Too much energy too quickly had to go somewhere. For Mal, it was usually his dick. Raw essence was a massive aphrodisiac for him, but he didn’t want to fuck a bunch of nuns or a random teen. So instead, he set fire to the airport.
Fire magic was so much fun.
Chapter
Eleven
MAL
Burning down the airport had turned out to be a bad call.
What should have been a small expenditure of energy had become a rapidly spiraling shit show when the teen had chosen the very stupid option of not running when the fireworks started.
Instead, they’d screamedfireand hosed Mal down with the nearest fire extinguisher, which had startled him so badly that instead of creating something localized, he’d let out a gout of flame that took out the massive pane of glass looking out onto the airfield and tore off the wing of an idling jet.
While Mal was distracted, the nuns fled in the opposite direction so quickly that Mal didn’t have a chance to feed on their fear before they got out of range.
“Ohmygod. You did that on purpose, didn’t you?” The teen shouted right in Mal’s fucking ear. “I’m so sorry, I thought youwere on fire. We gotta go before security comes, okay? Follow me; I know a way out that they don’t know about.”
Mal touched a still burning hand to his ringing ear to rub it, and the teen hosed Mal down again with the extinguisher. “Are you insane? You’re going to set your head on fire.”
Mal scowled. “I’m fireproof.” He was almost everything proof. Unfortunately, Mal wasn’t idiot-proof. He was beginning to suspect he’d somehow become an idiot magnet.
“Funny, man. No one’s fireproof,” the teen scoffed as they pulled on Mal’s foam-covered arm. “Come on, it’s this way.”
Mal allowed himself to be pulled, partly from curiosity, but mostly because he was afraid he’d get hosed again if he didn’t.
“You aren’t even wearing fire-retardant clothes,” the teen continued as they dragged Mal into a bathroom and into a stall.
“Um…” Mal began. He was no longer curious. It was definitely time to ditch the weird kid and leave them to fend for themself.
“Unless you’re one ofthem,” the teen continued as they did something to the wall behind the toilet. “I can see one of them being fireproof. They do all kinds of things that defy reality. Are you one of them?” Wide eyes peered up at him, innocent and full of wonder. At least until they got a good look at Mal’s face, then the teen squeaked and huddled away from Mal as far as they could go in the small stall.
Yep. That was the reaction Mal had been waiting for. Honestly, it was surprising it had taken so long for the teen to clue in on the monster they’d been dragging behind him.
“Youareone of them,” the teen whispered. Instead of running screaming out of the bathroom, they inched closer to Mal. “Which kind are you?” They showed next to no fear after their initial burst.
What the actual fuck?
Why was Mal’s life like this? Instead of hiding in a smelly airport bathroom with a danger-friendly teenager, Mal could be in Beijing dining on the nightmare that had been gorging itself on Benighted for the past month. But no. He was back to half-starved because he’d lost his prey and accidentally released all of the fear essence he’d collected from them in that stupid blast.
And he was back to needing to find Clayton ASAP so he wouldn’t starve. After the show he’d just made, he couldn’t afford to do anything showy to gather a meal. Not before he got to Clayton to suck him dry.
This small incident probably wouldn’t flag him because the Guard wouldn’t be concerned with an incident in a norm airport. They may be the governing force of the Other, but they were ridiculously ignorant when it came to norm matters. It came from the overabundance of arrogance most organizations developed when they reached a certain level of power.
Mal had no problem with that. It made Mal’s life much easier. All he had to do was live more in the norm world than the magic world, and he was as safe as kittens.
Or at least he would be once he tanked up on Clayton and fucked off back to China.
He just needed to lose his unwanted plus one first.
“It took you until now to figure out I’m not human? As far as I know, norms don’t usually float nuns around and set them on fire with magic. You’re not very good at using your brain, are you?”
Instead of getting offended, the teen shook their head and shrugged. “Not really. It’s broken.”
“That was obvious from the start, but I didn’t expect you to admit it,” Mal grumbled. Things weren’t going his way at all. Was he going to have to hurt this stupid kid to get them to leave him alone?
There was shouting outside the bathroom, and the kid pushed a panel on the wall out of the way and shoved at Mal, hissing, “Get in!”
