That’s two, I thought, tossing Karl’s corpse to the floor. Don’t get back up if you know what’s good for you, asshole. But I knew he would—and soon.
“How’s the hunt going!?” I cried, amplifying my voice with magic. “Where’s Maddie?”
Christina’s voice echoed down her corridor, distorted almost beyond recognition: “I can’t find her! She’s not here!”
“She’s not here, either!” Mareth growled.
Oni remained silent. Shit, no luck there, either, I thought.
The ruin I’d left of Karl’s head had already begun reforming. The process moved faster this time, either because I’d done less damage than the last time I’d killed him or Karl just had more mastery of the subspace around him. I let out a frustrated growl and turned to the cell door, intent on tearing the fucking thing apart the way I’d done a few minutes ago. Killing Karl wasn’t going to work long term—but maybe if I locked him in this cell, we could disable him long enough to grab Maddie and escape.
It wasn’t much of a plan. But we’d wandered in here without a clue that we were stepping into Karl’s world, and now we were stuck. I wasn’t leaving without Maddie, and none of my friends were having any luck finding her. Which meant I’d probably need to get out of this cell and track her down myself.
Two quick finger snaps filled my palms with new flames. I concentrated on them, increasing their heat until the fire dancing across my fingers went white, then blue. Pressing my palms to the lock, I groaned from the heat as the bars of the cell went white-hot. Slowly the steel turned a deep, demonic red, giving gently inward as the lock began to melt…
A pair of arms wrapped around my neck from behind. “You should never turn your back on an opponent!” Karl hissed, his body fully re-formed. “That’ll be the last mistake you ever make, human!”
Karl’s fingers dug into my throat. My wings beat against him, tendrils grabbing for his mouth and his eyes, but he was too tenacious. He hung on like a bull rider clinging to a bucking bronco, like no amount of temporary pain was going to stop him. As I watched, struggling to get free, a tendril ripped off a chunk of his scalp and splashed it against the wall. He just laughed.
The edges of my vision began to dim. I turned and slammed him against the wall, desperate to dislodge Karl, but he locked his legs around my chest and used his core muscles to hold on tight. If Mareth or Christina were around, they could rip him off me, but I’d sent them down the hallways in search of Maddie. I was trapped.
“Nighty night,” Karl whispered through gritted teeth. “By the time your friends make it back to check in, you’ll already be dead, Luke. You should have taken my offer while you had the chance…”
The tendrils gripping at Karl’s ears dissolved. I felt my wings retract like it was happening to someone else, the sensation of the cell around me strangely muted. Each of my eyelids felt like it weighed about a half-ton, and suddenly I could hardly remain on my feet.
He’s going to choke me out, I thought, panic cutting through the haze. He won’t stop until I’m fucking dead…!
I did the only thing I could think of. With the last of my strength, I heaved my now-human body at the scorching-hot door of the cell.
Pain flared up my arms. The lock bent, weakened from the terrible heat of my fireballs, then snapped. The cell door sprang open, and both of us fell out into the hallway. Karl’s hands left my throat as he tumbled, landing in a heap on the slick stone floor.
I fell to my hands and knees, gasping. For long, long moments I struggled to rise, feeling desperately for my demonic powers. I had to charge back up, kill Karl again so that he couldn’t hurt my friends—
Suddenly my head was underwater. Karl had come up and shoved my face into the channel of water running down the center of the hallway. Foul green fluid filled my mouth and eyes as I fought, trying to get my head out of the rush. I could hear Karl saying things far above me, but it was like straining to hear conversation from the bottom of a well.
I managed to flip onto my back. This did nothing to get me out of the water, as Karl pushed me down even harder, but it did let me raise my hands to his face. Somehow, even after seeing me do the trick multiple times, he still saw me as an unarmed human.
I grabbed his face and snapped my fingers. His head caught fire, and I was free.
I sat up, spitting a mouthful of disgusting sewer water all over the floor. Karl backed away, clawing at his face with agonized cries, in too much pain to do the smart thing and stick his face in the water. Flames lapped at his golden blonde hair, singing it right down to the roots. He batted at himself over and over again, wriggling back and forth like a fish out of water as he tried to quell the flame.
In an instant, I was above him. The tendrils refused to come when I called, but my wings unfurled from my back. Outside of the cell, in the intersection of the sewer paths, they could reach their full, magnificent grandeur. Their silhouette covered Karl as he clutched the burned ruin of his face, trying to shrug off the pain and attack.
“I’ll kill you as
