Chapter 47

It turned out that Mariko was not drawing in a breath to cry out in panic or curse her situation.

“Svalinn’s Mercy!”

No, she put it to good use. Instead of the normal flat shield, she launched one of her sewing-needle variants. The Fireball was a contained inferno inside of a thin energy envelope, and the hardened energy spike went right in one side and out the other. The bubble of energy burst at both ends, spewing the superheated air and flames at a relatively safe distance. It wasn’t a maneuver I would have thought of, but there was a reason she’d been my magical tutor all those months back in Nagoya. As much as she hated magic, she had a knack.

It was only a relatively safe distance, mind you. Scorching-hot air erupted at both us and Mulciber, and I still ended up being Mariko’s half-devil shield. The blast sent me stumbling back into something soft behind me, and Mariko had to steady me.

“Soren, are you—”

“I’m good enough,” I snapped, cutting her off. There wasn’t any time for her concern; Mulciber could launch another spell with a thought, while I would have to speak the words. Every moment would count.

The exploding Fireball had been nearer to Mulciber, so he was still off balance. Mariko and Heida already know, after all. No reason to hide now. I sprang ahead, demonic runes tracing about my hands.“Bahadur!”

Red energy crackled into existence and blasted a hole in Mulciber’s raised wing, taking his abused left arm with it. The wound cauterized itself, sadly, though the way he screeched told me it wasn’t a comfort to him. The runes tattooed into his throat had lit up, but it seemed I was legitimately immune to the fear spell.

Mariko shrieked in terror behind me, telling me that she absolutely wasn’t. It’s alright, my dear. You’ve done your part and more. “To Me!” I aimed the telekinetic spell at Heida’s abandoned spear, drawing it into my waiting hands. It had been a while since I’d trained with a polearm, but desperation is the mother of invention.

The spear did its job as I charged forward, forcing Mulciber to ready for a charge I had no intention of finishing. No sooner was the enchanted spear in my hands than I’d tossed it aside and skidded to a halt well outside of the reach of his claws. “Bahadur!” This time I severed his left leg, sending him slamming into the ground. His magical caterwauling stopped as the impact knocked the wind from his lungs, thank the Dark Lord. Immune or not, it was a relief to my ears.

He flopped about, his cauterized stumps steaming in the chill night. It seemed the mutant devil had precious little defense against demonic spells. A sensible approach for a weapon designed to fight humans. A pity for him.

Even Mulciber’s milky-white eyes couldn’t hide his panic as I readied another spell. “No, please! I’ll stop! I’ll stop! Let me go and you’ll never see me again!”

“You’re right, I won’t,” I growled, shifting into High Demonic naturally. “But you aren’t going anywhere, after what you’ve done tonight. Flamiwhorl!”

Rings of fire snapped into existence as I cast the spell, helpfully added to my repitoire by Mimic. I wasn’t going to give him another chance to escape while I lined up the killing blow.

“It isn’t my fault,” he babbled, desperately shuffling towards the middle of the closing cage of fire. “Ya took everything from me! Ya don’t know what happened after you left. The pain, the torture, day after day under Yatener’s scalpel. Hell on Earth, it was. Who wouldn’t want revenge?”

The Bloody Lance spell died on my lips. Blast it all. Despite myself, I hesitated, imagining the torment he’d been subjected to due to my pique. “I shouldn’t have put you through that. I was a different man, then.”

“Exactly! Yer a different man. We’re both running from the Horde,” he said, raising his wings to shield himself from the closing flame. “I won’t tell them yer here. Why would I? They’ll kill me if they catch me!”

“The home office has the right idea.”

“Please, Malthus, I’m serious! Let me go and I’ll leave ya and yer friends alone forever. I-I’ll go further north where there aren’t any humans. I swear on Our Father Below’s name.”

“Appealing to the Prince of Lies for an oath? You think me a fool.” So I said, but my sympathy was getting the better of me. Dark Lord help me, I was actually considering letting him go. After all, it was my fault he was in this rotten mess. Having the devil who wronged him fall right into his lap really must have seemed like an enemy-send. In his skin, I couldn’t blame him for trying for his vengeance.

Unfortunately for him, I knew how I’d handle myself in his situation better than any human alive. I’d get me talking to buy time, gather my strength, and…

He screeched again, one last beat of his wings carrying him through the wall of flames. He wasn’t steady with his lopsided limbs, but he didn’t need to be. As fast as he was flying, he might have killed me on impact, even without his remaining claws leveled at my throat.

“To Me!” The enchanted spear shot back into my hands, and I brought the tip up. I willed as much energy into the weapon as I could, reinforcing it against what was bound to be a terrible impact.

Mulciber saw the maneuver and raised a Swiss-cheesed wing to try and protect himself at the last moment, but the spearhead punched through the leathery, fabricata-laced membrane like it wasn’t there. The glinting blade buried itself deep in his black shoulder and punched out the other side.

