I close my eyes, and when I open them again, the chair is filled, but it’s not Asmodeus who sits in it, it’s August.
“You’re stuck here for the night,” Landon says. “You bled all over Deus and August. They looked like they just got done chopping up a couple of people and then rolling in it. Oh, you’ll like this story. Before Valerie brought clean clothes for them, August went to get something out of the vending machine where a woman saw him, so I made sure to loudly go, ‘Did you murder our neighbor again?’ August found it less funny than I did.”
“I’m sure. Was anyone else hurt?”
“Nope. None of us even saw anyone else… who attacked you?” Landon asks.
“I don’t know,” I mutter. “Everything happened so quickly… Where’s Asmodeus?”
“Off in the woods looking for the person who hurt you.”
My eyes widen. “Alone?”
“Of course he’s alone. First, I went with him and was dragged all around as he scrutinized the whole area, and then when we were here, he tried leaving again and I even depantsed him to get him to stay. So then he waited until I couldn’t cause a scene and off he went.”
“Well, tell him to come back. It’s nonsense to be out there alone.”
Landon raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me. You wantmeto knock some sense into him? HA. Hilarious. August, you hear this man? Clearly, he’s on the best of drugs if he thinks I can talk Deus into shit.”
“Hmm…”
“Even the idea of seeing your tattoos wasn’t enough to get him to stay,” August tells me.
“Here, let’s see if he’ll talk to you,” Landon says. “Because he sure won’t answer when I call.”
He uses my phone, but there’s no answer from the irritating demon worshiper. For all we know, he’s out there having suffered the same fate I did, but without anyone to help him.
I lift my gown, though I can’t see much of my chest from the way it’s wrapped up. There’s not much to see, but everything feels okay.
I close my eyes and Landon seems to assume I’m taking a nap, which is fine. Instead, I envision the place where we spent the past two days camping. The spot where I sat in the chair and watched Asmodeus pester Landon until he put his book away.
The illusion manifests perfectly in the spot I’d sat. And with my eyes closed, I can almost pretend it’s me out there; it really feels no different. When I’m inside an illusion, I have no sensitivity to things like heat or cold but I can move freely, and if I put my all into it, I can interact with things.
I turn and look around but I don’t have to look far to find the barrel of a gun pointed at me.
“Saint Beelzebub, you scared me,” Asmodeus grumbles from behind the gun. “I wasthisclose to blowing a hole in your illusion.”
“What the hell are you doing out here?” I ask as he puts his gun away.
“I am figuring out who hurt you, obviously. You must be alive and well if you’re here pestering me?”
“I’m fine,” I say, watching him drop to his hands and knees. It’s an extremely odd… and slightly provocative position. Like… who puts their chest to the ground like that when investigating a scene?
I hastily force myself to look away. “Get back to the hospital.”
“Nah, I’m figuring stuff out. I didn’t know you could do this. You never told us you could place illusions this far away. I assumed you had to see the location where the illusion started. You’re a man of many secrets and many tricks, aren’t you?”
I stare at the man who was born in a literal demon cult and raise an eyebrow. “Why yes, Mr. I Was Born in a Demonic Cult Where They Buried Me in a Coffin, I’m the one with all the secrets.”
“Ha! Illusion Ellison is hilarious.”
“I’m the same person,” I grumble.
“Nah, this one has the jokes. I’ll call him Joker.”
I ignore Asmodeus’s ridiculousness and just breathe a sigh of relief when he suddenly stands up.
“You once claimed your illusions were restricted by distance.”
