Ignoring the fleeing bystanders, the demons that had popped up from the ground like a deadly game of whack-a-mole continued to close ranks around Resent. An ogre’s fist, the size of his torso, came hurtling at him, and in that instant, Resent lengthened and increased the mass of the nebulous arm to the point that it burst the sleeve of his shirt. He met the ogre’s punch, shattering some bones in its hand as it was blown backward. Despite their numbers, hesitance rippled through the group at this display of power.

  Noticing the uncharacteristically light colors the demons were dressed in and the winged half-masks the hounds wore, Resent said, “Now, this is a surprise. I was under the assumption Vicearians knew better than to oppose me by now. Yet here are a score of you who have obviously been hunting me. I realize demons under the yoke of fallen scum lead miserable existences, but do you all have so little to live for?”

  If anything, Rodrigo was expecting them to be from Hell’s second largest city, Maligmere. More than half of the demons they encountered since their meeting with the council of high lords, hailed from there. The sole member of the council that feared retaliation from humanity, was the great city’s high lord, Dissonantia. During the meeting, she had protested Resent’s request for retreat and since then, it was clear she wasn’t enforcing it. In contrast, the great city of Vicearia’s high lord, the fallen angel, Semiazas, was the first to agree to withdrawing his troops and seemed to have them in check. Until now.

  “Orders from king,” the ogre said. Its voice was startlingly child-like. In all this time, Rodrigo had never heard a single ogre articulate, so he wasn’t sure whether they all sounded that way or if this one was just on the young side.

  “Barbatos? But why would he—”

  Someone tapped Resent on the shoulder. When he whirled to strike them, he was staring at the ankle of a giant in casual white clothes, who made even the ogre seem minuscule. Or that was Rodrigo’s initial impression. Looking past him, all the demons were far larger than they had been a second ago. When the being in white swung a croquet mallet several times longer than Resent’s body at him, Rodrigo could only assume they had been shrunk.

  Resent blocked the blow, but with the severe decrease in his mass, still went flying into the air. Crashing through the side window of a mini-van, Resent grunted as shards of glass cut into his flesh, and he landed hard in the backseat.

  “Well, this is bad,” Rodrigo said, though he was at least thankful that their clothes shrank as well. “How did he manage to sneak up on you, anyway?”

  “He’s concealing his energy. Likely with a fade periapt.”

  “What are you all waiting for?” the one with the mallet demanded. “Do not let the prince’s swaggering deceive you. Trapped in that cambion body, he is in no way the demon that defeated Lady Devika. And now he’s even weaker. Finish him!”

  Resent slammed the nebulae against the seat cushion, propelling himself upward, and clung to the headrest of the driver’s seat. He was going for the ignition, but before he could reach it, the vehicle was tilted as an ogre lifted it overhead. Resent went tumbling back to the rear window. By the time the mini-van had been thrown in the direction of the nearest building, Resent had smashed out the window with his elbows and was diving through the sky. What couldn’t be more than a twenty-foot drop, now seemed high enough to turn them into paste.

  A trio of giggling imps, the height of ogres from Rodrigo’s diminished viewpoint, came swirling at Resent. Their hands were aflame as they tried to snatch him up. Generating nebulae that enveloped his left fist, Resent punched forward just before the imps reached him. The nebulae flew off his knuckles in a missile of darkness that grew larger as it closed in on its prey. One imp slipped underneath it, but the other two weren’t so fortunate, their bodies obliterated by the attack.

  In mid-fall, with his right arm, Resent struck the imp that had survived in the temple. Bathed in an explosion of the demon’s dark blood, Resent used the nebulae like a parachute to slow his descent.

  “Just seventeen to go,” Rodrigo said dryly. While he knew that when in his own body, Resent had faced greater odds and won, this was the most opponents the two of them had gone up against together.

  As Resent touched down, the demons shoved at each other to get at him first. Several hounds broke to the front line and rushed at him. Resent was preparing to counter, when a wave of emerald electricity hit the hounds, dropping them to the ground in convulsions.

  Bouncing from side to side, coated from head to toe in crackling electricity that only his eyes showed through, was Jett. Or rather, Volt-Edge, as the media called him. Learning from Rodrigo’s dissatisfaction, Jett had named himself on their first outing together, carving the name into a tree before leaving the scene. The public thought the edge was intentional, often omitting the volt, but in truth, Jett had so much blood rushing to his legs at the time, rather than his brain, that he had misspelled voltage.

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  At his usual breakneck pace, Jett dashed out of the way of a swooping malformed, and scooped Resent up by the back of his shirt collar, so that he didn’t shock him. He spoke in a voice distorted by the electricity he was encased in, “Ay Dios. Who went and turned you into an action figure?”

