Taming Demons for Beginners (The Guild Codex Demonized #1) - Annette Marie Page 0,85
at his face.
“What’s happening?” he yelped. “I can’t see!”
His demon snapped its wings, flinging the liquid flames off its back, and lunged for Darius. The mythic vanished, but the demon whirled as though tracking an invisible target.
Darius’s teammate leaped in behind the demon, a heavy staff spinning in his hands. He slammed the end into the concrete. A fissure opened under the demon, spewing a geyser of lava over its legs. Snarling, the demon leaped away from the bubbling lava.
Darius reappeared, arm cocked back, and he hurled a small object at the demon. It exploded, throwing the beast forward.
The third teammate pulled a pistol from the holster on his belt. His lips moved in an incantation, then he fired. Each bullet hit the demon with a burst of displaced air, the force hammering it backward. It crashed down.
But a demon wasn’t so easily defeated.
It lunged up, slowed by neither pain nor injuries. Red magic swirled along its arms. The air turned arctic and frost swept over the lava, hardening it into black lumps. A six-foot-wide rune circle appeared beneath its feet.
Zylas pushed up on shaking arms and dragged himself on top of me.
The demon’s spell exploded and the impact hit us like a speeding car. Zylas shielded me with his body, his arms wrapped around my head. The ground shook and crimson light flared wildly.
The fierce glow faded and quiet settled over the concrete lot. Zylas laboriously lifted his head. I still couldn’t move but I could see the winged demon. It carried Claude under one arm, its wings beating hard as it flew out of range.
“Damn,” a voice muttered.
Footsteps crunched, coming nearer. Scooping my limp body against him, Zylas lurched onto unsteady feet. He got a few steps before dropping to one knee, unable to stand.
Darius and his two teammates—Girard, the guild officer I’d spoken to last night, and a volcanomage—formed a half-circle around us. Girard was unscathed, but the other two were banged up, their clothes singed and scuffed with dirt; they hadn’t escaped that magical explosion.
Zylas snarled, his arm tightening around my chest. All I could do was hang there, limp as a doll under Claude’s spell.
“Is it just me,” the volcanomage began in a deep voice, “or is that demon acting independently?”
“She could be controlling it even if she can’t move,” Girard suggested.
Darius stroked his beard. “Robin? If your demon stands down, we can remove that spell.”
Zylas, I thought at him, I think they’ll help us.
He bared his teeth. “One of you may approach.”
Identical expressions of disbelief washed over their faces. Why was he talking to them? He’d just blown our secret!
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Girard muttered. “I’ve never heard a demon talk before.”
Zylas snapped his tail against the concrete. “Stupid as every hh’ainun. Why would I not talk?”
Because you’re supposed to be contracted, I silently yelled at him.
“I bet you’ve never been insulted by a demon, either,” the volcanomage remarked dryly. “This is clearly an illegal contract, Darius.”
The GM studied Zylas, his gaze lingering on the demon’s arm around my chest. He sheathed his daggers. “Girard, a dispelling artifact, please.”
“You can’t approach it. That demon is out of control.”
He extended his palm expectantly.
Frowning in disapproval, Girard withdrew a silver marble from a pouch on his belt and dropped it in Darius’s hand. Holding the artifact, the guild master walked slowly toward us. Zylas’s fingers twisted in my sweater as the mythic knelt. With a lethal demon breathing down his neck, Darius touched the marble to my forehead and murmured an incantation too quiet for me to hear.
Cool magic swept over me and the numbness in my limbs faded. I gasped in my first deep breath since the spell had hit me.
Zylas shoved Darius’s arm away from me. “Get back.”
Instead, Darius sat on his heels. “You’re very protective of your contractor.”
Zylas’s lips peeled back. Because I knew him pretty well now, I was already lunging up. Before his slashing claws could find Darius’s flesh, I yanked Zylas’s face into my chest and clamped my arms around his head as tightly as I could.
He grabbed my shoulders to shove me off, but he was still weak from Claude’s mysterious injection—and I was holding on like my life depended on it. To make me let go, he’d have to hurt me.
He yanked furiously at my sleeves. “Payilas!”
“You can’t kill people whenever you want,” I told him breathlessly, bracing my knees against the concrete so he didn’t tip me over. “And you’re not killing someone who just saved us.”