Juliana took a step in the direction the impaled demon had gone.
Shalise didn’t move except to grip Juliana’s arm. “We’re f-following it?”
“It’s either that or go where it came from. We might as well continue in the direction we were going. It didn’t see us, so it should be safe to come across as long as we don’t make noise.”
Shalise’s face was twisted in an expression that Juliana wasn’t sure what to make of. Instead of puzzling it out, Juliana wrapped her arms around Shalise.
“We’ll get out. We’ll be fine. We’ll get back to mom and Eva and Zoe and we’ll have a great story to tell. Adventure, danger, and all that. We could even write a book and sell it!”
Probably not. Telling people they interacted with demons wouldn’t go over well, not if what she’d heard about demon hunters had any grain of truth.
Maybe anonymously? But how would royalties be received? Any competent tracker could follow the money trail.
Perhaps a work of fiction pretending to be real. That might work.
Shalise sniffled, interrupting Juliana’s thoughts.
Juliana moved back, giving her some space. She kept her fingers interlaced with Shalise’s as reassurance.
She just hoped she believed her own words.
Keeping their hands together, Juliana started off after the demon.
It took half an hour of walking–at a decent pace, no less–before the scenery changed again.
The cold cell corridors changed into a series of much larger, open-front cells. Each one had a glowing red barrier capping the open end.
Juliana stopped at the first one and looked in. A gasp came from Shalise at her side.
It was easy to see why.
Ylva was one thing. Regal, tall–a giant, even–and radiated an air of power.
Arachne was another thing. Violent, twisted, and had an eightfold glare.
Neither of them quite measured up to what Juliana would have identified as a demon before actually meeting one for real. And, in fact, very few of the demons she had summoned resembled classical demons. Perhaps the imp. But things like the marionette theater-demon? Not a chance.
The creature chained to the back of the cell was a demon in every sense of the word.
Red skin, hoofed feet, curled horns sprouting from his forehead. His–and it was a he without a doubt–legs were the size of tree trunks and his arms weren’t much smaller. The demon’s stomach looked like it had been chiseled out of a mountain.
A very buff and well-toned mountain that Juliana found difficult to tear her eyes away from.
He looked on with glowing red eyes, somewhat reminiscent of Eva’s own. Surprise turned to curiosity turned to mirth.
A deep laugh reverberated in Juliana’s chest.
When he spoke, his voice rumbled in a deep baritone. Borderline bass.
“Mortals. Free me.”
Melancholy
It was surprising how normal everything seemed.
Not seemed.
Everything
Just like after Halloween, people’s lives went on. School went on. Learning went on. Everyone just ignored the empty table where her students usually sat.
And there was nothing Zoe Baxter could do about it.
The students who had come to class were not paying any sort of attention. Not surprising. Zoe was only going through the motions of her lesson. No personal touch, no emphasis or animation in her actions. Nothing to keep their attention.
She even had the students read aloud from the textbook. That was a first for her and her students. Normally, Zoe expected the children to read beforehand and discuss the contents during class. They would have their books open for reference, but not much else.
Reading during class was nothing more than time-eating busywork. Something a professor would do if they had nothing to contribute to bettering the future. Words on the board could tell children to read, a professor shouldn’t be assigning it.
Her students’ inattention was entirely her fault. And it was a thing that she could do something about.
But Zoe didn’t want to. She couldn’t work up the energy. It was a miracle she got out of bed every day.
She looked up as Mr. Anderson finished reading his passage. Zoe still could not understand how he had caught onto the things he did. He hadn’t elected to share his methods, even with Ylva. Zoe had been quite certain that there was no one in the hallway save for herself and Zagan during their talk.
A frown crossed her lips at the thought of the missing devil. No one had seen hide nor hair of him since Zoe crossed his path in the hallway. His class had a substitute–a regular human, thankfully.
Both Devon and Ylva suspected that he had returned to his domain. Something to do with her missing students. Neither had puzzled out the reasons for his actions, though Devon had suggested pure boredom as the primary motivator.
Rather than call on the next person to read the next passage, Zoe let out a soft sigh.
“Class dismissed.”