  “The one with the oddly-shaped club there. I need you to get me close enough to him so I can rectify this.”

  While Jett was dodging numerous attacks as he tried to close in on the minimizer, Rodrigo could hear helicopter blades drawing nearer above them. By the lack of shooting, it had to be a news copter. In the beginning, most reporters wisely refused to get anywhere near the demons, but the overwhelming success of Caity Wright had emboldened them. Whenever Rodrigo and Jett’s brawls went on too long, they were sure to be recorded and make the news.

  Jett was darting around, looking for an opening, but even with his superior speed, fighting so many enemies at once left few opportunities to go on the offensive. Resent was swinging wildly in Jett’s grasp, his vision blurring from the accelerated movement.

  “We’re getting nowhere like this. Use the ogre as a springboard,” Resent ordered.

  Not long ago, Jett would’ve questioned those words or demanded an explanation. Now, he immediately switched his focus to the same ogre that had thrown the first punch. Jett still didn’t like the prince and probably never would, but after months of training and working together, it seemed he had developed a grudging respect for him.

  Zipping around the ogre, Jett unleashed jab after jab on the demon’s left knee. With the physical strength of a normal human, electrically enhanced speed or not, Jett’s attacks must have been like mosquito bites to the ogre. If that was all there were to Jett’s punches, the ogre would have been right to laugh as it did. However, as it lost its footing and collapsed onto the struck knee, paralyzed, it grasped its mistake.

  Jett didn’t wait for it to recover, running up the immobile ogre’s body and balancing on its shoulder. Stretching out a hand, he let loose a bolt of electricity at the one with the mallet. As the demon turned to see it blow past him and electrocute a malformed, Jett wound up and tossed Resent like a pitcher.

  Soaring at the enemy, Resent punched him in the chest with his left hand and sent him spiraling to the ground. Landing on the demon’s throat, he generated five orbs from the nebulae that rested at his fingertips. “You have until the count of one to undo this. Try anything and I kill you.”

  “I think you just might have,” the demon said, wheezing as he weakly shook his head at the demons coming to his aid. “Besides, if I change you back where you stand, I’ll die for sure.”

  “My weight alone shouldn’t be nearly enough to—” Resent stopped as he saw what lay beneath the winged silver mask. Blue eyes, with round irises. “You’re human.”

  “Joseph, Blight of Vicearia. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but since I’m pretty sure you just cracked my sternum, it’s definitely not.”

  Resent hopped off Joseph’s throat, keeping his hand mere inches away as a precaution. When Resent sprouted back up to full-size, the remaining demons who had been futilely chasing Jett, stopped in confusion.

  “So, it’s true. That bastard Semiazas somehow ended up holding the crown and intended to make it permanent?” Resent asked.

  “With Barbatos’ murder, Lord Semiazas won out in the re-vote,” Joseph said.

  “Do you see what your dreadful ‘wait and see’ approach has earned us?” Resent asked. “Yet another usurper. This one, far less qualified than Misery ever was. I need to get back and dispose of him.”

  Having gotten glimpses of Semiazas’ strength through Resent’s memory dreams, Rodrigo knew the high lord was on another level compared to Misery. Even with all the training they’d done since then, there was little doubt in his mind that they wouldn’t survive a confrontation with the fallen angel. “Stop and think for a minute. Like you said, he’s not qualified. Do you seriously think the other high lords would agree to him being their new ruler?”

  “That doesn’t matter. The broken-winged coward just attempted to have me assassinated and the chances of it ending here are nil. I no longer care how many of your precious soldiers I must kill to do so. I will...” Resent trailed off as he considered the barely conscious Joseph. “Tell me, Blight, just how deep does your loyalty to Vicearia run?”

  “Not deep enough to die for,” Joseph muttered.

  “Excellent. I believe your unique Flair could be of benefit to me. In compensation, I shall allow you to live. Agreed?”

  Joseph nodded.

  “Are you really going to trust this guy? What if he decides to shrink us and leave us that way, or make us so small that we’re erased from existence?” Rodrigo asked.

  “You were the one who nagged on about finding a non-violent way to get through the portal. Unless you have an alternative, it is a risk we’ll have to take.”

  Resent clasped Joseph’s hand, yanking him onto his feet. Rodrigo couldn’t say he was excited to be returning to Hell, but he was thrilled to be getting one step closer to having Resent out of his head.

  So thrilled, that as he heard the crack of a gunshot, he almost wished the bullet had been for him.