Magic Trials (Half-Blood Academy #1)- Meg Xuemei X Page 0,56

my breath as I spotted a fourth demon perching atop the roof of a building right above me.

I urgently summoned my power again, waiting for a spark of fire to appear on my sweaty, cold palms.

Please, damn you, just give me a sign you’ll aid me.

Magic fizzed in the depths of my well, trying to rise, but all I could access was ember and ash at the bottom.

I’d drained it fighting Paxton, shielding and healing myself, then teleporting here.

I had to improvise until I figured out a plan B.

A green-horned demon clutched a spear in its claws. If I could disarm him and take it, I could even the odds a little.

I needed to entice them to approach first. And I had to do it without showing any fear. Demons preyed and thrived on it.

“Hello, boys, are you lost?” I purred, wheeling around as I endeavored to keep all of them out of my blind spots, though the green-horned demon remained my main target. “I can point you the way home, which is strictly to Hell.”

The demons stared at me, surprised expressions flitting through their yellowish and crimson eyes. I bet no one—definitely no human—had called them boys.

“She’s funny,” a demon with red horns said. “Or she thinks she is.”

He flashed me a grin, showing off his sharp, serrated teeth.

“Maybe later, little girl, after we’re having a little fun with you,” he purred back, which sent bad goosebumps all over my arms.

He wasn’t the leader of the band, despite that he carried the scary chainsaw. Demons loved to cart nasty stuff around, anything to inspire fear.

My sweeping gaze landed on a black-horned demon who wielded an ax, clearly the ringleader of this expedition. His black eyes met mine. No mercy, no humanity shone from their depths, just chilling hunger.

“A descendant of the filth of the Earth!” hissed the gray-horned demon from the rooftop.

I’d teleported here in my school uniform, still recognizable despite being bloody and trashed.

I rolled my eyes. “We got a third-class detective here.”

The demon jumped from a two-story building and landed to my left. He didn’t hold a weapon, but his long, sharp claws glinted like blades.

“Captain, let me kill the little talkative filth so we can get on with our business,” he addressed to the black-horned demon.

“Really?” I asked, arching an eyebrow. “Rushing somewhere if not Hell?”

The red-horned demon guffawed, making me wonder if he carried all the humor for the rest of the gang.

“I like this human,” he said. “She’s got style. I say we play with this pretty little thing first. Let’s get her to answer a few questions, like what is she doing in a place no other humans dare set foot in. If she answers well, she gets fucked, then a quick death. But if she stutters....”

“We don’t have time to play, Ördög,” the gray-horned demon snapped. “We need to find the ultimate weapon and bring it to the great master so we can collect our reward.” He stared at me with open disgust. “This filth is a distraction we don’t want. One of the demigods has been in the area for two weeks now hunting for the same weapon.”

“I’m not afraid of the demigod,” the green-horned demon said. “We’re four against him.”

I inched closer to him for my coveted spear. He was a grade-three demon, like his peers—all except for their captain.

“Naberus is right,” the demon captain said, still studying me. “We’re lucky to have intercepted the prophecy first, but if we don’t get on with our affairs, we’ll lose our advantage. The great master wants his prophesied weapon to tilt the scales in our favor. I want a big promotion.” He sniffed the air. “This human girl, though, she isn’t just an average descendant of the enemies. She smells different than any Olympian I’ve ever met.”

He sniffed the air again.

What the actual fuck?

Why did everyone have a bad habit of sniffing at me?

My bad luck had started with a sniff from a demigod. If Axel hadn’t smelled something unique in me back in Crack, he’d never have forced me into the Academy. I never would’ve been burned, iced over, beaten, and now surrounded by demons in a forsaken street.

The demon captain ranked power-five. He was stronger than all the demons here, as well as the one I’d encountered in the forest.

If I let the demon captain get a better whiff of me, he might drag me to Hell, just as the Demigod of War had dragged me to the Half-Blood Academy.

Without