Page 26 of The Misfit Mage and His Devilish Desires (Diabolic Romance #3)
Bez
Beelzebub descended in his full glory, his skin as black as the tar of Lilith’s essence but lacking the shimmer against the sunlight. Natural sunlight that pierced through the dimensional walls that Lilith and now Beelzebub had cracked apart upon their invasion.
This made no sense. I turned to an awestruck Corson and Satan, who quaked at the impending clash. To think they could reveal such horror on their faces after already witnessing him duel against Lilith for centuries was a true sign of Beelzebub’s tyranny.
“I thought you said Lilith fled, left him locked behind her sealed gates!”
“She did.” Corson trembled. “I barely made it through, swept in her wake.”
“Perhaps it comes from the essence he stole,” Satan said. “He did take a lot of Lilith’s essence.”
“Impossible.” I ground my teeth, fighting off my own fear of Beelzebub’s return. “Slipping through a sealed doorway to Hell requires a fully intact devil. Taking her essence wouldn’t restore what he’s lost.”
It was equivalent to grabbing a second sword for battle instead of a shield. Yes, it would help Beelzebub in combat, but it didn’t simply substitute for the missing item. Or, in this case, his missing essence. It gave him access to different techniques, nothing more.
“Lilith does it.” Satan gestured to her ocean of tar.
“Lilith only circumvented it by her hidden keys across the universe,” Corson added.
“Fuck me.” The realization struck. That was how Beelzebub got here. “He’s stolen some of Lilith’s essence, subsequently giving himself access to her power, her private secret portals, the hidden cracks between sealed doors to Hell.”
He used her trick to claw his way into our world, where he’d now slaughter us all and restore his lost essence by ripping Wally apart.
Beelzebub’s veins glowed a multitude of colors, almost like an enchanting rainbow that coursed over his skin, except each bright array represented an aura from the demons he devoured in Lilith’s Hell. Their essence still pumped through his body, fueling him beyond reproach.
“You thought you could run!” he roared in echoing Diabolic tones, voice literally cracking the air around us. His snout scrunched as he snarled and let out more foul growls.
I covered my ears, wincing from the sharp slice of sound tunneling through me.
“You believed fleeing here would distract me, appease me?” Beelzebub bellowed, a horrible mocking laughter of ear-piercing brutality. “Foolish creature. Your vanity beckons completion as a sign of perfection. I require only drops of my essence to be deemed perfect. Worthy. Unstoppable.”
Each of his eight wings flapped, sending tornados, fires, ice storms, and waves of elemental destruction in every direction. Not only attacking Lilith but shattering Nature’s forces upon contact.
“Bringing me to the mortal world where my lost essence dwells will not deter me from slaughtering you, lowly devil.”
Beelzebub began clashing with Lilith. Conjuring flames that burned away the army of plant life. They raged in an inferno that burrowed through the earth, tearing its way across the land. Soon, the fire took shape in the form of giant talons and snapping teeth and hooked whips and a thousand other weapons meant to strike and tear and pull Lilith’s essence into one singular location.
“Let us finish this, tragic creature that you are.” Beelzebub tilted his head. The sun shimmered against his golden horns that twisted atop his head like a crown.
They were a sign of station, a crown given to him upon his creation, the instant he crawled into existence and declared the universe belonged to him. All would kneel or die. Some would kneel and die. It mattered not to Beelzebub. All he craved was conquest and carnage and claiming everything as his.
In the moments since Beelzebub had arrived, he’d reached out to pluck Lilith’s essence from across the world so he could finish this battle. His fiery weapons merged with molten rock and dragged Lilith closer.
Soon, the city she’d laid waste to revealed itself again. In the wake of destruction, her essence retreated. How much of the world looked as disastrous as our city? How much had Lilith destroyed since she fled to our world?
“We need to fall back,” Wally shouted.
Wally? I spun in the air, finding him flying beside me while Corson and Satan retreated back to the Well of Wonders.
“Walter, I told you—”
“Yes, stay behind for safety,” he interrupted. “Now, take your own advice!”
He extended a hand, and I grasped it gently, intertwining our fingers. It was a momentary relief, allowing the war upon this world to wash away.
I smiled at him, soft and small. Then I yanked his arm and pulled him into a sudden embrace. With our chests pressed together, I wrapped an arm at the small of his back and held onto the hook of his wing where the joint met with his shoulder blades.
With him safely secured, I soared through the sky faster than I’d ever flown before and barreled through the barrier, which would only hold a fraction of a second if and when Beelzebub deigned to acknowledge our presence.
Over the course of the next few days, we sat in the shop watching Beelzebub shred waves of essence at a time, listening to the agonizing shrieks of Lilith as the god-king devil continuously and brutally eviscerated the other devil.
It didn’t matter how much Lilith fought back, how much she countered his strikes, how valiant her efforts to regroup and lash out. None of it made a difference against an indomitable opponent. Beelzebub existed only for war, pain, suffering. If something thrived in his presence, it was only because they endured his horrors. And even that was an offense, further encouraging him to find new ways to demean and torment those beneath him.
“How we coming on the orbs?”
“My orbs are always coming.” Corson bit the air by my ear.
Using my tail in an uppercut motion, I stabbed him through the chin.
He gurgled, body shuddering as essence poured from his split throat, staining his dreadfully dull sweater.
“You’re in my space.” I withdrew my tail.
Corson wiggled his lower jaw back and forth until he healed. “Apologies.”
“Closer to finishing—not that flirty demons seem to give a fuck when all they want is to fuck,” Kell said from her workstation, where she’d remained day and night, using caffeine and magics to delay her need for sleep. That and bitchy comments. By day three, she let out rude little jabs with every breath.
