“You’re in the Ebon Sanctum Mallor on the outskirts of Aszath Koth, seeking out the Scroll of the Army of the Undead, so I’m not sure what you expected, but you’re not the talisman’s intended target, so I don’t intend to use it for much else.” He pointed at her. “Unless you force my hand.”
She blinked back at him, voice stilling. “Your hand. It’s already healed?”
Damien looked down at his palm, the one he had sliced that morning to cast the only healing spell he knew for that pitiful, little creature in the alley. That had been just before she’d first happened upon him and decided to help him.Blech. “Of course it’s healed. I told you it would.”
“But that was so fast.” Suddenly, her hands were on his, holding and spreading out his palm as she looked closely at it, the terror gone from her face, his order to calm down making her bold. “You used magic to do this? You’re a…a healer?”
Damien watched her thumbs as they smoothed over the place the cut had been, her fingertips on the back of his hand, holding him there with a touch so gentle it sent shivers up his arm. He ripped his hand away from her and shook his head.
“A mage?” She was getting there, but much too slowly.
“A blood mage.”
Damien waited to see if she might pass out again, but consciousness didn’t waver over her features, they only creased in thought. There were so few actual blood mages that anything could be said of them and be accepted as truth, the prevailing belief that they were inherently evil beings, Abyssbent on destroying the realm—a bit of gossip that happened to be entirely accurate.
“You’re a demon?”
And that was the other bit of gossip, but it was only half true.
Damien looked her form over, remaining calm by his command. She was no spy for some higher order, just a common street thief—a dirty, little thing that no one would believe even if she did mouth off to some Holy Knight of Osurehm. And if she would be stuck with him for the time being, she may as well know the truth if for no other reason than to understand the danger in trying his patience. “My father is Zagadoth the Tempestuous, Ninth Lord of the Infernal Darkness and Abyssal Tyrant of the Sanguine Throne. As his son, I, Damien Maleficus Bloodthorne, have inherited and honed the arcane abilities of bloodcraft and am, indeed, half demon.”
“What?”
He heaved a sigh. Unlike the talisman, his origin was rarely absorbed on the first go. “My father is Zagadoth the—”
“No, I heard you, it’s just…” The woman’s shoulders relaxed, and she tipped her head to the side. “You don’t have any horns.”
Damien’s mouth opened, but not even a scoff came out. She really should have been terrified to know she stood across from a being with enough infernal arcana flowing through him to open a rift right to the infernal plane and show her, yet it was exactly that power that had made her so complacent. “Horns? Infernal blood and noxscura itself flows through my veins. Blood mages don’t wear their heritage like half elves with their pointy ears and questionable affinity for trees. It’s just within us, lurking right below the human shell.”
“What’s wrong with liking trees?”
“Nothing, that’s not…listen,”—Damien rubbed his hand over his thigh, trying to wipe away the lingering feeling of her offensively soft touch—“I am corruption made corporeal, a nightmare in human flesh, the Abyss brought topside, all right?”
Her blue eyes roved over his face, down to his chest and back up. “Yeah, but you don’t look anything like a demon. You’re not red or hooved, and you’re not that much bigger than anyone else. You just look like…a boy.”
Damien’s nostrils flared, and he welled up to yell, then swallowed it back. He might have preferred her crying to this new nonchalance, and considered briefly ordering her back into terror via the enchanted word, but that might have invalidated the point. Malice would be easy to prove if he grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall, or took her to her knees with a broken wrist, but throwing his own tantrum would prove nothing except that he was human, at least by half.
Instead, he closed the space between them and loomed over her. “Have you ever seen a demon?”
“Well, no, thank Osurehm.” There was nervous laughter in her voice.
“Then how could you possibly know they don’t also look like boys—er, men?”
She narrowed her eyes at him, dubious.
“Regardless, I am quite a bit bigger than you.” He bared down slightly. “So, what I say goes, and I say, I am half demon.” The talisman would help as well, but he left that unspoken.
She nodded, swallowing. “Okay. That’s fair.”
“Is it? Is itfair?” He glowered over her a moment longer until she gave him a single nod then swept away, headed back for the entrance to leave. “Come, we’ve a long way to go, and night is surely falling.” There were no steps behind him, and when he glanced back, she was still just standing there, staring after him. “What?”
“Nothing,” she squeaked out and scurried up behind him. “I just thought you would…um…have a tail.”
Damien could not even dignify that with a response. He simply turned and continued on. It was definitely going to be a bloody long trip.
CHAPTER 4
HEAVY IS THE HEAD THAT WEARS THE CROWN OF BUREAUCRACY
