“Oh yes, I am well aware. I can feel her here. If I see that eight-eyed lying sack of meat again… Well, she has as many limbs as I do and four times the eyes. I’m sure I can find a way to repay her.”
Devon leaned over and mumbled in the professor’s ear. “Maybe it is a good thing that Arachne disappeared.”
“But,” the carnivean shouted, taking a step forwards.
Devon and the professor took a step back.
“That is neither here nor there. You may keep that part of myself. You may even freely walk past me.”
Sighing, Devon ran his fingers through his stringy hair. It was getting to the point where a trim wouldn’t be a bad thing. “What do you want?”
“Just one teensy tiny little favor.” The thing held out a hand–or a tentacle–and offered out a small black rectangle.
Devon flared the little ball of fire hovering in front of him, brightening the landing.
“A book?” It barely qualified as such. Almost more of a leather-bound pamphlet. There couldn’t be more than a handful of pages inside. “Probably a beacon as well, right? I’m not touching that.”
“Details for a special ritual, actually. I’ve already got a beacon set up just in case I need it.”
Devon frowned as he snatched the book out of its grip. He was only vaguely aware of the professor leaning over his shoulder while he flipped through the pages. With every page turned, his eyebrows crept up his forehead.
“Is this a joke?” The woman at his side half shouted in his ear.
The book almost slipped from his tentacle’s grasp at her sudden voice. He scrambled for a moment to keep it in his hands. It was far too valuable to let fall.
“You want us to open a portal to the Unseelie Queen?”
“Well, I want
“You’re still in one piece,” Devon mumbled.
“He ran out of time, I think. Just wanted extra muscle for fending off nuns. Guy is an amateur at contracts or I might be obligated to fight you.
“But that is off-topic. I have a wish,” the thing said. “And I have a feeling that the unseelie will be far more sympathetic than the seelie bastards.”
Devon frowned. Apart from a few of the lowest tier unseelie–Arthfael the cait si was the only one he could actually name–he didn’t have much interaction with any fae. All of them, seelie and unseelie, were far to chaotic for his tastes.
The professor butted in. “You realize that all deals with the fae go poorly, right?”
“It is all about the phrasing. That and the payment. I just happened to lift a few souls from around the hotel. I should have more than enough to get what I want.”
“You what?” Devon shouted, dropping the book as he took a step backwards. With a thumb aimed at the professor, he said, “do you even know whose ring she’s wearing?”
“Of course I do,” it said with a flippant wave of its tentacles. “Payback is half the reason I am doing this.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed. Permanently. Us too. How do you even have souls? Shouldn’t the reapers have–”
“As incompetent as the necromancer is in diablery, he knows his way around Death. I’d be surprised if a reaper could set foot within this hotel for the next hundred years with the wards he erected.”
“Ylva should be able to destroy the wards. Or find someone who can. Turn the souls over to it and curry favor with Death. He is more powerful than the Unseelie Queen.”
“But is he willing to grant my wish? I think not.”
“What good is your wish when you are dead? There are two goddesses of Death sitting around in Hell. Your domain won’t keep them out. Even if you hide out on Earth, Hades and the Baron freely roam around. Not to mention all the reapers, banshees, dullahan, and everything else in their service. Dullahan specialize in hunting down thin–”
“You sure care a lot about me. Touching. I think I’m tearing up.” It rubbed a tentacle around the darkened edge of one eye.
“I care about
The carnivean tensed.
Devon gripped both of the professor’s arms and pulled her in front of him, eliciting a yelp from the girl.
Just in time for a tentacle to come to a screeching halt inches from her nose.
“Don’t fight back and don’t move yourself,” he said in her ear. Her actively moving to block the tentacles might justify the carnivean attacking her. Devon doubted he would last long without his shield.
Devon flared his flames, tossing them around the professor’s body while pulling her into the path of each tentacle.
Quite the difficult task. There was only one professor. The carnivean had more than one tentacle.
One found its way over the professor’s shoulder and almost made it around his neck.
Devon had already raised his hand in preparation for another attack. He gripped the tentacle and sparked the flames inside it.