Thank Our Father Below or whoever else was watching that I’d recognized the spear model from England. As soon as the fabricata engraved into the polearm detected he was past the spear tip, a translucent blue barrier popped into existence just past the handholds. I’d learned the hard way it was damned good at stopping an orc on mackie-back in mid charge. Seemed it was effective against mutants, too. Mulciber slammed into the curved barrier head on, and I heard a crunch as his neck was forced in an unnatural direction. The impact rattled my teeth and nearly knocked the spear from my grip, but I held on, even as my heels dug a footlong furrow into the soft dirt.

We both came to a stop, the polearm falling from my nerveless fingers, though the barrier stayed up. I might have overdone it on the magical charge, though I couldn’t argue with the results. Mulciber’s torso was cleft nearly in two, his thick, black lifeblood staining the grass all around him. His neck lolled over at an unnatural angle. No amount of healing magic could have saved him.

Despite it all, he still struggled futilely. His white eyes met mine and his remaining arm twitched uselessly. “Kill ya… gonna kill ya…” There was no conviction in his words. No fire. He was spent, nothing left in him except his seething, demonic hatred.

I hunkered down next to him, though I stayed on the other side of the spear’s protective bubble. I wasn’t going to take any chances. “I am sorry, for what it’s worth.”

“Sorry?” His glassy eyes narrowed in confusion, as more black blood leaked from his fanged muzzle.

“You were right about one thing; what happened to you was all my fault. I…” I swallowed, shame pressing down on my chest like a lead weight. My rebellious eyes leaked as I forced the words out. “I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it for doing your damn job, no matter how annoyed I was. I can never make it right.”

“But ya won,” he said, brow furrowing in consternation. “Why’re ya sorry?”

I stopped, realizing that I might as well have told him I was the Queen of England, for all the sense honest remorse would make to a devil. “You can’t understand my regret, can you? I do mean it, though. Make of it what you will.”

“Bloody human,” he muttered, his eyes closing for the last time. “Half-devil? Pfah. Human. That’s what ya always were, ya hornless manlet.”

As last words, they were memorable, even if they weren’t especially eloquent. Yatener could mutilate Mulciber’s skin all he liked, but it didn’t change the low-born devil beneath.

In the distance, Heida had gotten the fire under control, though the yard was littered with shingles scattered by the explosion. The blonde wizard vanished into the house, her excited shouts just audible from where I stood.

A hand caressed my shoulder. “That was not easy for you.” It was a statement, not a question.

I didn’t reply to Mariko. Mulciber had called me a human, but he was dead wrong. I wished I was; it would make my life so much simpler. As a devil, I ought to have had no regrets about snuffing out his life to save my own, and a real human would have gladly sent his mortal enemy straight to Hell. I stood in between, apart from either world, the fate of the man I’d doomed weighing on my shoulders.

I straightened up. I wanted, no, needed a drink, but that would have to wait. I spun on my heel and walked away from the farmhouse. “We should check on Rafal.”

Mariko nodded, following me towards the unconscious wizard. “How is your hand?”

“Good as new,” I said, flexing my fingers an instant before I realized she might take that as bragging. I rubbed my knuckles, wincing at an imaginary pain. “More or less. Are you hurt?”

“No,” she said. I saw she was shivering; I was too, at that, as my muscles cooled. I took her hand in mine. “This is a welcome change of pace; you are not usually there to help clean up after the battle.”

“I do keep waking up in hospital rooms.”

She nodded. “I did not look forward to putting you back together again, Kasasagi.”

“Trust me, my dear, you aren’t half as relieved as me.”

“Not even close.” Her tone was like the metaphorical steel fist in a velvet glove; gentle, but firm. “I keep having to see you badly hurt over and over again. Even when you were only my friend, it was awful. Now, it is like having my heart ripped from my chest.”

Am I not still only your friend? Rather presumptuous of her. I didn’t feel like I was anyone’s friend just then. I changed the subject. “What’s that noise?”

The answer presented itself as a spotlight from above locked onto us. I interposed myself between it and Mariko, nearly casting another demonic protective spell. Old instincts die hard. A Harrier tilt-wing aircraft emblazoned with the Wizard Corps’ angular emblem swung overhead, searching for a place to land.

“Heida got her message out,” shouted Mariko with obvious surprise.

“Well?” The Divine Blade’s voice boomed from loudspeakers built into the landing craft. “What gives, Marlowe? I was told an army of demons were invading! I don’t see anything!”

“It sounds like she took some creative liberties,” said Mariko, craning her neck upwards. “How very like her.”

“It got the job done; if it means we won’t have to haul Rafal back to the farmhouse by ourselves, all the better.”

I ended up helping Mr. Maki with that weighty duty in the end. That was one upside to being incapacitated at the end of a fight: it tended to cut down on the drudgery.

Oh, well. I preferred it to the interrogations and debriefings I knew were to come.