stray thought. An exit. Nothing but infinite darkness.
Shadows went on and on, slithering subtly so I could almost make out the different textures in this world.
“I wish to know your understanding of demons, Dorian.” Jamie’s voice echoed in sync with the creature possessing his body, the one that’d infested his mind into an ocean of black nothingness. “Specifically, I’d like to know your knowledge of devils.”
I quivered, desperate to leave. Shaking it off, I steadied my breathing and accepted the darkness.
“It’s a name—title, really—for demons who worm their way inside a human host.” I scanned the shifting shadows, searching for the devil, but his voice echoed from every direction and none at the same time.
“They’re known for being more powerful than any demon.
When they possess a human, the demonic energy slowly rots the witch’s body until—”
“Enough,” he hissed before me; his teeth clacked behind me. “I did not want a textbook response, Dorian.”
I spun only to find darkness. Clawed fingertips tickled my forearm. Trembling, I ignored it. He sought to goad me, toy with me. If he planned on killing me, I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of enjoying my fear. Footsteps approached from the shadows, and I closed my eyes.
“I’m not playing your games.”
“No games.” A deep, hollow voice spoke. No whispers, no echoes, no trace of Jamie’s lighter pitch. “How about a proper introduction?”
I opened my eyes to find an older man, perhaps in his mid-forties, dressed in a beige frock coat, cream trousers loose around his thighs and tight at the knee to his ankles where his dress shoes held a bit of polished sheen to be distinguished from the tar floor.
He had short salt and peppered hair with a matching finely trimmed beard.
His blue eyes were striking in this bleak world of his creation.
“My first host, one of many,” he said. “But a personal favorite over the centuries.”
“Don’t know many devils to live through the centuries.”
“Yes, our actions draw much attention.” He chuckled, actually fucking laughed like we were having a civilized conversation. “We are having a civilized conversation, Dorian. ”
I cringed at how seamlessly he sifted through my thoughts while talking.
“Then show me your true form, demon, devil, fucking monster,” I said, biting back every impulsive thought revealing my anxiety or concern about him rummaging through my mind.
“Mortals so rarely react fondly to a demon’s true form, and I’d rather our time together be pleasant and not filled with fright.”
“I assure you, I’m not like most mortals.” A lie because I was as plain as anyone else. But I wanted to see the true face of the devil causing all the horror. Identify this demon and extinguish it.
“You most certainly are not,” he said. “It’s a fallacy, you know?
Your textbook statement earlier. We are not more powerful than demons.
Quite the opposite, in fact. Yes, our demonic energy does not become depleted like our demon brethren, constantly needing to feed while tethered to this world.
However, when possessing a witch’s body, it limits how much of our raw power we can harness.
This witch’s arcane branch makes him more durable, but even limiting my true ability within him, his body will burn out soon enough. ”
Demonic energy didn’t dissipate and leak from devils like it did from demons. Instead, it oozed into their host’s body, rotting their insides, liquefying their organs, melting and merging with tar until the devil lost its host body and returned to its demon form.
“How long before—”
“Before this body crumbles and I need to seek another? A month, likely less, given how liberally I’ve been casting my magic. Truthfully, he’s only endured this long because I held back on much casting outside his innate abilities.”
“When you were spying on me, you mean. To what end? Why go through all this effort to observe me?”
“I am a collector of branches; it’s cemented my place among the demon hierarchy and offered me many friends. ”
“You have telepathy. Rather strong, too, given how easily you dragged me here.”
“I pulled you here because you didn’t resist. Curiosity for answers, I assume.”
So, he believed my telepathy could overpower his.
Nice to know, but it didn’t do me any damn good.
Even if I managed to overwhelm his mind and break loose, we’d be right back to standing in the physical world where he had Jamie’s branch to teleport anywhere, a small army of demons roaming the city, and too many unknown branches to factor in.
“Devils are coveted among the demon hierarchy until one attains a proper possession. Our limited casting causes us to burn through hosts quickly.”
“And demons suddenly have a problem killing people? You just jump to another body, right? How’s it any different from demons eating witches?”
“It’s more painful.”
I skirted his surface thoughts, uncertain if he’d left them exposed to lure me into a deeper trap of his mind, he’d unsuspectingly left his guard down, or this was some tragic attempt for sympathy.
Countless hosts leading back to the older gentleman he currently presented himself as flashed in a continuous loop. Not their lives. Not their possession. Not their magics. No, only the moment when their bodies had failed to contain his magnificence.
Magnificence. I could taste the sour note of arrogance in the air.
I bit back repulsion for the word which crossed my mind, but it was his truest belief in those agonizing final moments of each host he rotted away to the point of death. Their death.
Their flesh collapsed, insides spilling out, casting tar onto the ground.
This devil wailed in agony each and every time a host body died.
Not for their loss—for the pain it caused him as he clawed his way out, snapping fiendish jaws at lost wisps and demonic energy fading into the ether between planes, desperately fighting to retain his demon form so he didn’t fade into a base beast such as a fiend itself.
It took so much demonic energy to escape the clutches of a dying host body, the devil, in turn, left their consciousness weak and chaotic.
Barely more than a fiend and equally as vulnerable.
Every time they possessed a body, they risked death with their host body.
They risked spilling what little magic they had remaining and reverting entirely to a fiend form.
“As much as I could care fucking less about your pain, I don’t see how any of this connects to me.” I jerked my head back, simmering his empathic extension, desiring nothing he had to offer.
The devil waved a hand, directing my attention to a slithering black wall, revealing body parts evenly divided and distant like a graveyard. A chilling sight. My body clammed up. I wanted to leave this second. Slack-jawed, I studied the horror.
An exposed, still-beating heart filled the bleak darkness. A forearm lacking anything below the wrist or above the elbow. Raw, flexed pink calves. White bones. Legs. Feet. Fingers. Skulls.
Each glimpse made my chest tighten, reminding me my body had ceased to breathe in disgust for what I observed in this private hell.
Piece after piece of witch body parts possessing the connection to their given branch magic revealed themselves by the thousands.
Though the entirety of their body wriggled beneath the tar containing them, their thoughts buzzed, too faint and obscure, but their consciousness remained locked in this place. Trapped in this devil’s inner core.
“You’re a chimera.” I gasped, finally putting together the specific demon classification to one that could not only devour magics but continuously acquire them for its own use.
This one had gathered hundreds on top of thousands.
Each victim was too weak to scream out, but their quiet wails sent a shiver through my entire being, almost pulling me from this devil’s mind.
I couldn’t leave. I had to know more. I had to know if…
“Quite astute,” the devil said. “Possessing a body limits the branches I can access. There are hundreds of the branches in here I haven’t touched since I first tasted them.”
Ignoring him, I continued scouring the wall of witches.
I struggled to navigate through bodies—minds, essence, or souls perhaps—because each piece of flesh left on display represented a witch who’d never found peace.
Each a trapped piece of consciousness bound to this chimera as he traipsed about possessing new hosts, stealing new magics, killing more witches.
“However, it’s better than the alternative.
I’ve known many chimeras, such as myself, boldly strutting through this realm in their own flesh, devouring and acquiring more magics.
The drawback to walking about as a simple demon, they leak their magic.
For most demon types, it means eating another mortal and recharging their essence.
For chimera, such as myself, it means losing the branches we’ve harvested because we lack the ability to keep our collection while maintaining a foothold in this world. ”