Corson leaned in close again until I thwacked my tail against the hardwood floors, encouraging him to keep his distance. We’d been stuck in this store the entire time, careful to avoid stepping outside where the devils warred.
Despite Beelzebub ripping apart Lilith’s essence and dragging her to one central location, it hadn’t detracted from the essence blockading the dimensional walls. We used Mora’s fancy Fae blade to pierce the veil between dimensions only to find Beelzebub’s essence had rampaged, stomping out Lilith’s essence and securing the realm in her stead.
So now we all stayed in this tiny store. It’d never felt so small until recently. But with a whiny Cerberus, a hissing scorpion, a chatty witch, an anxious mage, and five demons all wedged together, I almost relished the idea of certain death in battle.
Wally walked back into the room with an air of authority about him. I hated how the world would throw him into these dangerous situations, threatening him with death at every turn, but he truly held such a captivating calm when thrust into combat. His collective cool oozed off him, making even his scent permeate power.
“Kell’s almost finished with the Diabolic orb, and it’ll cut things close, but I think we need to take advantage of their battle,” Wally said. No. Declared. Commanded. Announced like a devil himself in charge of everyone in this room, including me. “If we’re gonna have any chance of winning this, then we need to strike while Beelzebub is distracted by Lilith.”
“Distracted?” Corson scoffed. “She’s been writhing on the ground as he wails on her this entire time.”
“Exactly,” Wally said. “Despite how exhausted she is, how broken her essence is, he hasn’t paid attention to anything else in days. He hasn’t acknowledged us. He didn’t even react when Nature withdrew her forces to mend the holes left in the earth. The only thing Beelzebub is fixated on is his duel with Lilith.”
It was a fair point. He might have an overwhelming advantage against Lilith, but Beelzebub didn’t make sloppy moves. While he declared her a weak devil, she was still a devil who was, therefore, worthy of some priority.
“So, what’s your plan?” I asked.
“I think we need to exploit their battle,” he said. “If we strike Beelzebub while he’s distracted by Lilith, we should be able to seal them both in an orb.”
“If that thing can actually hold a devil.” Corson gestured. “Just because it’s big doesn’t mean it’s powerful.”
“I don’t know.” Satan licked a lollipop. “Size might not be everything, but I’d rather drop a hammer on your head than a thimble.”
“Is it just a hammer you wanna slap my face with?” Corson winked.
“I can think of a few things.”
The power radiating off the nearly restored orb had a palpable weight. I nearly trembled at the force, the instinctive pull the tool had for drawing in Diabolics. It was unlike any other orb I’d encountered, from the one that held me for what felt like a lifetime to the thousands stored on that magical villa.
“It’ll hold,” I whispered, locking eyes with Corson. “Surely, you can tell the difference.”
His sapphire blue irises widened as he quieted his prattle and allowed himself to feel the gravity of the Diabolic orb. As the only other demon here who spent time bound inside these devices, he must’ve registered the same sensation.
“Okay.” Corson nodded in agreement. “Even if it is strong enough to contain a devil, could it handle two? Could any orb?”
“I believe it’s the added advantage to containing a devil,” Wally explained. “If they’re locked up separately, even incomplete devils, they might have the force to shatter these orbs over the course of time and persistence, and then we’re in the same situation. Instead of delaying this slaughter for a hundred years, a thousand, ten thousand, my hope is to keep them busy clashing as they fight for control inside their prison.”
It made some sense. Beelzebub would never submit to ally himself with Lilith, even if they were trapped together. And Lilith, being a fellow devil, would never submit to death. To Oblivion. The pair could quite literally fight each other until the end of time itself.
Corson smacked his hands together in a loud clap, a sudden and obnoxious noise. “Sounds like a plan. We finish this orb, then lock those two pricks up forever. Not quite satisfying as sending mommy to Oblivion, but I do relish the karmic justice of imprisoning her in a Diabolic orb.”
I, too, enjoyed the idea of trapping Beelzebub in such a way. The way I was trapped, having my essence shredded and fractured and depleted for years on end.
“There’s one problem.” Wally’s eyes turned pitch black, and his gaze drifted beyond us to the battle outside. “Kell is close to completing the orb, but Lilith won’t last that long. She’ll be depleted soon. Her essence is waning, and the fragmented bits are moving more sluggish each time Beelzebub rips them from her body.”
Wally’s devil essence pierced a different layer of sensory comprehension, allowing him to glimpse aspects of Diabolic power I never knew existed, something I didn’t believe any demon could access.
“If we wait any longer, we risk facing Beelzebub alone,” Wally said. “I don’t think that’s a fight we could endure for very long.”
“Minutes at best,” Corson said.
“Seconds for you lot,” I replied.
“Arrogant of you.” Satan snickered. “Hawt!”
“Not boasting,” I said. “I’d only live longer as a way to draw out my death. Consider your few agonizing seconds a blessing that Beelzebub wouldn’t deem you worthy of suffering.”
Satan pouted. “My inner masochist is aroused and offended.”
“So, it’s decided.” Wally swallowed hard, steadying his shaky voice. “We do this now. If a collective unity of demons hit Beelzebub with a barrage of attacks, it should distract him long enough for Kell to finish the final touches on the Diabolic orb. Then we seal up Lilith and Beelzebub and put their prison behind a billion walls of warding magic.”
I wanted to protest, to tell Wally not to join us, to demand it. Instead, I nodded in agreement with the other demons because as much as I didn’t want him to come to harm, I couldn’t protect him from the wrath of devils.
I had to believe in him during any situation. I had to encourage him in all things. Wally was the world to me, the universe itself. Nothing in existence mattered except for him. That also meant the things he cared for mattered. They had to matter to a degree. That was what love meant, what I’d learned in the brief time we’d been together. If I loved Wally, loved him as much as I professed, then I had to be willing to fight for the things he cherished.