obvious pain and flanked me as Charity’s strike barely missed. I punched her in the throat, stepped to the side, and kicked him in a bleeding spot on his chest.
He grunted and staggered back. More of the fae struggled up, those bastards too hardy for their own good.
“How’s it going?” I yelled behind me. Charity’s sword found purchase out of the blue, that throat punch not doing as much as I’d hoped. The blade sliced down my hip, searing heat. “Satan’s thong!” I ran my hand through the air without meaning to, my magic unleashed.
A wall of air slammed into them, knocking them back and sending them tumbling across the ground.
I paused for a moment. Looking behind me, I saw the grinning face of that middle-aged man hosting a sex demon between Penny and Emery working their spell.
“I was right!” The man turned and ran at the back of that small stone building, wanting to shed his human body and go down to the underworld. If he’d had any doubts about me, I’d just given him a payday. Mages or Elementals could create gusts and bursts of wind, updrafts and surges, but not a wall of air like that, especially not one that could also control demons.
“Donkey balls. Catch him!” I ran, forgetting about the fae and shifters jumping to their feet and heading back into the fray. “Stop him!”
Emery surged forward, his hand out to grab the man.
I reached the hole that acted as a doorway as Emery latched on to the man by the scruff of his hairy neck. The bodysuit ripped, exposing a hairy back.
“Ugh, he’s slimy,” Emery said, holding on.
The top part of the body suit continued to rip down the seam, and the man shot forward, headfirst. His head went through the spell two seconds before it winked out.
“It’s down. It’s down!” Penny shouted. “That death wall is down.”
The man crumpled to the ground, and a thin little creature with a leather body and bony fingers hopped up in its place before spinning and running for the trees. I magically grabbed it easily, the human host no longer giving me interference.
“No!” The demon turned and slapped at my hold. “No! That wall has been there for centuries. It can’t be torn down. That's our emergency exit into the underworld!”
“Guess people actually know how to weave spells in this day and age, too, huh?” Emery said smugly.
“Burn,” I said, waving Emery away. “I got him.”
“Great balls in banana hammocks, Emery, hurry. The shifters are pissed.” Penny’s arms were moving at the door, facing outward. She was getting a spell ready to keep them at bay.
“You got this?” Emery pointed at me.
“Yeah, yeah. Keep the others out of here.” I returned my attention to the demon. “So.” I stepped through the hole and around a few stones. “That spell they just tore down—that would’ve killed your host and sent you to the underworld? I didn’t know that was possible.”
It closed its bony mouth, no lips, just jaw and fang, refusing to answer me.
“I could make you respond,” I said.
A naked form around the far corner made me start until I realized it was Steve, blood running down his side and over his defined thigh. He put up his hand in truce and winced before sitting down. “Gunshot wounds hurt. I might hold a grudge for this one. I’ll have to treat you rough when you finally leave your vampire boyfriend and come for that ride on my cock.”
“Don’t feel like continuing to fight?” I asked him, deciding what I wanted to do with this creature.
“With those mages? God no. You never know with that cute little Penny. Sometimes she gets crazy when she doesn’t mean to. That shit hurts. What’ve you got there?” He gestured at the demon. “Ugly bastard.”
“The lower-powered ones can’t change their forms. Not unless they’re in the underworld.” I put my hands on my hips, fine with Steve listening in—we’d fought together, and he knew a lot more of my situation than I really liked. “How’d you know about me?” I asked the demon.
“Okay.” The demon cowered a little and put out his hands. “Okay, we can work out a deal. I’ll talk if you—”
I forced its hand, its lower power incredibly easy to manipulate. It was the higher-powered ones that would give me a real problem. They weren’t stupid enough to get caught most of the time. Whenever one popped up on the radar, it was gone before Darius’s people could investigate.